How to Practice Faith
Aug 22, 2025 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Re'eh
Why, if this is so obvious, do most people expect that another proficiency will come quickly and without effort? I refer here to faith. Many people think that religious faith is something that one either has or doesn鈥檛 have, and that it is acquired in an instant. You should just feel God鈥檚 presence the minute you open a prayer book or light the candles. We are impatient with faith and don鈥檛 invest the effort needed to develop it. Popular stories of sudden conversions foster the expectation that faith is a gift requiring no effort.
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Petition or Protest
Aug 30, 2024 By Adam Zagoria-Moffet | Commentary | Re'eh | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Our Sages saw Hannah as trying to trap God into offering blessing, and they interpreted the same from another unlikely context, one that also occurs during this month鈥檚 Torah readings. We read about the apparently bizarre mitzvah ofshilu鈥檃h haken, the sending away of the mother bird.Deut. 22:6鈥�7is the sole description of this shockingly precise mitzvah: 鈥淚f you happen upon a bird鈥檚 nest while on the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, whether with chicks in it or still-unhatched eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the eggs or chicks, you shall not take the mother with the young. Instead, chase away the mother bird and take the young鈥攊n order that you be well and your days long.鈥�
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To Know or Not to Know
Aug 11, 2023 By Malka Strasberg Edinger | Commentary | Re'eh | Tishah Be'av
The centralization of cultic worship is one of the major themes in the book of Deuteronomy. However, the place of that worship, the Temple, is described as 鈥渢he place that God will choose,鈥� with no mention of where that place is to exist. This week鈥檚 parashah, parashat Re鈥檈h, introduces the theme that once in the Land of Israel, the Israelites are to worship their God in 鈥渉amakom asher yivhar Hashem鈥� (the place that God will choose). This vague phraseology, which only alludes to a specific place but does not specify where that place is, is repeated 21 times throughout the book of Deuteronomy, with 16 of those occurrences in our parashah alone.
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The Meaning of Repetition, Repetition
Aug 26, 2022 By David Zev Moster | Commentary | Re'eh | Shabbat Rosh Hodesh
When it comes to reading the Tanakh, much is lost in translation, so even a bit of knowledge of Biblical Hebrew can go a long way. Here is one grammatical insight into this week鈥檚 parashah, Parashat Re鈥檈h. According to Deuteronomy 14:22, Israelite farmers must tithe the produce of their field 砖指讈谞指讛 砖指讈谞指讛, shanah shanah, which […]
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Can We Mourn Too Much?
Aug 6, 2021 By Katja Vehlow | Commentary | Re'eh
When someone dies, this week鈥檚 parashah tells us, we should not ritually cut ourselves or our hair. In other words: we should not mourn excessively.
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Gratitude During Challenging Times
Aug 14, 2020 By Malka Strasberg Edinger | Commentary | Re'eh
This week鈥檚 parashah begins with the verse专职讗值讛 讗指谞止讻执讬 谞止转值谉 诇执驻职谞值讬讻侄诐 讛址讬旨讜止诐 讘旨职专指讻指讛 讜旨拽职诇指诇指讛 變 / 鈥淏ehold, I set before you today blessings and curses鈥� (Deut. 11:26). Within the context of the biblical narrative, this verse refers to a choice given to the Israelites upon entering the Promised Land: they could either choose to follow God鈥檚 commandments and reap rewards, or not to follow God鈥檚 commandments and suffer negative consequences. The blessings and curses set before the Israelites are enumerated in Deuteronomy 27鈥�28, and were read publicly upon entering the Land, as recounted in Joshua 8:30鈥�35.
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Blood, Water, and Desire
Aug 30, 2019 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Re'eh
These days most observant Jewish women in North America do not soak and salt their own meat. What was once a common and familiar marker of Jewish kitchens, and a deeply gendered rite of passage for young Jewish women, has been professionalized and sequestered away from the eyes of most of those who cook and eat kosher meat. In the United States, the act itself is often performed by mostly non-Jewish workers under the supervision of Orthodox rabbis鈥攁 largely male caste. The sounds, sights, and smells of this 鈥渒ashering鈥� process as performed today would seem strange, unfamiliar, and perhaps even repulsive to most Jewish North American women.
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Third haftarah of consolation
Aug 10, 2018 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Re'eh
This third haftarah of consolation and comfort contains a beautiful promise of a society established on righteousness, and consequently free of oppression and fear and safe from ruin. Most strikingly, it critiques the worldview that sees the accumulation of wealth and material possessions as the highest value, offering an alternative vision, in which that which truly satisfies is available 鈥渨ithout money.鈥�
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