The Spirituality of Seeing

 

“Open your eyes — the Divine is right here, in front of you.” The Kotzker Rebbe

“See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.” (Deuteronomy 11:26)

Parashat “Ekev,” of two weeks ago astressed the importance of hearing and listening,

as evidenced by the repetitive use of the verb “shema” (hear, listen). In Last week's Parashah,

“Re’eh,” (see), Moshe is urging the Yisraelites to choose between blessing and curse,

"see" the consequences of loyalty or disobedienc to G-d while emphasizing the significance

of seeing as a mode of recognizing G-d in our daily choices.

Am Yisrael, as both Rash”i and Ramba”n suggest, is called here, not just to hear but to see clearly the moral alternatives before them. Re’eh is an order to open one’s eyes, perceive clearly and choose blessing over curse. Ramba”n empahsizes that “seeing,” in this context, is not just with the eyes, but with the mind’s eye - an act of deep spiritual awareness. It emphasizes perception, awareness and a conscious choice.

Rash”i further points out that the verse begins with the singular “Re’eh” (see) but continues with the plural “lifneichem” (before you [plural]). Rash”i reads Re’eh as a deeply personal summons: “See this as if it is directed to you alone, yet know that your choices shape the fate of all Israel.” In other words, Rash”i asserts that though it teaches each individual to see and understand, the consequences apply to the whole community. It encompasses both personal and collective responsibility.

Sforno suggests that the Torah could have said “Shema” (hear), as it does in Shema Yisrael (“Hear, oh Yisrael”). Instead, it chooses the word “Re’eh” suggesting not merely passive listening but active vision without distortion - a responsibility to look ahead, recognize consequences, and internalize Torah values.

Ramba”n also offers a different interpretation for the choice of “Re’eh” rather than “Shema”.  He explains that whereas to hear something is indirect and can, thus, be doubted, to see something is direct and undeniable.

The decree “Re’eh”  brings to mind the occasion of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. There, we are told that Am Yisrael “saw the sounds” (Exodus 20:15) which Jewish scholars found to be a most striking and paradoxical image. 

Rash”i, for instance, citing Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael explains that the People saw what is normally heard. That experience was so powerful and overwhelming that the boundaries between the senses collapsed. That, in turn, caused their spiritual perception to be elevated to the level that they could apprehend Divine communication with absolute clarity.

For Hasidic thinkers such as Sfat Emet, “seeing,” as opposed to “hearing” symbolizes the transformation of faith (emunah, usually associated with hearing) into knowledge (da’at, associated with seeing).

Lord Rabbi Sacks also addresses the theme of “hearing” vs. “seeing.” In his commentary on the Parashah, Sacks states, “On the face of it, Moshe is appealing to the eye, not the ear. However, if we examine the role of sight in Judaism, we discover something strange. Often, when the Torah seems to be using a verb or metaphor for sight, it is actually referring to something not seen at all but rather heard. To reinforce his point, Sacks cites two examples from the Tana”ch, mainly the prophets, one from Isaiah, the other from Jeremiah.

Isaiah 1:2 opens, “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amos saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: Hear, O Heavens! Listen, O earth.” As Sacks correctly states, the verse contains no visual imagery. “What Isaiah ‘sees’ is a call, sounds, speech, a proclamation, not a sight or scene or symbol.” The key verbs are “hearing” and “listening,” in the opening verses of the book of Isaiah. In Jeremiah, 1:11-12, claims Sacks, the prophet  “‘sees’ but G-d teaches him to listen.”

My article on parashat “Ekev” highlighted the importance of hearing and listening. I shared Sacks’s brilliant commentary on the motif of what he coined the “Spirituality of Listening.”  I firmly believe that it is appropriate to name one of the themes of last week’s parasha as  “The Spirituality of Seeing.” 

“Re’eh” is about cultivating a vision- personal, ethical, and divine. It extends to transcending the mundane in our lives to actively looking and seeing G-d in the world and in others, fostering a clear vision of truth and goodness, and cultivating a deeper connection to the Divine, all in order to witness the profound spiritual reality of a blessing and a curse.

Remembering Forward

 

“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future” - Elie Wiesel

“Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by today’s events.” – Albert Einstein

“To be a Jew is to know that over an above history is the task of memory” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

 

The command to remember is an important pillar in our Jewish tradition. “The imperative of the Hebrew word zachor,” asserts David Pillegi, “is mentioned more than twenty-five times” in the Tanach (Jerusalem Post, March 29,2012). The Jewish year, accordingly, is mottled with many memorial days, national and private.

One of my favourite modern Yisraeli poets, Yehudah Amichai (May 3, 1924 – September 22, 2000), also, dwells on the notion of memory. “The world is filled with remembering and forgetting,” he writes. Amichai likens memory and forgetfulness to “dry land” and “sea” as metaphors to our duplicate realities which, he believes, are elements of our existence. “Dry land,” he suggests, is the memory of our starting point, our past, the anchor that keeps our feet secure on the ground. The “sea” is a metaphor for the unknown that awaits us in the days ahead. It is an unpredictable zone where we sail into the future in our desperate effort to hold on to forgetting memories, the ones that threaten to overwhelm, drown our essence in their torrent and prevent us from forming a future. Only those who have a stable dock on dry land, suggests Amichai, have some firm fulcrum, to which they can return to and safely resume their daily routine.  

Though our Jewish heritage prizes memory, I must admit that in my many years of interaction with Jewish communities around the world, I have encountered, on more than one occasion, the desire to forget and consciously erase our bad memories. Many Jewish parents want to spare their children the exposure to dark chapters in our history for fear that such a disclosure might affect them emotionally.

One example that comes to mind is during the time that I lived in New Zealand. I was once asked to conduct the Passover Seder at some friend’s house. All went well until I got to the part where the ten plagues were mentioned. When I reached the tenth one, where the first-born son of every Egyptian family was smitten, the father stopped me and said, “we don’t talk about death to our children…..” I was dumbfounded. Though I understood that the father’s silence and the temptation to forget, stemmed from concern, at the same time, I felt that it created a distortion. How could anyone not mention this very constitutive and cardinal act in our Jewish history? Can we raise a new generation without exposing it to the painful segments of the story?

This, however, is not merely a matter of a private case. Throughout history, many Jews elected to forget. That choice was the product of the yearning to prevent trauma and the wish to enable a future for their children.  Regrettably, though, it has always been at the cost of sacrificing the vital role of memory.

Jewish culture puts memory at the center of our collective identity. The Talmud (Yoma 56,1) teaches us that authentic remembering of events, good and bad, is the first move towards tikkun, improvement. Rabbi Nachman Bar Yitzchak, similarly, suggests that genuine memory leads towards action and change (Kiddushin 40, 2)

The horrors of the Shoah, a more recent sad episode in our People’s history, which happened eighty years ago, is another example of such a tendency. Sadly, quite a few Jews, both in Yisrael and elsewhere, spare details of that chapter from their children again, for fear of the impact it might have on their emotional well-being.

More recently, Yisrael has experienced one of the most horrific pogroms since the Shoah. I am referring to the massacre that took place close to two years ago on the Holy Day of Simchat Torah, which is better known by its Gregorian calendar date as, October 7^th, 2023. Despite the fresh memories of this bloodbath, many, including adults my age, refuse to see footage of the carnage or listen to the testimonies of its survivors.

This discrepancy between the necessity to remember and the wish to forget, between the “dry land” and the “sea,” as we have witnessed, engaged Amichai. In another poem, he offers yet another metaphor. This one is in the form of a “dam.”  This “dam,” implies Amichai, stands for the present tense, the stage in which we are. Just like a dam which controls the flow of water, Amichai’s “dam” allows us to release or block the flow of memory between the “dry land” and the “sea.”

It is at this point that the quote by Einstein, above, is brought into play. If the control over this “dam” is subject to our emotional and political agenda or is “coloured by today’s events,” in Einstein’s words, it might reshape the past not in accordance with historical facts, but by the demands of the present. Should we redraw our past? Should our “coloured” present determine which parts of our past be remembered or perhaps suppressed? What should be the fate of painful, yet essential and identity defining chapters in our history?

Memory is not merely what we choose to remember. Rather, it is the courage not to forget. Remembering forward requires of us, as Jews, to preserve the past, the good and the bad, without granting us the permission to rewrite it.

"Never Again" Is Always

 

     "Never Again is the constant retelling of the Holocaust story."-                           Antonio Gueterres, Secretary General of the U.N.

"Never Again" as Guterres suggests has, generally, been associated with the calls by Jews to try and ensure that the atrocities committed against our Jewish people, merely a little over eighty years ago, would be a share of the past.

In recent months, following the horrific attacks against Yisraeli residents by Hamas terrorists, we have been hearing that slogan repeatedly echoed by many. These days, however, the phrase has morphed from "Never Again" to "Never Again is Now."

That, in my view, is unfortunate.

Should this motto of our People be confined strictly to the "here" and "now?" What happens when the "here" and "now" are over? Are we going to wake up to the call only when some other calamity, G-d forbid, befalls our People?

Learning the lessons of our history has been one of the most important tenets of our Jewish faith and tradition.

"Thou shall tell them to your children....,"  "Remember what Amalek did to you..." are but two examples of the directives repeatedly mentioned in our Tanach. "Never Again" is precisely the goal and the intended lessons of these commandments.

The phrase "Never Again" in the context of the Shoah (Holocaust), as quoted above, was first used in a 1961 documentary, "Mein Kampf," by a Swedish filmmaker, Erwin Leiser.
In it, over a shot of Auschwitz, Leiser, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, says, "It must never happen again -never again."

There might be, though, another possible source to this phrase.

In 1926, an Yisraeli poet by the name of Yitzhak Lamdan published a poem entitled "Masada." In one of the poem's passages, where he uses the imagery of th Hora, danced by young Zionists, Landman writes:

                  "Lift your legs,
                   Firm your knees,

                   More and more!

                   In the dance's circling chain
                   Never shall Masada fall again!"

Mount Masada, as those who are familiar with Jewish history, would know, was the last bastion of Jewish fighters against the Romans around 73 C.E.

The heroic story of Masada has become a source of pride to many Yisraelis. "Masada Shall Never Fall Again '' is part of the oath taken by some members of the Yisraeli military who pledge from its mountaintop to defend the Jewish state.

These words became one of the pillars of our Jewish consciousness and the Zionist ethos. Just as these two precepts are part of our Jewish essence past, present and future, so is the slogan "Never Again."

Confining these words to the "here" and "now" diminishes, in my opinion, their vitality and weakens the vow that similar cataclysms to those that happened to our ancestors shall not be repeated.

Restricting "Never Again" to the "here" and "now" might make them, in the words of Rabbi Sacks ZT"L, "sound more like ever again." 

What, then, is a better way to ensure that the sad parts of our Jewish history do not repeat themselves than to pledge "Never Again Is Always" rather than "Never again is Now?"

Shabbat Shalom, fellow Jews and a blessed weekend to all

Yisrael is not only a Jewish State, first and foremost, it is also Democratic

 

“The Jewish tradition carries very powerful democratic genes.” – Fania Oz-Salzberger

As many here are probably aware, the state of Yisrael is currently undergoing some turbulent times. Part of the public debate that has been raging surrounds the question of whether Yisrael, the National Home of the Jewish People, should give up its Jewish essence to maintain its democratic core.

We hear repeated calls to make the state “Jewish and Democratic.”

And that, dear readers, is precisely what Yisrael is and has been since its inception.

I doubt that there is anyone who would ever not associate Yisrael with Jews. Surprisingly enough, the Jewish substance of the state was decreed by gentiles, not Jews.  Lord Balfour, for instance, was one. In his famous Declaration of November 2, 1917, called for the establishment of a “National Home for the Jewish People” in Eretz Yisrael which, in those days was, also known as “Palestine.”

Then came the San Remo Accord where The Supreme Council of the Allied Powers, which acted as an International Court of Law echoed his call, in article 22 of the “Covenant of the League of Nations” of April 25^th , 1920. That resolution has been anchored in International Law.

The final stamp of approval for what was to become a Jewish state was U.N. Resolution 181 of November 29^th, 1947. It called for the partition of Eretz Yisrael into an Arab state A  N  D  a Jewish state. Yisrael is the name of Jewish state. It has been a Jewish state and will continue to remain that way, de Jure (by law/right) and de Facto (in effect).

The language of Yisrael’s Declaration of Independence which, I trust, was carefully crafted, reinforces, and repeatedly mentions that what lies at the heart of the nascent state is its Jewish essence. Already in its first paragraph, the Declaration mentions the “eternal Book of Books,” our Tanach, our code of ethics that teaches us the values of justice, equality, and freedom which we shared with the world.

These values were constantly preached by our prophets. They are the guidelines that have dictated the objectives of the newly established State, as mentioned in the Declaration “…it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants, it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.”

What are those values? What was the ultimate message of the “Book of Books” and the “Prophets of Israel?”

The decree to equality, do justice and ensure freedom runs like a golden thread throughout the Tanach, the “Book of Books.”

The concepts of justice and equality are stressed already in the Book of Bresheet (Genesis 18:18-19) where G-d proclaims “…. Since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. For I have signaled him out that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing tzedakah and mishpat (justice and law) …..”

“Justice, justice you shall pursue,” commands us the Book of D’varim (Deuteronomy 17:20). It is one of the cardinal obligations of Judaism. In the Torah portion of Shoftim (judges), we are commanded to “Appoint judges and officials for” our “tribes…. and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly,” we are told (Deuteronomy 16:18). “The Hebrew Bible,” claims Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson, “possesses a passion for justice for the poor, the weak and the despised…. We betray a broad heritage of the Torah,” he continues, “when we fail to recognize justice and righteousness as primary religious categories of Judaism.”

The Tanach focuses on the weak and oppressed by referring recurrently to the “orphan, widow and foreigner” for a reason. A human society is measured by its attitudes towards the powerless. The care and the compassion that the “Book of Books,” the Torah and then the prophets display towards the under privileged of society is probably one of the reasons it has been translated into every possible language. The constant appeal to the advantaged members of society to feed the hungry and the disadvantaged is an appeal to one’s conscience and is justified as either a religious obligation (“I am G-d” Psalm 46:10), a historical rationale (“For you were strangers in Egypt” Deuteronomy 10:19), as carrying an eventual reward (“your days may be prolonged” Deuteronomy 5:16)or, sometimes, a social one (“So they may rest as you” Deuteronomy 5:14).

All these prove that Judaism and the principles of Democracy go hand in hand.

The word “democratic” is not mentioned in Yisrael’s Declaration of Independence. However, the social and “democratic gene” which manifests itself in the values of the “Book of Books” as its basis, the moral values of liberty, justice, and freedom, the pillars of any democracy, which the Declaration espouses were the guiding principles for the founders of the State.

One of the goals of the newly established state, as the Declaration states is to “Ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex: It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” The Declaration further appeals to “the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institution.”

The mere fact that such noble social and economic principles coupled with the ongoing quest for justice and the continuous deliberations over the best form of government which are sewn all over the Tanach, the "eternal Book of Books" formed the basis for Yisrael's Declaration of Independence, points to the undeniable fact that democracy is part of the DNA of the Jewish State. 

Saltzberg further asserts that in modern Yisrael today, "anyone pretending that Judaism and democracy are incompatible traditions and that Yisraeli "society must decide between the two is showing a certain measure of historical ignorance. Not only," she claims, "are Jewish and democratic elements of its statehood compatible, but they have been influencing one another for well over 2,000 years."