Look Again

Have you ever spent several minutes looking for something that was right in front of you? 

It happens to me more often than I care to admit. 

A few years ago, Scott and I were rushing to get on the road when he couldn’t find his glasses. We searched the room, checked our bags, retraced our steps, and spent an embarrassingly long time trying to find them. I may have even suggested that he do a better job of keeping track of them. 

After about ten minutes, Scott looked at me and pointed to my forehead. 

“Those are your glasses, right?” he asked. “You wouldn’t have accidentally taken mine and lost yours… would you?” 

Of course not. 

Turns out we hadn’t lost anything after all. 

I’d been wearing both pairs of glasses on my head and was still searching for one of them. 

We laughed all the way to the car. 

But the story has stayed with me because it reminds me that sometimes we have all the tools we need to see more clearly—and we still don’t notice what’s right in front of us. 

The same thing happens in our lives. We grow accustomed to the way things are. We stop noticing the volunteers who quietly make everything happen. We look past the neighbor who is struggling, the family member carrying a burden, or the injustice that has become so familiar we simply accept it as “normal.” Not because we don’t care—but because human beings acclimate. 

Perhaps that’s why Judaism gives us prophets. 

This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Chazon—the Sabbath of Vision—because we read Isaiah’s opening vision just before Tisha B’Av. We often think of prophets as people who could see the future. But perhaps their greatest gift was seeing the present. 

Isaiah looked at his society and refused to look away. He noticed what others had learned to overlook. He challenged his community to see honestly, to recognize its moral blind spots, and to remember the values God expected them to live by. 

Before Judaism asks us to mourn what was destroyed, it first asks us to see clearly. 

The challenge, of course, is that seeing is never enough. Once we notice what others have learned to overlook, we are called to respond. 

This afternoon, our new Social Justice Committee will gather. In many ways, that is exactly what social justice is: choosing to pay attention to what others have stopped seeing and refusing to accept that “normal” is always good enough. 

Some people notice only what is broken. 

Others notice only what is beautiful. 

Isaiah noticed injustice that others had learned to live with. 

Yet Judaism also asks us to notice holiness, kindness, and possibility. 

The vision isn’t optimism or pessimism. It’s disciplined attention. 

We cannot repair what we no longer see. 

As we enter this Shabbat Chazon, perhaps the invitation isn’t simply to remember what our ancestors lost. Perhaps it is to ask ourselves: 

What have I stopped seeing?