Parshat Re'eh

1997

This week's parsha, Re'eh (Deut 11:26 - 16:17) begins with the command to "see" (in the singular) "this day I set before you (in the plural) blessing and curse." Commentators have asked, why this initial command "to see" is in the singular, and then the text changes and addresses the people in the plural. One commentator has suggested that Adonai speaks to the entire community (lifneychem) when enjoined them to follow the commandments.

However, each individual (hence the singular) has the freewill to choose to "see", to take to heart, or to turn away from, these commandments. The people are about to cross the Jordan and enter into the Land. Moses stands with the people enjoining them to follow God's commandments once Moses has left the people on their own, surrounded by "foreign peoples" and "alien cultures." Imagine his desperatoin to impart to the people the importance of God's commandments, knowing full well that he must leave them and trust them to make their own choices.

I couldn't help but think, as I read this parsha, of the hundred or so families that have entered our doors in the past couple of days as parents bring their children to college. These parents, like Moses, must bring their children to a new place and leave them to make their own choices. These children will now have the freewill to choose to remember their Judaism during their college experience or to turn away from it and choose another path.

Like Moses, these parents are desperate to see their children remain connected to Judaism during these college years. Yet they realize that their children are on the brink of adulthood. They, as parents, canot accompany their children, on a daily basis, throughout the college experience. The parents must leave their children and allow them to express their independence, to exercise their freewill.

In our parsha, Moses sets before the people a number of structures to guide them in their daily life, including the centralization of worship, a few tips for distinguishing false prophets, and a structure to begin to build a just community. When parents bring their children to Hillel at the beginning of the new academic year, they too are providing their children with a structure to remain connected Jewishly as they enter into the "promised land" of adulthood.

The decision to take advantage of this structure remains in the students' hands. It is our job as Hillel professionals to understand the importance of this decision and to sustain the structure for our students so that they will desire to incorporate their Jewish identity into their adult lives. We have been entrusted with an awesome responsibility; let us not forsake it.

Prepared by Rabbi Sue Shifron, Indiana University Hillel.