Choose Life

by Rabbi Shefa Gold

Deuteronomy 30:19

Uvacharta Bachayyim x3
Choose Life x2

Translation: [I have set before you Life and Death, blessing and curse.] Choose Life!

 

These words and Rabbi Shefa Gold’s teaching tell us that we no longer have to be a victim in our lives. At any moment we can consciously choose to be optimistic, positive, embracing of the good that already exists and in those choices we are saying yes to life. Life is challenging and difficult at times no doubt, there is loss, disappointment, sickness. Our spiritual work is to move through these parts of life with presence and compassion and then move to a place of embracing all that life does have to offer us.

I can remember a time during a spiritual counseling session with Rabbi Gold in which the death of my father and brother was keeping me from fully embracing life. Shefa reframed my dilemma by sharing with me that when I say yes to life I am not abandoning or leaving my father and brother behind, but honoring their lives with my living my life fully. Amen

For Rabbi Gold’s kavanah see Choose Life.

 

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