Shabbat Shalom! I know that this service has been pretty strange for everyone, especially me, and I thank you all for attending. You have so many other things you could have been doing this morning such as, sleeping in until it’s time for dinner, having conversations with your pets, or just lying on the couch wondering how many days are left in this pandemic. Nevertheless, It’s hard to get motivated to get up in the morning and start the day. So thank you all for attending this morning.
The Torah portion I read today is called Nitzavim. In my Torah Portion, Moses is talking to the Israelites and says, “You stand here today, all of you”... “both with those who are standing with us this day” … “and those who are not with us here this day, so you may join the covenant of God.” The Israelites are preparing to enter the promised land and Moses is giving them a speech before he passes on his leadership. When Moses says this he is talking about all Israelites in that time, and future generations that would be the Jews. This means me as well. He tells them to follow the commandments of the Torah and not to worship idols.
The covenant is a promise between the Israelites and God. The Isrealites’ promise is that they will follow Torah’s law and God’s promise is to give them a second chance if they make a mistake and fail to follow the Torah. Moses also says that when they do make that mistake they will be able to return to God if they amend their mistakes. My question is: What happens when we make mistakes and how do we learn from them? The Torah tells us that we will have to make Teshuvah, which means repentance. One commentator named Joseph Albo says that making teshuvah is not easy. Albo was a rabbi and philosopher in Spain in the 15th century. He says that to grow from our mistakes we need to correct our thoughts, speech, and behavior. To correct our thoughts we need to feel regret for what we did. To correct speech we have to confess our wrongdoings, and to correct our behavior we need to take action to make sure we do not make the same mistake again. I agree with Albo, because just correcting one of these things (thought, speech, and behavior) will not make a change and you will most likely not learn from your mistake. However I believe you also should fix the damage you may have caused, because making Teshuvah is not only about yourself, it is about your relationships with others, and your community. One example is if you are rude to someone without knowing it and you hurt their feelings, the only way you can amend this is to realize what you have done wrong and reflect on it and make changes so that you can stop it from happening again. You should also try to make it up to the person that you hurt because if that person is still hurt from what you did Teshuvah is not complete.
A second commentator named Moses Maimonides, or Rambam, who was a very famous Torah scholar from the middle ages, says that reaching complete change, or true repentance is challenging and there are lots of obstacles. He says that you can still achieve teshuvah by having remorse for your actions and growing from them. I agree because it can be hard to completely change, but to actively try to learn and grow is just as good, as long as you are putting in real effort to do better for yourself and others.
Lastly, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik, who lived in Boston in the 20th century, says that making mistakes can lead to a higher level of purification. He says that struggling with our errors can actually lead us to teshuvah. People who have made mistakes in the past can be at a higher level of growth than others if they learn from their mistakes. He says you can use your harmful actions or selfishness as a way to make yourself better than you were before. I think this is true. Use your actions before as a way to know how to act in the future. For example, if someone makes an ignorant comment, they could be corrected and what they should do is look and see why they were ignorant and fix that within themselves. They will have learned and grown more than someone who has never done something wrong. No one would know anything in the world if nobody made any mistakes.
From these commentaries I have learned that growing as a person takes dedication and meaning. I feel like all the commentaries go together because they each describe different parts of the process of Teshuvah. Joseph Albo describes the steps to make Teshuvah, Maimonides talks about the obstacles that can prevent us from making teshuvah, and Solveitchik talks about what happens after you make Teshuvah. I can definitely use insight from this Torah portion and these commentators in my life because we all make mistakes and mess up at one point or another.
Speaking of mistakes, part of my Mitzvah project was to help students realize that it is okay to make mistakes. I worked with the Immigrant Family Services Institute, by being part of their online tutoring program. I tutored one on one with a first grade student, Peter, 3 hours a week for about a month and a half. My job was to help with any homework he had from school, however, Peter did not have homework assigned. This made it necessary for me to make lessons up each day using online resources. There were several obstacles that made my mitzvah project difficult. There were technical issues, Peter’s occasional lack of motivation, and the online socially distanced aspect. However, the experience overall was very fun and something I would do again. Peter liked to tell me stories and was very funny, once to my surprise he even went to sleep while we were working. When he made mistakes, he sometimes got frustrated and wanted to give up. I encouraged him not to give up what we were working on even though it was challenging for him. It was nice to see him cheer up after finding out that he could do it after all. My torah portion is also about learning from your mistakes and devoting time to get better as a person, or in Peter’s case, addition. From this project I learned leadership, teaching skills, and patience. I plan on doing more tutoring in the future, and I am glad I got to experience this now. I may even want to become a teacher.
It has been an interesting journey from the start of last school year until today. Quarantine really makes it harder to have a Bar Mitzvah. While this is not exactly the way I planned it, I am very grateful to be able to have a Bar Mitzvah regardless of whether or not I have a party and can celebrate this with everybody in person. If this had been in normal times, I would have been very focused on the party but now I am focusing on the most important part, becoming a Bar Mitzvah and part of the Jewish community. I am also grateful that all of you are able to be here and celebrate with me virtually. There are a couple of verses in my portion in which Moses says to the Isrealites “Surely this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens that you should say, Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us so that we may observe it?” … “No the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.” This means that no one can make teshuvah for you, you must find it within yourself. It also meant for the Israelites that following the laws of Torah should not be too difficult despite how it may feel at the moment. This relates to my preparation for today because at the beginning of the pandemic it seemed like preparing for this bar mitzvah was going to be impossible. However, I got through it with support from many people.
I am grateful for all the support from teachers in my life that helped me prepare for this day. I want to thank Morah Missie for helping me prepare, and making it fun and understandable to learn Torah. Despite the circumstances we made it work and we got over the obstacles that the pandemic brought. Thank you to Rabbi Barbara for helping me truly understand my Torah portion and helping me figure out what it means to me. I am also grateful to all my teachers at Chaverim and public school from all my years who have shaped me into the person that I am today.
My family and friends have also helped me through this. Thank you to my parents for helping me get through this crazy process, and motivating me to practice. Thank you to my brother Micah for being a great brother to me. Thank you to all my grandparents for listening to me practice and for some of you letting me explain what a Bar Mitzvah is to you. Thank you to my friends for being encouraging and interested about my Bar Mitzvah. Thank you to my hebrew school class, who are all experiencing this right alongside me. Thank you all for attending today, and Shabbat Shalom.