Free Will and Parshat Nitzavim In this week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim, we are told that there are blessings and curses before us, and we should choose life. R. Shimshon Rafael Hirsch explains that “choosing life” means that there must be effort and thought on our part. It doesn’t happen by chance. Free will is one of the cornerstones of Jewish belief. But are we really free to choose? Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah teaches that the question of free will is “longer than the