Bringing Hashem In Place, Prophecy, and Prosperity
by R. Gidon Rothstein
Parshat Re’eh
Seeking Hashem, and Making a Point of the Seeking
After the Torah tells us to destroy the multitude of places idolaters worshiped alien powers, it requires us to worship Hashem in one place only, adding “le-Shichno tidreshu, to His Presence shall you inquire.” Ramban wonders why we should have to inquire, perhaps because it shouldn’t be that hard to find the way. He understands the Torah to be making a point of the value in asking the way to the House of Hashem.
[I think I assume he didn’t mean this as a practical matter, because we wouldn’t need a verse to tell us that if we do not know how to get somewhere, we should ask for directions.]
Ramban thinks the Torah’s idea includes saying to each other Yeshayahu 2;3, “come let us go up to the mountain of Hashem.” It isn’t about finding the way, it’s about encouraging each other, making a common national value of respect for this place, to see going there as an experience of encountering Hashem.
Ramban reads the verse as valuing not only the going, but the inquiring, Jews’ articulating to each other, from however far they come, that they are headed to the place of direct experience of Hashem.
Seeking on Our Own, Confirming from Hashem
Then he offers Sifrei’s reading, to inquire means to seek it from a prophet, not to wait for the prophet to come to you, but to inquire, and then the prophet will tell you. Ramban offers Sifrei’s example, David, who says in Tehillim he himself looked for where to build the Beit HaMikdash, finally selected it once the prophet (Gad) told him this was the right place.
A theme I’ve noticed before, Hashem wants us to combine human effort with divine messaging. The verse tells us to be doresh, to inquire, Ramban and Sifrei take it to mean we should look as well as access our avenues of hearing from Hashem directly.
Molech Proves the Complete Corruption of Idolatry
In 12;30, the Torah warns us not to be lured to follow worships of other powers, because adherents of those other worships burn their sons and daughters in fire. For Emet Le-Ya’akov, the Torah knows Jews are about to encounter Canaanites, some aspects of whose worship are beautiful. Jews might say, well, that’s nice, I’ll do only that.
By highlighting child burning, R. Kaminetzky hears Moshe saying, “how could you think there’s anything to be learned from people who could do that?”
[A deep question, some flaws reveal a corruption so deep, we’d avoid emulating such a person/group in any way. I’m on his side, but today, I think many would dismiss it as too broad-brush, would say we can pick and choose which of their practices are acceptable or good, and do those. And that’s true in some places, as well. The trick is knowing which is which.]
Logic Doesn’t Cover Everything
R. Kaminetzky notes Satan used this kind of reasoning in the Midrashic version of his trying to stop Avraham from the Akedah. A Midrash has Satan say to Avraham, how could God, Whom you know to be kind, compassionate, and more, order this terrible and inhumane thing?
[It reminds me of a phrase that always makes me perk up my ears, “the God I believe in would never…” where the person decides what God would or would not do. Here, Satan is saying, the God you believe in would never require you to sacrifice Yitzchak.]
Avraham responds as one must in the face of a direct divine command. Your logic is impeccable, he says, except God told me otherwise. When God speaks ambiguously, or leaves interpretation to us, there is room for human logic. When God says, “do this,” the faithful do, hard as it may be.
Good Prophets Gone Bad
Chapter thirteen of Devarim, verses two to six, introduces a navi sheker, a false prophet, who tries to misdirect the Jews to worship of other powers. The verse speaks of such a prophet arising “in your midst,” similar to 18;19, where Moshe reassures us that Hashem will establish a true prophet in our midst. R. David Tzvi Hoffmann says the similarity is deliberate.
R. Akiva inSanhedrin90a claimed the prophet here must have been a true one originally, since our verses accept the possibility s/he will perform a miracle to demonstrate prophetic status. God would never acquiesce to a miracle unless the prophet was true at that time, R. Akiva says. R. Hoffmann throws in that Ibn Ezra suggested the prophet heard the prediction from a true prophet and passed it off as his/her own.
Yose HaGelili disagreed, thought Hashem might let a false prophet produce some impressive feat to test our awareness of lines we may not cross no matter how awed we are by someone’s capabilities [a lesson worth remembering aside from prophecy; regardless of what someone accomplishes, if they speak against basic truths we know-God created the world, took us out of Egypt, commanded the Torah, and more—they are wrong and to be disregarded].
Hoffmann notes Ramban’s view, the Torah calls this person a prophet because s/he claims to be [using a title someone claims doesn’t mean we agree they deserve it]. Ramban then raises the possibility some people are born with a quasi-prophetic power, where predictions come to them, of signs and wonders, too, without it making them prophets.
Hoffmann thinks we have to accept either option, natural or supernatural, some people may seem to have knowledge we think accessible only through prophecy, yet we would still need to reject them and their predictions, because they say what we know to be impossible, that we should worship any power other than God.
Resident and Alien Non-Jews
The Torah prohibits nevelah, meat from an animal that died without proper slaughter. 14;21 tells us instead to give it to a ger or sell it to a nochri, two versions of non-Jews. Onkelos translates ger as totav arel, an uncircumcised resident, a ger toshav.
He reads the word the same way in Vayikra 25;47, where the verse refers to ger ve-toshav, a stranger and a resident, then to ger toshav, a resident alien. Onkelos has arel ve-totav then totav arel, so ger on its own means arel, an uncircumcised non-Jew, and toshav on its own is a resident.
For the contrast of ger to nochri, he perhaps had to explain why the Torah has us give the nevelah to the ger, but sell it to a nochri. If the uncircumcised non-Jew is a resident, we understand better. For nochri, he says bar amemin, a member of the nations, a translation he gives again in 15;3, regarding collecting loans after the shemittah year. It becomes a little surprising when we remember the Torah three times refers to a ben nechar, a son of strangers (or foreigners), and Onkelos two of those times also translates it as bar amemin.
[The one exception, Shemot 12;43, has him in line with Talmudic tradition, the ben nechar prohibited from eating a Pesach sacrifice meant a Jew who had left religion. That’s a really nonliteral translation with many interesting ramifications for how the Jewish people could have a Korban Pesach in the future—imagine a belief/practice test to be part of a Pesach!]
Onkelos shows us gradations of non-Jews and our relationship with them. There are strangers, members of completely other nations, and residents, with whom we are closer despite their continuing to be uncircumcised, to have refrained from joining the Jewish people.
True Independence
The bounty the Torah promises for proper observance of God’s Torah includes lending other nations, ourselves not having to borrow, ruling over many nations, none ruling over us, 15;6. Rashi explains the need for both sides of the equation to make clear we will not be middle-men, ruling over some, being ruled over by others, lending to some, in debt to others.
He reminds us true and full independence means being free of coercive influence, economically or politically. For example, Japan and China today each hold well over a trillion dollars of US debt. We need not ascribe any nefarious intentions to either country to recognize it limits US independence.
The promise is that Israel will not have that. It will be a country with influence and power, not beholden to anyone. [Not having to fly to Washington to kiss a ring, for example.]
The second piece of that promise—a simple truth I fear even some observant Jews fail to recognize—is that we cannot achieve such independence unless we fulfill Hashem’s Will. Certainly, economics and politics have a human element, part of our human responsibility is to do our best to shape societies that achieve the best outcomes for as many people as possible, without Hashem’s obvious affect or input.
But there’s a divine role as well, which we ignore at our peril. Serving Hashem improves and increases the chances we, as individuals and as a nation, will see the future we want.
Four of our comments lay out ways to be more or less successful in bringing Hashem into our lives. The fifth, about the difference between non-Jews who do and do not sign on to our worldview, has Hashem there more implicitly, in our greater closeness to the resident alien, who did explicitly buy in, as opposed to the nochri, who did not.
Other Comments We Saw on Re’eh:
Rashi, Devarim 11;28, Min haderech
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 11;31, Viy-rishtem otah
Ha’amek Davar, Devarim 12;2, Abed te’abedun
Rashi, Devarim 12;3, Va-avadtem et shemam
Onkelos, Devarim 12;5. Le-Shichno tidreshu
Ramban, Devarim 12;5, Ve-ta’am le-Shichno
Ramban, Devarim 12;8, Lo ta’asun
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 12;13, Hishamer lecha
Rashi, Devarim 12;19, Al admatecha
Onkelos, Devarim 12;23, Bilti
Rashi, Devarim 12;28, Shemor
Ramban, Devarim 12;30, Hishamer lecha
Ramban, Devarim 13;2, Ve-natan eilecha
Ramban, Devarim 13;4, Ve-ta’am ki menaseh
Torat Moshe, Devarim 13;4, Ki menaseh
Rashi, Devarim 13;7, Asher ke-nafshecha
Rashi, Devarim 13;9, Lo toveh lo
Rashi, Devarim 13;10, Yadecha
Or HaChayim, Devarim 14;1, Banim atem
Malbim, Devarim 14;1, Banim atem
Onkelos, Devarim 14;21, lo tevashel gedi
Sforno, Devarim 14;21, Lo tevashel
Rashi, Devarim 14;27, Ve-ha-Levi and Ki ein lo
Rashi, Devarim 15;4, Efes
Kli Yakar, Devarim 15;4, Efes
R. Samson Raphael Hirsch,Devarim15;7, Ki yihyeh
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 15;8, Patoach tiftach
Onkelos, Devarim 16;1, layla
Ha-Ketav Ve-ha-Kabbalah, Devarim 16;3, Le-ma’an tizkor
Ibn Ezra, Devarim 16;7, U-fanita ba-boker