gospel of the obvious

In Lawrence Kushner’s book, God was in this Place & I, I did not know, he shares a line from the Rabbi Rashi stating “When you look closely for a long time, you discover things that are invisible to others. Most people make the mistake of trying to ‘look deeper’ when all they need is to pay attention to the obvious.”

We spend so much time analyzing a comment or statement looking to extract a particular meaning from it.

I know that when I read the Scriptures, I often already know what’s on the page before reading so I skim through the words.  And at other times, I dive into the words to extract some deep meaning from them.

But I think, often would be the case, I would do well if I simply read the words for what they are. And what are they but to love God and to love our neighbors?

What people have spent thousands of years meditating and extracting meaning from, Jesus used two phrases to sum up its entirety.