Re’eh – ראה : “Behold”
Torah : Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17
Haftarah : Isaiah 54:11–55:5
Gospels : Acts 8, 9

Thought for the Week:

God commands us to rejoice on the pilgrimage festivals. This is one of the very few occasions in the Torah when we receive a commandment telling us how we should feel. Usually the commandments of the Torah tell us what to do, not what to feel. When we celebrate the appointed times of Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles, we are to do so with a genuine spirit of joy.

Commentary:

You shall not eat leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), so that you may remember all the days of your life the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 16:3)

Moses mentions that when Israel left Egypt, they left in haste. The Torah explains the ritual of eating unleavened bread as a result of the Israelites leaving so quickly that their bread dough did not have time to rise before they baked it. They left in haste, wasting no time in gettin...