32 | SEPTEMBER 16 • 2021 

W

hen words take wing, they 
modulate into song. That is 
what they do here in Parshat 
Haazinu as Moses, with the angel of 
death already in sight, prepares to take 
leave of this life. Never 
before had he spoken with 
such passion. His language 
is vivid, even violent. He 
wants his final words never 
to be forgotten. In a sense 
he has been articulating 
this truth for 40 years but 
never before with such 
emotion. This is what he says:
Give ear, O heavens, that I may speak,
Earth, hear the sayings of my mouth …
The Rock, His acts are perfect,
For all his ways are just.
A faithful God without wrong,
Right and straight is He.
He is not corrupt; the defect is in his 
children,
A warped and twisted generation.
Is this the way you repay God,
Ungrateful, unwise people?
Is He not your Father, your Master.
He made you and established you. 
(Deut. 32:1-6)
Don’t blame God when things go 
wrong. That is what Moses feels so 
passionately. Don’t believe, he says, that 
God is there to serve us. We are here 

to serve Him and through Him be a 
blessing to the world. God is straight; 
it is we who are complex and self-
deceiving. God is not there to relieve us 
of responsibility. It is God who is calling 
us to responsibility.
With these words Moses brings to 
closure the drama that began in the 
beginning with Adam and Eve in the 
Garden of Eden. When they sinned, 
Adam blamed the woman; the woman 
blamed the serpent. So it was in the 
beginning, and so it still is in the 21st 
century secular time.
The story of humanity has been, 
for the most part, a flight from 
responsibility. The culprits change. Only 
the sense of victimhood remains. It 
wasn’t us. It was the politicians. Or the 
media. Or the bankers. Or our genes. 
Or our parents. Or the system, be it 
capitalism, communism or anything 
between. Most of all, it is the fault of 
the others, the ones not like us, infidels, 
sons of Satan, children of darkness, the 
unredeemed. The perpetrators of the 
greatest crime against humanity in all of 
history were convinced it wasn’t them. 
They were “only obeying orders.” When 
all else fails, blame God. And if you don’t 
believe in God, blame the people who 
do. To be human is to seek to escape 
from responsibility.

That is what makes Judaism different. 
It is what made some people admire Jews 
and others hate them. For Judaism is 
God’s call to human responsibility. From 
this call you can’t hide, as Adam and 
Eve discovered when they tried, and you 
can’t escape, as Jonah learned in the belly 
of a fish.

PARAPHRASING MOSES
What Moses was saying in his great 
farewell song can be paraphrased thus: 
“Beloved people, I have led you for 40 
years, and my time is coming to an end. 
For the last month, since I began these 
speeches, these Devarim, I have tried to 
tell you the most important things about 
your past and future. I beg you not to 
forget them.
“Your parents were slaves. God 
brought them and you to freedom. But 
that was negative freedom, chofesh. It 
meant that there was no one to order 
you about. That kind of freedom is not 
inconsequential, for its absence tastes 
like unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 
Eat them once a year so you never forget 
where you came from and who brought 
you out.
“But don’t think that chofesh alone can 
sustain a free society. When everyone 
is free to do what they like, the result 
is anarchy, not freedom. A free society 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks 

SPIRIT
TORAH EXPANDED

The Leader’s 
 Call to 
 Responsibility

