it's a... mitzvah

There is a very silly and quite catchy Jewish kids book called It’s a…It’s a…It’s a mitzvah! The main characters are meerkats trying to be their best selves. I have read it countless times with my own kids. The phrase has become a refrain in our household. And yet, what has always bothered me is that it never really explains what a mitzvah is in any satisfying way. Granted, as a rabbi raising Jewish children, I likely have high standards for such an explanation. The book did its job of developing the vocabulary of mitzvah in our household. But I fear that our collective understanding of this central spiritual concept stalls out on an elementary level. 

Growing up I was told a mitzvah was a good deed. More traditionally it is translated as “commandment.” How did a commandment become a good deed? It was likely reimagined through secular Yiddish culture. I can imagine this was the result of modern and now postmodern ambivalence about religious obligations from on high. Which I get. And yet, in the transition from commandment to good deed, we lost the essential meanings of mitzvah. 

Mitzvah comes from the Hebrew root צוי, which mean to join or connect. Joining points to a deeper understanding of what the Rabbis understood all along—that through mitzvot they were devising a system of spiritual technologies (blessings, prayers, fasting, acts of kindness, caring for the sick…) which places agency on the person doing the action. And, if engaged in, connect a person to holiness, to others, and to themselves in deep and essential ways. 

The root of the word Mitzvah is at the heart of this week’s parsha, Tetzaveh. Twice the Holy One addresses Moses directly, וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה – v’atah tetzaveh…You do this…(Exodus 27:20). Here The Holy One tells Moses to tell the Israelites how to light the lamps of the menorah. Moses is not exactly commanding them to do so. But neither is he suggesting that it would be a good deed for them to do it. Here the word tetzaveh is commonly translated as, “Moses instructs the Israelites…” Which brings us to an important secondary meaning of the root צוי – to order or arrange. 

In this week’s parsha, we arrive at the truest meaning of mitzvah. A mitzvah is a spiritual instruction. It is a teaching intended to bring order and connection into our lives. Depending on our disposition this might carry with it the accountability of an obligation, something we must do. For others of us, we might do better seeing it as an invitation, an opportunity or even a spiritual practice, something we return to again and again with effort and discipline. 

It is said that there are 613 mitzvot, though they never appear in an ordered list in the Torah as such. In one telling there are 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments said to correspond to the 248 bones and 365 tendons of the human body. For some of us numbers and checklists are extremely helpful. For others confining. Invite them in or let them go. Either way, know that we are each called to love with all our heart, with all our soul, with our whole beings and even our bodies. 

We learn in Pirkei Avot, doing mitzvot leads to more mitzvot. May we merit to be vessels of connection and may our sacred teachings bring us closer to ourselves, to each other and to a world that is whole. ​