When I was sixteen, I spent a year teaching eight-year-olds at a Hebrew school. It was my first experience teaching, and I quickly discovered how much I enjoyed it: the children’s questions helped me look at the text in a way I had not considered. That experience was one of the reasons I eventually chose a career in Jewish education.
In this week’s parsha, Ha’Azinu, we encounter one of Moses’ final addresses to the Jewish people. Unusually, it is given not as conventional prose but as a poem or song:
“And Moses spoke in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song to their very end.” (Deuteronomy 31:30)
Why does the Torah stress that Moses spoke “in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel”? And why does Moses communicate through a song?
Rabbi Sacks addresses the first question through a rabbinic story about Rabbi Yannai.
Rabbi Yannai was traveling when he met an elegantly dressed man. Assuming he was learned, Rabbi Yannai invited him home. During the meal, he questioned his guest on Bible, Mishnah, and Talmud, only to discover that the man knew none of them.
At the end of the meal, Rabbi Yannai asked him to lead Grace after Meals. The man replied, “Let Yannai say the blessing over his own bread.” Rabbi Yannai responded by humiliating him. He asked the man whether he could repeat a sentence after him. When the man said yes, Rabbi Yannai told him to say: “A dog has eaten Yannai’s bread.”
The guest demanded: “Where is my inheritance that you have and are keeping from me?”
The man replied that even children know the verse, “Moses commanded us the Torah, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.” It does not say “the congregation of Yannai” but “the congregation of Jacob.”
An inheritance, in other words, is already yours. The man at Rabbi Yannai’s table may have had little Jewish knowledge, but he understood something that Rabbi Yannai had forgotten: Torah belonged to him too.
But there is another aspect of the story that I find equally powerful. The man who apparently knows nothing ends up teaching the great rabbi.
This brings us back to the second question: why does Moses’ final teaching take the form of poetry?
Poetry is more compressed and less explicit than prose. It does not necessarily tell us exactly what to think. It leaves space for the reader to engage with the words and discover layers of meaning. As Emily Dickinson wrote:
I dwell in Possibility—A fairer House than Prose—More numerous of Windows—Superior—for Doors—
Poetry has more windows and more doors. It invites us in.
We read within a tradition, in conversation with generations of commentators and teachers. But within that tradition there is room for our questions and personal perspectives.
Perhaps that is the significance of Ha’azinu being both a song and something spoken “in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel.” Torah belongs to the entire people, and each of us is asked not only to receive it but to encounter it personally.
This is what I first learned from those eight-year-olds: if Torah is genuinely the inheritance of the entire Jewish people, then we should expect insight to come from unexpected places.
Soon we will celebrate Simchat Torah, when we close the scroll and dance with it. In that moment, the distinction between the great scholar and the person who can barely read Hebrew disappears. The child and the rabbi hold the same Torah and dance the same dance.
The Torah is “an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.” Not an heirloom belonging to a learned few, but an inheritance belonging to all of us.
Rabbi Dr. Jeremy Bruce is Director of Programming at The Rabbi Sacks Legacy, where he oversees many of the key projects that have been developed since the Legacy was established, including the Sacks Scholars international programme, and the Torah v'Chochmah programme in North America. This role follows a successful period for Rabbi Bruce as Head of School of the Hebrew High School of New England and Principal of the Fuchs Mizrachi Stark High School in Cleveland, Ohio.
Rabbi Bruce received his semicha from Yeshivat Hamivtar, Efrat. He holds a BA in International History and Politics from the University of Leeds, a Masters in Educational Management from King’s College London, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership. Born and raised in London, he has worked for over 20 years in the educational field in the UK and the US, and was also an adjunct lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS), where he regularly taught Bible and Jewish philosophy.
This essay was written as part of our collaboration with The Rabbi Sacks Legacy Sacks Scholars.
