How To Choose? What is Success?

Rabbi Citrin led Torah study last week and we focused on Chapter 30:20 – the end of this parasha tells us HOW to “choose life” but it also brings a lot of question to us without clear answers.

How do we “love God”?
What does that mean?
What, How or Who is to determine if we are doing it ‘right’?

My gleaning from the week was the question of “how do we know if we succeeded?”

Does this just focus on us as a community or also on us as individuals?

IF 'individuals' then it brings up that nagging question of why bad things happens to good people.

IF 'community' then there is the question of what our community really looks like now and where is it going.

One point of view is that we still exist and that is an indicator of success.
(Jess suggested we look at the phone book and see how many of those names are still listed!)

Another point of view relates to the land and how Israel fits into the picture and answer of success.

And then there is the question of peaceful existence and a ‘repaired’ world that we are still working on and have a long way to go. Sometimes feels like for each three steps forward we take two backward and sometimes more.