|
|
||
HOME
|
|
What's a Mitzvah in 2003?May 2003From the Desk of Rabbi CohonAt a recent session of our popular Intermediate Judaism class, I asked my students a question: "What is a mitzvah to you?" It seems simply, really. But when you think about it, even the word mitzvah isn't so easy to define today. The colloquial meaning of mitzvah is "good deed", but that begs the question and ignores the etymology. For a mitzvah is a commandment, and Judaism is built on an infrastructure of such mitzvot. If you do mitzvot you are fulfilling commandments, and therefore performing morally good acts, in Jewish terms--fulfill a commandment, earn a mitzvah point. But once we accept that a mitzvah is a commandment, we need to know three other things: who is doing the commanding, who is being commanded, and what the content of the command is. Now if you are personally Orthodox, and believe that God is directly commanding you to fulfill each element of the 613 mitzvot in Jewish tradition, then your search is short: God commands, you are personally commanded, and every mitzvah is given directly by the Holy One. But if you are reading this, you probably don't fit that mold. Which means that if you wish to live an authentic and meaningful Jewish life you need to think about these issues in a concrete way. So who is commanding you, who is the m'tzaveh, the "Commander"? If you believe in a God who created the entire world, who stands above time and space, you might understand the m'tzaveh, the commanding One as the source of all natural laws, and those moral laws that create holiness in the world. In essence, you are discovering what the mitzvot are, for you, as you find out what creates meaning and sanctity in your life. In this understanding the mitzvot are eternal, natural, moral laws. These can, and do, also include rituals that help you observe and appreciate how to be ethical-Shabbat as a means of teaching the moral importance of holiness, Passover teaching the ethics of freedom and liberation, berit milah confirming the essential need for covenant. If you believe that God is present everywhere in the world, that we all have elements of the Divine within us, then the "Commanding Presence", the m'tzaveh, is a God you are seeking to reach and connect with. The mitzvot are pathways to connect to God, a means of creating and communicating with holiness. The Shechinah, the sacred presence of God can be accessed by means of doing mitzvot. And finally if you view God as a source of justice, the "better angel" of your own nature, then you would see the m'tzaveh, the Commanding God, as a kind of Divine source of ethical law. Observing mitzvot would then be a means of creating a more just, decent, good world. The mitzvot themselves would be a means to a holy ordering of the world that can only be effective if we do our part, and create justice by following those directives. All of these are ways of conceptualizing the mitzvot so that we can understand why we need to do them-but also, why the opportunity to do them is unique, Jewish, and holy, and why it adds meaning and purpose to our lives. Occasionally you'll hear someone say that "being Jewish is the same as being a good person." A rabbi I once knew in Los Angeles said, "This confuses a 3800 year old history of belief, ethics, prayer, inspiration, law, philosophy, literature, poetry, custom, food, music, and ethnic identity with the Boy Scouts of America." Nothing against the Boy Scouts-some of my best friends were Boy Scouts-but the mitzvot can, and should, be a means to make our lives holy as well as good. May this month bring us to a consciousness of mitzvot in all their beauty and holiness. L'shalom v'reiut, in peace and friendship, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon |
