Nitzavim

Get busy living or get busy dying. 

1.The Dali Lama has an insightful thought experiment. If today was the last day of your life, how would you spend your time ? Who would you talk to? What would you tell them? What would you not do?

1.This week’s Parshah takes place on the last day of Moshe’s life. He advises the Jewish people regarding the future of Jewish history. At the end of the Parshah he states : “Behold I have set forth before you today life and good and death and evil”

2. What about a middle ground? Everything we do is not a matter of life and death.

3. Moshe was teaching the Jewish people the value of a day on his last. He taught the value of time and the value of how it’s spent. All that we do has an opportunity cost because our time on earth is finite and one day we will die. Everything we do is either positive and life affirming or negative. There is no neutral in life.

4. The Script- Break Even

We only got
86 400 seconds in a day to
Turn it all around or throw it all away
We gotta tell 'em that we love 'em
While we got the chance to say
Gotta live like we're dying

4. Bear Bryant, a college football coach had this to say, about the value of a day.

This is the beginning of a new day.
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it or use it for good.
What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever.
Leaving something in its place I have traded for it.
I want it to be a gain, not loss - good, not evil.
Success, not failure in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it.

Shabbat Shalom U'mivorach,

Dan