Choose Life: A Black Christian Reflection on Nitzavim and Our Covenant of Solidarity

By Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

“You stand this day, all of you, before your God, the Holy One of Blessing.”

These are the opening words of a Torah portion that will be chanted in Reform synagogues around the globe during their upcoming Day of Atonement this coming Monday. These opening words from a Torah portion called Nitzavim (meaning “ones standing”) in Deuteronomy 29 speak with extraordinary moral clarity and spiritual urgency. During this sacred season in Jewish life, they remind us that covenant is not merely something inherited from the past. Covenant is a living relationship that summons each generation to responsibility, repentance, justice, love, and the affirmation of life.

I hear these words of Hebrew Scripture not as a distant observer of Jewish faith and tradition, but as a Christian minister, a Black American theologian, a professor at Duke University Divinity School, Chairman of Spill the Honey, and a lifelong advocate for freedom, justice, equality, and human dignity. I write especially as an ally of the Jewish people at a moment when moral solidarity should be spoken clearly and publicly.

This Scripture was chosen to be read during the Jewish Days of Awe as a liberal innovation because of the power of its radical inclusiveness: “all of you.” The tribal heads are present. The elders and officials are present. The children and women are present. The stranger is present. The woodchopper and the water drawer are present. Social status does not determine who stands before God. Everyone stands within the moral reach of covenant.

From the perspective of Black Christian theology, there is something profoundly familiar in this summons. The biblical witness repeatedly reveals a God who hears the cries of the oppressed, remembers covenant, confronts injustice, and calls humanity toward liberation and life. The Exodus narrative has therefore held enormous significance within the Black religious experience. Enslaved Africans and their descendants heard in the story of Israel’s deliverance a testimony that bondage was not ordained to be humanity’s permanent condition.

Yet solidarity should never require the erasure of difference. The Jewish historical experience and the Black American historical experience are distinct. Antisemitism and anti-Black racism have their own histories, manifestations, wounds, and consequences. We honor one another more faithfully when we remember without equating. Our histories need not be identical for our moral responsibilities to intersect.

The text of Nitzavim deepens that responsibility because the covenant encompasses not only those physically present but also “those who are not with us here this day.” Covenant reaches beyond the immediate generation.

That insight is particularly important in our present age. What kind of America and what kind of world are we preparing for generations not yet born? What inheritance will our children receive from the decisions we make today concerning antisemitism, racism, hatred, violence, poverty, war, environmental degradation, and the dehumanization of people whom society teaches us to regard as “other”?

These are theological questions because they concern what it means to stand before God while standing beside one another.

Our Jewish siblings read this text from Deuteronomy as a call to teshuvah—to return, repentance, and repair. During their High Holidays, they blast the ram’s horn, the shofar, as a call to awaken the conscience. It interrupts complacency. It summons people to examine where they have stumbled and to return toward a more faithful way of living.

Black Christianity knows something about the spiritual necessity of awakening. The Black church tradition has long proclaimed that faith cannot remain confined within sanctuary walls. The spiritual and the social are inseparable when human beings are denied dignity. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this profoundly, as did Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. When they marched together, they did not surrender their distinctive religious identities. Their traditions brought them more deeply into solidarity.

That legacy carries a particular responsibility today.

At a time of a disturbing resurgence of antisemitism, those of us who are not Jewish should not wait for our Jewish brothers and sisters to ask us to speak. We should speak because antisemitism is morally wrong. We should speak because an assault on Jewish dignity is an assault on human dignity. We should speak because silence in the presence of hatred permits hatred to imagine that it has no opposition.

And Jewish communities should know that they do not stand alone.

As a Black Christian minister, I affirm my solidarity with Jewish communities across America who enter this sacred season carrying both hope and anxiety. Houses of worship should be places of prayer rather than fear. Children should be able to express their Jewish identity without intimidation. Jewish students should be able to walk across university campuses without harassment. No person should be compelled to conceal religious or cultural identity to avoid hatred.

But covenant asks still more of us. It asks each community to examine prejudice within its own house. Black-Jewish solidarity becomes strongest when Black Americans confront antisemitism wherever it appears, including within Black communities, and when Jewish Americans confront anti-Black racism wherever it appears, including within Jewish communities. Covenant is not sentimental agreement. It is disciplined love expressed through truth, accountability, courage, and action.

Then comes one of Nitzavim’s most enduring declarations: “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.”

Choosing life is not passive.

We choose life when we refuse to dehumanize. We choose life when we defend a synagogue, church, mosque, or other sacred space from hatred. We choose life when we teach our children the truth about slavery and the Holocaust. We choose life when we reject antisemitism and racism without qualification. We choose life when we protect the stranger. We choose life when we disagree without denying another person’s humanity. We choose life when we repair relationships before crisis requires us to rediscover one another.

Nitzavim reminds us that our choices have consequences for people we may never meet. That truth belongs not only to Judaism or Christianity. It is a moral summons to humanity.

During this sacred season, I therefore extend my solidarity to the Jewish community.

May the shofar awaken all of us. May teshuvah lead toward repair. May covenant overcome indifference. May solidarity overcome hatred.

And standing together before the God who created us all, may we have the courage, generation after generation, to choose life, choose blessing, and choose one another.

Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is a Senior Fellow for Divinity and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University Divinity School and Chairman of Spill the Honey.