Sh0$hanaNitzavim: choices

Nitzavim has some of my favorite lines in the Torah.  It is the parsha for the YAhrtzeit of my father Shmuel Chaim ben Zelig U'Bracha z"l. 
My father's name fits the Parsha: "Listen to Gd about life, O son of the soul and blessing"

What does GD say about life? Choose it.  uvochartah bechaim.

Rashi takes this to mean that choosing do perform the mitzvoth  is the path to life.

I experience people for whom the choice is real.  Life ( and pain) or death (and quiet).

Should one take the advice - to choose life- literally in this context?  Maybe not always, but the encouragement of this statement is uplifting.

 

My father ( and mother) told me that there were times when death was  an appealing alternative to the horror of his "life" in Treblinka ( or the woods).  We do not regret that they followed the precept - choose life.