Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Believe it or not, I'm quite familiar with the celebrities of the world of school age children.
[00:00:06] And this is in spite of the fact that I never watch tv. My kids don't watch TV and we all listen to only Jewish music.
[00:00:17] This is because when I teach kids at our Sunday school or when I prepare them for bar or bat mitzvah, I ask them about their favorite famous personalities.
[00:00:29] And then I tell them, imagine if your phone suddenly rings, you pick it up and you hear the voice of your favorite singer. And this is not a prank, this is actually him.
[00:00:41] And he tells you, listen, I'm passing through your city and I don't have any time to stop by somewhere to eat. All the restaurants told me they cannot deliver right now. Could you please do me a big favor and bring me some pizza?
[00:00:59] Yes. I would jump out of my bed in the middle of the night to do it for him. Says this kid with excitement.
[00:01:08] Why?
[00:01:09] I ask him, well, I can do something for such a great person.
[00:01:17] I will have a way of coming to contact with him. I'll have some connection with him, and then I can brag the rest of my life about it.
[00:01:28] And then I ask this child to imagine that God, who created this whole world, who runs it and even gave him his own life, is probably even greater than this celebrity. And this God is asking you to do something for him. What exactly God is asking is already relevant. It might be some pizza, but this is an opportunity for you to get in touch with Him.
[00:01:57] Word mitzvah in Hebrew means a commandment.
[00:02:02] But the Hebrew word mitzvah also has a different etymological meaning. Tavta means a connection, a mitzvah.
[00:02:12] What God asks us to do is our opportunity to connect with Him.
[00:02:19] Some of my students appreciate science or music, and for them I give the examples of well known scientists or composers. We all children and adults, can imagine what we would feel if we would have an opportunity to do something for someone who we respect and consider to be great.
[00:02:41] If we understand how great must be the one who created this world, then we would also probably be ready to jump out of our beds in the middle of the night to do something for him.
[00:02:55] Children often ask me, why would this celebrity suddenly call me, of all people, why not someone else?
[00:03:04] And I tell them, it's a good question. I don't know. He just dialed a random number and it was you.
[00:03:10] It could have been your classmate or your neighbor, but it was you. Could you imagine how lucky you are that he is actually calling you? This is a good reason to be happy.
[00:03:20] This is what Judaism calls being a chosen nation. God could've given these mitzvahs, these connections to him, to. To anyone else, but he came to us with these requests. This is a good reason to be happy. And yes, after we do a mitzvah, we can brag about it for the rest of our lives that we had an opportunity to connect with someone so great.
