TorahParsha

Who is the center of the world?

for Parshat Ri'eh

 

i

Moses says:

when you come to the Land

bring sacrifices

not to any place

that you wish—

but solely to God’s Temple,

solely to the place

that God has chosen.

God’s place

—God—

is the destination,

the center of your spiritual world.

 

ii

Moses shares Laws of food:

do not drink blood;

eat only kosher animals;

do not cook an infant goat

in its mother’s milk.

*

When you eat,

the things that are outside of you

you bring within you.

You become the destination,

the center of the world.

*

The Laws of food

make food a thing

of the world of God.

And eating becomes

bringing the world of God

inside of you.

Eating makes you the center

of God’s world.

 

iii

Together,

God is the center of your world,

you are the center of God’s.

Our bond is two-way.

___

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

What do we do with our journey once we are settled?

 

for Parshat Ri'eh

i

Moses says:

Pronounce blessing for doing good from Mount Grizzim.

Pronounce curse for  doing evil from Mount Eival.

And Moses says where these mountains are.

*
Moses says:

Do not serve God each man according to what is good in his own eyes.

Serve in the place which God will show you,

in His Temple.

*

Moses says:

Do not add to what I command you,

and do not lessen from it.

*

Moses says these things to a people at the end of a forty-year journey.

Now there is a location for good and for evil,

and for serving God.

And now there are boundaries to the Law.

Here is an end to wandering.

 

ii

But after this wandering

we learn no more Law.

 

We know Law

from the Books of Moses,

the books of our wandering.

We study these books of our wandering

to know what we have learned,

to know what we must do

after our wandering ends.

 

iii

We live an exacting life

that is born of journeys

that we remember always

so our exacting life

will contain the journey

it was born from.

 

 

_________

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

 

Please pray for Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, a one-year-old who needs a bone marrow transplant, and get your cheek swabbed today.

For further reading on Torah and the Parsha, consider: Hirhurim – Jewish Ideas Daily - Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s writings –Pardes  - The Virtual Beit Midrash – Yeshiva University Online

 

 

Thought for Parshat Re'eh

Are we universalists?

 

i

Moses says: When you come to the Land—

Stand upon Mount Grizim. Pronounce blessing for following God’s ways.

Stand upon Mount Eival. Pronounce curse for defying God’s ways.

*
Moses says:

Do not be like those who worship upon the high mountains and on the hills, and under every leafy tree.

Worship at the place that God will choose.

 

ii

Moses says:

You are not here to join to the whole universe.

You are here to shape just a few corners of the world—

Infuse those few corners with sanctity, with blessing, with an upright life.

 

___________

Based on the philosophy of Rav Ezra Bick

 A particular thanks to my wife, Kathi, for this week’s editing.

 

___________

Shabbat shalom, Abe

___________

If you enjoyed this thought, please share it with a friend.

Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther.

www.TorahParsha.com

 

The Levite With You

i
You must eat of the gifts that you bring to God in the place which HaShem your God shall choose: You, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your midst.

ii
Levi is the tribe of the priests. Levi has no tribal land of its own; it lives scattered amongst the other tribes.

For the Levite needs no inherited, ancestral land: God is his inheritance.

*
When you eat before God, you bring this landless man, whose inheritance is God, to join you.

iii
One might have thought that the opposite should be the case.

One might have thought that you should be the one to leave your tribe, your clan, to cling to the man of God.

Instead, you bring the man of God to join you.

*
We are not asked to uproot our world in the name of God’s world.

We are asked to bring the world of God into the life that we have.

With indebtedness to Rav Yair Kahn’s reading of Parshat Korach.

Shabbat shalom, Abe

If you enjoyed this thought, please find one friend to share it with. E-mail signups available at TorahParsha.com.