Rabbi Michael Siegel
November 17, 2007

As many of you know our congregation is in the midst of the Mitzvah Initiative.  This is an effort of the new Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Arnie Eisen, to encourage a dialogue within the Conservative Movement as to the meaning of Mitzvah for our age.  Through the study of diverse texts on different aspects on this central Jewish concept, it is our hope that numbers of Conservative Jews will see a greater nuance and a deeper religious relevance and urgency in the term “Mitzvah”.  The Anshe Emet Synagogue is one of eight synagogues throughout the United States piloting the Mitzvah Initiative.  Each month there is a different theme offered and an opportunity to study and discuss it in small groups as well as to hear a sermon on the subject. This month’s theme is “Love of God as it applies to Mitzvot”. 

The Question is where to start?

The other night the film Fiddler on the Roof was on television. I have to admit that I am sucker for this Academy Award winning movie and have never tired of watching Topel make the troubles of Tevyeh the Milkman come to life.  My favorite scene in the entire film is the one with Tevyeh and Golda sitting together and he suddenly calls out:     “Do you love me??!!” Golda immediately thinks that Tevyeh is not well, and instructs him to go and lie down. When she realizes that he is serious she responds: “For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes. Cooked your meals, cleaned your house.  Given you children, milked the cow.  After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?” As touching as this is, she has still not answered his question! Again, Tevyeh asks: “Do you love me?” Golda responds differently this time:  “Do I love him?For twenty-five years,  I've lived with him, fought him, starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is??”  Tevyeh, overjoyed shouts: “then you love me and I suppose I love you too!”  Not exactly the stuff of Harlequin Romance Novels!

The words between Tevyeh and Golda read more like a list of responsibilities acted upon for the other then a soliloquy on love.  And, I believe that not only is it a peculiarly Jewish understanding of love, but it also has something to say about a Jewish perspective of the love that exists between God and Israel, and it all begins in our Torah reading for this morning.

Our portion opens this morning with Jacob fleeing from the murderous designs of his brother.  With the birthright and the birth blessing, Jacob now finds himself alone in the desert. The Torah does not record his thoughts at this time but it stands to reason that Jacob must have been wondering if he had done the wrong thing. The plan that he and his mother had concocted may have simply gone terribly wrong. What were the birth blessing and the birthright to him if his fate was to wander alone in the desert?  Perhaps this was all a punishment for lying to his father on his death bed, and the covenant of Abraham would not reside with him and descendents?  As if to emphasize Jacob’s plight, the Torah records that he went to sleep that night with a stone for a pillow.  Vayahalom: and he dreamed and behold; a ladder set up on the ground and its top reached to heaven; and behold, angels of God were ascending and descending upon it. 13. And behold, the Lord was standing over him, and He said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land upon which you are lying to you I will give it and to your seed. 14. And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall gain strength westward and eastward and northward and southward; and through you shall be blessed all the families of the earth and through your seed. 15. And behold, I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will restore you to this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done what I have spoken concerning you."

At this moment when Jacob is bereft of everything that he ever knew.  On this night when Jacob may have gone to sleep doubting everything, God comes to him and offers the ultimate reassurance: I am with you and will guard you wherever you go. 

The Torah records Jacob’s reaction to this dream:  And Jacob awakened from his sleep, and he said, "Indeed, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know [it]."

Friends, a relationship begins in the encounter with the other person.  In this moment of meeting, we discover that something has changed and we are no longer alone in the moment. This applies in our personal lives, but it also has a place our religious lives.  As Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us, of the great messages of the Torah is that “God is in Search of Man”. In other words, God desires to be in relationship with us.  The wonder of the encounter with God was put beautifully by Jacob: "Indeed, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know [it]."

But is this love?

Certainly, the fact that God has made a series of promises to Jacob is no small matter.  But Jacob also knows that he will not live long enough to see if his seed will in fact become like the “dust of the earth”. 

Jacob responds to God as one who wants to believe in God’s promises, but needs some assurance in his lifetime

And Jacob uttered a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and He will guard me on this way, upon which I am going, and He will give me bread to eat and a garment to wear; 21. And if I return in peace to my father's house, and the Lord will be my God; 22. Then this stone, which I have placed as a monument, shall be a house of God, and everything that You give me, I will surely tithe to You.

This then is the basis for the relationship between God and Jacob, and ultimately the Jewish people.  It can be summed up this way: we will worship You and fulfill Your Torah, but You God, will also have to be true to the Covenant as well.  Like Jacob, You, God, will have to be with his descendents as well.

We will watch as Joseph will lead Jacob and his sons into Egypt.  We will watch as the Jewish people are enslaved and will observe a God who remembered the Covenant.
We will watch as the will of Pharaoh is broken by the plagues and a people is liberated as the waters part.  We will watch a people stand at Sinai, accept the Torah and enter into a national covenant with the words: Na’aseh V’Nishma: We will do and we will listen.
We will watch as a people wanders in the desert, sustained by Manna, and a God who does not abandon them even as they rebel.

The Torah is a record of God’s fulfillment of the promise made to Jacob on the miserable lonely night.

God is true to God’s promises.  God is true to God’s covenant.  God’s love of the Jewish people is manifested in history.  So as the Jewish people stand on the precipice of the land promised to the Patriarchs the Torah for the first time speaks of the love of God. 

V’ahavta et Adonia Elohecha: You will love the Lord Your God.

Now that God has fulfilled the Divine promises, it is as if God turns to Israel as Tevyeh did to Golda and says, “Do you love me?” Israel could well have replied, “For 400 years we followed you, been enslaved for you. For 40 years we wandered the desert following you. If that’s not love what is?”

Love as it appears in the Torah between God and Israel is not freely given.  It must be earned.  Sadly this is a point that is lost by other religions.  We regularly hear from some that they worship a God whose love is freely given.  The fact that the love between God and Israel is measured in a covenant and manifested over time does not mean that God of the Jewish people is not loving toward us. On the contrary, the love that we speak about is a mature love that develops over time, a love that calls upon both parties to accept their responsibilities to the relationship.

From this perspective, the Mitzvot are understood as expressions of a relationship based upon love.  So often people portray the laws of the Torah as a burden that the Jewish people are forced to bear and this is a narrow and somewhat uninformed approach.  The reality is that in any meaningful relationship, there are responsibilities that need to be fulfilled. We do these things out of a sense of commitment and caring.  When a parent stays up all night with their sick child it is an expression of love.  So too, when a child cares of an elderly parent the same can be said. Yes, one can speak of honoring responsibilities or honoring one’s parents, but that does not capture what is truly happening here.  These are the actions of love.   This then is the love that the Torah makes clear for Jacob and his descendents.

The challenge of many in the American Jewish community is to go beyond the notion of commandment as a response to fear, but Mitzvah as a response to love of God, a desire to be in relationship with God through our actions, and as an expression of gratitude.  The fact that these ideas are foreign to so many Jews is the reason behind the Mitzvah Initiative. We need to have the same type of dialogue as Jacob with ourselves and our texts.  May all of us be able to be able to reflect on the journey’s of our own lives and say as our ancestors did so long ago: V’ahavta et Adonai Elohecha: Love the Lord Your God in words and expressions of actions.

Amen