Almost every Jew is familiar with the most terrifying moment in all of Jewish ritual practice. We prepare for it, knowing that it’s inevitable. We study, chant, pray, sing. As the dreaded moment approaches, we break into a sweat, smile bravely, as our heartbeat approaches Jane Fonda speed. Finally, the gabbai calls us up for an aliyah, one of the seven so honored by reciting the blessings before and after the reading of the Torah on Shabbat morning.
Where did the practice of reciting blessings over the Torah originate? Shrouded in history, the rabbis of Midrash Devarim Rabbah trace its roots to the practice of Moses as recorded in this week’s Torah reading.
After recording the history of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, as well as summarizing many of the laws of the Torah, we read “and this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed with the children of Israel.”
According to rabbi Samuel ben Nahman in the name of Rabbi Jonathan, this verse “intimates that after Moses had repeated the law he recited a blessing. Hence the blessing after it (the chanting of the Torah).”
There is more to the practice of reciting a blessing after repeating the Torah than simply beautiful ceremony. This practice implies that the teachings of the Torah and their implementation constitute our supreme blessing. Building upon an unprecedented and revolutionary idea, that of ethical monotheism, Judaism is the implementation of that concept into the reality of human living. We call that process of implementation halakhah, Jewish law, and its particulars are the mitzvot, commandments. Without them, there is no Judaism, nor a Jewish people.
Often Jews will claim to love and to practice the values of Judaism without practicing its mitzvot. By this they mean that they cherish the morality but not the expression of Judaism, its premises but not its implementation. But can the two be separated? Why do we need the mitzvot? Isn’t it enough to simply be good people to be good Jews? Why struggle with obedience to Jewish law?
In short, why did Moses bless the teachings of the Torah, and why do we?
To be a good American ultimately means to accept the laws of the land as our own guides of behavior. By respecting freedom of speech, of assembly, the consensus of Congress, we translate our passion for American values into life-sustaining deeds. So, too, with Judaism and its commandments.
Can we really claim to be good Americans if we routinely violate American law? Isn’t the test of our commitment to American values our willingness to submit to the rule of law and the authority of the Constitution? Can we be good Jews without practicing Judaism?
• Commitment to a common definition of Judaism, and a common practice unites the Jewish people across time and around the world. Generation to generation, the permanence of Shabbat, kashrut, our prayer book, our holy days, and countless other practices lead to stability that translates into belonging and identity. A Jew from Buenos Aires or from Yemen can walk into a traditional congregation and follow in its siddur (prayer book) because its contents almost exactly match the contents back home. And a traditional prayer book also resembles the siddur of a thousand years ago, and of a millennium hence. Jewish law provides continuity.
• Jewish law also moves Judaism beyond the realm of mere “religion.” Rather than simply applying once a week—or twice a year—inside a congregation, Judaism is meant to transform those moments of our lives when we are not in a minyan—how we eat, how we treat other people and living things, how we live in the world. These are the grist of Judaism’s alternate vision of a world redeemed from hunger, oppression, insensitivity and violence. Refraining from Jewish practice is also a retreat from implementing Judaism’s agenda of building sacred communities in the here and now. Jewish law provides involvement in the repair of the world.
• Several social crusaders are themselves personally arrogant, callous, imperious, or dishonest. Too many political ideologies reduce everything to social institutions—class, the market system, race, or gender identity. Once all issues emerge from social conditions, then questions of character and integrity and compassion reflect mere luxury or distraction. Judaism opposes this separation of the human soul from our institutions, insisting that the two are inextricably linked. Reforming the world requires reforming our personalities, not just what we think but also how we act. Jewish law provides for responsible sensitivity.
For all of these benefits—Jewish community and identity, social justice and individual character-building—as well as for experiencing God’s presence in every moment of our day, there is simply no substitute for the mitzvot, the building blocks of Jewish living, the colorful blossoms on the growing tree of Jewish law.
Just as we bless the Torah, so its teachings bless and enrich us and our communities and our world.
Shabbat shalom.