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This week’s Torah portion opens with the word re’eh which means ‘to see’ or ‘to behold. So right away we are aware that God is trying to get our attention. The Bible uses many different opening words to make a point. A good example of this is when the when the Lord says ‘listen’. This is usually a call to obedience because in Jewish thought there is a link in between hearing and obeying. For example in Gen 22:18 we read that all the nations of the earth will be blessed because Abraham obeyed God’s voice. The word which most English translations have translated here as ‘obey’ is the Hebrew word ‘to listen’. The Jewish translation of the Tanach (JPS) translates it not as obey but as ‘hearken’ which means to listen attentively and carries the idea of taking heed or paying close attention to what is being said.
It has been said that when the Torah says “listen” that we are to make a commitment that involves our intellect. There is a sense that God is saying to us come and listen there is something I want you to do. He is communication with us. The ability to hear what is actually being said is the key to all good communication. How often do we say to one another you’re not listening and what we really mean you don’t understand!
So what is God saying when He says behold? The dictionary defines the word behold as to ‘perceive through mental faculties’; in other words to ‘comprehend’ as well as the more common understanding of gazing upon something. The rabbis say that sight is connected to our emotions: typified in the phrase “seeing is believing”. It is such a deeply human reaction to life I only believe in what I can see and touch. The point is made that it is easier to commit to something we can see. The rabbis say then that what is being called for is an emotional response.
In our opening verse God presents us with a spiritual truth.
"See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: Deut 11:26
He is in fact making an offer to His people and they are being asked to consider it and make a choice. He is asking us to pick this truth up and to examine it to weigh it up and consider it and make a life choice. He never forces our obedience, or even demands it because He has given us the capacity to choose to follow Him, to choose to walk in obedience before Him. Obedience when given freely is a precious gift of worship to God.
The Torah is more than a list of commands or even requirements it is a way of being. Some Christian theologies accuse us of living under the yoke of the Law seeing only bondage but to those of us who as Jews love Yeshua we find ourselves faced with this same choice. Will we live God’s way?
As I read this week’s Parshah it is all about choices our choices and God’s. We are free to choose and it’s this choice that will determine the direction of our lives’. I am reminded of an old Scottish theologian who said that the worth of a man’s soul is measured by the object of love and the way in which he loves it. So it is for us too, the value or the worth of our souls is measured by what we consider to be the most important the most precious thing in our lives. For some it is the love of a husband or wife, for others the gift of a child, for others their work; but these amazing things finds their source in God and when we truly understand that then we are indeed rich because our love for God and our gratitude to Him enriches all of these experiences and gifts.
In these chapters we some of God’s choices: firstly we see the offer that He makes us the blessings of obedience or the curse, the punishments that come from rebellion – from choosing to turn away from our source, from the One who made us and who loves us more than any other. A God who desires our fellowship and had designed a covenant that presents to us not simply a God who demands our service but a God who delights to bless His children, a God who enjoys loving us.
"You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. Ex 15:13
"It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. Deut 7:7
"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. Deut 7:9
"Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Deut 10:15
It is good for us to remember that God’s heart is motivated by love and that all that He says and does flows out of the greatness of the love that He feels toward us. As a people our ancestors chose to accept His Torah – His Covenant. It is a contract with obligations on both sides –ours is to obey and worship Him and His to protect and bless us. I found this explanation of obligation: ‘the constraining power of a promise’. And Promise is the heart of the Torah God’s promises to us as His people and our promises to him.
God is bound by His promises and He can act in no other way than He has said – in other words He constrained to act in line with His Word. He can do nothing else. We on the other hand are fickle. If it makes us feel good we inevitably want to do what satisfies but we find difficult we try to avoid. We often feel hemmed in by rules or regulations even if they are for our benefit.
Later in the book of Deuteronomy Moses records God saying:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." Deut 30:19-20
What we see in the verses is God’s heart and we called to respond. Some say “choose life” is a command. God doesn’t say obey me and I will bless you – He says choose me and I will be your life. Loving and obeying Him is the key to unlocking His blessings in our life.
I said this Torah Portion was about choices and it is. The first presented by God confronts us with how do we want to live our lives. In chapt 12 we see God stating that the place of worship would be His choice. When He told Moses to build the Mishkan (Tabernacle) He was choosing how to reveal His Presence too Hi s people now He is choosing the where.
But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the LORD your God has blessed you. Deut 12:5-7
The Targums which are ancient translation of the Torah say that the place He will chose is where His Shechinah will dwell. The word Shekhinah comes from the Hebrew verb שכן means literally to settle, inhabit, or dwell and so Shechinah means His Presence. He is saying this is the place where I will dwell where I will make my home among you, this is the place of meeting where you will come to me with your offerings.
All of the commands that God lays out before us confront with choices about the way we want to live our lives and the kind of people we want to be. Let me give you an example from this Parshah (Torah Portion) that strikes at the very essence what Judaism calls Mitzvah.
There is a mitzvah, a good deed which Judaism prizes almost above all else and that is if charity of giving to the poor and we read how to do it in this Parshah. The example is given of someone who becomes poor and God tell how to give to him:
......you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it might me
Deu 15:8
You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Deu 15:10
What really challenged me was that we are told to give open generous heart and as I read this I thought of Yeshua and how He spoke of a new commandment that He would give that we would love one another as He loved love. The command to love our brothers and sisters is not exclusive to the Brit Hadashah. We are told in Lev 19:18
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.
But what makes it new is that Yeshua makes Himself the centre of it – the ultimate example of what loves means and in this kind of love we show that we belong to God.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Jn 13:34-35
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