Reeh

Devarim 11:26-16:7

Seeing God: Making Room for a Vivid and Visual Theology

Michael Rosenberg, 5765

As I have mentioned before on this list, many Hasidic interpreters-I heard it first in Chabad circles-emphasize that the name of a parashah is not merely the randomly-chosen first word of the parashah, but rather, it actually expresses the underlying theme of that parashah. While sometimes it can be difficult to accept this claim, this week such a connection is particularly striking. Many of the ideas in this devar torah, by the way, were motivated by derashot of the Netivot Shalom, the rebbe of the Slonimer sect of Hasidism.

The parashah begins with a command to see: "See [that] I am giving you this day blessings and curses"-"רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה" (11:26). The commentator Or ha-Hayyim points out that this is a strange request; the people are being asked to see words. "Listen," or "understand," would have made sense here, but instead, the people are asked to see the words. In answer to his question, Or ha-Hayyim says that the people are asked to see because of the polarity between faith in God and God's goodness, on the one hand, and attraction to the temptations of the world, on the other. The things that tempt people are (usually) physical objects, the very sight of which both testifies to their existence and induces desire-I want an ice cream cone because I see it, and I can smell it, and I certainly can taste it. However, we have no such physical, sense-based experience of the existence of God, and perhaps more important, we have no sense-based experience that acting in accordance with God's will is in fact a good thing. Mosheh tells us to "see" the blessing and the curse, because we are expected to relate to our acceptance of God's existence and God's law as if we can see it as clearly as we see the ice cream cone.

Faith and sight are intertwined throughout this parashah. Most notably, just as the parashah began with an injunction to see, so, too, it ends with a command involving sight. Verse 16:16 reads:

The verse is famously difficult to translate because of the phrases bolded above regarding sight. As I have translated it here, the male Israelites will go to a chosen place to present themselves before God, where they will bring offerings. This translation is based primarily on the vowels in the Hebrew word .י.ר.א, which is a future tense form of the verb meaning "to see". As vocalized in our Tanakh, the word is in the passive form, and thus, we translate it to mean that the males will "be seen" by God.

However, the use of the word "אֶת"-a word that marks a noun as the direct object of a clause-before God's name in the verse, suggests that the object of our verb should be God. Furthermore, the passive form here requires understanding the word "פְּנֵי", which usually means "face of" in the Torah, as "in front of" or "before," an unusual meaning in this form of Hebrew. Thus, some scholars have suggested that the original meaning of the verse was not that each Israelite male should be seen by God (יֵרָאֶה), but rather, that each one would go on these festivals to SEE God (יִרְאֶה). Most of the year, God was an abstract idea, but on these three occasions, the male half of the population had the opportunity to experience God in a sense-based way. Apparently, at some point, the editors of the biblical text were uncomfortable with the idea that people could actually see God, given that so much of Jewish theology is focused on the idea that God has no corporeal form, and thus, by simply changing the vowels, they were able to get the verse to jibe with their theology, albeit while creating some exegetical problems in the process.

In addition to creating these interpretive challenges, the editors who chose to vocalize the text as they did also encapsulated the tension highlighted by the Or ha-Hayyim. How are we meant to relate to God? Is God supposed to be a real, physical presence in our lives, one that we experience with the vividness of our tangible surroundings, or is God a more abstract presence?

Perhaps more important than answering this question is considering what is gained or lost by either option. Clearly, the Or ha-Hayyim's assumption is that a visually experienced theology is more compelling than an abstract one, because our commitment to it will inevitably be greater. If we relate to God and Torah in as immediate a way as we relate to those things that tempt us, we will be more motivated to live in accordance with God's will. Or ha-Hayyim won't go back to a theology in which God or the Torah actually is seen, but he wants us to aim for feeling as if we have physically experienced them.

Understanding the advantages of an abstract theology provides a greater challenge. But I think our parashah may provide some insight into that question as well. Approximately midway through the reading for this week, in 14:1, we read the following verse:

Apparently, a common mourning practice in the Ancient Near East was to inflict bodily harm on oneself. God commands us not to engage in such a practice. Once again, we turn to the commentary of the Or ha-Hayyim, who is troubled by the seemingly tenuous connection between the two halves of the verse. Of all the places in the Torah to tell us that we are God's children, why should a prohibition on taking on local mourning practices be the locus for this information? What does a command not to inflict bodily harm on ourselves have to do with our theological status as God's children?

Or ha-Hayyim says that the information that we are God's children is meant to express that death is not a reason for sadness; rather, when a relative passes away, he claims, we are meant to be happy for that person, since she has now returned back to her heavenly parent. Therefore, the Torah tells us not to engage in acts of self-affliction when relatives pass on. Sforno offers another interpretative solution to the same problem; we are supposed to think of God as our heavenly parent, and indeed, as our closest "relative." Thus, it is inappropriate to express total grief in the face of a relative's death when our nearest companion, God, continues to live.

I am still struggling personally to determine to what extent these interpretations will become a part of my own theology and attitude toward life. There is a part of me that finds them offensive-how can we not express total grief when a person who has been a vivid part of our lives for so long been taken from us? If we truly value human life and relationships, then we must take seriously our grief when those relationships are taken from us.

On the other hand, there is something strangely beautiful-if only in an abstract way-by the idea that we are supposed to take our relationship with God so seriously even in our moments of greatest sorrow. A similar sentiment is expressed by a ruling of the Rema (Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 98:1):

We are expected to recognize while in synagogue that there is no love as great as the love of God-to kiss someone, anyone, even a child, this ruling suggests, is to devalue our relationship with God.

In some ways, allowing my theology-at times, at least-to rest comfortably in the realm of theory, allows me to incorporate ideas that I find both compelling and offensive at the same time. As long as my relationship to God and Torah is somewhat abstract, I can grasp both poles-the pole that says there is no love like the love of God, and the pole that tells me that all that matters are my relationships with the human beings God has put in my life. That, perhaps, is the great advantage of a conceptual approach to Torah and life, the ability to incorporate tensions, and indeed, even contradictions.

And yet, there are times- Hurricane Katrina's horrible devastation in New Orleans this past week certainly springs to mind-when reality must kick in, times when we must really see in every human being's face an image of God that impels us to act. Thus, the Torah is not full of injunctions to see. Listening and understanding are far more common-and conceptual-expectations on us. But we must allow for, at times, the need to grasp onto that pole of vision, of vivid, sense-based, theology. And thus, Mosheh demands of the people the ability to see both the blessing, and the curse.

Shabbat Shalom.