Re'ih -- 5774

Parshat R’eih’s exploration of poverty and obligation contains an odd contradiction:  “There shall be no needy among you,” and “if, however, there is a needy person among you” (15:7 and 14, respectively).  If no one is in need, how can it be that someone is needy?  Rabbi Jill Jacobs presents a compelling reading that illuminates two approaches to helping.

Some people respond to pressing need, such as feeding the hungry tonight.  This is called Social Action.  Others recommend Social Justice – making structural changes to the way society is organized so that fewer people are hungry in the first place.  Which is more important?  “The Deuteronomic response to this debate is a refusal to take sides,” Jacobs writes (Righteous Indignation, Jewish Lights, page 150).  Both approaches are required – to meet pressing need and to prevent need as well.

How can I determine the right way for me to help?  Later in the parshah, when discussing the offerings we make to God at the pilgrimage festivals, the Torah shares some wisdom that might apply here:  “Each with his own gift, according to the blessing that your God has bestowed upon you” (16:17).  Each of us should bring our special blend of abilities to bear.  If you’re particularly personable, perhaps you could volunteer at the food pantry and make visiting more pleasant.  Good organizers can run food drives; those of strong bodies can glean citrus trees.  Everyone can give tzedakah of some amount.  To find your way to feed locals in need, visit UnitedFoodBank.org or call them at 480-926-4897.

There is much we can to do help, but we cannot stand idly by.  We do not have the luxury of being overwhelmed into inaction.  Our brothers and sisters are relying on us, and we cannot harden our hearts.

Va'etchanan -- 5774

Moses is full of contradictions.  Addressing the Creator, he says “’O God, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your might hand…’” (Deuteronomy 3:23).  Moses’ reference to God’s anatomy is understood to mean God’s power.  But when Moses continues, speaking to the Israelites, he reminds them that “you saw no shape when God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire” (4:15). 

Does God have a shape or not?  Does God have a form that resembles the human body?  We are told, after all, that we are created ‘b’tzelem Elohim -- in God’s image.”  Perhaps God is anthropomorphic.

Embedded within Parshat Va-et’chanan -- and indeed throughout Hebrew Scripture -- is the admonition “not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured in age in any likeness whatever:  the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth…” (4:16).  God has no body, we hold, that can be represented through physical material like stone or wood.  God cannot be limited in such a way.

Perhaps this is because the human perception of God should not be limited.  At some times in our lives, we relate to God in a particular way but that relationship changes as we do.  As children, we experience God as an authority figure, like a king or a parent.  As adults, we may be engaged by God as friend or as energy.  At Yom Kippur we contemplate God as a Judge; at Passover God is the Redeemer.  When we concretize God in sculpture or in perception, we reduce God’s possibilities.  We also diminish the ways we can connect with, and benefit from, the God-idea.

Although the Israelites did not see God, the Torah tells us that they heard God:  “God spoke those words – those and no more – to your whole congregation at the mountain, with a mighty voice out of the fire and the dense clouds (5:19).”  What is the difference between hearing and seeing?  For one, the ear can hear multiple sounds simultaneously – the siren AND the music AND the child’s chatter.  Perhaps the Torah uses the metaphor of hearing God, while rejecting the metaphor of seeing God, to remind us of God is available to us through a multiplicity of personae, and that one need not block another.