Episode 9 – Re’eh: Seeing Is Not Necessarily Believing |
This week’s portion, Re’eh, begins with a choice: blessing or curse, set before the people as they prepare to stand between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. We ask what it means to “see” and why Judaism often calls us instead to hear and listen.
We explore:• The difference between seeing everything at once and hearing slowly over time — and why both matter in Torah• Standing between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal: two peaks so close together, yet representing blessing and curse• The subtlety of moral landscapes, where context makes the same act a mitzvah or a transgression• What to do with the holy sites of the Canaanites and how to think about monuments, shrines, and lost causes today• Why Jerusalem is not named directly in the Torah, but only described as “the place God will choose”• Don’t add and don’t subtract: how the Torah is like a piano, the same instrument that do so many things in different hands• Prophets, miracles, and Sinai — why belief can’t rest only on wonders• Kashrut and the place of food in Judaism: is what we put into our mouths as important as what comes out of them?
| Parshat Re’eh 5785
Torah: Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17 | Haftarah: Isaiah 54:11–55:5 |
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