I grew up knowing all about Ha’azinu. It was a strange parashah in that it is a song, one Moses is commanded to write down and teach to the Israelites. 

My childhood recollection stems back to a statement made by my father every time we came to this parashah. His claim was that if you were to know the whole parashah by heart, it would be a segulah (auspicious help) to ensure your income would be secure for all time. 

Not just my father but the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Maggid of Mezerich and the Maharal of Prague all recommend reciting Parashat Ha’azinu  daily as a segulah for parnassah. 

Ha’azinu tells us we will be brought into the Land, just as God swore he would to our forefathers, and live in great flourishing cities. Our houses will be filled with good things and produce we won’t have to work hard to receive. The Lord will bring us into a land of barley, figs, pomegranates, and honey, a land where there is iron and copper to mine. 

And with all these blessings we will grow complacent, we will forget about the Lord who took us out of Egypt, who brought us into the Land and blessed us with abundance. And once we have forgotten the Lord, we will turn away from Him. 

So Ha’azinu warns us: take care lest we forget the Lord and fail to keep his commandments. 

My father’s recommendation of learning and reciting Ha’azinu stems from his tremendous belief in God; as the parashah says, “ask your father and he will tell you”, so it is only right the parashah my father most wanted me to learn as a child was this. 

He felt that by learning about the abundance that awaits us in the Land, and at the same time the warning not to become complacent, our income will be looked after by God. These are the overriding themes from Ha’azinu my father taught me: the biblical and fatherly carrot and stick.