We are commanded to bring the first fruits of our labor “unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there” and speak to our Gd:

And we shall “rejoice”.

These words are a great reminder for me personally. More often than not I see life in dark colors. Don’t we all have a slight tendency to complain? These verses teach me to look at life with a glance backward and be able to see the true reasons for rejoicing. And I do have them – a lot!

For example, I’ve just learned that my Digital Nomad (apparently, there is a  hashtag) daughter just signed up for a half marathon in Lisbon, where she will land next month. She started training today. Now, this is something that I would have never been able to do. It is also something I would have never dreamt she would do. I remember when she was this shyest little girl never letting go of my hand. And look at her now!

Where did your fear go?
How did you grow up like this?
From a tiny scared birdie
To a full winged rider of the life’s waves

The contract has been signed
The stamps are affixed
Do not dare to deviate now!

This is the Parshah of curses and blessings. I am always curious as to why the curses are going first and are more numerous than blessings.  Maybe it’s not even true, but it seems so. The blessing verses almost seem to be enveloped by the cursing ones. Is it because we are more easily convinced of the destructive power than of loving power? Or, is it because we tend to think about good things happening to us as “normal” as opposed to bad ones as disasters that are “abnormal”? I, certainly, do. However, “who told you that you should be happy?” (Read in in one of Romain Rolland‘s books, don’t remember which one now) It is, really, an everlasting question of why are we here? Not sure that I possess the answer even though I’ve lived at least half of my life by now.

So this is the lofty statement we hear about when talking to other people. Everyone takes this as the Jewish attempt at exclusivity, and the more “progressive” our society is becoming, the more atrocious this sounds to people. The problem is that no one seems to pay attention to “if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God”. It is said that Eretz Yisrael can “vomit out” her inhabitants if they behave badly. This is, essentially, what happened to the nations Israel had to depose from the land. Today, however, how often do we think about that when we take steps leading to self-destruction?

Here’s a small lecture by Rabbi David Levin-Kruss discussing precisely some aspects of the choosiness.

It’s hard to believe that a New Year is coming up in just less than two weeks. For me, it is always not easy to do a Pre-Holiday teshuva, like I’ have to do something tangible within a  certain period of time, and mark it off – “teshuva – check”. So, I find that I am self-searching and trying to add good actions at different times. How does one learn to turn the switch off and say – now I am becoming a better person – praying more, visiting the sick, doing chesed? 

On this Shabbat, I’d like to wish us all the possibility to self-examine if we really deserve being chosen and what are we really doing to make sure we earned this right and responsibility.

Shabbat Shalom!