Re'eh, רְאֵה  "See!"  Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17

See! You Can Change The Universe!

A Poetic Reflection On Parashah Re’eh*

And God said, “See, this day…,” 

and there was sight that day

Israel saw with Torah observant sight what God said, 

when God said,

“I set before you blessing and curse”

The obedient child is filled with hope and faith and love

The child who thinks obedience to God is slavery

is destined to be a self-slave

The self-slave can never free themselves 

They are cruel masters to themselves

Their only salvation can be through divine soul redemption, 

the act of divine loving chastisement

Israel saw and understood what God said,

I set before you a land existing in two universes

The covenant land that you will enter

is a bridge between universes,

a universe of blessing and a universe of cursing

In the land into which you enter

you can exchange

one universe for the other at any time

For this land is My land

and what takes place in this land

is the holy foundation of My creation

The one universe is called Gerizim

and the other universe is called Ebal

In the universe of Gerizim, in all you do I will guide you,

All you do, I will do together with you, hand in hand

In the universe of Ebal, you will only rely on yourself

and you will not follow My guidance

In the universe of Ebal, you will become lost from Me

Every way you turn will be the way of death

Then your neighbour will become a foreigner

The good you do will be turned to evil,

as when your first father, Adam,

exchanged the universe of Gerizim

for the universe of Ebal in this land

In that day people began to call upon the name of the Lord

Some presumptuously in order to invent idolatry 

And a few called out in the fear of the Lord,

waiting only for the promise of the seed of the woman, 

about which they had heard

And for these few,

living in that idolized world was like living in death

That torture felt to them like it would never end 

Until God called out Abraham... 

Then, because Abraham,Isaac and Jacob were in the world, 

living in the idolized world was bearable 

It wasn’t just like living in death anymore 

For God had given birth to hope in the world

In the universe of Ebal,

they conquer with cursing

and they eat what is cursed

In the universe of Gerizim

the curse will be turned into blessing

Every step you take will be redeemed

Then you will build a city

where the voice of righteousness calls to you

from every street and every corner,

from the face of every stranger passing by

But the ways of the universe of Ebal,

that you have learned, will tempt you,

and you will neither hear the voice nor see it,

unless you remember that your adversary in conflict

is your partner,

and every soul is your neighbour

And then, when you remember Me,

and that I brought you here,

and you long with all your heart for My guidance once again,

as your new father, Abraham, did,

when he exchanged the universe of Ebal

for the universe of Gerizim in this land,

when he trusted me with the life of his son in this land

Then when your soul cannot endure to be without Me,

I will take ahold of your hand

and I will teach you kindness,

and how to give power in charity to the impoverished,

so that you do not impoverish them more

The evil which you will have done will be turned to good

All your learning will be wisely applied in every way

And you will build a global village of faith

and a universal city of eternal life

And we will walk together on the streets of that city,

and we will be together there,

resting in the rhythm of its heart,

according to our agreement,

in the halls of moral victory and love,

at the time of celebration and song

When you have turned the universe of cursing

into the universe of blessing in this land,

in this place of God’s Name