Choices, Choices

In this month before the High Holy Days, we come across one of the most important of the weekly Torah portions, a section of Deuteronomy that bears directly on our moral development and outlook on the world.  Parshat Re'eh delivers a stark vision of the choices that all of us must make in going forward in life.  Standing before the children of Israel, Moses delivers one of his last orations before he must go to his own death, leaving the people to enter the Promised Land on their own. 

Moses delivers a message that still resonates with us today.  "See, I place before you a blessing or a curse: the blessing if you listen to God's commandments...and the curse if you do not."  As Reform Jews, many of us struggle with what it means to listen to God's commandments.  In many cases, we have as a Jewish movement decided that some of the explicit commandments in the Torah don't work for us any more.  Not too many within our Temple family, for instance, would be ready to execute someone for violating the Sabbath!  We take the position that while many of the commandments within the Torah may seem strange in their literal application, that there must be an internal reason or rationale that has at its core the commandment of God that still applies to us.  As Reform Jews, we strive to find the intent behind the law and figure out how to live with that intent in our modern lives.  A problem arises when we look at them against the absolutist background of blessing and curse.  If the consequences for our choices are so extreme, the idea that we might have much choice in deciding right and wrong fades away. 

Blessing and curses are ancient ideas, well outside the realm of rational thought.  The thought that one can place a curse on an individual would seem ludicrous to us and much the same can be said of blessings.  For the most part blessings and curses have, with the exception of the superstitious, been downgraded in 21st century America to a purely symbolic function.  Still, the notion of choosing blessing and curse can be real.  

If we accept the idea of causality, that our moral choices yield real consequences in our lives, then blessing and curse are still with us.  Our response to the commandments, and the behaviors we engage in as a result produce effects within our lives and the lives of those around us.  Cause and effect are alive and well.  These may not be blessings and curses in the traditional sense, but they are real, nonetheless.  With each day we make choices that have untold future consequences.  It would serve us all well to consider our actions at every juncture.  "See, I place before you a blessing or a curse."  May we all choose well.