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The Torah Can Help Simplify Our Choices
Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.
The acclaimed Iowa-born travel writer, Bill Bryson, known for his witty observations and upbeat take on life, offers a unique perspective on the modern world’s obsession with proliferate choice.
In his 1998 book I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Bryson humorously chronicles his return to the United States after two decades in England. Among other things, he is confronted by the overwhelming variety of consumer goods in American supermarkets in contrast to the somewhat more limited choices available at that time in the UK.
Bryson’s experience in the US retail world perfectly captures the complications and confusion thrown up by too many choices. For, as Bryson discovered, more options doesn’t lead to better decisions and good outcomes. Instead, it leads to frustration and bad choices.
In one particularly hilarious piece, Bryson writes vividly about his attempt to buy breakfast cereal on a visit to his local supermarket: “The breakfast cereals alone could have occupied me for most of the afternoon. There must have been 200 types, and I am not exaggerating. Every possible substance that could be dried, puffed, and sugar-coated was there.”
As he continued exploring the aisles, Bryson’s amazement at the level of choice grew: “I had no idea how the market for junk food had proliferated. Everywhere I turned I was confronted with foods guaranteed to make you waddle.” He lists a barrage of options: “jelly creme pies, moon pies, pecan spinwheels, peach mellos, root beer buttons, chocolate fudge devil dogs”—illustrating an excess of choice that left him more bewildered than satisfied.
Perhaps the most striking example was at Aisle Seven, or as Bryson dubbed it: “Food for the Seriously Obese.” There was “a whole section devoted exclusively to a product called Toaster Pastries, which included, among much else, eight different types of toaster strudel. And what exactly is toaster strudel? Who cares? It was coated in sugar and looked drippy. I grabbed an armload.”
Bryson later reflected on how many of the items he had somehow ended up buying were never even eaten; they lingered in his pantry for ages until they were finally discarded — proof, in his mind, of the folly of excessive choice.
Bryson’s humorous take on the overwhelming abundance of choice highlights a phenomenon unique to modern Western living. Unsurprisingly, sober studies on excessive consumer choices have begun to emerge in recent years, and the picture they paint is not pretty.
Professor emeritus of psychology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Barry Schwartz, coined the term “the paradox of choice” in his influential 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. He argues that while having some choice is essential to human autonomy and well-being, an overload of options inevitably leads to decision paralysis and often also to anxiety and deep dissatisfaction.
Over the years, Schwartz has conducted experiments showing that when people are presented with too many options, they are more likely to feel overwhelmed and make poorer decisions — or worse, they avoid making decisions altogether, dovetailing with Bryson’s anecdotal experience in the supermarket, where the endless options he faced didn’t enhance his shopping experience, instead leaving him frustrated and, ultimately, unfulfilled.
Schwartz’s research and Bryson’s experiences highlight a critical aspect of human psychology: when faced with too many choices, we tend to second-guess our decisions, or we are hasty and impulsive, usually with poor results, resulting in us feeling less satisfaction. The bottom line is that the very freedom that abundant choice promises often backfires, leading to increased stress and painful regret.
In stark contrast to the modern dilemma of seemingly overwhelming choice, Parshat Re’eh presents a refreshingly simple definition of choices. The parsha begins with a clear, binary proposition: “See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing if you obey the commandments of God that I am giving you today; the curse, if you disobey the commandments of God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods” (Deut. 11:26-28).
Rashi, commenting on this verse, highlights the significance of the word ‘See’ (רְאֵה). He explains that the Torah urges each individual to open their eyes and truly perceive their choices. This isn’t just about physical sight but about clarity of understanding—being able to discern the real nature of the choices presented. The Torah wants us to see beyond the superficial appeal of specific options and recognize their actual value, or, more accurately, lack thereof.
In this passage, the Torah doesn’t clutter the decision-making process with a multitude of options, nor does it leave room for ambiguity. Instead, it draws a clear line between two paths — one that leads to positive outcomes and the other to adverse outcomes.
Clearly, the Torah’s intention here is not to simplify life’s complexities but rather to provide a framework that guides us in the whole area of making choices – teaching us that what may seem like options may not actually be anything other than a range of bad options, all tantalizingly attractive, but ultimately no good.
Schwartz’s concept of the “paradox of choice” highlights how excessive options paralyze us; the Torah’s approach in Re’eh reminds us that the best way to navigate life’s decisions is to simplify them. The Torah empowers us to choose wisely by reminding us not to be dazzled by choices that appear attractive but which, in reality, prevent us from making the decisions that are good for us.
In Parshat Re’eh, we are guided by Moses to maintain crystal clarity in all our decision-making — essentially a call to rise above the confusion of too many choices and to focus on making the decisions that truly matter without getting distracted.
There is a famous story of the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. As he advanced eastward towards Asia to expand his empire, he arrived in Gordium, the capital of Phrygia. There, he encountered the Gordian Knot, an intricate and tightly tangled knot tied to the yoke of an ox-cart.
The Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus described it as having “several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened.” According to an ancient local legend, whoever could untie this knot would be destined to rule all of Asia. Over the many years that the knot had been there, many had attempted to unravel it and failed.
When Alexander confronted the knot in 333 BC, he initially tried to untie it by conventional means. However, after abortive efforts, he chose a different approach: he drew his sword and cut through the knot, solving the problem with a single, decisive action.
Since then, Alexander’s act has become a powerful metaphor for addressing seemingly intractable problems through bold solutions. Because, more often than not, the best way to address overwhelming complexity is through clear, decisive action — cutting through the complications and making the one choice that truly matters.
Sir Winston Churchill remarked, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” The choices we make define us, and in a world filled with distractions and diversions, the Torah helps us focus on what truly matters. By simplifying our decisions into “good” and “bad,” we not only avoid the pitfalls of decision paralysis but also align ourselves with the path of blessing, ensuring that our choices lead to meaningful and fulfilling lives.
The post The Torah Can Help Simplify Our Choices first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.