Why Observe the Mitvot
May 28, 2005

I once heard a lecturer sum up the differences among the world’s great civilizations, past and current, by citing a key word that epitomizes that civilization’s world outlook. For the Romans it was power. For the Greeks it was beauty. For Christianity it is faith. For Americans the key word is rights. And for Jews it is mitzvah.

Mitzvah, whose plural is mitzvot, may be translated a number of ways but the simplest is to say that mitzvot are sacred deeds - religious, ethical and moral that guide a person toward a life well lived. Keeping them constitutes the core of the Jewish people’s covenant, or brit, with God. Today’s torah reading which concludes the book of Leviticus, contains a passionate plea that we faithfully observe God’s mitzvot.

Given that theme, this morning presents a opportunity to ask a question: why should we observe the mitzvot today? What exactly are they supposed to accomplish? Three reasons for observing the mitzvot immediately come to my mind. First of all, the mitzvot are a way of paying attention. It is natural to be self-absorbed. It is so easy to float through life oblivious to so much that is happening. Oh, I didn’t realize there is a massacre of human beings taking place in the Sudan! Wow, I didn’t know my friend was hurting so badly! The mitzvot force us to take the focus off of ourselves. They direct us to care about what is occurring in our world. They prompt us to be heedful of what is happening to our friend, our neighbor. The mitzvot are our way – the Jewish way – of paying attention.

Second, the mitzvot are a form of spiritual discipline. They help us control our appetites. We are so easily ruled by our desires. As our ancestor’s eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden demonstrates, overcoming temptation is a discipline we often fail. Observing the mitzvot is the Jewish way to learn self-restraint and gain self-control.

Thirdly, the mitzvot powerfully link us to our religious traditions, to God and to each other in the Jewish community.

Let me use as illustrations three mitzvot that are particularly dear to me. The first is kashrut. Keeping kosher is a way of paying attention. As we select what dishes to use and are careful not to mix certain foods, we are aware that eating can be an act of religious significance.

Eating the Jewish way is a unique form of spirituality; it connects us with God. We recite prayers before partaking of our food and then again afterward to remind ourselves of God’s presence in the world and God’s beneficence in providing us with the bounties of life. For the Jew who is observant of kashrut, eating rises above an animal act and becomes a spiritual undertaking.

Keeping kosher is also a discipline. We can’t eat just anything. God commands us to be careful about what we put into our mouths, just as God commands us to be careful about what words come out of our mouths. Kashrut is a discipline also in that hours must pass between eating meat and dairy products. An ice cream sundae may be a tempting finale to our steak dinner, but Judaism demands self-restraint; we must wait a few hours before we reach for it.

Some Jews take kashrut a step further and take into consideration the social and environmental circumstances under which the food is produced. They won’t eat veal because of the inhumane conditions under which baby calves are kept in preparation for their slaughtered and sale. Some won’t eat produce that is picked by underpaid, overworked, poorly housed, migrant workers. Paying attention to these issues when we purchase our food raises our consciousness about the suffering of animals and the hard life endured by so many human beings.

A second favorite mitzvah of mine is observance of Shabbat. Shabbat is a time for prayer, study, reflection and community togetherness. Its observance is linked to God’s resting on the seventh day from his work of creation. Like God, on Shabbat we let go. We try to overcome our acquired habits of overwork, over-commitment and over acquisitiveness. Easier said, however, than done. I sometimes chuckle at the torah’s naivete in commanding, “six days you shall labor and do all your work.” With our busy schedules, who can accomplish all that is required of us in just six days? We don’t need a shorter week, we need a longer one. But listen to what the torah commentary known as the Torah Temima says, “Rest on the Sabbath day as if all your work were done.” We need a break whether or not we have accomplished all the tasks, responsibilities and obligations that devolve upon us.

I recall hearing about an animated cartoon that portrays a very busy day in Manhattan. It contains a lot of noise and traffic. You see a police officer in the middle of all this traffic, but he doesn't have a face — he has a whistle for a head. Then you see a lot of people walking down the street but nobody has a head. Atop the neck, where the head should be, there is a computer monitor, a pen, a wrench. Everyone has become his or her career. People are no longer individuals with jobs; they are their jobs.

Sunset on Friday evening miraculously transforms that way of perceiving of ourselves. As the candles are lit ushering in the Sabbath, our brief case head, or our computer head, or our stethoscope head, melts into a warm and smiling face that radiates the greeting "Shabbat Shalom." There is a great joy that comes into our lives when we realize that for the next twenty four hours, we are not slaves to our jobs, to our patients, to our clients. We put away our blackberries and lab tops, turn off our cell phones. We have entered into the peace and serenity of the Sabbath. We pay attention to our family. We sit down with them to a delicious Shabbat meal. We nurture our connection with God by performing the rituals of lighting candles, of reciting kiddush over wine and motzi over challah. We join our Jewish community as we worship at the synagogue. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “Shabbat is holiness in time, the presence of eternity, a moment of majesty, the radiance of joy.”

A third mitzvah that I treasure as a corner stone of my life and strongly recommend to you is prayer. Even amidst our busy-ness and daily obligations we need to take time out for prayer. We think of prayer as an encounter with God — and it is. But it is also a much needed encounter with ourselves. As we pray, we pay attention to what is going on inside of us: our fears, our yearnings, our disappointments. Prayer is a welcomed opportunity to evaluate our lives, to confess our failures and to restate our goals. Prayer is a time to articulate our concerns about the Jewish people, our society and our world. Through the siddur, which is a book of theology as well as of prayers, we encounter the principles of our faith, the ethics and ideals of our people; we come into contact with Judaism’s most deeply held values: love of God, of torah, of Israel.

For me each day begins with prayerful words recited while still in bed: "Modeh ani lefanecha... I am grateful to you, living God, who has restored my soul to me. How great is your faithfulness.” In this brief yet beautiful sentiment, I thank God that I have awakened from sleep to live yet another day.

My day also ends with words of prayer also said in bed. I recite the Shema and have a final moment of reflection about what has transpired during my day: my successes and failures, the relationships I am grateful for and the ones I need to improve.

The mitzvot I have just described: Kashrut, Shabbat and prayer are but several of the many mitzvot I try to keep in my life. I do so out of love of God and love of our traditions. But I observe them mostly because the mitzvot guide me – as they do all of us – toward three important goals. They impel us to pay attention to our world and our neighbor, to discipline our lives and to unite ourselves in an eternal bond with God and the Jewish people

Shabbat shalom