May you be like a chandelier: hanging by day and burning by night.

May you have children named after you.

May the lice in your shirt marry the bedbugs in your mattress, and may their offspring set up residence in your underwear.

Those are not exactly the kind of curses we encounter in the Torah this  week. “See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Eternal your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey…but turn away from the path…and follow other gods, whom you have not known.” (Deuteronomy 11:26-28) 

Not much of a choice, is it? Follow God’s commandments and receive blessing, reject them and get cursed. Who does not want a blessing? Who would not choose to try and live up to the morals and ethics of the Torah?

It is not that people choose curses. It is that the choices are not so simple. It does not work the way the Torah lays it out. Sometimes people are cursed. They just have bad luck or circumstances conspire against them and despite their best efforts, they always get the short end of things. And because the universe likes balance, some people seem to be blessed. Neither of these are things that people choose. 

What is more common is that we choose both blessing and curse. My family is really blessed to have me. When I cook, which is usually several nights a week, I search for interesting recipes and prepare often lavish dinners. And when I make dessert? Whoo.

My family is really cursed to have me. When I cook, I obsess over the recipes; we have plenty of saved favorites, but I keep looking for new ones. Every night that I am in the kitchen, I am grumbling about things that are not cooking properly or frustrated by missing ingredients. 

I choose to fuss over dinner. I choose to be exacting and demanding. I choose, not to make myself miserable, but because I want to share my love of food. I want to bring something new and exciting to the table. I want to treat them special. That means I also choose to put myself in a position where I can be frustrated and upset. 

Many of us do this, as well. The A-type personality that drives some of us to excel and reach heights in our fields, also creates pressure and discomfort for those around us who we assume can or want to do the same. The generous person who is celebrated for never turning away a friend in need, is also exhausted and unavailable because they cannot stop giving.  The empathetic person who feels for everyone, even those who continue to hurt them. 

What God did not tell the Israelites was that they faced the same paradox. Perhaps they would not have accepted the covenant if they had known that it would come with millenia of persecution and suffering. Would they have chosen all of the traditions and community and all of the things that make Judaism special, knowing that those same things would allow others to single us out?  Would they have chosen to take on the mitzvot, knowing that they would guide us and inform our values, but might also mean we have to live up to them even when they are not ideal for us. God gave us the choice. We chose blessing.

We still have a choice. We live in a time and place where we could give it all up. But where would we find our community? Where would be the source of our values and traditions? There are people we could associate with, we probably do. There are places we could go for fulfillment, learning, and community. Maybe we have those too. There are institutions and organizations that help guide our moral and ethical lives. How often can we find all of those things together? We choose Judaism because it continues to bless us with all of those things. And yes, sometimes a curse comes with it. 

We could give up the parts of ourselves that merit blessing, so as to avoid the curse. Less effort making dinner, or less focus and devotion might mean we are easier to deal with or less frustrated. But at what cost? We do not seek to hurt people with our ambition, we seek to make things better and without striving, we might be a bit more tolerable or cause less angst. But we also deprive the people around us of our gifts. Perhaps most importantly, if we stop choosing the blessing of our Jewish world, who would we be? 

Who we are is a great question for this time of year. It is a question that goes hand in hand with the cheshbon hanefesh, the accounting of our souls that we do during the High Holy Days. It is one that is done by our examining who we are and informed by assessing our strengths and weaknesses. As we apologize, as we atone, and as we work to better ourselves, our strengths and our weaknesses are as relevant as ever. 

What it really takes is for us to address our weaknesses and admit that even our strengths come with strings. It is appropriate in this season to look inward for those things. We have the power to choose. Shira Billet, a professor at JTS explains, “The concept of choice was developed in Deuteronomy at a crucial foundational moment. At the cusp of a new life, fear of the unknown and awareness of the profound challenges that lay ahead were countered with the formulation of guiding values and a persistent belief in the power to choose.” God gives us what seems like an obvious choice, to inspire us for when the choice is not so easy.

Some say that we are the choosing people. May we continue to choose blessing for ourselves. And may we also know that when those blessings are accompanied by a curse, we can also choose to embrace both, and in doing so, make our lives a blessing.