Toldot: Making Each Second of Life Count

Shabbat Shalom. Mazel tov to the Schwartz family. Logan is leading us so beautifully.

This past Monday afternoon I was on the phone with Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, the Associate Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University. She has been a mentor to me and will be visiting our congregation in two weeks as part of my installation. While I was on the phone with her my youngest son Shiah interrupted the conversation. He asked me: “Is this yogurt pareve - or non-dairy?” I said, “No, it isn’t pareve. It’s made from milk.” “Uggh,” he said. “I just had sandwich meat as a snack.” He slammed the refrigerator door shut and walked away. Two minutes later he was back. “Is a banana pareve?” “Yes,” I said. “Bananas, all fruit, is pareve. You can have the banana.” “Thank God!” he said and stalked off to get the banana. I apologized for the interruptions and said, “My son is trying to find a pareve snack.” She said “No problem,” and we resumed the conversation.

Though it seems a small thing, Shiah’s interruption, even if it wasn’t perfect etiquette, made me happy. Why? Because his question made it clear to me that he is trying his best to live up to the expectations my husband and I have for him. He could have tried to duck around the rules of kashrut. After all, I hadn’t seen him eat the meat. I was on the phone and wouldn’t have seen him eat the yogurt either. But he didn’t break the rules. Indeed, Shiah tries very hard to be meticulous with the rules about kashrut that we follow as a family. Indeed, the times when he has accidentally slipped and realized it, he has always been much more upset than me. Each time it has happened, the conversation between us is the same, “Oh no, I’m sorry. What’s going to happen to me?” “Absolutely nothing.” “God won’t be mad? I won’t get in trouble?” “No, God understands that mistakes happen, you won’t get in trouble.” “So nothing bad happens if you don’t keep kosher?” “No, nothing bad happens if you don’t keep kosher.” “Then why do we keep kosher?” “Because it’s a mitzvah, and is what God wants for us, it’s what the Torah teaches, and it makes us happy.” “OK, call me when it’s REALLY time for me to eat that yogurt, ice cream, etc.” “OK,” end of conversation.

The questions Shiah asks me about kashrut are the same ones his sisters and brother asked at this age, and the explanation I give him is the same each time, with minor variations. In fact, if I were to change the topic from kashrut to observance of Shabbat and holidays, giving tzedakkah, studying Torah, doing Tikkun Olam, the conversation would probably be nearly identical.

In other words, I do not teach my children, my students, or my congregants, that doing mitzvot earns you an earthly reward. Neither do I teach that NOT doing mitzvot earns you a punishment. In Pirkei Avot we read in the name of one Simon the Just: “Do not be like one who serves a master upon the condition of receiving a reward, but be like one who serves their master without a reward.” While it is true that our tradition, as articulated in the second paragraph of the Shema does espouse a system of reward and punishment based on our adherence to the mitzvot, in reality we often do not see this reflected in our lives. We all have known good people who suffer and bad people who prosper. As a religious individual who believes in life after death, I find comfort in saying all will be balanced in the world to come, but that doesn’t really do us any good now, does it? The Torah teaches us to “choose life,” not to long for death so that we can finally receive our just reward.

So, while there may indeed be a reward from heaven - eventually, the truth of the matter is that I do mitzvot because I believe deep in my heart that that is how we are supposed to connect as Jews to God. And that is not just my personal belief. It is based on the tradition itself, for while the word mitzvah means commandment in Hebrew, in Aramaic, the language of the Kaddish that Logan will chant in a few minutes, mitzvah means connection or link.

As Arnold Eisen, the Chancellor of the the Jewish Theological Seminary once wrote on this subject: “...the mitzvot connect us to God; link us to Torah and the best of Jewish values; and forge a relationship between our individual lives, our families’ lives, and the lives of the Jewish people around the world and across the ages...Mitzvot are commandments, but not the way edicts are, not like bossy impositions of power. Mitzvot are commandments the way wanting to please your parent or spouse is a commandment. The way living up to your mentor’s hopes for you is an imperative. The way delighting a child you adore is something you can’t evade. Mitzvot are commandments because we are loved with an everlasting love, and because we are inspired to yearn for God’s intimacy and illumination. Love creates imperatives that ripple out from the core of our loving hearts. Love obligates from the inside, as caring and nurturing warmth from within.”

Furthermore, the Torah teaches us to live life to the fullest, to enjoy it as much as possible.

Although observance of the Torah’s commandments doesn’t ensure an easy or prosperous life, it can help you enjoy what you already have just a little more. As Rabbi David Aron wrote a number of years ago: “A Torah inspired life is a life filled with love. Most people are living a life of fear. Fear is about the future: You do something because you are afraid of what might happen, what you might lose or what you could have gained. Love is about now. When you do something out of love you do it because you feel and want to express love now. When you obey God's command now, it is because you love God now, and you know that to fulfill His will is an opportunity to experience and manifest your love. This is the ideal fulfillment of a mitzvah...It is not about your future. It is about the ever-present joy of living a fulfilled life here and now in love with God and people. When you love and serve God here and now, you infuse every moment of your life with everlasting meaning and real substance.”

I love that expression - in love with God and people.

The idea of serving God out of love was brought up in a round about way in this morning’s Torah portion Toldot. In the portion we read the story of Isaac and Rebekah’s twin sons Esau and Jacob. We read how Jacob convinced Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. Esau, hungry from a day in the fields, agrees to the exchange saying, “I’m famished, what good to me is the birthright if I am going to die?” The Midrash and commentaries make it clear that Esau understood that whoever possessed the birthright would also have greater obligations in serving God. With these additional obligations would come both more opportunity for spiritual and other rewards as well as more opportunity for making mistakes and perhaps earning some sort of reprimand from God. Because of his fear of not serving God perfectly, and a possible subsequent consequence, Esau decided that he’d rather not serve God at all. Jacob on the other hand knew that each moment was an opportunity to find a way to serve God, even if he knew no one, himself included could ever serve God perfectly. He was not concerned about a possible punishment because he knew that the observance of the law, the connecting to God, was what mattered, not fear and not expectation of reward. He knew that sometimes the only reward he could expect from doing a mitzvah is the joy he would get from doing the mitzvah. So too with us.

I began this morning by sharing the story of my son Shiah and his desire to observe the laws of kashrut the way he has been taught. At age seven he certainly could have decided that the joy in eating the yogurt he wanted outweighed any non-existent consequence of breaking the rule requiring him to waiting between eating meat products and dairy products. The truth of the matter is he found more joy in observing the law than in breaking it, and though he may have been a little sarcastic, it was appropriate that he said “Thank God” when he found that banana to eat! His joy in serving God through the simple act of what he eats, as opposed to Esau spurning God’s obligations by what he chose to eat, is an example to me of how easy it is to let God into my life each day. From the mouths of babes indeed. It is an example to me, and perhaps it will be an example to you as well.