JEWISH HOME LA

Dear Readers,

Freedom of choice: Is it a blessing? A curse? Both?

We live in the time of plenty. Never was there as much material abundance or ease as there is today. We can book plane tickets from our phone. With the click of a few buttons we can have most items delivered right to our doorstep. And medical discoveries have surpassed our wildest imagination.

It’s as if G-d is telling us, “I’m giving you everything. Everything you need to pretty much do anything you want. All you need to do is step to the plate and make the right choice.”

The opportunities we are given are just that – opportunities. What happens with them depends on us. Indeed, we live in a world where many people make surprising choices using their affluence and success for temporary enjoyment, many times at the expense of others. A waste of freedom indeed.

Real freedom is the ability to be independent. Independent of what seems to be public opinion. Independent of what we believe others will think of us. Independent of our own feelings pushing us to be self-serving. Freedom is the ability to be who we are on the inside.

Will we make the right choice? Will we waste the power of freedom on passing pleasures? Will we use this G-dly power for its proper purpose?

That is up to us.

We read in the beginning of this week’s parshah: “And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the L-rd your G-d, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.”

The more we choose the correct path the more opportunities we will have to make such choices.

Wishing you a blessed and plentiful Shabbos,

Shalom