Haazinu
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Parashat Haazinu, read on Shabbat Haazinu · After Yom Kippur, before Sukkot — with one of this week's three questions for the two of you.
At the end of his life, Moshe does not give a final speech of warning. He gives a song. Haazinu — give ear, O heavens. And he commands that this song be taught to the children, repeated in their mouths, kept in their memory, sung. Hirsch dwells on the choice of form. Why a song? Because what is sung is held differently than what is said. What is sung is what gets handed across generations. What is sung is what survives. The Torah, in this final reading before the year begins again, is asking us a question: of everything you would want to hand forward — to your children, to anyone who comes after you — what is its shape? What are the things, in your home, that have already become a song?
Of all the things our parents and grandparents handed to us — name one that survived because it was sung, not just said. (A melody, a Shabbat zemer, a particular brachah, a way of doing something.)
The full week — the passage itself with its source, the other two questions, and the closing verse of hope — lives in the app. Together Tomorrow on the App Store.