Parshat Rosh Hashanah - Choose Life
by Rabbi Lobel

“I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses, and you will choose life so you and your children may live to love G-d and hearken to His voice...” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Rashi comments on the wording, “and you will choose life”. It seems as though it is not a choice. Rather, it’s something that we will do, because we have to, and there is no alternative.

Like a father who tells his son to choose a portion for himself but shows his son which is the best portion, Rashi explains that G-d is showing us the best choice – to choose life. “To love G-d and hearken to His voice.”

Just as the son would choose the best portion, so would any person who recognizes the value of Torah will choose a life to “to love G-d and hearken to His voice.”

Yet, therein lies the challenge. How will a person recognize that Torah is the best choice unless he has already committed himself “to love G-d and hearken to His voice”?

Rashi answers that very question through his parable. A son may question whether his father knows all the answers but he never doubts his father’s love and dedication. Nor should we ever doubt Hashem’s love for us.

This past year has been difficult. We do not understand G-d’s ways. However, so long as we remember G-d’s love for us, we “may live to love G-d and hearken to His voice.” We will “choose life”.

May we all have a blessed year. May this be the year of our redemption.