Parshat Re'eh

Parshat Re’eh
August 29, 2008/ 28 Av 5768

“See, I place before you this day a blessing and a curse.” (Deut 11:26)

This Monday begins of the Hebrew month of Elul, the period of reflection and introspection that leads up to the High Holidays. The dominant theme of this time is teshuvah-- the process of closing the gap between our past actions and our visions of our best selves.

Parshat Re’eh begins with an admonition to choose blessing over curse by choosing to listen to God’s voice rather than ignore it. The S’fat Emet, a masterwork of Hassidic thought written by Rav Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, focuses on this line and argues that it teaches us a fundamental lesson about teshuvah.

He teaches that when the Torah says: “I place before you this day,” it does not mean one specific day in the ancient past, but rather that every single day we have the choice between blessing and curse, between living up to our God-given potential for goodness and squandering that gift. It is a choice that we have to make again and again, every day of our lives.

Sometimes, inevitably, we will make the wrong choices. The gift of teshuvah is that yesterday’s bad choices do not need to define our tomorrows. We always have the power to make new choices, to set a new moral course for ourselves. In Judaism, we are influenced by our past, but we are not bound by it.

Over this next month of Elul, may we seize the opportunity to examine the path that we are on and know that we have the opportunity, this day and every day, for a new beginning. And that freedom is truly a blessing.