Our emotions are beyond words.
* * *
V’ata kisvu lachem es ha’shira hazos!
The preceding psukim communicate such utter despair! We hear in them both God’s wrath and the concealment of His countenance. Hide Himself from us! Rashi suggests that this is the harshest of all prophecies, softened only somewhat because, “…no matter what, the Torah will not be forgotten by Israel.” There will always be Jews yearning to write another sefer Torah. Yes, even we, the children of those who have suffered in the worst days of God’s concealment!
Can you hear these words of wrath and anger? “My anger will flare against it on that day and I will forsake them; and I will conceal My face…”
And yet the Torah tells us to go forward and write a sefer Torah. Write, “es ha’shira ha’zos” – write this song – a song, something that connotes feeling, sensitivity, emotion, joy – all that is conjured up when we hear a great chazzan, baal tefila, menagen who sings from his heart.
We write the Torah with a song that springs from the depth of our souls. And this song, “shall be for Me a witness against the Children of Israel.” This Torah will go as witness wherever you go. Even if we stray from God and, “turn to gods of others and serve them.”
Should we do that, God will have no choice but punish us. “It will provoke Me and annul My covenant.” And cause us to suffer more “when many evils and distresses come upon it.” A gevald! Oy vey !
This is so painful to hear. However, “then this song shall speak up before it as a witness, for it shall not be forgotten from the mouth of its offspring.”
Such a dichotomy! Two opposed thoughts and emotions framing our song!
The smoke rises. The parchment burns. But the letters, the letters rise up for eternity.
