See: The Choice Before Us - Parashat Re'eh

Parashat Re'eh opens with a command that begins with sight before it speaks about choice: "See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse." Before Israel is instructed to choose, Israel is instructed to see. The Torah invites us to train our vision before it asks us to direct our actions, because every choice begins with the way we perceive the world around us.

The Rabbis explain that G'd places blessing and curse before Israel to illuminate the path that leads toward life. Rabbi Levi compares the choice to a servant who may receive either a golden necklace or iron chains around his neck according to the path he follows. Rabbi Haggai teaches that divine mercy accompanies this choice, creating the possibility of selecting life even after moments of failure. The Sifre develops the image further by describing two roads at a crossroads. One appears smooth for the first few steps before disappearing into thorns, while the other begins with difficulty before opening into clear and level ground. Moses directs Israel to recognize that the first impression of a road rarely reveals its destination.

The African American experience has long embodied this wisdom. Every generation has stood before competing paths, each carrying promises about dignity, justice, security, and belonging. One road has often encouraged accommodation at the expense of identity, immediate comfort at the expense of lasting freedom, or acceptance purchased through silence. Another road has demanded perseverance, sacrifice, organized struggle, and unwavering hope before revealing the fruits of justice. History repeatedly demonstrates that the road beginning with difficulty has carried generations toward greater freedom, stronger communities, and deeper expressions of human dignity.

The Torah therefore presents blessing and curse through the language of choice because purposeful living grows through decisions made every day. Each decision shapes a family, each family shapes a community, each community shapes a nation, and each nation shapes the moral character of the world. Freedom resides not only in dramatic moments remembered by history, but also in the ordinary choices that cultivate honesty, compassion, discipline, and responsibility.

This perspective carries particular meaning for African American Jews, whose lives bring together two histories shaped by exile, perseverance, and enduring hope. Jewish tradition preserves the memory of liberation from Egypt, while African American history remembers generations who transformed suffering into faith, song, scholarship, family, and communal strength. Both histories testify that blessing often develops through patient commitment rather than immediate reward.

The Sifre's image of the crossroads therefore becomes more than a metaphor. The broad and comfortable road has often invited societies to embrace prejudice because prejudice requires little reflection and demands little sacrifice. Another road calls people to confront inherited assumptions, strengthen relationships across differences, and recognize the divine image within every human being. The first path may appear easier at the outset, while the second gradually produces healthier communities grounded in justice and mutual responsibility.

The discussion surrounding blessing and curse becomes even richer through the ancient Aramaic translations of the Torah. Onkelos renders the verse literally as "the blessing and the curse." Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel instead translates the phrase as "the blessing and its transmutation." His language teaches that everything descending from Heaven originates in goodness, while human beings possess the remarkable capacity to redirect that goodness toward constructive or destructive ends. Divine blessing enters the world with extraordinary potential, and human choice determines how that potential takes shape within society.

This insight sheds light upon the African American experience across generations. Education can cultivate wisdom or reinforce exclusion. Law can establish justice or preserve inequality. Economic opportunity can strengthen entire neighborhoods or deepen disparities. Religious communities can nurture belonging or reinforce barriers that separate neighbor from neighbor. Every blessing entrusted to humanity carries the possibility of transformation through the choices people make together.

The same principle applies within Jewish communities. Torah possesses the capacity to unite Jews from every background through shared learning, shared obligation, and shared purpose. Communities flourish when Torah inspires generosity, hospitality, humility, and respect. Every synagogue, school, and institution receives opportunities to strengthen the entire Jewish people by recognizing the richness found within every Jewish story, including the stories of African American Jews whose experiences broaden the collective understanding of Jewish life in America.

Parashat Re'eh begins with the word "See" because perception shapes destiny. Communities discover blessing when they recognize opportunities that fear cannot perceive. Individuals cultivate blessing when they recognize dignity within themselves and within one another. Nations cultivate blessing when they recognize that justice enriches every citizen rather than diminishing anyone else's place.

The opening command of the parashah therefore remains beautifully direct. Every generation stands at its own crossroads. Every generation receives blessings capable of transforming the world. Every generation determines how those blessings will be expressed through its choices. The road toward life grows clearer with every act of courage, every pursuit of justice, every expression of compassion, and every commitment to seeing another human being through the eyes of the One who created us all.

Shabbat Shalom