Must Judaism be a Burden?

Before Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was the Chief Rabbi of Efrat and before he founded the Lincoln Square Synagogue, he was a Talmud teacher at Yeshiva University for boys with no previous Yeshiva background. He describes how one year, the star of his class was a brilliant young man from Montreal who progressed meteorically. He would learn diligently, daven with intensity, and stay in the Beis Medrash until the wee hours of the morning. And then came the religious crash. At the end of the year, this student decided to leave YU and Torah observance altogether. Rabbi Riskin called him into his office to inquire about the sudden change. The student responded, “As a non-religious Jew, I would get up each morning asking myself how I wished to spend the day; as a religious Jew, I was forced to ask how God wants me to spend the day. That pressure was simply too intense for me to take.”

While Rabbi Riskin was disappointed, anyone intellectually honest will certainly empathize with the student’s tension. We have all struggled with the demanding details of Judaism. Colloquially, we refer to 613 commandments, but we all know that there are countless rabbinic requirements and customs that are heaped on to those 613. Every moment of our day, from the second we wake up (how I wash my hands, the order in which I put on and tie my shoes, etc.) until the moment we go to sleep (reciting Kriyas Shema, my position while I sleep, etc.) is directly dictated by Halacha in intricate detail.

Why is Judaism so detailed and why are those details all so important? Allow me to offer three suggestions:

1. Imagine that you take your shirt to the dry cleaners and when you pick the shirt up, you notice a small but visible stain remaining on the shirt. You complain to the owner, and he tells you to stop bring so petty. If you look at the shirt on the whole, it’s clean! In this scenario, who is correct? Obviously you are!

In a different scenario, your friend buys a new car and you borrow it. When you return it a few hours later, your friend says there’s a little scratch on the car. You respond by saying, “What’s the big deal? The car works perfectly and the tank is filled.” Your friend responds that while you are correct that the gas tank is filled, there is still a little scratch and that’s a problem. In this scenario, who is correct? Obviously your friend is!

In both cases, even if you are concerned primarily with the big picture, you simultaneously recognize that the big picture is made up of the little details and only works if the little details are in place. The same goes for the universe as well. The universe is made up of atoms. If you visit the Grand Canyon, while you recognize its overall beauty and grandeur, you equally recognize that it is comprised of many little atoms working in perfect harmony. Same with the human body: If one tiny cell is out of place, it can cause grave consequences.

What is true of the physical world is true of spiritual matters as well. The big picture is right only if all of the details are in place. To be genuinely religious, it's not enough to consider yourself to be religious “generally,” on the whole. In its most ideal form, Judaism obliges us to be scrupulous about details . Accordingly, the Torah spends so much time guiding us regarding those details.

There is a famous story about a boy who emailed his Rabbi and asked him why the details of Halacha are so important. Months passed and the boy never received a respond. The boy eventually bumped into the Rabbi and asked why he never responded to the email. The Rabbi replied that he did. They eventually figured out that the Rabbi left out the dot from the “.com” part of the email address. The Rabbi explained that he did not think a small dot would make any difference. The boy smiled. He now understood that even though some laws may seem trivial, they may actually have a great impact.

2. In several places, Rabbi Soloveitchik writes that while the Torah wants us to be genuine, religious people with deeply spiritual lives, ultimately the experience has to be objectified into specific forms and actions.

For example, while davening is the inner experience of standing before Hashem and is a uniquely personal experience, at the same time we concretize davening and channel it into an objective form called the siddur. Davening is not amorphous, and its success is not based on what feels good to me, but by how Halacha objectifies the experience.

In Reflections of the Rav (v1 p. 143-145), Rabbi Soloveitchik is quoted as saying:

The goal is proper kavvanah and genuine devekut, but these can be religiously authentic only if they follow the properly performed mitzvah ... Why does Halakhah refuse to give primacy to the emotions, to the inner feelings?... First, the religious emotion is volatile, ever-changing, and unstable, even within one individual. To correlate the outward act to the inner emotion would require regular adjustments. The mitzvah would continually have to be modified, and, at times, nullified ... The format and identity of the mitzvah would be destroyed and no continuity of identifiable performance would be possible. Second, each person feels an experience differently. Rituals would continually have to be reformulated to correspond to the feelings of different individuals at different times. What was inspiring to one person might not affect another at all. No community service of God would be possible, since group worship presupposes a unifying constancy.

Along the same lines, in Family Redeemed, the Rav writes:

Both the subjective as well as the objective component are indispensable for the self-realization of the religious personality. Yet Halakhah lays emphasis upon actions rather than upon experiences ... [for] while actions are capable of stirring the soul, exciting the imagination and firing the heart, feelings ... no matter how strong and violent – may exhaust themselves in an inner tempest without breaking through to the surface at all. Man, Halakhah has been teaching us, must first of all respond to the call of duty and act in accordance with Divine discipline. Only then may he relive these acts of discipline as fascinating ideals and great experiences ... Judaism is first a discipline and second a romance.

When you seek to objectify, you’re necessarily going to have details, because you must tell me exactly how and when I should daven. This is the reason why Judaism has so many nuanced details.

3. Love is in the details. The Rambam emphasizes this point in his Mishneh Torah. What’s remarkable about the Mishneh Torah isn’t simply what’s written in it, but how the Rambam decided to organize and characterize topics. For example, if you had asked me to write a Sefer Ahava, a book describing the love we have for Hashem – I would easily find topics to put in it. Perhaps I would write about spirituality in the book of love or maybe even include the laws of marital relations. But none of that is what the Rambam actually puts in his book of love. Rather, he includes the laws of Bris Milah, making Berachos, and mezuzah, to name a few. How is that love? When’s the last time you looked at your mezuzah and burst forth with feelings of passionate love for Hashem?

The Rambam himself anticipates these questions and writes that the book of Ahava lists “Commandments that are done frequently.” His book of love includes seemingly mundane and routine mitzvos.

Imagine your relationship with a spouse or close friend. If the only time you express love for that person is on an anniversary or birthday, you’re in big trouble! Rather, love is manifested by the little, constant things you do to show the person that you actually love them. It’s the text in the middle of the day to check in, the note in the lunch box that says “have a great day,” and the mundane act of taking out the garbage! It is those small, consistent things, far more than any anniversary card, that determines the depth of the relationship.

The constant details of Judaism are there to allow us to express our love for Hashem. We remember Him throughout our day and in every circumstance, and by doing those small, little things for Him constantly, we showcase that love.

The many details of religious observance may, at times, seem overbearing and unnecessary. But by exploring their reasons and understanding their purpose, we can elevate our performance of mitzvos and find more meaning in our Judaism.