The Parent Speech for Parashat Re'eh

If your child is reading Re'eh, the speech you give that morning shouldn't be a book report on the portion — it should be about them, with the parsha giving your words weight. Re'eh hands a parent three honest ways in: seeing your choices clearly, the open hand, joy as a practice.

What happens in Parashat Re'eh

'See, I set before you blessing and curse' — choices laid out plainly, and the command of the open hand.

Re'eh means "see," and it's the portion's first word: Moses sets before the Israelites a blessing and a curse — blessing if they keep the commandments, curse if they don't — to be pronounced on two mountains, Gerizim and Ebal, once they cross into the land. Then comes a stack of laws: worship only at the one place God will choose, don't heed false prophets, eat only certain animals (the kosher laws), set aside tithes. Every seventh year, debts are canceled. The poor get the portion's most famous line: open, open your hand to your brother — the Hebrew doubles the verb. It closes with the three pilgrimage festivals — Passover; Shavuot, the harvest feast of weeks; and Sukkot, the fall festival of huts — and a command, repeated, to rejoice.

Why Re'eh is good ground for a parent speech

Be honest: Re'eh is mostly legislation — where to worship, what to eat, how to cancel debts — and a parent skimming for a story comes up empty. But the opening is the whole speech: blessing and curse set side by side, and one word — see. That's the theme "Seeing your choices clearly," and it's exactly where a thirteen-year-old stands: old enough that the choosing is now theirs, and everyone in the room knows it. Better still, this portion measures adulthood in deeds a kid can already do — an open hand, a table with room in it — not in anything they have to wait for.

1. Seeing your choices clearly

Re'eh — see — the parsha opens by making choice visible: blessing and curse are set before you; choosing is on you.

2. The open hand

'You shall surely open your hand to your brother' — patoach tiftach — generosity here is a command, doubled for emphasis.

3. Joy as a practice

This parsha commands rejoicing at the festivals — including the stranger, orphan, and widow in your celebration. Joy is something you do and share.

What it can sound like

Our son has never once finished a bag of candy alone. Halloween, a birthday party, the gas station on a road trip — within ten minutes he's worked the room, and his little sister has somehow ended up with all the good ones. We didn't teach him that; we've checked, and neither of us taught him that. The Torah commands an open hand. His just never learned to close.

A moment from a parent speech built on one of the themes above — yours would be built on your child's real stories.

How a real parent speech comes together

The speeches that make a room go quiet aren't essays about the parsha — they're two or three true stories about your kid, with one Torah moment placed where it lands hardest. Pick the single theme above that made you think of a specific dinner-table moment, answer its question honestly, and resist the urge to attach a moral to every story. End with a blessing in your own words — that's the part everyone remembers.