{"id":62044,"date":"2019-08-29T21:31:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T18:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=62044"},"modified":"2022-09-23T16:38:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T13:38:29","slug":"reeh-our-perceptions-depend-on-our-inner-receptivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/reeh-our-perceptions-depend-on-our-inner-receptivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Re\u2019eh: Our Perceptions Depend On Our Inner Receptivity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[504,443],"acf":{"old_id":"62044","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36663,"related_cahpter":"1059","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The differences between blessings and curses","content":"<p>What helps us perceive?<\/p>\n<p>This portion, known as &#8220;Re&#8217;eh&#8221; (&#8220;see&#8221;) suggests the answer is: knowing we can choose, that we have free will and agency to decide which path we will go on.\u00a0The portion opens with the verse, \u201cSee, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced\u201d (Deut. 11:26-28).<\/p>\n<p>The Talmud in Sotah 37b teaches on these lines, \u201cAnd furthermore, the verse comes to juxtapose the blessing with the curse,\u201d\u00a0both are in the world.\u00a0The importance then is the \u201c<em>reiya<\/em>\u201d the perception.\u00a0This passage in Sotah states that the blessings and curses in the portion of Re\u2019eh are connected with the two mountains Gerizim and Eval\u00a0mentioned\u00a0in Deuteronomy 27:12-13 as places where the blessings and curses are recited for the people.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A comment by 19<sup>th<\/sup> century German rabbi and scholar Samson Raphael Hirsch on these verses that my spouse, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman directed me to, illustrates this concept.\u00a0Hirsch says about blessings and curses and these mountains that \u201cBoth of them rise from the same soil, both are watered by the same rain and dew.\u00a0The same air passes over them both; the same pollen is blown over them both.\u00a0Yet Mount Eval remains starkly barren, while Gerizim is covered with lush vegetation to its very top.\u00a0 In the same way, blessing and curse are not dependent on external circumstances, but on our inner receptivity to the one or the other, on our <em>attitude <\/em>toward that which brings blessing.\u201d\u00a0Hirsch is saying that how we take things in and perceive them, whatever those external circumstances may be, can make the difference in the way in which we experience the world.<\/p>\n<p>This Sabbath, when we read <em>Re\u2019eh<\/em>, we will also be celebrating the new month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah.\u00a0We have choices in how to use our time this month, to ready ourselves with patterns we hope to follow over the course of the entire new year.\u00a0Let us use this time to foster attitudes within ourselves and those in our communities, that will bring us blessings and not curses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":63174,"id":63174,"title":"blessingorcurse","filename":"blessingorcurse.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/blessingorcurse.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ki-tavo-what-is-a-curse\/blessingorcurse\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"blessingorcurse","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":62814,"date":"2019-09-19 07:49:45","modified":"2022-10-12 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