Lev means “heart.” It
has the numerical value of 32 (each Hebrew letter corresponds to a number). The word yachid also has the numerical value of 32. Yachid
means “alone.” A powerful lesson inheres
in those words and the connective tissue between them.
What
happens in the heart, how we feel, takes place only within us. It is not an alone event. It does not
impact the world in any meaningful way.
Rabbi Leo
Baeck wrote that, “one can always find warms hearts who in the glow of emotion
would like to make the whole world happy, but who have never attempted the
sober experiment of bringing a real blessing to a single human being.”
Do you
like to being around positive people? I
do. Being with people who grumble and
grouse continually makes us feel sour.
Those who speak sprightly of sunshine and hope, on the other hand, makes
us feel buoyant and light. Yet there are
times when it is preferable to have the sour than the sweet. What good is it to have a person buzz happily
around the room and turn away from someone or something that needs help? Perhaps they represent a danger to their joy? A downer?
As Jews,
we are commanded and blessed because God trusts us enough to levy
responsibilities. That is why we say
when we perform a mitzvah ….”asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav…” “….Who has made us holy by acting on His
commands…”. God’s brit, covenant, with
us is the task of putting order to an incomplete universe. More, our religion holds that when we act in
accord with God we become holy vessels.
Good intentions
are good but they are, after all, only intentions. They are not actualized until it brings about
a physical response. Talmud states,
“Matters of the heart are not matters.”
They do not count until we are moved to action.
Sometimes
we feel energized to do the right thing and other times our heart is hard. For the Jew, it is not irrelevant how we feel
but ultimately what matters is what we do.
This is mitzvah.
Perhaps
that is why the word mitzvah is equivalent (gematria again) to the word, emunim, faith. When we enact a mitzvah it is an act of
faith. A mitzvah is a movement of faith
because we acknowledge that we are not final word on anything: there is a God
beyond us who knows that the heart is not enough to change the world, to perfect
that which is incomplete.
