D'var Torah -- September 14, 2001

People argue about the details of the Torah's message. But this week's portion says it all. "I set before you life and death, therefore choose life." The Torah was given to a pagan world that had no respect for human life. Its message shone through like a light: every human being is of infinite value and worth, created by God, and every human being deserves life. Our job is to send that message to the world.

Long ago a potential convert came before the great sage Hillel and said, "I will become a Jew, but only if you can teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot." Hillel said, "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to you. All the rest is commentary, now go study." In other words, the essential message of the Torah is the worth, dignity, and life of every single human being. Everything else is but commentary on how to apply this idea.

In Judaism, God is called a God of life. On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, we say at every service, "Remember us for life, O God Who loves Life; and write us in the book of Life, for Your sake, O God of Life." God is identified with life, particularly human life, created in God's image. When we kill or mar any human life, we are killing or marring God's image.

This is our message to the world. Obviously there are people in the world who have not yet heard the message. There are people in the world for whom mayhem and destruction, particularly of innocent victims, is their goal. These were not single individuals working alone, but an organized human effort to destroy. The perpetrators were using their human ability to plan, organize, and carry out these acts in order to wreak havoc on the world. The forces of life are fighting the forces of death, and this week the forces of death won.

However, if our tradition teaches anything, it is the fact that in the end life will win. At the end of our song, Chad Gadya, sung at our Passover seder, -- Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One blessed be God slays the angel of death. The war may be a long one, but in the end a love of life will win. All humanity will recognize the value of every human being. That is the dream of our tradition. Unfortunately, that dream seems so far away today.

So what do we do? We mourn for those whose lives have been lost, and we pray for comfort for those who lost loved ones. And we remember the words of King David in the twenty-third Psalm, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for You are with me." (Psalms 23:4) We must walk through the valley, but in the end we will get through it. In the end life will triumph.

Based on the writings of Rabbi Michael Gold