Two Ways Lie Before Us

Parashat Re’eh, Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17

Daniel Nessim, Congregation Kehillath Tsion, Vancouver, BC

The Talmud Yerushalmi relates the story of Abba Yehudah. Abba Yehudah lived in Antioch some time in the second century, when we have significant evidence both for a thriving Jewish community, and also a Messianic community alongside it.

It happened that Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, and Rabbi Akiba went to Antioch to raise financial support for the rabbis. Abba Yehudah had been a wealthy man who gave alms generously but had lost most of his property. When he saw our teachers, he gave up hope of giving to them. He was so upset that when he went home, he looked sickly. His wife asked him, why are you looking sickly? He told her, “Our teachers are here, and I do not know what I can do for them.” His wife, who was even more pious than he, told him: “You have a field left; go, sell half of it, and give to them.” He went and did so and gave to them. The rabbis prayed for him and said to him, “Abba Yehudah, the Holy One, praise to him, may he fill your want.”

After they left, he went to plough his half of the field. When he was plowing in his half of the field, his cow sank down and broke its leg. He went to lift her up when the Holy One, praise to Him, opened his eyes and there in the soil he found a treasure. He said, “My cow’s leg broke for my benefit!”

When the rabbis returned, they asked about him, “How is Abba Yehudah doing?” The people of Antioch answered and said “Who can appear before Yehudah? Abba Yehudah of his cattle, Abba Yehudah of his camels, Abba Yehudah of his donkeys!” Abba Yehudah had returned to his former status.

Abba Yehudah came to the rabbis to greet them. They asked him, “How is Abba Yehudah doing?” He told them, “Your prayer brought results and even more.” So, the scholars took him, made him sit with them, and recited for him this verse, which we know today as Proverbs 18 verse 16: “A man’s gift makes room for him, and leads him before great men.”

Yeshua’s words may also apply: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt 6:33).

But in our parasha this week, Re’eh, we are faced with a shot over the bow. While life and death will be set before Israel at length at the end of Deuteronomy, here the choice is presented earlier, and more succinctly. It is a common pattern in the Torah. Present a teaching, and then re-present it in greater detail later on.

This shot over the bow was a warning shot to Israel because this teaching was so pivotal. It is Moses telling them, “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse” (Deut 11:26). Both the blessing and curse were dependent on the keeping of the commandments, the mitzvot.

The point of the blessings and curses, the Two Ways that are presented to Israel, is not to frighten or to admonish, but to adjure and encourage Israel to walk in the right path. At the border of the Promised Land, with all the opportunity and change of life that it will bring, Israel is instructed on how they might keep the statutes and rules, the chukim and mishpatim that God had given, so he might show them mercy and compassion, and multiply them (Deut 13:17). Even being faithful in their tithing is so that God would be able to bless them in all the work of their hands (14:29).

To receive that mercy and blessing, that compassion and national growth, the nation needed to come together. The choice between the blessing and the curse was not so much an instruction for each individual as an instruction for the people as a whole. The individual is only significant in this parasha when he or she, a prophet or dreamer, should seek to lead the people as a whole saying, “let us go after other gods” (13:6). In this case the people as a whole dealt with the individual to purge the evil from their midst.

This week we read the third of the haftarot of consolation (Isaiah 54:11–55:5). It includes the wonderful words, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat” (Isa 55:1). Here indeed is the individual choice. Here indeed is the promise of blessing for the individual, but again, this is in the context of a people turning back to Hashem, for the result of this teshuvah is nothing less than the establishment of an everlasting covenant, “the trustworthy loyalty promised to David” (Isa 55:3). We could read some messianic significance into that promise. Indeed, the twelfth-century rabbinic commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra interpreted the passage this way. Yet, for our point, this covenant is not expressed here in individual terms but with the people as a whole.

Getting back to our story, Abba Yehudah did indeed make an individual choice, a choice to do something for his people by supporting the rabbis. The story tells us that he was greatly blessed for this, but the blessing came after his sacrificial giving at great personal cost. Abba Yehudah was putting the community ahead of himself. The blessing was something that came after. As we begin to prepare ourselves, now, for that period of confession preceding and during the Day of Atonement, each one of us needs to make a personal accounting. Nevertheless, none of us stands alone.

None of us stands apart from our people Israel in its entirety. Teshuvah is not particularly suited for Zoom, YouTube, or Facebook videos. In our personal accounting, our personal confession, surrounded by others similarly taking stock of their deeds, we are reminded that we are not alone in our failings. On the other hand, together we have the opportunity to be in a place where the Almighty can give us his mercy, blessing, and compassion.

May he who makes peace in his high places, make peace upon us and upon all Israel, and let us say, amen.