Shabbat Parashat Haazinu - 5787

Shabbat Parashat Haazinu - 5787

Rabbi Hal Miller

  He found him in a desert land and in the wastes of a howling wilderness, He

  encircled him, He made him comprehending, He guarded him like the pupil

  of his eye. [Devarim 32:10]

This verse is a parable with many parts, as is Moshe's entire song. What is this verse telling us? Beginning with an understanding of who are the players, Moshe is here describing to us some things that God was doing with regard to the nation of Israel, so the Actor here is God and the recipient is the people. How do we explain the concept of God doing an anthropomorphic thing in finding us, as though there was some period of time in which He did not know where we were? What does the wording of "desert land" and "wastes of a howling wilderness" tell us? How and why did God encircle Israel? What does Israel now comprehend? What is guarding like the pupil of an eye?

God found the Jews in a desert land. According to Rashi this means that when Israel accepted the Torah and God's kingship, God found that they were faithful, and this happened in the desert after the exodus from Egypt. Sforno says that God found their leaving Egypt was proof that the heart of the nation was pure and loyal, citing Yirmiyahu [2:2], "you followed Me into the desert". Rav Hirsch looks more into the process as opposed to the actual finding, that this was a test for Israel: where people have possessions such as in Egypt, they do not act as God's possession, but where they are barren such as in the desert, they submit to being possessions of God. This explains more, as did Rashi, that the "wastes of a howling wilderness" is merely emphasis for just how barren was the land in which Israel was journeying. Or HaChayim holds that these terms of desolation are in fact applied to the Israelites themselves, that they were empty of goodness in Egypt, which others describe as Israel having fallen to the forty-ninth level of impurity and just barely above the fiftieth from which there is no recovery. Not only was Egypt void of good influences, it was full of spiritual bad influences.

Onkelos and Rashbam describe this finding as supplying, that God satisfied Israel's needs in the desert, and they give reference to various verses in Tanach. Rav Soloveitchik understands that this finding is God revealing Himself to the nation, explaining that this would have to occur in a desert rather than in a settled place.

As to encircling, Rashi says this is God surrounding the people with protective clouds, and also His command for the layout of the traveling camp. Rashbam understands the surrounding as with His protective angels. Sforno applies it the other way, that God directed the Israelites to surround Him at Mount Sinai. Pretty much all the commentators understand the comprehending as God giving Israel the Torah.

Guarding as the pupil of his eye. Rashi says God guarded against serpent and scorpion and against nations. Then Rashi analogizes to the blackness in the eye from which illumination goes out, that the exodus from the darkness yielded an illuminated people. It could also be read that God was giving the people something they could see so they would accept and believe in Him, but this would be difficult or the opinion that says faith coming from seeing a miracle is short-lived as comparerd to true belief in God.