Parashat Ki Tavo: Serving God with a holy joy
Glen Rock Jewish Center, Conservative
When I meet with b’nai mitzvah students to talk about what it means to become an adult in the Jewish community, we talk about the word mitzvah. One of the things we discuss is that we will not always feel like doing a mitzvah. But becoming an adult means recognizing that sometimes we are obligated to do something even when we would rather not.
To illustrate this, I say to the student:
“Picture yourself on a cold, blizzardy winter night. You are in your bed, wearing warm, fleecy pajamas, with a cup of hot cocoa — marshmallows and whipped cream, of course. Someone calls and asks you to help make a shivah minyan so that they can say kaddish. You wonder why they are calling you — a 13-year-old. Couldn’t someone else go?
Then you realize the streets are a sheet of ice, the snow is several feet deep, and they are counting on you because you are the only person who can walk there safely. What are you going to do?”
When I lay it on as thick as I do, every student so far has said they would hike through the snow to make the minyan. And almost everyone admits: “I wouldn’t feel like it.”
But is that enough?
In Parashat Ki Tavo, we encounter the Tochecha, the Torah’s series of rebukes and curses for the Israelites’ wrongdoing. Among them is this striking statement:
“Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy, out of the abundance of all things.” (Deuteronomy 28:47).
God’s complaint is not simply that the Israelites failed to serve God. It is that they failed to do so with joy. When things were good, when they had enough, when life was abundant – why were they self-centered? Why didn’t they recognize the privilege of what they were capable of doing to serve others?
So, is it enough to hike through the snow to make a minyan, even if we don’t feel like it?
It depends on what we mean by “enough.”
If “enough” means, “Did I do the mitzvah?” – then yes. Full credit. You showed up. You made the minyan. You did what you were obligated to do.
But God is asking something more of us.
What if, instead of seeing a mitzvah as an obligation we fulfill grudgingly, we saw it as an opportunity made possible by the abundance in our lives?
If we have enough food to share, what a privilege it is to feed someone who is hungry. If our bodies are healthy and able, what a gift it is to visit someone who is sick. And if our legs are strong enough to walk through a blizzard, what an extraordinary opportunity it is to help someone say kaddish.
This is what the Torah means by serving God with joy. It doesn’t mean we have to feel cheerful every time we do something difficult. Sometimes we will still be cold, tired, annoyed, or comfortable in bed and wish we could stay there. It means recognizing the abundance that gives us the ability to act — and choosing to see our obligations as opportunities rather than burdens.
Reb Noson of Nemirov, writing in Likutey Halakhot, warns that ordinary, frivolous joy can lead us away from God. What we need, he teaches, is holy joy. For Rebbe Nachman, this kind of joy is not simply an emotion. It is a way of seeing: a spiritual wisdom that allows us to find meaning and possibility even in difficult circumstances.
That may be exactly what we need as we enter a new year.
We cannot always choose what happens to us. We cannot choose whether the night is cold, whether the roads are icy, or whether someone needs us when we would rather be comfortable in bed. But we can choose how we understand our capacity to respond.
Ivdu et Hashem b’simcha – “Serve God with joy.” (Psalms 100:2).
Not because every mitzvah is easy or because we will always feel like doing it. But because every time we are able to do a mitzvah, we are being reminded of something precious: we have something to give.
So this year, may we notice our abundance – not only in what we possess, but in what we are capable of doing for one another. May we see mitzvot not merely as obligations that earn us full credit, but as opportunities to turn what we have been given into spiritual gifts of goodness that we can give to others — extra credit, if you will.
And when the call comes – whether it is convenient or inconvenient, whether we feel like it or not – may we have the wisdom to recognize the opportunity, the courage to get out of bed, and the simcha to walk through the snow.