Parashat Re'eh: The Poor in Your Midst

 The most vulnerable in society are a primary concern in this week’s parsha -- there is a constant refrain of taking care of the poor, the widow, the orphan, the male and female servant and the Levite, who, because he did not have a land portion, was dependent on others for his survival.

This concern is a common theme in the Torah.    Our history as a nation begins as slaves in part as a way to sensitize us to the most vulnerable among us..  We are a nation charged with care of the vulnerable.

Without taking away from the very practical ramifications of these injunctions and their essential function in society -- how we need to “open our hands” and help those in need, financially and any other way we can, especially in these dire times, when some are suffering more than others -- without taking away from this emphasis, I want to offer a reading of this injunction that is more personal and internal, informed by a type of psychotherapeutic technique called IFS, Internal Family Systems therapy.

The Torah repeatedly refers to the poor and the Levite as being beshe’arekha,  “in your gates,” and bekirbekha, “in your midst” or “inside you.”   It also calls them “yours” -- aniyekha, evyonkha, “your poor,” “your destitute.”     What if we read these terms hyperliterally as referring to “your” own poor inside you, the poor within the gates of your own self?   

These are the parts of yourself that have become impoverished over the years for lack of attention and support and love, the parts that have been rejected and exiled because they are not valued in our personal and communal culture.  They are the neediest parts of ourselves, the insecurities, the hurt places, the old wounds, our particular vulnerabilities.    We don’t like these parts of ourselves and we usually hide them or push them away, thereby starving them and making them even more needy.    

Lo ta’azvenu, don’t abandon him, the Torah says about the Levite.  And, with reference to the poor -- don’t harden your heart or shut your hand.  Don’t keep shutting these parts of yourself away, hardening yourself against them and abandoning them to their exiled places within you.  Rather, what is needed is unequivocal openness -- patoah tiftah et yadekha lo -- open your hand to him.   We normally understand this phrase to mean offering financial assistance, but the language of an open hand allows for a broader interpretation -- open yourself completely to her, to the poor, rejected one inside you; offer her a hand of welcome and greeting and assistance and love; offer her the arms of an embrace, a welcoming back into the self.    

Can you bring up compassion for these parts of yourself and feel how much they need this warmth and openness and embrace?   They are like the real needy on the outside; they cry and they hurt and they need care, but they are not heard; they are told to pull it together; their hurts and needs are minimized and invalidated; others, they are told, have more pressing needs.   

When you offer assistance to these needy inside you, says the Torah, do it dei mahsoro asher yehsar lo, “enough to fill what he is lacking or needing.”    There is a temptation to look from the outside and determine when it is enough, to have an attitude of boundaries and limitations when caring for the needy, either inside or outside you.   Ok.  I’ll hear you now, one might say to this needy part, but only for so long.  You can cry now, but that’s it. Then we get back to work.  Your needs seem endless, like a bottomless pit, so we will just close off the support at some point.  No, the Torah says.  Fill what is haser lo,  what is missing for him.   This is a subjective matter.  It’s not what you on the outside think is enough.  It is a question of his feeling that it is over, that the hole is filled.   That hole may be larger than you think is appropriate.  Don’t stop too soon. Don’t shut down the tears and the pain and say -- enough.  You are done.  No, be open until the very end. Dei mahsoro asher yehsar lo.  As much as he needs.

Rashi explains the phrase asher yehsar lo to mean that even if what the poor person needs is a horse to ride on and a servant to run before him -- even then, you should fulfill this need.    I love this choice of horse and servant because it illustrates for us concretely what the poor really need -- a sense of pride, a sense of mattering in the world.  A horse to ride on like Mordecai in Shushan with all the pomp and fanfare.  Here comes an important person.  That is what our needy parts yearn for, too, a sense of mattering, of respect, of being honored and important in our own inner culture.  They have been dismissed for so long. Now they want a parade; they want to know that the king -- our self, that larger self that is connected to the divine -- considers them worthy.   

And indeed, what one finds when one turns toward such needy parts with openness and gentleness is that they turn out to deserve such a parade.  There is some hidden glory that we have locked away inside us because it has been ridiculed and rejected in the past, but oftentimes, these parts are the very best of us, the gold nuggets, the parts that indeed should ride forth on a horse into the world with pride and confidence. 

This whole shift in attitude towards the vulnerable can only happen in the glow of the divine light, bamakom asher Yivhar Hashem, in the place where God chooses to rest His name.  This week’s parsha emphasizes that one must come to the dwelling place of God to rejoice for the holidays, and that when one comes for such rejoicing, one should do so together with all of one’s most vulnerable -- wife, children, servants,  poor, and Levites.    Before God, all are made welcome; before God, it becomes clear that all are indeed children of the divine; there is room here, a capacity to hold all this brokenness that often feels beyond our human capacities.   And, in this holding of all pieces of ourselves -- and perhaps only in such holding of all parts -- is true simchah, joy.  

In such divine space, there is not a strong distinction between the outer and the inner realms.  The poor inside us need care and the poor outside our door also need care, and the flow of warmth and openness and generosity flows out and in, and in and out, and all are one.    Perhaps the Torah meant to refer to both all along.