Shabbat Parashat Re'eh - 5782

Shabbat Parashat Re'eh - 5782

Rabbi Hal Miller

Beware for yourself lest you bring up your olah offerings in any place that you

will see, rather only in the place that Hashem will choose among your tribes,

there shall you bring up your olah offerings and there shall you do all that I

command you. [Devarim 12:13-14]

Most commentaries on these verses concentrate on the command that once the

Temple was built, private altars (bamot) were no longer allowed, that the only

place we could sacrifice was the Temple, and the commentaries explain that

there is an exception. A true prophet may direct the bringing of certain types of

sacrifices elsewhere for "special one-time reasons". The classic example, as

explained by Rashi and Onkelos, is Eliyahu at Mt. Carmel. These one-time

exceptions are to prove that idols are not gods.

But the last word of verse 13 seems to teach something more. Tireh means

"that you will see". This is the same word as re'eh, the first word of this week's

portion.

The Gemora in Zevachim [118a] explains our verse as prohibiting making the

offerings anywhere you chose to, but eating the offerings does not have to be

within the Temple. Torah Temimah says that this means the eating can be any

place that one could see from the Temple.

Perhaps, though, the word is more expansive. In the first verse, [11:26], Moshe

says, "See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse" and follows by

saying that blessings come from following God's commands, and curses come

from violating those commands. We can tie in our verse as a warning not to

violate any of the commandments, rather to observe them all. It is not for us to

choose the what and the where based on what we see, rather to see only what

Moshe told us to see.

Another way to read tireh would be "see fit to do". What this would mean is that

we are enjoined from deciding for ourselves how to bring offerings, but must only

do what we were commanded. This applies to the entire Torah, that it is not for

us to decide how each of us wishes to override the commandments and how we

personally see fit to live, rather we must live according to what we were

commanded.