Parshat: Ha’azinu

[God] set them atop the highlands,
To feast on the yield of the earth;
Nursing them with honey from the crag,
And oil from the flinty rock

~ Deuteronomy 32:13

 In the penultimate parsha of the Torah, Moses recites a poem to the Israelites, a testimony of their covenant with God. The poem is filled with imagery depicting the relationship between God and the Israelites, including multiple metaphors describing a God who births and nurses the Israelites. Drawing on this imagery, an ancient midrash from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer imagines this story:

Rabbi Shela said: All the children (of the Israelites) whom the Egyptians cast into the river did not die, for the river cast them up, and threw them into the desert of Egypt. The Holy Blessed One brought a rock to the mouth of each one, and a rock to the side of each one. The rock which was at his mouth was feeding him with honey and milk, and the rock which was at their side was anointing them with oil, like a lying-in woman who anoints her son, as it is said, “And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock” (Deut. 32:13).

~Rachel Petroff Kessler