As a subscriber to a library service that sends Jewish-themed books to young children, I often have occasion to grouse about the nonsense that passes for Judaism and Jewish values in the realm of Jewish children’s literature.
A few years ago, one of my children was sent a book titled “It’s a Mitzvah, Grover!” The basic plot involves the lovable yet highly-strung Sesame Street character who is engaging in a “tikkun olam” project in which he and some of his friends are cleaning up a local playground. Per the book, the laudable and all-important goal of “tikkun olam,” or making the world a better place, is accomplished through “mitzvot,” defined by the theologians at the Jewish Book Council, and by the other characters to Grover, as “good deeds.”
I suppose I should not have held such high expectations that any of the Jewish terms would be defined accurately (don’t get me started on the correct definition of “tikkun olam“), but it is a shame that the impressionable Grover is being at least partially misled. “Mitzvah” means “commandment” and presupposes that there is a metzaveh, a Commander, and a metzuveh, a commanded person. Cleaning up a playground, and so many other good deeds, certainly may be mitzvot, but so are things that may be less “palatable,” like sprinkling the blood of sacrifices on the mizbe’ach and refraining from wearing wool and linen in the same garment.
It is important to provide our children with sound theological underpinnings for their Judaism, and to recognize that it encompasses so much more than just “good deeds.”
