04 Aug RE’EH: THE PERSON YOU COULD HAVE BEEN

The first pasuk of
Parashat Re’eh
teaches us how to
look at each day of
our lives:

Re’eh Anochi Noten Lifneichem
Hayom Bracha U’klalah
See that I am placing before you today a
blessing and a curse.
The Torah here urges us to see every day
as an opportunity, as a path to
either bracha, blessing, or the opposite,
Heaven forbid. Whatever situation we
find ourselves in at any time, no matter
how happy or difficult, is an opportunity,
and it is up to us to seize this opportunity
to grow, to draw closer to Hashem, and
to make the most of the limited time we
have been given here in this world.
It is worth noting the particular
significance of the word Lifneichem –
“before you” – in this pasuk.

This word draws our focus onto what’s
in front of us, onto the future, onto the
possibilities that are before us right now,
at every moment.
Too many people give up on themselves,
figuring, “This is who I am”; “This is
my life, there’s nothing I can do about it
at this point”; “This is the way I do
things, and I’m not going to start
changing now”; “I tried so many times
already, I give up”; or “It’s too late now.”
The Torah here is telling is that this is
not true at all. As long as we are alive,
every day that we wake up in the
morning, we have a choice lying there in
front of us, the opportunity to turn the
future into a wonderful bracha. It’s never
too late to change, to turn our lives
around, to experience the ultimate bracha
of a happy, fulfilling life.
I once saw the following saying: “It’s
never too late to become the person you

could have been.”
We are all carrying around lots of
baggage. We all live with regrets of one
kind or another. We all wish we hadn’t
done this and had instead done that. We
all carry around the angst of missed
opportunities. And we all occasionally
hear in our head that nagging voice of
“What if” we had done things differently.
The Torah’s response to this voice
is Re’eh Anochi Noten Lifneichem
Hayom. Even today, we have a whole
life before us. We have control over our
future. We can still become the people
we could have been.
We begin each day by declaring Modeh
Ani, by thanking Hashem for giving us
another day – another day full of
opportunities for greatness, for
achievement, for meaningful
contributions to the world. When we
recite Modeh Ani, we are, essentially,

saying, “It’s not too late. The past
doesn’t matter. What happened or didn’t
happen yesterday doesn’t have to stifle
me today. My baggage does not have to
weigh me down. There is still so much I
can do, and so much that I can become.”
Let us never give up on ourselves, and
instead always fully believe in the vast
potential that lies before us.