A Door-able
Having conversations with kids is such a great insight into the way their young brains work (or, as is more often the case, don’t work!).
The other day I was driving my young son Chaim to school when he said to me, “I wish we had a Tesla.” The first thing I asked him was how he even knew what a Tesla is, to which he responded that there is a boy in school whose father has one and he occasionally brings it to school when dropping off or picking up his son.
My next question for Chaim was why exactly he wanted a Tesla? I couldn’t imagine he was familiar with the fact that it was an electric car so I certainly didn’t expect him to wax eloquently on the topic of carbon footprints or American independence from the oil of Arabic nations. I figured maybe he knew that the Tesla has a self-driving feature and that was what excited him. In truth, I barely know about Teslas myself so I was intrigued as to the root of his obvious enthusiasm about the car.
Instead, Chaim told me that the reason he wanted a Tesla is that the doors open upwards instead of outwards. “And why is that good?” I asked Chaim. “Because, then if you are in a tight space and the door can’t open the regular way because there is a car parked next to it, the door can open upwards and you can get out.”
There you have it. I couldn’t argue on that logic. Considering, however, that the cheapest Tesla is about $45,000 and the high-end ones are upwards of $100k, I thought the reason Chaim gave me juuuussst might not justify the cost. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I think it is a cool feature to have a car whose doors open up but I don’t think I am prepared to spend a whole lot of extra shekels for that feature.
As usual, when I reflect upon comical things that children say I find them to be a peek into some of the silly things we adults do. When we hear a child say he wants to buy a very expensive car for the relatively minor convenience of having doors that open upwards, we laugh because we know (at least I hope we do) that such a “reward” does not justify the cost for most people. It would be like wanting to buy a Ferrari because it has a good CD player. It may have a good CD player but that isn’t what makes it special and expensive.
In our own lives, we adults also fall prey to such shortsightedness. How many people get into marriages for the wrong reasons? They are blinded by certain qualities, which while nice to find, are not the priorities in what makes a good spouse. Your office may have a fancy Keurig coffee machine - but that is not the reason to choose to work there. You can have your children run some errands for you – but that is not a reason to have kids.
This happens all too often in the spiritual realm as well. Studying Torah is an enjoyable intellectual pursuit - but that is not what gives it its value or the reason to engage in it. With regards to mitzvah observance as well, people choose to do or not do certain mitzvot because of their faulty perceptions regarding them. Take for example the person who told me he does not observe the laws of keeping kosher because those laws were made a long time ago when they conferred health benefits upon the people who adhered to them, but nowadays when those health benefits are absent he doesn’t need to keep them.
While it is true that there have been (and in fact still are) certain health benefits to keeping kosher, by no means do those benefits define the value of the mitzvah. The infinite value behind keeping kosher, as it is the case with every single mitzvah in the Torah, is the fact that it is the Divine word of the Creator of the world who commanded us to keep His laws and told us that doing so is the best possible thing for us. The same applies to all of the 613 mitzvot.
In this week’s Torah portion we read about the Jews receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. In fact, the Talmud tells us that G-d offered the Torah to the other nations of the world as well. In each instance, they asked G-d “What is written in it?” To each nation, G-d mentioned a particular mitzvah and each time they said: “No thanks, if this is what is written in the Torah then it is not for us.” In other words, the other nations recognized there are many qualities and values inherent in the Torah but because there were certain mitzvot which they felt were incompatible with their personal lifestyles they declined the Torah. It was a classic example of misjudging the true value of something exceedingly valuable.
The Jewish people, on the other hand, were offered the Torah and we replied: “We will do and we will hear!” It mattered not what was contained in the Torah, we were committed to accepting its yoke no matter what – sight unseen. That is because we realized that if G-d is offering it to us it HAS to be to our ultimate benefit.
The key to getting the most of our lives, be it in the physical realm or the spiritual one, is to appreciate and understand the exact value and blessing in everything in our lives. Recognizing the great qualities in our spouses, children, and friends will allow us to maximize and actualize the greatest potentials in those relationships. And recognizing the tremendous value and eternal reward latent in the Torah and its commandments will spur us on to strengthen our commitment to its observance.
In the meantime, if you need a ride somewhere, I have a neat 2013 Ford Taurus you can use. Just don’t park it to close to any cars: these doors open outward.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Koval
