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An Opportunity for Choice
Our parsha opens with God giving us a choice, which is great! “See, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today; and the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the way I command you today, to follow other gods, which you did not know.”
God’s gift of choice - follow the commandments and get blessings or don’t follow the commandments and get curses is not new at all. We just heard God say this at the end of last week’s parsha, and plenty of other times as well. What is different here? Why are we hearing this again? Or rather, what do we need to see?
The S’fat Emet notices the word הַיּוֹם, hayom, today, three times - once in each verse. He says, “Every day is a new [opportunity for] choice.” Each day we do start over again and each day we have new choices to make, sometimes we choose a different path even with the same choices, and if we realize too late that we’ve chosen the curse, we can start over again next time.
Tonight we begin Rosh Chodesh Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During this month, we begin the work of taking an accounting of our soul. The first step of this work is to look at the possibilities of each moment before choosing a path - hopefully towards blessing.
As each day of Elul approaches, I hope you’ll treat it as a new today, a new chance to check your own balance, to try to tip the scale towards blessing, towards the book of life.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,
Rabbi Blatt
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