פִּתְאוֹם קָם אָדָם בַּבֹּקֶר
וּמַרְגִּישׁ כִּי הוּא עַם וּמַתְחִיל לָלֶכֶת,
וּלְכָל הַנִּפְגָּשׁ בְּדַרְכּוֹ קוֹרֵא הוּא שָׁלוֹם.
Suddenly a man wakes up in the morning
He feels he is a nation and begins to walk
And to all he meets on his way he calls out ‘Shalom!’
Suddenly a man wakes up in the morning
He feels he is a nation and begins to walk
And to all he meets on his way he calls out ‘Shalom!’
What would it be like to wake up in the morning and feel like you are a whole nation? What could that mean? Do you feel powerful? Do you feel strong? Do you feel united?
This is the opening paragraph of a beautiful poem by Israeli Poet Amir Gilboa from the early 1950s. It is said that he wrote it after his experiences serving in the British army towards the end of World War II. While in Europe towards the end of the war, he came across convoys of refugees in which Jews were searching for one another. Obviously, there was fear in identifying oneself as Jewish, so people would address each other with a word that only a Jew would understand—for example, “Amcha?” A positive response to this greeting would lead to full identification, or in the words of the song: “To everyone he meets along the way, he says shalom.”
When Gilboa writes “suddenly a man wakes up in the morning and feels he is a “am,” a nation,” he means literally. These refugees actually felt like they might be all that was left of the Jewish people. Each one the remnant of a nation. Each one hoping beyond hope that they might encounter another Jew, and so they greet each person with a single Hebrew word, amcha, almost not willing to believe they might hear a Hebrew response.
The poem continues::
דְּגָנִים עוֹלִים מוּל פָּנָיו מִבֵּין חֲרִיצֵי הַמִּדְרֶכֶת.
וְנִיחוֹחוֹת לְרֹאשׁוֹ מַדִּיפִים עֲצֵי אִזְדָּרֶכֶת.
הַטְּלָלִים רוֹסְסִים וְהָרִים, רִבּוֹא קַרְנַיִם,
הֵם יוֹלִידוּ חֻפַּת שֶׁמֶשׁ לִכְלוּלוֹתָיו.
Corn stalks are growing up behind him
Between the cracks in the sidewalks and lilac trees
Shower down rich fragrance on his head
The dew drops are sparkling and the hills are a myriad of rays
They will give birth to a canopy of sunlight for his wedding
The hope of a nation in its beginning, blossoming and growing, sparkling on the hillside.
In 1973 the Israeli singer Shlomo Artzi put the words to music for the National Yom Ha’atzmaut Independence Day Festival. This is May 1973, in the triumphant era after the Six Day War but before the Yom Kippur War. And in that milieu the last stanza makes sense,
וְהוּא צוֹחֵק גְּבוּרַת דּוֹרוֹת מִן הֶהָרִים,
And he laughs with the strength of generations in the mountains,
and the shamed wars bow down to the ground,
to the glory of a thousand years flowing forth from the hiding places,
a thousand young years in front of him
like a cold book, like a shepherd’s song, like a branch.
The man who felt he was alone, who whispered, amcha to fellow refugees to find kinship, suddenly feels a whole nation surrounding him, hopeful and proud.
I think today they call that “bageling.” We were at Jeffrey Mansion playground a few weeks ago on Shabbat and Ziv and I were in the fenced in playground playing and a few elementary school aged girls with blond hair were playing in the little kid area. They started to look at him and play with him, and then one girl says to the other, “I like Shabbat. It’s Shabbat right now. Let’s go cook for Shabbat.” I don’t actually know if she even did it consciously. If she saw my kippah and wanted to identify herself, or seeing a Jew publicly being a Jew “out in the wild” made her want to show me that she was also a Jew, but either way, I filed it away to remember thinking, there’s a lesson in there.
I started wearing a kippah all the time when I was eight years old. It just sort of happened. My mom dropped me off at tennis lessons after school and rolled down the window and said, “Josh, honey, give me your kippah, you can take it off during your lessons.” And I said, “no I like it on.” And that was it.
But somehow that visualization, seeing me wearing a kippah, brought out a Jewish moment for this girl where I was able to witness her naming her Jewishness and for a moment, we saw each other, and recognized that we were a nation.
These little moments happen all the time. Some positive, some not quite so positive, some explicitly negative. But numerous as drops of dew nonetheless. This witnessing is what occurs in this week’s parsha, Ha’azinu.
הַאֲזִ֥ינוּ הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וַאֲדַבֵּ֑רָה וְתִשְׁמַ֥ע הָאָ֖רֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִֽי׃
Give ear, O heavens, let me speak;
Let the earth hear the words I utter!
יַעֲרֹ֤ף כַּמָּטָר֙ לִקְחִ֔י תִּזַּ֥ל כַּטַּ֖ל אִמְרָתִ֑י כִּשְׂעִירִ֣ם עֲלֵי־דֶ֔שֶׁא וְכִרְבִיבִ֖ים עֲלֵי־עֵֽשֶׂב׃
May my discourse come down as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
Like showers on young growth, Like droplets on the grass.
This song, this poem, contains Moses’ last teachings to the people of Israel. And it is great literature. Written in beautiful stanzas and even arranged in fancy narrow columns on the page, it begs for literary criticism and analysis. I first came across the Amir Gilboa poem in an Israeli Literature class in college, and this Haazinu poem would have fit right in. Every couplet is dripping with dynamic parallelism and metaphor, repeating but slightly varying phrases add emphasis and emotion to this final scene.
This is probably why poets for generations have gravitated towards this speech. Chaim Nachman Bialik wrote of Haazinu,
“Most sublime of the poems of the Torah, perhaps even in the entire Bible is “Shirat Ha’azinu,” that has no peer in terms of it/her beauty and power. If among the biblical prophecies and rebukes of the Bible none would have been left none other than “Shirat Ha’azinu,” that would have been sufficient for us to understand the essence and unique qualities of prophetic poetry, its eternal power and holy splendor. Ha’azinu is none other than the prophecy of prophecies and the vision of visions to whose voice “the heaven and earth lend their ears.”
The true beauty of this poem is the way it has been understood by our sages.
יַעֲרֹף כְּמָטָר לִקְחִי –
“My teaching shall drip as the rain”: Just as rain is one, and it descends on the trees and imparts to each a distinct flavor: to the grapevine, that which will help it grow, to the olive tree, in accordance with its nature; and to the fig tree, in accordance with its nature — so words of Torah are all one, and they “impart the flavors” of Scripture, Mishnah, halachot, and aggadot.
כִּשְׂעִירִים עֲלֵי דֶּשֶׁא
“And as dews upon the grasses”: Just as dews descend upon the grass and cause it to grow, producing varieties of vegetation so too, words of Torah (produce all varieties of people:) rabbis, pious laypeople, sages, tzaddikim (righteous ones) and chassidim (saintly ones).
In this last moment, Moses the poet presents to the people the opportunity not only to hear and glean the Torah they need to hear out of the deluge of teachings he has provided over the course of this book, but also the opportunity to find their own pathway to quench their thirst.
This is the opportunity of the liminal space provided to them here, in one of their last moments in the in-between: between the desert and the promised land.
That liminal space is where we find ourselves in this moment in the Jewish calendar as well. The Netivot Shalom, Rav Shalom Noach Berezovsky, teaches that the Shabbat between Yom Kippur and Sukkot is one of the holiest of the year because it gains flavor and taste from the holidays that surround it. It is filled with the awe and trepidation of Yom Hadin, judgement day, and the joy and gladness of Zman Simchateinu, the holiday of our Joy, Sukkot. Holding on to these conflicting emotions at the same time is not just important, it is the actual intentional goal. It is Shamor v’zachor b’dibur echad, Keep and remember in one utterance.
Rather than feeling whiplash in jumping from Yom Kippur straight into the celebration of Sukkot, we should feel wholeness and completion, as if we finally get to truly be ourselves, we don’t sit in the synagogue all day long but rather build a sukkah out in the open, as if to say to each other, “amcha?” Are you mine? Do you witness me and can I witness you?
Just like Haazinu’s dynamic parallelism, Amir Gilboa ends the poem with the same refrain yet slightly different:
פִּתְאוֹם קָם אָדָם בַּבֹּקֶר
וּמַרְגִּישׁ כִּי הוּא עַם וּמַתְחִיל לָלֶכֶת,
וְרוֹאֶה כִּי חָזַר הָאָבִיב
וְהוֹרִיק שׁוּב אִילָן מִן הַשַּׁלֶּכֶת.
Suddenly a man wakes up in the morning
He feels he is a nation and begins to walk,
and he sees that the spring has returned
and the tree is turning green since last fall’s treeshedding.
What lies ahead for us is a mystery, but I am grateful to not be alone today, to be a part of a community, to be a part of a nation, to see hope and a new tree’s blossom on the horizon, and to greet all those I meet with, “shalom”
Shabbat Shalom.
