Choosing the Path to Joy

Finding Freedom in the Presence of God

Parashat Re’eh

I would like to dedicate this Torah thought to the memory of our holy soldiers: Efraim ben Liat v’Shmuel, Yosef Malachi ben Dina v’David, Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo ben Sarah v’Shimon, Yosef Chaim ben Rachel v’Eliyahu, Netanel ben Revital v’Elad, Yakir ben Chaya v’Yehoshua, and Ron ben Sarah v’Kenny. Hashem yikom damam, along with all the righteous soldiers who have fallen in this war protecting Am Yisrael. May their memory be a blessing, and may our learning of Torah elevate their neshamot and give strength to their families.

This week, I dedicate this Torah thought with deep love to the memory of my beloved aunt, Sara Leah Brazil, שרה לאה בת שלמה מנחם, on the twenty-ninth anniversary of her passing. Her extraordinary joy continues to live in all of us who were blessed to be loved by her.

For many years, in my work with children with ADHD, I have taught parents that when we help a child develop a new, productive habit, we need to teach two things: the what and the how.

It is not enough for a child to know what needs to be done. A loving parent or teacher wants the child to understand how to approach it, how to carry it through, and how to make it part of the way they live. After all, our goal is for our children to succeed long after we are no longer standing beside them, telling them what to do.

Recently, my son-in-law Aviram pointed out to me that Moshe seems to be doing something very similar throughout Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy. It was he who first drew my attention to the repeated language of אהבה, "ahava," love, in Parashat Ekev, and that insight opened my eyes to what follows.

Moshe is preparing his beloved nation to continue without him. He reviews mitzvot, commandments, and tells them what will be expected of them, but again and again, he also seems to add the how.

Building on that insight from Ekev, I began reading Re’eh, and another word seemed to be everywhere:

Simcha, joy.

The root ש־מ־ח, the Hebrew root for joy, appears seven times in the Torah portion.

Early on, Moshe says:

וַאֲכַלְתֶּם שָׁם לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֵיכֶם וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם בְּכֹל מִשְׁלַח יֶדְכֶם אַתֶּם וּבָתֵּיכֶם אֲשֶׁר

בֵּרַכְךָ ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ“You shall eat there before Hashem your God, and you and your households shall rejoice in all your endeavors with which Hashem your God has blessed you.”(Devarim/Deuteronomy 12:7)

Later:

וְשָׂמַחְתָּ לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ אַתָּה וּבִנְךָ וּבִתֶּךָ וְעַבְדְּךָ וַאֲמָתֶךָ וְהַלֵּוִי אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ וְהַגֵּר וְהַיָּתוֹם וְהָאַלְמָנָה אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבֶּךָ“You shall rejoice before Hashem your God—you, your son and your daughter, your servant and maidservant, the Levi who is within your gates, and the stranger, the orphan and the widow who are among you.”(Devarim/Deuteronomy 16:11)

And eventually:

וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ“And you shall be only joyful.”(Devarim/Deuteronomy 16:15)

Moshe keeps returning to joy. Why?

And even more fundamentally, how can the Torah tell us to be happy?

Can We Choose Joy?

We tend to experience happiness as a response to circumstances. When good things happen, we feel happy. When life becomes painful or constricted, simcha, joy, can feel

very far away.

Yet Re’eh begins with a very different vocabulary:

רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה“See, I place before you today blessing and curse.”(Devarim/Deuteronomy 11:26)

ראה, see. לפניכם, before you. היום, today.

See what is before you today.

The Torah portion filled with the language of joy begins with the assertion that we have choices.

This led me to look more carefully at what Moshe actually says each time he speaks about simcha, joy. A pattern begins to emerge. The Torah gives us a path toward joy.

First, see the good.

Moshe repeatedly draws our attention to:

אֲשֶׁר בֵּרַכְךָ ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ“That which Hashem your God has blessed you with.”

Seeing blessing requires attention. Life can contain difficulty and goodness simultaneously, and where I direct my attention matters. ראה, “see,” asks me to notice the good that is actually present in my life.

Second, bring it before Hashem, into God’s presence.

Again and again, the words surrounding joy are:

לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ“Before Hashem your God.”

Sforno describes the first command of joy in the Torah portion as serving Hashem with joy, as is fitting for one who serves from love. The love emphasized so often in Ekev now finds expression in the way we stand לפני ה׳, before Hashem, in Re’eh.

Third, include others.

The Torah's description of joy keeps expanding the circle. Your son. Your daughter. Your household. The Levi. The stranger. The orphan. The widow.

The blessing that I see and bring לפני ה׳, before Hashem, is meant to extend beyond me. My joy becomes a place into which another person can enter.

See the good. Bring it לפני ה׳, before Hashem. Include others.

This is the path Moshe lays before us.

But one question remains. What happens when I am still living in a מֵצַר, a meitzar, a narrow and constricted place? Is this path to joy still open to me?

Joy in the Meitzar, the Constricted Place

Here, the placement of the verses becomes striking.

Moshe tells us:

וְשָׂמַחְתָּ לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ... וְהַגֵּר וְהַיָּתוֹם וְהָאַלְמָנָה אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבֶּךָ“You shall rejoice before Hashem your God... together with the stranger, the orphan and the widow who are among you.”

And the very next verse says:

וְזָכַרְתָּ כִּי עֶבֶד הָיִיתָ בְּמִצְרָיִם“And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt.”(Devarim/Deuteronomy 16:12)

Moshe places the memory of Mitzrayim, Egypt, directly beside the command of joy.

We remember what constriction feels like. We remember powerlessness. That memory teaches us to see the person who may be standing at the edge of our own celebration and bring them inside.

It also teaches something about freedom itself.

There are things in our lives that we cannot change, but it is precisely לפני ה׳, standing before Hashem, when we know that it is Hashem who is inviting us and that we are never alone before Him, that we become most free.

Even within a constricted place, I can stand before Hashem. I can choose what I see. I can recognize the goodness that exists alongside the pain. I can bring my full reality before Hashem and understand that my life is lived in relationship with Him. I can receive goodness when it appears. I can share it. I can allow another person into it.

These are real choices, even when the constriction itself remains.

This changes the meaning of choosing joy. We are not choosing to be happy; we are choosing the path to simcha, the path to joy.

When we choose to walk on that path toward joy, we get the final promise.

After repeatedly instructing us to rejoice, Moshe says:

וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ“And you shall be only joyful.”

Rashi makes a remarkable observation on this pasuk, this verse. According to the simple meaning:

אין זה לשון ציווי אלא לשון הבטחה“This is not the language of a command, but the language of a promise.”

Walk this path. See the blessing. Bring your life before Hashem. Open your circle to others.

והיית אך שמח — and you shall be joyful.

Joy will follow.

My Aunt Sara Leah Brazil

This Torah feels deeply personal to me this year.

This Shabbat, Shabbat Re’eh, marks the twenty-ninth anniversary of the passing of my beloved aunt, Sara Leah Brazil.

When people have asked me over the years what helped me through the darker parts of my childhood, I have always given my aunt Sara Leah enormous credit.

She could have understood herself through the meitzarim, the constricted places, of her own story. What I experienced from her instead was an extraordinary capacity for joy.

When I walked into her house, her face lit up.

I can still see her eyes crinkling at the sides as she broke into an enormous smile. She sang to me. She had a special song for me. I remember her laughing with her friends and how much she loved them. Her husband and children were the center of her universe, yet she had space to expand her love and joy to so many outside her immediate family. I remember her dancing in the kitchen. I remember how genuinely excited she could become about something as simple as buying herself a new Shabbat robe.

Her home was full of people. On Friday nights, Uncle Shmuel's students came for shiurim, Torah classes, and she welcomed them into a home filled with warmth and life. She made brownies that everyone thought were wonderful, while privately delighting in the great secret that they came from a box mix.

Her simcha, her joy, poured outward.

She lived לפני ה׳, before Hashem and in His presence. She opened her table to others, and she saw people.

Most importantly for me, she saw me.

Sara Leah gave a little girl something that I desperately needed to know: I mattered.

Someone was deeply happy that I had arrived. I walked through the door, and her face told me that my presence itself brought her joy.

Twenty-nine years later, I understand how enormous a gift that was.

Tanta Sara Leah used to make up songs for me with my name in them. Today, I make up songs for my children and grandchildren with their names in them. We sing them. We dance to them. Every time I do that, I know where I learned it.

Her simcha, her joy, is still traveling.

Twenty-Nine Years Later

To Sara Leah's children, Raizy, Rivky, Yanki, Chani, Dovi, Yosef, Mindy and Malky, and to your spouses, your children and grandchildren: I see your pain. I cannot imagine how deeply you have missed your mother over these twenty-nine years. I can only catch a glimpse of it through how deeply I still miss my aunt.

There are so many moments when I wish she were here.

I wish I could have watched the sheer joy in her eyes when she met my oldest daughter, who carries her name. I know she would have made up a brand-new song just for her.

I wish I could have introduced Daniel to her. She would have loved him.

And I wish all of us could have had twenty-nine more years of her laughter, her singing, her enormous smile, her open home, and the unmistakable experience of being delighted in. It shocks me to think that I am now ten years older than she was when she left us way too early.

Yet when I look at the family she left behind and at all of us who were fortunate enough to be loved by her, I see something remarkable.

We copied her.

Each in our own way, we took some of her contagious joy and carried it into our own homes, marriages, friendships, and the lives of our children and grandchildren. Her joy found somewhere to go.

That may be one of the greatest gifts a person can leave behind.

Parashat Re’eh gives us a path toward simcha, joy: see the good, bring it לפני ה׳, before Hashem, and bring other people into it. Even within a meitzar, a constricted place, standing לפני ה׳, before Hashem, remains our place of freedom. We can choose the path to joy and trust the promise with which Moshe leaves us:

וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ“And you shall be joyful.”

May the memory of my dear aunt, Sara Leah Brazil, שרה לאה בת שלמה מנחם, be a blessing.

Twenty-nine years later, I know that her memory is a blessing. Always.