What we do matters: our choices and behaviors have consequences even if we pretend not.
With Selihot approaching this weekend, Torah bellows this truth like a shofar blast, as if to rivet our attention to the truths of our lives and our power to renew our lives for goodness.
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Parashat Ki Tavo 5785 (2025)
Isaac Newton was right: as we learned in high school, actions tend to cause reactions. But when it comes to our own actions, often we forget, or pretend otherwise.
Our world testifies to this truth. At the macro level, most everything about climate change, for instance, is the result of human action. So is most every societal condition. And at the micro level, we know that how we behave affects others and how others behave affects us.
What science and experience confirm, Jewish spirituality understood and taught 3,500 years ago: what we do matters. This week’s Torah portion made this point with a litany of promised “blessings” for honoring mitzvot and “curses” for dishonoring them – nearly two chapters worth, as if to drum this truth into our hearts and minds (Deut. 27:15-28:69).
This notion of “blessings” and “curses,” never mind the particular ones Torah lists, might well rub us the wrong way. We moderns might not believe it literally. (I don’t.) In Bronze Age thought, God was believed to be the source of all consequences – a theology that in modern days has sowed generations of doubt and damage when life doesn’t align with what we think we deserve. This outdated theology is what inspired Harold Kushner’s famous book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” and Billy Joel’s hit song “Only the Good Die Young.”
Most moderns no longer align with a God of direct consequence: put another way, God is not a vending machine. Even so, Torah’s point stands: what we do matters. Our actions do have consequences, sending ripples across relationships, communities and ecosystems.
That Torah’s reminder comes precisely now seems no coincidence.
This weekend (7:00pm, Saturday, September 13, 2025) is Selihot, the final ritual gate before Rosh Hashanah, to rivet our attention on ourselves and the truths and consequences of our lives. With song and rousing poetry, we’ll join Jews worldwide in moving though this gate and hearing the call of teshuvah (repentance and return) with ever greater fervor. Together we’ll lovingly dress our Torah in holiday whites: the Season of Meaning is here. (Click here to register for Selihot 2025).
Whatever our theology or none at all, what we do matters – utterly and urgently. Soon we will stand together at the High Holy Days and proclaim this truth with all our hearts. May we truly stand #StrongerTogether at the cusp of the new year, and embrace its precious opportunity to renew our lives for goodness.
From my heart to yours, I send blessings for a שנה טובה ומתוקה / shanah tovah um’tukah – a good and sweet new year filled with love, strength and joy amidst all.
David Evan Markus 