Session 39: Parashat Haazinu
"Wrongs of History Righted," Mildred Lewis Rutherford, 1914
Parashat Haazinu, the penultimate portion of the Torah, includes Moses’ closing address to the Israelites. Moses focuses on God’s relationship with the Israelite people, stretching back and forward in time, tested by Israelite sin, redeemed by God’s mercy. In appealing to their ancestral relationship with God, Moses urges the people to learn their history, to hear the stories of their forebears, and to seek meaning in them.
History is shaped by people and is therefore not immune to subjectivity. Recent revisions and removals of information at several National Parks, initiated by the federal government, highlight the limitations of relying on history as objective truth. These alterations de-emphasize the atrocities of chattel slavery and persecution of indigenous tribes in America, perpetuating this country’s record of historical revisionism–a prominent example of which is the Lost Cause narrative of the Confederacy, encapsulated in the 1914 address, “Wrongs of History Righted,” delivered by Mildred Lewis Rutherford to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
As always please use the comments section below to add feedback and ideas about how you used this study sheet in your community. American Scripture Project is a collaborative platform.