Parashat Re'eh: Ethical Wrestling

August 22, 2025

This is a drasha I delivered to my synagogue community.

Parshat Re'eh begins with a single word: Re'eh, which means 'See'.

As in: "See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse."

It sounds simple. Open your eyes. See the blessing. See the curse. Choose life. But as the parsha unfolds, it gets harder.

We're told to destroy any town that turns to idolatry. Every person and every animal.

Elsewhere, in the Book of Samuel, God commands King Saul to destroy the Amalekites. Men, women, children, even animals. Saul spares their king. But the prophet Samuel condemns him. Then Samuel kills the king himself. Brutally.

How can this be a blessing?

How can this be what the Torah calls "right in the eyes of the Lord"—that biblical phrase for divine approval—when it so clearly offends our moral sensibilities?

The rabbis wrestled with this.

The Talmud says: the case of the condemned city never happened and never will happen. It's written only to be studied.

They say the same about the rebellious son—the boy who becomes drunk and defiant, who by Torah law is taken to the gates of the city and stoned. They say it never happened. That it never will happen.

In other words: these laws are not for literal obedience. They're for moral struggle. They're here to make us wrestle.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber once told a story about this kind of wrestling. Buber tells us that he raised the Samuel text with a deeply Orthodox Jew he happened to meet on a train:

The Orthodox man said: "So, you don't believe it?"
Buber answered: "No. I do not believe it."
"What do you believe then?" the man asked.
Buber replied, "Samuel has misunderstood God."
Slowly, but more softly the man repeated, "So you do not believe."
"No," Buber said again. Then they were both silent.
The angry man opposite him then softened. "I don't believe it either," he said.

What I love about this story is that it honors the word that begins our parsha: Re'eh.

To really see doesn't mean ignoring the hard parts.

It means looking straight at them. Holding them honestly. Wrestling with them.

I know some of you may feel uncomfortable with this approach. Questioning our sacred texts.

Others might say: these passages reflect the moral understanding of an ancient time. Not divine commands for us today.

Both responses are valid. Both are ways of wrestling. The key is: that we don't look away. This wrestling is in our DNA.

In Genesis, our ancestor Yaakov spent a night grappling, or wrestling, with a mysterious figure. He emerged transformed, with a new name: Yisrael. The one who wrestles with God.

And I want to give you a more present-day image of wrestling. One that speaks to me.

Mikey Musumeci, one of the greatest Brazilian jiu-jitsu grapplers in the world.

Mikey weighs only 60 kilos. He often faces opponents towering over him, outweighing him by twenty kilos or more.

One time, he even wrestled a bully who had harassed him and his family for years. This man was feared. He was fierce. But Mikey won the fight. And when the crowd erupted, Mikey said: "Don't congratulate me. Congratulate God."

Mikey doesn't let size or intimidation stop him. He studies his opponents. Finds their weaknesses. Wins through patience, humility, and precision.

Torah can feel just as overwhelming. It can feel vast. Heavy. Sometimes frightening in its moral complexity.

But Re'eh tells us: don't look away. Step onto the wrestling mat. Grapple with it. Even when it feels bigger than us. Even when we feel small and uncertain.

And just as Mikey wins not by brute force but by leverage and insight, we too wrestle with Torah. Not to overpower it, but to study deeply, question respectfully, and emerge changed.

So maybe when God says: "See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse," the blessing isn't easy clarity.

Maybe the blessing is that God trusts us with difficult choices. With complex texts. With wrestling matches of meaning itself.

The blessing is that God believes we can handle the struggle.

So may we approach our tradition like Yaakov at the river. Like Mikey on the wrestling mat.

Not intimidated by the size of the challenge. But ready to engage with patience and precision.

The blessing of Re'eh is not in avoiding the struggle. It's in seeing it clearly. And finding God in the wrestling itself.

Shabbat Shalom.