ב”ה

“See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse.”1

Parshas Re’eh begins with an unusual command: Re’eh — “See.” Moshe does not say merely, “Listen,” “understand,” or even “believe.” He asks us to see.

That word can serve as a key to the entire parsha. The surface of life often tells one story while Torah asks us to perceive something deeper. The avodah of Re’eh is not to deny what stands before our eyes, but to know that what is visible is not always the whole truth.

Later the Torah describes a false prophet who appears capable of producing a sign and then calls people away from G-d. The Torah explains:

“For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know whether you love Hashem your G-d with all your heart and all your soul.”2

The question is obvious. Hashem knows the future and the human heart. Why does He need a test “to know” whether we love Him?

The Alter Rebbe addresses this in Likkutei Torah, in the maamar beginning “Acharei Havayah Elokeichem Teileichu.”3 The purpose of a nisayon is not to provide G-d with information He lacks. The nisayon is for the person. “Ladaas” — to know — means that the relationship with Hashem must move from something hidden and potential into daas: inward, lived knowledge.4

A person can believe deeply in G-d while that belief remains partly abstract. Then comes a moment when honesty costs money, faith conflicts with visible success, or obedience is inconvenient. At that moment belief can become real: Is Hashem only an idea I affirm, or is He more real to me than the pressure of the moment?

A Hidden Father

The maamar is explained through a moving parable: a father hides from his child because he wants the child to search for him.4 The immature child may conclude, “My father has disappeared.” The wiser child understands that the hiding is part of the relationship. When he finds his father, the concealment that seemed to create distance has produced deeper closeness.

So too, a nisayon is a form of hester — concealment. The visible world seems to say: “There is no G-dliness here. Look only at what you can gain or lose.” The challenge is to refuse to confuse concealment with absence.

This does not mean calling suffering “good” or denying pain. Judaism asks us to pray for revealed good. It means that where we do not understand Hashem, we do not conclude that He is absent.

The Alter Rebbe goes deeper. The concealment itself contains a lofty Divine energy. This is illustrated by a nut enclosed in a hard shell.4 From the outside, the shell looks like an obstacle. Once it is broken, the nourishment within becomes accessible. In the same way, when a person remains attached to Hashem within a nisayon, the concealment itself can become the source of stronger daas.

This gives new meaning to the next verse:

“After Hashem your G-d shall you walk… Him shall you serve, and to Him shall you cleave.”5

The Torah does not promise that the road will always be obvious. It tells us what to do when it is not: keep walking after Hashem.

The Test Is Universal

For a Jew, the path is defined by Torah and mitzvos. For a Ben or Bas Noach, the obligations are different: the Seven Noahide Commandments establish a G-d-given moral order. Yet the inner struggle is universal.

Will I be honest when dishonesty would benefit me? Will I respect another person’s property when I could take advantage? Will I protect life and dignity when anger tells me otherwise? Will I uphold justice when it is easier to look away? Will I recognize the Creator when society tells me that only visible power matters?

A nisayon is where knowledge of G-d enters choice.

That is why the message of Re’eh is not simply “believe.” It is: learn to see beyond the first appearance of things.

Open Your Hand

Later, Re’eh turns from the hiddenness of G-d to something very concrete: another person’s need.

“If there will be among you a needy person… you shall not harden your heart, and you shall not close your hand… Rather, you shall surely open your hand to him.”6

The Lubavitcher Rebbe notes that Re’eh is invariably read on the Shabbos when the coming month of Elul is blessed, or on Rosh Chodesh Elul itself. He therefore connects the parsha’s emphasis on tzedakah with the spiritual work of Elul.7

The Rambam writes that during the Ten Days of Teshuvah Jews increase especially in tzedakah, good deeds, and mitzvos.8 The Rebbe applies this emphasis to Elul as well.7

But the Rebbe adds a deeper point. We come before Hashem asking for mercy not because we can present a perfect account of our merits. However good a person may be, he remains dependent on Divine generosity. How do we awaken that generosity from Above? By behaving generously toward another person below.7

We ask Hashem: Do not relate to me only according to what I have earned. Give beyond calculation.

Then Hashem asks us: And how do you relate to someone who needs you?

The Only Person Who Answered

A remarkable story about the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, turns this teaching into flesh and blood.

In Brownsville, Brooklyn, there was a rabbi who strongly disliked Chassidim and publicly mocked the Frierdiker Rebbe. Later, the rabbi’s brother became seriously ill and needed a large sum of money. Unable to raise it, the rabbi placed a tiny classified advertisement in the Morgen Journal. Its message was only four Yiddish words and a telephone number: “Ah Yid darf hilf” — a Jew needs help.9

Only one person answered: the Frierdiker Rebbe.

He called and offered the full amount.

The rabbi later publicly apologized. What moved him was not simply the money, but what the Rebbe had seen. He had not seen “the critic” or “the opponent.” He saw that a Jew needed help — and that was enough.9

That story is Re’eh in action.

Two people can look at the same person and see completely different realities. One sees the insult. Another sees the need. One sees history. Another sees a soul.

Sometimes the greatest nisayon is not whether we believe in Hashem when He is hidden. It is whether we can see another person when our own ego stands in the way.

From Seeing to Giving

The parsha begins with the eye — Re’eh — and later speaks about the heart and the hand: “Do not harden your heart, and do not close your hand.”6 Perhaps these are not separate ideas.

What the eye sees determines what the heart feels, and what the heart feels determines what the hand does.

If I see another person mainly through what he did to me, my hand may close. If I see first a human being created in the Divine image, the heart can open. The Torah states that humanity was created “in the image of Gd.”10 This does not erase differences between Jew and non-Jew or their distinct missions. It tells us that no human life is spiritually meaningless.

For a Jew, tzedakah is a specific Torah mitzvah. For a Ben Noach, the halachic framework is not identical; nevertheless, the Rambam explicitly rules that a Ben Noach may perform additional mitzvos for reward and specifically states that when a Ben Noach gives tzedakah, it is accepted.11 Generosity therefore has a real place in
Noahide service as well, while Jewish and Noahide obligations remain distinct.

The Jew asks: How can my mitzvos reveal Hashem in this world?

The Ben Noach asks: How can the Seven Commandments, faith in the Creator, justice, honesty, respect for life, and acts of goodness make human society reflect the will of its Creator?

And both must ask: What am I seeing?

The Preparation for Elul

Elul is a month of introspection. We examine the year and what needs repair. But the Rebbe’s sichah reminds us that introspection cannot end with the self. One of the strongest preparations for returning to Hashem is to notice another person.

Spiritual life can become so focused on our own growth and struggles that we stop seeing the person beside us.

Re’eh says: Look again.

Perhaps the person before you is part of your Elul. Perhaps the need you noticed is not an interruption in your service of G-d; it is your service of G-d. Perhaps the challenge that seems to hide Hashem is where you are being asked to search for Him. And perhaps the person whom you find difficult to love is precisely where Hashem is asking you to open your heart beyond calculation.The father hides because he wants the child to search. The needy person appears because Hashem wants us to see. The hand opens because the heart has learned to see past itself.

That is the movement of Parshas Re’eh: from sight, to challenge, to choice, to generosity.

“See, I place before you today a blessing…”



Shabbat Shalom.


By Rabbi Avriel Rabenou, MSc. MBA

Sources and References

The blessing is not only something we receive. It is something we choose to see, something we uncover within the test, and something we become when we open ourselves to another.

May Hashem grant Jews and Bnei Noach alike the strength to recognize Him even through concealment, to choose what is right when it is difficult, to see the Divine dignity in those around us, and to enter Elul with more faith, mercy, generosity, and blessing.

And may the way we look at others awaken the way we ask Hashem to look at us — with compassion, generosity, and revealed good.

Sources and References
References correspond to the superscript numbers in the article.

  1. Devarim 11:26-28.
  2. Devarim 13:2-5, especially 13:4: ‘For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know whether you love Hashem your Gd.’
  3. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Likkutei Torah, Devarim, Parshas Re’eh 19d, maamar ‘Acharei Havayah
    .( ירחא ׳יוה םכיקלא וכלת ) ‘Teileichu Elokeichem
  4. See Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein, ‘Parshas Riei – Likkutei Torah: The Purpose of Challenges and Nisyonos,’
    ShulchanAruchHaRav.com (2016), an exposition of Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 19d; especially the discussion of
    daas, the nut and shell, and the father hiding from his son.
  5. Devarim 13:5.
  6. Devarim 15:7-11; see also Rambam, Sefer HaMitzvos, positive commandment 195; Sefer HaChinuch, mitzvos
    478-479.
  7. Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, ‘Re’eh: Tzedakah and the Month of Elul,’ Sichos in English / Chabad.org,
    based on Likkutei Sichos, Re’eh-Elul 5748. The sichah emphasizes increasing tzedakah in Elul and that Divine
    generosity is aroused when a person acts generously toward another.
  8. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4.
  9. Leibel Gniwisch, ‘The Only Person Who Responded to the Ad,’ Chabad.org, heard from Rabbi Mendel
    Baumgarten (1917-2019).
  10. Bereishis 1:27; see also Bereishis 9:6.
  11. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Melachim uMilchamos 10:10: a Ben Noach who wishes to perform another
    Torah mitzvah for reward is not prevented, and the Rambam explicitly discusses accepting tzedakah given by a
    Ben Noach.

Sources d'information
¹ Devarim 8:14.
² Devarim 8:17.
³ Devarim 8:18.
⁴ Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, sicha of Shabbat Parshat Eikev 5721, on the
spiritual tests of poverty and affluence, adapted in Likkutei Sichot—Eikev.
⁵ Devarim 8:10; Berachot 48b.
⁶ Devarim 8:3. See also Likkutei Torah, Parshat Eikev, 14a, regarding the Divine vitality within food.
⁷ Devarim 15:18. See Hayom Yom, 27 Sivan, on creating a pure and honest vessel for Hashem’s blessing.
⁸ Shalom Ber Goldshmid, “The Business of Charity,” Here’s My Story, Jewish Educational Media’s My
Encounter with the Rebbe oral-history project.
⁹ Devarim 8:18.
¹⁰ Ibid.
This version is approximately 1,650 words including the sources.

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