Haazinu
What is our only true destination?
Reflection by Ariel Hendelman, the Or HaLev Team:
"We find ourselves in the second to last parsha of the Torah, in the week where we also welcome in the new light of a new year. The title of this week’s parsha means `to harken` or `heed. ` In the midst of Moshe's final teaching soliloquy to our ancestors, we are asked to listen, right here and now, written in the present tense. It's not all so pretty. There is a lot of violent and angry imagery in here, and many descriptions of how difficult it is to be a wandering people on a journey, trying to keep the faith.
The entire five books of the Torah are, in fact, one long journey that ends before we actually reach our destination. Moshe, in a heartbreaking scene, is told that he will not reach the land of promise, that he will die before the rest of us arrive.
כִּ֥י מִנֶּ֖גֶד תִּרְאֶ֣ה אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְשָׁ֙מָּה֙ לֹ֣א תָב֔וֹא אֶל־הָאָ֕רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־אֲנִ֥י נֹתֵ֖ן לִבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
`You may view the land from a distance, but you shall not enter it—the land that I am giving to the Israelite people. ` (32:52)
In the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, `Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.` Perhaps that’s the medicine for us in our lives right now as we reckon with these final parshiot, on our own journeys, in a world that feels increasingly unstable and unsafe. Ultimately, we are on a pilgrimage of the heart, which has many and no destinations, and which assures us that there is stability to be found in the fertile ground of our practice and in the connections to what and who we love.
The only true destination is the present moment, to which we are continually journeying and arriving, journeying and arriving.
As we come to the close of the journey of the past year and arrive at the beginning of a new one, may we listen deeply, and with utmost curiosity, to our hearts as they sing us through this pilgrimage. May our practice hold us in our continual departure and arrival, and may we remain open enough to listen to and be surprised by what our path may reveal.”