One Day After Yom Kippur: Moses’ Message to Us All

One Day After Yom Kippur: Moses’ Message to Us All
Rabbi Maurice Salth 

Dedicated to Julia Hyman, zichronah livracha, her memory is for blessing.

My friend Carolyn, once spent a lot of money on a tennis clinic with a world-class coach. At the first lesson, the tennis pro said: “I’m going to tell you the secret to an exceptional tennis game. Here it is: do not focus on whether you have the best racquet. Pay no attention to your outfit. Do not be distracted by your phone, your opponent or anything else around you; and this is the key,” he said: “keep your eye on the ball.”

Carolyn was incredulous. She knew to keep her eye on the ball; she had heard this advice all her life, she had said it a thousand times. This is what she paid to hear: “keep your eye on the ball?!” And yet, as she participated in the clinic, this teaching was reinforced in every tip and in all the drills: keep your eye on that darn ball – and it worked.

In this week’s Torah portion, Ha’azinu, and throughout the fifth book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, Moses is using every metaphor, every literary technique he knows, to encourage the Israelites to ground themselves in the lessons given to them from God and their forty years of wandering in the desert.

He even urges them to use each one of their senses to do so. This week’s portion, which begins in the form of a dramatic poem, does not start with how they can utilize their eyes, instead he begins with their ears saying: “Ha’azinu Hashamim,” (Deuteronomy 32:1) “Give ear, O heavens, let me speak! Let the earth hear the words I utter!”

Don’t worry, for all of you that prefer the use of sight in motivational biblical poetry, later in the poem Moses implores them to use their eyes as well.

After finishing his poem Moses also says: “See-moo leh-vav-chem” (Deuteronomy 32:46) “Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day…for this is not a trifling thing for you, it is your very life, through it you shall long endure.”

Moses is well aware that the wilderness, where he is currently speaking to the Israelites, is going to be different than the land of Israel they will soon be entering.

As the wilderness, though rough and rugged, was not as tough as life in ancient Israel would be. And so Moses is pulling out all the stops, he is asking them to use all of their senses to help them internalize their core values and teachings so that when they enter the real world they can thrive.

He is passionate, some may say desperate, to do whatever he can to assist them in remaining focused, to keep their eyes and ears and hearts on alert for what is most important because the land of Israel will be much more demanding than the wilderness.

This portion arrives at a unique place in the Jewish calendar. Just twenty-four hours ago so many of us were right here, in the pews and on the live stream deep in Yom Kippur prayers on the final day of our ten-day High Holy Day journey together. And I know many of us took the charge of the holy days seriously – we fasted, we beat our chests, we have been thinking of ways we can improve and change.

And then last night, just as the Israelites are about to do in the story of the Torah, we walked out of shul into the real world, back into our homes, our relationships with friends and family, we returned to our workplaces and the news cycles of our city, nation and the world.

Our Rabbi Emeritus, Peter Rubinstein, put the challenge of applying the mission of the holy days into our lives, in it this way, and I’m paraphrasing here, when he shared honestly that congregants would thank him for his wise moral and ethical teachings. Little did they know that whenever he would speak to his mother, that all too often, in a matter of mere seconds, he would be reduced to a much lesser version of himself.

It is easier, for most of us, to work on ourselves in here, than it is to make our inner work manifest out there. And yet, it is possible!

And that is what Moses and to a related extent my friend Carolyn’s tennis coach are trying to help us do. For if we are entering a potentially difficult situation, let’s just call it, for the sake of this conversation, life! If we are entering the regular demands of life, prepared to be hit with a distraction, a sharp email or social media post, a questionable comment by a relative, a provocation from a neighbor, colleague or politician. If we are prepared that something like this can happen or more realistically will happen. And we know what we want to be driving our behavior, actions and reactions, well, we can keep our eye on that ball and bring our vision of the world we want to be living in, into more reality.

Key to this, is obtaining clarity to our objectives. And while I know for me there was a lot I focused upon in my own journey through the High Holy Days, I am going to welcome us to start with identifying one priority upon which to focus on now. One key principle or objective that you want to be at the front of mind, that you can use as a focal point for which to listen for, or upon which to cast your eyes, that you want to center your heart on.

This is what Moses was asking our ancestors to do when he sang Ha’azinu to them and this is what Moses is asking of us just hours after the gates have closed on Yom Kippur.

Because it turns out for us, just as it was for our ancestors, this is not a trifling thing, it is our very lives, through it shall we long endure.

May our gatherings over the holy days and again today on Shabbat, give us the strength to make this so and to allow all of us to keep our eye on the ball!

Shabbat Shalom and Shanah Tovah.