Re'eh — What it Means to See, the Apartment Contract, and the Sure Mercies of David

What It Actually Means to "See"

I was blind in my left eye for 70 years, ever since a childhood accident at age 5. Several years ago I accepted the offer of an eye doctor at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem to try to restore my eyesight. The doctor said to me, "Why not — you have nothing to lose! You are blind now, and the worst that could happen is that you will remain blind. The best that would happen is that you will see something." I had a cornea transplant. My left eye now has everything new except the ball of the eye and the retina.

This personal experience taught me something about what Moses is actually demanding when he opens this Torah portion with the word "Re'eh" — "see." Our eye is a camera, but the eye is not the main tool for seeing something. The brain has to process the picture that the eye captures and pass it to the front lobe of the brain for interpretation, and then to other parts of the brain that direct us to make decisions about what to do with the information our eyes have seen. Seeing is not passive. Seeing requires processing, interpreting, and deciding. That is exactly what Moses is asking of Israel: not a glance, but genuine comprehension that leads to a choice.

A Contract Like Any Other

Our relationship with God is like any contract we have ever signed. If you have ever rented an apartment, you know the pattern. There are paragraphs that are a big blessing — the right to live in the apartment, use the garden and the grill, park two cars in the garage, take an evening walk with your wife and children by the lake view. And right after those wonderful paragraphs come the limitations and obligations: the guarantees to take care of the property and pay the rent on time.

The Torah's blessings and curses work exactly the same way. God wanted the children of Israel, after 40 years in the wilderness, to see clearly that the Torah they received 38 years earlier at Sinai was not just apple pie and vanilla ice cream — it was a real covenant, with real consequences attached to both sides. Every law and every situation that has the potential to gain and win also has the potential to lose and be punished. This is not arbitrary harshness. It is simply what a real covenant looks like. And at the heart of this Torah Portion we are confronted with a choice:

Freedom's Just Another Word

These principles might sound strange to a modern audience and culture, but they are timeless and true. Interestingly engouh, the teaching of Yeshua about the narrow gate is also rooted directly in this Torah portion's opening choice:

Walking in the way of blessing is narrow. It is hard. It demands faith, obedience, and hard work — and only a few people will actually choose it.

I will preach to myself here. I don't like to climb mountains, and I don't like the narrow road, and I don't like restraining myself when I am shopping. I like things easy and simple and beautiful and rich. I like sweet and good food and nice clothing. But I also have to think wisely about my finances and keep a schedule to accomplish the work the Lord has put before me. I am not a free man in the sense the modern world means it — I am bound by rules and regulations every moment of my days, and there are days I would rather be somewhere else doing something else and eating different foods.

In the words of Janis Joplin: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose, nothin', don't mean nothin' hon'." Our modern culture — the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah — treats freedom, equality, prosperity, and the highest human values like honor and rules and cleanliness as garbage to be discarded. But freedom is the highest value only when it is tuned to God's music — the freedom to do what is good for us and for our fellow man. Freedom built on short-sightedness and disbelief in God and in the resurrection ends, in one moment in the ocean of time, in misery and dishonor — even from our own families.

God's proposition is the simplest and most favorable one ever offered to a human being:

It is never too late to make a wise choice. It is always the right time to change course when we see where the current path leads.

The Altar That Is Still There

In the same breath in which Moses instructs and urges the people to choose the blessing, to choose life, we find the instruction for the ceremony at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. This is one of the most extraordinary scenes in all of Scripture — and one I would have loved to witness. Imagine standing on one of those mountains, the priests in the valley between, silence falling. Then the tribes on Mount Gerizim proclaim the blessings, the tribes on Mount Ebal proclaim the curses, and all the people — women and children included — affirm God's word with a loud voice. There were no microphones, no amplifiers. There must have been an enormous number of people gathered to make that proclamation audible and powerful across that distance.

The book of Joshua tells us exactly how it was carried out:

And here is the remarkable thing: that altar still exists. Today, on top of Mount Ebal, the remains of the altar Joshua built are still visible. They were in much better condition a few years ago — Arab terrorists attempted to destroy and remove the altar, and were stopped only because the Israeli military has a base nearby. This text from Deuteronomy and Joshua, the archaeological finds, and the great big altar still visible through its ruins, are tangible and monumental witnesses to God's faithfulness and the historicity of the biblical narrative. For me, that is nothing less than a miracle — a living witness that builds my faith and helps me make the choice, and choose life.

The Sure Mercies of David

One other last thing that I would like to point out is, that there is a remarkable pairing between Parashat Re'eh and the corresponding reading from the prophet Isaiah that is read with this portion. Deuteronomy warns:

And Isaiah answers:

This portion opens with "see" — but the prophetic reading calls us to "hear." Both senses, both faculties, are needed. And notice the phrase "the sure mercies of David." This is significant precisely because King David was one of the biggest sinners in the whole Bible — he broke most of the Ten Commandments — and God loved him and forgave him with great mercies. The small phrase carries enormous weight: do we have real trust and security that our sins are forgiven by the sure mercies of the Lord — for each of us, personally?

There is a man in the New Testament who wrestled with exactly this question of seeing clearly and choosing wisely: Nicodemus, the member of the Sanhedrin, one of the richest men in Jerusalem, a man of integrity who came to Yeshua by night. It is worth knowing that David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, changed his name from David Green to "Ben-Gurion" — which happens to be Nicodemus's full Hebrew name. Ben-Gurion identified with Nicodemus and was, in his own quiet way, something of a disciple of Yeshua. He learned Greek specifically to read the New Testament, read it every day, and believed in Yeshua as the Messiah. His Greek New Testament sat on his desk at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev until just a few years ago.

May we not only see the choice before us, but hear the voice of the Lord and walk in His sure mercies.