Making sense of the sedra: Re’eh

Dale Carnegie famously wrote that if you need to criticise someone, begin with genuine praise. People are far more willing to hear difficult feedback when they first know that they are valued. He compares it to a dentist administering anaesthetic before drilling. The drilling may still hurt, but the patient can bear it because the pain has been cushioned. The Torah, it seems, follows the very same principle.

There are two striking questions in this week’s parsha, Re’eh. First, the Gemara (Chullin 63b) explains that one of the non-kosher birds is called the ra’ah because it possesses extraordinary eyesight – it can be flying in Babylonia and spot a dead carcass in Eretz Yisrael. If it has such remarkable vision, why is it not kosher?

Secondly, when the Torah describes the kosher signs of animals, it first tells us the two signs of a kosher animal: chewing the cud and split hooves. It then lists the four exceptions – the camel, the hare, the hyrax and the pig – which possess only one of those two signs. Why does the Torah begin with these animals’ kosher signs rather than the non-kosher signs, when the fundamental point is that they are ultimately rendered non-kosher?

Get The Jewish News Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Rav Yisrael Salanter explains that the Torah begins by highlighting what is right before identifying what is lacking. Even when an animal is ultimately non-kosher, the Torah first acknowledges its positive quality. Why? Because we can never truly declare something – or someone – to be entirely deficient. The Torah is teaching us that before we notice a person’s shortcomings, we need to train ourselves to recognise their virtues.

Similarly, the ra’ah is not condemned because it has exceptional eyesight. On the contrary, its vision is extraordinary. Its failure lies in what it chooses to look at. Of all the beauty, life and wonder in the world, it searches only for carcasses. Even more tragically, it does so while remaining in an impure place itself. True greatness is not measured by the talents we possess, but by how we direct them.

More in orthodox judaism

July 15, 2026

Making sense of the sedra: Devarim

By Rabbi Elchonon Feldman

July 8, 2026

Making sense of the sedra: Matot-Masei

By Rabbi Brendan Stern

July 2, 2026

Making sense of the sedra: Pinchas

By Rabbi Yoni Golker

That is what it means to be kosher. Not simply to have gifts, intelligence or insight, but to sanctify those gifts by choosing to see life before death, virtues before faults, and possibility before criticism.

Rabbi Brendan Stern is at Hendon United Synagogue