(Check out Ari’s Q&A at the end of this Grill & Torah)
The Blessing and the Curse
This week’s parsha is called Parashat Re’eh. Re’eh literally means “see.”
Right away, the parsha says:
“Re’eh anochi notein lifneichem hayom bracha uklalah” — “See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse.”
The first question is: What does seeing have to do with this? It should not say “see”; it should say “listen” — shema. Listen to what I have to tell you.
The second question is: Why does it begin by saying, “I have given you a blessing and a curse”? Why should it not say, “I have given you rules and laws by which you should live your life, and if you live by those laws, I will reward you with blessings, and if you do not live by those rules and laws, I will curse and punish you”?
That should seemingly be the language of the Torah in this case. But that is not what the Torah says. It says, “See, I have given you blessings and curses.”
It seems as though the blessings and curses are not merely results. The curses are not simply the result of disobeying, and the blessings are not simply the result of saying yes to God’s commandments. The language seems very strange.
When you hear something, it is not always as clear as when you see something. People say that seeing is believing. But seeing is not only with your eyes. Obviously, when you see something with your eyes, you say, “It is right in front of me.” But seeing can also fool you.
When you see a false prophet who comes and performs miracles, you see the miracles. That should be the end of the discussion, right? You see a man or woman performing miracles, so you should say that person is a prophet. But the Torah says no, as we will see later.
When the Torah says, “See, I have given you blessings and curses,” it is not speaking about rewards and punishments. Looking at it that way is a very childish way of understanding religion.
That is where people fall. They say, “I did not keep Shabbat, and lightning did not strike me, so I guess it is all fake.”
But no one said lightning was going to strike you. That is the big problem with people who think religion works through automatic gratification for good behavior or immediate punishment for bad behavior. That is not how it works.
How do I know? Because the Torah never says that it works that way. It does not say that if you do something wrong, lightning will come down and strike you from the heavens. That is a very childish way of looking at things.
The question is whether we look at the Torah and its commandments as a way of earning checks in Heaven — as if we are brown-nosing so that we receive a check from God, or God becomes angry with us and punishes us — or whether the Torah is what the Chinese might call a Dao, a way.
Is the Torah a way, or is it merely a collection of commandments?
This week’s parsha makes clear that it is not about checks in Heaven. It is not, “You did this, so you receive a check. You did not do this, so you receive an X.”
No. It is a way of life.
The bracha and the klalah, the blessing and the curse, are not punishments or prizes imposed by God as consequences of your actions. It is not, “You do this, and I give you a blessing.” Rather, they are the natural consequences of the way you live.
When someone is a little child, Mommy and Daddy might say, “If you behave yourself, I will give you some extra pudding.” The child starts behaving because of the pudding or whatever prize the parents have promised.
“You behave yourself, and I will give you a new bicycle. You behave yourself, and I will give you a new car.” Whatever it might be.
But there comes a point in life when a person has to graduate from that immaturity. You no longer do the right thing because someone is going to give you a prize. You do it because you see the value of what your parents taught you.
When parents say to their child, “I will give you a prize if you say please and thank you,” at first the child says please and thank you, and Daddy gives him a candy. The parents say, “Clean up your room,” and Mommy or Daddy gives another candy.
But at a certain point, the value of that behavior becomes more important than the prize. Saying please and thank you is much more valuable than receiving a candy.
When the Torah says, “I give you a bracha and a klalah, a blessing and a curse,” it does not mean, “If you do not do this, I will punish you, and if you do it, I will give you a prize.” It is speaking about the value of following the Torah.
Can Morality Be Relative?
I have said this to many people before: If there is no God, then there is no morality. There is only the opinion of society at a particular point in time.
If society determines morality, then every society has the right to define its own morality. Moral relativism is perfectly legitimate if the universe is simply an accident and there is no objective source of morality.
If moral relativism is real, and everyone has the right to define morality according to personal taste or culture, then you cannot truly criticize another society.
In my society, I might say that stealing and killing are wrong. But if another society — take the Nazis, for example — believes that it is permissible to kill people of a different race, who says they are wrong under moral relativism?
What right does anyone have to define another society as wrong if morality is relative?
The definition of moral relativism is that everyone has the right to define his own morality. There are no real limits, because all limits are treated as artificial.
People say that everybody has a right to feel proud of whatever they choose to do. I once responded by giving an example of another immorality: incest.
They said, “That is ridiculous.”
I said, “That is exactly my point. It is ridiculous to you. That is where your morality ends. That is where you draw the line. My morality ends somewhere else. That is where I draw the line. According to your ideology, who says that your line is better than mine?”
The answer is no one.
In a morally relative world, you have no objective right to define morality.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu says in Parashat Re’eh, “Look, I have given you a bracha and a klalah.”
It does not say, “I gave you a reward for acting properly.” No. Read it: “I have given you blessings, and I have given you curses.”
What does that mean?
When you behave according to the Torah’s code, you learn to adopt a particular moral code. The prize is not the important thing. The way is important.
In Judaism, we say, “Ein ha’olam hazeh ela prozdor la’olam haba” — this world is only a hallway leading to the next world. This world is the way.
Much of Western society does not care about the way; it cares only about results. An advertisement says, “Come to our university online, and you will finish your degree in three weeks.”
An infomercial shows people who look like they are carved like Greek gods and says, “Work out for five minutes a day, and you will look like me after three months.” They do not tell you that they have been working out for fifteen years.
Western society does not like the way. It wants shortcuts.
Judaism does not believe in shortcuts. Judaism values the way. It values the Torah and the mitzvot. That is why the Torah says, “See the curses and the blessings that God has given you.”
The laws that God gives us are not moral relativism. They are the definition of morality.
The moment someone thinks that he can define morality for himself, morality is not worth anything. If you have the right to define whatever you want, then so does the next person. In a morally relative world, no one has the right to criticize another person’s basic moral ideas.
That is a very dangerous way of looking at things.
If there is no objective morality in the world, you cannot truly define anything as moral.
Suppose I ask someone who does not believe in Torah or God, “Why can I not kill someone?”
He says, “I do not need God to tell me that I cannot kill someone.”
Fine. Explain it to me.
Suppose I want another man’s car. He has a beautiful car. I want it, so I kill him and take his car. Is that wrong?
“Of course it is wrong.”
Why?
In a world without God, in which the Big Bang happened and we are merely animals, animals kill one another for food and for other forms of self-interest. Why can I not do it? What is the moral consequence if there is no God?
Is it wrong only because society defines it as wrong? What happens if society decides that it is right? Is it acceptable then?
If you had been a German living in 1942 and believed Nazi propaganda, society had defined Jews, the disabled, and many other people as subhuman. Society said that you were allowed to kill and gas them.
Society defined that behavior as moral. Is that acceptable?
If your answer is no, then even you understand that moral relativism does not work. The question is: Where do you get morality from?
The Blessing Is Listening to the Torah
These last parshiot in the Torah are speaking about our coming to Israel and being successful in the Land of Israel.
The Torah says:
“Re’eh anochi notein lifneichem hayom bracha uklalah. Et habracha asher tishme’u el mitzvot Hashem Elokeichem asher anochi metzaveh etchem hayom.”
“See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing, that you will listen to the commandments of Hashem your God that I command you today.”
Listen carefully: The blessing is that you will listen to the commandments that God gave you in the Torah.
That is the blessing.
It does not say, “I am going to give you a prize. I am going to give you candy.” It says that the blessing God has given you is the ability to listen to the Torah.
When a parent gives candy to a two-year-old who behaves properly, the parent hopes that at a certain point in life, the value of behaving properly and being polite will become more important than the candy.
The Torah is saying that the blessing itself is behaving according to the moral law of the Torah.
Of course, other things come along with that. Here, the Torah is speaking about our success in remaining in the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel is holy, and therefore it cannot tolerate immorality.
Yes, listening to God is itself the blessing, but the result will also be that we are successful in the Land of Israel when we behave according to the Torah’s objective moral law rather than according to our personal comfort.
And what is the klalah, the curse?
“Vehaklalah im lo tishme’u el mitzvot Hashem Elokeichem, vesartem min haderech asher anochi metzaveh etchem hayom, lalechet acharei elohim acheirim asher lo yedatem.”
“The curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of Hashem your God, and you turn away from the path that I command you today, to follow other gods that you did not know.”
The curse is that you will not listen to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and will leave the way that He commanded you.
What does “today” mean? It refers to Mount Sinai.
It does not matter who convinces you or what they say, whether it is society or another religion. If you leave the way that you were commanded at Mount Sinai to follow other gods that you did not know, that itself is the curse.
What does it mean that you “did not know” them?
Bnei Yisrael came out of Egypt knowing God. They witnessed the plagues, the splitting of the sea, Pharaoh’s destruction, and the defeat of their enemies. They saw all of these things.
But even that kind of seeing is not sufficient.
How do I know? The sin of the Golden Calf took place immediately after Mount Sinai. Flashes of inspiration — “Whoa, look at that!” — do not last by themselves.
You have to work. It takes hard work and attention to detail.
What Is Right in Your Own Eyes
The Torah then speaks about coming to Israel and keeping these brachot uklalot, these blessings and curses, by keeping the Torah.
It says:
“Lo ta’asun kechol asher anachnu osim po hayom, ish kol hayashar be’einav.”
“You shall not do everything that we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes.”
This is extremely important.
Do not do what we are doing here today, where every man does what he sees fit.
What does that mean? It does not necessarily mean that everyone is running around doing crazy things all the time.
It means that everyone defines his own morality.
“Ish kol hayashar be’einav.” Every person does what he believes is yashar, straight and upright. Every person does what he believes represents integrity. He makes his own laws.
The Torah says: Do not do that.
Why?
Because society’s laws are based on the comfort and needs of society. Society says, “In order for us to survive, we have to do A, B, C, D, and E.”
I understand that. Society says that people cannot kill one another because society will not survive if everybody kills.
Fine. That is wonderful.
But is it merely a social concern, or is there an objective moral standard?
When it comes to killing, you say that society cannot survive if everyone kills everyone else. But what happens in a place suffering from overpopulation? Is the society permitted to kill children whom it considers less beneficial to the community?
Now it is no longer only a social question. It is a moral question.
If there is no objective morality, and a society says that it is better for the community to kill certain children, what happened to the argument that society determines morality?
Are you allowed to kill those children?
The question is whether your morality is based on society or on something else.
The Torah says, “Do not do what you see in your own eyes as being right. Do not do what you personally define as integrity.”
Consider abortion. I am not entering the argument itself right now. But in 1950, abortion was called bloody murder throughout much of the Western world. Today, it is called “pro-choice” in much of the Western world.
Regardless of who is right or wrong, the point is that one of the most basic moral questions — whether something is murder — was transformed into a question of choice.
Were people wrong fifty, sixty, seventy, or a hundred years ago? Are they wrong now? Does it make no difference? When society decides that it is acceptable to call something “pro-choice” that it once called murder, does that make it acceptable?
I am not answering the abortion question right now. I am pointing out that society’s morality flip-flopped within fifty years.
That is a society I do not want to live in. I do not want to live in a society where morality can be overturned according to our comfort. That is a very dangerous society.
Why We Came to the Land of Israel
What is the solution?
The Torah says:
“Ki lo batem ad atah el hamenuchah veel hanachalah asher Hashem Elokecha notein lach.”
“You have not yet come to the resting place and to the inheritance that Hashem your God gives you.”
After saying that you should not do everything you find right in your own eyes, the Torah says that you have not yet reached this point — entering the Land of Israel, resting in the land, and receiving the inheritance that God gives you.
You did not come into the Land of Israel in order to do whatever you see fit.
You cross the Jordan River and settle in the land that God is giving you. I am not insulted when someone calls me a settler. I know that I am a settler. God settled me in this land. God gave us this land back, thank God.
The Torah says that we did not come to this point in history, returning to the Land of Israel and settling the land God gave us, merely to do whatever we want.
Eventually, God will allow us to rest from the enemies surrounding us. But we did not come to this land to do whatever we decide in our own minds.
You want to do that? Go to another country.
Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, is not a place for saying, “This is what I want to do, so therefore I will do it.”
I am not speaking about individual people. I am speaking about the Torah’s idea.
The Torah then speaks about Yerushalayim. It tells us not to bring sacrifices wherever we choose, but only in the place God selects. We direct ourselves toward Yerushalayim.
People speak about indigenous rights. Being indigenous does not simply mean that you were born somewhere. I was born in the United States, but I am not indigenous to the United States.
As a Jew, I am indigenous to Israel. My entire culture is rooted here, and our entire religion is based upon Israel.
Whether it is ma’aser, giving one-tenth of what you have; shemitah, not working the land during the seventh year; or the Torah’s teaching that Yerushalayim is the place where the Temple must be built — it is all rooted here.
Yerushalayim does not hold this place in any other religion in the way it does in Judaism. It is written directly in the Torah.
What, then, is the answer?
The answer is that you should not simply do what is right in your own mind. Rather, you must do what is yashar in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, in the eyes of Hashem.
Why is this so important?
If morality is defined by people, then it is not morality. It is opinion. It is comfort. It is a collection of laws designed to keep society in order according to what people think at a particular point in history.
Every fifty or one hundred years, those laws will change according to what society wants.
Morality does not change.
The moment morality can change, it is no longer morality. It is merely opinion.
If you want to be a moral person, your morality cannot be subjective. If the reason that you cannot kill someone changes within fifty years, then it is not morality.
Something is either moral or immoral.
There are circumstances in which an act that would normally be immoral becomes moral. Killing is generally immoral. But if someone is coming to kill you, you kill him first. That is not immoral. It is moral. It is a commandment.
You cannot steal. When can taking something cease to be an immoral act? When your life is in danger and it is necessary to save your life. Otherwise, it remains immoral.
The definition of morality must come from an objective source, not from my brain or my opinion.
The moment it comes from my opinion, it is not morality. It is my opinion.
Another society can hold a completely different opinion and define its morality in an entirely different way. If morality is subjective, I have absolutely no right to criticize what that society considers moral.
The Torah Does Not Change
The Torah says, “This is the moral code.”
Someone may say, “What do you mean? I know this halacha, and it sounds very immoral to me.”
It sounds immoral to you because we live in a society that calls it immoral. But that society’s definition of morality and immorality is based upon what is accepted today.
The Torah is not based upon what is accepted today.
The Torah is objective morality, which we must keep even when it is uncomfortable.
Why do I have to keep kosher?
People say, “Because it is healthier.”
Big baloney. That is not true.
We keep kosher because it is a commandment in the Torah. It is very simple. Jews have commandments that we must keep.
Even when we do not understand the reason for a commandment, we do not remove it.
This week’s parsha carefully states that you are not permitted to subtract from or add to what was given at Sinai.
On the one hand, the parsha begins with Re’eh — see the blessings and the curses that God has given you.
On the other hand, seeing can be very dangerous.
The Torah warns us not to be corrupted by our hearts and eyes.
This week’s parsha says that if a navi, a prophet, comes to you and says, “I am going to perform miracles. I am going to make this wall burst into flames,” and then he actually performs the miracles, you still must not believe him if he changes anything in the Torah.
No matter how many miracles he performs, do not believe that prophet.
You might ask, “Then why did God allow him to perform miracles if he is not a true prophet?”
The Torah answers that it is in order to test us.
Morality is not based upon whatever impresses us at a particular moment.
“Oh, wow! He did something fantastic. Let us believe him.”
No.
The Torah was given at Sinai. That is the standard. No human being and no miracle can change it.
We must not live according to hayashar be’eineinu, whatever we personally see as right. My feelings do not determine morality.
If I want to eat a cheeseburger because I am very hungry, my hunger does not matter unless my life is in danger. I cannot eat a cheeseburger.
Why?
For one reason only: God commanded me not to eat milk and meat together.
Someone says, “But does God really care what we eat?”
Again, that opinion comes from a place that assumes nothing truly matters.
It is not about whether God “cares” in the simplistic sense. It is about the first pasuk of the parsha:
“Re’eh anochi notein lifneichem hayom bracha uklalah.”
“See, I have given you a blessing and a curse.”
Again, these are not merely rewards and punishments.
God is saying: I have given you a life of blessing and a life of curse.
You are not simply receiving a check and a prize from God for being good. Goodness itself is what matters.
What Defines a Person
Consider the difference between a moral person and an immoral person.
You are walking down the street and find a huge suitcase filled with money. There is no way the person who lost it will ever find it by himself. His name is written on the suitcase.
Do you return it?
How much money is in the bag?
Suppose there are five hundred dollars. Most people would probably say yes.
What if there are ten thousand dollars? What if there are one million dollars? What if there are ten million dollars?
What if the owner has insurance and will not personally lose anything?
Do you return it?
If your answer is, “Well, if he has insurance and is not losing anything, maybe I do not have to return it,” then your decision is not moral. It is practical.
I do not ask whether he has insurance. I return the suitcase because returning it is the moral thing to do.
Yes, I will lose the comfort that the money could have provided. But the feeling of choosing morality over my comfort cannot be purchased with money. It is priceless. It defines a person.
How does a person fight the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, according to the Jewish sages?
They say: Think about the day you will die.
What does that mean? Why would I want to think about the day I die?
When we die, none of our physical possessions remain with us. The cars are gone. The big houses are gone. Status is gone. You are not more important than anyone else there.
The only things that remain are your actions.
Did you follow God’s commandments or not?
If you are Jewish, you are obligated in the Torah. If you are not Jewish, you have the seven Noahide commandments. It is very simple.
Suppose you kept the suitcase containing one hundred million dollars.
Would you want your gravestone to say, “He stole one hundred million dollars to make sure that his children would be financially secure and comfortable”?
Or would you want it to say, “He had the opportunity to take one hundred million dollars. No one would ever have known, and he returned it anyway”?
What do you want written about you on your gravestone?
When you answer that question, you understand the true importance of morality.
Your soul yearns for morality. Your body yearns for the money.
That is the war Judaism describes between the soul and the body.
God says that when you come into the Land of Israel, you had better let your soul win. You had better not allow your body to win.
It cannot be yashar be’einai, merely what I see as right. That comes from the body. Most of our decisions are based upon physical comfort.
No. We want our soul to make the decision.
It is very difficult in this crazy world, but there is no moral relativism according to the Torah.
True Liberalism and Torah Responsibility
When it comes to liberalism, however, this is important to understand. I recently stopped using the word “liberal” when I mean “leftist,” because Judaism is actually a very liberal religion.
We see it in the Torah’s treatment of poor people. We see it in the Torah’s treatment of converts. We see it in the Torah’s treatment of almost anyone who is in a less fortunate situation than we are.
Even the Levi’im, who do not receive a regular portion of land, must be supported by the nation.
When it comes to the holidays, the Torah says that you must take care of the convert, the orphan, and the widow.
By definition, Judaism is a very liberal religion.
Even at the end of days, our goal is not limited to ourselves. The Temple that we will build on the Temple Mount, hopefully speedily in our days, will be a house of prayer for all nations.
We are an inclusive religion that believes in human equality. But there are boundaries.
If I say that men and women have different commandments, that does not mean they are unequal. It means they are different.
According to Kabbalistic sources, the female is on a higher spiritual level. Do I understand that? No, I do not.
There are commandments that women are not obligated to keep, and there are commandments applying to women that men cannot keep.
That does not mean men and women are unequal. That is the confusion.
The distorted form of liberalism says that because everyone is equal, there can be no different responsibilities for different people.
It also rejects merit.
If I work very hard and earn a great deal of money, somehow I am treated as a criminal who must pay the person who does not work hard.
No. I can and should give charity to someone who is less fortunate. But you cannot tell me that I must be forced to give money to someone who refuses to work. That is not morality. That is stealing.
The modern world has distorted the idea of liberalism.
I am liberal in the true sense. I believe that I should help people who are less fortunate. Of course I should. I believe in equality.
But equality does not mean that there are no differences between people, no different responsibilities, and no consequences for action or inaction.
Recognizing those differences does not mean people are unequal.
The idea that it does is a complete and total perversion of equality.
The Torah says that this distortion comes from doing whatever is good in your own eyes — whatever you personally perceive as integrity and truth.
Society changes those definitions every fifty or sixty years. The Torah does not change.
When you come to the Land of Israel, the morality you adopt must be the morality that is right in the eyes of God, given to us through the Torah, and nothing else.
Only then will we live the blessing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us in the Land of Israel.
I say to people all the time: If you merely want another free country, what do you need Israel for? You have America, England, France, or any number of other countries.
We need Israel as the Jewish country — the only Jewish country in the world.
That is what is special about this country.
Therefore, we must educate ourselves to live the way life is supposed to be lived, according to the moral compass of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, God, and not according to our own minds and hearts.
Questions and Answers
Why Does the Torah Prescribe the Death Penalty for Violating Shabbat?
Question: Why kill a person if he does not keep Shabbat?
Ari: That is a great question. Of course, an individual does not kill someone who does not keep Shabbat. There must be a high court. The person must have been warned, there must be witnesses, and so on. Generally, the Sanhedrin did everything in its power not to carry out the death penalty.
But I will answer the basic question. Why should the death penalty ever apply to someone who murdered or raped another person? If you do not believe that God has the authority to define which offenses are punishable by death, then I certainly hope you do not believe that human beings have that authority.
Even with Nazis, would you say that you cannot execute them because there should never be a death penalty?
You are questioning God’s morality based upon your own understanding of morality. But if you believe in God, then God created morality. If you do not believe in God, then there is no objective morality—there are only social consequences.
Without God, you cannot objectively explain why it is wrong to steal from someone. If we are merely an accident of the Big Bang and are nothing more than intelligent animals, animals kill and steal from one another. Where does the moral consequence come from?
Suppose I run a red light in the middle of the night when no one is there, or I steal money when no one will ever catch me. Why is it immoral?
When you say that something in the Torah is not moral, you are asking the question according to your own grasp of morality rather than according to an objective definition of morality.
My answer is that morality can only be objectively defined by the Torah.
Is the Dome of the Rock Considered Idolatry?
Question: Last week’s parsha commanded us to destroy the idols of our enemies. Is the Dome of the Rock considered idolatry, even though it stands on the site of the Temple?
Ari: The Dome of the Rock is not considered idolatry. This has nothing to do with my personal opinion about whether I want to go up there.
It is not considered idolatry because Islam believes in one God, and the rock itself is not used as an object of worship. The Dome of the Rock is not even a mosque; it is a shrine.
But it is certainly a desecration of God’s name that another religion controls the Temple Mount and prays toward Mecca, turning its back toward the site of the Holy of Holies. It is a horrible desecration of God’s name.
But going up there and taking apart the structure is not the essential question. The question is: When will the nation want the Beit HaMikdash?
It is not about destruction. It is about building.
When the nation demands that the Temple be built, we will build the Temple. Right now, unfortunately, not many people truly care. Jews who want to ascend the Temple Mount are called radicals—even by other Jews.
Are we ready for the Temple? Unfortunately, the nation is not yet ready.
God gave us the Temple Mount in 1967, and we gave it away. We have to demand it. This is called derishat Tzion—seeking and demanding Zion.
Hopefully, we will learn to do that sooner rather than later, and we will not miss the next opportunity God gives us, speedily in our days.
Is God More Present in the Temple?
Question: Is the Temple the place where Hashem’s name is concentrated or revealed?
Ari: God is everywhere. God is not present only in the Temple. God is in every molecule everywhere.
The holiness of the Temple means that it was the place where God communicated with Moshe—first in the Mishkan and later in the Temple through the Kohen Gadol and in other ways.
There is a concentration of holiness and spirituality there, but it is important to understand that the greater spiritual focus there relates more to our ability to connect. The Temple is like an antenna to God.
When we enter the Temple, it is as though we have an antenna that enables us to communicate with the Creator of the world.
That does not mean that God is absent or less present anywhere else. Think of your phone: In one location you have service, and in another location you do not. You move a few inches, and suddenly you have better service.
That is what the Temple is to the Jewish people. In the Temple, we have especially strong reception with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Outside the Temple, our reception is weaker.
It does not mean that God is more present there or less present elsewhere. God is all-encompassing and can never be more or less present.