The Art of Religious Life

Insight of the Week

The story is told of a man who once approached a Rabbi and asked a question which we have likely all asked ourselves at one point or another, in some form or another. "Why does Hashem want me to perform mitzvot ?" he asked. "He already has angels, who are perfect, pristine creatures. I'm just a human being. I'm very flawed. I make a lot of mistakes. I do a lot of things wrong. What are my mitzvot worth?" The Rabbi replied by asking this fellow what he did professionally. The man said he was an artist, who drew paintings. "What's your favorite piece of art that you've produced?" the Rabbi asked. The artist explained that he painted a beautiful picture of the sunset over the ocean. It's considered an exquisite piece of art, and is worth an exorbitant amount of money. "What makes it so exquisite? Why is it so highly valued?" the Rabbi wondered. "Because it's perfect," the artist explained. "It depicts the ocean, the sun and the horizon in a manner that so closely resembles the real thing." "So tell me something," the Rabbi continued. "Why doesn't someone just take a good camera to the ocean and take a picture of the sunset? If he wants a perfect picture of the sunset, then surely a picture can provide a far more perfect replica than your painting, as good as it is." The artist smiled and explained that the whole point of art is to depict the subject as accurately as possible given human limitations. With a camera, there's no challenge, and so there's no achievement in producing a precise replica. The beauty of art lies in the ability to attain near-perfection within the limits of the human being's abilities. "This is precisely why Hashem wants us to serve Him," the Rabbi said. The angels' service of G-d is like the camera's depiction of the sunset. It's perfect and unflawed, without any struggle or challenge. Hashem created us flawed human beings so we can be "artists" – so we can create as beautiful a life as we can, with the understanding that we aren't going to be perfect. Religious life is an art, whereby we make ourselves as close to perfect as possible. Of course, we will never be perfect, and we should never expect ourselves to be perfect. We must, however, expect and demand of ourselves that we consistently work to get better. This month, Elul, is the time especially earmarked for growth. This is the time when we are to see how we can make our "painting" a little better, and bring ourselves closer to perfection. This is not the time to pretend that we can make ourselves perfect. This will never happen. If we see this month as the time to get perfect, then we'll likely end up accomplishing nothing. Instead, we need to commit to make ourselves better, to getting closer to perfection. And in order to do this, we must be willing to push ourselves, and to challenge ourselves to make real changes. The Gemara teaches in Masechet Sotah (21b): אין דברי תורה מתקיימין אלא במי שמעמיד עצמו ערום עליהן . This literally means, "The words of Torah are sustained only within someone who makes himself 'unclothed' over them." The Gemara here is telling us that in order to grow in Torah, we need to make difficult sacrifices. Needless to say, we don't have to actually give up all our clothing. We do, however, need to give up things that we have come to like, or we have come to look to for enjoyment. We should not expect ourselves to be perfect – but we must absolutely expect ourselves to work hard and to sacrifice in order to improve. If we are committing ourselves to Torah and mitzvot , then we cannot allow ourselves to act as we like, to go wherever we like, to watch whatever we like on our devices, or to speak however we like. We need to give up things which we know are wrong, even if giving them up is difficult. May Hashem help all of us this month to produce beautiful, exquisite "paintings," as we develop ourselves into the greatest people that we are capable of becoming.