Guest Sermon: Re'eh 2017 by Ken Cliffer

Shabbat shalom!

Before I start on the content of this d’rash, just a few words about what a d’rash is. The word “dr’ash” means a pushing or pressing – I think of it like pressing the juice out of grapes from which to make wine. You end up with a key essence of what you started with (and then you can enhance it). For Torah d’rash, the starting point is the Hebrew text, and the pressing is done with respect to the words that make up the text – of course, in the original Hebrew. Often, much is lost in translation to English. Pressing from the Hebrew words is the approach often used for d’rashim, and which I took a year ago when I did a d’rash on the Sh’ma, from the parsha [Torah portion] of two weeks ago, and that I took many years ago when I did one on Pharoah’s “hardening” (as it is often translated) of the heart. I am now doing a d’rash on the word “d’rash.”

Today I will consider the very beginning of the parsha, one point in the middle, and, very briefly, an implication for our current world.

Today's parsha opens with the word of its title, "Re'eh." This word means “see.” One of the words I focused on a year ago was “Sh’ma,” which is typically translated as “hear.” Two senses – seeing and hearing. Consider the difference. I’m thinking of seeing as seeing what is in the world, or what happens – and perhaps understanding it, as science helps us do. Hearing can be hearkening to a meaning, an underlying message. The beginning of this parsha has a version of both words in it, translating “re’eh,” the command form to a single person (you), as “see,” and “tish’ma’u,” the command form to the plural you (like you-all), as “obey.”

The translation in the big red book, the Etz Chai'im Chumash, is as follows: "See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced." The words for "blessing" and "curse" are "b'racha" and "k'lala." I will first explore a bit what these words translated as "blessing" and "curse" mean - in general and in the context of the beginning of the parsha.

"B'racha" is the word we use in many of our prayers, in reference to God - it's related to showing honor - its root is the same as that for "berech," knee, as kneeling is showing honor. It is as though, when we say a blessing, a "b'racha," that we are saying God is "kneeled before," "baruch" - honored (by us), for making or doing whatever we are praising God for in the prayer, meaning whatever we are thankful for. Note that we praise not the thing - the bread or the wine itself – rather, we praise God for the fact that the bread or the wine exists, in effect, by the work of God. Baruch the extractor of the bread from the earth. Baruch the maker of the fruit of the vine - the wine. Or baruch the One who provided us with holiness through commandments and commanded us about washing our hands. Et cetera. This is a way to show humility to the workings of the universe, that we are so lucky to have the things we have and to have ways to honor them. As Rabbi Mina noted in her d'rash last week, it's a way of being mindful of the world in which we live; not by honoring the particular things in it so much as the totality that allows the particular things to be. It keeps the things not only in awareness, but in perspective.

The beginning of this parsha elaborates on the bracha - the blessing - that God gives us. The Etz Chayim translation is "blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day." One thing that gets lost in translation is that the elaboration speaks to the people, plural - "you" means "you-all," or in Southern-speak, "y'all." Here's a translation I draw from the Hebrew:  “[I give you-all] the blessing, in which you-all hearken (tish'ma'u) toward the commandments of the Lord you-all's God, that I command you-all this day.” The Etz Chayim is conditional - I (God) give you the blessing IF you do such-and-so. The Hebrew does not include the IF - it presumes that the people will hearken, will hear, in the deep sense of paying attention and taking seriously - translated as "obey" - it uses the same word root as “hear” or “hearken” as is in the Sh'ma, about which I spoke almost exactly a year ago. But the Sh'ma is singular - here it's the plural command - hearken, or hear, you-all - hear deeply - so deeply that you take it seriously and thereby tend to honor and obey. No conditional in the Hebrew here - not IF - just "[I give you-all] the blessing THAT you all hearken toward." Note also that I used the translation "toward" rather than "obey." That is in the Hebrew - it's hyphenated - "el-mitsvot" - toward the commandments. This also relates to the challenge of the Sh'ma I noted last year. The wording is not so much that we MUST obey, but rather that we DO hearken toward the goal - and it may be a struggle. But the lack of a conditional IF can be interpreted as showing that not only are we to have faith in God, but God has faith in us to proceed seriously in the direction of the commandments.

The explanation of the second part, translated in Etz Chayim as the "curse," however, is conditional, not only in the translation, but also in the Hebrew. Etz Chayim's translation is this: “[I give you a] curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced." The word that is translated by Etz Chayim as "curse" is "k'lala." It comes from the same root as the word in Hebrew for "light" (i.e., lightweight) or "easy," "kal." I think of a curse as severe, not light or easy. The Hebrew word here does not connote to me so much the severity of a curse, with drastic consequences, as lightness, irrelevance, and lack of importance associated with doing the easy thing that ignores the real nature of the universe - by following false gods - rather than the more challenging right thing of recognizing and honoring the unitary marvel manifest in the diverse objects and processes of the universe. As an aside, the Hebrew word for honor, kavod, is the opposite - it is from a root that means "heavy," or "weighty." "K'lala" is, in effect, the opposite of honorable, the opposite of what is worth honoring by kneeling before it, "kavod" or "baruch." So I'll use a different word from "curse" here - not that it's a perfect translation, but you get the idea why I'm using it here from what I just said - "irrelevance." So, here’s an alternative translation: "And [I give you-all] the irrelevance if you-all do not hearken toward the commandments of the Lord, you-all's God and diverge from the path I command you-all today and go after other gods that you-all did not know." Here, again, we can interpret the use of the conditional for the negative path as a sign of God's faith in us, as God does not presume that we will go that way - just talks about what IF we were to do so - thereby to become more irrelevant to the world. God presumes we will hearken to the right way, but addresses what the consequence of the alternative would be, IF we were to take it. Like I said about the Sh'ma last year, it’s both demanding and forgiving, trusting in our pursuit of the right way (that’s the demanding part), but recognizing the challenge of it (the forgiving part). Note also that it talks about consequences, both here and for the blessing – consistent with the “see,” “re’eh” at the beginning. See the blessing of your hearkening and see the irrelevance IF you divert.

Now, I have a thought about one of the "laws and rules" contained in the parsha. It's one that addresses an aspect of kashrut - the laws for how we handle our food. It's the part that prohibits eating the blood with the flesh. First it notes, in the Etz Chayim translation, regarding the flesh (i.e., meat), "the impure may eat it together with the pure." Then, in the translation, "But make sure that you do not partake of the blood; for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the life with the flesh. You must not partake of it; you must pour it out on the ground like water; you must not partake of it, in order that it may go well with you and with your descendents to come, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of the Lord."

The Hebrew for what is translated as "the blood is the life" is "ha'dam hu ha'nefesh." “Nefesh” is translated as “life.” The more direct word for "life" in Hebrew, as many of you know from the toast "l'chayim," is "chayim." The word "nefesh" has more of a connotation of spirit or soul rather than life, per se. It's as though this passage points out that the blood represents the spirit or soul of the animal, something more than simply its state of being alive. I tend to consider nefesh as a human trait - it's like this passage, associating the blood with the spirit and soul, prohibits our consuming it as an element of our honoring that aspect of commonality between ourselves and the animals that nourish us. The stipulation to pour the blood out on the ground like water, rather than consuming it, may be seen as a way to return the symbol of the spirit and soul to the earth, like the life-giving essential water that the earth needs to sustain life, but more. It's like recycling the spirit and soul - a kind of ecological imperative that can enhance our humanity with an extra element of awareness and honor. This adds to Rabbi Mina's note about mindfulness in prayer an element of soulfulness in kashrut. In contrast, in the parsha, "sacred and votive" burnt offerings include both the flesh and the blood - a different category from what we eat.

Finally, a note for our “interesting” times. Let’s SEE the bracha IN WHICH we hearken TOWARD the commandments, and the irrelevance IF we follow another path – and let’s also SEE what goes on in our world and understand what the consequences are. Then let’s indeed HEARKEN to act honorably in light of our SEEING and the associated understanding. Each of us must consider how to SEE what we witness and what it means to HEARKEN honorably in response, but consider our honorable tradition as we do so and the possibility of irrelevance if we don’t.

Shabbat shalom!

© 2017 Ken Cliffer