A Code for the Year Ahead

Who remembers the 1980s TV commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce?

An Italian grandmother questions whether Prego can really replace homemade sauce. As she lists the essential ingredients, the answer is always the same, “It’s in there!” Eventually, she tastes it and agrees, “It’s in there!”

For those familiar with the commercial, the phrase stuck.

“It’s in there!” applies to Parshat Ha’azinu.

Ha’azinu is one of the most poetic and mysterious passages in the Torah. In just 52 pesukim, Moshe presents a sweeping vision of Jewish history past, present, and future. Some would say literally everything is in there.

Rabbi Yechiel Heilprin, in Seder HaDorot, recounts the story of Ramban and his student Avner, who became an apostate and rose to power. Avner had abandoned Judaism, in part, because he once heard Ramban say that all of existence and all the mitzvot could be found within Ha’azinu. He dismissed the claim as impossible. Ramban insisted it was true.

Avner challenged the rabbi, “Show me where my name is mentioned there!”
Ramban prayed and then pointed to the verse: “I said that I would make an end of them; I will eradicate their remembrance from mankind.” (Devarim 32:26) The third letter of each word spells out Rabbi Avner.

Avner was shaken. He asked his teacher, “Is there a cure for my sickness?”
Ramban responded, “You have heard the words of the verse itself.”
Avner boarded a ship, went wherever the wind took him, and was never heard from again.

The belief that Torah contains hidden truths has fascinated Jews throughout the centuries. Rabbeinu Bahya spoke of God’s Names concealed in letter patterns. Kabbalists explored acronyms and gematria. In our time, Rabbi Eliyahu Rips used computers to search the Torah for hidden codes, claiming to find names, dates, and events embedded within its letters. His work generated enormous interest and controversy.

Professor Robert J. (Yisrael) Aumann, the American-born Israeli Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, was involved in examining the claims. He concluded, “Research conducted under my own supervision failed to confirm the existence of the codes - though it also did not establish their non-existence.”

While Aumann remained skeptical of the “Torah codes,” he is the perfect person to comment on what is “in” the Torah.

He was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany in 1930. His family escaped to the United States in 1938. He earned his PhD from MIT, did postdoctoral work at Princeton, and made aliyah in 1956. (In 1982, his first-born son, Shlomo, was killed while serving in the Israeli army during a battle with Syrian tanks.) Aumann is a connoisseur of everything and connects everything to its Divine source. He famously recited the blessing of HaTov V’HaMeitiv, God is good and does good, in front of 1,400 guests while delivering his toast at the royal banquet following the Nobel awards ceremony.

Aumann once said, “To understand the Torah, you have to understand it as one whole, not separate pieces.” This recalls Ben Bag Bag’s teaching Pirkei Avot: “Hafoch bah va’hafoch bah d’kola bah - Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it.” Whether or not we believe in Torah codes, Ha’azinu teaches us that the Torah is not just a record of the past; it is an all-inclusive guide to live by now and take us into the future.

I heard of a rabbi who was once questioned by the IRS for including the theatrical trade paper Variety in his tax deductions. The rabbi responded, “Do you know how many good sermons I have gotten out of that paper?!” I’m not sure how much the tax man appreciated that, but the point is that Torah is everywhere.

The Torah is God’s ongoing communication to us, and every generation, every individual, can discover their story in its words.

The question is not whether we can find our names spelled out in Ha’azinu or in computer grids. The question is whether we can find Torah spelled out in us. Is Torah evident in the way we speak? In the way we treat our families? In the way we spend our time and respond to other people? The Torah offers a code; we have to live by it.

We read Ha’azinu now so that we take the energy and passion of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and apply it forward to the new year. The next stops are Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Sukkah is an all-encompassing mitzvah. We don’t just perform the mitzvah. We enter it and live in it. Simchat Torah represents joyous Jewish living. We don’t just learn Torah; we dance with it. We then take all of that religious experience and that try to channel the energy into the following months of ordinary Jewish living without holidays.

As 5787 begins, our challenge is to crack the code. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Take one Torah idea from these High Holidays and live it. Learn a little more Torah. Take one mitzvah more seriously. Attend minyan more often. Reach out to one Jew who could use more connection. Do one more act of kindness. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It just has to be real.

If we listen to the Torah’s song and translate its wisdom into action, then our deeds become the letters, words, and chapters of the Jewish future.

And everything we need? It’s in there!