This week’s Torah reading, parshat Ha’azinu, is to use a hellenistic metaphor, Moses’ swan-song. Throughout the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, Moses has been giving the Israelites their final instructions and reminders for entering the land of Israel. But now, in the final two parshiot of not only the book, but of the whole Torah, there is limited time left to convey his most important messages. This parsha, takes the form of a song or a poem, distilling his wisdom and leadership, as it were, into a more easily absorbable concentrated message. To begin his poem, Moses calls on heavens and earth as his witnesses. He continues, “May my discourse come down as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, Like showers on young growth, Like droplets on the grass.” As Moses looks towards a time where his people will continue their mission without him, he uses the metaphor of rainwater to hold his desire for ongoing influence with the people to whom he has devoted the last forty years.
It is, in a way, poetic that we read this parsha, with its bittersweet goodbye, with its metaphors of rain and dew, with it’s end to the time of wandering in the desert encampments of tents, on the shabbat leading into the holiday of sukkot, where conversely, we commemorate the time of dwelling in tents in the desert as a particularly sweet time, where our rituals point to the life-giving power of rain and dew, and with its injunction that on this holiday, we must be happy.
The commandment to be happy on sukkot is a puzzling one. At its very core, it challenges us to wonder how much control we have over our emotions. Can we even be happy on command? And if we can, how would we do it? This time, designated as zman simchateinu, the time of our joy, also falls at a time of year that based on the natural cycle of the seasons may or may not strike each of us as a joyful time. Some of us love the fall, find pure joy in the changing colors of the leaves, are relieved at the break in the heat of summer. Others see the fall leaves and feel the cool breezes with dread of winter, as the first signs of a world shutting down and going into cold, dark hibernation. Many of us come through the high holy days exhausted, worn down from the hard work that goes into all that celebrating and repentance. But the holiday of sukkot encourages us instead to focus on the joy of having made it through those days with a clean slate, and plunge straight into the joy of remembering how little we truly need in the world, simple huts, plentiful produce, enough rain, family, friends and community.
Moses too, rather than being drawn into the potential bitterness of his final days, and his sorrow at not being allowed to cross into the promised land along with his people, bookends his poem with praise for God, testifying to God’s steadfast care for us, God’s beloved creations, despite our constant forgetfulness of our relationship, our duties, and obligations. It is a matter of life or death, Moses concludes, as we enter into the next phase of the journey, tasked with creating the society God envisions for us, that we know that God has faith in us and does not give up on us.
My favorite resolution to the difficulty of being commanded to be happy comes from the Midrash Tanchuma. The midrash imagines God (and we could see this as a demonstration of God’s faith in us) telling the Jewish people, “Your sons, daughters, and household servants, these are your people, who you naturally take care of. The levite, the stranger, the widow, and the orphan, these are my people. If you bring joy to my people, I will bring you and your family joy.” Here, happiness comes not out of pure will, but out of caring for others,
The final parsha of the Torah, V’zot Habracha, enumerates the final blessings that Moses gave each tribe. But the blessing to us, I believe, can be found in taking parshat ha’azinu into sukkot with us. We are reminded that we are not left, at the end of the Torah, without guidance. The guidance will fall as rain. It will be found in the words of the Torah. And it will be found in the simplicity of the huts, the branches of the lulav and the fullness of the etrog, in the company of family and community, in our intention of to bring each other joy, even those to whom happiness might not come naturally. And in our bringing of joy to our families, community and those in need, we will find joy too.
The words of the final verse of Harbstlid, Autumn Song, but the modern Yiddish poet Beyle Shaechter-Gottesman come to mind.
Flit der regn — A galop af vildn ferdl.
Roymt mir ayn a sod: er hot mikh holt.
“Tsu vos zhe darfstu vartn afn friling,
Az s’hot der osyen fule koyshns gold.
Driving rain — Gallops on a wild horse,
Whispers secret love into my ear:
“Why do you need to wait for springtime
When autumn offers baskets full of gold?
Here is the song, performed by the poet’s grand-nieces – “Di Schaechter Techter”