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