Devarim 30:15-20
Therefore Choose Life
Just before the people cross the Jordan without him, Moshe puts two roads in front of them and tells them outright which one to take.
For children, teens and adults
Here is the strange thing about these six verses. Moshe lays out two options, tells you exactly which one is which, and then commands you to pick. If the answer is written on the question, in what sense are you choosing? And if you really were free, why would anyone need to order you to do it? This is Parashat Nitzavim, read every year on the Shabbat immediately before Rosh Hashanah, which is not an accident, it arrives in the week when you are supposed to be deciding something about the coming year. The two words at its centre have long since escaped the chumash into ordinary Hebrew, where bachar bachayim turns up as a slogan on its own, without anyone mentioning that it comes from one of Moshe’s last speeches.
רְאֵה נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַיּוֹם אֶת־הַחַיִּים וְאֶת־הַטּוֹב וְאֶת־הַמָּוֶת וְאֶת־הָרָע׃
Devarim 30:15
Re'eh natati lefanecha hayom et hachayim ve'et hatov, ve'et hamavet ve'et hara.
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.