There is something unusual about Shabbat Shuvah. It falls after Rosh Hashanah, at the point when the new year has already begun, but Yom Kippur, when we reflect on the year that has passed, still lies ahead. The name itself comes from the opening words of the Haftarah: “Shuvah Yisrael” – “Return, Israel”.
It seems appropriate, therefore, that we often read Ha’azinu on this Shabbat. Moses’s great song is itself an act of looking back and looking forward. It recalls where the Jewish people have come from and cautions them about what lies ahead.
The choice of the word Tzur, “Rock”, in the powerful opening declaration of faith at the start of the song is intriguing. Elsewhere in the Torah it appears only three times. In Ha’azinu, it appears no less than five times.
Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (d. 1340) sees a deeply personal dimension in the use of this word. The Tzur here recalls the rock that Moses struck instead of speaking to, a pivotal episode that ultimately meant he would not enter the Land.
Yet Moses now uses that same word to declare that the ways of God are just. There is something remarkable about this transformation. An experience that represented one of Moses’s greatest disappointments becomes, in his final song, a vehicle for expressing his trust in God.
Yet the word Tzur has another meaning. It is related to tzurah, “form”. The Talmud in Berachot describes how a human being can carve the shape of a person into stone but cannot give it life. God, however, creates a “form within a form” and places a living soul within a human body.
Perhaps these two meanings belong together. God is the Rock – constant and unchanging, the One whose justice we cannot always understand. But He is also the One who placed within us a spiritual core which enables us to grow, change and reach beyond the limitations of our present selves.
That is what this special time of year asks of us. Not to pretend that the past did not happen, but to recognise that it need not define what comes next. Moses could look at the rock and see the moment that cost him entry into the Land of Israel. Instead, in his final song, he returned to that same word to proclaim his faith in God.
The past remains the past. But it need not have the final word.
To get more from judaism, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.