Parashat Re'ehפָּרָשַׁת רְאֵה

Re’eh (“See”) details a series of laws in advance of the Israelites’ entrance into the Land of Israel. These include the obligation to destroy idolatry, laws of tithing and charity, dietary laws, holiday laws, and the prohibition of offering sacrifices outside of the place designated by God. Beneath its catalog of laws, Re'eh is built around a single, urgent choice. It opens with Moses declaring, "See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse" (Deuteronomy 11:26): blessing for loyalty to God's commandments, curse for abandoning them. The choice is to be dramatized in a ceremony on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal once Israel crosses into the Land. The portion's most consequential legal innovation is the centralization of worship: rather than sacrificing at scattered local altars, Israel may offer sacrifices only at "the place that the Lord your God will choose," a phrase repeated throughout and later understood as Jerusalem and the Temple. A throughline ties material prosperity in the Land to three commitments: exclusive devotion to God, centralized and purified worship, and social justice toward the vulnerable, expressed through tithing, the sabbatical release of debts, open-handed charity to the poor, and the freeing of Hebrew servants.

In most Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities the Haftarah for Re'eh is Isaiah 54:11–55:5, with the verse range essentially uniform across rites (minor custom variations exist in some communities). It is the third of the seven "Haftarot of Consolation" (sheva d'nechemta) read on the Shabbatot from after Tisha B'Av through to Rosh Hashanah. The connection is both seasonal and verbal: Isaiah envisions God rebuilding Jerusalem in radiant splendor and promises that "all your children shall be taught of the Lord" (Isaiah 54:13), echoing the parsha's address to Israel as "children of the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 14:1). Isaiah's linking of redemption to righteousness, and his invitation to seek lasting sustenance "without money," resonate with Re'eh's emphasis on charity, debt release, and choosing the path of blessing.

The portion's name comes from the famous first word of its opening verse, "Re'eh" ("See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse," Deuteronomy 11:26). It is also the source of the often-cited prohibition "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" (Deuteronomy 14:21), one of three occurrences in the Torah that underlie the laws of separating meat and milk. Re'eh contains the dietary (kashrut) catalog of clean and unclean animals, birds, and fish in Deuteronomy 14, and the sabbatical debt-release and charity laws of Deuteronomy 15, including the call to "surely open your hand" to the poor. Re'eh frequently falls on the Shabbat that blesses the month of Elul, or on Rosh Chodesh Elul itself, as the month of repentance before the High Holy Days begins. It is one of the longer portions in Deuteronomy (roughly 126 verses, with counts varying slightly by source) and is typically read in August or early September.