It's easy to fall into catastrophizing because the human imagination and our anxious brains are phenomenally creative. However, nothing beats experience, and the Torah this week reminds us to let experience rather than overthinking set our expectations.

There might be different ways of phrasing the question of life after death and just as many guesses as to the literal answer, but the one thing we know for certain is that what we do in life determines how we’re remembered in death.

It’s hard to look at this week’s Torah portion and not think about what we as a Jewish people have gone through in the past week or what peace-loving people everywhere have endured over the 11 months since October 7th.

Certain times of the year call for parties. There’s something powerful about having these milestone gathering moments. Celebrating becomes about more than the event; it’s about being in one another’s presence. The Torah this week establishes this quite helpfully. 

There’s a reason the Jewish value of gratitude is hakarat hatov in Hebrew, or “noticing the good.” By paying attention to the small mitzvot, and by cultivating gratitude for the everyday, we can create a world where blessings abound.

Parshat Vaetchanan makes it clear that a place of refuge can look different for each person. What matters is not what or where the place is, but how we can be supportive of the environment that allows for refuge to take place.

Interestingly, 70 of the 100 laws that are given in Devarim are brand new to the Israelite nation. It almost reads as though God is getting ready to send them off on an adventure and has a list of 70 last-minute reminders on how to be human before they can officially start this next phase of their lives.