Re'eh: imagination

 The phrase הַמָּק֞וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַ֨ר , The place where Gd will establish to rest Gd's name,  is introduced in this week's parsha.  It appears 12  times in the Torah, all in Deuteronomy,  seven of them in this week's parsha. It is a strange phrase, implying a future decision  or revelation by Gd. The common understanding is that  the place isJerusalem. Moses did not make  that designation.  Hundreds of years later, David made Jerusalem, in territory that bordered Benjamin and Judah, the great capitol This was when the Hebrew people united in their great, but transient, ascendancy. 

This מָּק֞וֹם, place, connects  the physical world that we understand with the transcendent.  הַמָּק֞וֹם, Hamakom, the place, is a proxy for GD.  Thus, the standard statement to mourners invokes   הַמָּק֞וֹם, Hamakom, as the provider of comfort.   מָּק֞וֹם, place, is central to the kedushah, the most hallowed section of the standard prayer. Perhaps it conveys some of the subversive undercurrent in this prayer that declares the ascendancy of the Divine over the temporal: Gd is greater than the state to which we are exiled.  

This מָּק֞וֹם, place, that is to be selected is part of the prescription for the approved monotheism.  Moses instructs the conquering people to tear down the sites of idolatry that are scattered through the land. Then the text reads: Do not do likewise to your Gd. 

לֹֽא־תַעֲשׂ֣וּן כֵּ֔ן לַי

This could mean " do not destroy your Gd's area of worship": a trivial message, but following it with the instruction to  restrict acts of worship to the place to be designated,  הַמָּק֞וֹם, Hamakom, implies that the single capitol is part of the prescribed faith.  The place ( yet to be designated) is part of the process that unifies the people and the unity of the people is needed to fulfill Gd's commandment.  The geographic single place acts to unite the single people to serve the One Gd. 

The inability or  refusal to identify the chosen place leaves it open. Other places are identified prior to the conquest: Kadesh, Chevron, Shechem, etc.   Shilo, in the territory of Ephraim ( the tribe of Joshua and Jeroboam [king of the "breakaway" 10 tribes]),  where the tabernacle  resided for 369 years is not named. Nor is Jerusalem, site of the temples ( until their destruction) named.  But these seem to be the chosen spots based upon the structures that stood there or were built there. 

The altar of communal offering, the unique focal point for all the people, would need to be in this chosen place.  The chosen place was the only location in which the pilgrimage festivals: Passover, Shevuoth and Succoth could be celebrated.  The altar brings with it the remainder of the Sanctum and, ultimately, the judiciary/legislative high court of the Sanhedrin.  The political life of the people gets conglomerated with the spiritual and the practical. 

On another plane, perhaps there is an ongoing process of selection for the מָּק֞וֹם, place. Did it move to Babylon? The opinions expressed in Nehadea and Pumpiditha took priority over those emanating from Jerusalem as the Jews became an exiled people.  Toledo, Cordoba, Troyes, Vilna, Vienna, New York were all cities of great Jewish synods.  Each selected for its time. 

The steamship and the airplane changed the meaning of place. It no longer took years to travel over great distances. Everyone could now visit the  capitol. 

A rebuilt מָּק֞וֹם, makom, would rekindle the theocratic notion; the nation would garner strength - and self-justification - from the ritual performed on the designated land. What should the ritual look like now? Is the Jerusalem that now carries the name, that has evolved over millennia, the designated place? Does the future tense of the designation continue to apply?

We have come to believe that God designates a time as well as a place. The process of acting upon the designations  is left to us.