Standing the Tragic Gap Between The World that Is and the World that Can Be
Parshat Re’eh 2025, Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann
Parker Palmer, educator, author and activist, offers a helpful framework in understanding the long term fight for justice and fairness in a broken world.
It is the framework of what he calls the “Tragic Gap” — the gap between the healed world we dream about, a world in which freedom and equality and peace are manifest, and the world in which we find ourselves; more simply put: the gap between the world as it is and the world as it might be.
The gap is “tragic” because it will never close — there will ALWAYS be a gap between what is and what we hope will be — a fact that in Palmer’s words “can lead us into despair and resignation.”
Yet, he argues, what is needed of us is “the capacity to ‘stand in the tragic gap’ between corrosive cnyicism and irrelevant idealism, between what is and could be.” From that place, we can find the strength to transcend despair and act from our better impulses.
It is an evocative and meaningful idea — standing in the tragic gap.
And to me, it is a helpful frame to bring to this week’s Torah portion, to the section we read this morning — a mirror and insight into what might be happening.
Chapter 15 begins with Moses’s review of the shemita year and remission of debts. Then, Moses’ speech takes a new turn as he declares:
אֶ֕פֶס כִּ֛י לֹ֥א יִֽהְיֶה־בְּךָ֖ אֶבְי֑וֹן “EFES KI LO YEHEHE B’CHA EVYON” = There will be NO needy among you.
A big and bold declaration — Poverty, Need, Want will simply not exist because God will bless you in the land that Adonai your God is giving you….
Then a mere 3 verses later: “Ki Y’heyeh v’cha Evyon…”
כִּֽי־יִה בְךָ֨ אֶבְי֜וֹן מֵאַחַ֤ד אַחֶ֙יךָ֙ בְּאַחַ֣ד שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ בְּאַ֨רְצְךָ֔ אֲשֶׁר־יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ נֹתֵ֣ן לָ֑ך
“However If…However If — OR WHEN — there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settledments in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman. Rather you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs.”
To me, this is one of the biggest whiplash moments in the Torah. THERE WILL BE NO NEEDY! But, just in case… if… then…What is going on here? Is the biblical author hedging their bets? An insurance policy? Is this more of a statement about resources and human greed — saying to the people- God has given you enough to take care of everyone in your midst. But your selfish inclinations are likely going to take over and it will result in inequality.
While I appreciate the notion that so much of inequality would be solved with an abundance mindset and redistribution of wealth, it feels like a cynical read to say that this come — to-terms with reality part of our section is there only because we assume humanity’s selfishness and inability to listen to God’s commands.
This is why I read this dual “no needy” and “if/when” less as a statement about obedience vs. human being’s tendency to make mistakes and rather as an ideological statement, even vision.
I believe the authors of the Torah are making a much more profound statement about what it means to be a human being and a Jew who is commanded to make the world better and build societies that maximize individual potential AND what it means to be a human being and a Jew in a world when that is not always the case:
The Torah instructs us first and foremost: Always have a vision for a world redeemed, healed and perfect.
Do not think fixing the problems in front of you are ever enough. Do not think charity is the end game.
And at the same time, we need strategies for the real world, a world when those highest values are not manifested. If you become so fixated on the vision, then you will forget to be here, now where there are needy among you.
In other words, as Palmer puts it: OUR JOB IS TO STAND IN THE TRAGIC GAP, holding both the vision of the world that could be alongside the one we exist in that is so, so (increasingly) far away from what we want it to be.
Recognizing that we are never going to close that gap does not mean we should do nothing. Rather, holding that tension invites us to act grounded in both reality and hope. However, or in addition, the Torah offers more specific and deeply spiritual advice about what to do when confronted by this tragic gap.
Verse 7: Ki/If/When:..לֹ֧א תְאַמֵּ֣ץ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ֗ וְלֹ֤א תִקְפֹּץ֙ אֶת־יָ֣דְךָ֔ מֵאָחִ֖יךָ הָאֶבְיֽוֹן
LO T’AMETZ ET L’VAV’CHA VLO TIKPOTZ ET YADCHA ME’A-CHICHA HAEVYON
If/When there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman.
Two instructions: do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman.
Take a second to let that sink in. You imagine a world that is perfect, where all share their bounty and no one is hungry. Then you see a world that is cruel and filled with selfishness and people go hungry and what are we supposed to do: do not harden your heart and shut your hand.
The second part makes sense. Tzedakah is a commandment. That’s the beauty and what distinguishes it from the english not adequate translation of “charity” — it’s not about how we feel, it is about what we must do, everyone, even poor people must give tzedakah. That sense of obligation is what makes it compelling — it’s just what we do.
But why instruct in this moment “do not harden your heart”? Even though as Maimonides taught, it is a lesser level of charity, we still are to give charity even if we don’t feel like doing so, even if we do so unhappily or begrudgingly.
Considering the frame of Parker Palmer’s teaching, I am seeing the instruction not to harden our hearts in a different light this year.
My interpretation: “When you see the world that you hope for and dream about is so very different than the difficult and painful world in which we live, do not despair. Do not turn your heart against the world and those suffering in it because it feels overwhelming or is at odds for the vision we seek.”
This is not a theoretical idea. This is mirrored in conversations I have and observe everyday given that the realities of everyday life and the discrepancy between what is and what we hope will be has grown so dramatically (and so tragically) in the past year, two years.
Conversations like “Things are so horrible, there is nothing I can do so I will just wait out the storm and reengage when things are better.” “Things are so terrible, it’s awful but it’s out of my hands.” “I never imagined giving my children or grandchildren a world that was so much more painful and harsh than the one I was born into.”
And so on.
Watching the world as it is, truly standing in it, coming face to face with a needy person as in our Torah case, or watching what’s happening in Washington DC, or seeing the cruelty and lawlessness of ICE in our cities; watching the devastation in Gaza as American Jews part of yet out of control from that story — it can be so easy to want to close our eyes, to turn away, to close our hearts.
Yet, our tradition teaches us: this is not a sustainable forward. We need to be able to build muscle and tolerance for opening our hearts to the pain of what is happening while not letting it subsume us.
Borrowing another phrase from Parker Palmer, we can learn to live with “broken open hearts” — broken open in ways that inspire compassion and grace.
Another reason I think that the unusual command “do not harden your heart” is because hardened hearts, most of the time, do not create space for taking action. Hardened hearts means we lose a sense of connection to the needy person in front of us. Hardened hearts means that pain becomes abstract instead of visceral. Hardened hearts can lead us to believe there is simly nothing we can do.
If we guard against that, then a new field of possibility emerges. Standing in the tragic gap, holding our heartbreak alongside our vision, opening to what is and what can be, we can take a step. And then another and then another. No step, no action is insignificant. No action is meaningless.
This is especially resonant as we move to Elul. It’s a time of reconnecting with our hearts, of opening our hearts and also of realigning ourselves with our values and how we wish to be in the world. Its also a time when we remember the significance of our actions.
The tragic gap between the messianic vision of a healed and perfected world and between the mess we are navigating on earth may never close. But if we hold on to both at the same time while refusing to close our hearts or fall into despair, we can continue the work that started before us and will continue after us towards healing and the wholeness of our broken world.
