Next week we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, with its
evocative prayers and stirring melodies. In our Amidah prayer we
will add the verses "zachrenu le hayyim, melech hafetz bahayyim, vchatvenu
besefer hachayimm" -- Remember us for life, sovereign who desires
life, and inscribe us in the book of life." The imagery of a "Book
of Life" in which G-d inscribes us for the next year comes from the
Talmud. There Rav Kruspedai says in the name of his teacher, Rabbi
Yochanan, that there are three books opened in Heaven on the New Year – one for
the thoroughly righteous, one for the thoroughly wicked, and one for those in
between. The thoroughly righteous are inscribed immediately in the Book
of Life, the thoroughly wicked in the Book of Death, and those who are neither
thoroughly righteous nor thoroughly wicked have their fate suspended until the
Day of Atonement, when G-d decides their fate.
The notion that the righteous
live for the next year, and the wicked die in the next year, doesn't
conform to our experience in life, where the righteous sometimes die young, and
the wicked sometimes live long lives. This week’s Torah reading
points us in a different direction when considering what it means to be
inscribed in the Book of Life. In our Torah reading , G-d tells us,
"I place life and good before you, and death and evil. Choose life
………
What is the difference between what the Talmud is
teaching, and what the Torah is teaching? In the passage of the Talmud,
G-d is choosing and inscribing us for life or death. In the Torah,
each individual gets to choose, between the options that G-d sets out before
him or her – life and good, death and evil.
Yet there remains a problem. What does it mean “to choose
life”? Do we really have a choice whether to live or to die? Wouldn’t we
all choose life over death, if we had the choice? The Talmud would seem to be
accurately reflecting our experience -- who shall live and who shall die in the
next year is largely a matter of G-d’s will, or, if you would have it, of fate!
The 98 people who died in the Surfside Condominium collapse certainly had no
choice in the matter. Had they known there was a chance that the building would
collapse, they would have chosen to sleep elsewhere. The over 600,000 Americans
who died of Covid in the past 18 months did not die because they failed to
“choose life”! They were essentially random victims of a pandemic. The over
2200 people who died in the recent earthquake in Haiti did not die because they
failed to “choose life”. They lived in the wrong place at the wrong time! They
had no choice., --
So what could it mean when the Torah tells us to “choose
life”?
By mentioning “life and good” and “death and evil” next
to each other in the verse, Moses is saying that every life affirming action
that we take in our lives can increase the good in the world. At the same time,
there are actions we can take in the world that can be a curse and lead to
destruction. Moreover, because we live in an imperfect world, and because
we are all flawed, every action we take is a mixture of good and bad, life affirming
and life diminishing, at the same time. Our goal in life is to live
consciously, to be aware of the impact, both positive and negative, of our
actions on the world and to shape our behavior toward choosing and maximizing
the impact of our actions toward the affirmation of life.
For example, we have to eat in order to survive. But
eating involves ending the life of something that is living. Plants likely do
not feel pain, but they do experience sensations. They respond to
sunlight, gravity, wind, and even tiny insect bites. If we want to eat fewer
plants, and therefore kill less life, we should eat the plants directly,
because feeding them to animals and then eating the animals kills more
plants!
Animals surely feel pain and anxiety, and therefore the
more plants we eat directly the less suffering we inflict on animals. In the
Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were permitted to eat only plant life. Once
humanity was expelled from the Garden of Eden, G-d permitted humans to eat
meat. But the Torah sets limits on the kinds of animals we are allowed to eat.
Moreover, according to Jewish Law, the animals we do eat must be
slaughtered by a shochet, a ritual slaughterer. The shochet recites a blessing
before slaughtering the animal, which increases his or her awareness of the
holiness of the life about to be taken, and the slaughtering is done in a way
that minimizes the pain the animal feels. Although we are permitted to eat
meat, doing so is not as life affirming as eating plants. And we certainly are
forbidden to kill animals for sport!
Nor is being a vegetarian without its costs. People
have to harvest crops. We should ask ourselves -- Are they paid well, or are
they exploited? The crops have to arrive at our tables, which use fuel from
airplanes and trucks adding to the pollution of the environment. Each of our
actions has a ripple effect that amplifies both goodness and evil in the world.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
As we approach the New Year, let us examine our behavior
and actions for both the good we do -- our life affirming choices -- and the
inevitable downside of those very choices. We can examine our deeds, repent of
our transgressions, and resolve to rebalance our behaviors to make more life
affirming choices and reduce the destruction our actions bring to the
world. We can all become conscious of both the positive and the negative impact
of our actions on ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors and our world.
Shabbat Shalom
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