Our parsha begins with the word re’eh, “see,” and ends with a commandment related to the same word, the mitzvah of re’ayon, of “being seen” by God in the Temple during pilgrimages. Three times a year, the Torah says, yera’eh, a person is required “to be seen” by God (Devarim 16:16).
This is such an interesting way of conceiving of the pilgrimage mitzvah. We would have thought the mitzvah was for us to see God, but it turns out the core of the mitzvah is the opposite, for a person to appear before God in order “to be seen,” or possibly, more accurately, to feel that they are seen by God, to become aware of what is surely going on all the time – that God is gazing upon us with love.
What does it feel like to be seen by God? Look at the end of the verse: lo yera’eh et peney Hashem reykam. This phrase is normally understood to refer to the pilgrim’s sacrificial offering, meaning “a person should not appear – be seen – by the face of God empty-handed” – bring something with you.
But perhaps we can read the phrase this way: when a person feels seen by the face of God, she no longer feels reyk, empty. She no longer feels empty of value or significance or worth, empty of capacity or talent. What happens when we truly feel seen by God is that we become aware of our largeness and fullness in God’s eyes. We become aware of how God sees us – sparkling with brilliance and glory, a precious creature of infinite capacity and potential. No, we are not empty when we feel that God sees us; we come to know, for certain and with great clarity, how very un-empty we are; we feel, bodily, our very fullness and wholeness.
One person in the Torah who clearly has an experience of “being seen” by God is Hagar. After running away from the harsh treatment of Sarai and encountering God in the wilderness, Hagar names God El Ro’i , “the God who sees me” (Genesis 16). What changes for her through this experience of ”being seen” by God? She becomes aware of the significance and power of her pregnancy. This is what happens when we get a glimpse of how God sees us: we become aware of our own pregnancies; we come to know how very full we are with potential for creativity and new birth and life, how much we have to give to the world. We thought we were “empty.” Not so. We are brimming with possibility and capacity.
Avraham, too, uses the root ra’ah to describe an encounter with God, his experience during the akedah, the binding of Isaac; he calls the mountain Hashem Yireh, “God will see.” What happened on this mountain, the place where eventually pilgrims will indeed go to do the mitzvah of re’ayon, to be seen by God, the place of the Bet HaMikdash, what happened there for Avraham is that he had the experience of being seen by God in the fullness of his capacity for faith and trust. This was Avraham’s special gift – to be supremely faithful and trusting – and God wanted Avraham to know the fullness of this gift as God saw it in him. Perhaps this is what a nisayon, a trial, is – a way of showing us what we are capable of, showing us what God sees in us so that we can see it ourselves in real life, in all its fullness, so that we can see what God sees, that we are so much stronger and more capable than we ever thought possible.
Avraham’s special gift was faith. We all have different gifts. As the next verse in our parsha says – ish kematnat yado kivirkat Hashem Elokekha asher natan lakh, “each person with the gift of her hand, according to the blessing that the Lord your God has bestowed upon you.” This is what happens when we feel seen by God – we become aware of the particular gifts we have been granted; we come to know who we are in God’s eyes, our unique capacities and greatness; we take in that confidence and begin to know our own God-given glory.
The mitzvah of re’ayon, of being seen by God, is one of the mitzvot that the rabbis say eyn lo shiur, “it has no measure” (Mishnah Peah 1:1). Literally this means that when you come before God in the Temple, the sacrificial gift that you bring does not need to meet a certain standard; it can be as large or as small as you like. The rabbis further say that this eyn lo shiur phrase means that there is neither an upper nor a lower limit to the gift that is acceptable to bring before God (Hagigah 7a). Whatever we bring – however we are, sometimes very low and needy, sometimes brimming with generosity and confidence – however we are, we are accepted by God. Eyn lo shiur. There is no standard. Before God there is no standard we have to meet, no expectation we are held up to by which we might be found lacking; we are welcome just as we are.
Having no lower limit means that there is no point at which we become too pathetic, too messed up, too far gone, to be seen and loved by God. There is no bottom; as low as we sink, God is still there to catch us, to see us and accept us and continue to believe in us.
And on the other side, there is also no upper limit to the gifts we are allowed to bring when we appear before God. In the human world, we encounter limits – on both sides – don’t be too needy and also don’t shine too brightly lest you evoke jealousy. But before God, even the sky is not the limit. God sees us in our infinite capacity to shine and rejoices in it; we can be as large as we want; we can express the true vastness of our soul without holding back.
To be seen in this way, in our wholeness and in the brightness of our light, brings us joy, making us delight in ourselves and in the others around us whose light we also begin to see more clearly. Again and again in the parsha we hear – vesamakhta lifnei Hashem Elokekha – when you come before God, together with your family and entourage – rejoice and celebrate!
Joy arrives when we feel seen. May we know that we are always seen by God, and may we be the eyes of God for one another, reflecting each other’s glory and brilliance and rejoicing in it.
Photo by Josh Sorenson at Pexels
