"The place which HaShem your G-d shall choose"
(Deuteronomy 12:5)
Av 24, 5783/August 11, 2023
"Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse!" (Deuteronomy 11:26) A blessing and a curse! That implies choice, and choice itself, as we know, is a blessing and a curse. Immediately after fashioning Adam from the dust of the earth, G-d challenged him with a choice: observe My one commandment, (don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge), or transgress My one commandment; the choice, O finest of My creations, is yours! And ever since that moment man has been saddled with the blessing and the burden of choice. Blessing or curse, what'll it be? Your choice!
Following the bold headline of a blessing and a curse, and a quick introduction to the ceremony which will take place on Mounts Gerizim and Eval, (to which the Torah will return only sixteen chapters from now), the Torah suddenly changes direction and focuses on an entirely new concept: "the place which HaShem your G-d shall choose... to set His Name there." (ibid 12:5) It is crystal clear what the Torah has in mind, yet the words Mishkan (Tabernacle) or Mikdash (Holy Temple) are never used. Only HaMakom (the Place) that HaShem will choose. The expression appears no less that sixteen times in this week's parashat Re'eh - Behold!
So it appears that man is not the only one blessed with the ability to choose: G-d also can choose! In this case G-d is doing Israel a great favor. Lest the tribes squabble over whose territorial inheritance upon which the future Holy Temple will be built, HaShem will make the choice for them. And this should come as no surprise. After all, in the immediate aftermath of the receiving of the Ten Commandment at Mount Sinai did not G-d instruct Israel, "An altar of earth you shall make for Me... Wherever I allow My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you." (Exodus 20:21)
So G-d has a place in mind. Clearly He has already made His choice: Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. And how do we know this? Let's travel back in time to yet another dramatic confrontation between G-d and man, another impossible challenge set by G-d before man, and another destiny shaping choice made by man and by G-d: the binding of Yitzchak on Mount Moriah! The Torah clearly wants us to pick up on this trail, as the story of the Akeida (the binding of Yitzchak), which is narrated in Genesis, chapter twenty two, is also suffused with the word re'eh - seeing - and the word makom - place. G-d sets before Avraham a blessing and a curse:
"Take your son, your only one, whom you love, yea, Yitzchak, and go away to the land of Moriah and bring him up there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I will tell you." (Genesis 22:2) G-d has set before Avraham an impossible choice: if he chooses the blessing - following G-d's will, he loses his son. If he rebels and refuses G-d's command, he loses his G-d! But by taking up G-d's challenge, and fulfilling G-d's every word with alacrity and determination, Avraham threw the impossible choice right back at HaShem: insist that Avraham follow through on Your heartbreaking command and lose Your friend in the world, or relent, and create a place of understand and trust between You and Your servant Avraham.
That place (makom) of trust and understanding would become the place of the Holy Temple. Avraham realized it immediately and stated so in no uncertain terms, naming "that place, HaShem will see, as it is said to this day: On the mountain, HaShem will be seen." (ibid 22:14) It is the place where man and G-d see eye to eye, where man and G-d both make a choice - to each take a step back and create a shared space, in which and from which man and G-d can dwell together, full partners in the maintenance and upkeep of creation.
"Three times in the year, every one of your males shall appear (yera'eh) before HaShem, your G-d, in the place He will choose." (Deuteronomy 16;16) It's all about showing up, being accountable, taking up G-d's challenge and making the right choice. The place of the Holy Temple, the place that HaShem will choose, is more than simply a physical location. It is a place of the heart and soul, a place where man sees G-d and G-d sees man, a place where man is commanded to "rejoice... and celebrate... you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are within your cities." (ibid 16;14-15) It is the place to which we are to bring all that we are and all that we can be, "according to the blessing of HaShem, your G-d, which He has given you." (ibid 16:17)
The right choice, the choice to let G-d in, to allow a space within which HaShem's presence can emanate and illuminate our beings, is the blessing. But it is always a matter of choice. The establishment of the Holy Temple, this place of shared intent and understanding, of love and trust and yearning, is a constant, daily choice to be made anew each dawn, just as the altar fires and the menorah lamps are kindled anew each morning.
Avraham had to think fast when G-d set before him a choice, a blessing or a curse. And so do we. We may think that time is on our side, and that whether we accept HaShem's challenge to build a Mikdash, a Holy Temple, a place to stand before HaShem, a place to see eye to eye, is something we can deliberate on and weigh it plusses and its minuses, its inconveniences and its perils. But G-d is waiting. He has made His choice. He knows the location of the Place. Are we going to rise up in the morning like Avraham to meet G-d in that Place? Are we going to choose the blessing?
HAFTARA FOR SHABBAT PARASHAT RE'EH
Isaiah 54:11-55:5:
"O poor tempestuous one, who was not consoled, behold I will set your stones with carbuncle, and I will lay your foundations with sapphires.
And I will make your windows of jasper and your gates of carbuncle stones, and all your border of precious stones.
And all your children shall be disciples of HaShem, and your children's peace shall increase.
With righteousness shall you be established, go far away from oppression, for you shall not fear, and from ruin, for it will not come near you.
Behold, the one with whom I am not, shall fear, whoever mobilizes against you shall defect to you.
Behold I have created a smith, who blows on a charcoal fire and produces a weapon for his work, and I have created a destroyer to destroy it.
Any weapon whetted against you shall not succeed, and any tongue that contends with you in judgment, you shall condemn; this is the heritage of the servants of HaShem and their due reward from Me, says HaShem.
Ho! All who thirst, go to water, and whoever has no money, go, buy and eat, and go, buy without money and without a price, wine and milk.
Why should you weigh out money without bread and your toil without satiety? Hearken to Me and eat what is good, and your soul shall delight in fatness.
Incline your ear and come to Me, hearken and your soul shall live, and I will make for you an everlasting covenant, the dependable mercies of David.
Behold, a witness to nations have I appointed him, a ruler and a commander of nations.
Behold, a nation you do not know you shall call, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, for the sake of HaShem your G-d and for the Holy
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