Bedtime is an important ritual in this house, especially for the younger kids, on nights that we don’t have events going on. Reading books, Or “stories from my mind” is a big part of it. We go to the Library often, they know us by name.
A few nights ago I was reading the kids “Top Job” by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel. The book opens with Career Day at school where kids get up and speak about the types of work their parents do. One father is an astronomer, another girl’s mom is a jeweler, etc. The one girl gets up and says that her dad changed lightbulbs. That elicited a yawn from the class. After all, what could so be exciting or important about changing lightbulbs?
But the girl went on to explain that for her dad changing lightbulbs is a big deal. It takes special skill and preparation, unusual tools, and travel to specific locations. As she went on to explain with great flourish, her dad changes the lightbulb atop the antenna atop the Empire State Building! Now that caught her classmates attention… her dad was no ordinary jeweler or banker or astronomer…
It was a great read with the kids, and it got me thinking. Two things made her dad’s job so unique and special. (1) The special location and use of that super-important lightbulb. (2) What it takes to get up there to change it.
Mitzvot (good deeds, Jewish observances, Torah commandments) can be like that. Often the act itself may be an ordinary one. Eating certain foods, saying certain words, shaking a green branch, hearing a horn being blown. But once we recognize that these are not “ordinary lightbulbs” but that they are (as they say in Hebrew) b’rumo shel olam, at the height of the world – the significance and meaning and importance of these ordinary acts… then they are not so ordinary anymore. And then take into account the effort, and struggle and challenge level that it may take people to do them (think college kid at UAlbany, coming out to eat in a Sukkah on Friday Night when many other venues may be beckoning) that adds to the uniqueness and value as well.
So don’t underestimate a Mitzvah. There’s much more to it than meets the eye. Make it your life’s calling.
Thanks to author Elizabth Cody Kimmel for this illuminating lesson in her book “Top Job”.