Does it Matter That You’re Performing Mitzvot if You Haven’t Converted Yet?

By Susan Esther Barnes

This post was inspired by Skylar Curtis’s Why We’re Probably Crazy After All posted on her blog You’re Not Crazy, and the comments that follow it.

To be clear, I’d like to say that I have never met Skylar, which I am sure is my loss. I have been following her blog for the past year or so, and from what I have seen there, Skylar appears to be an intelligent person who is sincerely and diligently seeking an Orthodox conversion despite the many obstacles she has encountered.

In no way should this post be taken as an opinion about Skylar. This isn’t about her. It’s about a way of thinking that I find disturbing. I don’t know Skylar, I don’t speak for Skylar, and I am not qualified to render an opinion regarding to what extent she may or may not think along the lines I am about to describe. For all I know, she may, in fact, completely disagree with the following line of thought.

---------------------------

The post referenced above starts, “Pre-conversion, it is very frustrating to feel that your actions (your mitzvot) don’t matter. After all, you’re not Jewish. You’re not required to do anything.”

Subsequently, it goes on to list various mitzvot and other actions, such as, “That it will matter that you spent thousands of dollars and who knows how many hours on seforim,” “That it will matter that you defended Jews and Israel,” “That your Jewish knowledge will finally be more than useful Jeopardy answers,” and “That it will matter that you have suffered anti-Semitism.”

What disturbes me about this post is it implies that performing mitzvot doesn’t matter if one is not Jewish, as if the mitzvot have no intrinsic value of their own.

Yes, the mitzvot are commandments that only Jews are required to do. However, if they don’t matter in any way except that they are things Jews are commanded to do, if they have no intrinsic value in and of themselves, then what that means is that God just commanded us to do a bunch of random stuff for no reason other than to allow us to follow God’s commands (and, perhaps, to reap from God some sort of reward for doing them, much like a dog gets a treat for rolling over at its master’s command).

I don’t believe God wants us to do mitzvot just to prove we’re willing to follow meaningless, random commandments. I don’t think God treats us like dogs doing tricks. I believe God gave us the commandments because God knows that when we perform the commandments, especially when we do them in a thoughtful and meaningful way, we improve our lives and the lives of those around us. I believe God gave us the commandments in order to help us to be a “light unto the nations,” so we could, through our example, suggest to the world that there may be value in doing certain things and behaving in certain ways.

For instance, when I spend money and time on seforim (books in general, or, more specifically, books about Jewish thought and scripture), it matters because I gain knowledge and understanding. When I follow the laws of kashrut, it matters because I learn about the ingredients of the foods I am eating, and I pay more attention to what I am putting into my body. When I follow the mitzvot regarding lashon hara (for instance, spreading rumors or unkind stories of others), I improve my relationships with other people.

Whether or not one is Jewish, it appears self-evident to me why it would matter that a person would defend Jews and Israel, or why it would matter that one has experienced anti-semitism, or any other kind of bigotry or discrimination.

If one can perform a host of mitzvot and not feel that any of them matter, that they have no value and have provided no benefit to themselves or anyone else, then I fail to see why that person would want to convert to Judaism. Why take on the burden of commandments that don’t matter except insofar as they allow you to do random, otherwise meaningless things that Jews are commanded to do?

This view of the commandments is expressed explicitly by commenter Mikeage, who wrote, “The purpose of mitzvos is to do them _because_ they are commanded; hence the term ‘commandment’. Period.”

I believe that to take this view is to greatly underestimate the transformative power of the mitzvot. It devalues both the mitzvot themselves and Judaism in general. We may do mitzvot because we are commanded to do them, whether or not we understand their benefit, but that does not mean they have no benefit beyond some unknown reward we may get from God later on. God forbid.

The 613 Commandments - Do We Follow Them?

By Susan Esther Barnes

I was reading the blog FinkorSwim when I came across a comment by MarkSoFla who said, “The fact is that the Reform exist. Not only do they exist, but they have numbers (for now, at least). So they have to be ‘dealt with’ somehow, certainly on some level. They've discarded most of Torah, so we can't relate on that level anymore.”

When I objected to his assertion that Reform Jews have discarded most of Torah, MarkSoFla agreed that had been an exaggeration, but then went on to quote from some of the “Declaration of Principles” from the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, which he says rejected all but the moral laws. Let us set aside for the moment that he ignores all later Platforms, including the 1999 Platform which states, “We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of mitzvot and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community.” (Emphasis added by me).

What intrigued me the most was his claim that, “The bigger discarding of Torah was in the first statement (#3) that I quoted from the principles - rejected all but moral laws. That almost discards all of Torah in itself since there exists a moral code outside of Torah that covers nearly everything that the Torah's moral code covers.”

This all got me thinking about the 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah. How many of them do Reform Jews keep these days? I pulled up the list from Judaism 101 to take a look.

First of all, on my To Kiss a Mezuzah Facebook page an excellent question arose: What do I mean by “keeping” the mitzvot? Does it mean we follow them all the time without fail? As a person named Michael pointed out, “When it comes to ethical mitzvot we’re a bit wobbly sometimes.” I responded, “By ‘keep’ I mean we try to follow them, or at least we acknowledge we ought to follow them, even though at times we don’t quite hit the mark we’re aiming for.”

The second thing that came up for me is the obvious fact that I don’t speak for all Reform Jews, and not all Reform Jews are alike in our observance. So instead of looking at how many of the 613 commandments “we” keep, I realized it makes much more sense to look at the ones that I keep. After all, I don’t think my observance is wildly different than that of other serious Reform Jews.

Even though there are 613 commandments in the Torah, nobody observes them all. This is one of the reasons why I find it a bit offputting when Orthodox Jews claim non-Orthodox conversions are invalid, because the people converting in the non-Orthodox realm are not agreeing to follow all the 613 commandments. Hello! If Orthodox converts are saying they will fill all 613 commandments they’re either ignorant or dishonest.

There are 102 commandments on the list that have to do with sacrifices and offerings. Since there is no Temple at which to make sacrifices and offerings, none of these commandments apply to us. We also can’t follow the 24 laws about t’rumah, tithes and taxes because there is no Temple. Nobody follows these commandments these days.

There is no King of Israel so we don’t follow the 7 laws about that, nor do I need to worry about the 10 laws about the Nazarites, since I’m not a Nazarite. I am not a Kohen (Cohen or of the Priestly line) or a Levite, so I don’t have to worry about the 30 laws pertaining to them. Of course, there are Reform Jews who are of the line of the Levites (my father, for example), or the line of the Kohen. However, most of these laws have to do with the Temple as well, so we’re all off the hook.

There are 16 laws about ritual purity and impurity. These are more like statements than laws. They say things like “Foods become defiled by contact with unclean things.” I can believe in the purity or impurity of things or not, but there isn’t much for me to actually do about it. Immersion in a mikvah would remove the impurity, but nothing in the list here says I have to go to the mikvah.

There are 4 laws about leprosy. I’m not a leper. I don’t know whether I would shave off all my hair if I had leprosy. I’ll cross that bridge if I ever come to it.

So if we add up all of the above, we come to 337 commandments we don’t follow, or almost 55% of the 613. Surprise! MarkSoFla was right – Reform Jews have discarded over half of the Torah laws! Of course, so have Conservative and Orthodox Jews, and every other denomination, since everything I said above applies to all of us. (Except for maybe the leprous hair shaving part).

But let’s go back to MarkSoFla’s assertion that if we only followed the moral laws (which is a false assertion, but let’s say if we did), does that mean we have discarded most of Torah? I agree that many people who are not Jewish follow many of the laws in the Torah. Most people don’t murder other people, for instance.

There are other moral things I do that are commanded in the Torah, which appear to be things I would do even though they were not commanded. For instance, last night while I was driving home from work, I had to swerve to avoid a ladder that was lying in my lane on the freeway. It was an inconvenience to pause the podcast I was listening to so I could call 911 and report the hazard to the authorities, but I did it anyway.

Did I do it because the Torah commands us not to put a stumbling block before the blind? Did I do it because the Torah commands us not to stand idly by while a human life is in danger? No, I did it because it was the right thing to do. I did it because if I didn’t call, and later heard someone had been hurt or killed as a result of the ladder, I never would have been able to forgive myself for my laziness.

On the other hand, when I called, the ladder was news to the dispatcher. Nobody else had called it in yet. How long had it been there? How many people had seen it and swerved to miss it before me? How many of them have cell phones, and why didn’t they call? Is it possible some of them didn’t bother because they didn’t feel an obligation to do so, because they don’t feel they have been commanded like we Jews have?

I can tell you, there are certainly other moral laws I did not follow before I became more observant and before I learned more about my obligations according to the Torah. Five years ago, I never visited the sick, but I do now, on a regular basis. I never used to think of it as my responsibility to rebuke a sinner. I never used to avoid the phrase, “Oh my God!” (or the ever-present “OMG”) as a form of blasphemy.

So MarkSoFla, I’d say you were half right. We’ve all thrown out over half the laws. But I’d say many of the others, including the moral ones, are very much alive and kicking, and having their effect on our lives on a continuing basis. We can relate on the level of the Torah, and I hope more of us will do so more often.