My Daily Reminder: Pick a Mitzvah

One of my favorite moments in the daily service comes near the beginning of the morning blessings:

These are the obligations without a limit. A person eats their fruit in this world, and sets up a reward in the world to come as well:

To honor father and mother;
To perform acts of love and kindness;
To attend the house of study morning and evening;
To receive guests;
To visit the sick;
To rejoice with the bride and groom;
To accompany the dead;
To pray with intention;
To bring peace between a person and his fellow.
And the study of Torah is equal to them all, because it leads to them all!

I love this because it is a checklist of those things which are a good use of my time and energy, but which might slip by me otherwise.

To honor father and mother – The word we usually translate as “honor” is Ka-BAYD – literally, to give weight. It doesn’t mean “obey” – rather, it means to make sure that one’s parents do not suffer from deprivation and humiliation.

To perform acts of love and kindness – Covers a lot of territory, doesn’t it? Notice that those acts are not limited to one’s family, or friends, or worthy people, or other Jews. Even when we must say “no” to someone, we must do so kindly.

To attend the house of study – Most of us do not have the luxury of full time Torah study. Even if we cannot study “morning and evening” we can carve out a moment every day for a bit of learning. There are many online resources that offer such opportunities, like 10 Minutes of Talmud and My Jewish Learning.

To receive guests – This can be done in the abstract, by supporting organizations, but it can also be done on a personal level: invite people over! Our Jewish homes are sacred space. We can share that holiness by welcoming others into them for a cup of tea or a meal.

To visit the sick – “Visiting” can take many forms. A quick visit in person can be very comforting to a sick person. But we can also “visit” via a phone call, an email, or a get-well card.

To rejoice with the bride – The rabbis tell us that even if a bride is homely, the white lie to tell her that she looks great is part of our obligation to rejoice at weddings. As a modern liberal Jew, I expand this obligation to every wedding couple: on this day, they are beautiful and I am happy for them.

To accompany the dead – Most translations say “to comfort the mourner” but that is actually a separate obligation. This one has to do with making sure that the body of the dead person makes it safely into the earth – attending funerals, and giving tzedakah so that indigent people can be buried with dignity. It also reminds us to comfort mourners, by showing up for funerals, attending shiva, and by speaking to them in ways that are actually comforting.

To pray with intention – For me, this means praying a short form of the daily service. For others it might mean a Jewish meditation practice, or the Bedtime Shema, or saying blessings regularly. For others, it might mean attending daily minyan at a local synagogue. But for all of us it means cultivating an awareness of the Holy, however we understand it.

To bring peace between a person and his fellow – It’s so easy to say, and so hard to do. It means paying attention, watching for opportunities to make peace and seizing those opportunities when they appear. It also means supporting peacemakers on the larger stage: voting for politicians who value peace over power and who know how to make a viable compromise.

The study of Torah is the greatest of them all, because it leads to them all – Learning Torah and thinking about it in personal terms will change us. We will recognize opportunities for peace, we will feel comfortable at a funeral, we will see the openings for acts of love and kindness. Studying Torah will provide us with role models: Abraham, our model for hospitality and Isaac, a model for prayer and Rebekah, who was kind to people and even to animals.

There’s a line in the Reform prayer book:

Those who study Torah are the guardians of civilization.

Honestly, the first time I read this in the service, it made me smile. I thought about my Torah study group, munching their bagels and arguing about each line in the parashah. It was pretty funny to think of them as “guardians of civilization.” Then I thought about the individuals. One guy was so passionate about feeding the hungry that he founded a Thanksgiving food drive that gathers thousands of pounds of food every year for the food bank. Another woman was always ready with homemade soup in her freezer for someone sick. Another woman was in politics, sincerely interested in making our city better. A retired mathematician in the group has become an expert on taharah, ritual washing of the dead, co-authoring a book that teaches about that mitzvah. Two of us left to become rabbis. And so on. That one Torah study group had gone on for over 25 years, and many of the people in it have been transformed by Torah, choosing work or volunteer activities that do indeed make our city a more civilized place in which to live.

I wish I could say that I live up to every item on this list. The truth is, no one does all of these things every day. Still it reminds me of the possibilities for holiness that lurk in my schedule, and it challenges me to fill my days with goodness. The rewards are both in this life and in the way I will someday be remembered: a world made better.

Not a small thing.