There is a challenge to us all found in this week’s parasha – Re’eh – it is there right from the start. Put up or shut up, says God.
“Behold, this day I set before you a blessing and a curse.” (Devarim 11:26)
We have a choice, says God – chose the right path or the wrong one. This is the reality of freedom, the idea that we constantly make decisions and that those decisions have consequences. I have been thinking a great deal about this idea in the wake of this past week’s terror attacks near Eilat.
Each and every moment of life we make decisions, and no matter how much we like to blame others for forcing us to make them – it is us in the end who acts, who does the deed. Those who snuck into Israel with the intention to kill as many as possible almost certainly blame Israel for causing their actions – but they pulled the triggers. They chose the curse.
And those who decided to respond in kind by ordering bombs dropped, those who fired across the border, those who drop their quest for a new social order, they chose too. And they also chose the curse.
