Ha’azinu

After 40 years, the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land but Moses will not be going with them. Shirat Ha’azinu, the song of Moses, his final words to the assembled Israelites, is a celebration of the 40-year journey they have made and a song of hope that Israel will survive, not just physically, but spiritually as well.

God tells Moses to climb Mount Nebo to see the Promised Land and then reminds us he will not be able to enter it. He is destined to die on the mountain.

By this time Moses is an old man. He was raised as an Egyptian prince in a time of slavery, nursed by his Hebrew slave mother as a small boy. He rebelled against his adoptive family and became a shepherd for years in the Midianite desert, finally returning and liberating his people, leading them across the desert for 40 years.

He understood what it is like to be an outsider, to be on the margins, neither quite one thing nor another. This was what was required to help turn a bunch of slaves into a free people. But settlement in the Land needs someone younger, someone with a clearer and less complex identity. We are none of us immortal, and none of us can do everything.