What's in a mitzvah?

The Kitah Chet year is a big one! For it is the year that many of you will become b'nei mitzvoth; Which, as you might have noticed, is a pretty big deal and a major reason to celebrate :- ) .

So I'd like to think about this concept of being b'nei mitzvoth with you all, and really dig deep into the sources to see what it means and why it's quite important.

We won't answer the question definitively today (we'll come back to it periodically). But to start things off, before digging deep into any sources, I'd love to first hear from you; According to your own background knowledge and current understanding:

• What do the words mean? (That is, how do they translate?)

• What does it mean to be a bar or bat mitzvah? (Pretend your explaining it to a friend who is not part of the Jewish faith.)

• What is a mitzvah? How do you do it? What's the last one you remember doing?

Okay, let's start diving in!

In my own readings, I've found that whenever I really want to start understanding a word or concept deeply, one of the first things I do is find the first place where it is used in the TaNaKh.

Here is what I came up with:

First off - what questions do you have about the passage above? Is there any background knowledge that you think you are lacking which would help you understand it? (How much do you know about Abraham and Isaac? Enough that you understand what's being said here?)

This passage clearly refers to an important exchange that happened at some point in the past between the Almighty and Abraham. As it turns out, there were several different moments in Abraham's life where he was praised for heeding the word of the Almighty and was blessed as a result.

To understand their relationship a little better (the Almighty and Abraham), I want to look at just two exchanges of theirs.

Here is the very first moment where we, as readers, actually see them interacting with each other:

What a passage! Can you imagine? Seemingly out of NOWHERE, you are commanded by an unimaginable Power to drop absolutely everything, pack up and head on out to the unknown.

Okay, with this in mind, let's now turn to the other passage of interaction (we will come back to this):

Questions

• Do you recognize anything from the above passage? (Hint: Take out your Lev Shalem and turn to the first blessing of the Amidah prayer, which you might have just prayed a few minutes ago ;- ) ! )

• What is this exchange about?

• What is making Abram so worried?

• How does the Almighty reassure him?

• Is there anything that is missing? (Any gaps in the story?)

• What do you think we can learn about the relationship between the Almighty and Abraham here?

Now working backwards, let's return to the exchange that the Almighty had with Abraham's son Isaac, in which case the term mitzvah was used. Here is that sentence again:

Final Questions:

• Now that we've seen some background, what might be meant by saying "Since Abraham as kept my commandments?" What commandments did he keep? What did he do that was so good?

• Why is Abraham praised for (1) obedience, (2) keeping the charge, (3) following commandments, (4) following laws, AND (5) listening to teachings. Are these not just many different ways of saying the same thing???

• This is the first place where we see the word mitzvah in the whole TaNaKh! (Though it does appear in a verb form even earlier, in a fascinating context that we will look at later on.) If we were to stop here, what can we learn from this about what it means to be a bar or a bat mitzvah?

• We will speak much more about this topic moving forward, even if not necessarily next week. In the meantime, think about how, and if at all, any of this changes your own understanding of what it means for you to be a bar or bat mitzvah. What questions do you have? Do you have any questions about this that you didn't have before we began?