Boulder Aish Kodesh

‘Look…’ says Moshe.  In modern American idiom, when we reach the point in an argument where words do not suffice, we say ‘look…’ as if to present a more obviously recognizable proof.  Moshe is 4 parshiot into his 37-day review of the entire Torah – it may well be that he has begun to recognize that words cannot suffice in order to communicate his point.  Then again, G-d taking them out of Egypt, splitting the sea, leading them through the desert by light of a pillar of fire, feeding them manna, quenching their thirst with a moveable well, and giving them the Torah on a fiery mountain didn’t seem to have much of an effect either.

 

 So, Moshe changes tactics.  There is no new piece of information that can be added.  Moshe knows that, in order to have a deeper impact on the Jewish people, in order to help them ‘see the light’, he will have to discuss their experiences in a new language.  While a new piece of information will not suffice, a new way of discussing their relationship to

G-d will allow them to grow within that relationship.

 

To this end, Parshat Re’eh contains phrases and approaches that we have not seen.  Moshe seeks to focus their attention away from laws as laws and toward laws as expressions of relationship to G-d. 

 

There is a phrase that occurs twice in the Parsha that lends a new dynamic to the relationship between G-d and the Jewish people – in 12:4, in context of the commandment to destroy all altars and places of worship of other nations, the Torah says ‘Do not do this unto Hashem your G-d.’  Further on, in 12:31, in context of a possible curiosity toward other religions, we find the same verse: ‘Do not do this to Hashem your G-d…’  Along these lines, we find, in 13:4, G-d testing us to see whether we still love Him with all our hearts and souls.  Destroying a name, or giving in to curiosity about other forms of worship can no longer be seen only as a relationship to one’s self or one’s world – they are now to be seen as reprehensible misdeeds in relationship to G-d.

 

According to Midrash Rabbah Re’eh 4:4, Hashem makes the Torah into the arbiter of the relationship between Him and us.  ‘My Torah is in your hands, and your soul is in my hands.  If you guard mine, I will guard yours.  If you cause mine to be lost, I will cause yours to be lost.’   Our relationship to the Torah becomes the very expression of our relationship to Hashem.  Therefore, a step away from the Torah is tantamount to a step away from G-d.

 

This view extends to monetary and dietary laws that are elucidated in the Parsha.  We can no longer see our tastes for forbidden food as a matter of appetite and not a matter of religion.  Nor can we claim that our unwillingness to tithe is a function of money-lust and not a reflection of relationship to G-d.  Our relationship to G-d is composite of all of our other relationships.

 

The Torah clearly wishes to allow indulgence in the pleasures of eating – ‘You shall offer and eat all that your soul desires, according to the blessing of your G-d’ – but wishes to keep those desires within the realm of relationship to G-d by restricting the place and commanding that blood not be eaten. 

 

Hashem demands that our relationship to Him take precedence over all other relationships.  More often than not, our interest in our relationships coincides with Hashem’s interest in our relationships.  There is a strong emphasis on family in this Parsha – 12:7 reads ‘ and you shall rejoice there, you and your household’.  12:12 reads, ‘and you shall rejoice before Hashem your G-d – you and your sons and daughters…’  But the Torah also presents the limit of family relations – as 13:7 reads, ‘and should your brother the son of your mother, or your son or daughter or your wife should lead you astray, saying ‘come, let us go worship other gods…’’ the Torah’s wishes are clear: ‘you shall not desire for this, and you shall not listen to him.  Let your eye not be compassionate upon him, and do not be merciful toward him or cover up for him.  You shall kill him; your hand shall be first to kill him.’ 

 

Similarly, we find promises of an expanded border – ‘and if the place that G-d shall choose as a resting place for His name shall be far from you, for G-d ahs blessed you 14:24)…’ But this comes in context of the commandment to tithe one’s crops and animals.  G-d’s wish, as expressed in this week’s Parsha, is that we have full enjoyment of the riches available to us in the land of Israel.  But that enjoyment must be in the context of our relationship to G-d, and not the opposite. 

 

There is, however, a deeper and more subversive danger than eating and money that can distract us from our relationship to G-d – religion.  The Kotzker Rebbe issues a stark warning regarding the verse ‘Do not do thusly (lit. ken) to Hashem your G-d’ that occurs after the commandment to destroy all of the places of worship of the Canaanite nations:  do not do mitzvot like someone who has been trained to do so.  Meaning, even religion itself can become a barrier to true and immediate experience of G-d.

 

As Moshe describes for us a new paradigm of relationship to G-d, it is also understood that we stand to receive infinite benefit from this relationship.  The converse of our responsibility to see each aspect of our lives not as an end unto itself but as a conduit of relationship to G-d is that we can see each aspect of our experience of the world as a conduit for Hashem’s relationship to us.  Just as we are always speaking to G-d through everything we do, so, too, G-d speaks to us constantly. 

 

We are invited into a relationship that does not end, that knows no bounds and cannot be limited to any particular realm.  This is not simple – we cannot ever hide from the one who ‘understands all of their actions.’  We cannot run from those eyes, those ears.  The temptation to hide is fierce – to hide in one’s work, one’s books, or one’s devotions.  And should we choose to run, we are told that the fierce response we receive is just as much Hashem talking to us as when we are being blessed.  ‘See, I give to you today blessing and curse…’