Parshat Haazinu Mincha Shiur 9/27/25

(7) Remember the days of old, Consider the years of ages past; Ask your parent, who will inform you, Your elders, who will tell you: (8) When the Most High gave nations their homes And set the divisions of humanity, [God] fixed the boundaries of peoples In relation to Israel’s numbers. (9) For יהוה’s portion is this people; Jacob, God’s own allotment. (10) [God] found them in a desert region, In an empty howling waste. [God] engirded them, watched over them, Guarded them as the pupil of God’s eye. (11) Like an eagle who rouses its nestlings, Gliding down to its young, So did [God] spread wings and take them, Bear them along on pinions; (12)יהוה alone did guide them, No alien god alongside. (13) [God] set them atop the highlands, To feast on the yield of the earth; Nursing them with honey from the crag, And oil from the flinty rock, (14) Curd of kine and milk of flocks; With the best of lambs, And rams of Bashan, and he-goats; With the very finest wheat— And foaming grape-blood was your drink. (15) So Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— You grew fat and gross and coarse — They forsook the God who made them And spurned the Rock of their support. (16) They incensed [God] with alien things, Vexed [God] with abominations. (17) They sacrificed to demons, no-gods, Gods they had never known, New ones, who came but lately, Who stirred not your forebears’ fears. (18) You neglected the Rock who begot you, Forgot the God who labored to bring you forth. (19) יהוה saw and was vexed And spurned these sons and daughters. (20) [God] said: I will hide My countenance from them, And see how they fare in the end. For they are a treacherous breed, Children with no loyalty in them. (21) They incensed Me with no-gods, Vexed Me with their futilities; I’ll incense them with a no-folk, Vex them with a nation of fools. (22) For a fire has flared in My wrath And burned to the bottom of Sheol, Has consumed the earth and its increase, Eaten down to the base of the hills. (23) I will sweep misfortunes on them, Use up My arrows on them: (24) Wasting famine, ravaging plague, Deadly pestilence, and fanged beasts Will I let loose against them, With venomous creepers in dust.

(5) Thus it is related (Emek HaMelech, Sha’ar I, Ch. 4, 4a) that the Ramban had a disciple named Rabbi Avner who strayed and became an apostate. Because of his vast knowledge Avner reached great heights among the gentiles. One Yom Kippur he sent word to the Ramban to come to him. Then in the Ramban’s presence the apostate took a pig, butchered it and then cooked it and ate it. Afterwards he asked, “Rabbi, how many penalties of excision have I incurred today?” The Ramban answered, “Four.” The disciple replied, “Did I not transgress five prohibitions?” He then engaged his former mentor in a complex Torah discussion until the Ramban was compelled to admit that he had indeed incurred five penalties of excision. The Ramban then asked him, “Tell me, what brought you to deny the Torah of Moshe?”


(6) The apostate explained, “I once heard in one of your sermons that all the commandments are contained in Parashas Ha’azinu and that all the events of history are hinted there as well. However, one requires the help of Heaven to understand all those allusions and secrets.” Since the disciple considered all this to be impossible he became persuaded that what the Ramban was saying was not true, whereupon he went out and cast off the yoke of Torah and became a different person. The Ramban replied, “I still insist that what I said was correct. Everything is hinted at clearly in Parashas Ha’azinu. If you do not believe me, ask me for an example and I will answer you.” The apostate was taken aback and said, “If what you say is true, show me where my name, Avner, is alluded to there!” So the Ramban prayed with all his heart and soul until there came to him the verse: “I said I would scatter them to the corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men” (Devarim 32:26). In this verse taking the third letter of each word spells out the name “R. Avner,” as follows: Amarti (אמרתי) afeihem (אפאיהם) asbisah (אשביתה) mei’enosh (מאנוש) zichram (זכרם).


(7) When the disciple heard this he was filled with trembling and fell upon his face. He asked his mentor whether there could be any remedy for him if he repented. The Ramban answered, “You have heard the words of the verse stating that this individual’s remembrance would cease from among men, indicating that no remedy would help!” So the disciple immediately went out and obtained a ship without a captain, a rope or a sailor, and allowed it to drift wherever it would take him, while he cried out bitterly to Hashem. No one heard what became of him. Afterwards the Ramban prayed profusely that the man be granted some degree of atonement. A long time afterwards he appeared to the Ramban in a dream and thanked him because his prayers had enabled him to enter Gehinnom where he would be punished severely for twelve months, after which he would be healed. For until then he had been allowed to enter neither Gan Eden nor Gehinnom but had remained in the “slingshot” [in which souls are punished after death]. As you can see, everything depends on prayer, even the partial atonement that was granted to the Ramban’s disciple.


(8) Prayer is especially effective in the synagogue, the place that is designated for prayer. The synagogue helps purify a person’s thoughts. Thus the Sages comment on the verse, “Like the winding brooks, etc.” (Bamidbar 24:6): Why are synagogues likened to brooks? To teach you that just as a brook can raise a person from defilement to purity, so do the synagogues purify, etc.” (Yalkut Shimoni 771). Therefore a person should engage in introspection in the synagogue and speak with his whole heart before the One who knows thoughts. And let him weep and groan brokenheartedly at the thought of his sins, even those of his youth. For a man’s heart knows how much damage he brought about through the sins of his youth, all of which are inscribed and kept on record. But if he repents completely his iniquities are erased from the record and the stains and blemishes that he caused are purified and whitened. In place of judgment and punishment he will find salvation and deliverance when he comes before the Throne of Hashem to make his reckoning, when he is called to the judgement that was decreed upon him by the Holy One, blessed is He. Therefore let a man engage in prayer, for the Day of Judgment will come suddenly like an eagle swooping down. But Hashem in His mercy will receive his soul when his time comes, and he will go from peace to peace.
(9) What comes out of all this is that one should not treat prayer lightly, for the great minister Metat is appointed over receiving prayers. And when a person recalls that this angel was transformed from flesh into fire on account of his righteousness, let him also strive to conduct himself with innocence before Hashem his God. Then his righteousness will stand before him.

Rava raised a contradiction between two parts of a verse. It is written: “I put to death and I make live” (Deuteronomy 32:39) and in that same verse it is written: “I wound and I heal.” Now once it says that He gives life to the dead, all the more so is it not clear that He can heal those who are still alive? What then does the second clause add to the first? Rather, the second clause clarifies the first one: The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: Those same people whom I put to death I will bring to life, just as those people whom I wounded I will heal. In other words, the verse means to say that just as God will heal the same people He wounded, so will He revive those He put to death; and not, as the verse might otherwise have been understood, that He puts some people to death and gives life to others. Similarly, the Sages taught in a baraita: “I put to death and I make live”; one might have thought that this refers to death for one person and life, i.e., birth, for another person, in the customary manner of the world. Therefore, the verse states: “I wound and I heal”; just as the wounding and the healing mentioned here clearly refer to the same person, so too death and life refer to the same person. From this verse, there is a refutation to those who say that there is no Torah source for the resurrection of the dead, for it is explicitly mentioned in this verse. Alternatively, the verse can be explained as follows: At first, those whom I put to death I will bring to life, but they will be revived with the same injuries that they had when they died; and subsequently, those whom I wounded I will heal, meaning that their injuries will be healed after they are resurrected.

(3) And with a great shofar it is sounded, and a thin silent voice shall be heard. And the angels shall be alarmed, and dread and fear shall seize them as they proclaim: behold! the Day of Judgment on which the hosts of heaven shall be judged, for they too shall not be judged blameless by you, and all creatures shall parade before you as a herd of sheep. As a shepherd herds his flock, directing his sheep to pass under his staff, so you shall pass, count, and record the souls of all living, and decree a limit to each persons days, and inscribe their final judgment.
(4) On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed - how many shall pass away and how many shall be born, who shall live and who shall die, who in good time, and who by an untimely death, who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by wild beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague, who by strangulation and who by lapidation, who shall have rest and who wander, who shall be at peace and who pursued, who shall be serene and who tormented, who shall become impoverished and who wealthy, who shall be debased, and who exalted. But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severity of the decree.
(5) For your praise is just as your name. You are slow to anger and quick to be appeased. For you do not desire the death of the condemned, rather, that they turn from their path and live and you wait for them until the day of their death, and if they repent, you receive them immediately. (It is true -) [For] you are their Creator and You understand their inclination, for they are but flesh and blood.
(6) We come from dust, and return to dust. We labour by our lives for bread, we are like broken shards, like dry grass, and like a withered flower; like a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud, like a breeze that passes, like dust that scatters, like a fleeting dream. But You are the king who lives eternal.