Bo: growing through mitzvot

The Midrash says that the Jews in Egypt were idolaters, and we were only redeemed by merit of the mitzvah of circumcision and of the blood on the lintels. Befdore that, they were like an embryo in the womb of a donkey--thewy couldn't move, there was not spiritual breathing room. So the redemption was first that they could moan, they could dream (or at least complain). But complaining means you can imagine that life could be different. Then, they did a mitzvah--life could be different, they could aspire to holiness.

One of the things Chabad appreciates, that many movements don't, is the power of a single mitzvah. For many people not living an observant life, they resist the first mitzvah: it seems like hypocrisy. How can I go to shul if I don't keep shabbes? How can I light candles if I'm going out shopping? But the truth is, it is inconcsistency, and we are all inconsistent, but walking on a path of increased integrity, increased holiness.

Now, that mitzvah that I do, to bring me along on that path, can't be a cover for immorality, can't be a way of me saying, "I'm so great, i'm observant. I went to minyan, or I kep kosher, so I'm such a good Jew." My wife counseled a woman who was becoming muslim, covering herself head to toe in black, moving in with her husband because that was what her religion required. She is on welfare but she is starting a business, and Tanya mentioned that she would have to report that income. She had no intention of reporting it! She was trying to be religious, extremely religious, but basic ethics, forget about it. Rituals can be self-serving; hypocrisy has always been a problem.

One answer lies in another teaching from the parsha: it says during the plague of darkness that lo rau ish et amito, velo kam ish--nobody saw his fellow, and no man rose from his place. When we can't see each other, there is no spirituality, there is no rising, no holiness. There is only spirituality when my prayer transforms me, makes me more concerned about my fellow human being, my society, the world. The Gerer rebbe said that when you lay tefillin, you let God's word permeate through to your heart. When I davven, does it make me more sensitive, more compassionate, more caring? This is the kind of mitzvah, like the blood in Egypt, that can redeem us, that can bring us fully into a life in service of the divine.