This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, is filled with the laws. This parsha comes right after the giving of the Torah because law is so central to Jewish life. It is one of Orhtodox Judaism’s hallmarks and great strengths that halacha, Jewish law, is at the pulsating center of individual and communal life-but it is dangerous to think that law is the end all and be all of Judaism. Whenever we focus on only one element of Judaism, it is inevitably to the detriment of others Jewish values, and we may end up perverting Judaism, which has happened in the past with various Jewish sects.
Berachot, blessings, are ubiquitous in Judaism. There are three categories of blessings: (1) Those blessings recited before taking pleasure from the world, specifically before eating food or smelling fragrant good smells. (2) Blessings of praise to God. When we are awed or inspired by something in the world such as a beautiful tree, a mountain or the ocean, blessings for praise help us to utilize the physical experience as a way of recognizing the Divine. (3) Blessings before performing a mitzvah, to center us on the holy act. The purpose of all of these blessings is to facilitate a life which is aware, aware that we do not make the rain fall and the food which we eat is miraculous and leaves us in debt to others, the tree, the farmer, the merchant; aware that the world is a place of mystery and awe; and the awareness of the gift of holiness, facilitated through the mitzvot we do.
Orhtodox Jews live a life in which blessings are constant, (the Sages in fact say one should say 100 blessings each day), and so it is so easy to see the blessing as an end in itself. But blessings are not Biblical. They are not mysterious commandments for which we know no reason. Almost all blessings are rabbinic and they are there for us to live a life suffused with gratitude, mindfulness, awe and holiness. They are a tool by which we are to use the physical world to develop a more attuned, grateful and spiritual orientation in our lives.
Sometimes we must reach outside of jewish thought to help focus and broaden our understanding. A great spiritual leader who passed away this week, Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote (Peace is Every Step):
“After breathing and smiling, we look down at the food in a way that allows the food to become real. This food reveals our connection with the earth. Each bite contains the life of the sun and the earth. The extent to which our food reveals itself depends on us…If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating
in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper…If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. …And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be trans-
formed into paper. And we see wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also.”
May we merit, while keeping Halacha with duty and attention, to utilize it to live a more attuned and inspired life.