Taste of Torah
A Bima-Ready D'var Torah 

5 Tishrei 5784
​
Parashat Ha'azinu & Shabbat Shuvah
A Wave of Powerful Metaphors
Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 32:1-52
Haftarah Portion: Hosea 14:2-10; Micah 7:18-20; Joel 2:15-27

---

Shalom!
This week we're sharing an excerpt from the Taste of Torah archives, written by Rabbi Batsheva Appel, who led ISJL's Spirituality (Rabbinical Services) division from 2006-2009.

The weather that we are familiar with shapes our understanding of different things, including the Torah. Until you’ve spent time in a place where rain is rare and cannot be taken for granted, it’s hard to appreciate just how powerful the water imagery used in the Torah truly is:
 
Give ear, O heavens, let me speak;
Let the earth hear the words I utter!
May my teaching come down as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
Like showers on young growth,
Like droplets on the grass.
[Deuteronomy 32:1-3]
 
This week’s Torah portion, Ha’azinu, is mainly a poem by Moses as he tries to give the Israelites yet one more lesson before he dies. He begins by asking the heavens and the earth to become part of the audience, as witnesses who will outlast the people present. Then in the doubling typical of biblical poetry, Moses evokes images of water as rain, dew, showers, and droplets. These images are of an essential life-giving element in the wilderness and even after the Israelites will enter the Land. By comparing his words to water, Moses is trying one more time to communicate the essential nature of what he is teaching. His hope is to fix these words in the minds of the Israelites, with a picture of the misfortune that will follow when they do not do as God has asked.
 
This is already an impactful passage, but what happens if we lift these words out of this context, so that it isn’t Moses’ words characterized as “essential as water,” but is referring instead to the word of God?
 
In the Midrash, a rabbinic exposition of the Torah, this biblical verse is seen as a proof text for comparing Torah, God’s words, to water; making the words of Torah an essential life-giving element. Just as we can’t live without water, which God provides, we can’t live without Torah, which God also provides.
 
In Sifrei Deuteronomy, a very early midrash on the book of Deuteronomy, we read:
 
“Like showers on young growth” (Deuteronomy. 32:2) as showers coming down upon blades of grass raise them up and make them grow, so words of Torah raise up those who study them and make them grow. “Like droplets on the grass” (ibid) as the droplets that come down upon grass refresh it and make it beautiful, so words of Torah refresh those who study them and make them beautiful.
 
Here Torah is more than just a fundamental part of life. Torah doesn’t just help us to survive, Torah helps us to grow. In fact, Torah becomes the ultimate rejuvenation and beauty treatment and the effects of learning are visible to all those around us.
 
We find the image of rain again in the Haftarah for Shabbat Shuvah[i]:
 
I will heal their affliction,
Generously will I take them back in love;
For My anger has turned away from them.
I will be to Israel like dew;
He shall blossom like the lily,
He shall strike root like a Lebanon tree.
[Hosea 14:5-7]
 
This time, God is speaking through Hosea rather than Moses, but the use of the imagery of water is again clear. There is the sense of reconciliation. If Israel repents, then God will “take them back in love.” In the context of the renewed relationship, the nurturing waters of Torah will cause Israel to flourish, just as water encourages the blooming of flowers and the growth of trees.
 
One last midrash from Genesis Rabbah, a midrash on the Book of Genesis:
 
“And let them be like fish” (Gen 48:16).  Why compare them to fish? Fish, spend their entire lives surrounded by water, but when a drop of rain falls from above, they go after it as thirstily as if they had never tasted water in their lives. So, too, with Israel. They are brought up in the waters of Torah, but when they hear a new word of Torah, they receive it thirstily, as though they had never heard a word of Torah in their lives.
 
At this time of year, when we take time to think of how we want to make this year different than last year, maybe we can contemplate what might be needed to renew our study of Torah and to soak ourselves in its nurturing, rejuvenating and beautifying waters. May our thirst for Jewish renewal thus be ever quenched.
​​

Shabbat shalom and shana tovah!
Rabbi Batsheva Appel
ISJL Director of Spirituality (Rabbinical Services), 2006-2009

​
​

Please share this message with family and friends; we also invite you to read this Taste of Torah from the bima or share it during digital services. As always, please be in touch. We particularly appreciate hearing about simchahs (moments of joy) like births, birthdays, engagements, anniversaries, graduations, as well as illnesses or other challenges in your family or community. 

[i] The Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Shuvah, meaning “return,” is the first word of the Haftarah portion. The selections read for the Haftarah include a call to Israel to return and an assurance of God’s readiness to take us back.
​

---

Support our work

---