What is the secret to life? How can you get the best that’s out there?
Philosophers have spent millennia pondering these questions. Explorers have traveled to the four corners of the Earth trying to find answers. Astronomers have searched the sky for clues.
Maybe if we just make our telescopes a bit bigger…
Well, the good news is, it’s not as hard to find as all that, as the Torah tells us:
It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
Devarim 30:12
Nu. Enough of the suspense, what is the secret to life already?
The Torah tells us just a few lines later:
… I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, so that you and your offspring will live.
Devarim 30:19
Wait, that’s it?! A good life is right in front of us, and we just have to choose it?
Yes. Whenever you choose to do the right thing, you are choosing life. You are fulfilling your purpose a little more.
There are mitzvah opportunities in front of us every day and all we have to do is choose to do them. You don’t have to climb a mountain or sail the seas or read every book known to man. God sets all the power of life and death, blessing and curse, right in front of you all the time. All you have to do is use your free will to do good.
“But wait,” you ask. “Sometimes I don’t know what the right thing is. How do I get clarity on that?”
Fortunately, God wrote us a handy instruction manual for life: the Torah, and we just need to follow it!
Easier said than done…
There are frequently hard choices to make. We don’t always choose what is best for ourselves or for others. But that is why we are here — to face those choices.
What is the purpose of free will? What is the purpose of creation? Simply to choose to do good every time the opportunity arises.
Will you achieve your purpose in the world? Will you do the right things when your choices get tough?
Today, you will have countless opportunities to choose between right and wrong.
Which will you choose?
Shabbat Shalom,
JET Ottawa
Dvar Torah by Rabbi Michael Altonaga
Doing good is for prophets. Lesser folk don’t have all the information to make the right choice. Thankfully there Rabbis have gone a long way to figuring out most big questions. Sometimes there are no good choices. In that case we may choose to do the least harm.