Rabbi's Message

Rabbi Elyse Wechterman
Read about the Rabbi
Feb. 2003

Mitzvah/Mitzveh What's the difference?

It's time to correct a little misnomer I have heard recently around our community. Many times, when asked to translate mitzvah, people respond that it is a "good deed." True - but only partially so.

There is a Yiddish word, mitzveh (accent on the first syllable) that indicates that something is a good or nice thing to do. It's a mitzveh to offer your seat to an elderly person on a bus, allow someone with fewer items to cut in front of you at the grocery store, shovel a neighbor's driveway after a snow storm. Frequently, this Yiddish word is used in conjunction with a pinch on the cheek and the phrase "such a mitzveh, you're so good to your momma." It's good to be nice to someone and do nice things and that, indeed, is a mitzveh! A mitzvah is something that you do because it has to be done.

But, that mitzveh is an entirely different word than the Hebrew mitzvah (accent on the last syllable). Mitzvah is from the Biblical Hebrew root Tzadi-Vav-Heh, tzaveh - meaning "to command". A mitzvah then is something that one is commanded to do - usually, in Jewish thought, by God. Mitzvah is a commandment, law, requirement, obligation. We have many obligations and mitzvot (plural) in Judaism - holiday and Shabbat observance, regulations about food, laws pertaining to how people act toward one another. All of these, both positive (You shall....) and negative (You shall not...) are mitzvot.

Of course, Jewish tradition teaches that God commands us to do all sorts of nice things: care for the widow and the orphan, welcome the stranger, visit the sick, comfort the bereaved. Certainly these things fall into the realm of "good deeds." But they are also much more than that.

Part of being Jewish, part of being of the people that understands itself to be in covenant with and commanded by God, is to understand that doing good deeds is not enough. Our actions in this world are crucially important both to those on whose behalf we act and for God's sake. We are commanded to do things because as God's partners in creation, our acts transform and repair this world.

Good deeds are nice and important to do - and we often feel good doing them. But most often, we do them when we have time or inclination, when they are convenient or easy.

A mitzvah is something that you do because it has to be done. You feed the hungry not because it makes you feel good and you want to help on a particular day, but because if you don't, someone will go without dinner. You attend a shiva minyan not because you care intimately about the person in grief and want to be with him or her, but because if you don't, that person won't have a community in which to mourn. You take time on Shabbat to be with your family not only because you enjoy it, but because your family - and the world at large - need rest in order to survive. You donate money to various causes not for tax benefits or to make yourself feel good, but because it is something that you can do - and having that ability, you must.

Doing what has to be done - whether it feels good or not, whether it is convenient or not, whether you know exactly how to or not - that is a true Mitzvah!

To be part of the Jewish people is to accept upon oneself that, although not always easy or fun, there are things we must do. Forsaking that obligation is not an option.

B'Shalom
Rabbi Elyse

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