Living In Mitzvah Is A Blessing
Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
Parashat Re’eh, 2010/5770
The Jewish day begins at evening and ends at evening. Yesterday actually began on Thursday night. Our nighttime liturgy, the Maariv service, is reflective of how humanity viewed the nighttime before street lights brightened our paths. Nighttime without lights is a fearful time, it brought our predators, both animal and human, and it reminds us of our mortality. The Talmud tells us that sleep is one-sixteith of death as a way to acknowledge the fear that we all have: one day, we will go to sleep, and never wake up. Every night, we prayer that we will wake up. During the Hashkivenu prayer, we ask God to let us lie down in peace, and awaken us again in the morning. Every evening prayer has a parallel to the morning prayer except for this one. During our Shacharit service, we thank God for restoring our souls; nighttime is when we fear we will lose them.
On Thursday night, we were all struck with the reality of the fragility of life as we honored the memory of Myra Goldberg, Zichranah L’vrachah (may her name be remembered in blessing). We began this service with Mincha, we spoke about Myra’s legacy and life, and ended with Maariv. Maariv brings out the fears that we have where we openly admit the curses that we have in this world, and yet, this service offers us a comfort from the darkness.
On Friday morning, I woke up and experienced perhaps the polar opposite of what I felt the night before. Instead of saying goodbye, I said hello to a new addition to our Shaarei Kodesh family, the son of Daniel and Mela Kandler, Max, Avimelech ben Daniel v’Esther who was welcomed into our brit, our covenant, on the same Jewish day, the 26th day of the month of Av.
These are two extremes, what seems to be a curse, the darkness and uncertainty in our world, and what seems to be a blessing, the morning and life.
I could not help but think about the first line of our parashah:
כו) רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה:
כז) אֶת הַבְּרָכָה אֲשֶׁר תִּשְׁמְעוּ אֶל מִצְוֹת יְקֹוָק אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם הַיּוֹם:
כח) וְהַקְּלָלָה אִם לֹא תִשְׁמְעוּ אֶל מִצְוֹת יְקֹוָק אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וְסַרְתֶּם מִן הַדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם הַיּוֹם לָלֶכֶת אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדַעְתֶּם: ס
“See (behold), this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day, and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced.
This very famous beginning to the parashah reveals a great deal about who we are as a people and how we live.
It seems to be quite simple: if you do these things that God commands you, than you will be blessed, if you do not do them, you will be cursed.
This is a troubling concept and ultimately we ask ourselves, if this is true, then why do bad things happen to good people?
The truth is, the concept of blessing and curse is not so cut and dry.
The Malbim, a great 19th century Jewish commentator commented on the following verse, “a blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord”: implying then that the very obedience to the Divine commandments constitute a blessing. Do not imagine that there is any reward on earth outside of the good deed itself. It is not like the case of the master who rewards his servant for loyalty and punishes him for disobedience, where the servant’s due is dependent on the master’s whim and is not inherent in the action itself. The parallel is to the doctor who assures his patient that he will be well, as long as he adheres to the regimen he prescribes, but if he does not, then he will die. The consequences are here inherent in the deed itself.
One of the points that the Malbim makes here is that the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah – it is its own reward. To take it a step further, the blessing you receive is continuing to enjoy the gifts of the world that are already given to you.
Mitzvah translated means commandment. When we think of commandment, we think of two parties, the metzaveh, the commander, and the metzuveh, the commanded. We commonly think of God as being the commander, and the Jewish people are the commanded.
Before we do a holy act, we say a blessing acknowledging that this act is not something we feel like doing, rather it is commanded of us.
The parashah begins with a commandment, ראה literally a command to see, but it is given in the singular, but the sentence goes on to say, See this day I set לִפְנֵיכֶם before you all, which is in plural.
If some Jews do the mitzvoth and others do not, who gets punished? Who gets rewarded?
As we fully understand ‘mitzvah’ we realize that there is a bit of both the individual and the community in it. Each individual must choose whether they want to be a true partner in our brit, our covenant, BUT when they choose to be commanded or choose to be free of obligation, their choice affects those around them, whether they are in their neighborhood or across the world.
We have the choice not to be a part of this life, not to do these things called mitzvoth that make us Jews. When we do them, our lives turn into blessings.
- But what about the curses that we heard about in the same breath as we heard of the blessing?
The way I live life is through the concept of mizvoth and obligation, without being commanded to do these things, without having an obligation to others outside of myself, without being part of a community to follow them with and to support me on my journey would be a curse.
As hard as it seems, it is not natural to comfort people when they are mourning, it is not natural to celebrate with others when they have a simcha.
Nichum aveilim (comforting mourners) and celebration during a simcha is not something that comes natural if they are not your close family, but as Jews, we do them because we are commanded to do these things.
Death and life have the potential to be curses or blessings. If life is without God, without support, without meaning, without a community, it can be a curse, but if they are with support, if there is a common goal with a community with God at its center, than it is a blessing.
The night can be a time of terror and curse if we are alone, or it can be a time of warmth and blessing if we gather together to support each other in prayer and deed.
The question that we must ask ourselves is not, why do bad things happen to good people? Rather, we must ask ourselves, when bad things happen to our people, how will we act? When good things happen to our people, how will we act?
Our act, is a choice that each one of us makes, and our choice to live in mitzvah, to live in obligation, affects our whole people.
