This parsha is one of the few where the triennial cycle and the annual cycle are the same. The greater part of the Torah reading of Haazinu (“Listen In”) consists of a 70-line “song” delivered by Moses to the people of Israel on the last day of his earthly life.
Calling heaven and earth as witnesses, Moshe asks the people to remember their history – how God “found them in a desert land”, made them a people, chose them as His own, and gave them a bountiful land. The Song also warns against the pitfalls of plenty and warns of calamities that would come because of abandoning God’s ways due to bounty. The Parshah concludes with God’s instruction to Moshe to ascend the top of Mount Nebo, from which he sees the Promised Land before dying on the mountain.
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Shabbat shalom.
Clothes matter. We dress for the things that matter to us. We dress for weddings, for interviews, for the people we love. When we put on our best for the High Holidays, we’re saying: this day is important, and I want to show up for it.
And yet this evening I want to ask us a different question. Not “what are you wearing?” but “what is your soul wearing?”
Now, listen to how our parashah opens. Ha’azinu ha-shamayim va-adaberah, ve-tishma ha-aretz imrei fi. “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.”
Lots of clothes hanging neatly in the open wardrobe
We know, Moshe knows, everyone knows: in the arc of the story, Moshe is at the end of his life. This is his last song, his last testimony. And he does what you do when something is serious: he calls witnesses. He calls heaven, and he calls earth.
Why those two? The simple answer is that they last. People come and go, but heaven and earth will still be here to testify.
The Sifrei, an old collection of midrashim, says that heaven testifies to the mitzvot that come from heaven, like sanctifying time, and earth testifies to the mitzvot of the earth, like leaving the corner of your field for the poor. I’d take it one step further: heaven can be symbol for the mitzvot bein adam la-Makom, between a person and God: prayer, Shabbat, study, kashrut, the blessings we say. Those are the moments when we reach up. Earth then can be a symbol for the mitzvot bein adam la-chavero, between a person and another person: tzedakah, honesty, visiting the sick, a kind word, a phone call to someone who is lonely. Those are the moments when we reach out.
So the witnesses Moshe calls are not only the sky and the ground. They are our deeds. What we do testifies about who we are.
Now listen to this: Moshe calls two witnesses. You all know the rule: al pi shnayim eidim yakum davar, a matter is established by two witnesses. One witness is not enough, because one witness alone gives a partial testimony.
Think about a person who has only heaven: someone who davens beautifully and keeps every detail and yet is unkind to the people around them. Such a person has a witness with a very lopsided story. And a person who has only earth, who is generous and decent and good but never lifts their eyes, never stops to say thank you to the Source of it all, also has a witness with only half the story. The Torah wants the whole testimony: heaven and earth, up and out.
And now we come back to the clothes.
Every morning, in birkot ha-shachar, we say a blessing: Baruch atah Adonai… malbish arumim. Blessed are You, who clothes the naked. It sounds like a thank-you for a closet.
But the Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, the great kabbalist of Tzfat, teaches that when we say this blessing we are really talking about the clothes of the soul. And those clothes are the mitzvot. They are what surrounds the soul after we leave this world. The body stays behind, but the soul goes on dressed in what we did.
Think about that on Yom Kippur. In a few days many of us will put on a kittel, a plain white robe. Some of you know that the kittel is also what we are buried in. On the holiest day of the year we wear the outfit we will wear at the end. That’s not meant to be morbid. It’s meant to wake us up. It asks: when you arrive, what will you be wearing? Not the white linen. What the white linen carries.
So here’s the thing about closets. Most of us have favorites. The sweater we wear every week, the comfortable shoes. And most of us also have things we bought, or were given, and never really wore. Some might still hang with the tags on.
Our spiritual closets are the same. We each have mitzvot we wear constantly. For some of us it’s Shabbat dinner, for some of us it’s showing up for every shiva minyan, for some of us it’s tzedakah, for some of us it’s Torah study. Those are beautiful. Keep wearing them.
And each of us also has mitzvot we’ve barely tried on.
So this is my invitation this Shabbat Shuvah. Before Yom Kippur, go to your closet. Pick two mitzvot you haven’t invested much in yet. One from heaven, and one from earth.
One between you and God. Maybe it’s saying Modeh Ani when you wake up, before you reach for the phone. Maybe it is putting on tefilin. Maybe it’s lighting Shabbat candles every week, not just when it’s convenient. Maybe it’s coming to Torah study, or saying a brachah before you eat, or ten quiet minutes of prayer in your own words.
And one between you and other people. Maybe it’s calling someone who is alone, every week, the same day. Maybe it’s a set amount of tzedakah that goes out before anything else does. Maybe it’s shmirat ha-lashon, one conversation a day without gossip. Maybe it’s finally visiting the person you keep meaning to visit.
Two mitzvot. Two witnesses. Heaven and earth. Al pi shnayim eidim.
And don’t make it huge. You don’t need a whole new wardrobe. Think of it as an accessory: a scarf, a pin, a new tie for the soul. Something small that you actually wear, not something grand that stays in the closet with the tags on. Remember what we learned last Shabbat from the Rambam: one mitzvah can tip the scale of the whole world. Small is not small.
Then, every morning, when you say malbish arumim, remember your two. Say the blessing and think: today I’m getting dressed. Today I’m adding another thread.
And a year from now, when we come back to this parashah and hear Moshe say ha’azinu ha-shamayim, ve-tishma ha-aretz, heaven and earth will have something new to say about you. Not a threat. A testimony. A witness that speaks up for you, that says: this person reached up, and this person reached out.
This Yom Kippur, wear white on the outside. But this year, let’s make sure that underneath, our souls are dressed too.
Shabbat shalom, and g’mar chatimah tovah.
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Shacharit
~ What are the main contrasts in this parsha?
~ What is the most repeated image for God in this parsha?
Tzur – appears 8 times in this parsha alone, 5 referring to God.
~ Is there a way to connect the parsha with Yom Kippur? [deathscape, Hatzur tamim poalo]