Ritual -- why?

We Jews are inundated with ritual at every turn:

• blessings to say when we wake up and when we go to sleep;
  
• candles to light before holidays and always at specific – often inconvenient! – times;
• ancient prayers said in an ancient language

At this time of year, we’re getting ready for the most “ritualistic” event of all … Pesach!

You know the drill: clean the house; change or kasher your silverware, dishes, and cookware; spend too much time looking for special Pesach foods that cost far too much! What’s the point?

Religion sometimes seems awfully nitpicky. Shouldn’t we be thinking about the Kadosh Baruch Hu – not about housework?!

At the same time, how do we spend our daily lives? Surely, we can and should spend time on prayer and contemplation.

… Let’s get real. How much time do we think we’re going to spend this way?
Yeah, sometimes it does sound tempting …and there are people who – like Buddhist monks -- spend their lives in meditation. However, unless I’m missing something, I don’t think any of us here are planning to pursue this direction.

I do recommend prayer, study, meditation. However, what happens when we get up and re-enter the world? Are we counting on some kind of spiritual “high” to get us through?
… I hope not – real life doesn’t work that way.

Let me throw in a point about study: the first question for people who don’t understand the reason for mitzvot is this: How much have you studied? How hard have you tried to understand them?

Further, is there any point where it matters that Hashem Himself commanded us?
Therefore, we must change our question from: “what’s the point of ritual” –to a more realistic one: how can we bring holiness … God … into our lives?

… Now we have a starting point to examine the role of ritual.

Let’s briefly move away from religious ritual. Don’t we have rituals in our daily lives?

A couple of examples may help illustrate:
· Do you tell your children/friends/spouse/girlfriend /boyfriend that you love them? There's really no point. Surely you already know you love each other!
· Say you get sick and no one offers to help. They can’t, they’re too busy with their own lives. Anyway, you know they care about you … don’t you?

All relationships have built-in signals to show caring and understanding. These are our personal rituals. These rituals vary from person to person, but we all have them. We can’t rely strictly on feelings and thoughts; we must find concrete ways to express these feelings. And so it is with religion.

Ritual is what we do when we get up from prayer or meditation. Ritual is an important way to show Hashem that we care.

I often hear: “Rabbi, I’d do these “mitzvot” if I understood them. They just don’t make sense … to me.” Or: the mitzvot just don’t feel spiritual; or the best, I don’t get anything out of them.
So, who are we doing this for? Ourselves? Or God?

IF religion is about satisfying my needs – it’s not very useful! It has little to teach, and certainly won’t help us make the world better.

On the other hand, there are many things in life that don’t make sense … until you do them … like, having children… even something like getting a pet.

Just try coming up with a rational explanation for this!

It’s hard to understand many things … until we do them. Take Pesach. More Jews celebrate Pesach than any other holiday. Why? It’s a lot of work!

… The reason? It’s a lot of work!

It’s tangible … concrete … and part of an endless tapestry of Jewish life. It’s our connection to our ancestors … our descendants … to all Jews everywhere … and to the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

Rituals transcend rational understanding. IF WE LET THEM -- They reach us in the depths of our souls.

But … if we don’t try them … we’ll never even know!

If we don’t study them … we’ll continue thinking the mitzvot are pointless …

We’ll just assume that the rabbis who interpreted Torah laws … and who formulated Judaism … as we know it today … had nothing better to do than think up arcane rules to make our lives difficult.

What a silly thing to think about such brilliant, holy teachers.

As we move closer to Pesach, I’ll endeavor to explain our rituals. Just as importantly, I hope you’ll study them on your own … and do them.

I don’t mean this just for Pesach … Jewish law gives us many ways to do God’s bidding. These “rituals” are ways to tie ourselves to Him and show that we really do care what He tells us to do!
Thousands of years ago, we stood at Mt. Sinai … as a people … and proclaimed … Na’aseh v’nishmah – We will do, and we will learn.

May our lives echo that proclamation … may we do … and may we learn!