Seeing God

This week’s parashah is entitled ראה/Re’eih – ‘See’. In our Jewish tradition ‘seeing’ like ‘hearing’ connotes much more than physically registering sensory phenomena. True seeing, no less than meaningful hearing, penetrates and awakens our core being. It is an experience of our innermost self.

Our parashah opens with the exhortation, “See (ראה/Re’eih), I place (נתן/natan) before you blessing (ברכה/berakhah) and curse”, and closes with the admonition “Do not be seen (ראה/Re’eih), before the Lord (literally before God’s face), empty, but each with the blessing (ברכה/berakhah) bestowed נתן/natan) upon you”.

Considered together, these framing verses of our parashah teach us that in “seeing” our particular blessing we experience the divine presence in our lives. However, as the main content of this parashah bridging these two verses reveals, seeing the blessing placed (נתן/natan) before us is only made possible by bestowing (נתן/natan) the same upon the other.

The word נתן /natan is a palindrome, suggesting that what we receive is what we give. Thus, this parashah instructs us that you shall surely give נתון תתן (naton titen) to another, and this giving should not trouble your heart, for in return you shall be blessed.

In seeing another through the giving of ourselves, we are blessed with seeing God. Commenting on the statement of the psalmist בצדק אחזה פניך/ ”In righteousness (tsedek), I shall see Your face”, our Jewish tradition, therefore, explains that is only by means of צדקה/tsedakah, seeing and responding to the needs of another, that we experience God/see God’s face. When we remain empty before the needs of others, we render ourselves devoid of the divine presence.

The princess who wanted to see God

Once there was a princess who had never cried. She had never had anything to cry about. Whatever in the word she wanted, she got. One day she woke up and said that she wanted to see God.

“God?”, shouted her father. “You mean GOD? Don’t be silly, child. No one in the world has seen God”.

Princess Eleanor smiled a sweet smile. ”That is exactly why I want to see Him”, she said.

Her father threw up his hands. Though he often was impatient with his only daughter, he loved her very much. He knew that in the end he would do anything she asked of him. And Princess Eleanor knew it too.

The king called in his Chief of Law and Order. “My daughter demands to see God”, he said. “I order you to take care of it”.

The Chief of Law and Order nodded and smiled. He knew very well who God was, so far as he was concerned. He had no doubt that he could make the little princess see Him too.

So he led the princess to the highest tower in the palace. He showed her the great book of the land which listed all the laws the people in that kingdom must live by, and all the punishments for those who disobeyed. Solemnly, he said, “This book is as good as God in this kingdom”.

The king’s daughter pushed the great book onto the floor. “The law is not God!” she said, and she stamped her foot. “I want to see God!”

“Bah!” said the Chief of Law and Order, and he went off to tell the king that his daughter was rude and wilful.

So the king called his Chief of the Treasury. He had charge of all the gold in the kingdom. “My daughter demands to see God”, said the king. “I order you to take care of it”.

The Chief of the Treasury nodded and smiled. For he knew very well who God was, so far as he was concerned. He had no doubt that he could make the little princess see Him too.

He led the princess down to the deepest dungeon of the castle. There he took out a great key and unlocked a thick door. As the big door swung open the glitter of gold inside made the princess blink.

“There,” the treasurer said, clasping his hands under his chin. “That, my dear, is the most money you’ll ever see in your whole life!”

“But, I want to see God!” The princess stamped her foot. “Not just a lot of old money”!”

The treasurer looked at her flushed cheeks and laid his hand on her forehead. Then he hurried off to the king to say that the princess must certainly be suffering from a strange kind of sickness.

Because neither of his two chiefs had been able to handle the job at all, the king decided to do it himself. He began to look around for God.

Thinking about it, it occurred to him that he didn’t know what God looked like. Of course, he had never bothered to look for Him either. So he looked in the royal corners, and under the royal bed, and even down in the royal kitchen. But he couldn’t find God anywhere in the palace.

At last, he went out to the palace gates and trudged down the road to the village. On his way he looked up into trees, and around hedges, and under rocks. He looked everywhere. But since he was not sure just exactly what it was he was looking for, he didn’t find anything.

Soon he came to an old man. The man was so old that he hardly had a breath left in his body. The king smiled and he sat down to rest a moment.

“Say old man, do you know God?”

“Of course,” he said. “Don’t you?”

The king stroked his royal chin. “I’m really not at all sure. But my daughter wants more than anything in the world to see God. Can you show Him to her?”

The old man straightened up. He had often heard of the little princess who had never cried. He looked up the road toward the palace. Then he looked down the road to a little house close to the roadside.

“Maybe I can,” he said, thoughtfully.

When the king brought the old man before the princess, she looked at him suspiciously.

“Have you ever really seen God, old man?” she asked. The old man nodded, smiling a little.

“Then show Him to me!” she ordered in a hard little voice, for she didn’t believe he had at all.

“First you must do something”, the old man said.

“What do you mean?” said the princess. “What do I have to do?”

“You will only have to come with me to visit someone you don’t know.”

“Then will you show me God?”

The old man nodded. “If God wills it, I will”.

“And if He doesn’t”, she scolded, “you’ll be sorry!”

She followed the old man out of the palace, down the road and toward the village. But they did not go all the way. They stopped at a small, poor house, close to the road.

The old man sat down on a box in the yard. “Go in”, he said.

The princess looked at him in surprise. She had never been in a place so poor as this before. Timidly, she pushed open the door and stepped in.

A poor girl sat in a chair at the table. Though her smile was bright, her face was quite dirty.

“I am Princess Eleanor”, the princess said a little haughtily, and she wrinkled her nose at the smell of something cooking on the stove.

The girl only looked at her. She did not move.

“You’re supposed to get up and bow when you meet a princess!” the princess said.

The girls’ smile slipped off her face. “I can’t”, she whispered.

“What do you mean you can’t!” the princess said, and she frowned.

The girl pulled at her skirt. She pointed to her legs. “I can’t walk,” she whispered. “I never could walk – ever”.

“Oh!” said Princess Eleanor. She looked at the girl’s legs, and then looked quickly away. Hastily, she stepped out and closed the door.

Silently, she followed the old man back up the road to the palace.

When they reached the palace hall, the old man turned to her.

“Are you ready?” he said.

“Ready? For what?” asked the princess. She had been so busy thinking of the other girl that she had forgotten all about herself.

The old man smiled. “You are ready,” he said. To the princess’ surprise, he put a mirror in her hand.

“Now close your eyes, hold up the mirror, and look deep into your heart.”

The princess closed her eyes and held up the mirror. Suddenly tears began to roll down the cheeks of the princess who had never cried.

“Why are you crying?” asked the old man.

“I have been selfish all my life”, she said, “and I did not know it until I saw that poor girl”. She put the mirror down and opened her eyes.

“Oh sir, do you think it would help if I brought her some warm food and some nice clothes to wear? Do you think that would help?’

The old man smiled. He took the mirror from her hand and put it carefully away.

“You have seen God”, he said.

By Molly Cone, Adapted