Parshas Behar: G-d is in Your Backpack
As observant Jews, we have a lot of items to carry around with us when we travel. We carry pots to cook kosher food. We carry a siddur to pray. We carry tallis and tefillin and shabbat candles. We have a lot of things in our backpacks that add to our weight and our bulk.
But no matter where we travel or how, there is one thing that never takes up space and never weighs us down: G-d.
In this week’s parsha, we are commanded, “Do not make gods for yourselves, and do not set up an image or a memorial stone or put up a marker anywhere in your land to cast yourselves down upon it.” G-d is telling us that we don’t need reminders of Him. We don’t need huge monuments, sculptures, or little idols on our car dashboards. We don’t need paintings or pictures to remember Him.
Instead, G-d has given us a precious gift: his Sabbath. By keeping Shabbat and the commandments, by doing what is right and good, we remember Him. We remember Him through something much more potent and meaningful than simply looking at a picture.
In fact, a picture or a sculpture is easy to overlook. Look around the room you are in right now. Are there photographs or artwork on the walls or on your desk? How often do you really notice them. How often do you sit and really look at them? Most of the time, we look through them or past them. We know they are there; our brains do not need to register their presence. The same thing happens with paintings, drawings, pictures, sculptures, or monuments of idols.
But if we remember G-d through our actions then we truly cannot forget Him. We can’t look around or through our actions. Even if some things, like negelvasser in the morning, become habit, the majority of our actions are conscious decisions we make. We decide to do an act of chessed for someone else. We spend hours upon hours of our time preparing to make the Sabbath beautiful… and if we are spending so much time doing it each week, it cannot be out of habit. By keeping the Sabbath, by doing the mitzvot Hashem has given us, we remember Him and know He is with us and watching over us.
So when we travel, we may have to worry about packing a few extra things, but there is one thing we will never need to worry we’ve forgotten: G-d. Because no matter where we are in the world, He is with us. Even if we travel with no bags at all, even if we travel with nothing, G-d is still with us, as long as we keep Shabbat and do His mitzvot to the best of our ability.
Incidentally, Rabbi Ben has a book called “G-d is in My Backpack” coming out very soon. Watch this space for it! In it you will be able to read many amazing incidents that show just how true it is that no matter where you go, G-d is always with you.
Shabbat shalom!
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