Naso 2021

1“Speak to Aaron and his sons saying the following, “In this way shall you bless the Children of Israel, say to them: May G-d bless you and guard you. May G-d shine His countenance upon you and bestow favor (Chen) upon you. May G-d lift His countenance towards you, and may He provide peace for you.” And (in this fashion) you shall place my Name on the Children of Israel and I will bless them.” (Num 6:23-26)

2The three blessings to be bestowed upon us are to be guarded or protected, to achieve favor or “Chen”, and finally to be able to live in peace. These days nothing is more relevant than to be the recipient of these three outcomes, namely to live in safety, without being hated and to be at peace with the world as well as within our own community. G-d has blessedly bestowed on us the first blessing. We are “Guarded”. We have the iron dome to go along with a highly motivated and well armed army and air force. However, real peace as hoped for in the third verse of the priestly blessing surely is lacking. What is missing is the middle blessing “Chen”. Without “Chen” there can be no peace. It is not enough to achieve a high level of military success. We need to win over the hearts and minds of the nations of the world. This will come only from G-d as we learned in the Exodus story:

3“And G-d placed the favor (Chen) of the Jewish people upon the Egyptians” (Ex 11:3 and 12:36) thereby causing the Egyptians to lend them their most valuable possessions. At that point in our history for a brief moment our people instead of being hated as stated “and the Jews were hated by the Egyptians” (Ex 1:12) they were recipients of favor “Chen”.

4The job of Aaron and his family of Kohanim is to beseech G-d to bless us with the Chen we so sorely lack and so desperately need.

5With this in mind it is interesting that the Priestly Blessings are recited only on the three pilgrim festivals and on the High Holidays. The actual mitzvah is for the Kohanim to bless us each and every day of the year. In fact this is practiced in the Diaspora only by the Sephardic community and in Israel by everyone. Attempts were made throughout our history to reestablish the practice of daily recitation but something happened (fire or sickness) and the efforts failed. Possible we are being informed about our existence outside of our promised land. Do not expect to receive Chen while you live in anywhere other than in the land of Israel. While we pray for Peace we know that without “Chen” peace will be an illusion. Let us hope that G-d will bless us with “Chen” and the resultant peace speedily and in our day.

6Parsha corner this week is dedicated to the memory of Joel and Ira Shulman A’H.