Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Rules of the Game


At this week’s Shabbat Assembly I talked to the students about commandments, rules. In this week’s parsha, Yitro, we read about the "Ten Commandments" that Hashem gave to the Jewish people. Commandments are basically rules that we need to live by as Jewish people. I shared with the students that there are rules for a lot of the things we do in life. There are rules in the classroom, there are rules in your home, there are rules about how we talk to friends and to adults. There are rules about how we act in public. For example, we are not allowed to just throw our candy wrappers in the street because the government has rules about littering. There are even rules about how much noise we can make. We are not allowed to play loud music outside past a certain hour because that is against the rules.

As Jewish people we learn about rules and Mitzvot from a very young age. This past week, The New York Times printed an article about a Jewish college basketball player, Aaron Liberman, who follows the rules of Orthodox Judaism while playing for his team at Northwestern University. I looked at this as a great example of a young Jewish man following the "rules". He wears a kippah made especially for him by Under Armor, the outfitter for the basketball team. He told his coaches that he is not able to travel on Saturday and that he has certain dietary needs. The coaches were willing to give him a try and he is on the team. Aaron has asked his Rabbi many questions about Halacha and his situation. Here is quote from the NY Times article. "The life of an Orthodox basketball player is one of discipline. Liberman prays three times a day, keeps kosher and travels only by foot on the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.” To see the full article click here.

This is a great example of following the commandments. These Mitzvot are rules to live our lives to the fullest. Rules in any domain, be it on a basketball team, in a classroom, on a school bus, or at home, are put in place to help us get the most out of our life experiences in a safe and productive manner.  We should look at the mitzvot that we accepted in this week’s parsha as a great guide to life.