Haazinu

Devarim 32

Judging According to Consequences

Aryeh Bernstein, 5762

This shabbat, we read Parashat Ha'azinu. Having completed reviewing the narrative of the exodus and the desert and enumerating all the mitzvot, Mosheh recites a dramatic, prophetic poem to Am Yisrael that begins the wrapping up his life. Next week, in the final parashah of the Torah, he will give final words to each of the tribes and ascend the mountain and die.

Our parashah's poem begins with three flowery verses of introduction, calling the heavens and earth to attention and comparing God's poetic word to the rain and dew which nourish the earth from all around which and allow the earth-compared here to the Jewish people-to flourish. This leads into a celebration of God's greatness and a rehashing of God's provisions for the Israelites. Around verse 15-16, the poem turns to a rather lengthy diatribe against Am Yisrael for rejecting Hashem in favor of idolatry.

A striking focus in this attack occurs in verses 26-27:

Israel's just desserts for their idolatrous practices would be for God to annihilate them, but God, fearing the negative reaction of the other nations, chose to spare them. Prof. Nehama Leibowitz, emphasizes that this "daring" attribution of fear to God "has no parallel in the Torah" and merits attention (Studies in Devarim, Ha'azinu 1). While the Torah nowhere else depicts God fearing Gentile public opinion, it does depict Mosheh twice uttering this identical fear in order to persuade God not to annihilate Israel and both times God is moved by Mosheh's argument. In the first instance, after the sin of the golden calf, Mosheh led his argument by saying, "Why should the Egyptians say, 'For evil did [God] bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth'" - "לָמָּה יֹאמְרוּ מִצְרַיִם לֵאמֹר בְּרָעָה הוֹצִיאָם לַהֲרֹג אֹתָם בֶּהָרִים וּלְכַלֹּתָם מֵעַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה" (Shemot 32:12). The second instance is after the other titanic tragedy of the Torah, the insurrectionary report of the scouts of the land of Israel. There, too, God plans to wipe out Benei Yisrael, and Mosheh objects (Bemidbar 14:15-16):

In both instances, as we know, God repents of the original plan for destruction, deserved though it may be, and spares Israel. One might object that it was not this first argument of fear that moved God, rather, only Mosheh's second argument (in Shemot, remembering God's covenant with the Patriarchs; in Bemidbar, God's self-proclaimed attributes of mercy). Nevertheless, here, in Devarim, it is God who openly proclaims fear that the other nations would misunderstand the annihilation of Israel and see it as a testimony to their own greatness, and not to God's.

A fundamental question must vex us. If the system of divine justice mandates an action, how can the Judge abandon the law on account of what people will say? That seems like an administrative or educational problem, not a legal one. If the gentiles will draw the wrong conclusions, then God should engage in a P.R. campaign to straighten them out. I think that the solution to this problem lies in the following simple, but elusive recognition: the purpose of the whole enterprise of Torah and mitzvot is for Israel to be a light unto the nations, beckoning all to sanctify God's name and to recognize God's sole dominion over the world - in other words, Qiddush Hashem. All Jewish law must stem from this in some way, however remote. Since the law exists not for its own sake, but to serve this purpose, a judge must consider the consequences of a ruling before issuing it. This is true whether that judge is God, a rabbinic judge, or we in our informal, precarious actions of judgment. If the consequences of a decision would be nonsensical or counterproductive, then the decision must be flawed, even if the theoretical reasoning seems pure.

Parashat Ha'azinu sets a model for how we judge difficult problems and relate to the world around us. Just as God altered what appeared to be the demand of the Law because its consequence would have been destructive, so, too, we have to live lives deeply conscious of the consequences of our choices and to insert consideration of those consequences firmly into all decision-making processes. Acting boldly in the abstract can steer us away from where we want to go, which is always Qiddush Hashem.