The Blessing of Blessings
This week’s Torah portion is Naso, which Reform Jews read for two weeks to align our calendars with our observance of only one day of Shavuot from Thursday evening until Friday evening. It contains one of the most iconic and invoked passages in the Torah: the Birkat Kohanim—the three-fold Priestly Benediction.
It seems fairly repetitive, a posse of platitudes which provided irresistible fodder for rabbinic interpretation. Tradition teaches that it reflects the dual nature of blessings, both material and spiritual. But its form and mode is also replete with meaning.
Though we no longer require the intermediaries with God that our ancestors valued, the sharing of this blessing by a rabbi is more a plea than a mandate, more a prayer for what can be than an arrogant casting of divine providence. God could (and does) bless directly. But by creating space for human agency in the offering of blessing, God inspires and empowers us to become partners in the realization of our blessing.