The cities of refuge were set up so that someone who committed an accidental killing would be safe. He was being punished for the death of another but it was not murder.

The Road to the City of Refuge

This week’s parsha introduces one of the Torah’s most fascinating institutions: the arei miklat, the cities of refuge. There were six cities—three on each side of the Jordan—to which a person could flee if he accidentally caused someone’s death.

The classic example is two people chopping down trees. One man swings his axe, and suddenly the metal head flies off the handle and kills the other person. It was completely unintentional. Nevertheless, a life was lost, and the Torah requires the person responsible to flee to a city of refuge, where he remains until the death of the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest.

There are several remarkable details about these cities.

The roads leading to the cities of refuge had to be kept in excellent condition. There were signs directing the person toward the city. The Torah understood that this individual was running for his life. He could not afford to encounter potholes, obstacles, or confusion along the way.

Think about the symbolism. In ordinary circumstances, we want people to slow down. If someone is lost, perhaps the best thing is to stop, ask questions, and meet other people along the way. But the person fleeing to a city of refuge has no time for that. He needs a clear path and clear directions.

There is an important lesson here. When someone is in crisis, our job is not to make the path more complicated. Our job is to make the path clearer.

But then the Torah presents an even more difficult question: Why does this person remain in exile until the death of the Kohen Gadol?

What does the Kohen Gadol have to do with an accidental killing in the Galilee? He wasn’t there. He didn’t cause the accident. Why should his death determine when the refugee can return home?

Perhaps the answer is that the Kohen Gadol represents the spiritual condition of the entire Jewish people. He is not merely an individual performing a religious function. He is the spiritual representative of the nation.

The accidental killing may have been an accident, but it also involved negligence. The person using the axe should have made sure that the handle was secure. The tragedy resulted from something that should have been checked.

The Torah therefore teaches us something deeper about leadership and responsibility. The spiritual leaders of a nation carry responsibility not only for what they personally do, but for the spiritual environment of the people they lead.

The death of the Kohen Gadol represents a kind of national atonement. His passing reminds us that the spiritual condition of one person is connected to the spiritual condition of the entire community.

There is an extraordinary detail that reinforces this idea. The mothers of the Kohanim would send food to the people living in the cities of refuge so that they would not pray for the death of the Kohen Gadol.

Imagine being trapped in the city of refuge. You know that the one event that will finally allow you to go home is the death of the High Priest. What might you begin to think? You might actually start praying for his death.

So the mothers of the Kohanim would provide these people with food and support. They wanted to make sure that the refugees had no reason to wish harm upon the Kohen Gadol.

This idea has a fascinating parallel in American history. George Washington arranged in his will that certain enslaved people would become free upon his death, while those enslaved by his wife, Martha, would not necessarily become free until her death. Martha eventually recognized the terrible conflict of interest this created: if someone’s freedom depends upon your death, that person has a reason—even if only subconsciously—to hope that you die. She therefore arranged for their freedom earlier.

The parallel is striking because it highlights the danger created when one person’s well-being is dependent upon another person’s death.

But the Torah is teaching us something even larger.

The people in the city of refuge were not isolated from the rest of the nation. Their situation was connected to the Kohen Gadol. The Kohen Gadol’s spiritual standing was connected to the people. And the people themselves were connected to one another.

We are all spiritually interconnected.

Sometimes we imagine that our actions affect only ourselves. I make a decision, and it is my business. Someone else makes a decision, and that is their problem.

The Torah teaches otherwise.

What one person does can affect another person. The behavior of a leader can influence an entire community. The spiritual choices we make can have consequences far beyond what we see.

And perhaps that is the ultimate message of the cities of refuge.

The Torah is teaching us to take responsibility on two levels: personal responsibility and communal responsibility.

The person who caused the accident must take responsibility and flee to the city of refuge. But the community must also take responsibility by making the road safe, providing clear directions, and creating an environment in which even someone who has made a terrible mistake has a path toward protection and eventual return.

May we learn from the cities of refuge to make our own roads clearer for people who are struggling, to remove obstacles rather than create them, and to recognize that what we do spiritually affects people far beyond ourselves.

Because in Judaism, none of us lives spiritually alone. What we do here can affect Jews everywhere. And that is something worth thinking about.

The Torah is for a constitutional monarchy. It places restrictions on the king and reminds him that he is not above the law.

A Quick D’var Torah: The Torah’s Limits on a King

Among the things covered in this week’s parsha are the laws governing a Jewish king. The Torah anticipates that at some point the Jewish people will say, “Let us have a king like all the other nations around us.” The Torah permits having a king—but under some very interesting conditions.

First, the king must be chosen “from among your brothers.” He cannot be a foreigner. But the phrase “among your brothers” means more than simply being Jewish. It reminds us that the king is essentially one of the people. Halachically, he is not a different kind of human being. He does not come from some inherently superior family. He is your brother, and in matters of halacha, he is bound by the same Torah as everyone else.

Then the Torah gives three remarkable limitations: he cannot have too many horses, too many wives, or too much gold and silver.

Why these three?

Start with the horses. In the ancient world, the great military technology was the horse-drawn chariot. A king who accumulated enormous numbers of horses could build a powerful standing army. The Torah is therefore limiting the king’s military power.

The king cannot simply decide to go to war whenever he wants. He has to persuade the people that there is a legitimate reason for fighting. And, just as importantly, he cannot build an army so powerful that he can use it against his own population.

This was hardly an unusual phenomenon in the ancient world. Throughout history, rulers have used their military forces not only against foreign enemies but against their own people in order to maintain and increase their power. The Torah is warning us about that danger from the very beginning.

Then there is the limitation on wives.

Remember how international diplomacy worked in the ancient world. One of the ways kings sealed treaties was through marriage. A king might send his daughter to marry another king or prince, creating a political alliance between the two kingdoms.

So if a king accumulates wives, he is also accumulating political relationships and expanding his ability to conduct foreign affairs however he wants.

But there is another danger. These women may come from idolatrous societies. The Torah is concerned that they could influence the king and pull him away from Torah.

And finally, the king cannot accumulate excessive amounts of gold and silver.

That one seems pretty straightforward. How does a king acquire money? Through taxes—and sometimes through corruption, bribery, and abusing his position.

The Torah is telling the king: You cannot become fabulously wealthy simply because you became king. You cannot squeeze the people for more and more money. You have to remember that the people have to live.

We see the consequences of ignoring this lesson later in Jewish history. After Shlomo HaMelech died, his son Rechavam was approached by the leaders of the northern tribes. They said, essentially, “Your father’s taxes were already extremely heavy. We understand that tremendous things were accomplished, including the building of the Beit HaMikdash, but please ease the burden on the people.”

Rechavam’s response was essentially: If you thought my father was tough, you haven’t seen anything yet.

That attitude helped trigger the rebellion and ultimately the division of the Jewish people into the kingdom of Yehudah and the ten northern tribes.

The Torah is therefore warning us about something very important: power tends to expand unless there are limits placed upon it.

And that brings us to the final requirement for the king. He must write a Sefer Torah and keep it with him. It is supposed to accompany him virtually all the time, except when circumstances make that impossible.

Why?

Because the king needs a constant reminder that he is also subject to the Torah.

He is not above halacha.

He is not above the law.

He is not a king because he is somehow intrinsically greater than everyone else. Remember the phrase: “from among your brothers.” He is your brother. He is part of the same nation, bound by the same Torah.

And that is what made the Jewish king so different from the kings of the ancient world.

In many ancient societies, if you approached the king and complained about his policies, the conversation could be very short—and potentially very dangerous.

But a Jewish king could be confronted by a prophet.

The Navi could come to the king and say, “You are wrong.”

And the king was expected to listen.

The prophets admonished kings precisely because the king was not above the Torah. He was accountable to something greater than himself.

The Torah is therefore creating a very different kind of government. It is not saying that we can never have a king. It is saying that our king cannot be like the kings of the other nations.

He cannot have unlimited military power.

He cannot accumulate unlimited political alliances.

He cannot become independently wealthy at the expense of his people.

And he must constantly carry the Torah with him, reminding him that there is a law above the king.

The message is remarkably relevant: The Torah does not merely ask who has power. It asks what limits are placed on that power—and whether the person in power remembers that he, too, is accountable.

Something to think about.

The pursuit of justice is one of the most important commandments of the Torah. Justice has to be administered equally to all and must be blind to the social or economic status of those who come before the court.

Justice, the Law, and the Danger of Making an Idol of the Law

This week’s parashah, Shoftim, stresses one of the most important principles of Judaism: equality before the law. A judge cannot favor one party over another, regardless of whether that person is rich or poor, famous or unknown, powerful or powerless. The judge has to enter the courtroom, as it were, blind to all the pressures and influences surrounding him.

That is why the traditional symbol of justice is a woman holding the scales of justice while blindfolded. The blindfold represents the idea that a judge must be blind to everything except the facts and the law. He cannot favor the rich over the poor, nor the poor over the rich.

The Torah also warns that bribery blinds a judge to justice. Once a judge is influenced by personal interests or outside pressures, he can no longer see the case clearly.

Perhaps the most famous verse in this week’s parashah is:

“Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

The Torah does not simply tell us to find justice. It tells us to pursue it. Why? Because we know that human beings will never create a world of perfect justice. We make mistakes. We are imperfect. Judges are human, societies are human, and therefore complete justice is something we may never fully achieve.

But that does not mean we stop trying. The pursuit of justice is itself a fundamental Jewish obligation.

Interestingly, immediately after discussing judges and justice, the Torah turns to the subject of idolatry. At first, the connection may not seem obvious. But perhaps the Torah is teaching us something profound.

Idolatry means, among other things, dividing the world into competing powers: one god controls one area, another god controls another. Judaism insists that there is one God and one moral law. There cannot be one standard of justice for the powerful and another for everyone else.

But there is another danger that the Torah may be warning us about: do not make the law itself into an idol.

There is a famous story in the Gemara about young priests in the Temple who were racing to perform a particular Temple service. One priest, desperate to win the race, took out a knife and stabbed the priest running beside him.

And what were people discussing afterward? They were debating whether the dead body would make the Temple precincts ritually impure.

Think about that for a moment. A murder had just taken place, yet the discussion had immediately turned to the technical question of ritual impurity.

The problem was not that the law was unimportant. The problem was that they had become so absorbed in the details of the law that they had lost sight of the larger moral reality. A human being had been murdered. A terrible crime had occurred. That was the main point.

The Torah is therefore teaching us a delicate balance. We must pursue justice. We must respect the law. We must insist on equality before the law. But we must never become so obsessed with the technicalities of the law that we lose sight of the human beings and moral principles that the law is supposed to protect.

We saw a similar idea earlier in the Torah with the story of Pinchas. Pinchas took action against Zimri without going through the normal judicial process. Ordinarily, such an act would be deeply problematic. Yet God approved of Pinchas’s action because the situation represented an immediate and extraordinary danger to the Jewish people.

Sometimes extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary action.

There is a famous statement attributed to Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court: “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” The point is that even the most important legal principles cannot be interpreted in a way that guarantees the destruction of the very society those principles are meant to protect.

The same idea can be applied to the Torah’s concept of justice.

We must pursue justice to the best of our ability. We must demand fairness. We must insist that the law apply equally to everyone. But we must also remain aware of the larger picture. The law exists to serve justice; justice exists to serve human beings and a moral society.

The challenge is knowing how to maintain both principles at the same time: never abandon the pursuit of justice, but never become blind to the realities and moral responsibilities surrounding us.

That is something worth thinking about.

The Torah admonishes judges to judge the facts before them. It is known that in many countries where the courts are perceived to be biased fall apart for that very reason.

Justice Is the Foundation of a Society

Now for a quick D’var Torah.

This week’s parsha, Shoftim, is one of the most interesting portions of the Torah because it reminds us what Moshe is trying to accomplish as the Jewish people prepare to enter the Land of Israel.

The forty years in the wilderness were not merely about getting from Egypt to Israel. They were about preparing a people who had been slaves to become a nation capable of governing itself. Much of Sefer Devarim—Deuteronomy—is Moshe’s final lesson in how to build a just society.

And Shoftim begins with one of the foundations of such a society: justice.

The Torah commands:

“Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

Why is justice so important?

Because when people lose confidence in the justice system, eventually they lose confidence in society itself.

We can see this throughout the world. There are countries blessed with tremendous natural and human resources that nevertheless remain poor because corruption has become part of everyday life. People do not trust the courts. They do not trust the government. Eventually, they begin to believe that the only way to succeed is to cheat the system.

Once cheating becomes normal—whether in business, taxes, government, or everyday dealings—the entire society begins to suffer. If everybody believes everybody else is cheating, then being honest starts to look foolish.

The Torah demands something different.

A judge cannot favor someone because he is wealthy or powerful. But neither may a judge favor someone simply because he is poor and deserving of sympathy. The question before the court must be: What are the facts, and what does the law require?

Justice cannot depend upon your social position.

There is an interesting parallel in sports. Players generally like having a system in which certain calls can be challenged or reviewed. Officials can make mistakes—they are human—but the knowledge that a decision can be reviewed helps maintain confidence in the system.

Baseball great Derek Jeter once made essentially this point about umpires: they are going to make mistakes, but the important thing is that those mistakes are not deliberately favoring one team over another.

That distinction matters.

We do not expect judges—or umpires—to be perfect. We expect them to be fair.

You may walk out of court unhappy because you lost your case. But there is an enormous difference between saying, “I lost because the facts and the law were against me,” and saying, “I lost because the judge was bought, biased, intimidated, or influenced by who the other person was.”

The first preserves society. The second destroys trust in it.

And that is why this lesson appears as the Jewish people are preparing to enter the Land of Israel. Moshe is not merely teaching individuals how to behave. He is teaching a nation how to govern itself.

If we want a society that lasts, its judges must rise above wealth, poverty, influence, friendship, sympathy, and personal opinion. Justice must be based upon the facts of the case and the law.

A society can survive an occasional mistake.

What it cannot survive for long is the belief that justice itself is for sale.

Something to think about.

We are commanded to destroy all forms of idolatry but must keep anything with God’s name on it. This is because idolatry is inherently false and will lead people astray, while the Torah is true and will make us better.

Good morning.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

This week’s parashah contains the source of the mitzvah of genizah—or, as many Ashkenazim call it, sheimos. The Torah commands us to destroy every trace of idolatry: tear it down, burn it, erase it. But immediately afterward it adds, “You shall not do so to the Lord your God.” From this, the Sages learned that anything bearing God’s Name, or objects that possess holiness, may not simply be discarded or destroyed. Instead, they are respectfully placed in a genizah.

Why this contrast?

The Torah is teaching us that falsehood deserves no permanence. Idolatry is based on a lie, and lies eventually disappear. Truth, however, is eternal. The Torah represents God’s truth, and therefore we preserve it with dignity and respect.

This principle led to some fascinating practical questions throughout Jewish history.

After the Hasmoneans defeated the Syrian Greeks, the ban on writing God’s Name was lifted. People became so enthusiastic that they began writing God’s Name in ordinary letters and business correspondence. The Sages realized that this created a problem. Once the letter was no longer needed, it could not simply be thrown away because it contained God’s Name. To avoid this, people often substituted abbreviations such as ב״ה (”With God’s help”) instead of writing the Divine Name itself.

Ironically, this rabbinic ruling became a tremendous gift to historians. Thousands of these discarded letters, contracts, and everyday documents were preserved in the famous Cairo Genizah. Because they were never destroyed, we now have an extraordinary window into Jewish daily life a thousand years ago.

The mitzvah also produced difficult halachic questions. During epidemics such as typhus, hospitals sometimes burned patients’ clothing and belongings to prevent the spread of disease. What if someone had brought tefillin? Could sacred objects be destroyed to save lives? These were serious halachic questions, illustrating how preserving holiness sometimes intersects with protecting human life.

The lesson for us is simple. Falsehood eventually disappears. Truth endures. The Torah teaches us not only to reject what is false, but also to honor and preserve what is holy. The respect we show to sacred objects reminds us to show the same respect for the eternal truths they contain.

Something to think about.

The idea of the Sabbatical Year is for a social reset. To teach us that we have to help our fellows know how to make a living and to train them to do so.

Now for a quick d’var Torah.

One of the subjects covered in this week’s parashah is Shemitah, the sabbatical year. Every seventh year, the land is allowed to lie fallow, debts are forgiven, and a Hebrew servant goes free—unless he chooses to remain with his master.

That raises an interesting question: Why would anyone choose to remain a slave? And why does the Torah require that, if he makes that choice, his ear is pierced?

The Sages explain that God wants us to be free people. We are meant to be servants of God, not permanent servants of another human being. The piercing of the ear is not simply a punishment. It is a reminder that the ear which heard at Mount Sinai, “For the Children of Israel are My servants,” has chosen a different kind of servitude.

Shemitah is also a national reset. The Torah teaches that poverty should not become permanent. People go through difficult times, and society has an obligation to help them get back on their feet. When a Hebrew servant is released, he is not sent away empty-handed. The Torah commands that he be given resources so he can begin a new life with dignity and the ability to support himself.

Sometimes a person became a servant because he stole and could not repay what he had taken. Jewish law insists that the victim be made whole. If the thief has nothing left to repay—even after his possessions are sold—he may be sold into servitude so that his labor can repay the debt. In a sense, the person who treated someone else’s property as worthless now learns the value of responsibility. More importantly, during those years he learns how to work, manage a household, and support himself honestly.

The goal is never humiliation. The goal is rehabilitation. The Torah seeks to restore a person’s dignity, not destroy it. By the time he leaves, he has a trade, experience, and the means to build a better future.

The message of Shemitah is that people deserve a second chance. Society must uphold justice, but it must also create opportunities for redemption. Freedom carries responsibility, and when we help people regain their independence with dignity, we strengthen the entire community.

Something to think about.

The Torah’s purpose in only have one central Tabernacle (later Temple) was so that we would be one nation with one set of rituals. Otherwise, there is anarchy.

Now for a quick D’var Torah.

One of the themes in this week’s parashah is the command that there be one central place for the Mishkan, and later for the Temple. The Torah does not want people setting up sanctuaries wherever they please. The obvious question is: Why insist on one central place instead of many?

There are several reasons. First, remember the purpose of the wilderness experience. Getting the Jews out of Egypt was the easy part. Getting Egypt out of the Jews was much harder. The surrounding cultures worshipped at countless local shrines and temples, each dedicated to a different god. The Torah rejects that model. God is teaching us that our culture is to be built on Torah—not on whatever seems right to us at the moment, but on God’s commandments.

There is another important lesson. A single sanctuary unifies the nation. Three times a year, Jews from every corner of the country would come together in one place. They met people they otherwise never would have known. They learned from one another, strengthened their common identity, and left with a deeper sense that they were one people.

There is an interesting historical parallel. Before World War II, many U.S. Army regiments were organized by state. A regiment might consist almost entirely of men from New York or Massachusetts. During World War I, that sometimes meant an entire town lost nearly all of its young men in a single battle. By World War II, the Army abandoned that system and mixed soldiers from across the country. The change not only spread the burden of war more fairly, it also strengthened national unity. Men served alongside Americans from every region. Later, after the Army was desegregated, soldiers of different races served together and came to see one another simply as fellow Americans.

The Torah is teaching a similar principle. Every community has its own customs and traditions, but there must be one central authority and one shared foundation. Without that, society eventually descends into division and even anarchy.

Remember the setting of this parashah. It takes place about a month before the Jewish people enter the Land of Israel. Moses is delivering his final instructions on how to build a nation. A nation needs a common center, shared institutions, and a common standard of law.

That is why the Torah insists on one place of worship. It is not merely about geography; it is about unity. Even today, Jews around the world have different customs. You can walk into an Ashkenazi or Sephardi synagogue and notice differences in melody or tradition, yet the core prayers and the halachic framework remain the same. As the Rema wrote his glosses on the Shulchan Aruch, he preserved local customs while maintaining one unified legal system.

The lesson is timeless. Diversity of custom is a strength, but unity of purpose is essential. A people remain strong when they share a common foundation, recognize a common authority, and remember that they are all part of something greater than themselves.

Something to think about.

We are commanded to help the poor in our community. But we are also commanded not to become poor in the process. That is why the greatest form of Tzedakah is to give someone a job.

Tzedakah, Wealth, and the Moral Economy

And now for a quick devar Torah.

This week’s parsha discusses the obligation to tithe and to give tzedakah—to care for the less fortunate among us. But the laws of charity contain an important balance.

Traditionally, a person should give at least ten percent of his income to charity. Yet the rabbis generally established an upper limit of twenty percent. Under ordinary circumstances, a person should not give away so much that he impoverishes himself.

Why? Because while we are commanded to care for the poor, we are not commanded to make ourselves poor. A healthy community needs people who have the resources to build businesses, invest, create opportunities, and provide employment.

In fact, one of the highest forms of tzedakah is helping another person find work or become self-sufficient. When someone has a job, he is no longer merely receiving from society. He is contributing to society, supporting himself, and perhaps even becoming capable of giving tzedakah to others.

Of course, employers do not normally hire people simply because those people need money. They hire them because they believe the employee can contribute something of value. That is not a defect in the economic system. It is what allows employment to become sustainable and dignified rather than merely another form of temporary charity.

This brings us to the famous teaching in Pirkei Avot:

“If there is no flour, there is no Torah; and if there is no Torah, there is no flour.”

“If there is no flour, there is no Torah” means that spiritual and intellectual life require a material foundation. People need food, shelter, and economic security. A society must possess enough wealth to support schools, synagogues, teachers, scholars, and charitable institutions.

But the teaching continues: “If there is no Torah, there is no flour.” Economic success also depends upon morality. If people steal from one another, cheat in business, break their promises, or refuse to respect property and contracts, the entire economy begins to deteriorate.

Commerce depends upon trust. Sometimes enormous business agreements have been sealed with little more than a handshake because each side believed that the other would keep his word. Laws are important, but no legal system can replace personal honesty. An economy cannot flourish when everyone assumes that everyone else is trying to cheat him.

The Torah therefore teaches us that wealth and morality are not enemies. We need a productive economy, but we also need a moral society to guide it. Wealth creates the ability to perform tzedakah, while Torah teaches us how that wealth should be earned, used, and shared.

The goal of tzedakah is not merely to keep someone dependent upon charity. Its highest purpose is to help that person move beyond poverty—to restore his dignity, independence, and ability to contribute.

We must give generously, but wisely. We must care for the poor without destroying our own ability to help. The Torah does not ask us simply to distribute poverty. It asks us to create a society in which more people can stand on their own feet and, eventually, help others do the same.

Something to think about.

The use of the singular verb to begin the Parsha shows that we are all morally responsible for our actions. The use of the plural “to you” shows that as individuals we are a society.

A Quick Devar Torah: One Person Can Build a Society

This week’s parashah, Re’eh, begins with an interesting grammatical anomaly. The opening word, Re’eh—”See”—is in the singular. Moshe is speaking as if to one individual: You, pay attention to what I am about to say. But immediately afterward he says, “I place before you today a blessing and a curse,” and the word “before you” is in the plural.

Did the Torah make a grammatical mistake? Of course not.

The Torah is teaching something profound. Moshe is reminding every Jew to hear the message personally. Even though the blessings and curses affect the entire nation, each individual must accept responsibility for his or her own choices.

Society is not some abstract thing. Society is simply the sum of millions of individual decisions. When each person accepts responsibility for doing what is right, the entire community becomes stronger.

That is why Moshe speaks to each of us individually before addressing us collectively. He is saying, “You standing there—don’t think that because you’re only one person your actions don’t matter. They do.”

This reflects an important principle of Jewish thought. Judaism has room for debate. We may disagree about many interpretations and ideas, but we do not believe that morality itself is merely a matter of personal opinion. Today we often hear phrases like, “That’s your morality,” or even, “Those are your facts.” Judaism rejects that kind of moral relativism. Facts are facts, whether we like them or not. Likewise, what is morally right or wrong is not determined simply by personal preference.

Take kashrut as an example. A non-Jew who does not keep kosher is doing nothing morally wrong. But for a Jew, keeping kosher is one of the mitzvot through which we sanctify our lives. The great rabbis have debated for centuries the reasons behind the laws of kashrut, and no single explanation has been universally accepted. What we do know is that God commanded us to observe them, trusting that they help shape us into better Jews and better people.

The same is true of all the mitzvot. Each one asks the individual to take responsibility.

Moshe is saying: You must give tzedakah. You must do acts of kindness. You must choose blessing.

This reminds us of Hillel’s famous teaching:

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

We must take responsibility for ourselves, but we must never forget that we are part of something larger. Others are watching us. Our example influences our families, our friends, and our communities.

When each individual chooses to do what is right, society itself is transformed.

Something to think about.

Perhaps the greatest gift that God has given us it free will. We are permitted to make mistakes, but we are responsible for our mistakes. With Freedom comes responsibility.

Now for a Quick Devar Torah

This week’s parashah, Re’eh, begins with Moshe’s powerful words: “See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse.” In other words, the choice is ours. We decide whether to follow God’s commandments or not.

Remember the setting. Moshe is preparing the Jewish people to enter the Land of Israel. He tells them that whether they remain in the land will ultimately depend on the choices they make. God gives us one of His greatest gifts: free will.

That may sound obvious, but free will includes something we often overlook: God allows us to make mistakes.

There is an interesting Jewish custom. When visiting a cemetery, many Jews tuck in the tzitzit of their tallit katan. The Talmud explains that we should not perform mitzvot in front of the dead because it would be like mocking them. They can no longer fulfill commandments, while we still can.

But there is another side to that idea. We can still choose to do the wrong thing as well. We are still capable of sin. The deceased no longer have choices. We do. Life is precious because every day presents another opportunity to choose between right and wrong.

Yet Moshe immediately reminds us that freedom does not eliminate responsibility. We are accountable for every decision we make. God took us out of Egypt to make us a free people, but freedom does not mean, “I can do whatever I want.” Freedom means accepting responsibility for what we choose to do.

This also helps explain the forty years in the wilderness. God knew that a generation raised in slavery was not yet ready to build a free society. Freedom must be learned. A slave mentality does not disappear overnight.

History offers many examples. In the early nineteenth century, Americans helped establish Liberia as a homeland for freed African Americans. During the presidency of James Monroe, the capital was named Monrovia in his honor. Tragically, many of the settlers recreated a society with sharp social hierarchies, reflecting patterns they had known before. The lesson is sobering: people often reproduce the systems they grew up with unless they consciously build something better.

The Israelites had to learn not simply to leave Egypt, but to stop thinking like Egypt. They needed time to become a nation capable of governing itself according to justice and moral law.

The United States provides another interesting parallel. As we mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is worth remembering that the American founders did more than throw off British rule. They understood that political freedom alone was not enough. They first tried the Articles of Confederation, discovered their weaknesses, and then wrote the Constitution to create a stronger and more enduring system of government.

It is also noteworthy that scholars have long observed that the Book of Deuteronomy was among the biblical books most frequently cited during America’s founding era. That is understandable. Deuteronomy is not simply a book of religious law. It is a blueprint for building a moral society, one that places limits on power, insists on justice, and reminds both leaders and citizens that they are accountable to something higher than themselves.

Moshe’s message is timeless. The choice is ours. We can build a society of blessing or one that brings upon itself the consequences of its own actions. Blessings are not automatic. They must be earned through responsibility, justice, and faithful choices.

Something to think about.