Last year on Mother's day my wife Dalia and I with two of our daughters were having dinner at a restaurant. We noticed at a nearby table that there was a rather large family which included at least three generations. During a lull in the conversation at our table I heard one of the senior members of the group say, "You know being here with all of you -- this is really what it's all about." It reminded me of a wedding I attended in California where one of the bride's relatives said to me "This is really what it's all about. Isn't it?" I answered, "Sure is." But then I got to wondering. What does "this is really what it is all about" really mean? Are there other things not what it's all about? What is "it"? And about what? (The above is based on an idea by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Page 49 in "Invisible Lines of Connection - Sacred Stories of the Ordinary”).

There used to be a dance we did in Junior high. It went something like this. "Put your right hand in, take your right hand out, put your right hand in and shake it all about". It was called the Hokey Pokey. It went on like that. Each time featuring a different part of the human anatomy. The dance ended with everyone complying with and singing the final instruction, "You put your whole self in and you shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey and you shake yourself about. And that's what it's all about". So that's what it's all about. (Kushner ibid Page 50). Putting yourself fully into what you are doing in life is what it is all about.

There’s the old story of two Eastern European Jews talking about a well known revered Rabbi. One of them had known and remembered him. The other man asked him, "What were the Rabbi's great concerns, what was the most important concern for him?" The other answered, "The most important task was whatever he was doing at the time".

The words of the Torah are directed to everyone. You, each of you, can strive toward holiness in your lives. The command to strive for holiness was not written for saints or a special select group of people. There is the teaching in Judaism that states that every creation, animate or inanimate, contains sparks of divine light and it is incumbent upon each of us to restore those fallen sparks. We talk about a special moment in Jewish spiritual history when God revealed the Torah to our people at Sinai. What could be more significant -- surely that's what it's all about. But our sages teach "Each and every day the Divine voice echoes from Sinai". This poses two problems. If holy words of the Torah are spoken from God every day, then why can't we hear it? And if Torah is being spoken all the time what's so special about the revelation at Mt. Sinai? Here's the answer of Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov, an Orthodox 20th century scholar. The reason Sinai is so special and the reason why we are unable to hear Torah all the time is because the noise and static, and muzak of this world drowns out the sound of God's voice. Only at the giving of the Torah at Sinai were the people so totally involved that they heard no distracting noise. Being able to hear God's voice is what it's all about but it can be heard not only at Sinai. As one Hasidic Rabbi said, "A person is able to awaken the holiness of God in any place". How is that possible? By putting our whole self into the tasks at hand in our day to day lives realizing the sacred moment is right now and by realizing that each of us carries within us a spark of the divine. And that my friends is what it's all about.