Shabbat Re'eh
Written by Dr Annette M Boeckler Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Vayehi binsoa ha-aron – “Whenever the ark was about to move on, Moses would say: O God, may your enemies be scattered …” (Num. 10:35). With these words many Jewish congregations open their Ark for taking out the Torah Scroll to be read. This week’s parashah, Re’eh (“See!”), contains some of the sharpest weapons to scatter spiritual “enemies”.
“One people, one God, one kind of worship service”. I read this a few years ago in a German Jewish newspaper, where it was used in a polemic against liberal liturgies. Our parashah sounds like an antique version of this slogan: You shall serve the Eternal One, your God, only at that place of worship God has chosen to worship Him. and in only that way that He has commanded you. You shall completely destroy any other kinds of worship (cf. Deut. 12: 2–5).
This is followed by another sharp verbal weapon: If someone teaches you new things, he is a false prophet. You shall not let him live (cf. Deut. 13: 2–6). As our relationship to the text is by interpretation, anybody could interpret this in a way that suits him or her and declare any persons with other opinions as false prophets to strengthen his or her own position. Of course, the text gives us a criterion: a false prophet is someone who teaches not to follow the Torah. But depending on our own interpretation of right and wrong, this “not to follow” could be many different things in different congregations.
Nevertheless Deut 12 and 13 seem to teach us that the Jewish people should somehow be united in its religious worship. Today what unites us is clearly not one exclusive place of worship, nor one exclusive style of worship, nor the one content of teaching. Indeed, the hope to rebuild that one place of worship (the Temple) in that one location (Jerusalem) is a dividing factor in Judaism. Similarly, the central content of the following chapter (Deut 14)—kashrut—is not a source of unity, as different Jewish movements hold different understandings of this principle. What is it, then, that unites the Jewish people today?
The last two chapters of our sidra might offer an answer: Tsedaqah and Chagim. We must support the needy and the poor and enable them to live their lives in freedom, because we all were slaves in Egypt and God has redeemed us (Deut 15:11–15). We must celebrate the Jewish festivals to remind us of our common history, expecially that we were slaves in Egypt (Deut 16).
To see where we are called to support others, to see the tasks and consolations of our common Jewish history, does not this unite the Jewish people today and throughout all generations? Even if there are many different ways to give Tsedaqah depending on the situation, and many different ways to celebrate the Jewish festivals depending on the celebrating personalities, we are united by a common task and shared history.
By its commandments about cult centralisation, false prophets and kashrut, Parashat Re’eh challenges us to think about the dangers of divergent interpretations, and by its social and ritual commandments it teaches us to preserve our unity in diversity.
