This final installment in the Shema trilogy traces covenant’s unfolding across Va’etchanan, Eikev, and Re’eh. In Va’etchanan, it was inherited, etched in thunder, carried in memory. In Eikev, it was enacted, chosen through mercy, marriage, and mundane devotion. Now, in Re’eh, we arrive at the moment of moral vision and agency.
“Re’eh anochi noten lifneichem hayom…” See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse (Devarim 11:26). This is no longer about legacy. It is about choice. The Torah shifts from “what have you received to what will you choose?”
Each year, as I read Re’eh, it is with a trepidation of recognition. It is the parsha that welcomed me into Judaism. It was not with fanfare, but through sacred, ordinary acts. On erev Shabbos, after appearing before the beis din, I emerged from the mikvah as Basya Rochel bas Avraham Avinu v’Sarah Imeinu, held not only by water, but by promise and commitment. The water gave way to memory. Covenant gave way to choice. I was no longer on the outside looking in: I was counted, claimed, called.
That day, I didn’t just enter the covenant, I answered it. I said Hineni – Here I am. Not just with certainty, but strength. Not with perfection, but readiness. This week, twenty-five years later, I’ll make challah again. Not to begin, but return. To choose again. To say: I am still here. I am still choosing.
The Covenant We All Claim
Re’eh opens with urgency. Hayom “today.” Covenant is not historical: it is immediate. Though I entered Judaism through conversion, this parsha reminds all of us that covenant is neither birthright nor a singular moment. It is daily. It is communal. It is chosen: time and again.
This portion flattens the hierarchy. It doesn’t say, you who were born Jewish are chosen. It says, you who stand today … choose. Whether born into it or drawn to it, we each stand lifneichem before the covenant. Each of us says Hineni. And when we do, we do not echo as strangers: we speak the language of our ancestors.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, zt”l, wrote that Hineni reflects “the full openness of the soul to whatever is asked.” Re’eh demands that openness, not just to see, but to see clearly. And to choose.
Seeing and Choosing
“Lo ta’asu kechol asher anachnu osim po hayom, ish kol-hayashar b’einav.” You shall not do as we do here today, each person doing what is right in their own eyes (Devarim 12:8). This verse is a corrective. Torah is unsatisfied by spiritual drift or relativism. It asks not only for vision, but for clarity. And clarity is not personal; rather, it is covenantal. Lifneichem is plural. We choose together.
Aristotle taught that virtue is a habit born of deliberate choice, a “disposition involving thoughtful desire.” For him, prohairesis, or moral agency, is the hinge between thought and action. We do not stumble into goodness. We cultivate it.
Attention is a rare and radical form of generosity. It begins with turning away from ego and toward presence. It’s offering ourselves not to control, but to witness.
Iris Murdoch called this “unselfing.” “In the moral life,” she wrote, “the enemy is the fat, relentless ego.” Moral clarity emerges through this kind of gaze: undiluted, receptive, ungrasping. The self loosens its grip making room for beauty, goodness, and the reality of what is. Not as abstraction, but as sacred orientation.
In a world seduced by certainty and speed, attention becomes resistance. It is through this posture: not purity, but presence that we find the courage to choose rightly.
In Re’eh, Moshe offers no checklist, but coordinates. Blessings and curses are not rewards; they are consequences of vision. When we view through covenantal clarity, we choose blessing. When we distort, we risk curse.
This is the final evolution of covenant: not just inherited, not just enacted, but claimed. Not just practiced, but seen.
Hineni: The Day I Chose
Hineni is not spiritual. It is not location. It is a declaration of soul.
Avraham said it when Hashem called his name. Moshe said it at the burning bush. Yeshayahu said it when asked, “Whom shall I send?” Each answered Hineni before knowing the task. It is the language of covenantal courage.
Rashi teaches in Bereishit 22:1 that Hineni is the reply of the righteous. It is lashon anavah u’lashon zimun, a language of humility and readiness. Rav Hirsch deepens this: Hineni is active availability. The soul says: I am here, and I am willing.
Nina Beth Cardin adds, “Hineni is a response of sacred and undiluted presence… a readiness to receive and respond to whatever experience is about to unfold.”
The Midrash notes the shift in our verse. It goes from singular Re’eh to plural lifneichem. Each person stands individually before covenant; yet the choice is made communally. At Har Gerizim and Har Eival, blessings and curses were proclaimed. The people answered with a collective Amen. Not alone, but together.
Midrash Tanchuma teaches that all souls – Jewish and not – were present at Sinai. Mine, too, was there. It waited. Wandered. Returned. Not only in yearning, but in action. Emerging from the mikvah dissolved the divide between longing and belonging. My soul came home.
Re’eh insists: covenant is not birthright. It is chosen. Daily. Deliberately. Together. It is the parsha under which I converted. And the one I continue to choose. Each time I say Hineni, I renew that choice.
The Ethics of the Everyday
Re’eh leaves abstraction and enters application: what we eat, how we give, whom we include. Holiness descends from sanctuary to field.
Being Jewish is not being a religion of holy people. It is a religion of ordinary people aspiring to holiness through sacred acts in daily life. Re’eh turns Torah from vision to implementation.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, zt”l, taught that our task is not to escape the world but to elevate it: “If you see what needs to be repaired and know how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that Hashem has left you to perfect.” Ethics are urgent. Each soul holds a corner of creation. Mitzvos are our tools. Lighting Shabbos candles, giving tzedakah, and preparing food with intentions are not rituals of habit. They are acts of repair.
But freedom is only part of the story, the positive aspect is responsibleness. Freedom resides not in feeling holy, but in acting with holiness.
The flashes of holiness in the world are not confined to sacred spaces. They are hidden in the ordinary, waiting to be revealed. The mitzvos of Re’eh: tithing, feeding the poor, and celebrating festivals are not peripheral. They are the covenant’s pulse.
In my own life, covenant appears in sanctuary and strategy. In logistics and leadership. In quiet systems threaded with compassion. I carry my mother’s discernment, my father’s kavod, and the quiet ethics of my marriage. Not because it’s required, but because I remember.
Covenant is not a declaration. It is a compass. It steadies my steps across sacred and secular terrain.
Choosing Daily, Remembering Always
Across the arc of this Shema trilogy, covenant grows. In Va,etchanan, it is inherited, etched in thunder, carried in grief, bound by legacy. In Eikev, it is enacted, woven into marriage, mercy, and the rhythms of everyday. And in Re’eh, it is claimed, not stumbled upon, but seen. Chosen. Inhabited.
Moshe’s voice crescendos not in spectacle, but in clarity: “Re’eh anochi noten lifneichem hayom…” See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse. Blessing is not bestowed: it is chosen. Curse is not punishment: it is distortion. Re’eh does not hand us a checklist. It offers a compass.
Rabbi Emanuel Feldman reminds us: “To remember is to carry time within us.” And so, Re’eh does not ask for declarations. It seeks presence. Memory moves and shapes how we bless.
This parsha meets us not in innocence, but in adulthood. In the heel. In the challah rising again. In the whisper of Hineni.
May memory steady our steps. May mercy shape our choices. May covenant hold us close. In rhythm, in love, in every quiet morning.
