Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, O earth hear
the words of my mouth. May my teaching
drop like rain, may my words flow like dew, like downpours upon plant leaves
and like raindrops on blades of grass. (Deuteronomy 32:1-2)
Hear, O
heavens, and give ear, O earth, for God has spoken. (Isaiah 1:2) 
Yesterday, we were blessed by the first rain after Israel’s dry summer that invites fresh growth to sprout from the wet earth.
Moses could only see the Land of Israel from a distant
mountain top. Isaiah lived in the midst
of the complexities of life in the Land.
Isaiah's vision of bringing spirituality down into all aspects
of everyday life reaches a higher level than Moses' view from above.
Ha'azinu summarizes the Torah for the Israelites as
they are about to enter the Land of Israel.
We repeat here one image from each of the Five Books of
Moses that summarize our life in Israel today.Genesis. We photographed all the days of Creation within ten steps of our front door. The red leaves are the creation of the third day.
Exodus. Our granddaughter plays at welcoming Shabbat
when we tune out, turn off, unplug, and rest from our creating to honor God's.
Leviticus. All torah is in a potato if we reveal it
by carving out letters that have no separate existence from the potato itself.
Numbers. Hamas charter: "Jews hide behind trees that cry: O
Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him."
Deuteronomy. Bringing the blue of sky down into the
red (adom) of earth (adamah) lowers spirituality into the
earth-bound world of physical reality.
We return to Genesis as we rewind the Torah scroll
and begin again. On the eighth day, we become the partners of God in the
continuing creation.
Miriam recycled our Sukkot etrog (citron) by pressing
cloves into it, creating a refreshing scent at the conclusion of Shabbat every
week.