Zoth HaBracha: ? 

When does the Jewish year end, when does it begin? The calendar changes its number on Rosh Hashana, but the process of review and resolutions continues through Yom Kippur and the Torah restarts  on Shmini Atzret, ten days later.  Through that time, the last parsha, Zoth Habracha hangs over the transition period and never has a Shabbath of its own. 

Zoth Habracha is hard to understand. The introductory sentences are filled with names that are now part adjective,  names that evoke the cast-off siblings ( Seir- Esau, Paran- Ishmael)  or in-laws ( Hovav - Jethro).  Words are torn apart ((אשדת) [אֵ֥שׁ דָּ֖ת], waterfall  becomes the fire of knowledge) . The sentences convey the desperation to  impart understanding to the listener/reader and the inadequacy of understanding. 

The situation is explicit: these are Moshe's parting words before his death. We are confronted with the ethical will of the man of Gd. This Jewish man of Gd is fully human, born of man and woman, and will not be resurrected in the flesh ( for a long time, not yet). The passage, appropriate to Yom Kippur, is reminder that we will all die. 

Moses proceeds to make statements about most of the tribes of Israel ( Simon is not directly mentioned).  The statements are hints, prophecies. Moses does not mention his own sons, Gershom and Eliezer. Moses sacrificed his personal life for the people. He rejected the idea that his descendants would replace Israel, when it was offered to him by Gd. His progeny did not lead the Hebrews.

The daf yomi  ( Bava Bathra 109)  talks about a descendent of Moshe: Jonathan  son of Gershom. The story that involves him in Judges chapter 18, describes his ascent as the priest to the sculpted, molten image called  Pesel Micha: an idol kept by the tribe of Dan and minidtered for hundreds of years by Johnathan's decedents. Johnathan was in the family business, but closer to his great-grandfather Jethro than his grandfather. When Johnathan is identified at the end of the story, he is named: וִ֠יהוֹנָתָ֠ן בֶּן־גֵּרְשֹׁ֨ם בֶּן־מְ^נַשֶּׁ֜ה.  , the son of Me(n)ashe.  The flying nun is intended to protect ( and reveal) the identity of his grandfather.  Was the grandson's  deviation in faith the result of Moshe's decision to put the nation as a whole ahead of his immediate  family?  We as a nation are grateful to Moshe, but we do not look away from the consequences of his decision.

On Yom Kippur, I do not pray for myself alone. When my parents were alive, I prayed for them ( less, but not zero, now). Now I have a wife and children and grandchildren: I pray for their success and their  happiness. Will their success require detour from the tradition? I pray for a better solution. I should have dedicated more time to that goal. 

 Ha'azinu: Tshuva

 What is tshuva? The word implies "return." Something has been left, and it was better than what I have now. I am supposed to return to it. 

Is tshuva an expression of regret, a desire to return to the past and correct a bad decision? The parshe would have me believe that the world is glorious when we are in a state of Divine grace, and we can achieve that state by adherence to the ancient rules. Tshuva is a return to that blessed state by returning to the strict observance (that seems to have been a historical rarity, at best). We can try our best. 

Is tshuva a call for nostalgia, an attempt to return to a state of innocence? There is no hope of going back to Eden before the fall. 

I see my young grandchildren, the paradigms of innocence. I see their developing, wider ranging, desires and jealousies.  The dream of childhood sinlessness is a fantasy that denies reality.  Children are learning how to sin - and getting better at it as they grow. A return to childhood is not what I want, and not what is meant by tshuva. 

Is tshuva  a return to a simpler time? No matter how romanticized, I do not want to go back to the shtetl of my parents and their ancestors. I can only  imagine the world of my childhood, before color TV, home computers, cell phones. I get a taste of that life, and its delights, every Shabbath and Yom Tov. That is enough.

Tshuva is a return to myself. That self is lost in the onslaught of political controversies, internet information, professional demands, job minutiae. I am not sure it can be found anymore. The ancient text, the Torah helps... but that also needs careful interpretation . The only way  I can do tshuva, the  only way I can find myself  is with Gd's help. 

I pray for tshuva. 

Nitzavim-Vayelech: literacy

 

Nitzavim-Vayelech: literacy

This week, I saw a video clip of my eldest grandson, Theodore Irwin Goldberg (whom I call Srulik) learning to read.  He sounded out S A M  S A T. A significant beginning. The next generation is inducted into the written world.

These parshioth are about the establishment of a legacy for the contract between Gd an Israel. The parsha ends with Moshe completing the written document

וַיְהִ֣י ׀ כְּכַלּ֣וֹת מֹשֶׁ֗ה לִכְתֹּ֛ב אֶת־דִּבְרֵ֥י הַתּוֹרָֽה־הַזֹּ֖את עַל־סֵ֑פֶר עַ֖ד תֻּמָּֽם׃

When Moses had put down in writing the words of this Teaching to the very end.

The parsha begins by describing the great assembly receiving Moshe’s parting words. It includes the nobles and the lowliest servants and it goes on to include “וְאֵ֨ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵינֶ֛נּוּ פֹּ֖ה עִמָּ֥נוּ הַיּֽוֹם׃”  those who are not with us here this day.

Rashi comments:  וְאַף עִם דּוֹרוֹת הָעֲתִידִים לִהְיוֹת:  which Sefaria renders: i.e. with the generations that will be in future. The standard Medieval commentators all say that this statement comes to include future generations. This is to be a tradition and the text is its testimony. Reading is the access.

The written word has an undulating history. Socrates was not in favor of writing. In the dialogues of Plato, Socrates ( presented as Thamus) argues that writing will actually lead to forgetfulness because people will rely on written texts instead of their own memory. Socrates believed that true knowledge comes from direct, interactive dialogue, where ideas can be questioned and examined in real-time.

The Mishna and the Talmud are called the oral law. Initially, these ideas were  transmitted by memorization, outside the written world. To an extent the ban on writing the Oral Law may have shared some of the principles attributed to Socrates. Writing the Mishna before its time would have compromised it. In practice, we can see how the absence of a fixed text allowed the circumstances of the time to adapt the law .  The unwritten is more malleable.

Reading opens a world that, until recently, had  been controlled by the owners of printing presses. They printed what they considered valuable or profitable. The publisher could manipulate the perception of truth and value; the publishers could suppress what they considered seditious.

The development of the mimeograph (1874)  allowed individuals and groups, with sufficient will, to publicize views to a limited audience. It broke the publisher’s monopoly on truth and value.  The internet opened information transfer to the full range of possibilities. Anyone, no matter how competent, no matter how careful, no matter how mentally ill, could relatively easily broadcast an opinion or a truth. The written lost its official backing.

In the world of science, a structure of authority was preserved (to an extent) by attributing reliability to peer review and preserving the stature of print journals when they went online. However, the emergence of industry sponsored journals and articles that are really advertisements has made me more skeptical, regardless of the purported editorial policy of the publication.

The ability to slant the truth is blatantly expressed in American “News” Wounding terrorist operatives, identified by pagers assigned only to them, is called a war crime.  They are identified as people, presumably civilians. They are not; and the New York Times knows it.  But the Times controls a very large and powerful press. To me, their power is greatly diminished by their word choice.

Ultimately, I have a small amount of ambivalence about my grandson learning to read. I do not think society has ever properly adapted to the written word. Its origin as an expensive (parchment, scribe, ink)  and exclusive skill gave it a gravity that lasted into the future, to those who are not with us here this day. The strictness of interpretation may have violated its intention. Is the law meant to preserve the original intention or should it be read to maximize the benefit for all. What was the second amendment to the US constitution really about?

I like the Jewish tradition of a written law, an immutable law ( at least some of it written in stone); and an oral law of interpretation, opinion and limited flexibility.  One who enters the sea of words needs a life raft.

 

 

 

Ki Thavo: the myth

 

Ki Thavo: the myth

The  bulk of this parsha is a prophecy of horror; the consequence of disobedience. It predicts a series of misfortunes. The detailed description is introduced:

אֶת־הַמְּאֵרָ֤ה אֶת־הַמְּהוּמָה֙ וְאֶת־הַמִּגְעֶ֔רֶת

The curse, the confusion and the ….

הַמִּגְעֶ֔רֶת ( Hamigereth) is a unique word that appears only once in the canon text. A hapax legomenon.

Rashi translates

המארה  (hama’eyrah) means PAUCITY and המהומה   (hamihumah) A TERRIFYING SOUND.

Rashi does not translate הַמִּגְעֶ֔רֶת. (Hamigereth)

Targum translates the word: מְזוֹפִיתָא  (mizofitha): frustration, vexation.  Perhaps this is a reflexive translation, relating to the frustration of translating a word that appears only once.

In context, this ambiguity of the word begins to convey the horror. After a curse and confusion, there is something bad, probably worse coming and what it is: is unclear. Obscurity and uncertainty add to the dread. Trepidation is possibly the worst emotion I have felt. When I imagine my parents experience in the holocaust, it is the confusion and panic that frightens and saddens me most.

The climax, the penultimate verse emphasizes dread:

בַּבֹּ֤קֶר תֹּאמַר֙ מִֽי־יִתֵּ֣ן עֶ֔רֶב וּבָעֶ֥רֶב תֹּאמַ֖ר מִֽי־יִתֵּ֣ן בֹּ֑קֶר מִפַּ֤חַד לְבָֽבְךָ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּפְחָ֔ד וּמִמַּרְאֵ֥ה עֵינֶ֖יךָ אֲשֶׁ֥ר תִּרְאֶֽה׃

In the morning you shall say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening you shall say, “If only it were morning!”—because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see.

The curse is presented as a progression. It starts with natural disasters – drought and disease  - and  progresses to defeat , exile and subjugation. The atrocities described evoke the holocaust. It is distressing that this ancient text, describing the most repulsive scenes Moshe can imagine,  does not quite equal the reality of Poland in 1942.

How did this text prepare the Jews in the Eastren European exile?  When the persecution came, did they see it as the expected fulfillment of the prophecy? Did the passage, heard (by many) innumerable  times since childhood, add a sense of familiarity to the persecution? Was there some comfort in the prediction? Did it make the nation more cooperative and thus help the evil enemy?

My Jewish consciousness is tied inexorably to the Holocaust. My parents were sole survivors of their large families and went through many/most/all the horrors described in the parsha. My personal relationship to the myth of survival from persecution is distorted, but I think that this theme is a most fundamental element of the Jewish collective mythology, the glue of the nation.

Zionism, and the founding of the state of Israel, did not remove this concept. The persecution became a motivation for the assertion of power and independence. There are many brands of Zionism, the (magical) redemption aspects vary across them – from denial to manifest. All are infused with the theme of reaction to persecution.

Perhaps the quality the unites the largest number of Jews is watchfulness. Euphemisms like anti-Zionism and antisemitism cloud the perception of the both the hater and the hated. We all have the prophecy in our hearts:

וְהָיִ֣יתָ לְשַׁמָּ֔ה לְמָשָׁ֖ל וְלִשְׁנִינָ֑ה בְּכֹל֙ הָֽעַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁר־יְנַהֶגְךָ֥ יְ

You shall be a consternation, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which the LORD will drive you.

The chapter closes with an undoing of the opening. The chapter starts with a celebration of the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt, the liberation from slavery

וַיּוֹצִאֵ֤נוּ יְ

מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם בְּיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ וּבִזְרֹ֣עַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבְמֹרָ֖א גָּדֹ֑ל וּבְאֹת֖וֹת וּבְמֹפְתִֽים׃

The LORD freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.

 

It ends with a return to Egypt and status inferior to slavery.

וֶהֱשִֽׁיבְךָ֨ יְ

 

 מִצְרַ֘יִם֮ בׇּאֳנִיּוֹת֒ בַּדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמַ֣רְתִּֽי לְךָ֔ לֹא־תֹסִ֥יף ע֖וֹד לִרְאֹתָ֑הּ וְהִתְמַכַּרְתֶּ֨ם שָׁ֧ם לְאֹיְבֶ֛יךָ לַעֲבָדִ֥ים וְלִשְׁפָח֖וֹת וְאֵ֥ין קֹנֶֽה׃ {ס}        

The LORD will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route which I told you you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.

Is it an endless recursion?  The perception of victimhood is more than a self-perpetuation. Outside forces keep it going. Can we ever be good enough?

 

 

Ki Theitze: domination

The theme of power, and the attempt to control its abuse, runs through the parsha.  The worker must be paid in a timely manner; the debtor cannot be made destitute by compound interest, the pawn shop client deserves  a measure of dignity.  Power over others leads to consequences, and the human lord is not omniscient. Every act has thousands of consequences. Some of them must be considered; and their unfathomable number should be appreciated

This is a parsha of obligations. People perform  acts and situations arise   and here are instructions for handling them.  Some obligations devolve from previous decisions: marriage, hiring workers, etc. Others devolve from circumstances: lost objects, disease. Many of these duties are consequences of previous decisions.

The exercise of power effects change, sometimes progress.  One person becomes richer, more powerful, than another. The entitlement that results from this difference in wealth is taken as a ( Divine)  reward by the winner.   The proximate providers of the reward, the people who enriched the entrepreneur, were not a party to the contract. They deserve consideration.

Can there be progress without reward? Does the reward need to include domination? These questions are not addressed here . Does that mean that the answer is assumed?

Sometimes, the power position seems accidental

לֹֽא־תִרְאֶה֩ אֶת־שׁ֨וֹר אָחִ֜יךָ א֤וֹ אֶת־שֵׂיוֹ֙ נִדָּחִ֔ים וְהִתְעַלַּמְתָּ֖ מֵהֶ֑ם הָשֵׁ֥ב תְּשִׁיבֵ֖ם לְאָחִֽיךָ׃

If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your peer.

The extra  וְהִתְעַלַּמְתָּ֖ מֵהֶ֑ם  [do not] ignore it;  evokes the possibility of simply not getting involved. The stray animal was lost before, why change its status? Maybe one should treat this situation like the seductress [ whose capture in war opens the parsha] best to ignore it. The Torah says otherwise. Do not overlook doing the right thing: attempt to return the stray. The correct reaction is hidden in confusion and conflicting tasks and interests. This sentence is training for making the best choice.

The right choice can be buried in a mass of conflicting interests. The details of the law identifies lost objects that can be kept, andcircumstances in which it is best to leave things as they are.

Are the rational laws seducing us  into the belief that the following laws, like shatnez (the prohibition of wearing wool and linen together) also contain a hidden core of rectitude. Maybe. Many of the rules in the parsha are reasonable and kind. Others are not. Certain mixtures are prohibited: grapes and grain, donkeys and oxen, wool and linen. Do the rational edicts, the ones that seem kind and respectful, justify adherence to the commandments that seem bizarre? Perhaps the irrational rules are training for following rules and asking questions later… and not, necessarily expecting an answer.

I remember being in first or second grade, learning about the  North American colonies. I was learning how to read, but there was also an intention to form some identification with the colonists who later came to found the US. We learned that their clothes were made from linsey woolsey, wool and linen woven together. The fabric forbidden in the parsha. The realization that they wore clothes that are forbidden to me broke some of that identification. I could never be a true, dyed in the wool (and linen) American. That was an early introduction into the reality of my relationship with the dominant culture. Shatnez had served a function.

Our actions and temptations are too complex to understand. The Torah offers guidelines. Thinking about them is not simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoftim: tradition(alism)

This week’s parsha demands the establishment of several systems of authority. Judges are the agents of impartiality. Priests maintain the religious practices. Kings protect the nation and work for its advancement. Prophets guide the nation to maintain unity and purpose as conditions change. Did the system ever work?  Is any part of it applicable now?

The description of each of these systems comes with admonitions. The judges must pursue righteousness: צֶ֥דֶק, Tzedek. The priests and Levites are to be landless. The king must write a copy of the Divine law and read it daily. The prophet must pronounce all that he receives and never confabulate.

On top of these admonitions, there is a repeated call for the removal of deviant positions with prejudice. The elder who does not accede to the majority position and seeds protests has committed a capital offence. Idolatry, including resurrection of the local cults, by an individual or community is to be destroyed and its perpetrators killed.

Inside all of these rules about rules, there is the prohibition of superstition and magic.

לֹֽא־יִמָּצֵ֣א בְךָ֔ מַעֲבִ֥יר בְּנֽוֹ־וּבִתּ֖וֹ בָּאֵ֑שׁ קֹסֵ֣ם קְסָמִ֔ים מְעוֹנֵ֥ן וּמְנַחֵ֖שׁ וּמְכַשֵּֽׁף׃

Let no one be found among you who consigns a son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer,

These prohibitions belong in a chapter that establishes a system to maintain the creed and prohibits competing frameworks.

It is easy for us to dismiss the augur (who examined the entrails of birds for signs), the soothsayer and the sorcerer as purveyors of nonsense. Perhaps the introduction, consigning children to fire, generated disgust, even in earlier generations, that carried over to the other less violent superstitions.

 

To the people of the time, these activities were science: the most accurate predictors of the future and methods to influence events in nature, available. The Israelite was rejecting the molecular biology of the time.

This brings into focus the interaction between traditions and scientific progress. In medicine (probably the oldest alloy of science, tradition and superstition), this battle is clear to the practitioner. New approaches require the approval of governmental agencies and, absent that, are illegal and subject to penalty. Payers (insurance) often requires a more rigorous level of proof (the new treatment is usually much more expensive) and rigorous adherence to recipes used in published studies is mandated. This rigor has been manipulated by pharma so that medications that have the same mechanism of action cannot be substituted for each other. A drug that enhances the immune system to fight lung cancer cannot be used for the same purpose in Hodgkin’s disease.  The Hodgkins immunostimulant must be used.  Since a clinical trial, to see if the lung drug works in Hodgkins ( as it should, and actually does) would cost millions of dollars, drug companies can safely divide the territory and need not fear competition. The empirical has triumphed over the rational.

Traditional approaches are often vague. Diagnoses based upon the microscopic appearance of tissue include criteria that may be aberrant in the specimen, yet the diagnosis remains. Diagnoses need not  answer to the  requirement for response to therapy; and which criteria can be elided while maintaining the same expectations for outcome is not clear.

Traditional approaches are like language. A word can mean several different things, yet we cleave to it.  Language, which has evolved in its own unsupervised way, is  not likely to become more precise. The recognition of its imprecision is, perhaps, the best we can do. Will large language models impact this issue positively or negatively? For now it seems to perpetuate and broadcast a worldview of “should”: what people say they believe, not what is real. It all ends happily ever after.

How does the Torah instruct the believer to think about our, contemporary science? Is it sorcery?  Our epidemiologists look at entrails to follow microbes (tiny, invisible spirits) that cause disease.  We are poked with needles that contain RNA that protects us from last month’s ( no longer prevalent) Covid strain. There are no storehouses of water in the sky.

I can weasel my way out of heresy by opening the words of Torah to a broader interpretation. Alternative, scientific, explanations and models do not violate the prohibitions because they work. I need not “believe” in them, they are simply useful. [Consumers of sorcery probably felt the same]. Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions made things easier by pointing out that today’s science becomes tomorrows superstition. It also becomes tomorrows tradition, blocking advances ( and error).

 

Mainstream Judaism has fondly adopted the evolution of science and produced a disproportionate number of its leaders. The subtlety of language allows contradiction to flourish.

Re’eh: try it and see

 Re’eh: try it and see

The parsha opens with רְאֵה: re'eh: see! It then proceeds to tell the reader to see a blessing and a curse that is laid before him.

רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃ 

 See, this day I set before you blessing and curse:

This is a challenge to our understanding. It instructs us to see something that is not visible. These instructions would be unintelligible to a machine, the machine would declare an  error: one cannot see  blessings or curses . They are not visible objects

This opening statement contrasts with the mitzvah to deny any visuals when Gd spoke with the nation at Sinai. 

וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם מְאֹ֖ד לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑ם כִּ֣י לֹ֤א רְאִיתֶם֙ כׇּל־תְּמוּנָ֔ה בְּי֗וֹם דִּבֶּ֨ר יְ' אֲלֵיכֶ֛ם בְּחֹרֵ֖ב מִתּ֥וֹךְ הָאֵֽשׁ׃ 

Take therefore good heed to yourselves; for you saw no manner of form on the day that the Lord spoke to you in Ḥorev out of the midst of the fire:— 4;15

 Clearly, this re'eh of our parsha  does not  mean the usual, physiological  vision that involves the neural connections between the eye, the retina, optic tract and the occipital cortex of the brain . Perhaps re'eh is better translated: imagine, generate the image. There is no object to be seen, only memories, ideas, dreams that can be synthesized into a vision.

In medical school, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Eric Kandel, a Nobel prize winning neuroscientist.  The title of the lecture was: "Seeing is believing but touching is the real thing."  The lecture dealt with the complexity of the visual pathway in the brain.  The points of sensation of light in the retina are processed into lines and the lines are eventually  turned into faces. The brain is preprogrammed to try to make faces out of incomplete information.   Vision, according to Dr Kandel,  is always an amalgam of what is there and what we think should be there. The re'eh of our parsha is pure belief; there is  no external visual sensory input. It is a seeing that is purely believing. 

This is how we see the future. Imagination, based upon deduction and dread and hope generates possible  scenarios. In Pirkei Avoth 2:9,  Raban Yochanan ben Zakai asks  his five students to describe  the    דֶרֶךְ יְשָׁרָה שֶׁיִּדְבַּק בָּהּ הָאָדָם , the true path to which a person should cleave. Rabbi Shimon answers: הָרוֹאֶה אֶת הַנּוֹלָד. haroeh eth hanolad, one who sees the  products  of their actions.  This is a  seeing of what is not (yet) there. This is a synthetic vision that combines experience, calculation and honesty. A process that recognizes  the complexity of the consequences of actions and realizes how what is born differs from what is conceived.

 In the parsha, Moshe clarifies the consequences of taking  those paths. Gd will reward doing good; and punishment will devolve from doing bad. 

The way that blessing and curse are laid out is very telling.  The following verse reads:

אֶֽת־הַבְּרָכָ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּשְׁמְע֗וּ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙ יְ

a blessing, אֲשֶׁ֣ר , asher ,that [not if], you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day:

and 

וְהַקְּלָלָ֗ה אִם־לֹ֤א תִשְׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙

and curse, im, if, you do not obey the commandments of your Gd

 Rashi recognizes that there is an issue. ( Rashi only comments if an issue exists) :

 את הברכה. עַל מְנָת אֲשֶׁר תִּשְׁמְעוּ:

THE BLESSING — with the condition that you should obey

 

If Rashi had meant that we simply translate asher as "if" this time, he would have used the word 'אם' "im", the same word used in the next sentence in the text which always means "if."( This point is made by Eliahu Mizrachi, quoted by the Gur Arye. In Genesis where says asher which should be translated as "if. " There Rashi uses im. )

 The  Gur Arye ( Maharal of Prague) , commenting on this Rashi,  points us to Gittin 74 that elucidates  the meaning of al menath.  Al menath is a purchase on credit. The reward is given in advance, assuming the fulfillment of the condition that acquires it will occur. 

Onkolos, official translation of Torah into Aramaic, renders the verse: 

יָת בִּרְכָן דִּי תְקַבְּלוּן לְפִקּוּדַיָּא דַּיְ

      ... The blessing—that you accept  the commandments of Hashem

This translation is compatible with Rashi: the blessing is bestowed pending payment

Several commentators over many generations express this idea: the observance is itself a reward. 

       IBn Ezra (12th Century)

כי בשמעכם הנה אתם מבורכים

Since you have listened, behold you are blessed

to 

     Malbim (19th  Century)

א"כ זה עצמו מה שתשמעו אל מצות ה' הוא הברכה,

 Therefore that, itself , that you keep the commandments of Gd , that is the blessing.

Or HaChaim (18th Century) 

הוא אשר תשמעו כי השמיעה בתורה הוא תענוג מופלא ומחיה הנפש כאומרו (ישעי' נ''ה) שמעו ותחי נפשכם,

For the observance of the Torah is a wonderful pleasure and awakens the soul. 

Rav Hirsch (19th Century) 

The fulfillment of the divine commandments is itself a true part of the blessing, which not only follows obedience, but already begins its realization in obedience and the faithful fulfillment of one's duty.

Every year, when I read this sentence, with  its asher, I think about my father, wearing his tefillin at morning services in his synagogue in Florida. This was, ultimately, what he had wanted to do for so many years: just go to shul, put on tefillin and daven. What a complex, al menath, conditional payment. After all he had been through, all the years he could not daven wearing tefillin :  Soviet soldier, prisoner of war, hunted Jew, slave in death camp, displaced person, refugee, ... this was what he wanted to do. This was his pleasure; his longed for reward. 

Another verse always strikes me in this parsha:

{ח} לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֔וּן כְּ֠כֹל אֲשֶׁ֨ר אֲנַ֧חְנוּ עֹשִׂ֛ים פֹּ֖ה הַיּ֑וֹם אִ֖ישׁ כָּל־הַיָּשָׁ֥ר בְּעֵינָֽיו׃ 

You shall not act at all as we now act here, every man as he pleases,

 It is not exactly the opposite of the choice that opens the parsha. Even if we all agree that we will go for  the blessing, we may differ in how to get there. Conflict will now be  resolved into a single, unifying decision

This process of deferring strong opinions to the collective is  a key part of marriage. Marriage is, in part, the privilege and pleasure of considering the other, and sacrificing  what you think you would like -  for the common good. It is a part of  the blessing of  cooperation

This week, Karen and I sponsored the kiddush  because it is our  fortieth wedding anniversary. We are proud to celebrate at Ohr Chadash, a place that sprang from our common values, an example of many different ideas coming together, all for the sake of blessing, bracha. 

Often the only way to know the bracha is to accept the rules, suppress the hubris, and see how it works out.