Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio

When you read the whole pasuk (Devarim 30:19), it seems to be saying that Benei Yisrael should choose to follow the mitzvot, and that then they’ll be rewarded with life, or maybe a good life, or maybe a long life.

R. Yehoshuah says hayyim here is Torah, and a person should choose to learn Torah before anything else (Midrash Tehillim, 1).

But R. Yishmael considers uvaharta ba-hayyim to be telling us, more generally, to make practical choices that help us stay alive. Based on this phrase, he says that parents have to help their children gain skills to earn a living. This is how you choose life!

R. Akiva also follows this line of thinking, and he says uvaharta ba-hayyim even means that parents are responsible for teaching their children how to swim. Do whatever you can to stay alive in an emergency! (Yerushalmi Kiddushin 1:7)