Nitzavim – Vayelech

See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, to walk in God’s ways, to keep God’s commandments, God’s laws, and God’s rules, that you may live and increase, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess.

30:15 – 16

We find that the word “life” constitutes the motif of the six last verses. The choice facing man between life and death, good and evil is continually stressed and repeated. Man is bidden to choose life and love the Lord “for he is your life,”

Nechama Leibovitz (20^th Century)

The phrase “therefore choose life…” implies that our observances of the mitzvot should not be governed by or adapted to “life” but rather that “life” should be adapted to the demands of the mitzvot. The verse therefore calls heaven and earth to witness that the Almighty has offered us a choice between life and death; but that when we choose life, our choice should not be wholly dedicated to life on the material plane “in order that our seed should live.” “Life” should mean more than that, and should imply, as the next verse continues: “to love God and cleave to Him.” Life is not an aim in itself. Rather: “He is your life and the length of your days to dwell in the land.” The essence of “life” and residence in the country promised our forefathers by the Almighty, lies in doing good deeds and cleaving to Him.

Abravanel (15^th Century)

This week’s Torah portion is among the shortest of the liturgical calendar, yet within it are found some of the most significant verses of the Torah, verses whose meaning relate directly to the themes of the High Holy Days…The choices placed before us on the High Holy Days are, in some ways, no different than the choices placed before us on any other day…Yet something about the season makes the choices more demanding…Perhaps it is the communal experience that creates the heightened sense of expectation.

Richard Hirsch (Contemporary)

“That you may live” might seem to be redundant. How can we choose life and yet not live? This verse implies that there are those who merely exist because, throughout all of their years, they do not choose to live. When we prefer to accept the curse of half-heartedness, our length of years becomes a living death.

Hillel Silverman (20^th Century)

Moses reminds us that the choice of life is not only in God’s hands but in our hands as well. Not biological life, perhaps – for that is never totally in our hands – but the kind of life that makes us proud exemplars of our destiny…That is very much our choice, today as it was in the past.

Neil Gillman (Contemporary)