Mitzvah d'var

In my Torah portion the Israelites are about to come into the promised land. Moses is making a long series of speeches right before he dies, because, as we know from this Torah portion, he won’t be coming into the promised land with them. 

In the part that I just read, Moses says the Shema, in which he tells the Israelites to believe in only Adonai, their God: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one”.  

Then Moses recites the V’ahavta, which is one of the most important prayers that we recite in the morning service. It starts by commanding Jews to love God. It states “V'ahavta et adonai elohecha”:  Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul and all your might. He then goes on to tell the Isrealites how and when to do that. You do this by:  

teaching it to your children, in other words, sending them to Hebrew school, and like me, preparing for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Making a sign on your doorpost, which means putting up a Mezuzah– a little box that contains the Shema and V’ahavta written on parchment. You hang this box on your doorpost and kiss it when you walk into a Jewish household. And, finally you show your love for God by binding it as a sign upon your hands and between your eyes. Jews do this by putting on Tefillin, a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment that have verses from the Torah written on them.

The Shema and V’ahavta are important because they basically tell us how to be Jewish, and how to follow our God. They command us what feelings to feel, and what actions to do. 

Then God tells the Israelites about the promised land, and what will be waiting for them when they get there; he says “Houses full of all good things that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and you eat your fill.” God is telling the Israelites what their rewards will be for loving him, and saying that they should be grateful. He again reminds them that they should love him  and follow all of his commandments. 

God is always making sure that the Israelites are not following other gods, not loving any other idols, and making sure that they are always and only loving Him. This makes me think that God might have short term memory loss, because he is always saying the same things over, and over again. What is God worried about? 

He may be worried that they will forget all He has done for them, or they will succumb to the peer pressure of others who don’t love this God. God understands the human nature of longing. My parents remind me regularly that too much candy will make me feel bad later. We all sometimes need to be reminded of things that are good for us. 

But, I want to go back to the V'ahavta, and focus on the question: can love be commanded? Can we force someone else to love another person or thing? Can we force someone to have any specific emotion? Or are these God’s weird and roundabout ways of giving a suggestion for how we might feel if we do certain things? 

If I were to write my version of this prayer in which God commands love, I would say “you will come to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all of your might if you follow the commandments that your God has given you.”, instead of “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul and all your might.” As Rashi, an 11th century French Rabbi said in the Talmud, “Through actions, the heart will follow”. Rashi is a very famous commenter in Judaism. He wrote a commentary on the Talmud that is reproduced in the standard printed edition. The Talmud is a compilation of ancient teachings that was originally written in 500 ad. 

A quote about love from psychologist Erich Fromm says, “Our need to love is resulting in the need to overcome separateness by experiencing union.”  In other words, he believes that we overcome being apart from each other, which is what separates us, which leads us to try to love each other. We have a need to love, according to Fromm, and so based on his theory,  God knows that we need to love, so God uses the V’ahavta to tell us we need to love God. This makes sense, but I don’t really agree with it. I don’t think that God is using God’s power for that particular purpose. Just because we need to love, it doesn’t mean that we should be commanded to do so. Commanding is not a very effective way to create a loving relationship. 

A point of view that I really liked came from Dov Baer, an 18th century rabbi. His comedic approach stated: “An individual unable to pray is permitted to engage in telling jokes to awaken a sense of love in his mind. Perhaps, the individual will then say: ‘If I have laughter from such nonsense, how much more should I appreciate the delights God has given me’, as a result, such a person will recite the prayers in love and awe.” 

In other words, when you laugh at God, you could be so happy with the amusement of God, that you will start praying with happiness because of the laughter God has given you. 

You can love God out of fear.  You can love God out of love.  Or you can love God because God makes you laugh! 

Mel Brooks understood this notion of making fun of God well, and I would like to say a little more about that. 

There is this radio show that Mel Brooks did, where he pretends to be a 2000 year old man. In one of the episodes, Mel gets asked a question about life before God. He answered: “I lived in this village, and there was this guy named Phil.  He was the biggest guy in the village. He would pinch you and stomp on you. We all worshiped him. One day, Phil got hit by lightning. The whole village gathered around him, and we looked up, and said, ‘There’s something bigger than Phil’.” 

In thinking about love in my own life, I realized I was not commanded to love my family, that love just happened over time. There are other things that I was introduced to that I was not commanded to love, that I have come to develop a loving relationship with. Like violin, horseback riding, and having a Bat Mitzvah. At times, I love these things more than at other times. Usually, I feel most love towards them when I have just overcome a challenge or achieved a level of mastery. 

Some people are drawn, and feel they are connected to God, and I feel the same way about horses. Horses are my favorite animal. I was never commanded to love them, I came to love them over time. They are amazing animals, they can get so big, yet they are so delicate, they are beautiful, and of course, you can ride them. I enjoy taking care of horses, because they are like friends to me, and we can both make a difference in each other's lives. 

Because I love horses so much, I decided to do my Mitzvah project by volunteering at the North Country Animal League, in their Equine center. I did about 15 hours of work (cleaning out paddocks, bringing horses in and out, moving hay, etc.). Please check out the presentation in the front lobby if you would like to learn more about that. The more time I spend around horses, and the more I do for and with them, the more I have come to love them. Again, like Rashi said, “Through actions the heart will follow” 

This is like saying action will make more action. The more time that I spend around horses, the more I will love and nurture them, and the more it will open my eyes to the world of large animals and farming in Vermont. One thing that I have noticed in this process, is that there are a lot of old farms that have been fixed up to be fancier, or are part-time/ summer homes, and all the land that was once used for farming is no longer being farmed, but is just a view. This makes me so mad, because there is all of this land that is used for maybe a dog and a few people at most, and it doesn’t benefit the community and the ecosystem in the way that a farm or forest can. If the people that own these properties could sell them to farmers, or farm the land themselves, then the land could be used for meat and dairy animals, growing vegetables and orchards, or even just leaving it as woods or wetlands. 

Wild places, and carefully managed land help to lessen the effects of extreme weather, like what we just saw last week, here, in Vermont. 

Before I end this d’var I want to say there is one more way that my life connects to this Torah portion. The name of my Torah portion, Va'etchanan, means “I entreated”. Entreated means to ask someone anxiously or earnestly to do something. The reason that this is the name of the portion, is because at the beginning of my Torah portion, Moses pleads with God one more time, to let him go into the promised land with the Isrealites. God tells Moses that he will not be going into the promised land with the Israelites, and that this is the last time that they will talk about it. Moses never asks about it again.

I can relate to Moses, because I constantly ask my parents for a horse, which is my equivalent of getting into the promised land. And like God, they are always saying no. Unlike Moses, I am not going to stop asking. 

And finally, there is one more quote about love from the Gerrer Rebbe. He said, “Since you cannot command love where it does not already exist, and since the Torah does command such love, then the only logical conclusion is that there is, ingrained in every Jewish heart a deep and abiding love for God and for Torah. There exists in every Jewish heart, a nekuda, a “dot” or spark of love for things Jewish.” I like this interpretation. Deep down, there is love in every person, it just doesn’t always show. 

I feel that once I have been a Bat Mitzvah for a long time, and I continue to practice Judiasim and perform mitzvot, or kindnesses, my connection and relationship with God will grow and change.
 

Now that I am a Jewish adult, and looking forward, I will keep in mind that love is not just a feeling, but an action. I will try and act lovingly toward everyone that I can, because the goal of Judaism is to teach human beings to love. For me this may be a love of God, horses, music, or something that I haven’t yet discovered. 

May this d’var inspire you to think about your actions in the world, and become a more loving person to all kinds of people, animals, and the landscape around you. 

Thank you all for everything. Shabbat Shalom!