Why is abbreviation such a long word? Or, for that matter, shouldn’t there be a shorter way to say monosyllabic?

It’s remarkable how the human mind works. We hear a word, and we immediately know what it means. Or do we?

Take the word mitzvah. We know logically that it means commandment, but nonetheless our mind tells us, good deed—e.g. Help your grandmother clean up her yard; it’s a mitzvah!

As much as we know that mitzvah means God is commanding us, we tend to avoid thinking about that reality, probably because it makes us uncomfortable. For one thing, it’s embarrassing to admit we don’t heed God’s word. For another, we live in a time when, with few exceptions, nobody tells us what to do. Our lives are like the old Burger King jingle—Have it your way!

Bill Clinton once had a meeting with the Pope. Afterward, President Clinton was proud to say that he and the Pope agreed on 80% of what they talked about. The trouble is, they were discussing the Ten Commandments.

Newly appointed JTS Chancellor, Arnie Eisen, has asked the Conservative Rabbis to share a message on these High Holy Days—to put the concept of Mitzvah/Commandment on all our spiritual radar screens.

As I said before, living in an age, and especially in a country, where we daily exercise personal autonomy, it is challenging to accept upon ourselves the authoritative word of another, let alone the word of God, whose presence is not always apparent to us.

When we speak of the mitzvot there is an ongoing tension that is as old as Judaism itself. For though we can agree that the mitzvot were given to us, via Moses and our ancestors, at Mount Sinai, there is, from the beginning, a dispute as to the nature of this gift. Two well known midrashim will explain further:

God first offered the Torah to the nations of the world. The descendents of Esau rejected the Torah because they were unwilling to accept the prohibition against murder. The descendents of Amon and Moab were unwilling to accept a Torah which prohibited adultery. For the Ishmaelites, the problem was theft. After being rejected at least three times, God then came to the Nation of Israel, who, without hesitation, replied, na’aseh v’nishma, “We will do and we will understand.”

Then there is the following. Based on the words in the Torah that the Israelites stood tachtit hahar, “under the mountain,” it is explained that God lifted the mountain over their heads, and asked, “Do you want the Torah or not?” Fearing for their lives, Israel managed to mutter, na’aseh v’nishma, “We will do and we will understand.”

So from the beginning, we have wondered—is the Torah, are the Mitzvot, what we desire, or are they forced upon us?

Here is a good solution. Early 20^th century philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, in his famous book, The Star of Redemption, addresses the challenge of heeding God’s commandments. Rosenzweig explains that it all boils down to one single commandment. If we get this one, we get them all.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. If we love God, we will observe the mitzvot. If not, it will never work.

Our first reaction, Rosenzweig’s too, is that love cannot be commanded. You love or you don’t love—end of story. Not so fast. Listen to the words of Rabbi Lawrence Kushner:

This is one of my favorite stories, and it’s true. When my wife, Karen, was six or seven months pregnant with our second child, we lived in a little shoebox of an apartment in Marlboro, Mass. It was a cold, wintry night, and we had gone to bed around 11 p.m. A little past midnight, she woke me up, apologetically, telling me that she couldn’t sleep. She said she would love a chocolate bar with almonds. I realized that this was the strange craving of a pregnant woman and was eager to help. She’d been schlepping this baby around in her belly, and I was getting off easy, so I figured it was the least I could do. Before she completed enunciating her request, I said, "Don’t worry about a thing, honey." I put my Levi’s on over my pajamas, threw on a sweatshirt, snow galoshes, and my down parka, hood, gloves and muffler. I ran down the few flights of steps to the car and to my chagrin, saw there were about three inches of wet sloppy snow all over the car. I cleaned it off, started the car, and then had this horrifying realization—I had no idea where I was going to find a store open in the middle of the night. I drove up Route 20 and remembered the Holiday Inn out on Route 495 had a candy machine. I can still picture the night clerk watching this car skid to a stop in a snowstorm, a man runs in, waves, pumps quarters into the candy machine, grabs a handful of candy bars, runs back to the car, and drives off into the blizzard. I got home and gave my wife the candy bars.

For about an hour on a wintry night, I, Lawrence Kushner, who normally has a very well-developed ego, did not have an ego. Instead, I was a servant of Karen Kushner’s ego. I did not stay in a warm bed. I drove around looking for candy bars. Here’s the crazy part. Doing what my lover wanted made me happier than doing what I wanted. It was more fulfilling. It was transforming. By letting go of myself and serving someone whom I loved, I reached a state of humility and an otherwise unattainable fulfillment.

The things we do for love. It’s absolutely true. When a baby cries, the parents respond. When your mother says, “I expect you home for dinner,” you show up on time. Why do we behave in this way? It is love, for sure. If we love, then we know what it means to hear God’s voice, God’s commandments, God’s mitzvot. Does the parent get out of bed to comfort a child out of obligation or desire? Yes and yes!

A man telephones his mother in Florida. “Hi Mom, it’s me, Sheldon.” “Oh, Sheldon, thanks for calling. I’m looking forward to your visit next month. Tell me, how is your family? How is your wife, and the children?”

“They’re doing great, Mom. The kids are doing well in school. Doris enjoys her job.”

“Doris? Who’s Doris, Sheldon? You’re wife’s name is Isabel.”

“Is this 954-555-0011?”

“No, this is 954-555-0012.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am, I called the wrong number. I’m not your son.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. But tell me—are you still coming to visit next month?”

In wisdom, the Talmud teaches us that the most meaningful acts we do in this world are those which are commanded, those which are obligatory, not voluntary. Don’t get me wrong, acts of volunteerism are wonderful, but our obligations come first.

Imagine one who volunteers regularly at Yad Ezra and Meals on Wheels, but neglects to feed his/her own family.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin colorfully illustrates the principle of obligation through food. Rabbi Telushkin will ask an audience, “How many people believe that eating better and exercise are good for you?” All hands go in the air. “How many of you have ever violated your diet or exercise routine?” Almost every hand goes up. On the other hand, those of us who keep kosher, not because of health, but because of commandment, will go years, an entire lifetime, without ever “cheating.” Rabbi Telushkin declares: If the U.S. government required all chocolate to contain pig fat, I would lose 20 pounds.

Acting out of duty, leads to acting out of love and desire. Almost everyone here is fasting for the next 24 hours, not because you want to, but because you recognize that it is your obligation to do so. Deep down, your commitment to fasting on Yom Kippur is as strong as any other commitment in your life.

Why should we love God? Because God loves us too. In the siddur, or the machzor, before we say the Shema, and remind ourselves of that central obligation—Love the Lord your God—we are told Ahavah Rabbah ahav’tanu—God loves us a lot. And what is the sign of that love—the Torah and the Mitzvot. God cares how we live, how we spend our time.

Newsflash for parents and grandparents—love isn’t about giving money and material items. Love is teaching how to live, teaching self discipline, learning how to get along with other people, learning to do without, etc. We don’t need our children to like us a lot right now; we need our children to cherish us, and all we did for them, decades from now.

Despite the lyrics of that beautiful song, love is not Feelings, nothing more than feelings. Again, I turn to the wisdom of Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. In his work, The Book of Words, Rabbi Kushner creatively translates Mitzvah, not as “commandment” but as “response.”

Rabbi Kushner elaborates:

Holiness demands a response, an answer. We cannot simply say, “That’s nice. Now on to something else.” (Indeed if we can, it was not holiness we knew.) An encounter with the Sacred Unity of All Creation places a demand on our behavior. . . . We are driven to make more sustained changes in our actions and to persuade others to join us. We have “heard” something; something has been “laid upon us.” We feel personally obligated, commanded. To ignore this summons would violate the wonder of the moment and the covenant it whispers.

This commandment is not a burden. To our surprise, our “response to the Holy” is neither constricting nor limiting. Rather, we are liberated from the vagaries of trend and fashion and reminded that we were created for a purpose. And precisely that, and nothing else, is the meaning we seek, the meaning of life. (Kushner, Book of Words)

So I’m back to where I began on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Judaism is 3 B’s. Belonging to the Jewish people, always everyday. Believing in God, always everyday. And Behaving—living a Jewish life because it is action which ultimately connects us to God and the Jewish people.

Ahad Ha’am, the author and Zionist, wrote so famously, More than Israel has kept the Shabbat , the Shabbat has kept Israel. It is our active participation in mitzvoth, everyday which will ultimately define who we are as a people, and if we will truly continue to exist.

For belonging and believing, I showed you a single blessing in the early morning birkhot hashachar, which expresses that very idea. Here too. It is the berakhah—she’asani ben chorin—God has made me a free person. Only because I have freedom can I truly choose to behave like a Jew, to respond to God’s love, God’s holiness, God’s commandments, by focusing my behavior around the mitzvot.

Ask a mother why she responds to her crying infant, and she will give you a puzzled look. Ask her if it’s easy to be a responsible parent, and she will honestly tell you it is not. But ask her if she would trade her role for more leisure time and less responsibility and the puzzled look returns.

Similarly, there is no doubt in my mind, and I hope it will be true in yours as well, that when the sun sets on Friday, 25 hours of holiness has already begun; when I sit down to eat, when I interact with people, when I take each breath, I do so as one commanded and one who responds to that command.

How can I ignore God’s love for me? How can I fail to show love in return?

The prophet Amos said centuries ago, “When a lion roars, who is not afraid? When God speaks, who cannot respond to His word?” You are endowed with the freedom to become a mitzvah observing Jew. It is a choice I guarantee you will not regret.