Deuteronomy Cycle Six Reh

Reh

Yatah

This is what Rav Nachman says of Reh: Lo ira l’vevchah btatcha lo.

Do not fear your heart inside of yourself to Him.

In other words don’t be frightened of the heart that He gave you.

In a world in which we hide so much from ourselves that we often die wondering who we were or what we were supposed to be…in a world in which any understanding of connection is buried deep under so many self protective layers and judgment…in a world in which we are all the heart of God and God is the heart of us….in a world in which our fear is bigger than the hills and we can’t even begin to see…this is a strong message.

The way to clearing the way…literally opening the gates…is by placing our blessings on one side of our heart and our curses on the other. This allows for a clean and clear path. Let’s look at Torah though.  In Torah God tells us that when we come into the land that he promised we should place our blessings on one mountain and our curses on the other.  Of course, we like our blessings (very much) and that mountain is said to be higher by our Talmudic teachers.  The reason for doing this though (when it comes down to it) if we really want to understand this in context… if we want to at least act according to the message if solid action is possible…is to not only open our hearts. That’s sort of cliché and it’s sort of like telling a blind child learning to walk to just…walk. 

No, we are being shown how to open our hearts.

God is opening our eyes and giving us step by step directions.  And the first step is quite direct: Clear the path. You have blessings. You have curses. They aren’t you. In fact they are so outside of you you can place them on mountains. So then take the past and the stuff and the celebration and all of it out of your heart, sort it out like gold from fool’s gold and organize it so you can see it and it can see you. Then, once that work is finished, look in. The inner line of sight is now clean.  Do not fear to look in. It’s all right. 

You will see many things. Most important you will see that you can walk in God’s ways because you just have. You will see that you are beautiful and filled with light. You have just placed your pain on one mountain. You have placed your joy on the other. All that’s left is your purity, the center that says you are the mountains and they are you, that says you are God of them and they are God of you.

This is the place from which we act. This is the place of God’s choosing. He’s telling us loud and clear.

I’m going to end this teaching with a short story. I’m away from home studying Hebrew at Middlebury this summer and I brought my computer. I figured that the library or the Hillel would have a Tanach and I was packing light. I also knew I could study Torah on my computer. So, I didn’t bring any books. Instead I’ve decided to go on Chabad online…I like their Rashi commentary…to study. Well I look at Reh and I see a word I have never seen in Torah before. Yatah.

I’ve been told that Aramaic for yatah is “to give”. I honestly though see another interpretation. The letter yud cuts so deep. It goes straight in.  I don’t know why Chabad has this in their Torah…and I haven’t seen it anywhere else. It is placed though right after Elohim in lines 27 and 28 in the beginning of the parashah.

To me, this is an intimate atah. It’s the atah that is inside of us. God is in us. We just need to gather our tools, spoken and non-spoken, seen and not seen, and find the yud that leads the atah that refers to our inner soul.  Then, if we use the yud, perhaps it will help us to shovel and cut-in and clear the path. It's work. Of course it's work. It hurts and it often bleeds us. It brings us joy and sore spiritual muscles. But in the simple doing of it we can be in the welcoming beauty of holiness, a free beauty, a beauty that shines yes on mountains and reflects deep the amazing power of God at the core center within us all.