It’s hard to believe it is time for the last dvar torah of the school year already. Though I hope to write some weeks in the summer, we’re certainly at a point of transition. As experienced parents and teachers know, the end of the school year brings excitement and joyful anticipation of all the potential fun that may be coming during the summer vacation. But it also brings nervousness, and unsettles many children, even those who are happy and excited that summer is coming, simply because transitions can be hard.
Almost exactly in the middle of this week’s parsha, we find one of the best known passages of the whole Torah. Sandwiched in between the end of the description of the Levites’ shlepping duties, and the gifts offered by the chieftains of each tribe to the newly functional mishkan, holy space, we find the priestly blessing. “May God bless you and guard you. May God shine the Divine face upon you and be gracious to you. May God lift the Divine face to you and grant you peace.” This blessing comes with instructions for how the kohanim, the priests are to deliver this blessing to the people, and the promise that linking the people with God’s name will bring blessing.
Appearing as it does in the midst of a passage that is focussed on the mishkan, the precursor of the holy temple in Jerusalem, it would be easy to imagine that this powerful blessing would be limited to the priestly class, and to the holy space of the mishkan or temple, and so would have been lost to Jews when the temple was destroyed thousands of years ago. But as we know, these words have stayed with us even as our means of connection with God have shifted.
Why did this piece of ritual make it into the modern era, when so much of the temple service was left in the past. There is something about this blessing that is essential to the Jewish enterprise, something that was not meant to be limited to the kohanim, though that is where it first appears. The verse following the blessing states, “Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” When the priests give this blessing to the people, their words and actions trigger a blessing that comes from God. The verse is ambiguous in Hebrew, as it is in English, as to whom God will bless. Does it mean that as the kohanim speak the words of blessing to the people, God will bless the people? Or is it saying that the kohanim will bless the people, and God will, in turn, bless the kohanim? One midrash takes up the question, asserting that this verse comes to teach that blessing truly comes from God, and that people can bless other people only if God is in agreement. The midrash continues, asking what about the kohanim themselves? Are they left without a blessing? In order for the kohanim to be blessed, too, the midrash brings in a text from God’s promise to Abraham way back in the book of Beresheet, Genesis, “I will bless those you bless you.” The kohanim, says the midrash, are blessed by this promise, that those who bless God’s people will be blessed by God.
The hassidic master, Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, in his book kedushat levi, brings a teaching from the Ba’al Shem Tov, linking this passage to Psalms 121:5, “God is your shadow, by your right hand”. This verse, he explains, teaches that God, like a shadow, follows our actions, and that when we do the right thing, give to charity, show compassion and kindness to others, God shadows us and does the same. God waits for us to do these things, hoping and trusting that we will. Turning to the Priestly blessing, he teaches that while in much of our prayer we place ourselves in the position of requesting blessing from God, as if our hands are extended palms up, when the kohanim bless the people, they extend their hands with the backs to the heavens, and the palms facing other people, as if they are dispensing blessings from the heavens rather than looking for a divine hand-out. This brings God joy and inspires God to bestow blessing.
The opportunity to act as a conduit for God’s blessing is not limited to the kohanim. It is available to all of us through our actions in the world, and our interactions with others. Going back to the promise to Abraham at the beginning of the Jewish endeavor, God tells him, “I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you And curse those who curse you; And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.” Maybe, this has been the point of the Jewish people, all along. As a great nation, we have the capacity to bring blessing into the world, to bestow it on others, through our actions, our words, our interactions and our intentions.
Maybe this is why, of all the rituals of the holy temple, this one has been revived and reimagined in so many ways. It has made its way into our prayer service, as a way for the kohanim or the leaders to bless the whole community, wherever we live. It has entered our homes as a blessing given lovingly from parents to children each Friday night. It has entered many of our rituals of transition as a blessing for a new stage of life or a new endeavor. Last week at our school’s graduation, a selection of students formed a choir to offer this blessing to our graduates as they set off on the next stage of their educational journey.
As we come to the end of this school year, our MWJDS community is in a significant moment of transition, saying goodbye to several members of our community who have blessed us in many ways, and welcoming new faces and the possibility of the blessings they will bring. Leaving the school year on parshat Naso, with the priestly blessing tucked into the details of a busy moment of transition should be a reminder to us take the time and effort to approach this moment in a posture, not of waiting for a handout or worrying about the changing reality, but of bestowing blessing on those we will miss, on those with whom we are moving forward, on our school community and on the wider community. Let parshat naso remind us to appreciate the blessings we have received and inspire us to bring more blessing into the world.
Wishing you and your family a safe, bright, and peaceful summer.