[Avodah] Re'eih vs Shema

[Micha Berger]

Because we say the words from Va'eschanan multiple times a day, I have
heard (pun intended, sadly) a lot about shema when it means something
more than the stimulation of neurons in my inner ear. Like the English
word "listen", "shema" connotes paying attention, obeying ("eiqev asher
shamata beQoli"), etc...

So, what do we get from the use of "re'eih", as in the title of this
week's parashah?

In the past couple of days, I cam up with a theory about the difference
between shemi'ah and re'iyah, but want to vet it with the chevrah.

Shema introduces a theological fact we can only accept in the abstract.
We don't even fully understand how One, Indivisible and Unique Hashem is.
We are told to accept ol malkhus Shamayim on this basis, but the fact
itself is one we can apprehend, not experience.

Whereas re'eih introduces the basis of bitachon. It's a way of viewing the
world and framing our experience -- seeing Yad Hashem in events. Quite
different than an abstract truth.

(This seems to be consistent with "ein domeh shemi'ah lere'iyah". "Re'iyah"
is something I can know first-hand.)



Ta chazi in the bavli seems to also fit this pattern:

Berakhos 58a: Rav Sheishes says to a min, "ta chazi" that I am brighter
than you, proceding to show he figured out when the king would come. But
then, the point was made at the beginning ot the story that R Sheishes
was blind, so ht emay have been using the phrase pointed.

Eiruvin 6b: ta chazi that the gates of Neharda'ah couldn't be locked. (And
thus Shemu'el doesn't require they be locked in order to permit carrying.)

Etc... All cases of "go and check for yourself". Nothing at all like "ta
shema", which introduces learning a teaching.

And of course "puq chazi".

But in the Yerushalmi and the Zohar, "ta chazi" is used the way "ta shema"
is in Bavel. So, maybe I am just reading too much into Bavli idiom.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "The worst thing that can happen to a
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   person is to remain asleep and untamed."
Author: Widen Your Tent             - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF