Some people have a gift for doing things with a smile, even when they’re complaining. It may be about the plethora of potholes in your street or your favorite team losing a game they should have won—somehow, we find the humor in it. This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, asks us to bring that same spirit into something far more important: our relationship with God.
First, the good news. The Torah promises blessing upon blessing when we walk in God’s ways. Then comes the bad news—a list of curses so harsh that our custom is to read them almost under our breath. Nobody wants to dwell on it.
So what triggered it? The Torah tells us plainly:
“Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, when you had an abundance of everything.”
The straightforward reading is that when things are good, we forget God altogether. It’s an old story. Business is booming, the kids are doing well—and somewhere along the way, we start thinking we built it all ourselves. Funny how tough times make us pray with fervor and real feeling, and smooth times can make us forget to say thank you.
But some commentators read the verse literally. The problem wasn’t that people stopped doing mitzvot; they kept them. They came to synagogue, gave tzedakah, observed Shabbat. They served God, but not with joy.
Really? Is that such a terrible sin? We kept the commandments, but weren’t smiling? And for that, we deserve all these dreadful curses? Surely, that sounds unfair, unreasonable and rather over the top.
Let me tell you a story that makes the point better than I can.
A Jewish estate manager (call him Berel) worked for a wealthy Russian squire, a massive landowner who once invited him to a business lunch. Berel arrived to find a beautiful spread on the table—and right in the center, a dish of pork chops, with wine that was most definitely not kosher.
Berel apologized and said that he couldn’t touch either item.
The landowner leaned back, amused. “Tell me, Berel. What if there were nothing else to eat? What if your life depended on it?”
Berel explained that Jewish law places saving a life above nearly everything else. In a genuine emergency, he would not only be allowed to eat the food, but required to.
At which point the squire stood up, pulled out a pistol and pointed it straight at him. “Then drink the wine!” he bellowed.
Shaking, Berel downed the glass in one sip.
The landowner burst out laughing and holstered the gun. “Relax, man, I was only toying with you!”
Berel was livid.
“What’s wrong?” the landowner asked. “Can’t a man take a joke?”
Berel looked him dead in the eye: “You couldn’t have made me eat the pork chops?!”
I tell that story because it asks the real question: Was Berel serving God joyfully, or was he keeping kosher through gritted teeth, half-wishing for an excuse to dig in? Is he an observant Jew who lies awake dreaming and fantasizing over pork chops?
Focus on the joy
That’s the whole point. Serving God isn’t meant to be a chore we tolerate. A mitzvah done through gritted teeth is technically a mitzvah, but it’s missing the soul of the thing.
A second, more painful story drives this home. Under the czars, Jewish boys as young as 12 were dragged into the Russian army for terms as long as 25 years—a deliberate policy to tear them from their families and their faith.
A group of these conscripts once smuggled out a letter to one of the great rabbis of his time. “We have no kosher food here. If treif is all there is, what should we do?”
His answer has stayed with me for years: “If you must eat it to survive, eat it. But I ask one thing: Please, don’t suck the marrow bones.”
If you have no choice, you have no choice. But don’t learn to enjoy it. Don’t let necessity turn into appetite. Because it was never only about the technical act. It’s about the heart behind it.
I have met people who come to shul and make it absolutely sure that you know what a sacrifice it was to get out of bed. People who write a check to charity and somehow make the recipient feel guilty for asking. People who “keep” Shabbat and spend all 25 hours listing everything they’re not allowed to do. Technically, box checked. But joy? Nowhere to be found.
And then, thank God, I’ve met the other kind—the family that lights candles like it’s the best part of their week, the person who slips you a donation with a smile, the regular worshipper who walks in like a child coming home rather than an employee clocking in.
Same mitzvah. Two completely different experiences.
Nobody can be joyful every day, and you cannot pretend that everything is fine when it isn’t. Still, it’s about shifting how we see the relationship. A mitzvah isn’t a burden God saddled us with; it’s a gift He has handed us, a chance to bring a bit of light into an otherwise ordinary Tuesday.
And our children are watching. If all they hear at home is grumbling about how hard it is to be Jewish, then that’s what they will carry through life. But if they see that Shabbat brings special food and calm into the house, and a mitzvah puts a spring in Mom or Dad’s step, they’ll grow up understanding that Yiddishkeit isn’t something you survive. It’s something you are lucky to live to do.
Yes, doing the right thing matters. But this week’s portion pushes us one step further: how we do it matters, too. Not grudgingly. Not on autopilot. And certainly not while quietly eyeing the pork chops on the other side of the table.
Let’s learn to serve God with a bit of warmth, enthusiasm, and, dare I say it, a smile.
