The Mitzvah Mystique

My mother would use this Yiddish maxim to describe my growing up years,  "ere vil vissen fun vie voxed der fees". Literally it means "he wants to know from where the feet grow"; figuratively it illustrates someone who is passionately curious. In my case, the curiousity revolved around the invisible, the ineffable, the unknowable, yet very real, spiritual world. In the course of my inquiries into the abstract, I naturally became intrigued with questions about ritual Jewish law, the Mitzvot. What are they? Why do some people perform Mitzvot zealously while others couldn't care less? What effects do they have on our lives? Why all the intense study of the minutiae of the Law? I became captivated with the quest for answers to these questions.
Mitzvot are the commandments handed down by God to Moses who then conveyed them through centuries of venerable scholars unitl they reached us in the form of both the written and the oral laws. Mitzvot are not good deeds or extented courtesies. "You'll do a Mitzvah if you pick up a container of milk for me when you're at the store" is a favor, not a Mitzvah.
I began the intellectual journey with the assumption that Mitzvot are exercises to help us gain spiritual awareness. "Why else would God have commanded them", I reasoned. I checked around with several rabbis I knew with the hope that they could shed some stimulating ideas. I would ask initial questions like "how many categories of Mitzvot are there?" I kept getting the same time-worn answers I heard for years. "There are two types", they would respond, "mishpatim (those that have rationally convincing reasons) and chukim (those whose purposes we don't understand). "Wait a minute", I thought to myself, "there must be more important distinctions to Mitzvot than just those two". Not being satisfied, I began to delve deeper. I soon discovered that there was some design to the 613 commandments. I began to classify them to find, that rather than just two categories, there were more. I listed them under such headings as holiness, purity, unity, repentence, and righteousness. I soon realized that this new summary of Mitzvot could teach Jews relevant spiritual lessons.
I was starting to glimpse God's plan for bestowing commandments, but it still didn't satisfy my inquiring mind. I then consulted the Kabbalists. It was in the complex theology of Rabbi Issac Luria, the mystical genius of the16th Century, that I began to see the light. Kabbalah presents a structural framework to clarify the workings of creation. According to Rabbi Luria, the Creation story we read in the first few chapters of Genesis was not the first creation, but the second. The first one shattered because it could not withstand God's incredibly powerful light. In His infinite goodness, God caused the resurrection of the fallen universe with the stipulation that it would be restored incomplete. The theory goes on to explain how God created incomplete holy entities that function as the spiritual blueprint of man. As each person spiritually restores himself through the performance of the Mitzvot, he concurrently repairs the universe and brings down blessings from above. This process  is generally known as Tikkun Olam, the repair of the universe which requires man's efforts to activate the reconstruction.

We can't make a living from performing Mitzvot, maybe that's why many of us are reluctant to do them. They're not as difficult to carry out as we're led to believe. We could think of the commandments as meditations in time. Most of them, like a blessing before meals, take just a few moments; others could go on for an entire day (Shabbat) or even a whole week (Succot). Most of us perform Mitzvot--like participating in the Seder or lighting Chanukah candles-- without even realizing it; they become more effective, however, when we're aware of what we're doing. Out of the presumably 613 acknowledged Mitzvot, most can not be done because they either depend on the the existence of the Temple or residence in Israel. This leaves just a few to do each day, mostly laws related to kashrut, blessings, and prayer.
Mitzvot are powerful spiritual tools. They develop sensitivity to everything we do. We can consider them as brief moments of communing with the Divine. Jewish spirituality is built on that connection, as stated in the biblical verse, "I have set God before me at all times" (Psalm 16:8). Through Mitzvot, we detect that every daily activity bears a spark of holiness, and through that system we influence Tikkun Olam.

Rabbis rarely discuss the mechanics of Mitzvot; it's generally assumed that we do them without question. Many people are satisfied just accepting the law, I'm not one of them. There are those, like me, who need more technical  clarification. Regardless of which camp you belong, Mitzvot are the emblem of Jewish identity; they keep the Jewish nation unified and they help make positive changes in our lives. Without them, Jews crumble both individually and collectively. Each Mitzvah is a vote to keep Judaism alive. Cast your vote today.