Parshat Yitro

This week we read about the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.  It is obviously a very important Parsha, and during the reading of the Parsha in synagogue we read as the Torah reader recites the Ten Commandments.  There is so much to say and so much written on this week’s Parsha.  I’d like to share with you one idea. 

Before giving the Jewish people the Torah, God tells Moses to command the people to prepare themselves to receive the Torah.  So, for the three days before they received the Torah, the Jewish people were preparing themselves.  I think that this is an important lesson with regard to our own spiritual lives.  Often we expect to have a religious experience or a spiritual feeling accessible to us at the moment we desire it.  A lesson from this week’s Parsha is that we need to prepare ourselves.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, one of the most important rabbis of the twentieth century, used to teach that there cannot be holiness without preparation.  Preparation is a necessary pre-condition to true holiness.  This is why God commanded the Jewish people to prepare themselves to receive the Torah.  Similarly, if we want to bring a little bit of holiness into our own lives, we can’t expect it just happen on its own.  To make our own lives holy, we need to be adequately prepared to have a meaningful religious experience. 

What exactly constitutes this type of preparation?  I don’t think that there is any absolute answer.  Everyone is different, and therefore what will be a meaningful preparation to one person may not work for the next person.  Personally, before celebrating a holiday or doing a mitzvah, I know that if I can find the time to learn something new about the experience I am about to have then the experience will be so much more meaningful to me than if I had just done the act without doing that preparation.  I encourage you to try and figure out for yourself what a meaningful preparation for your own spiritual life could be.  If you need help, talk about it with a friend, a loved one, or a rabbi.  I am confident you will not be disappointed by the work you put in.