Re'eh | "His Habitation Shall You Seek, And There You Shall Come"

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[1]In our parasha, the Torah elaborates upon the essential innovation that will take place in Eretz Yisrael – namely, the concentration of the sacrificial service in one central place, unlike anything known to the people of Israel until then. However, as a preface to that discussion, the Torah emphasizes the need to purify the land from the remnants of the pagan worship that was prevalent there:

These are the statutes and the ordinances, which you shall observe to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess it, all the days that you live upon the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places, where [sham] the nations that you are to dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree. And you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods; and you shall destroy their name out of that place. You shall not do so to the Lord your God. But to the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there [sham], even to His habitation shall you seek, and there [shama] you shall come; and there [shama] you shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill-offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock; and there [sham] you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, wherein the Lord your God has blessed you. (Devarim 12:1-7)[2]

Already in this passage, the reader notes the repeated use of the word sham in its various forms. The first appearance of the word is reasonable, since it refers to the multitude of places where the former inhabitants practiced idolatry; Scripture prefers to relate to them together as "all the places where the nations served their gods," rather than to specify all those places. But as for the place chosen by God for His own service, Scripture could easily have formulated the verse without using the word sham, since we are dealing with a single place. The puzzle grows as we continue to read, as it turns out that not only is the word unnecessary, but Scripture deliberately goes out of its way to use it:

To His habitation shall you seek, and there [shama] you shall come; and there [shama] you shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices…

By now it is clear that the excessive use of this word is deliberate. This feeling repeats itself in the next passage, in which the Torah commands the centralization of the sacrificial service:

Then it shall come to pass that the place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there [sham], there [shama] shall you bring all that I command you: your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates, forasmuch as he has no portion nor inheritance with you. Take heed to yourself that you offer not your burnt-offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes, there [sham] you shall offer your burnt-offerings, and there [ve-sham] you shall do all that I command you. Notwithstanding you may kill and eat flesh within all your gates, after all the desire of your soul, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the gazelle, and as of the hart. Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth as water. You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your corn, or of your wine, or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or of your flock, nor any of your vows which you vow, nor your freewill-offerings, nor the offering of your hand; but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your man-servant, and your maid-servant, and the Levite that is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you put your hand to. Take heed to yourself that you forsake not the Levite as long as you live upon your land. (12:11-19)

I would like to suggest two explanations of this phenomenon.

"The Place Which the Lord Your God Shall Choose"

Scripture refuses to clarify the precise location of the Temple and the altar, but rather insists on describing it repeatedly with its unspecified location, "the place which the Lord your God shall choose." The Rambam explains this as due to the circumstances of the time:

The fact that this place is not stated explicitly when mentioned in the Torah and not designated, but only hinted at by means of the words, "Which the Lord shall choose," is due in my opinion to three wise considerations. The first is, lest nations should hold fast to the place and fight for it with great violence, knowing as they do that this place is the final purpose of the Law on earth. The second is, lest those who then owned the place ravage and devastate it to the limit of their power. The third, and it is the strongest, lest every tribe should demand that this place be within its allotted portion and should seek to conquer it, which would lead to conflict and sedition, such as happened with regard to the priesthood. (Guide for the Perplexed 3:45)

The Chizkuni (Devarim 12:5), on the other hand, explains that this expression was intended to cover several different places:

The place is not specified, because the Shekhina dwelt in several different places, e.g., Gilgal, Shilo, Nov, Givon and Jerusalem, and one is obligated to formulate his teaching in a concise manner.

Alongside these technical explanations, the Meshekh Chokhma (Shemot 12:21) raised a fundamental consideration in the course of a lengthy discussion in which he surveys the relationship between the intellect and emotions in Judaism:

It is clear that all the emotions are built from nature, as are that which is perceived through the senses that stir up a man's heart, such as love, beauty and courage. The ancient peoples sanctified all the forces of nature in their excitement about all this, and they worshipped them and gave them idolatrous names – the god of beauty, the god of courage, the god of love – as is well known… To this day, the peoples form images and consecrate that which they perceive through the senses. Even the Yishmaelites sanctify the tomb of their messiah in Mecca, and the like. It turns out that the emotions support their belief, which is built on that which is perceived through the senses and portrayed as an image. This is not the case with the God of Israel. For Avraham rose up and understood that He is not part of the created world, nor is He a force in the material world, and that He cannot be portrayed, or painted, or perceived through the senses… He is what is necessary in reality; He brings all reality into being from absolute nothingness. He is unique with unparalleled uniqueness...  All of reality is far from the One who brought it into reality. And this is a true and enlightened statement… Here it must be explained at length that all of the consecrated places are not based on the Law, but on the nation and its roots, such as Mount Moriya, from which man was born (Sanhedrin 38b), and there Avraham offered Yitzchak (Bereishit 22), and it was chosen by a prophet. In the Law it says only "the place which the Lord your God shall choose." And Mount Sinai, the place of the Law – once the Shekhina departed from it, the flocks and herds went up (Shemot 19:13), so that God forbid the emotions should not mislead people to assign a picture to the Law. Jerusalem, all of Eretz Yisrael, and Mount Moriya are built on their relationship to our ancestors, the roots of faith, and the union of the nations to its roots, that all emotions will only be for the unity of the nation. This is a profound exposition, and this is not the place to expand upon it.

According to the Meshekh Chokhma, the Bible struggles with the recognition of the sanctity of any geographical place in itself, since it stands in contradiction to one of the most fundamental characteristics of the belief in the Creator of all. The Creator, who is the source of holiness, is wholly unconnected to physical dimensions. Therefore there can be no inherent sanctity in a tangible object, but only sanctity for secondary, historical reasons. This distinction stems from his argument that Judaism is fundamentally intellectual, since knowledge of God depends on the understanding that despite His lack of dimensions, He exists and brings everything into existence. On the other hand, religions that are based on emotion seek tangible objects through which they can maximize their feelings toward them.[3]. In light of this perception, the Meshekh Chokhma goes on to explain why the Torah does not identify a specific place for the resting of the Shekhina, but rather defines it as "the place which the Lord shall choose." In this way, Scripture emphasizes that despite the fact that in practice the place will be sanctified, this is not inherent sanctity, but rather a consequence of God's choice.

Accordingly, it may be suggested that since the Torah is "uncomfortable" with holy places, it tries to obscure this fact more and more, and therefore deepens this obscurity even further, going as far as to remove from "the place which the Lord shall choose" its basic characteristic as a "place." Now it is identified not even as a "place," but simply as "there."

Repeated Sound and Repeated Word

Let us consider another perspective. The literary approach to the study of the Bible emphasizes the deliberate choice of the words appearing in a story and their contribution to deepening the message in the narrative. This phenomenon is not limited to the same word that repeats itself, but also includes its various inflections. This approach has also demonstrated that the allusions that are implanted in the text are not limited to the word itself, but even expand to a common sound shared by different words with different meanings.[4] An example of this phenomenon can be found in the words of Rashi on the passage dealing with the "brass serpent":

And the Lord sent fiery serpents [ha-nechashim ha-serafim] among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died… And the Lord said to Moshe: Make you a fiery serpent [saraf], and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. And Moshe made a serpent of brass [nechash nechoshet], and set it upon the pole; and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked to the serpent of brass [nechash ha-nechoshet], he lived. (Bamidbar 21:6-9) 

Moshe is commanded to make a serpent, but Scripture relates that he made it out of brass, although he was explicitly commanded to do so. Rashi (verse 9) justifies this choice as follows:

"A serpent of brass" – He had not been told to make it of brass, but Moshe said: The Holy One, blessed be He, terms it nachash. I will therefore make it of nechoshet – one term fitting the other term.

The preference regarding the raw material to be used in the construction of the serpent was based on a literary perspective on the narrative, which seeks to create a repetition of the same sound.

I would like to point to the same phenomenon in our parasha, but for this we must go back to the beginning of the Torah and the story of the Tower of Bavel.[5]

"Come, Let Us Build Us a City and a Tower… And Let Us Make Us a Name"

            The book of Bereishit describes the aspiration of the human race to make themselves a name:

And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there [sham]. And they said one to another: “Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said: “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name [shem]; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. And the Lord said: “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them, which they purpose to do. Come, let us go down, and there [sham] confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there [mi-sham] upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore was the name of it [shema] called Bavel; because the Lord did there [sham] confound the language of all the earth; and from there [u-mi-sham] did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. (Bereishit 11:1-9)

While describing the initiative and its failure, Scripture uses seven words that contain the letters shin and mem. Admittedly, the reader easily sees that the count is not so accurate, for the vocalizations and meanings of the seven instances of the word are not always the same. On the other hand, the words sound alike, and in our opinion, Scripture directs us precisely to this recognition. In a shiur dealing with the Tower of Bavel, we explained that we have here a deliberate play on words between the different meanings of the word over the course of the passage. The meanings are not only different from each other, but also opposite each other. The name of a person or object marks his or its uniqueness, whereas the description of a place as "there" is the very opposite, stemming from the fact that without unique identifying marks, it is impossible to describe a place's location, apart from the fact that it is "there."

Thus, in silence, with a brilliant play on words, Scripture illustrates the core of the story in question. The people of Shinar set for themselves the goal to make themselves a name, but Scripture slowly obscures for the reader the meaning of the "name," to the point that when a name is given to the place, it perpetuates the failure of the initiative.

Therefore was the name of it [shema] called Bavel; because the Lord did there [sham] confound the language of all the earth; and from there [u-misham] did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

"And You Shall Destroy Their Name Out of That Place"

I would like to argue that Scripture employs here the same literary tactic we uncovered in the story of the Tower of Bavel, and that it is the key to the hidden dialogue between the different instances of words containing the letters shin and mem. For this purpose, let us go back and examine the verses that were cited at the beginning of this study:

These are the statutes and the ordinances, which you shall observe to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess it, all the days that you live upon the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places [et kol ha-mekomot], wherein [sham] the nations that you are to dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree. And you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods; and you shall destroy their name out of that place [ve-ibadetem et shemam min ha-makom hahu]. You shall not do so to the Lord your God. But to the place [ha-makom] which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there [la-sum et shemo sham], even to His habitation shall you seek, and there [shama] you shall come; and there [shama] you shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill-offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock; and there [sham] you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, wherein the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall not do after all that we do here this day, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; for you are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God gives you. But when you go over the Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God causes you to inherit, and He gives rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety; then it shall come to pass that the place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there [le-shaken shemo sham], there shall you bring [shama tavi'u] all that I command you: your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within your gates, forasmuch as he has no portion nor inheritance with you. Take heed to yourself that you offer not your burnt-offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which the Lord shall choose [ba-makom asher yivchar Ha-Shem] in one of your tribes, there you shall offer [sham ta'aleh] your burnt-offerings, and there you shall do [ve-sham ta'aseh] all that I command you. (12:1-14)

At the beginning of the passage, Scripture announces the task that the people will face when they arrive in the land:

You shall surely destroy all the places [et kol ha-mekomot], wherein [sham] the nations that you are to dispossess served their gods… and you shall destroy their name out of that place [ve-ibadetem et shemam min ha-makom hahu].

Over the course of the passage, Scripture replaces this reality with a new reality:

But to the place [ha-makom] which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there [la-sum et shemo sham].

Upon closer examination, we see that from here on Scripture frequently incorporates the words "place" [makom] and "sham" [there] in their various forms and meanings. From this perspective, it seems that Scripture is trying to go immediately to work, so that over the course of the commandment itself, it formulates the directive in such a way that it blurs "the name of the gods" and obscures their memory. Thus, in practice, when we finish reading these verses, a memory is fashioned in the mind of the reader of the word sh-m as relating to the name of God, or pointing to its location. Once again, following the changes in the sounds and meanings appearing in the text reveals to us its objective.[6]

(Translated by David Strauss)