“See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.” Re’eh. Singular. You. See.
This is not a suggestion. It is the command that opens the portion we read this Shabbat, 25 Av 5786. Hashem places two paths in front of every person and every nation and demands that we open our eyes. In a world that insists there are many truths, many paths, and many gods, Parashat Re’eh insists there is only one Blueprint.
That Blueprint begins in the Garden.
The Tree of Life Was Always Available
In my book Adam: The Blueprint of Creation and the Tree of Life, I return again and again to a simple, devastating observation taught by Rabbi David Fohrman. In the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life stood in the middle of the Garden. It was not hidden. Two angels now invite you into the Covenant contained in the Tree of Life, with the same two Angels with no sword. It was freely available.
Adam was never going to live forever by default. Eternal life was not automatic. He had to eat from the Tree of Life. Hashem gave only one direct prohibition — do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil — and remained silent about the Tree of Life. Why? Because trust and relationship are built through experience, not through constant commands. Adam was meant to live, to return to his Father, to share what he had learned, and then, having grown into that relationship, to take from the Tree of Life and live forever.
This is the opposite of the theology that later claimed man was created immortal and then “fell.” The Torah’s picture is different. Mortality was the starting condition. The Tree of Life was the offered solution. The Blueprint was already there.
How Do You Get Jesus From The Tree of Life
Christianity never left the Garden. It built an entire system around a different reading of those first chapters and then claimed the original Blueprint had been replaced. Islam took another path of replacement. Both claim to stand on Abraham while setting aside the very structure Hashem gave in the beginning. That is why I titled the series on my site “Two Sides of the Same Coin.” They look different, but both fail the same Torah tests: the falsifiable national witness of Israel, the unbroken covenantal line through Sarah, and the Tree of Life itself as the unchanging Blueprint for all humanity.
One Family, Written in DNA
Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson’s research in Traced confirms what Genesis already told us. All human Y-chromosome DNA traces back to three men — the sons of Noah — and mitochondrial DNA to three women. We are one family. The seventy nations of Genesis 10 are brothers and cousins. The divine image placed in Adam was never erased. It is carried in every human being.
This is why the Torah can say, without contradiction, that every human is created in the image of God and that Hashem chose one family to guard the Blueprint for the sake of every family. The choice of Abraham through Sarah was never about superiority. It was about responsibility. The Tree of Life was entrusted to a people so that it would not be lost.
Where the Distinction Begins: Genesis 25
The portion of Re’eh does not appear in a vacuum. The distinction between the children of Hashem and the nations is already visible in the story of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau. Two nations are in Rebecca’s womb. Two paths. One will carry the covenant; the other will walk a different road. The Ten Sayings later given at Sinai are the public, national expression of the same Blueprint that began with Adam and was protected through the line of Jacob.
When Parashat Re’eh says “You are children of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your heads for the dead” (Deuteronomy 14:1), it is speaking from that same Blueprint. Because the soul is eternal, and because the Tree of Life remains available, we do not mutilate the body in despair. The body is the temporary vehicle. The soul is the passenger who will one day step out. Extreme self-harm is a denial of the Blueprint.
The Visible Distinction in Our Day
This past week, the world watched a man livestream himself cutting his own flesh while declaring he wanted to die. Commentators reached for the language of demons and the devil. The Torah does not. Isaiah 45:7 is clear: “I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil — I, the Lord, do all these things.” There is no independent rival power. Everything requires permission from the One.
The same portion that forbids self-mutilation because we are children of Hashem also places blessing and curse before us and demands that we see. The wars, the slaughter in places like Sudan and Nigeria, the hidden systems that treat human life as disposable, the rising claims of parallel revelations — all of it is the stage on which the distinction is being made visible again.
Ezekiel 38–39 tells us the nations will come against the mountains of Israel so that two things will become clear: the nations will know that Hashem is God, and the house of Israel will know that He is the Lord their God. There can only be one truth. Either the Torah’s Blueprint is correct, or it is not. Christianity and Islam cannot both be true while the Tree of Life still stands as the original offer of eternal life through relationship with the Creator who spoke at Sinai.
Choose the Tree of Life
Re’eh means see. See that Adam was offered the Tree of Life and had to choose it. Remember that the same offer remains. Behold that the children of Hashem are forbidden to destroy the vessel that carries the soul because the soul is immortal and the Blueprint is still given. See that the family of Abraham was chosen to protect that Blueprint for every family on earth. See that replacement theologies, however powerful they appear, fail the Torah’s own tests.
The blessing and the curse are still set before us. The Tree of Life is still available. The question is the same one that stood in the Garden: Will we eat from it?
Hazan Gavriel ben David
Shabbat Shalom.
Key Takeaways
- Parashat Re’eh emphasizes the importance of recognizing our choices, presenting a blessing and a curse to humanity.
- The Tree of Life, freely available in the Garden of Eden, symbolizes the offer of eternal life through trust and relationship with God.
- Both Christianity and Islam have deviated from the original Blueprint, but the Torah asserts that the Tree of Life remains the path to eternal life.
- Recent events, like self-mutilation and violence, illustrate the need for clarity regarding Truth and the eternal soul’s value.
- Choice remains central; will we choose the Tree of Life and uphold the responsibilities entrusted to us?