Parshat Reeh begins “Behold, I set before you today
a blessing and a curse.” Rabbi Moshe Feinstein notes the peculiarity of the
word “today” in the verse. He suggests that the Torah here is reminding us that
often people think that the life that they live today is based on the decisions
that they made a long time ago. And now we are trapped by those previous
decisions. While it is true that decisions have consequences, and sometimes it
is impossible to totally undo a decision, every day is a new opportunity. Every
day we have the choice: to either affirm our past decisions and continue down
the path that we have been on or to choose to do things differently. While we
may feel stuck due to past decisions, the Torah wants us to always remember
that so long as we are alive we have the ability to make new choices, different
choices. One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and
yet expect different results. If we want to see changes in our life then we
must make different choices and act in different ways. While this might be
difficult, the word HaYom reminds us that every day is a new opportunity
to make new choices.
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