Mitzvah of the Week

Ah yes, mitzvot.

One of my plans for this blog -- something I have had in the back (and front) of my mind to do for quite some time -- is to take a long,  hard look at the "taryag mitzvot":  the 613 commandments that constitute the corpus of a Jew's obligation to God. 

(Having recently read some of BZ's posts on this subject over at Mah Rabu -- such as this one -- I'm aware that there are potential "framing" issues attendant to my formulation of the subject, in particular, the notion that there is some agreed-upon, bounded set of mitzvot and that their meaning, modes of implementation, etc. are unchanging and uncontested.  At least for right now, my intention is to keep these things in mind as I proceed with my own explorations.  I plan to take up BZ's framing arguments more generally in a later post.)

Why?

As a Reform Jew, my relationship to mitzvot has always been problematic. 

In the first place, RJs just don't study them.  This makes a certain amount of sense:  We have enough on our plate keeping up with the mitzvot that are perceived as relevant and worthy of observing, much less those that on their face have little or no relevance to the kinds of lives we lead.  So the emphasis on education is to "focus on the positives" -- those things RJs as a whole either do or might possibly do -- rather than "to know the laws."  I kind of blame my Jewish educators for this one.

Of course, blaming one's teachers is a pretty sorry reason for not knowing the laws (forget following them or not).  Until relatively recently, actually, within the last year, I had never even read a list of the 613.  There were some real surprises for me there...but I get ahead of myself.

The problematic aspect of the mitzvot for me has been that "mitzvas" are not "good deeds" -- they're not meant to me things that make one feel good, or things that any decent person should do.  They're ostensibly commandments or obligations -- expressions of God's will.  Kind of heavy, and no wonder RJs tend not to dwell on them.  To understand and appreciate that mitzvot are not just "principles to live by" but actually commandments from God...well, that makes them a different animal entirely.  Ah, but then one starts to see what's involved in the observance of mitzvot, and things get murky.  Some of them I think are plain wrong.  Others may not be "right" or "wrong," but their observance doesn't speak to me in any meaningful way.  Yet others make sense, but are so alien to the way I have lived my life, that I can't imagine observing them in any consistent way.  And then there are the mitzvot that, when you start to look at them closely, make no sense at all.  Well, they make sense, but when I go back to their textual bases -- where does a particular mitzvah "come from" -- they don't seem to be supported by the underlying words.

But, in the end, none of these are reasons not to know.

It's particularly troubling to me that the Reform movement's stand on mitzvot is so at odds with what seems to be the practice of RJs.  "A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism" adopted by the CCAR in Pittsburgh in 1999 reads, in part

We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of [mitzvot] and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these [mitzvot], sacred obligations, have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention as the result of the unique context of our own times.

Now to be fair, I was "born and bred" as a Reform Jew prior to 1999, but I have to wonder out loud to what extent the commitment referred to here has actually been manifested, in study and action, in the collective behavior of Reform Jews.  If it has, I've certainly seen little evidence of it.

So...

I'm going to undertake a project I've long delayed, with the understanding that I have no idea where it will lead, what I will discover, or what it all means anyway:  I'm going to examine and, where applicable, observe all of the 613 mitzvot...one by one.  I'll read up as much as I can, including reading Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot as a kind of companion guide (yes, I know he's not the first and last word on mitzvot, but I'll be reading other sources too).  I'll blog about my experiences here, warts and all.  To be sure, I'll probably end up grouping some of them together -- I can't imagine devoting weeks and weeks to the incest probibitions, for example.  And for obvious reasons I'll have to skip around here and there, particularly with the holiday-related ones.  Others may need more than one week -- Shabbat-related mitzvot are kind of big ones and should probably get more time, both in terms of studying them and observing them.  You get the idea.  Overall, by trying to stick to one a week, it will give me the opportunity to do my best to really observe it -- to focus on a single thing (or set of things) without being distracted.

I fear that I don't know enough to do this right.  I fear that if I don't do this, I never will.  I hope that I will be challenged, enlightened and wizened by doing it.  And, perhaps most of all, I hope that if anyone out there ever bothers to read any of this, that I will hear other people's thoughts, suggestions, etc.  If I could find a good RJ chevrusa to do this, I would, but most would find this a little crazy.

Wow.  It's out there now.  Let's see what happens...