I find the opening lines of Parshat Re'eh the most striking and I feel that I have more questions than answers the more I think about the first couple of sentences. Our Parsha opens by saying, “See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other Gods whom you have not experienced. When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and possess, you shall pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal.”(Deuteronomy 11:26-30)
It appears that God is giving us the ability to choose, we can be blessed and live in God’s ways by observing the commandments that God has given us or we can be cursed if we turn away from them by disobeying and following other Gods instead. Is there really much of a choice here? I don’t know about you but I can’t think of anyone who wants to be cursed. Does God really want to curse and afflict that person who doesn’t observe and listen to the commandments of the Torah? Why are we cursed if we deviate sometimes from the path of Mitzvot? Is there any middle ground? When I look at these words of the Torah I picture them appearing on a screen that has no color. The language of them feels very black and white.
A couple of weeks ago I was walking to shul on Saturday and a man walking his dog asked me if it was a holiday. I told him it wasn’t a holiday it was Shabbat. He replied, “I’m a bad Jew”. I didn’t have time to fully respond to him the way I wanted to and so I said simply, “You are not a bad Jew, and don’t be so hard on yourself.” It is easy to fall into this way of thinking especially when looking at passages like these in the Torah that appear so black and white. Life isn’t black and white and neither is being Jewish. It is gray most of the time. We are all on different journeys and experience being Jewish in a variety of ways. How we understand the commandments in the Torah continues to evolve over time as our world changes and with it the people in it.
So I return to the question, does God really curse those who don’t listen and observe the commandments? We describe God on the High Holidays as being merciful and compassionate. Does this compassionate God also curse those who are not obeying the commandments? It is hard to answer these questions, but I want to get away from the thinking that there are good Jews and bad Jews. The place we are at in our Judaism is not good or bad it simply just is. Just like we always want to be a better person than we were yesterday so to should we try to explore and engage with our Judaism each day.
I believe the more we learn about our faith and our spirituality the closer we can be with God which is the ultimate goal of being Jewish.
Shabbat Shalom Cantor Kowitz
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