Power of One 01/10/2010
 
Sometimes things look so easy. Until you try them. Like the time I thought I'd cut my sister's hair. I mean, it's just so easy. You take the scissors, you pick up the hair, and snip, snip. Right? Wrong. I bought her a bunch of pretty clips afterwards to console her till it grew back.

Well, I recently came across this extraordinary teaching of the Chofetz Chaim, a tw-century Jewish sage, adapted from his sefer (work) entitled Shemiras Halashon (Guarding One's Speech) for Chofetz Chaim A Lesson A Day by ArtScroll:

The Torah is called a "tree of life for those who grasp it" (Proverbs 3:18). The way to grab onto a tree is to take hold of one of its branches; in so doing, one has attached himself to the entire tree of which this branch is a part. So it is, explains Sefer Chareidim (ch. 61), with Torah. The way to attach oneself to the 613 mitzvos (commandments) is by fulfilling one particular mitzvah with exacting precision and total dedication. Dedication and attachment to a single commandment will cause one's soul to become united with G-d and His Torah and will lead to the proper fulfillment of other mitzvos as well. Thus do we find, "Rav Nachman said: 'I will be rewarded [in the World to Come] for having [zealously] fulfilled [the mitzvah] to eat three meals on Shabbos.' Rav Sheishes said: 'I will be rewarded for having [zealously] fulfilled the mitzvah of tefillin.'" 

So after reading this inspiring passage, I was eager to play a round of "Adopt a Mitzvah". Hmmmm, I thought to myself, What mitzvah will be my magical mitzvah branch that can connect me to all of the other 613? Sounds simple, right? Well, every mitzvah I explored suddenly seemed to reveal itself in all its glory and potential difficulties. At the end of the day, there didn't seem to be a single mitzvah that would be easy and simple enough for me to take on as my special mitzvah. But there's got to be something. And it doesn't mean it has to be perfect from the outset. Progress is a good thing in this religion. So with that comforting thought in mind, I'm still thinking. What would YOUR personal mitzvah be?
 


Comments

Rose
01/13/2010 05:21

I have thought a lot about this after seeing Lori Palatnik on aish.com discussing this idea. She mentions the mitzva of hadlakas nairos for married women.

I am not sure how that would branch out to the other mitzvos, but I think it is an easy and very meaningful mitzva for women who light candles each week to connect to. Hadlakas nairos has different components to it: there is the aspect of being ready and dressed by then and having everything ready to welcome Shabbos, there is the atmosphere after a rushed day, there is the tefillos, there is the lighting on time, there is the setting up the candles in nice candlesticks... Different ways to do the mitzva properly and enhance it and make it yours.

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bikores.blogspot.com
02/09/2010 10:00

In what mitzvah was your father most punctilious? - In the original (Tractate Shabbos 118b), Avuch bameh havah zahir tfei?

Playing on the double meaning of the word "zahir", which can be translated as "shining" or "careful," the Baal Shem Tov explains the Gemara to mean, through which mitzva did the light of your father's soul shine forth. Though a person fulfills all the mitzvos, there is one mitzva which is more personally tied to him, which reveals more openly the light of his soul.

There is a story of a man who did every sin but (strangely enough) was zealous about the mitzva of netilas yodayim - washing hands. To make the long story short, he was traveling and starving but would not eat his food without washing his hands even though he knew that if he stopped to find water he would be found by bandits in the area. Indeed, he was found and killed and despite his wickedness, his mesirus nefesh for netilas yodayim saved him Up There.

So although there are mitzvos especially pertinent to women which should be done with care and joy, when we ask which is your special mitzva it can be something more "obscure" like netilas yodayim or eating 3 meals on Shabbos like R' Nachman. The way I understand it is not that you look at a list of mitzvos and think which one seems easy enough to commit to, but that this is a "soul thing," i.e. that you are spiritually driven to devote yourself to a particular mitzva.

And alas, I can't say I feel drawn magnetically towards a particular mitzva.

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Shaindy
05/12/2010 06:09

Really nice thought. The story above IS amazing and just to give it some authenticy, it was told by R'Aharon of Belz zt''l.

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