Doing Mitzvah
Erev Rosh Hashanah, 5777
Temple Beth Israel
Rabbi Rick Winer
I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. When someone says the word ‘Frisco’ or the phrase ‘San Fran’ the hair on the back of my neck stands up like hearing the sound of nails on a blackboard. I bristle just thinking about it.
There are a few phrases in Jewish life that cause the same effect. ‘Bar Mitzvahed,’ ‘I got Bar Mitzvahed.’ Ouch. You don’t ‘get Bar Mitzvahed,’ you become Bar Mitzvah or you are called to Torah as a Bat Mitzvah. It’s not the point of my talk this evening but if you come away with nothing else please remember we become Bar or Bat Mitzvah, B’nai mitzvah is the plural.
Now here’s the more important message… part one…
You are B’nai Mitzvah whether you ‘had’ one or not.
You are B’nai Mitzvah whether you ‘had’ one or not.
A little history…
In the Talmudic period, approximately 1500 years ago, Bar Mitzvah became recognized as the age of majority, the age of independence to an extent. The father would mark the occasion by reciting a blessing of praise for relieving him of his responsibility over his son’s conduct. At that time there were no party planners or DJ’s involved.
Baruch she’p’tarani… Praised are You O God, who has freed me from the responsibility of this boy. The prayer is quoted in a collection of Midrash contemporary with the early Talmudic period, and it’s still recited today in some communities.
Apparently, in the earliest days, the ritual moment of Bar Mitzvah was not such a big deal because boys could do anything a post-thirteen year old could do as long as they were able… read Torah, bless Torah. Eventually, by the late Middle Ages, restrictions developed and the moment became more momentous as this became the first opportunity for the young man to be called for an aliyah, the going up to bless the Torah reading.
By the 16th century in Poland, the festive meal, seudat mitzvah was beginning to develop and the more talented boys would give a drash, a talmudic lesson. Some were able to create their own while others delivered a prepared lesson from a teacher. By the 17th century in Germany, it became customary for the youth to have new clothes… leading to the horribly embarrassing pictures some of us have of the outfits we wore for the occasion back in the 70’s when there was nothing redeemable about fashion except, maybe, bell bottom jeans. Anyway, according to the sources, if the young man was able and had a pleasant voice, he would chant through the Shabbat prayer service and as much of his Torah reading as possible. The least able would still recite the Torah blessings and every student would be expected to give a pound of wax to the synagogue for candles.
The first Bat Mitzvah in America was the daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founding thinker of Reconstructionist Judaism in 1922. She did not, however, receive a full aliyah. When I became Bar Mitzvah in 1978, a fair number of the girls in our Reform congregation were still opting out and their families did not always take the Bat Mitzvah quite as seriously. I met quite a few relatives at my Bar Mitzvah for the first time. They chose to come to mine but were not enticed by my sister’s Bat Mitzvah three years before simply because it was a Bat Mitzvah not a Bar Mitzvah.
Today, at least in the Reform community, the ritual is completely egalitarian, as it should be.
To be Bar or Bat Mitzvah is to be of age. B’nai Mitzvah, again, is the plural unless the group is only female in which case it would be B’not Mitzvah. Literally the term translates as son or daughter of the commandments but that does not really capture the essence of the phrase. The way I learned to best understand the term is to view it as a level of ability like a journeyman, in this case, specifically, as it relates to mitzvah. We could call a plumber a bar wrench or a carpenter a bar hammer. You get the idea. So, a bar or bat mitzvah is a journeyman mitzvah doer and, in the Jewish community, you are considered to be at that level once you reach the age of thirteen whether there is a ceremony to mark the occasion or not.
It’s important to understand the history and context but the reason I’m talking about this now, during the High Holy Days is the importance and centrality of doing mitzvah.
We live in the modern world here in the Central Valley and a significant portion of our congregation is not Jewish. Some people might be feeling left out. Some people might be feeling off the hook.
Here’s part two of the important message…
You don’t have to be Jewish to do mitzvah.
During my first High Holy Days here in Fresno, way back in 2011, I focused upon a piece of our daily liturgy that comes from Talmud and reads:
These are obligations without measure; their fruit we eat now, their essence remains for us in the life to come:
To honor father and mother;
To perform acts of love and kindness;
To attend the house of study daily;
To welcome the stranger;
To visit the sick;
To rejoice with bride and groom;
To console the bereaved;
To pray with sincerity;
To make peace when there is strife.
[And] the study of Torah is equal to them all. Gates of Repentance, pg. 90
Every mitzvah on that list can be done by any member of our community, Jewish or not, 13 or not. The one on the list that might seem least accessible to non-Jews is to attend the house of study daily but anyone who’s been to our Torah study would have seen active participation by non-Jewish regulars who add tremendously to the experience. Everyone is welcome, no previous experience or prerequisite knowledge is required.
I’m happy to share mitzvah with everyone able to do so. I commonly share many of those from the morning blessing list with my interfaith friends and colleagues and, God knows, the world needs more mitzvah doing.
I unequivocally believe in inclusiveness when it comes to most of our mitzvot. There are a few that we traditionally hold as exclusive such as the blessings for Torah reading in which the formula one recites infers that the person reciting it is officially Jewish. A few other ritual mitzvot, by tradition are supposed to be performed by one who is ritually obligated to adhere to them such as the blasting of the shofar. One who is of age and Jewish is obligated to hear the call of the shofar so our tradition requires the shofar blower to be one who is obligated. I think that’s the associative principle of mitzvah. This is why I won’t have an eleven year old blast the shofar for the congregation… they are not yet ritually obligated to hear it… though they are encouraged to hear it.
Ultimately, the bulk of the mitzvot that are most relevant to our Reform community can easily be inclusive and we welcome all participants.
The notion of having mitzvah expectations for those who are not Jewish is an ancient concept that our rabbis centuries ago gleaned from the story of Noah and the laws given to him after the flood. They are known as the Noachide commandments and it is the legal code with which Judaism measures the righteousness of any culture. The seven laws are:
- Do not deny God
- Do not blaspheme God
- Do not murder
- Do not engage in illicit sexual relations
- Do not steal
- Do not tear the limb from a living animal
- Establish a system of justice
So, I don’t think mitzvah inclusiveness is necessarily a liberal notion and there is one mitzvah subject upon which I’m not so liberal…
And this is part three of the important message for this evening…
I do believe that you can’t become B’nai Mitzvah without doing mitzvah. I realize that’s a contradiction from my beginning statement that you are Bar or Bat Mitzvah at 13 even if you did not go through the ceremony but if we’re going to be worthy of the title of Bar or Bat Mitzvah then we need to actually do mitzvot.
Let me go back to that illustration of the Bar Mitzvah as a mitzvah doer and how it relates to some modern occupations. We want our plumbers, carpenters, contractors to actually be capable of what their title denotes. Likewise, anyone labelled as Bar or Bat Mitzvah ought to be a mitzvah doer. In fact, just this week, I saw that our local authorities cracked down on unlicensed contractors and I’m starting to picture a patrol coming through and asking people to give up their B’nai Mitzvah certificates if they can’t prove they’ve been doing mitzvot. Here’s why that won’t happen. I know that we’re all doing mitzvot even if they’re not necessarily on the traditional list. In fact, it was relatively recently that I confirmed that the famous list of 613 mitzvot doesn’t exist! It’s a symbolic number which means there is leeway already built into the understanding of what may or may not be an official mitzvah. We may not be doing as many mitzvot as we think we should but I am a believer in the goodness of people and of people doing good.
I’m not a stickler for traditional mitzvot only. Would the same ancestors who taught the value of performing acts of love and kindness or told us to love our neighbors as ourselves have insisted that the most important mitzvah is to wrap tefillin around our arms and head? I’m not against traditional mitzvot but I honestly don’t think that’s the core of our religious heritage otherwise we would not have the many different distillations of Jewish thought offered in tradition such as Hillel’s flipping of the golden rule when he said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to others, all the rest is commentary, now go and learn it.”
And in keeping with Rabbi Hillel’s maxim, we will do exactly as he suggested… “go and learn it.”
We will follow up with mitzvah education throughout this year. I will be offering an adult B’nai Mitzvah program for those who would like to mark this important level in Jewish life and did not do so at 13. For both our adult B’nai Mitzvah students and anyone else interested, I will offer a service leading workshop for the mitzvah of both leading our community in prayer and being more knowledgeable about the content of our prayer services. This will all begin in November, shortly after we complete this festival cycle. Some recent questions have come up regarding kashrut and our community’s policy surrounding kosher food, so we will explore a Reform understanding of kashrut and the mitzvah nature of our sustenance.
We have our ongoing Torah study which is on that official list of mitzvot and several other learning opportunities that will help us fulfill the mitzvah of attending the house of study daily.
On Erev Rosh Hashanah, I prefer to offer more questions than answers. I like to give us something to think about during the Ten Days of Repentance, during these ten days meant for introspection.
What mitzvot should we be performing in our lives today? What does God expect from us? What actions constitute being a good Jew, being an active member of this community?
We’re going to talk about some additional mitzvah opportunities in the coming services…
mitzvah opportunities in the civil sphere…
Next week we’ll explore what some of us consider to be a modern, American mitzvah and be forewarned… it might touch upon politics though I promise not to be partisan.
In a few minutes we will also honor a member of our community with our Continuing Service Award. We recognize someone each year for their many years of active volunteering in our congregation which, as I see it, is lots of mitzvah work.
I’m going to recap…
The homework…
What mitzvot should we be performing in our lives today? What does God expect from us? What actions constitute being a good Jew, being an active member of this community?
Three important messages…
If You’re thirteen or older and Jewish, you are B’nai Mitzvah whether there was a ceremony to mark the occasion or not.
However, to really be B’nai Mitzvah you need to do Mitzvah.
And… you don’t have to be Jewish to do Mitzvah. Everyone in our community can and should participate.
In the coming services I will give much more specific examples of mitzvah opportunities.
As we recount this past year and look toward the year ahead… I know that we have all done mitzvot whether we recognized them or not.
In this year to come, let us be conscious of the mitzvah opportunities before us.
Let us create more mitzvah opportunities for ourselves and our community.
And may we return together next year on Rosh Hashanah knowing that we have performed abundant mitzvot bringing us ever so much closer to the perfection of the world for which we will pray in a few minutes when we turn toward our prayer for the future, the Aleinu.
First, we turn to page 40 and call forward…
to open our ark for Avinu Malkeinu.
