Moses then told the Jewish people that, in the final analysis, G‑d is presenting them with the free choice to choose between good and evil.
Free Choice and Reward
רְאֵה נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַיּוֹם אֶת הַחַיִּים וְאֶת הַטּוֹב וְאֶת הַמָּוֶת וְאֶת הָרָע . . . וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים וגו':
(דברים ל:טו)
[Moses told the Jewish people,] “Behold, I have set before you today life and good and death and evil. Choose life!”
Deuteronomy 30:15
It is not always clear that good behavior leads to blessings and life and that bad behavior leads to curses and death. This allows us the free will to choose to be good. If it were always clear that good behavior leads to blessing and life, whereas bad behavior leads to the opposite, what choice could we have but to be good? The very fact that being good does not always lead to goodness both forces us and enables us to base our relationship with G‑d on a more profound basis.
For this reason, on a deeper level, G‑d (through Moses) is here asking us to be good for its own sake, rather than for any expectation of material reward, even when we do see clearly that being good leads to good results.1
Good🌹Morning,
I was about 5 years old, and before I started school. I had not yet learned to read and I was looking at the pictures in the family Bible. It was very early in the morning, and as my father was preparing to go to work, I asked him about one particular picture that I saw in the Bible. He stopped what he was doing, came over to me and looked at the picture and said, "If you be "good" you will go to heaven to the place that you see in the picture." I made a decision, at that moment, that's where I wanted to go.
I love GD. My greatest reward and joy is that He Loves me, and that I can be in sweet communion with Him. It is "inherent" of itself.
Shanah Tovah,
🕊🌹