Dvar Torah - Re'eh: Children of God

Reeh:  Children of God

5774/2014

Yesterday a child came out to wonder

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder

And tearful at the falling of a star

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons

Skated over ten clear frozen streams

Words like when you're older must appease him

And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We're captive on the carousel of time

We can't return we can only look

Behind from where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

Joni Mitchell’s song has always been meaningful to me.  Like Peter Pan, the song wonders about whether growing up is something to look forward to, something to fear, or simply something that is a reality, a reality that we can choose how we live it.  If our life is like a circle, we have a chance to keep the spirit of youthful wonder alive even as we grow older and distant from our earlier selves.

How do we see ourselves?  In relation to earlier ‘versions’ of ourselves? And in relation to God who transcends us and time itself?

With appreciation to my colleague Rabbi Joel Mosebacher who focused on this in a recent teaching, our parsha begins with a word that asks us to consider our perspective on who we are in relation to God and to each other.

‘R’eh anochi noten lifnaychem berachah u’klalah.’ ‘See, I give to all of you blessing and curse.’ 

Something does not match up here.  R’eh is a command form, speaking to an individual, singular, See, notice.  Then, God says, ‘noten lifnaychem’ I put before you, you all, y’all.  Why does God choose to speak to each individual and then to the whole people in the same sentence?

A child tends to see himself or herself less as an individual and more a part of a family, part of the y’all.  Crossing into adulthood, we want, and often struggle, to define ourselves as independent.

In this one short sentence, we hear from God who appreciates, who respects, these two tendencies inside each of us. 

We all try our best to ‘grow up’, to mature, we are always someone’s child, son or daughter to someone whatever the quality of that relationship may be.

As our parsha reminds us, God thinks of us as God’s children, but not in the sense of helpless innocents who need hand-holding, nothing infantilizing like that. 

Later in this week’s parsha we read, “Banim atem L’Ado-nai Elo-heychem.’

“You are children of Ado-nai Your God.”

The Slonimer Rebbe teaches us that we can decide our perspective on being in relationship to God.  We have the power.  Like a grown-up who makes decisions for herself, for himself, we can decide if we respond to God’s call as servants, checking off the boxes of our obligations to God and to one another.  Lit Shabbat candles, check, gave tzedakah, check.  Did my part, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

Or we can live out being ‘Banim’, being children of God, in a loving relationship.  The Slonimer Rebbe explains that if we act like servants, then we’ll receive that treatment in response.  If we act like loving children, in a mutually fulfilling relationship, then we will receive the same love back.  Not only that, we will store away strength and faith in the good times so that when we face pain, we will have resources to respond and a relationship to ground us. 

This is true for us in relationship to ourselves and to other people as well.  If we treat ourselves as an expendable resource, then our physical selves and emotional selves will eventually crumble.  If we find inside of ourselves sources of wonder, if we find a voice and share it, if we do things that shower the world with holiness, if we reach out unexpectedly to our friends, to family, then we hopefully will receive that same love back.  Stephen Covey, in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective people, spoke about how if we do not see or feel love, we should be loving rather than waiting in darkness for love to find us.

This season of forgiveneness, of teshuvah and repentance, is about choosing how we will approach the New Year, choosing our perspective, however difficult that may be in practice versus the theory. 

Shabbat Shalom.