Parashat Re’eh: Learning to See the Blessing Before Us

A D’var Torah for 25 Av 5786, 8 August 2026

There are moments when doing what is right seems straightforward. We understand our responsibilities and recognize the choice before us. At other times, appearances confuse us. Something may look religious without being faithful to God. A familiar practice may feel obligatory even though Torah never commands it. A person may speak confidently about righteousness while overlooking the suffering immediately before them.

Faithfulness requires us to look carefully: at what God has commanded, at what we have inherited, and at the people affected by our decisions.

Parashat Re’eh opens with that invitation:

“See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.”

— Deuteronomy 11:26

Moshe immediately connects the blessing with obedience to YHWH’s commandments and the curse with turning away from Him, particularly toward other gods. The choice concerns Israel’s covenant with God. Its standard is the teaching Moshe places before the people.

For us, this is where a Netzarim reading begins. We return to the written Torah to understand our obligations, and we accept responsibility for living them with integrity. We study because we need understanding. We examine our conscience because our motives can deceive us. We act because the covenant asks something of us beyond agreement with its words.

Each Person Must See

The opening word, re’eh, addresses the hearer in the singular, while lifneichem, “before you,” addresses the people in the plural. This grammatical shift offers a fitting reflection on the relationship between individual responsibility and communal life.

Each of us must look, consider, and choose. Yet our decisions reach beyond ourselves. Dishonesty damages the trust on which others depend. Cruelty can shape the life of a family long after an angry conversation ends. Generosity can restore possibilities that another person thought were lost.

We belong to a people, but belonging cannot do our moral work for us. A congregation cannot repent on behalf of someone who refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing. A teacher’s knowledge cannot replace a student’s willingness to learn. Our ancestors’ faithfulness does not excuse our indifference.

Neither does personal responsibility make us self-sufficient. We need instruction, correction, friendship, and the perspectives of others. The person who accepts responsibility before God should become more willing to listen, because the consequences of misunderstanding matter.

Each person must see. Together, we live with what we choose.

Knowing What God Has Commanded

Before we can speak meaningfully about obedience, we must distinguish the commandments of God from the interpretations and customs of human beings.

In Netzarim Judaism, the five books of Moses are the binding foundation of halakhah and doctrine. We approach their teachings through their plain meaning, read in context and with attention to the ethical responsibilities the Torah itself establishes. The Prophets and Writings remain Israel’s inspired writings and history. They can illuminate faithfulness, expose hypocrisy, and strengthen our understanding, but they do not establish an independent law that alters or overrides Torah.

Later Jewish literature also deserves thoughtful study. A rabbinic commentary may offer a penetrating observation. A traditional prayer may give words to something we have struggled to express. A communal custom may deepen gratitude or help a family remember its responsibilities. We may receive these gifts without assigning them the authority of revelation at Sinai.

The Torah warns against adding to or diminishing what God commands (Deuteronomy 4:2). Our understanding of that warning requires honesty in how we teach: a commandment must be identified as a commandment; an interpretation must be offered as an interpretation; and a voluntary custom must remain voluntary.

That distinction applies to this d’var Torah as well. A reflection drawn from a Hebrew word may help us think. It does not, by itself, create a new obligation.

We honor Torah by studying what it actually says, acknowledging where application requires judgment, and resisting the temptation to turn our preferences into God’s demands.

Conscience and the Work of Understanding

The responsibility to see cannot be surrendered entirely to a religious authority. Teachers can help us understand a passage, consider its setting, and recognize implications we have missed. Their learning is valuable. Nevertheless, each person remains responsible for the decisions they make.

This responsibility requires an educated conscience. Conscience develops through study, self-examination, experience, and a willingness to hear correction. An immediate feeling of approval or discomfort is something to examine, rather than a final ruling.

When a commandment challenges us, we should give it serious attention. When an inherited interpretation troubles us, we should examine its basis. We need to ask what the text requires, what assumptions we have brought to it, and whether our preferred conclusion serves truth or merely convenience.

Reasonable people may reach different conclusions about a difficult application. Such differences call for careful discussion and humility. We should be able to explain our understanding without pretending that everyone who disagrees is careless or rebellious.

The freedom to study carries the responsibility to study honestly. The freedom to question carries the responsibility to listen to the answer.

Blessing and the Life We Build

Moshe speaks of blessing and curse within a covenant in which God judges Israel and makes promises concerning its life in the land. We should allow that setting to retain its full weight. The passage speaks about more than personal well-being or the practical benefits of good habits.

Within that covenantal teaching, however, we can also recognize how conduct shapes the world we share. Truthfulness makes trust possible. Justice offers protection against exploitation. Fidelity gives relationships stability. Generosity helps sustain people through hardship. Such actions allow others to experience something of the goodness that Torah seeks to establish among us.

The opposite choices cause real harm. A dishonest business may enrich its owner while impoverishing its workers. A religious community may preserve its reputation while silencing someone it has injured. These apparent successes conceal damage that should trouble anyone who takes the covenant seriously.

We must therefore be careful about judging blessing by appearances. Prosperity does not establish righteousness, and hardship does not establish guilt. We have no warrant to treat another person’s illness, bereavement, or poverty as proof that God has rejected them.

Choosing the blessing means committing ourselves to faithfulness even when its rewards are not immediately visible. Sometimes the honest decision costs money. Sometimes defending someone who has been mistreated costs standing within a community. Integrity still matters when it is costly.

The Choice Before Us Today

Moshe places the choice before Israel “today.” As we hear the passage, that word also asks us to consider our present responsibilities.

We can become attached to an earlier version of ourselves: the generous person we once were, the diligent student we used to be, the faithful parent we believe we have always been. Yet the person who needs our patience encounters us now. The obligation we have neglected is waiting now.

The same is true of failure. Someone who has acted badly must take responsibility for the harm, but the next decision need not repeat the last one. Teshuvah involves turning: acknowledging wrongdoing, repairing what can be repaired, and changing how we live.

We cannot erase an injury by announcing that we have moved on. Repair may take time, and trust may return slowly. Still, we can begin the work today.

Torah addresses people capable of answering. Our past helps explain where we stand; it does not complete the choice before us.

Testing Those Who Claim to Speak for God

Re’eh gives a searching warning about religious persuasion. A person may claim prophetic authority and even produce a sign that comes to pass. If that person urges Israel to worship other gods, the claim must be rejected (Deuteronomy 13:2–5, Hebrew numbering).

The force of the warning is striking. An extraordinary experience does not cancel the obligation of discernment. Israel must remain faithful to YHWH even when a competing claim appears impressive.

For Netzarim Jews, this passage also informs how we assess religious teaching. A teacher’s confidence, popularity, or claim to inspiration does not place their words beyond examination. We ask how their teaching relates to the God and commandments of Torah. We remain accountable for whom we follow.

We should apply this discipline to ourselves as readily as to others. A conviction can feel profound and still require correction. A beloved institution can make a serious mistake. Respect for a teacher should leave room for an honest question.

The passage’s direct concern is the worship of other gods. By ethical analogy, it also invites us to examine loyalties that become absolute. We can become so committed to wealth, political power, a leader, or an institution that we excuse conduct we would otherwise condemn. Those attachments deserve scrutiny whenever they displace our obligations to God and to one another.

Faithfulness requires the courage to examine what we love.

Holiness at the Table

The dietary laws in Re’eh bring covenantal responsibility into ordinary life. Deuteronomy 14 connects Israel’s holiness with concrete distinctions concerning food. Eating, something we do repeatedly and often without much reflection, becomes an occasion to remember whom we serve.

Our approach begins with the written commandments. We study the permitted and prohibited animals and the other requirements Torah gives. Later dietary rulings must be assessed as interpretations; their acceptance within another Jewish tradition does not automatically make them binding upon us.

That distinction preserves both responsibility and clarity. We cannot dismiss a written prohibition simply because it is inconvenient. We also should not burden someone with a human restriction while presenting it as God’s explicit command.

The discipline of eating within Torah’s boundaries can cultivate attentiveness. Appetite becomes something we govern. Gratitude becomes something we practice. The meal reminds us that our relationship with God includes the choices we make when no religious gathering is taking place.

The rest of Torah accompanies us to the table as well. Its demands concerning honest dealing and the treatment of other people remain relevant to how food reaches us. Careful dietary observance should sharpen our attention to these responsibilities.

Holiness asks for consistency across the life we live.

Opening the Hand

Among the most direct demands in this portion is the command to help the poor. Moshe addresses both the inward refusal of compassion and the outward refusal of assistance, telling Israel to open its hand to a needy fellow Israelite (Deuteronomy 15:7–8).

The connection between heart and hand deserves our attention. Before refusing to help, we often prepare a justification. We decide that the person should have planned better, that someone else will respond, or that their difficulty is too complicated for us to consider. Sometimes we begin defending ourselves before anyone has asked anything of us.

Torah calls us to examine that response. Discernment is necessary, but it can become an excuse for never doing anything. We should be willing to discover what help is needed and what we can responsibly offer.

The surrounding laws also address material conditions: debt release, lending despite an approaching year of release, and provision for Hebrew servants when they are freed. These are concrete obligations within Israel’s covenantal economy. They reveal how seriously Torah treats the danger of hardship becoming entrenched (Deuteronomy 15:1–14).

Applying these laws today requires attention to their terms and circumstances. That work should begin with a willingness to be challenged by them. Their concern for someone in need must be allowed to interrupt our comfort.

Nor should differences in Jewish practice become a reason to withhold compassion. A fellow Jew does not become less worthy of help because they understand a passage differently, know less than we do, or have struggled to find a place in communal life.

Torah’s concern also reaches beyond our own people. Leviticus 19:33–34 commands Israel to protect the resident stranger from mistreatment and to love that person as oneself. Covenant responsibility should teach us to recognize vulnerability wherever we encounter it.

Sometimes assistance will take the form of money. Sometimes it will mean food, practical work, an introduction to employment, or patient help finding a reliable service. Whatever form it takes, the person receiving it retains their dignity. Need does not make someone inferior to the person who can help.

Giving With an Open Heart

Deuteronomy 15:10 asks the giver to give without inward resentment. The command reaches into the spirit of the act.

We can help someone while making the experience painful for them. We can remind them repeatedly of what they owe us, expose their private circumstances, or turn their hardship into a story about our generosity. The assistance may meet an immediate need while leaving another wound.

A person asking for help should not have to purchase it with humiliation. We can ask necessary questions respectfully, protect privacy, and offer what we can without demanding admiration in return.

There will be times when our resources are limited or a particular request cannot responsibly be met. We can be honest about those limits and still remain attentive to the person. A refusal of one request need not end our willingness to look for another way to help.

The open hand begins with recognizing that another person’s well-being matters, even when responding requires effort from us.

Making Room for Joy

Re’eh also commands rejoicing. Its descriptions of festival celebration include sons and daughters, male and female servants, the Levite, the resident stranger, the orphan, and the widow (Deuteronomy 16:11–14). The text places people with different circumstances within the same celebration before God.

This gives us a searching way to consider our own gatherings. Someone can be formally welcome and still have no practical way to participate. A meal may be unaffordable. A newcomer may not know what to do. A person living alone may wait for an invitation that everyone assumes someone else has extended.

We can address these things. We can explain an unfamiliar practice patiently, share the cost of a meal, arrange a ride, or make an invitation personal. We can notice who repeatedly serves and whether they also have an opportunity to rest and celebrate.

The appointed times belong to Torah. The customs through which we observe them should be identified honestly and chosen thoughtfully. When a voluntary practice becomes a barrier to participation, we should be willing to reconsider how we use it.

Joy grows when people know they have a place among us.

Choosing the Blessing

The opening command, re’eh, brings us back to the work of attention.

See what Torah commands. See where an interpretation has become so familiar that you have stopped examining it. See the consequences of a decision you would prefer to regard as private. See the person whose need has become easy to overlook.

Then respond.

Choose honesty in a transaction. Give a difficult passage the study it deserves. Receive correction without treating it as an insult. Make amends where you have caused harm. Offer practical help. Make room at the table.

These decisions give substance to our profession of faith. They are ways of answering the covenant in the circumstances of an ordinary day.

May YHWH grant us the humility to learn, the clarity to distinguish His commandments from our assumptions, and the courage to act on what we understand. May our study deepen our responsibility, our observance strengthen our compassion, and our communities become places where faithfulness and kindness are practiced together.

Shabbat shalom.