Life is a Gift

I'm lucky to be alive, aren't I?
Every day, thousands of people die, thousands aren't born. How many people, old and young alike, have I seen pass from the earth before me? I'm one of the lucky ones who came into the world and is still here.

According to the Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen United States of America, life is an "inalienable right," along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have contested happiness, now I take up arms against life as a right.

We are not entitled to live.
Life is a gift. It is fragile and can evaporate at any time without a moment's notice or apparent cause. I've seen it happen. We do not understand it, how it functions, or what it's powers and frailties are.
Before we were alive there was nothing in place to ensure that we would become so.
Given that we are alive, there is no natural law that ensures we will continue to be so. In fact it is quite the opposite. All living things must die. There is nothing so inescapable as death. Nor desirable, when the time comes. It is when the time has not come, that death moves from the realm of nature to tragedy.

I say that we do not have the right to live. This is not to say that I condone murder. That I am not entitled to my own life does not mean that I am entitled to take another's. But then, what claims we do have to our lives are only what we can derive based on the obligations of other people to us. In other words, I have no "inalienable rights" to rely on, only your unavoidable obligations to me.

Given life, I do not have the right to live. Rather, it is the obligation of the rest of the world collectively to preserve my life.
And in turn, it is my obligation as a citizen of the world to contribute to transforming it into a community that will do that for others.

Overall, I think this is a more ethical outlook. It is more founded in gratitude and it recognizes the dependence we have on each other, social beings as we are. It is not founded on the illusion of autonomy. No-one, nothing is autonomous save Gd.

I will strive then, to walk through life aware and grateful of the gift of life that He grants me daily, to feel entitled to nothing, and to therefore feel no resentment when I do not receive it.

Baruch Dayan HaEmet

29 Kislev 5774