Ha'azinu, Devarim 32:1. Hashamayim v’ha’aretz.

Now, two hours before Shabbas, here's a vort on Ha'azinu. I hope you get some use out of it. I don't have time to change all the O kametzes to A kametzes.


Hashomayim v’ho’oretz. The Kli Yokor says that the existence of the shomayim and oretz are eidus that the Torah is being fulfilled, because the "yom hashishi" reference to Matan Torah tells us that if not for the kiyum haTorah, the world could not exist. The Kli Yokor explains why Matan and Kiyum haTorah are a tnai for the continued existence of the world. He says that gashmiyus and ruchniyus are contradictory, and could not co-exist naturally. It is only the talmid chochom, who combines both ruchniyus and gashmiyus, and who thereby is ‘oseh sholom’ in the world, that provides that middle ground where the two can co-exist, and so allows them to co-exist in the whole world. Implicit in the Kli Yokor is the assumption that gashmius has no kiyum without some element of ruchnius.
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The Ksav Sofer also speaks about this, and talks about the fact that it is only the existence of the Torah that allows the world to continue. Reb Chaim Volozhiner in Ruach Chaim on Pirkei Avos in the first mishneh by "al shloshoh dvorim" says that the reason that avodah is essential to the existence of the world is that ruchnius comes down to our world of gashmius, and we in the Olam Hagashmi elevate dvorim gashmi’im through our korbonos and make them ruchni, so there is a constant two-way flow of ruchnius.
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Along the same lines, Reb Meir Simcha says a very deep vort (his own words— "al derech muskol") in 32:3. He says that the tachlis of this world is to prepare for olam habo. The perfect world is one in which people plant and harvest and bring their bikurim and leave their homes unattended while they go to Yerushalayim, and who are mamlich Hashem with every act they do (like Avi Mori Zecher Tzadik Livracha's vort by Medrash Talpios according to the Michlol that "Chanoch tofer manolim hoyo, ve’al kol tefira omar Boruch shem kvod..." simply by making them the best he could for the benefit of the customer and by being scrupulously honest in his business). He says that this is the pshat in the Gemora in Sanhedrin 20a, Sheker hachein zeh doro shel Moshe, vehevel hayofi, zeh doro shel Chizkiyahu, isha yiras hashem he tis’halol zeh doro shel Reb Yehuda bar Ilo’i, she’hoyu shisha miskasin betallis echad velomdim Torah. The nissim niglim, and the complete abeyance of teva by Moshe and Chizkiyahu are not olam hazeh: olam hazeh is supposed to be a preparation for olam habo. Their doros were olam habo mamash, so what purpose did that have? It is olam hazeh, in which people bend teva to kedusha and retzon Hashem, about which we say that ‘Yofe sho’o achas... mikol olam habo.’ Here, too, we see the idea that the greatness and opportunity of olam hazeh is to join gashmiyus to ruchniyus to create kedusha in this world.