וַיִּקַּח֙ סֵ֣פֶר הַבְּרִ֔ית וַיִּקְרָ֖א בְּאׇזְנֵ֣י הָעָ֑ם וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה נַעֲשֶׂ֥ה וְנִשְׁמָֽע׃

Then Moses took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will listen!”

As parents, teachers, anyone who has  been around children, we know that kids will ask the question “why?” again and again. No matter the task we request of them to do, that question is not far behind. 

It’s common for us too – when it comes to things like going to shul, or observing Shabbat and Jewish holidays, or other mitzvot, we seek reasons before taking on a new Jewish practice. This makes sense, as we live in a time where we celebrate sound, scientific reasoning. However, this is different from how our Israelite ancestors took on the mitzvot. When given the commandments of the Torah they said this famous phrase, “we will do, and we will listen” exactly the opposite of what our instinct would be! Do first, and explore later.

There are some things that you can only understand by doing them. If you read the whole NFL rule book, will you understand what it’s like to throw a football? If you read about the experience of going on a roller coaster, can you really understand the rush? This is true for mitzvot too. It’s hard to explain how special it feels to keep Jewish traditions without doing them, and doing them again and again.

There is much wisdom to be gained from our heritage. It is true that we are the people of the book, but to really understand everything this remarkable tradition has to offer, we have to get out of the book and start living Judaism too.