Shavuah tov
August 14th, 2014
Parashat Re'eh

Deuteronomy 12:28, "Be careful to heed all these commandments that I enjoin upon you; thus it will go well with you and your descendants after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God."
Why does the Torah say both good and right?
The midrashic commentary Sifrei says, "Good in the eyes of heaven and right in the eyes of humanity."
Rashi to Genesis 1:7 explains this further. "Why doesn't [the Torah] say it was 'good' on the second day? Because the work of creating water was not done until the third day. And behold, He began on the second day and that which is not finished is not complete and good." Rashi goes on to say that the finish of creating the seas on the third day received the word "good" twice: once for the second day and once for the third day, but only when the action was complete.
Torah Temima, after citing Rashi, goes on to comment that that which appears "good" in our eyes, because it is not complete, can only be termed "right," "Because to use the word 'good' you have to know the future and the results [of the action] which is impossible for short sighted humanity to see."
This discussion is so very pertinent to the heated conversations occurring in our communities today, both Jewish and American, over the Iran Agreement. No one knows the end of the matter, and so it cannot be called "good." Our knowledge is imperfect, and all we have is conjecture, both educated and uneducated. So frequently all sorts of discussions today immediately turn to sarcasm, belittling and innuendo, as though the folks on the other side of the debate are not only idiotic but also deceptive in their arguments. Jewish tradition speaks of arguments "for the sake of heaven," in which both sides are sincerely attempting to arrive at the correct conclusion. I believe this to be the case in particular with the Iran discussion. The stakes are high, but no one has complete knowledge and therefore no one's opinion is "good" in the eyes of God. As Torah Temima says, "No human can see to the end of the matter, as God can." Therefore these discussions require respect and the utmost caution, lest the discussions themselves cause serious damage to both sides of a sincere debate.