We all have a favorite mitzva for which we go the
extra mile, for which we are willing to sacrifice more time,
ingenuity, energy and money to beautify. In the way that
each of us has a certain role in perfecting this world, we
each have a mitzva-area we are meant to beautify and
perfect.
With Chedva Silberfarb, it was shmiras haloshon. Zisa
Chassan was known for her great joy and warmth, in this area
as well. R' Herman's choice mitzva was hospitality.
There are stories of gedolim and simple Jews, each
one willing to sacrifice almost anything to fulfill a
particular mitzva, whether it was an esrog for
Succos or attending Torah scholars or visiting the sick.
Each of us has one particular sphere in which we strive to
excel. And we can learn from one another how to perfect the
remaining 612 that apply to us.
Eva Meyer is a teacher who lives in Petach Tikva. Her
favorite mitzva involves her Shabbos table. "It is
important to come home from shul on Friday night and see the
Shabbos table set for the family," she says. "I think it is
extremely important that this be a princely table; it
creates the whole aura of Shabbos." She stresses that you
don't need a lot of money to make a table look festive. If
for some reason she can't get flowers, which happens rarely,
she'll put a bottle of scented oil on the table or some
artwork the kids brought home from school. [There are lovely
wildflowers and even branches with interesting leaves for a
centerpiece -- all for free and Shmitta-permissable,
especially if they are not scented.] What's important, she
maintains, is that beauty is exposed. The Shabbos Queen is
coming. It's as simple as that. Eva, of course, sets her
table with special Shabbos dishes, organizes the napkins
decoratively, often using two different tableclothes laid
diagonally to one another to add color. [And by the way, you
can set the table with fancy serviettes and use plain
colored ones for the actual meal. Tell the guests to place
the fancy ones back in the holder on the table. Don't laugh.
I know a family that does it. The guests chuckle, but they
do it dutifully.] She always does something to make the
table look different, unique, in some way.
Eva has a special mitzva that she encourages the
children to perform. "If there is a new child in class or
one who isn't popular for some reason, I have each of the
children in their respective classes take them `under their
wing' in whichever way they can." And it isn't long before
these children find themselves at Eva's festive Shabbos
table, feeling very special themselves.
A family that loves Succos is headed by R' Yaakov Weisberg
of Meah Shearim. Every night of Succos, several hundred
people come by to look at his marvelous succa. "I have a
nice succa," he boasts, "but only on Succos." The rest of
the year it becomes a work room for the creations that go
into making this succa such a public draw. The succa itself
is only two by three meters, but, he says, "Beauty and size
are two different things." This reinforces the idea that
hiddur mitzva does not necessarily have to be money-
expensive; you can invest other things too. He has three
dimensional diaramas and special lighting, handcraft and
decorations that people come for miles to see.
I asked a teenager what mitzva she likes to beautify.
She said, "Helping my mother." How did she beautify it? "I
help her a lot and do so willingly."
A certain rosh yeshiva chooses the arba'a minimin as
his beautiful mitzva. "Ever since I got married, I
have invested much time and energy into it. During the first
year, you couldn't reach me from the beginning of Elul. I
was scouring the orchards for esrogim." Now the
sellers come to him. Once, twenty years ago, he kept an
esrog very carefully for a full year because of the
Shmitta year. Of course, it was not the only esrog he
had...
One woman chooses to beautify the custom of melave
malka. "I have never missed partaking of this meal since
I've been married. Some people are not aware of this real
obligation. Chazal say that the indestructable luz
bone is fed from this meal; it is this bone from which our
bodies will be reconstructed for techiyas hameisim.
We light two candles, though one is really enough, and eat a
warm dish, sometimes freshly cooked, like French toast,
sometimes Shabbos leftovers. And we wash for bread, of
course. Melave malka is also a segula for easy
births."
Two sisters have taken upon themselves the mitzva of
challa, not only for themselves. They teach it by
demonstration all around the country. "Sara Imeinu taught us
this particular mitzva; it is one of the three
mitzvos that belong primarily to women." They teach
women how to sift, knead without getting their hands sticky,
how to sanctify the process through reciting a psalm and
saying: lekovod Shabbos. They also demonstrate how to
knead the dough into artistic shapes. [In some families, the
Friday night challa consists of twelve rolls baked
into a single shape as a remembrance of the twelve lechem
haponim of the Mishkon and Mikdosh.]
The sister I spoke to bakes 2-3 kilos at least three times a
week. She makes challos, pitas, yeast cakes. She was
married without children for eleven years, then was divorced
for six years. Then she learned the laws of hafroshas
challa which require a minimum. "I didn't need that much
but Hashem says it is an important mitzva for women.
It didn't go well at first." Her challos came out
hard and after the first bite, she would use the remainder
for bread crumbs, which she distributed. Then she got the
hang of it. After about a month of doing it properly, she
asked Hashem to send her a family to whom to feed all this
bread. He heeded her prayer and sent her a widower with six
children. [And by the way, women in the final month before
birth are encouraged to bake the amount requiring
hafroshas challa, for an easy birth, or, at least, to
recite the blessing through a neighbor or at a bakery.]
It is apparent from talking to people that a favorite
mitzva is as individual as the individual. We can all
learn from each other by watching the love and devotion
which each person invests in their specialty.
We are put here on earth to perfect ourselves and through
our actions, contribute towards perfecting the whole world.
The area we choose to perfect inspires others and we thus
each have the possibility of bringing hod, glory, one
of the seven sefiros leading up to the Giving of the
Torah, down to this world. And that is something to glory
in...
