The Holy Pitfall

Everybody I know faces serious pitfalls in their faith.

There is the new immigrant in Israel who cannot understand why life is now harder. There is the lifetime frumster from Williamsburg who goes through the motions but gets bored of doing the same thing over and over again. There is the returnee to the faith who feels like maybe he quit the clubs a little too early.

Then there are all of us.

There are always points in our service where we feel we have no energy to keep going. You know what that makes us?

Ideal. For Pesach, we are exactly where we are supposed to be. When G-d gave us the instructions for life, He didn’t give us the specifications on how to build a stereo. Life is very complicated. The Torah has to be complicated to cover it.

On the one hand we are static beings. We wake up and we go to bed. We eat, we digest, and we excrete. We start out young and we grow old. We are born and we die. All of this is pretty standard – kind of like the Pesach Seder. The word Seder itself means order. No matter where we are in the world we participate in the same process year after year.

That’s one part of life. It’s the day to day events that are pretty predictable. King Solomon reminds us there is nothing new under the sun (Kohelet 1:9).

Except for the other part of life.

Where the body of existence can be somewhat finite, our energy, emotions, and spirit that nourishes the life force behind all of these actions are not.

We are not just people who accepted upon ourselves ancient rituals to do with the same periodic routine with which our bodies operate on. If we were, the first generation that found the monotony boring would have been the last generation of the Jewish People. We didn’t sign up for boredom. When G-d offered us a complicated set of instructions for a dynamic human existence, we answered in the most natural way, We will do and we will hear. (Exodus 24:7)

We are also believers. We have to constantly understand why we are doing what we are doing. We always have to keep our ears open for Divine reminders. As we listen, the intent behind every action, even if it is something we are doing over and over again, renews itself every time. The energy is dynamic and fluid – just like the Torah and just like us.

This is why the same mitzvot are always different. This is why we can and should fall into a rut from time to time. Our belief in what we are doing is always challenged. The energy we must invest into every mitzvah is always changing. At some point in our lives a Seder is a chance to experience childlike joy. At another point it is a chance to learn Torah and grow. Later on it becomes an opportunity to show our young children that this festival is a time for happiness and excitement. Eventually it will be our job to educate our young men and women on the details of the Passover Seder so they can learn and grow.

To keep this up over a lifetime we have to constantly ask ourselves what’s it all about? Why are we doing this anyway?

Hashem puts the pitfall in front of us so His children will acquire the ability to climb. As soon as we learn to climb a pit we have the know-how to scale a mountain.

We will question, redefine, and G-d willing renew our love for each deed. As the world around us changes while our lives and duties in this world evolve, so will our faith.

The mitzvot will become sweeter. We can, G-d willing, enjoy 120 Passover Seders in our lifetime and celebrate 120 unique types of experiences.

Along with arguing the fine details of each mitzvot, we can, and must, always keep in mind the bigger picture: Why are we holding the mitzvot anyway? Like the ritual, the question must be asked again and again.

Many of us are so mired in the responsibilities of day to day living that we don’t get the chance to reflect on the True purpose behind our deeds. This is the crisis of faith among our people. This is why on all levels of Jewish observance so many of us are hitting walls.
This may also be the great springboard coiling back, priming us to take our next quantum leap forward.

G-d loves us so much He demands that we question His ways. He encourages us to ponder His very existence for the sole purpose of discovering Him on a new level and delighting in His world to a greater degree.

The next time we feel a deep heaviness attached to the mitzvot we must realize what is happening. It is time to recharge our deeds with the passion and energy G-d put inside us to ignite them with.