This week, as we make our way closer to the end of the Torah, we read a parashah that we read every single year on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, Parshat Nitzavim. One of the challenges from God in Nitzavim is as follows: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.” (Devarim 30:19)
There are several elements of this verse that seem important to me. Of course, the most obvious, and seemingly most simple, is the injunction to choose life. It would have been easy enough for the Torah to state just that. But it prefaces this commandment with the understanding that heaven and earth witness our actions, that what we do is cosmically significant. It means that the stakes are high and that, while the phrase ‘choose life’ might seem simple, we have to understand what it’s really teaching us.
It’s hard to read this verse, today, this week, without thinking about the recent bill passed in the Texas legislature and upheld by the Supreme Court. Most of the people that advocate for this type of law, one that limits the ability for a woman to get an abortion almost to the point of impossibility, pervert the meaning of what ‘choose life’ is about. Because Judaism and Jewish law does not view a fetus as a full life until birth, the health, the life of a mother is always viewed as more important. Judaism upholds the dignity and well-being of the pregnant individual, and in many situations, not only allow permits an abortion but mandates one. (I encourage you to read this bold act of religious leadership from my father.)
No one should be forced to have an abortion under any circumstances. But internalizing the meaning of ‘choose life’ means that a woman should have the right to choose her life over carrying a baby to term. I must say this unequivocally: Choosing life means having the right to choose.
I had been hoping, on this Shabbat right before Rosh Hashanah, to leave you with a simple and sweet Rosh Hashanah greeting. I recognize that this note is far from that, and yet perhaps it’s the reminder of what we actually need this year ahead. Our world is calling on us every single day to make hard decisions, to stand up for what’s right, and to realize that our actions are witnessed by the heavens. In everything we do we have the opportunity to choose blessing or curse, and we must understand that the stakes are high.
I pray that the year ahead is a happy and healthy one for each of us, and that we each are contributors in writing the book of life, together.
Shabbat Shalom and Shanah Tovah, Rabbi Sarit
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