Re’eh does not promise an easier Jewish life. It asks what our freedom is producing, and what kind of country our choices are creating.

I have just returned to Israel after three weeks in Sydney, and Australia did not make a feeble case for itself.

There was family. There were ferries, bakeries, long conversations, superb customer service (in English), and coffee made by people who appeared to regard it as a profession, rather than a warm brown emergency. I was surrounded by siblings I adore, a father and bonus mother who planned a magnificent holiday, and the dangerous discovery that I could fit quite comfortably into their lives.

Then I boarded a plane and came home.

Not because Israel had won an objective international competition. I did not compare public transport, salaries, property prices, customer service and the likelihood of completing a bureaucratic transaction without needing a second bureaucratic transaction. That table would not necessarily end with Hatikvah playing triumphantly in the background.

I came home because easier and right are not always the same thing.

This week’s parasha, Re’eh, begins with Moshe saying: “See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.”

See. Not believe. Not hope. Not develop an attractive spiritual theory and circulate it on WhatsApp before Shabbat. Look clearly at what your choices produce.

We often treat free will as G‑D’s non-interference agreement: I am free, therefore I may do whatever I want. Re’eh offers the less marketable version. Yes, you may choose. You must also live inside what your........

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