Parashat Re'ei
The Power of One's Actions
Moshe Rabbenu begins Parashat Re'ei by exhorting Benei Yisrael, "Look, I have presented before you today a blessing and a curse." Many commentators noted the grammatical shift in this verse from the singular to plural tense. The word "Re'ei" ("Look") is written in the singular form, whereas "Lifneichem" ("before you") is in the plural. How can we explain this sudden shift within the same verse?
The Keli Yakar (Torah commentary by Rabbi Shlomo Efrayim on Luntchitz, Poland-Bohemia, 1550-1619) suggests an explanation based on the Sages' comment that a person should always view himself and the world as perfectly balanced on the scale of merit. Each person should act as though he has precisely as much merit to his account as demerits, such that a single good deed would tilt the scales in his favor, whereas a single transgression would tip the scales against him. Similarly, a person should conduct his life on the assumption that the world at large has a perfectly balanced account, and therefore any action he performs could tip the scales in either direction.
What this means is that a person's conduct, every action a Jew performs, has a profound impact upon the entire world, upon all of mankind. A Jew must never think that his religious life is a strictly personal matter between him and God, and is not the business of anybody else. The famous analogy is drawn to a person who rides a ship and digs a hole in the floor of his private cabin. The captain knocks on his door and orders him to stop digging, but he refuses, claiming that he digs the hole in his private cabin, for which he paid full price. What he does in his private quarters, he argues, is no business of anybody else. Of course, he is gravely mistaken; the hole he digs in his floor has repercussions for everybody else on the ship, which will sink as a result of that hole.
Similarly, how a person conducts himself, the Mitzvot he performs and the transgressions he commits, have a profound impact on his community and on the entire world. Before a person chooses how to act, he must take into account not only the effects of his behavior on his own personal account with God, but its ramifications for mankind, and for countless generations to come.
According to the Keli Yakar, this is precisely the message Moshe sought to convey in the opening verse of Parashat Re'ei. He turns to each individual and admonishes, "Re'ei" – look and understand that I present these warnings "Lifneichem" – to you, in the plural, to the entire nation, and to the entire world. Every person must understand that his actions affect all people, and not only his own life.
Adam and Chava committed the grave sin of partaking from the forbidden tree, as a result of which God cursed all mankind for all eternity. Every time a person must work and toil to earn a living, he is bearing the effects of Adam's sin; and every time a woman suffers through childbirth, she experiences the impact of the act Chava committed millennia ago.
Conversely, good deeds have the power to bring blessing and reward to people around the globe, for countless generations in the future. Avraham Avinu refused to accept a gift from the ill-begotten fortune of the king of Sedom, and he swore that he would take not even a shoe-strap. The Sages teach that in reward for this single remark, Avraham's descendants – centuries later – were given the Mitzva of Tefillin, the obligation to wrap the straps of Tefillin around their heads and arms. Every time a Jew dons Tefillin and accrues merit, he is reaping the benefits of this single gesture of Avraham Avinu.
One must never undermine the power and importance of even the seemingly "small" Mitzvot. A person should seize every Mitzva opportunity and never let it pass him by, for he never knows how he might be literally saving the world, or how many people he might be helping, through the performance of that single good deed.
