Rain, Gratitude, and Hope: Parashat Haazinu. Kol Shalom, 2025.

This week we read Parashat Haazinu. It is one of the most special 

texts in the Torah because it is not a narrative, nor a list of laws, but 

a song. It is Moshe’s final message before saying farewell to the 

people. And when someone bids farewell, they choose their words 

very carefully. That is why Moshe does not speak of politics, nor of 

military strategies, nor of logistics: he speaks with poetry. He calls 

upon heaven and earth as witnesses, and leaves behind a spiritual 

testament for all generations.

The song begins with a beautiful metaphor: “May my teaching fall 

like the rain, may my words descend like the dew.” 

Here we find a central teaching: the Torah is like rain. God’s word 

does not come to devastate or to overwhelm, but to nourish. 

Rain is patient, steady, gentle, and through it the earth blossoms. 

From the end of Sukkot and the beginning of autumn, we begin to 

give thanks for the rain, which is a b´rachah for nature. 

So too with our spiritual lives: they are not built in a single instant 

or with one moment of inspiration, but with the constancy of small 

drops that, day after day, transform us.

And precisely in these days, tired and still sensitive after Yom 

Kippur, the Jewish calendar gives us no pause, and we prepare for 

the festival of Sukkot. If Rosh Hashanah speaks of justice, and Yom 

Kippur of forgiveness, then Sukkot speaks of joy and gratitude.

But it is a paradoxical joy, because we celebrate in a fragile hut, 

with a roof of branches through which we see the stars and through 

which the rain may enter. Tradition tells us that we leave our sturdy 

and comfortable homes to live, at least for one week, in a flimsy 

dwelling.

This teaches us that true security does not depend on bricks or 

cement, but on our values and our being. Not on what we have, but 

on who we are. When we sit in the sukkah, we discover that 

fragility itself can become a place of strength, and that joy does not 

come from what is material but from what is essential: faith, family, 

and community.

Here we find a beautiful connection between Haazinu and Sukkot. 

Moshe speaks of rain that gives life, and on Sukkot we sit beneath a 

roof open to the sky, awaiting that rain which blesses us. 

Both texts teach us that we must open ourselves: open ourselves to 

the divine, open ourselves to the spiritual, open ourselves to the 

possibility of being transformed.

And yet, we cannot speak of fragility without thinking of the world 

we live in. Today we feel strongly the need for peace in the Middle 

East. 

The song of Haazinu also reflects the tensions of history: moments 

of faithfulness and moments of crisis, times of harmony and times 

of violence. It shows us that human beings are capable of rising to 

greatness and also of falling astray. We live that tension today in 

real time: peoples yearning for peace, and at the same time wars 

that tear them apart.

That is why, when we read Haazinu and when we build our sukkot, 

we raise a sincere prayer: that peace may soon come to Israel, to 

the region, and to the entire world.

“Ufros Aleinu Sukat Shlomecha”, spead over us your Sukkah of 

Peace.

I confess that I shed tears when I heard the President of the United 

States and the Prime Minister of Israel speak about a peace plan 

and transformation in the Middle East. Not because I am convinced 

that this will happen soon. In fact, it seemed to me more like a 

parody, a strategy to justify further violence, for the simple reason 

that it does not seem conceivable that a murderous jihadist 

organization, based on fundamentalist Islamic supremacy, could 

ever accept ideas of peace rooted in Western concepts. 

It is hard for me to believe that at any point they could accept and 

recognize our existence.

My tears had to do with the ideal of peace, from which—despite 

everything, despite October 7th, despite the obscene number of 

dead and the destruction—I still refuse to stop dreaming.

And one more thing, for me, it is not enough to ask for peace “out 

there.” The parashah and the festival of Sukkot also teach us that 

peace must begin within each of us. 

Moshe’s song challenges us: What song do we sing with our lives? 

A song of anger and complaint, or a song of gratitude and serenity?

The sukkah is a spiritual laboratory that helps us practice inner 

peace. By living in a fragile space, we learn to let go of what is 

secondary, to value what is essential, and to reconcile with our own 

story. Inner peace does not come from having everything under 

control, but from trusting, from opening ourselves to mystery, from 

accepting vulnerability as part of life.

And here lies a very important teaching: outer peace and inner 

peace need one another. We cannot expect a world in harmony if 

we ourselves live in discord. And we cannot take refuge in an 

individual peace that ignores the pain of our neighbor. 

Haazinu teaches us to listen both to the voice of heaven and the 

voice of the earth; Sukkot teaches us to live with the heavens open 

above us and with the company of those around us.

I want to close, even on the eve of a new anniversary of the most 

brutal massacre our people suffered since the Shoah, with a 

message of hope. Just as the rain Moshe speaks of makes the dry 

land blossom, so too we pray that peace may fall upon nations and 

upon hearts.

May this Sukkot allow us to experience three dimensions of 

peace: peace in the Middle East and in the world, peace in our 

communities and families, and peace within ourselves. 

May we emerge from this festival with renewed faith, with true joy, 

and with a stronger commitment to Shalom.

Amen.