Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17; Isaiah 54:11-55:5) Envisioning the Blessing

Re’eh – “See,” says the Blessed Holy One in this week’s reading, “I have set before you blessing and curse, life and death – now choose life.”  Sounds simple, no?  Given the choice, who wouldn’t opt for life and blessing?  The challenge may be not so much the choosing but the seeing, the envisioning. “I will make your beacons kadkod,” says Isaiah in this week’s prophetic reading. Make them what? “Shining like rubies,” says one interpretation. “Like sapphires,” says another. And a rabbinic insight teaches that the word kadkod itself suggests “kedein uchedein,” both this way and that – yes to those who say “rubies,” and yes to those who say “sapphires.” A shining vision may be essential to moving forward purposefully; but as a people we see many and different sacred visions of tomorrow. ­ “A simple Israelite handmaiden” says one teaching, “saw more at the crossing of the Red Sea than was later to be glimpsed by all the visionaries and prophets.” What did she see? A whole people moving forward together, from the straits into expansiveness, not the unthinking, trudging advance of minds enslaved, but a headlong dash together into untrammeled subjectivity, a thousand thousand visions of redemption – what is yours?