I keep wondering: What do Jews mean when they say that they are "not religious"?  What other religious group in America would define "religious" the way that Jews do?

Obviously, part of the problem is that most American Jews have been trained to believe that it's bad to be "too religious." They have an image of a chasidic Jew wearing a black coat, tzitzit, a shtreimel fur hat, and payos sidelocks. They have an image of a Jew who observes Shabbat and Kashrut in ways that they reject. They know they don't want to be that, and that is what "religious" means to them. 

Even committed Reform Jews, who understand the principles of equality and autonomy that are the foundation of Reform Judaism, still don't believe that they can be religious because they attend a shul where men and women sit together and because they drive to the mall after services on Saturdays. They believe that they cannot be religious, despite the fact that their rabbi tells them they have the right to make their own choices.

Do they think that it is impossible to be a religious Reform Jew? If so, it is a terrible indictment of Reform Judaism if not even its own adherents believe that their Judaism is "real" Judaism.

This week's Torah portion comes to remind us just before Rosh Hashanah that being "religious" is not a matter of donning the Judaism of your grandparents or your grandparents' grandparents. Being a religious Jew is much more a matter of listening to what is already in your heart.

Surely, this commandment which I command you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is too distant from you. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who shall go up to the heavens and get it for us that we may understand it and do it?” It is not across the sea, that you should say, “Who shall cross the sea and get it for us that we may understand and do it?" Rather, it is very close to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart to do it.  (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

Real Judaism is not some distant and alien land where no self-respecting modern Jew should ever go. Real Torah, as the Torah says, is found in the very ideals of your heart. It is found in the very words that come to your mouth when you talk about your deepest values and your most profound connection to your Creator. It is not somebody else's version of what you are "supposed to do." It is the truth that you already know; the truth of your Jewish identity that is most dear to you.

Your Judaism is as real and as powerful as any Judaism could be, as long as it is what is in your heart. Listen up, Reform Jews! Being religious is not a matter of being the kind of Jew somebody else wants you to be.  It is about being the kind of Jew you want to be.

So, the next time you hear the word "religious" and you instinctively think, "That's not me; that's somebody else," think instead about what you believe "religious" should mean, according to the dictates of your own heart and mouth. If you can be that, you can be religious.

This week's Torah portion (Ki Tetze) includes a simple mitzvah that prompted the rabbis of the Talmud to ask these very questions. The mitzvah states:

If you should come upon a bird’s nest while traveling, in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on the chicks or eggs, you shall not take the mother from the children. You certainly must send away the mother and take for yourself only the children, so that it will go well for you and you will lengthen your days. (Deuteronomy 22:6-7)

It really is a lovely mitzvah. While we require food to live, we must do so in a way that is considerate of all life, even the life of a bird. We must not take the mother along with her children.

It is the second part of the mitzvah that was challenging to the rabbis—the part in which the Torah promises, as a reward, that "it will go well for you and you will lengthen your days." The rabbis, who knew about life's tragedies and unfairness, ask the question: Is it really so? 

They raise a hypothetical question (B. Chullin 142a): "Suppose a father says to his son, 'Climb up that tower and fetch me some chicks.' The boy climbs up, sends away the mother bird, takes the children, but on the way down he falls and dies. Where is the 'lengthening of his days'?  Where is the 'going well' for him?"

And then, just to raise the stakes, the rabbis claim that this really did happen once. The Talmud states: "Rabbi Jacob saw it happen."

What then? Does God not care? Do those who observe God's laws, who respect life and act decently, have nothing better to hope for than broken promises?

The rabbis answer this profound question enigmatically. They say, "There is no mitzvah in the Torah with a stated reward that is not connected with the resurrection of the dead." All the promises of good rewards for acts of goodness are fulfilled, but not in this world, the rabbis tell us. It all must be understood as being part of the world beyond this.

The rabbis go on to explain that, rather than expecting a reward in this world, we should understand that “lengthen your days” refers to a world in which everything reaches its ideal length, and “it will go well for you” refers to a world in which everything is well.

Now, before you reject this as a theological cop-out—an empty promise of "pie in the sky when you die"—let us consider what the rabbis are really saying here. They are admitting that there is no promise of material reward for the righteous. The righteous suffer and know pain just the same as everyone else. The Talmud says flatly, "There is no  reward in this world for a mitzvah." That's a gutsy statement for people who believe profoundly in a just and good God.

What the rabbis do promise is hard to pin down. They promise "olam ha-ba," usually translated as "the world to come," but with deeper resonance than we usually think. The word "olam" in Hebrew does mean "world" or "universe," but it also means more. "Olam" is also the "forever" in "l'olam va'ed," meaning "forever and ever." The word "olam" means both "all of space" and also "all of time." It is the ancient Hebrew equivalent of "the space-time continuum." In short, it is another word for "reality."

Taken this way, we can understand the promise of a reward in "olam ha-ba" as a reward in "another reality." But what reality is that? It is the reality of our hopes and dreams. It is the reality we experience when we know that real happiness does not depend on physical comfort and material plenty. 

Our good actions receive reward in the reality we experience when we feel ourselves to be part of something beyond ourselves. It is not in a time far away in the future or up in heaven, rather, it is the reality we can experience any time we wish by entering into awareness of the divine in each moment.

The section of the Talmud that discusses the bird's nest ends with the introduction of another character. It says that Elisha ben Avuyah, the great rabbi who left Judaism and gave up the ways of the Torah, may have committed his apostasy after seeing "this very thing"—a boy falling to his death after sending away the mother bird. We can imagine Elisha, who knew the reward associated with this mitzvah, deciding when he saw this horror that the Torah was all lies and broken promises.

And the Talmud adds that, according to others, Elisha ben Avuyah left Judaism when he saw how the Romans murdered the sages of his generation and left their bodies to rot on dung heaps. 

Can we blame him? Don't we also feel tempted to dismiss God and the Torah as a bunch of fairy tales when we remember images of innocent men and women leaping to their deaths from the World Trade Center? Where is God and where is God's promised reward?

The answer can only be that there is no reward in the reality that only knows material pleasure and physical comfort. There is no balm for the righteous to be found there. Our truest and deepest joy in life is to be found in another reality. The reward for our soul is in the reality where we know ourselves to be part of God. 

If you know people who have really known profound suffering, and yet experience joy, then you know that this reality is real. Olam ha-ba is the place where pain and deprivation do not matter because we are in tune with the miracle of just being alive in a world that was given to us without our asking. That is our reward. That is the source of all true joy.

Whenever I have this thought, I remind myself that it is the main fallacy of t'shuvah—that it takes a lot of time, that it is something you have to work at. It is not necessarily so.

We tend to think of t'shuvah as being a kind of self-guided psychoanalysis. We place ourselves on the figurative couch and try to probe our lives intellectually—what am I doing right, what am I doing wrong, where do I need to change? Or, we think of t'shuvah as if it were a kind of exercise, like long-distance running, that requires weeks of strengthening practice. 

It is not that analysis and practice are not helpful in reaching t'shuvah. They are. It is just that they are not the main point of t'shuvah.

Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twerski, the author of Me'or Eynayim, wrote that t'shuvah has nothing to do with time. He cites a well-known rabbinic teaching that says that t'shuvah was one of the seven things God created before the world (B. Pesachim 54a):

T'shuvah preceded the world…and the world exists in time. However, prior to the world there was no conception of time at all.  Therefore, there is no quality of time in the repair of t'shuvah, just the moment. Since it comes from beyond the concept of time, it can repair everything in an instant.  T'shuvah has no need of time.  

When you imagine that t'shuvah depends on time, you are not thinking about real t'shuvah, which requires one to believe that it can repair everything in a moment, without time. This is what our beloved rabbis meant in saying, “If not now, when?”  This statement means that if you think that the repair of t'shuvah will be “not now”—since you believe that t'shuvah takes a long time—then you will also think, “When will it ever happen?"—for you believe that, taking time, the repair of t'shuvah could not be complete even if you spent days on end, like the sands of the sea, working on it.

But this is not t'shuvah at all, since it is not rooted in the belief that t'shuvah is beyond time and that it can repair everything in an instant.

"Repair everything in an instant." How does that work? 

It begins with the recognition that I am in need of repair and that I cannot do it myself. It begins with the recognition that in order to be repaired, I have to let go of all the conceits about my own importance, relinquish my grip on my invented self, and return to my Source. That's what the word t'shuvah means—"returning."

It doesn't take time. It does not require lengthy analysis or practice. It just requires a moment to let go and return again.

When you besiege a city for many days, waging war against it to capture it, you shall not destroy [lo tashchit] its trees, wielding the axe against them. You may eat from the trees, but you may not cut them down—for is the tree of the field a human being to flee from you into the besieged city? (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

The rabbis took this rule and expanded it into a broad principle which they called "bal tashchit," the prohibition against wasteful destruction. From it they decreed that it was a violation of the Torah to kill animals needlessly, to waste fuel oil, and otherwise to squander resources (B. Shabbath 67b, B. Hullin 7b, B. Kiddushin 32a). Maimonides expanded the principle of bal tashchit even further to include prohibitions against breaking vessels, tearing clothes, demolishing buildings, clogging wells, or wasting food (Yad, Hilchot Melachim 6:10).

It would be easy to see this law as a simple statement of prudence and frugality. Why spoil future opportunity with present excess? But the Torah makes it clear that the principle of bal tashchit is about more than mere thrift. Why should an army not cut down the trees around the walled city? It is not because the trees may prove more valuable for another use. It is because the trees cannot protect themselves, and therefore it is our obligation to care for them. 

Are the trees of the field human beings that can flee into the city? No, of course not. We are in a position of power over the world of God's creation, so we must use that power with care and protect the world.

Our obligation to care for resources is not primarily because it will benefit us. It is because the world is not ours to use in whatever way we wish. The world of creation has its own value and integrity apart from its usefulness to us. The world God created owes us nothing; we owe God and the world everything. 

As a writer for environmental campaigns, I usually tried to convince my readers that clean air, land and water would benefit them personally (and they do). However, there is also a greater truth. The world is not ours to desecrate and exploit. The most fundamental principle of environmentalism, right here in this week's Torah portion, is that we are servant's charged with the protection of a world placed in our safekeeping. 

That should be a source of joy to us. We have been given a great gift. If we can keep it, we will delight in it.  If we can remember who has given it to us, we will know ourselves to be blessed.