Dear Friends,
When one repeats oneself, repeatedly, the consistency is, well… consistent. But when one customarily repeats oneself, repeatedly and consistently, and then changes or adds something, it is significant.
So it is at the end of this week’s Torah portion in Deuteronomy, Parashat Re’eh. The section includes many laws – ritual and ethical – which were commanded earlier in Torah, including the laws of the Jewish holidays which are repeated at least five other times in Torah. Except, here there is a significant addition, found nowhere else.
In chapter 16 of Deuteronomy, following the instructions for Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, the Torah adds five times that we shall observe the festival “…in the Place that the Eternal will choose to establish the divine name.” (Dt. 16: 2, 6, 11, 15, 16) Nowhere else does this command appear in Torah.
What could this mean?
Clearly, this Place which God will choose must be vitally important. It was. It would be Jerusalem. And, from this week’s portion, we learn that three times a year, at Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot we were charged to go to that Place and observe the sacred festivals of the Eternal. These became the Three Pilgrimage Festivals at which the ancient Israelite brought his spring or fall harvest to offer at the Temple. These three times in the year, he was expected to appear in Jerusalem with his tithes.
The centrality of Jerusalem to our people – both ancient and modern – can never be underestimated. She was the City of Gold. The City on the Hill. The City of Peace. And, mostly, she was the City of God. She was considered the birthplace of civilization, the umbilical cord of the earth, the fount of humanity.
There is a midrash – a commentary – that when God created the world, God made ten measures of beauty to distribute about the globe. God placed the beauty in a sack, and gave it to a stork to fly around and distribute. Around and around the stork flew, dropping a little here and a little there (Yosemite and Yellowstone, perhaps). But, when the stork flew over Jerusalem, it looked down and was so awestruck by the place, that it opened its bill and out dropped nine measures of beauty on Jerusalem – leaving only 1/10 for the rest of the world.
Such is the Place where God chose to establish the divine name!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
When one repeats oneself, repeatedly, the consistency is, well… consistent. But when one customarily repeats oneself, repeatedly and consistently, and then changes or adds something, it is significant.
So it is at the end of this week’s Torah portion in Deuteronomy, Parashat Re’eh. The section includes many laws – ritual and ethical – which were commanded earlier in Torah, including the laws of the Jewish holidays which are repeated at least five other times in Torah. Except, here there is a significant addition, found nowhere else.
In chapter 16 of Deuteronomy, following the instructions for Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, the Torah adds five times that we shall observe the festival “…in the Place that the Eternal will choose to establish the divine name.” (Dt. 16: 2, 6, 11, 15, 16) Nowhere else does this command appear in Torah.
What could this mean?
Clearly, this Place which God will choose must be vitally important. It was. It would be Jerusalem. And, from this week’s portion, we learn that three times a year, at Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot we were charged to go to that Place and observe the sacred festivals of the Eternal. These became the Three Pilgrimage Festivals at which the ancient Israelite brought his spring or fall harvest to offer at the Temple. These three times in the year, he was expected to appear in Jerusalem with his tithes.
The centrality of Jerusalem to our people – both ancient and modern – can never be underestimated. She was the City of Gold. The City on the Hill. The City of Peace. And, mostly, she was the City of God. She was considered the birthplace of civilization, the umbilical cord of the earth, the fount of humanity.
There is a midrash – a commentary – that when God created the world, God made ten measures of beauty to distribute about the globe. God placed the beauty in a sack, and gave it to a stork to fly around and distribute. Around and around the stork flew, dropping a little here and a little there (Yosemite and Yellowstone, perhaps). But, when the stork flew over Jerusalem, it looked down and was so awestruck by the place, that it opened its bill and out dropped nine measures of beauty on Jerusalem – leaving only 1/10 for the rest of the world.
Such is the Place where God chose to establish the divine name!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
