“Today I have set before you [a free choice] between life and good [on one side] and death and evil [on the other]… I call heaven and earth as witnesses! Before you I have placed life and death, the blessing and the curse. You must choose life!” (Devarim 30:15,19).
Let’s try to understand what’s being said here. The Torah equates life with goodness and then directs us to choose life. In other words, the choice of goodness is more than merely the right thing to do; it’s the choice of life. From the Torah’s perspective, only living right is considered real living; living wrong is living dead.
Everybody knows the custom to eat honey on Rosh Hashanah. We dip our challah in honey, and apples too, and we say, “May God inscribe us for a sweet New Year.” But, as always, there is more here than meets the eye.
Sholmo Carlebach pointed out the difficulty in procuring honey. The problem is, you got to take it from the bees. If you have learned how to do it, then it’s just sweet. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll get stung. Life’s the same way. If you know how to live, if you choose goodness, then life is beautiful and sweet. But if you don’t, you are destined to lead a painful existence.
We can be swept away by the stream of daily routines and habits, and live a thoughtless life where active choices are rare events. Sitting back and watching the years flit by like so many reruns is the empty life of the living dead. But there is another option. We can choose to live, packing our lives with goodness and mitzvot, and tasting the sweetness of a life fulfilled. Choose life!
Choosing life is not something we do once a year, or even once a week. It is something we need to do every moment of our lives. We can be conscious of God’s presence and serve God every moment of the day. The choice is ours.
This is what Jewish living is all about. In the introductory words of the Rama (1530-1572) toShulchan Aruch, he quotes King David’s famous proclamation: “I will place the presence of God before me at all times” (Psalms 16:8). God is always present, and He watches us make choices in the lives we lead.
People tend to think that divine tests are rare events, few and far between. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. In the words of the master Kabbalist, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746):
“Man [always] finds himself in the midst of a raging battle. For all things in life, good or bad, are [divine] tests for man. [A person may be tried by] poverty on the one hand and wealth on the other, as King Solomon wrote, “Maybe I will become affluent and I will blasphemy and say, ‘Who is God?,’ or maybe I will become impoverished and I will steal” (Proverbs 30:9). [Man may be tried by] serenity on the one hand and suffering on the other-man is embroiled in a battle from all sides. If man will be a soldier and be victorious in all the battles that surround him, then man will be whole…” (Mesilat Yesharim, chap. 1)
God is constantly orchestrating customized challenges designed to help us discover and act on our God given abilities. We need to recognize that these challenges are not bad luck and they certainly do not mean that God is distant; on the contrary, they are expressions of God’s love. Like a caring parent, God provides us with plenty of opportunities for positive choices and spiritual growth. Going through the year with that attitude not only makes for a happier life, it builds us as people.
The Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah is the Akeida story and, according to tradition, Rosh Hashanah is the day that it happened. We read about our father Abraham’s great test on the first day of the year because we view the entire New Year as a test. It is a test that we embrace, cognizant that we are fully alive only when we are batting life’s curveballs.
