Ha’azinu is not an easy parashah. It does not come to soothe us. It comes as a song, but not the kind of song we might expect at the end of Moshe’s life.
Moshe does not gather the people for a sentimental farewell. He calls on heaven and earth to listen, as if the whole of creation is being summoned as witness. The people have heard laws, warnings, blessings, curses, memories and promises. Now they are given a song, because songs have a way of staying with us when speeches are forgotten.
But this song is uncomfortable.
It tells the story of a people who are loved, protected, lifted up, and carried by HaShem, only to grow comfortable and forget the One who carried them. “Yeshurun grew fat and kicked.” It is a brutal image. Not poverty leading people away from faith, but abundance. Not suffering, but satisfaction. The danger is not that the people have too little. It is that they have enough, and begin to believe they no longer need to remember.
That should make us pause.
Most of us imagine that we would become better people if life were easier. If we had more time, more money, more stability, fewer worries, then surely we would be kinder, more generous, more spiritually committed. Ha’azinu is not so sure. It suggests that comfort can reveal us just as much as crisis does. Sometimes more.
When life is difficult, we know we need help. When life is comfortable, we can start to confuse blessing with entitlement. We stop noticing what has been given to us. We become casual with things that should still move us. We inherit Judaism, community, family, history, and freedom, then quietly act as if they will maintain themselves.
They will not.
Ha’azinu is especially powerful as we stand between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The new year has begun, but the work of the Yamim Noraim is not yet behind us. We are still in those serious days when the prayers are not just words in a machzor, but questions aimed directly at our lives.
It is one thing to be stirred by Rosh Hashanah. It is another thing to take that stirring seriously before Yom Kippur arrives.
That is where the real test begins. Not in the emotional moment, but in what we do with it afterwards. Do we become more patient? Do we apologise properly? Do we give more seriously? Do we show up more faithfully? Do we stop leaving the same responsibilities to the same people? Do we make Jewish life central, or do we let it drift back to the edges once the shofar has faded?
Moshe’s song refuses to let us pretend that forgetting is harmless. Forgetting has consequences. A person can forget who helped them. A family can forget what holds it together. A community can forget what it exists for. A people can forget the covenant that gave it life.
But Ha’azinu is not only a warning. Hidden inside its severity is a fierce kind of love. Moshe sings because he still believes the people can hear. HaShem rebukes because the covenant still matters. The door to return has not closed.
Perhaps that is the personal challenge of Ha’azinu. To ask ourselves, honestly, where have we grown too comfortable? Where have we mistaken blessing for something we earned alone? Where have we received more than we have given back? And what are we still postponing, even now, with Yom Kippur so close?
Heaven and earth are called as witnesses because our choices do not vanish. They leave marks. In our homes, our communities, our relationships, and our own souls.
May this Shabbat help us remember what comfort can make us forget. May we use these days before Yom Kippur wisely, honestly, and bravely. And may the year ahead be shaped not only by the prayers we say, but by the lives we now choose to build.
Shabbat Shalom and G’mar Chatimah Tovah.