The Un-Comfort Zone

WE Jews are very proud that our bris milah is favored by many physicians because of its health benefits. Similarly with the laws of kashrus: Good for us. And therapists are now counseling their harried patients to take 15 minutes in the afternoon and just sit and contemplate — sounds like Minchah to me.

That living the full Torah life is actually good for us comes as no surprise to a believing Jew. Of course, we observe Torah mitzvos not because they are good for our bodies, but because, as Divine commandments from the Commander, they are good for our souls. Theoretically, even in the unlikely event that a mitzvah turned out not to be good for us, we would still observe it. Because we observe mitzvos not for our own benefit, but only because they fulflll the Will of G-d.

We are quite comfortable with certain mitzvos: helping the downtrodden, visiting the sick, endowing a poor bride, attending the dead with dignity. These are not unnatural for us; they are instinctive, and we willingly perform them.

But there are certain mitzvos that do not come naturally. It does not come naturally to engage in a 24-hour fast on Yom Kippur, or to cut off the foreskin of an eight-day-old infant, or to refrain from simple acts like flipping on a switch on Shabbos. Instinctively we would resist such commands. But it is precisely our fealty to mitzvos outside our natural comfort zone that defines us as Jews.