The Power of Metaphors: From Ha’azinu to Yom Kippur

This Shabbat we find ourselves between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the midst of a season filled with powerful and sometimes troubling images of God. God is King and Judge; God is a forgiving Father. Soon we will celebrate Sukkot, remembering the clouds that sheltered the Israelites in the wilderness—a beautiful image of God as protector and provider.

But Parashat Ha’azinu offers us a much more complicated picture.

Deuteronomy 32, “The Song of Moses,” is filled with metaphors for God. In only forty-three verses, God is called Rock, Creator, Warrior, Eagle, Father, Mother, Executioner, and Healer.

הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ כִּי כָל־דְּרָכָיו מִשְׁפָּט אֵל אֱמוּנָה וְאֵין עָוֶל צַדִּיק וְיָשָׁר הוּא׃
“The Rock, His work is perfect… a God of faithfulness, without injustice, righteous and upright is He.” (Deut. 32:4)

And:

הֲלוֹא־הוּא אָבִיךָ קָּנֶךָ הוּא עָשְׂךָ וַיְכֹנְנֶךָ׃
“Is He not your Father, who created you, who made you and established you?” (32:6)

And:

כְּנֶשֶׁר יָעִיר קִנּוֹ עַל־גּוֹזָלָיו יְרַחֵף
“Like an eagle who stirs up its nest, hovers over its young…” (32:11)

These metaphors are sophisticated and powerful. They tell us something about God’s uniqueness—and also about God’s unknowability. Moses describes a God who gives life and death, wounds and heals:

אֲנִי אָמִית וַאֲחַיֶּה מָחַצְתִּי וַאֲנִי אֶרְפָּא
“I deal death and give life, I have wounded and I will heal.” (32:39)

But this is precisely what makes Ha’azinu so disturbing. God is simultaneously comforting and frightening: the eternal guardian of Israel and the jealous deity who threatens vengeance against those who break the covenant.

The central metaphor of Ha’azinu is God as Rock. No fewer than five times the song invokes the image. A rock suggests strength, refuge, stability, something that does not move. God is utterly reliable, while Israel is anything but:

שִׁחֵת לוֹ לֹא בָּנָיו מוּמָם דּוֹר עִקֵּשׁ וּפְתַלְתֹּל
“His unworthy children have dealt corruptly with Him, a crooked and twisted generation.” (32:5)

Yet there is something troubling about this Rock. Is the image really one of warmth and protection? Or might the Rock also suggest something cold, immovable, and incapable of entering into a reciprocal relationship?

God’s support is conditional. Israel forgets God, and God becomes angry:

וַיִּרְא יְהוָה וַיִּנְאָץ מִכַּעַס בָּנָיו וּבְנֹתָיו
“The LORD saw it and was angered by the provocation of His sons and daughters.” (32:19)

Then God says:

אַסְתִּירָה פָנַי מֵהֶם
“I will hide My face from them.” (32:20)

And the punishment becomes extreme:

כִּי־אֵשׁ קָדְחָה בְאַפִּי וַתִּיקַד עַד־שְׁאוֹל תַּחְתִּית
“For a fire is kindled in My anger, and burns to the depths of Sheol.” (32:22)

The pattern is familiar: God finds Israel helpless, protects and nurtures the people, Israel flourishes, Israel becomes arrogant and forgets God, God becomes enraged, and Israel is punished. God loves His people—but also judges them. God protects them—and threatens them.

This is not an easy God.

Perhaps, then, it is time to reimagine our relationship with God. Instead of describing God as Rock or Warrior, King or Husband, perhaps we need metaphors of our own—images of God that emphasize mercy, compassion, and interdependence rather than wrath and domination.

There are already hints of such possibilities within Ha’azinu itself. God is described not only as a Rock but through images of birth and nurture:

צוּר יְלָדְךָ תֶּשִׁי וַתִּשְׁכַּח אֵל מְחֹלְלֶךָ
“You neglected the Rock who bore you, and forgot the God who gave you birth.” (32:18)

The problem, perhaps, is our tendency to turn God into a human being writ large—a powerful masculine ruler, father, warrior, king, or husband.

The poet and liturgist Marcia Falk has offered alternative metaphors drawn from the elemental foundations of creation: “Eye of life,” “Wellspring of life,” “Breath of all living,” and “sparks of the soul.” Her purpose is to construct a theology that affirms the holiness of the world rather than reinforcing the image of God as transcendent Master, Lord, or King.

And this brings us to another possibility suggested by Ha’azinu: we can argue with God.

When the song describes the destruction awaiting Israel’s enemies, it invokes Sodom and Gomorrah. We immediately remember Abraham standing before God and protesting:

חָלִלָה לְּךָ מֵעֲשֹׂת כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה לְהָמִית צַדִּיק עִם־רָשָׁע… הֲשֹׁפֵט כָּל־הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט?
“Far be it from You to do such a thing—to slay the righteous with the wicked… Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” (Gen. 18:25)

Abraham does something remarkable. He does not simply submit. He challenges God.

Perhaps Ha’azinu invites us to do the same. We can ask: Where is Your compassion—not only for us but for all Your creation? Why terrify us with threats? Will threats really bring us closer to You? Or might they cause us to reject You?

This kind of argument is not a rejection of Judaism. It may be one of the deepest forms of Jewish religious engagement. We become partners with the tradition precisely when we refuse to accept every image of God uncritically.

Moses at the End

There is another striking moment at the end of Ha’azinu. After the magnificent poetry of the song, Moses finishes speaking to the people. And immediately God tells him to climb Mount Nebo.

Moses will see the land, but he will not enter it.

The transition is abrupt and painful. One moment we are hearing poetry about the relationship between God and Israel; the next we are confronted with the death of Moses.

Moses has led the people through the wilderness for forty years. He has argued with God, challenged God, pleaded with God, and even attempted to save Israel from God’s anger. Yet Moses himself is not permitted to enter the Promised Land.

There is something deeply unfair about this. Later, Deuteronomy tells us that Moses remained physically and mentally vigorous. Why, then, must he die on the mountain, able to see the land but not enter it?

The sages of Sifrei Devarim, a halakhic (legal) midrash on the book of Deuteronomy, struggle with precisely this problem. On the one hand, Moses has made a mistake and must face its consequences. On the other hand, death is ultimately part of being human. Moses cannot become a divine figure. His grave is deliberately unknown, so that no one can turn him into an object of worship.

Moses must step down.

And that is important. Even Moses—the greatest prophet, the person who spoke with God “face to face”—does not get the final word. Joshua will replace him. Moses will be remembered, but he will not be worshipped.

Perhaps this is another way of saying that Judaism itself requires us to move beyond the people and images that came before us. Moses gives us the Torah, but he does not give us an unquestionable interpretation of God. We inherit his questions as well as his answers.

And that brings us directly to Yom Kippur.

Divinely Caused Chaos: From Sacrifice to Yom Kippur

The Torah’s stories about sacrifice are wild, intense, and sometimes frightening. When we arrive at Yom Kippur, we come full circle to the difficult stories surrounding Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac—and then to Aaron and his two sons, Nadav and Avihu.

In all three readings, a father loses his sons, and God is intimately involved in what happens.

In the story of Abraham, Sarah demands that Ishmael be sent away. Abraham is distressed, but God tells him to listen to Sarah. Then, almost unbelievably, God tests Abraham by commanding him to take his remaining son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice.

וְהָאֱלֹהִים נִסָּה אֶת־אַבְרָהָם
“God tested Abraham.” (Gen. 22:1)

Abraham takes Isaac up the mountain. There is wood. There is fire. There is a knife.

Isaac asks the question that hangs over the entire story:

?וְאַיֵּה הַשֶּׂה לְעֹלָה
“Where is the sheep for the offering?”

We know what happens next. Abraham binds Isaac. He raises the knife. And then God stops him.

But what exactly was this story asking Abraham—and us—to prove? Was Abraham being tested to see how far he would go? Was this a terrifying game of chicken in which God waited to see whether Abraham would actually obey?

Then, in the torah reading for Yom Kippur, we encounter Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu. They bring what the Torah calls “strange fire” before God:

וַתֵּצֵא אֵשׁ מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה וַתֹּאכַל אוֹתָם
“Fire came forth from before the LORD and consumed them.” (Lev. 10:2)

Again, God is directly involved. Again, two sons are lost.

And the Yom Kippur Torah reading begins with the words:

אַחֲרֵי מוֹת שְׁנֵי בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן
“After the death of the two sons of Aaron…”

That word, acharei—after, creates a connection with the opening of the Binding of Isaac:

וַיְהִי אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה וְהָאֱלֹהִים נִסָּה אֶת־אַבְרָהָם
“After these things, God tested Abraham.”

And also the resolution to the test:

And Avraham lifted up his eyes, and looked and behold behind him [achar] a ram caught in the thicket by his horns: and Avraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son.

And there is another shared element: fire.

Aaron’s sons die in divine fire. In Abraham’s story, fire accompanies Abraham and Isaac up the mountain. Isaac sees the wood and the fire and wonders where the animal is. But when Isaac is actually bound on the altar, the fire disappears from the narrative.

If it had not disappeared, there would have been no Isaac.

These stories are not comfortable stories. They force us to confront the darker side of the divine images that Ha’azinu presents to us: God as the one who gives life, but also as the one who can bring death; God who heals, but also wounds; God who protects, but also threatens.

And then comes Yom Kippur.

The Yom Kippur ritual of the two goats can be read against the background of these earlier stories. One goat is sacrificed to God. The other—the scapegoat—is sent away into the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people.

There is a striking parallel with Abraham’s two sons. Isaac remains at the altar, the son chosen for sacrifice. Ishmael is sent away into the wilderness.

One son is almost sacrificed; the other is expelled.

Aaron’s two sons, Abraham’s two sons, and the two goats of Yom Kippur all belong to a world in which life, death, sacrifice, expulsion, guilt, and atonement are tightly intertwined.

But Judaism eventually moves somewhere else.

We no longer sacrifice our children on altars.

And we no longer have an altar on which to sacrifice animals.

Instead, on Yom Kippur, we fast. We confess. We pray. We examine ourselves. We ask forgiveness. We attempt to repair what we have damaged.

In other words, the sacrificial system has been transformed into a moral and spiritual practice.

And perhaps that transformation gives us permission to transform our metaphors for God as well.

If we are no longer willing to sacrifice our children, perhaps we should also question the images of God that make violence, domination, and punishment seem sacred.

If Abraham can stand before God and say, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?”, perhaps we too can stand before the inherited images of God and ask difficult questions.

If Moses can argue with God, then surely, we can argue with the tradition.

If Moses must die and Joshua must take his place, perhaps our religious images, too, must sometimes step aside and make room for something new.

Yom Kippur is traditionally a day on which we are asked to do teshuvah—to turn, to change, to acknowledge our failures.

But perhaps there is another question hiding beneath all our confessions:

What about God?

What do we do with a God who hides His face, threatens destruction, demands sacrifice, wounds and heals, loves and punishes?

Perhaps the answer is not to abandon God, but neither is it to accept every inherited metaphor unquestioningly.

Perhaps our task is to become partners in the ongoing interpretation of the divine.

We can choose metaphors of mercy rather than domination, relationship rather than hierarchy, compassion rather than fear. We can challenge the images that no longer speak to our moral consciousness.

The same hand that brings us out of Egypt is sometimes the hand that strikes us down. This is not necessarily the God we would choose to worship.

And if God does not repent, perhaps we have to repent of the ways in which we have imagined God.

This may be what it means to enter Yom Kippur honestly: not only to confess our own failures, but to examine the religious images we have inherited and ask whether they help us become more compassionate, more responsible, and more just human beings.

Ha’azinu leaves us with a God who is impossible to capture in a single metaphor.

Perhaps that is its deepest lesson.

We cannot fully understand God.

But we can choose how we speak about God.

And perhaps, just as we have transformed sacrifice into prayer, we can transform our images of God—from Rock and Warrior, King and Judge, to metaphors that allow us to experience the divine as compassion, presence, connection, and life.

 G’mar Chatimah Tovah.