Mental health in the parsha: Parshat Nitzavim-Vayelech: Still Here
If we made it to today, we’re still here. And I don’t say that lightly, because some weeks, being still here is the whole thing. It’s the quiet, huge thing sitting under everything else. And this week, the parsha builds its biggest moment on exactly that.
We are standing here today
It opens with אתם נצבים היום כלכם. We are all standing here today. Every single one of us. Standing. Present. Still here. And it goes out of its way to name everyone, the leaders and the elders all the way down to the ones chopping the wood and drawing the water. Nobody left out.
So if any of us feels like we’re barely hanging on at the edge of the circle, the parsha put us in it anyway, on purpose. We are standing here today. We made it to today. That counts, and it counts more than we think.
Choose life
Then comes the line I spent this whole week with. I even gave a shiur on it this week, and I honestly haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
After laying it all out, the Torah says: I’ve put in front of you life and good, death and hard. And then it does something that kind of stops me every time. It doesn’t leave the choice hanging in the air. It tells us the answer. ובחרת בחיים. Choose life.
Look at what that means. G-d lays out the whole test, both options, and then leans in and says, pick this one. Choose life. It’s an open book. The answer is written right there on the page. Like a parent saying, I know this is hard, I know it doesn’t always feel obvious, so let me just make it plain for you. Choose life.
And it’s handed to us as a choice, not an order. The Torah could have just said “live.” It says “choose life,” because really staying is something we have to keep choosing. Not once. Again and again.
When choosing life is the hardest thing in the world
This line can land two completely different ways, depending on where we’re standing.
On an ordinary day, “choose life” sounds obvious. Of course. But if we’ve ever been in a truly dark place, we know it can sound almost cruel from the outside, like telling someone who’s drowning to just decide to swim. On the hardest days it doesn’t feel like a choice at all.
So let me say this as plainly as I can, for any of us who needs it. If we’re still here, if we made it to today, we’ve already been choosing life. Maybe not in some big, dramatic way. Maybe we chose it by getting out of bed when everything in us didn’t want to. By making it to the next hour. By calling someone. By holding on until morning. That’s choosing life. That’s the whole mitzvah. And if it’s been costing us everything to keep choosing it, then we’re doing one of the bravest things a person can do, and almost nobody around us even knows it.
Still here is not nothing. Still here is the whole thing.
And this is not a scoreboard
This is not a scoreboard. Some of the bravest, most beautiful people fight harder than any of us will ever know, and the darkness takes them anyway. That’s not a failure to choose. It’s an illness, and it’s a tragedy, and it’s never, ever a verdict on their worth or their goodness. We say “choose life” not to judge anyone who couldn’t, but to fight with everything we’ve got for everyone who still can, and to hold each other here.
It’s not far away
And here’s the kind part, tucked right into the same parsha. A few lines earlier it says לא בשמים היא. It’s not in heaven. כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד. It’s very close, the Torah says, right in our mouths and our hearts. Close enough to touch.
Choosing life isn’t some giant heroic leap up into the sky. On a hard night it’s the small, close thing right in front of us. One more day. One phone call. One honest sentence to one safe person. One hand held out, or taken. Not up in heaven. Close. Close enough to reach, even now, even tired, even at the back.
We don’t do it alone
The second half of this week, Vayelech, adds the last piece. Moshe, at the very end of his life, sends the people into a whole new chapter without him, and tells them חזק ואמץ, be strong and brave, אל תירא, don’t be afraid, because ה’ הוא ההלך לפניך, G-d goes ahead of us, לא ירפך ולא יעזבך, He won’t fail us and He won’t leave us.
Being strong was never about doing it alone. Choosing life isn’t a solo act either. Someone goes ahead of us. And down here, we’re meant to go ahead of each other too. Half of choosing life is letting someone help us choose it, and being the someone who helps another person stay.
What we can try this week
None of this is me having it figured out. It’s just what I want us to try together, as a new year begins.
Let’s notice that we’re still here. Whatever this year cost us, we made it to today. Let’s not rush past that. It counts.
Let’s choose life in the small, close ways. Not the whole mountain. Just the next reachable step toward staying, today.
Let’s let it be a daily thing. We don’t choose life once and we’re done. We get to choose it again tomorrow, and the day after. Missing it today doesn’t disqualify us. There’s always another today coming.
And let’s help each other stay. Let’s notice who’s gone quiet. Let’s be the person someone can call. Because choosing life was never meant to be done alone.
We’re standing here today. Still here. That’s not small. G-d already told us the answer to the whole thing, gently, the way a parent can’t bear to watch a child guess wrong. Choose life. Let’s choose it today, in whatever small, close way we can. And let’s help each other choose it, again and again, all the way into this new year.
If any of this is sitting close to home, please reach out. In the US you can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any hour of any day. In Israel, ERAN’s emotional first-aid line is 1201. Wherever you live, a local crisis line, your doctor, or one person you trust is a good place to start. The next step is closer than you think, and none of us has to take it alone.
Dedicated l’ilui nishmat Zev (Will) Shakin, z”l, who loved Israel and lived v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha. May his memory be a blessing, and may his light keep reaching the people who need it.
Mental Health in the Parsha is a weekly series on the weekly Torah portion and what it can offer us right now. These thoughts are meant for reflection and conversation, not as a replacement for professional mental health care.
