Choose Life! – Parshat Nitzavim

For most of us, this title is kind of obvious. Why even mention it? Choose life! We spend so much time and energy on this life, isn’t it clear that this is our direction? Apparently not. I am not even talking about those who choose to take their own life. There are people who even while alive are not living the life they could. Not rarely people come into the clinic saying they 'don’t feel alive'. They have not chosen life or they are not aware of how to choose life.

Even more interesting is that the Torah mentions it too. Why does the Torah in this week's parsha, Parshat Nitzavim feel a need to offer this as 'sage' advice? The Torah offers a choice – life and good or death and bad. Why does it need to tell us which to choose?  Rabbi Hirsch spells it out for us: a life with good has a general, healthy development of a spiritual, physical and moral personality of the individual – for himself and his community. This is lacking if he chooses otherwise. 

Life then is not simply a journey passing from one day to another in a race to see simply how many days I've lived but rather how I spend those days. Have I made a difference? There is always meaning available for us to choose.

Often, though, life is not this or that. We find we have both elements within us. Sometimes we choose well. Other times we choose poorly and do not always foresee the outcomes of our decisions. One way to discern how life is to be lived was even discussed in a different article.2 

One last thought. This parsha is always read right before Rosh Hashanah. Every year. If a parsha is fixed at a certain time of the year, there is always a reason. In preparation for the New Year, we are to ask ourselves, what kind of life have I lived and more importantly, what kind of life do I choose to live from now on. We can choose.3 It is in our hands.

There is always a choice. Choose a full life!

Ketiva Vachatima Tova to you and your entire family.

Click here for another logoParsha article on Nitzavim

Notes

  1. Devarim 30:15,19
  2. http://purposefultherapy.com/did-they-get-the-name-wrong-parshat-vayechi/
  3. Aside from being a major concept in the Torah, freedom of choice is also a basic concept of logotherapy, discussed in the book 'A Man's Search for Meaning'

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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