Parashat Vayetze: Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah!

So this past week I met Marisa at the new diner on Marsh Rd. There was a couple of women there with their kids, and the kids were being pretty terrible. Adorable. Sweet, but terrible. At one point one of the mom’s was letting her kid sit on the table itself. The waitress was clearly having a time of it. Now, what would you do? We could have sat in judgement, we could say something. When I got up to pay for our meal, I tipped our waiter, and then tipped the waitress of the kids table as well.  Was it the right thing to do? The best thing? No idea. But at least it was doing something to acknowledge that waitress.

When I was a teenager and I used to go to youth group events, my favorite song at song session was Mitzvah goreret mitzvah, by Andy Vogel. Like most kids reared on Debbie Friedman and Kol Beseder I learned my Pirkei Avot in the form of a song I could dance to with other nerdy Jewish kids like me. I never really thought about the lyrics—nobody did—we were too busy stamping our feet and injecting various “oh ohs” and the like. The words, of course, come from Pirkei Avot 4:2—One Mitzvah leads to another, while one sin leads to another, and when one acts justly it is very good.

It doesn’t get sung nearly as often these days—it’s thirty years old at this point—but I feel like we need to start singing it again. Or at least be reminded of the text: one mitzvah leads to another. Our kindness, our actions—no matter how small—matter. The way we treat each other matters. And we can choose to live in little bubbles insensitive to the needs of others, drawing up the drawbridge and hiding behind our own ramparts. Or we can choose in our everyday actions to acknowledge the needs of those around us.

We see that clearly in our Torah portion. Jacob has left Canaan, has dreamed his dream, and has come to Haran, whereupon he sees Rachel and sees the stone covering the well. It should say “there was a large stone on the mouth of the well” but that’s not the actual order of the text. It actually says “the stone was large on the mouth of the well.” The s’fat emet understands this as a metaphor: the stumbling block—our evil urge—may be everywhere, but it is heaviest and largest on the mouth of the well. What is the well? Our words, our mouths, our hearts, our intentions, our own actions, pick whichever one you want. The point is, once Jacob understands the situation, he by himself removes the stone from the well. He takes the action. Now, we know this is in part to impress Rachel, or at least inspired by Rachel, but so what? He does what is right in that moment. His actions improve the lot of the shepherds around him. His actions mattered.

Jacob’s actions matter and so do ours. When we chose to act with kindness, even if the action is small, it changes the life of that person. To do otherwise is to leave the stone upon the well, to allow ourselves to act selfishly, to allow people’s pain to persist. May we each find the strength to move that stone and live those words: then surely our lives will be just and it will be good.