You Call This Life?

Behold, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil, [Deuteronomy 30:15]

Why does the Torah insist that life is good? For nearly 800 million hungry people in the world, getting up in the morning without something to eat sounds worse than death. Indeed, 50 percent of child deaths are linked to hunger.

In our Torah portion Nitzavim, or Standing, Moses tells the Children of Israel of their fateful choice. They can do good in the eyes of the Almighty, and the result is life. They can check the box that says evil, and death awaits at their door.

The next verse defines “good” and its consequences. Good is following G-d not man. The result is life for the entire Jewish nation. Here, life means prosperity.

inasmuch as I command you this day to love the Lord, your G-d, to walk in His ways, and to observe His commandments, His statutes, and His ordinances, so that you will live and increase, and the Lord, your G-d, will bless you in the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. [Deuteronomy 30:16]

In 2,000 years of exile, the Jews have often been hungry, wandering through the countryside and banned from civilization. In the late 18th Century, Germany was perhaps the cruelest to the masses of vagrant Jews, the target of numerous official restrictions. At one point, 80 percent of German Jews lived from hand to mouth. The strong became highway robbers; the weak merely begged for a pfennig.

But the Jews were not forgotten. Once a week, they were transformed from rogues to princes. Their rags were replaced by finery. Heinrich Heine watched some of these Jews as he grew up in Dusseldorf at the end of the 18th Century. He would later convert to Protestantism and become one of Germany’s leading poets. These Jews, Heine wrote, were like “dogs with doglike thoughts and worries, slogging on year and year.” But when Friday night arrived, they turned human and celebrated the Sabbath, the covenant between the Almighty and His people whereby nobody is left behind.

Then there are those who live a life of wealth and privilege and remain eternally unhappy. They wear the finest suits and dresses, drive the most expensive cars, attend the most opulent of parties. But within hours they soil themselves in a deluge of alcohol, drugs and debauchery.

Margaret Rose Windsor was the favorite of his father, Britain’s King George VI, who called her younger daughter “my joy.” For a long time, Margaret was regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world. She was far more charming, talented, bright and musical than her older sister Elizabeth, whose excitement seemed limited to dogs and horses. But when Elizabeth became queen in 1952 Margaret was lost. What would she do with her life as “the spare”?

What Margaret did was drown herself in drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, illicit affairs, bitterness and non-stop partying. Her royal position — she referred to herself as “Second-hand Rose” — marked a lifelong excuse to waste G-d’s gifts for something that she never really wanted. At the same time, her sycophants thought her the hippest woman in the room. If only she could agree.

Few realize the choices we’re given. Many of us are obsessed by what we don’t have and dismiss what we do. We are unaware that what we refuse to give we won’t get. A haughty person is usually clueless of his off-putting behavior yet constantly complains of not receiving respect. A miser walks around unhappy that nobody thinks to give him a gift. A person who can’t trust wonders why she never fell in love.

Abraham was asked by G-d to choose from two terrible fates. Did the patriarch wish his children to be consigned to exile or would he prefer that they be sent to hell? There was no third option for what would become a sinful nation. For days, Abraham struggled with an answer. He had suffered from exile and didn’t want his descendants to experience a life of rejection. On the other hand, hell didn’t seem that great either. Finally, G-d decided. The Children of Israel would be sent to exile. Because as bad as exile is, it still contains life. Hell, however, is eternal death.

The millions of Jews listening to Moses at the edge of the Jordan River will eventually have to choose. In the Land of Israel, they can embark on a life of work, responsibility and simple faith. They can raise a family and struggle emotionally and financially. Nobody will give them a plaque. The alternative is they could spend their years in search of fun and games — a life where pleasure rules and where they wait impatiently from vacation to vacation, from highball to highball. In the meantime, they are deadly bored.

Nature is not given that choice. A cow is not flown to Vegas for giving milk. The sun doesn’t receive another moon for rising in the east every morning. The earth isn’t feted for turning seeds into wheat or barley. The power to select is reserved for mankind. G-d doesn’t force anybody. But He makes it clear what the right choice is.

This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses [that I have warned] you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live; [Deuteronomy 30:19]