PARSHAH RE’EH
Friday, August 26, 2011
26 Av 5771)
“Open Your Hand and Your Heart”
It was August, four years ago, that a little band of Jews and Christians were making their interfaith way through the cities and towns of Israel. The purpose of the journey was to experience together — side-by-side, hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder — our Story … and to experience our Story by being placed ever so gently and lovingly into the locations where the roots of our Story are found. Like Moses, who in the readings in our congregation of last Sunday, is given his name by the Egyptian Princess, “… because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” … we were pulled out of the rivers of our own joys and sorrows, from our individual wants and needs, from the things we wonder about and the things that make us laugh and cry and oftentimes weep even more rivers of tears … and placed together into embracing the mystery of our faith.
One Friday night as the sun was setting we celebrated Shabbat along the shore of the Mediterranean and remembered that night the one-year anniversary of the passing of the spouse of one of our group … this family of interfaith-ed-ness (one could say) co-joined to the history of the place of holiness, and co-joined to one another in a relationship of compassion and love … the very things to which our Story, each side of it, each part of it … brings us.
Tel Aviv, Haifa, Caesarea, Nazareth, the Galilee (Genesseret), Golan Heights, the Banias Spring, Mount Horeb, Masada, Bethlehem, Kibbutz Tzuba, Qumran, Jericho, and so many other places … and Jerusalem … each a holy name in its own way, where in its own time and place brought the sight of our roots and the insight, the understanding of each other … and what is that but a religious experience‽
It was somewhere along that journey that I last read with a great deal of depth this week’s Torah Portion, Re’eh.
For the members of my congregation, Re’eh is the first word of the section in Deuteronomy, that begins in Chapter 11, verse 26.
Deuteronomy is of course from the Greek word Δευτερονόμιον which itself comes from two Greek words deuteros and nomos meaning “second law” … in Hebrew of course דְּבָרִים … “Words” in particular the words of Moses, the speeches, the sermons which according to the Story, he delivered to the people collected along the Plains of Moab as they were waiting to cross over the Jordan and into the Promised Land.
So this portion of the Torah, is the continuing of Moses’ Sermon to the people where Moses speaks on behalf of God. It begins with the word Re’eh which means “See!” as in “See (!), this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of ADONAI … and curse, if you don’t …”
The whole section is about what makes for blessing and what does not, and there is warning … in fact a lot of warning about idolatrous practices; and there is a repeated emphasis on the place which ADONAI will choose for the people to worship … an obvious reference to Jerusalem.
There is a whole section on what you can eat and what you can’t.
I remember asking your Rabbi about bats and Hoopoes … clearly forbidden. I said, “I cannot imagine eating a bat under any circumstance, and I have no idea what a hoopoe is” (though from Wikipedia I now know it’s a rather colourful bird with a fancy crest that is found across Afro-Eurasia and is from the family Upupidae) … but at the time I said, “Hoopoe doesn’t sound like chicken to me.” And my question was, “Why are those things included in the prohibitions?”
And his answer, “If it’s there, you can be sure someone did it … the practice is prohibited, because someone had the practice!”
Moving on from other things you can’t eat like eagles, vultures, falcons, and buzzards … in my tradition we say Deo Gratia! … you come to a whole section warning against false prophets and other magicians who might try to woo God’s people into worshiping other gods … and what punishment should be inflicted upon them. There’s a piece about mourning customs, that you’re not allowed to shave the front of your hair or cut yourself in your grief.
Then there’s a lot about sharing … especially the tithe, so that no one will go wanting or hungry or in need.
And there’s the organization of the rituals … things taken today for granted. There’s the commandment of the three Feasts: The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Pesach), the Feast of Weeks (counting the Omer, counting the seven weeks to Shavuot (for our side of the text, Pentecost), and of course the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths (Sukkot).
And let us not forget the seventh year is to be a year of remission of debts, of forgiveness.
***
Probably one of the most significant parts of this portion of the Torah is that of opening your hand. Let me quote it for you, “If, however, there is a needy person among you … do not harden your heart and shut your hand … Rather, you must open your hand and lend that one sufficient for whatever is needed.”[1]
And why?
“For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy …”[2]
***
When I think of the Story we share, when I think of the faithful existence of this congregation and my own congregation who have lived in this community together for so many years, when I think of the service of your Rabbi, and all those people honoured this weekend, when I think of the learning and sharing and teaching and understanding, when I think of the love offered to me and my wife in a very personal way in our time of mourning, when I think of the seemingly little things we do together, the sharing of food and a wreath each year, and the planting of trees, when I think of the work we do together … not hardening our heart and shutting our hand to the homeless and hungry … when I think of all these things I know that this Torah Portion is especially significant for you and for us, together.
The word that begins this long reading is not the word we would expect. We don’t expect Re’eh … we would expect Shema …. “hear” … Shema is a word quite central to faith. But Shema is but one part of obedience, the other part of obedience is to “see” … to look with eyes of understanding so that what we hear can be brought alive, brought into being, made to happen … the opening of the hand, the opening of the heart to each other and to all in need … That is how you are led, that is what you do, that is who you are, that is what you teach and share … and to us, and to the Holy One, I believe, I know it is a blessing.
Amen.
Deo Gratias (+)
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church
Santa Fe, NM
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