There’s an unusual word in Parsha Ki-Tavo: “Hashkeefa” that speaks of G-d gazing down upon us from heaven. Commentaries see that gaze as a “zoomed-in” look. This word has more meaning nowadays, now that we’re familiar with zoom lenses and ways of seeing far distance way up close.
All Chabad boys are familiar with this word because of the traditional Bar-Mitzvah Maamar. It’s a rite of passage for Chabad boys to recite a specific Maamar-Chassidus discourse about Tefillin at their Bar-Mitzvah. A lot of it is esoteric and much of it goes over their heads, but there are a few memorable lines that even kids can appreciate. One of them quotes this word “Hashkeefa” and sees it as a magnifying glass. The text uses a magnifying glass as an illustrative visual. Torah is a magnifying glass through which the Jewish people are seen with much greater significance, magnification.
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The magnifying glass analogy hit home for me as a Bar-Mitzvah boy because my grandmother, Bubbe Risha Piekarski, used to say Tehillim (Psalms) used an Tehillim with enlarged font, and also a hand-held magnifying glass. She hold the book in one hand, the magnifier in another, and she’d read and annunciate the words, slowly, clearly, one word at a time. She didn’t have a formal Jewish education in Communist Russia, and her eyesight deteriorated as she got older, but she was determined to say her Psalms. She said more than the daily Psalms, and she had in mind her children and grandchildren. And she read each word with a hand-held magnifying glass – magnifying their visibility and emphasizing their importance.
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Hashkeefa may be a rare biblical word, but it’s ingrained in our Chabad perspective, and how we endeavor to see our Jewish campus community at UAlbany: See others in a magnified lens. Recognize their importance and value and their unique contribution, hold them in esteem, treat them with respect. The Talmud teaches (and this is a great magnification!): “Each person is an entire world!”