Improve Your Eyesight

Parshas Reeh

Posted on August 13, 2020 (5780) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

 

To Moshe, life choices are clear and self-evident. He tells the Jewish people to merely look, and they will see the difference between life and death, good and evil, eternity and time-burdened irrelevance. He implores the Jewish people to use their common sense, to pay attention to the experiences over the past 40 years in the desert, and their story. Then, they will be able to clearly see their choices in life, and what basic decisions they must make regarding what should be visible and obvious to them.

 

Yet, we know that even when people are aware of the consequences of their behavior, when, so to speak, they actually do see the differences and choices that lie before them, they will often choose to sin and take the wrong turn in life. People know that all addictive drugs and immoral behavior inevitably lead to personal disaster. The evidence for this is so abundant that all of us know cases and people that somehow willingly and even voluntarily choose this path of self-destruction. None of this holds people back from themselves.

 

The story is told about a man who was becoming an alcoholic, who was taken by his children to visit skid row where the victims of alcoholism reside on the street in their drunken stupor. One of the drunks was wallowing in the gutter amidst the filth that permeated the area. His children – those of the potential alcoholic – said to him: “Father don’t you see where excessive drinking will lead you?” However, the man went over to the drunk in the gutter and whispered to him: “Where did you get such good and powerful whiskey?” We always see what we want to see.

 

What is perfectly obvious to the sane and rational mind, is not seen by one captured by the evil instinct, affected by social pressure, and suffering from a lack of self-discipline.

 

All parents and educators know you may lead someone to a fountain of fresh water, but you cannot make that person drink from it, unless the person wishes to do so. It is hard to convince people to see what they do not want to see, and to believe what they do not wish to believe. All the exhortations of the prophets of Israel were of little avail in the times of the first Temple, simply because the people refused to see the obvious consequences of idol worship, and the abandonment of Torah and its teachings.

 

The only hope for parents and educators is to improve the eyesight, so to speak, of their children and students, so that those individuals themselves will be able to perceive the clear difference between life and death, right and wrong. This is a slow and painful process, but with persistence it can be successful and lifesaving. Good eyesight requires tenacity of focus as well as excellent peripheral vision. Jewish tradition and Torah values within both the family and society help provide the good vision which enables productive choices, that will lead to eternal life and goodness.

 

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein

 

Choosing Life, Every Day

Parshas Reeh

Posted on August 6, 2021 (5781) By Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Series: Lifeline | Level: Beginner

 

Our reading this week begins, “See I have placed before you today blessing and curse. The blessing, if you listen to the Commandments of Hashem your G-d, which I have Commanded you this day. And the curse, if you will not listen to the Commandments of Hashem your G-d, and turn away from the path which I have Commanded you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known.” [Deut. 11:26-28]

 

The Yalkut Shimoni says that someone might say: “since Hashem placed two paths in front of me, that of life and that of death, I will travel whichever I wish.” To him the verse says, “and you shall choose life.” [Deut. 30:19]

 

This seems hard to understand. Self-preservation is a natural instinct; we fear death. Why does the verse need to tell us, “and you shall choose life”? I don’t need to be told twice to get out of the road! The Yalkut offers a parable:

 

It is like a person sitting at a fork in the road, with two paths in front of him: one begins with smooth ground and ends up among thorns, and one that begins with thorns but ends with smooth ground.

 

And he informs passersby and says to them: what you see as a smooth path, for two or three steps it will be smooth, but in the end you will be among thorns. And what you see as a path that begins with thorns, for two or three steps you will walk among thorns, but in the end will be on smooth ground.

 

The Yalkut is explaining to us that what is described as “the curse” doesn’t look bad. On the contrary, it looks more attractive! It looks easier and more interesting initially to go on that path, when it actually leads to pain and destruction. That is why the Torah must tell us to make the right choice, because it often means doing what seems at the outset to be more difficult and painful.

 

In reality, we have to make choices like this every day. At the beginning of Chayei Sarah [Gen. 23:1], we read that Sarah’s lifetime was “100 years and twenty years and seven years.” Rashi tells us that the repetition of years is to use each to teach a lesson. In Jewish thought, a person is held responsible in Heaven for actions after the age of twenty.

 

The Medrash explains that Sarah at 100 years was as free of sin as she was at twenty. Every day, she chose the right path.

 

This coming week, we enter the month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, the Day of Judgment. This is the season when we pay special attention to the choices we have been making, trying to improve upon them for the future.

 

Part of being human is that we make mistakes. None of us is perfect, so all of us can find things we might have done better, and which we can do better in the future. The question, then, is whether we learn from our mistakes! Repentance gives us an opportunity to get ourselves off the path leading into the thorns, and back onto solid ground. May we use this Elul to get out of the thorns, dust ourselves off, and place ourselves back on the straight path.