Chol Hamoed Sukkot
September 22, 2010
Teaching by Rabbi Mitch
rabbimitch@templesholom.com
The most commonly mistranslated Hebrew term is mitzvah. Many translate mitzvah as meaning "good deed". However, mitzvah actually means "commandment".
While a mitzvah may happen to be a good deed (for example: feeding the hungry), many mitzvot (pl. mitzvah) are ritual obligations that are particularistic to the Jew (for example: putting a mezuzah on your doorpost.) While a ritual commandment is "good" for the Jew; it can't be a "good deed" because then it should be done by all human beings, Jewish or not.
Our Jewish rituals anchor us in our faith. Mitzvot are our Jewish prescription by which we meaningfully connect to God, our fellow Jews, and our human family. For the Jew, each mitzvah we perform lays a brick upon the foundation of our spiritual hopes for a better world. A mitzvah performed is how we add our unique ingredient of goodness within our lives, which does ultimately add goodness to our world.
When we call a Bar or Bat Mitzvah child to the Torah, we are affirming that they are now of the age where they take responsibility for the performance of mitzvot. Traditionally, a bat mitzvah at age 12 and a bar mitzvah at age 13. Rabbinic Judaism believes that children at this age can begin to effectively embrace both their particularistic and universalistic responsibilities and moral obligations, both as the Jew and a human being. The mystical notion of performing a mitzvah is that the Jew is helping to move the world away from the chaos of Creation, and towards the rejoicing of ultimate redemption. In other words, when the Jew performs his or her mitzvah, they are hoping to help re-create the world in how we wish it would be vs. how it is in present reality.
For the Jew, we attempt to develop a personal sense of performing ritual mitzvot that transcend the simple ritual acts we perform. The Talmudic term is hiddur mitzvah; to beautify God's commandment. We "beautify" by trying to perform a mitzvah in a special way.
On Sukkot we read from the Torah that our spiritual ancestors were told by God to offer thanks with four specific types of growth: the "ha-dar"; an unopened palm frond; myrtle branches; and willows. The ha-dar was understood to be an "especially beautiful etrog" (a citron), which is a very elegant yellow fruit that commonly grows in the Holy Land and its neighboring lands.
The etrog looks a bit like the lemon; although its shape is more like the human heart. The rabbis believed that the etrog is God's reminder that we must fulfill His will with a fullness of heart, with all mitzvot that we perform. A rabbinic legend tells of two men who couldn't afford a beautiful etrog for Sukkot, so they pooled their resources and bought one together to share. However, when it came to who should offer their blessing first, they argued over this honor. A rabbi heard them quarrelling and told them to stop their fighting, and he took a knife and cut the etrog in half; telling them they know could bless their own half etrog at the same time. The two men were appalled at this action because they knew that cutting the etrog from its wholeness status made it not kosher (ritually fit.) The rabbi's action had made their etrog worthless to them both. Both became very angry with the rabbi, but he told them: "Even if your etrog had remained whole, what good was your blessing if one of you was angry and jealous of the other?"
When Jews perform "hidur mitzvah" we are charged to be wholehearted; to perform our sacred obligations with joy and meaning, and never diminishes the joy and meaning of others. The greatest truth for the Jew is that they can be a good human being without being a good Jew, but, they cannot be a good Jew without being a good human being.
One should never observe someone's ritual behavior and perceive them as "religious". Rather, they should ask if the rituals being observed helped that person achieve their religiosity?
Our spiritual charge, and a reminder of the Sukkot festival we now observe, is to live a life grounded on the principles of hiddur mitzvah. How can we beautify each and every action we take? How do we tweak our acts of love for family and friends? How do we give that "extra" that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary?
This Sukkot, we hopefully are taking the opportunity to sit in our beautifully decorated sukkot; the booths that remind us of our shelter during the forty years of wanderings within the wilderness before entering God's promised land. We should hold within our hands the "ha-dar" (etrog), the palm frond, myrtle and willow branches, and give thanks to God for all of our blessings. And, as we shake these four ritual symbols in all directions, we should recall that we are to respond with a pure and whole heart to all who we meet, no matter what direction they or we are travelling.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!!
Rabbi Mitch
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