A Message for Me: Parashat Re'eh 5786

 This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg was originally published in the Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 6 August 2026. You can also read it in Hebrew, thanks to ChatGPT, here.

The opening verse of Parshat Re'eh contains a curious grammatical shift:

"Re'eh anochi noten lifneichem hayom berachah u'kelalah" – "See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse."

The word re'eh is singular, yet lifneichem is in the plural. Why the inconsistency?

The Kli Yakar explains this based on a statement of the Gemara in Masechet Kiddushin (40b). A person should always view the world as perfectly balanced between merit and guilt. One mitzvah can tip the scales in favour of the entire world; one aveirah can tip them the other way. That is why the Torah begins this verse in the singular. Every one of us must hear these words as though they are addressed to us personally. It is tempting to think that one individual can hardly make a difference. After all, what effect can one person's actions really have among millions of Jews and billions of people?

Yet the Torah's answer is: more than you imagine. The verse does not remain in the singular. It immediately becomes plural: lifneichem. The choices I make are never only about me. Every act of kindness, every moment of integrity, every mitzvah and every aveirah has consequences far beyond what I can see. We rarely know how our actions influence those around us, and we certainly cannot measure their spiritual impact. Yet the Torah asks us to live with the awareness that they do.

This perspective runs counter to the way we usually think. We naturally measure our actions by what we can see: Did anyone notice? Did it make a tangible difference? Did it change anything? The Kli Yakar reminds us that this is not how the Torah measures a person's life. We are not in a position to calculate the ultimate impact of our deeds. That is Hashem's domain. Our responsibility is simply to recognise that no action is ever insignificant.

There is a powerful tension here. Judaism does not encourage us to think that we are the centre of the universe. At the same time, it asks us to live with the awareness that our choices genuinely matter. We are neither insignificant nor all-important. We are individuals whose actions form part of a much larger story.

Hashem speaks to each of us personally. No one can serve Him on our behalf, and no one else can make our choices for us. At the same time, those choices are never ours alone. Every individual decision contributes, in some small but immeasurable way, to the spiritual direction of the Jewish people and of the world.

That is both a great responsibility and an extraordinary privilege.

Shabbat Shalom!