nitzavim: choose life and death
sholem aleichem,
Apologies for missing last week -- the new Covid booster took me out. Be''H, I'll return to Ki Savo next year.
I'll keep it short this week, for all of our sakes :)
There's a famous pair of verses partway into our portion:
ראה נתתי לפניך היום את־החיים ואת־הטוב ואת־המות ואת־הרע
see, I set before you today life and good, death and evil
...
החיים והמות נתתי לפניך הברכה והקללה ובחרת בחיים
life and death I place before you, blessing and curse: choose life
I've always understood the exhortation to "choose life" to be in opposition to "choosing death", but I'm not sure that holds up to a close reading.
The first quoted verse does establish a distinction between life-and-good versus death-and-bad. But we are not asked to choose life at this stage.
In the second verse, the groupings switch. We are not presented with a conflict of life-and-blessing versus death-and-curse, but life-and-death versus blessing-and-curse. It is only after this switch that we are told to choose life. And if these are the groupings, "choose life" is a shorthand: choose life, and also death.
Or haChaim explains: the first verse comes to teach us that life and death are both matters of this world, just as good and evil are. Therefore, in the second verse, the choice is between matters of this world (life and death) and matters of the world to come (blessing and curse).
When we are told to choose life, we're really being told to concern ourselves with the matters of this world, with the everyday matters of living and dying.
Friends! Thank you so much for reading these emails, even if you didn't read any :) I'm incredibly grateful to have spent the last year writing these.
We do have a few more Torah portions this cycle, but I'm not sure if I'm going to write anything about them here. I need some time alone in my brain over the high holy days (how do rabbis do it?)
I am planning to continue etz hi next year, but I won't be writing about the Torah cycle. As much as I've enjoyed these newsletters, I'm looking forward to studying the weekly parasha on my own, without feeling anxious about coming up with a fully-formed dvar. After the holidays, I'll be starting to read and write about Nevi'im, a few chapters each week. I'm not sure the exact schedule yet, though I think I will fall behind the 929ers (who are also starting Nevi'im around then) pretty quickly.
If you're not interested in that, please know I am never offended by unsubscribers! If you are interested, let me know if there's anything you'd particularly like to see in a weekly-ish email about a few chapters of Nevi'im at a time.
good shabbos!
ada