Parshas ha'azinu 5761 Staying Alive

                By Rabbi Joshua (attentively known as the Hoffer) Hoffman 

   One of the great chassidic masters, Rabbi Leibele Eiger, whose teachings are recorded in the work Toras Emes, was the son of a great misnagdic scholar, Rabbi Shlomo Eiger, the son of the famed Rabbi Akiva Eiger, whose writings every serious student of the Talmud contends with almost daily. Rav Leibele's father, as an opponent of chassidism, was not overjoyed over the fact that his son had identified himself with that approach to Judaism. He insisted that his son come to morning prayers at the prescribed time, rather than attending the minyan of the local Chassidim, who started much later. Rav Leibele conformed to his father's wishes, and remarked that he now understood the verse in the Torah which says that one should honor his parents to prolong his days on earth. "My day is now much longer than before!" he quipped. 

  This story, although humorous, carries within it an important message, which helps us understand Moshe's words to the nation as recorded toward the end of this week's parsha. Moshe had just finished presenting them with the words of the shira, the song, or poem, that called on them to observe the Torah and told them of the consequences that awaited them if they didn't. He then told them to apply their hearts, to pay attention, to these words, and to instruct their children to observe the words of the Torah, "for it is not an empty thing for you, for it is your life, and through this matter you shall prolong your days on the land....." (Devarim 32 : 47). The rabbis note that the words "for it is not an empty thing for you," read literally, "it is not an empty thing from you", and explain the phrase to mean that if the Torah does seem empty, it is 'from you,' meaning, one's own fault, for not applying oneself adequately to understanding what the Torah is telling him. One who pays close attention to the Torah, the commentators tell us, will understand that it is really 'from him,' that the Torah is part of his essence as a Jew, engrained in his personality and his soul. As Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin writes in his classic work Nefesh HaChaim, the Torah provides us with the means to see God's presence in this world, and in our lives. Living life in this way, understanding it through the prism of the Torah, gives profound meaning to every moment, and thereby prolongs whatever time we do have. 

   After Moshe told the nation to pay close attention to the words of the Torah, we are told that God commanded him to ascend the Mt. Nevo, to view the land of Canaan, and then die on the mountain. The Italian rabbinic and kabbalistic scholar, Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano, noted that when the Torah records Moshe's actual death, it says, "And Moshe, servant of God, died…" (Devarim 34 : 5). This verse indicates, he says, that Moshe, in his very death, demonstrated that he was a servant of God, by viewing his very death as the fulfillment of a command of God. In more recent times, stories are told of rabbis who ritually washed their hands when the time came that they felt they were dying, because, like Moshe, they believed that in their deaths they were fulfilling a divine command. One whose life is guided by the Torah and the voice of God that emanates from it is thereby able to lengthen his days, investing them with meaning and significance, no mater how many years he is actually given.