Ha'azinu

Moshe has one song left in him, and he opens it by splitting his audience in two. "הַאֲזִינוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם" - give ear, O heavens - "וְתִשְׁמַע הָאָרֶץ" - and let the earth hear. Sky up there, dirt down here... a Divided Sky , and one song meant to reach both.

Then look at how Moshe continues...

"ya'arof ka-matar likchi, tizal ka-tal imrati" - "יַעֲרֹף כַּמָּטָר לִקְחִי, תִּזַּל כַּטַּל אִמְרָתִי" - "may my teaching come down like the rain, my word distill like the dew."

Rain and Dew. Two kinds of water.

Rain comes down, loud and hard.

Dew, on the other hand, arrives silently, without notice... you just wake up... and the grass is wet.

Now we need to ask: "Ok, but why the seemingly double sentence? Why is Moshe saying the same thing... twice??"

The Mei HaShiloach reads these two waters as two faculties.

Now open your hearts, phriends...

The mind is the shamayim, the heavens - and it can withstand the pounding rain. Our intellect can handle hard tough words.

"Laugh when they shoot you, say 'Please don't do that'"

But the heart is built differently.

See, וְעִנְיַן הַלֵּב שֶׁצּוֹעֶקֶת תָּמִיד לִישׁוּעָה - "the nature of the heart is that it is always crying out to be saved." Something as raw as the heart can't take the beating of rain.

It can only take dew.

So the SAME Torah gets packaged for TWO deliveries:

* Likchi, לִקְחִי, the hard lesson, as pounding rain to the head.

* Imrati, אִמְרָתִי, the soft word, as dew to the heart.

One truth. Two love languages.

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We all yearn for a Stash or Maze that drives us absolutely mad, melts our minds, and leaves us beaten to the ground in a puddle of our own confusion.

"Appletoast, bedheated, furblanket rat"

"The torrent of helplessness swept me away"

Tension. Dissonance.

But then we need something soft.

Brian and Robert, Billy Breathes - when the first chords come through the PA, there's solace in your heart.

"This one is for you..."

"Softly sing sweet songs..."

Same band.

Same source.

Two different love languages.

Rain and Dew.

And the real trip? Both waters fall from ONE sky, UN-Divided, if you will! 😏

"Let me be stormy and let me be calm"

Moshe's next line is הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ - "the Rock, His work is perfect." Whatever hits you, the relentless rain or the soft dew you hardly notice, it's the same faithful Rock sending it down... dosed exactly to how much you can take.

May Hashem keep dosing us JUST the right amount - the rain where we can handle it, the dew straight to the part of us still crying out to be saved... and may this last stretch before Yom Kippur land soft enough to soak all the way in to our deepest depths.

Shabbat shalom, phriends.