This Shabbat, called Shabat Shuva or Shabat Theshuva, is the first Shabbat of the year. The Parasha is Parshat Ha’azinu and we read the song of Moses before his death.
It is said that when the State of Israel brought the Yemenite Jews to Israel in 1950, with airplanes, the rural Jews of Yemen who had never seen an airplane in their lives believed that the divine promise of the Torah was fulfilled in them. “And I will carry you on the wings of eagles and bring you to myself”. God likens himself to the eagle that gathered the children of Israel on its back and brought them to Mount Sinai.
In Parshat Ha’azinu, the eagle appears again. Moses says, “Like an eagle he will raise his nest, he will soar over his young, he will spread his wings and take them, he will carry them on his wings.”
The Sages say, “In the eagle’s nest nestlings, which have grown wings, are close by, but are not experienced yet to rise up and fly.” And here comes the eagle and wakes the nest. He teaches the chicks to fly, he hovers over them with a light flapping of his wings…after that he spreads his wings, and sits one of his chicks on his wings, and carries it high in the sky, throws it and catches it, and this is how he teaches the act of flying.”
The book of Exodus talks about the coming of the people from Egypt to Mount Sinai, to witness the revelation of God. In this case, it is a much longer and more complex process. God, in the form of an eagle, awakens the chicks to fly. A picturesque scene is described here, in which the eagle throws the chick into the sky and picks it up again, until the chick learns to fly. In other words – God does not expect the people to just be passive observers, but teaches the people to fly, literally.
More than 70 years has passed since that episode of the arrival of the Jewish people from Yemen. Today the state of Israel is even more independent strong. Last week the pilots of the Israeli Air Force flew back to Yemen a distance of 1100 miles, this time with combat airplanes to protect the people of Israel and to exercise our sovereignty.
AM ISRAEL CHAY
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Refael Cohen