Naso: The 614th Commandment
My friend Orley took my daughter Hannah to the park. Hannah showed her the two ways to climb up to the slide — one which only has a few steps and one that has monkey-bars. Hannah explained that she goes up the few steps and isn’t big enough to climb the monkey-bars. “I’m just a little bit big.” She said, “I’m three. I don’t want to get bigger. I like being three.” Orley was impressed by Hannah’s peacefulness with the stage that she is in.
I wish I could say the same. I’ve been sick this week, and I’d love to fast forward until I feel well again. I’m in the middle of a couple professional projects that I wish were done already. I can’t make the moment of completion come any sooner than it will, but in the meantime I have an abiding sense of frustration.
In this week’s Torah portion, the people finally conclude a project that they’ve been working on for a long time — the tabernacle, the portable sanctuary for use on their desert journey. When Moses completed the final preparations for use of the tabernacle, the chiefs of each tribe presented gifts for the tabernacle — one per day. The gifts by each of the chiefs were identical and incredibly specific; the weight and worth of each donated item is elaborated. Therefore the same paragraph describing this gift repeats twelve times. (This week was my bat mitzvah portion, and I practiced that paragraph so many times I could recite it in my sleep!)
I wonder why the Torah which is usually extremely concise repeats the same paragraph 12 time. Instead the paragraph could have just been written once with a sentence stipulating that the same offering was given by each of the chiefs on the subsequent 11 days. Or better yet, all the gifts could have been given on the same day!
Perhaps, by specifying the offering for each day, the Torah subtly makes the point that each gift is equally worthwhile. Each tribe had its own special moment. Rather than grouping the days together, the Torah notes that each day has its own blessings.
The same point is made by the counting of the Omer — the seven weeks leading up to the holiday of Shavuot (which we celebrated this week). These weeks were a period of intense anticipation for farmers. On Shavuot (which is also called Hag-Ha-katzir, the holiday of the harvest), the wheat would finally ripen, and the farmers would know how well their crops had done. The natural inclination would be to count down until the day of the harvest. Instead, the Torah stipulates that we should count up the days. This reversal implies that each day is valuable.
As we celebrate the giving the Torah with its 613 commandments, I would add just one more commandment: “Thou Shalt Not Miss Thy Life.” John Lennon understood this when he wrote that “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” This newest made up commandment reminds me not to miss the trees for the forest. Each day’s gifts should be appreciated on their own terms, not merely as a prelude to a future hope.
In this week’s ordination ceremony for the Ziegler school’s newest rabbis, Reb Mimi Feigelson noted that the Hebrew words hamtanah (the waiting) and hamatanah (the gift) are spelled the same. Even waiting can be a gift.
I hope to learn from Hannah to be content in my present stage. There will always be more ladders to climb in the future, but in the meantime, we can enjoy the gift of today.
Rabbi Ilana Grinblat teaches rabbinic literature at the American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two young children.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Fast Forward Sotheby’s to auction earliest known kiddush cup
-
Opinion Trump’s new tariffs on Israel are a BDS dream come true
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.