* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l wrote a powerful essay about Birkat Kohanim, the Priestly Blessing, that appears in this week’s Parasha, Parashat Naso:
“Birkat Kohanim ends with the words: ‘May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.’ The knowledge that God turns His face toward us—that we are not just an indiscernible face in a crowd, but that God relates to us in our own uniqueness and singularity—is the most profound and ultimate source of peace.
Competition, strife, lawlessness, and violence come from the psychological need to prove that we matter…All of these things testify not to faith, but to a profound failure of faith.
Faith means that I believe that God cares about me. I am here because He wanted me to be…That is the most profound inner source of peace.We do not need to prove ourselves in order to receive a blessing from God. All we need to know is that His face is turned toward us. When we are at peace with ourselves, we can begin to make peace with the world.”
(from “The Blessing of Love- Naso” by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks)
Shabbat Shalom.
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