Parshat Ha'azinu/Shabbat Shuva 5764
October 3rd-4th, 2003
8 Tishrei, 5764

It’s undeniable that failure is hard to handle...but success just may be even more hazardous to our spiritual health. And One Who is even a greater authority than the Surgeon General has informed us of this important truth!

In this week’s portion, Moshe recites the beautiful words of an extraordinary "song" (shira) "into the ears of the entire congregation of Israel." This "song," communicated to Moshe by Hashem, prophetically outlines our entire history as a people: our devotion to G-d in the Wilderness of Sinai ("Hashem alone guided them, and no other power was with them"), our subsequent disloyalty in the Land of Israel ("You ignored the Rock Who gave birth to you, and forgot G-d Who brought you forth"), our lengthy and ongoing exile among the nations ("…I will scatter them"), and, finally, the ultimate redemption of our people ("When Hashem will have judged His people, He shall relent regarding His servants…").

As the song makes clear (and as we Jews must always remember), even during the time when our people strayed from the path of the Torah, and experienced persecutions, our Covenant with G-d (and His special guidance of our destiny) never ceased. Nor will it ever cease. [The Torah leaves no doubt about this whatsoever, in very many places.]

Now, according to the words of this shira, what caused us to weaken in our service of G-d in our homeland, and led us to experience (as a consequence) the destruction of our Temples and the discomfort of exile? Though many details of our spiritual history are provided in the books of our Prophets, the Torah here zeroes in on the basic core of the "problem" faced by the Jewish people:

"Butter of cattle and milk of sheep with fat of lambs…with wheat as fat as kidneys; and you would drink blood of grapes, delicious wine. Yeshurun [a poetic name for Israel, related to the word yashar--"straight" or "upright"] became fat and kicked. You became fat, you became thick, you became corpulent—and it [Israel] deserted G-d its Maker…" (32: 14-15; my emphasis)

In short, the problem that provided so very hazardous to our spiritual health as a people was…material success, the physical blessings we enjoyed in abundance in our beloved "Land of Milk and Honey." Our fervor in keeping the Torah--clinging to its commandments, treasuring its holy words--weakened as we enjoyed the "fats" of the Land. We allowed those "fats" to clog our spiritual arteries, as it were, to deaden our ethical sensitivity and entice us to pursue further pleasures…and, ultimately, to follow foreign gods. For many of our ancestors, our lofty spiritual mission--to be a "light unto the nations," and "people of holiness"--began to take a back seat to enjoyment of the "good life."

Judaism does not glorify poverty, of course: it was always considered by our Sages to be a very great potential disability. A poor person might lack the peace of mind to serve G-d properly and carry out the Torah, or he might be tempted to turn to thievery (or, at the very least, a demeaning life of begging from other people) in order to survive. What’s more, wealth has tremendous potential to be used for good, to be sanctified by being spent on mitzvos (helping the needy, supporting Torah education, etc.). The fewer financial resources available to us, the fewer opportunities to do good with one’s wealth.

On the other hand--and a sizeable hand it is, indeed--our Sages (and later ethical masters) saw material success as perhaps the more lethal spiritual threat, potentially. After all, a wealthy person has the means, and often the time, to pursue every manner of interesting (and frequently unhealthy) hobby and entertainment. The pleasures of this beautiful world are there for his taking…and that often proves to be too great a temptation for a person with insufficient grounding in yiras shamayim (fear of Heaven). Luxuries delight the body, but they can have the effect of dulling our appreciation for the beauty of our spiritual treasure, the Torah, and can lessen our appetite to work hard to achieve the Torah’s high expectations.

Certainly in our history as a people, the commentators point out, it has been those periods of great material success that have more often weakened our adherence to Torah than the times of poverty. Yeshurun became fat and kicked…or, at other times, drifted away from G-d and Torah, to seek to blend into the way of life of the other nations.

It could be that this is the very state in which we find ourselves as a community today…at least in these (wonderful) United States of America. Has there ever been a time in our history when we have had it so good, materially speaking?! Have we ever been as fat (obese) as a people…in every sense of the word?!

The solution is not to deny the great blessings we have been granted, or ascetically shun the (permitted) pleasures they afford. Rather, we must learn the lesson taught in this week’s parsha, and not let these material blessings lead us away from G-d. We must strive to use the wealth we enjoy to help us get closer to G-d! To increase our expression of gratitude unto the Almighty, to increase the good deeds and Torah study (and spiritual elevation in general) that wealth is ideally supposed to facilitate! Wealth and success are, indeed, a great nisayon (spiritual "test," or "challenge"), and we must strengthen ourselves so that they don’t become our spiritual destruction. (That said, I do wish I had been the one to win the recent $150 Million lottery, so I could have given that particular nisayon my best shot!)

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary on this portion, writes movingly of the challenge of success…and of the Torah’s vision for its proper use. There is a crucial lesson for us to learn here, so I will quote him at length:

"…G-d wished Israel to ascend the summit of the dual heights of human aims, the highest material good fortune and the highest spiritual and moral perfection. For Israel is to show the world an illuminating example of how a life devoted entirely to spiritual moral duties by no means entails a renunciation of bright earthly happiness. On the contrary…the highest degree of morality fits in very well with the highest amount of earthly happiness, and all material wealth and earthly enjoyments can be turned into moral deeds and spiritual achievements. But when the destined Yeshurun-people get an abundance of all the good things on earth for the purpose of fulfilling this mission, when it has come out of the wilderness into the land of milk and honey, then [as we read here in the prophetic song] it became fat and "kicked out." …Its moral improvement did not keep pace with its material good fortune. It did not understand how to remain master of its riches and good fortune, did not know how to use them for purposes of mitzvos, and its better, spiritual, moral self [was] ruined by it."

We should think about that as long as (G-d willing) our riches and good fortune in this country last. And I hope we can increasingly learn to use the good fortune we enjoy to improve our spiritual, moral, Jewish selves!

This is the Sabbath before Yom Kippur, known traditionally as Shabbos Shuva (the Sabbath of Repentance). On the Day of Atonement, we stand before G-d and plead for our lives: both our physical lives (and conditions) in the coming year, and our spiritual lives. We pray to G-d to restore us to our spiritual purity. We come before him emphasizing not how rich, but how poor we are in all that really matters: how much we depend on Him for everything we enjoy, how much we need His help to renew in us the insight and sensitivity and strength to utilize our lives to pursue what is holy. We have all been "fat," or spiritually insensitive, in the past year (to one degree or another), we have all "kicked" against the kindness of G-d! Now is the time to gird our loins…and humble our hearts. And return lovingly to the spiritual riches of closeness to G-d, loyalty to the Torah and love of what is good.

What is good? The Torah told us last week, in Parshas Nitzavim: "…to love Hashem, your G-d, to walk in His ways, to observe His Commandments, His decrees, and His ordinances…so that you will live, you and your offspring…for He is your life and the length of your days."

May we all enjoy much success in the coming year, and may we utilize our lives to choose what is Holy and what is Good…rather than get distracted (or demolished), as our ancestors sometimes did, by the "good life."

GOOD SHABBOS.

My e-mail address is yosefe@comcast.net

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Rabbi Yosef Edelstein, Savannah Kollel. Phone: 912-351-0469; fax: 354-9923