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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.
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Palestinian Authority Restructures ‘Pay-for-Slay’ System, but Questions Remain About Whether Move Is Genuine
PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in New York. Photo: Reuters/Caitlin Ochs
The Palestinian Authority has restructured its so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis, in an effort to push the United States to repeal punitive legislation against the PA for its long-standing policy.
The Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund makes official payments to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs” killed in attacks on Israelis, and injured Palestinian terrorists. Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
On Monday, however, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree revoking the “laws and regulations related to the system of paying financial allowances to the families of prisoners, martyrs, and the wounded,” according to the official PA news agency WAFA.
“All families that benefited from previous laws, legislation, and regulations are subject to the same standards applied without discrimination to all families benefiting from protection and social welfare programs,” WAFA reported.
The decree means that the PA has changed its system such that payments to Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorist attacks and their families will be based on their social economic status, not the acts they committed. Under the now-revoked program, Palestinians would receive more money for more severe terrorist acts — a policy that, according to critics, incentivized more terrorism.
However, Israeli journalist Lahav Harkov argued that the PA is “just restructuring the mechanism through which they pay terrorists so that they can claim it’s not them, it’s an ‘independent’ foundation doing it. An ‘independent’ foundation funded by the PA and whose board is appointed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday saying, “This is a new fraudulent trick by the Palestinian Authority, which intends to continue making payments to terrorists and their families through other payment channels.”
Palestinian officials told Axios they hope Abbas’s decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with the US Congress in order for Washington to resume US financial aid to the PA.
Along with its policy change, the PA reportedly asked the US to repeal the Taylor Force Act, a 2018 law which prohibits US funding to the PA so long as it maintains its pay-for-slay program.
Critics therefore doubt the sincerity of the move. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a think tank, noted that the PA has deceptively used “pay-for-slay” reform as a beginning chip in the past.
“The PA president … promised ‘pay-to-slay’ reform in 2020 to try to convince then incoming President Joe Biden to revoke 1987 legislation designating the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) ‘and its affiliates’ as terror groups,” FDD wrote.
Aaron Goren, a research analyst and editor at FDD, wrote in response to Monday’s news that “pay-to-slay reform is certainly welcome at face value and demonstrative of the Trump administration’s power in negotiations. However, American officials should be wary of the PA’s steadfast tactic of leveraging pay-to-slay reform to get concessions from the United States and Israel. The PA is likely to make serious demands from both nations in exchange.”
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Super Bowl Halftime Show Dancer Gets NFL Lifetime Ban for Displaying Palestinian Flag During Performance
A protester holding a flag with the words “Gaza” and “Sudan” as rapper Kendrick Lamar performed during the Super Bowl halftime show at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
A dancer in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show has been banned for life from all National Football League stadiums and events for waving a combined Palestinian-Sudanese flag with the words “Gaza” and “Sudan” during the rapper’s performance on Sunday night at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
The NFL said the African American protester, who has not been identified, concealed the flag and unveiled it without prior knowledge by the show’s production team.
“We commend security for quickly detaining the individual who displayed the flag,” the NFL said in a released statement. “He was a part of the 400-member field cast. The individual hid the item on his person and unveiled it late in the show. No one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent.” The league added that the individual “will banned for life from all NFL stadiums and events.”
Toward the end of Lamar’s performance — after his track “Not Like Us” and right before his final song “TV Off” — the dancer waved the flag while standing on top of a car used as a prop in the performance. The car, a Buick Grand National GNX, inspired the name of Lamar’s latest album, “GNX,” and it was a key prop in the rapper’s halftime show performance.
“Sudan” and “Gaza” were written on the white sections of the flag held by the protester. A heart was drawn next to “Sudan” and a solidarity fist was depicted next to the word “Gaza.” The dancer, who wore a black ensemble matching the other dancers on stage, also jumped off the car and fled the stage while still displaying the flag. He waved it while standing on the ground near other dancers before security personnel tackled and detained him. He was then removed from the field and escorted from the stadium. New Orleans police told USA Today that as of Monday, the performer has not been formally arrested or charged.
The incident took place a day after three more Israeli hostages were freed from Hamas captivity in Gaza, as part of a ceasefire agreement in the war between the terrorist organization and Israel, and while a civil war rages on in Sudan.
The New Orleans Police Department said it “continues to work with NFL and the halftime production team to ascertain any affiliation the individual may have had with the halftime show.”
The entertainment company behind the halftime show, Roc Nation, said in a statement that “the act by the individual was neither planned nor part of the production and was never in any rehearsal.”
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CAIR Accuses Israel of Moving ‘Genocide’ Into West Bank
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that purports to advocate for Muslim Americans, has accused Israel of “moving the genocide from Gaza to the occupied West Bank,” lambasting the Jewish state for committing a litany of alleged human rights abuses in recent days.
In a Monday statement, CAIR accused Israel of displacing thousands of Palestinian civilians, destroying Palestinian neighborhoods, murdering a pregnant woman and her baby, and unjustly raiding a Palestinian bookstore.
“The radical Israeli government is clearly trying to move its genocidal campaign of slaughter and destruction from Gaza to the West Bank, where Israeli occupation forces are driving thousands of Palestinians from their homes, destroying entire neighborhoods, kidnapping hundreds, and randomly shooting others, including an eight-months pregnant woman and her baby,” CAIR said in its statement. “Indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu is a sociopath leading an army of war criminals, and our government must stop spending American taxpayer dollars on his latest campaign of murder, ethnic cleansing and destruction in the West Bank.”
In the 16 months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s cross-border invasion of and massacre across southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, the Jewish state has ramped up operations to uproot terrorists in the West Bank.
These efforts intensified last month, when Israel launched a counterterrorism effort in the West Bank coined “Operation Iron Wall”” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops, gunships, and drones operated in Jenin to extract Palestinian terrorists from the town and its adjacent refugee camps. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the operation was greenlit “on the directive of the security cabinet” with the aim of “bolstering security in Judea and Samaria [Israel’s preferred terminoloy for the West Bank].”
Jenin Mayor Mohammad Jarrar claimed that 150 buildings had been destroyed in the town as a result of the operation, suggesting that Israeli officials approved the operation with the intent of driving out the Palestinian population from the West Bank and annexing the territory.
Israel has long accused Iran of supplying armed factions in Jenin, particularly its refugee camp, with weapons. Palestinian terrorists have long been active in the city. Israel has been especially alarmed by the rise of the Jenin Brigades, a new armed group.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN body responsible for Palestinian refugees, alleged that Israel inflicted “forced displacement” on some 40,000 Palestinians. The Israeli government and research organizations have publicized findings in recent months showing numerous UNRWA-employed staff, including teachers and school principals, are active Hamas members, some of whom were directly involved in Hamas’s Oc t. 7 atrocities, while many others openly celebrated it.
CAIR’s latest accusation against Israel was not its first time stepping into controversy. In the 2000s, the organization was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
CAIR leaders have also found themselves embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago last November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has accused Israel of committing atrocities beyond Gaza and the West Bank. In December, the Islamic group said the Jewish state was guilty of “ethnic cleansing” in Syria following the recent collapse of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime, despite the limited nature of Israel’s military operations in the neighboring country.
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