Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.

In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the terror reading of the week.

Hazinu, let my teaching drop as rain.

In the glorious song with which Moses addresses the congregation,

invites the people to think of the terror their covenant with God

as if it were like the rain that waters the ground so that it brings forth its produce.

Let my teaching drop as rain. My words descend like dew, like showers on new grass,

like abundant rain on tender plants. God's word, in other words,

is like rain in a dry land. It brings life. It makes things grow. There's much we can do of our

own accord. We can plow the earth and plant the seeds, but in the end our successes depend on

something beyond our control.

If no rain falls, there'll be no harvest, whatever preparations we make. So it is with Israel.

It must never be tempted into the hubris of saying,

Kochiv Utssem Yadi, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.

The sages, however, sense something more in the analogy.

Listen to how the Sifre, which is a Mishnaic period commentary on Bermidban de Varym

actually puts it, let my teaching drop as rain?

Just as the rain is one thing,

yet it falls on trees,

enabling each to produce tasty fruit

according to the kind of tree it is,

the vine in its way,

...