Ha'azinu

[cellio]

I gave approximately this d'var torah a week and a half ago. Ha'azinu is the poem at the end of Moshe's long speech at the end of D'varim (Deuteronomy).

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"It's like talking to a brick wall," my mother often said to me and my sister. It happened when she was trying to get us to do our chores, or stop fighting, or behave ourselves in front of guests. We weren't the best-behaved kids sometimes. She'd end her lectures with "did you hear me?" and, often, we'd sarcastically parrot it back to her, but little changed. What she said went in one ear and out the other, she often said.

Our prophets have this problem with us. The only prophet who actually succeeded in delivering his message and bringing about a change was Yonah -- and he was talking to the Assyrians, our enemies! Israel, on the other hand, didn't listen to our prophets, not the gentleness of Micah nor the warnings of Jeremiah. And not to Moshe either. In his final speech Moshe pleads with Yisrael to follow God's path, knowing full well that they will stray. Why does he bother? What's the point? The words of our prophets go in one ear and out the other.

I sometimes wonder if we have this problem with our own words of prayer sometimes. We say the words of the siddur, but do we internalize them? Are we listening? Or are we just reciting what is before us and moving on? Do our prayers go in one ear and out the other?

A funny thing happened with my parents' messages to my sister and me. I don't have kids but she does, and it turned out that she and I have both said to her kids many of the things we heard from our parents. The first time I heard myself telling one of them that I was talking to a brick wall, I stopped in my tracks. It turns out we did hear what they said, maybe even listened -- even if we didn't act on it back then.

Our prophets' words often seemed to fall on deaf ears, but despite that, we're still here. God hasn't wiped us out despite the dire warnings, no matter how much we've deserved it. Have we gone through some bad times? Yes, as Moshe knew we would, but some remnant, some part of Yisrael, listened to our prophets.

We always read Ha'azinu near Yom Kippur, either on Shabbat Shuva right before or, like this year, a few days after. Every year I make a sincere effort at Yom Kippur. I enter with regret and resolve to do better. The words of the day's prayers make a real impact on me and there's a lot of introspection. I hear the message and I think I'm listening. Yet it's hard to make it stick; it sometimes feels like the changes I try to make in myself don't survive much past the end of Sukkot. Should I bother? Won't I just be back here next year in the same situation?

But no, I can listen. Just as it turned out I listened to my parents and we listened to our prophets, I can listen to our prayers and my own yearnings. I can do better, just like our people did, just like my sister and I did. I can learn to listen. The message doesn't have to go in one ear and out the other.

Comments

[osewalrus]

Nicely said.

[cellio]

Thank you!