parshat Re'e

“See, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse” (Devarim 11:26). On the one hand, even today, despite the past, whatever will be, there is a blessing before you. Even if in the past there was heavy fog and yesterday was gloomy, do not give up.

The blessing is to identify the source of blessing and to realize that we are not at all looking in the right direction.

We Jews are expert talkers. But listening has become somewhat of a lost art.

“The blessing – that you shall listen to the commandments …” (Devarim 11:27). The main blessing is not the external reward that one receives from Hashem but is the listening itself. Fortunate is the person who knows how to feel this, for then his life is like the Garden of Eden. When we make an appraisal of our lives, we will find that most people are not satisfied. Sometimes people think that it is because they are missing this or that, and they aim to obtain it so that they will finally be satisfied. Wonder of wonders – we always find ourselves lacking something, and we always have to toil to obtain it. It is like the edge of the sky in the eyes of a baby. The closer you get to it, the more it seems to be escaping us.