Tanks for the Memories: Wrestling with the Heart of Jewish Obligation

I recently came across a TikTok video that I felt required a response. It expressed a common misunderstanding about Jewish people, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to see if I could set it right.

Among my friends and family, I might not be the most qualified to address it. Many of them are more observant or have more years of formal education about our shared cultural heritage.

But I’ve been told I’m pretty good at communicating, so I’ll give it a go.

Before I do: Judaism contains multitudes. Different movements, communities, and scholars observe and interpret traditions differently. What I share below is one understanding that resonates with many Jews, though not all.

The video was by a (I assume) well-intentioned Muslim man who tried to explain what he saw as one reason for antisemitism. He said that when a Christian tries to bring him to Jesus, he has two reactions: (1) Thanks, but it’s not for me; and (2) What a beautiful thing it is that this person wants to share what — to them — is the best thing they have, with genuine concern for my well-being and soul. But Jews, he said, act like they want to keep it for themselves, seemingly uninterested in his salvation. Maybe they think he is not good enough to be brought into the fold. Maybe they look down on the rest of the world. So, what can Jews expect other than resentment?

Jewish practices can seem insular. It's hard to know where to start, but let’s start here: have you ever heard of a Mitzvah Tank?

A Mitzvah Tank in Manhattan

If you live in New York City or another place with a significant Jewish population you may have seen one: a parked bus or Winnebago with behatted, befringed men standing outside, asking the occasional passerby “Are you Jewish?”

If the answer is yes, the passerby is invited to perform the small but important Jewish ritual of donning tefillin: winding a leather strap down their arm to affix a small box containing key prayers while saying a blessing (another one goes on your head at the same time).

To an outsider, it looks a bit ridiculous — and one wonders if there might be some merit to making the tefillin a bit more stylish, less… boxy. But in performing this ritual six days a week, Jewish men (yes, usually men, but sometimes women) fulfill a pair of the 613 commandments in the Torah.

“And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” (Deuteronomy 6:8)

Did I say 613 commandments?? Yup… Did you think there were only 10?

It turns out that in Jewish tradition, “the 10 commandments” is shorthand, operating a bit like headers that cluster and organize the complex, dense array of more detailed commandments that flow from them.

The foundational story at the heart of Judaism is that, long ago, our people entered into a covenant — or agreement — with G-d. Abraham’s was the first, and his covenant was that he and his descendants would worship and commune with no other deity (and that boys would lose a slight bit of weight down below). However, in the later story of the Exodus from Egypt, it was when the Israelites gathered at the base of Mount Sinai that they received the comprehensive list of 613 commandments — or mitzvot — that would define Jewish obligations moving forward.

Today, we often think of mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) as good deeds, but the word more technically refers to acts that fulfill the commandments. Many of these do indeed involve good deeds: visiting the sick, feeding the poor, clothing the destitute. Personally, I’ve always loved the commandment that farmers should leave a portion of their fields unreaped, so that the hungry can come take what they need.

But the basis of many other mitzvot is less clear: Why can’t we eat pork? Why can’t our garments mix linen and wool? Sometimes, the answer just seems to be “because G-d said so”. Of course, this hasn’t stopped centuries of Jewish scholars from debating the nature and reasons for such obligations: Although many people assume that the Talmud is a single authoritative doctrine, it really amounts to centuries of rabbis and scholars coming to terms with the meaning of the commandments and how to honor them. It’s a compendium of thinkers building on and disagreeing with each other. Two Jews, three opinions, as they say.

As you can imagine, wrestling with the 613 commandments is HARD. Adding to this, as many of us are drawn to assimilate into, contribute to, and live in connection with our broader communities, we lose touch with the social norms, support structures, and infrastructure that make living in full accordance possible. (The ongoing dialogues — sometimes tensions — between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox movements of Judaism reflect differing opinions about how much our interpretations and observance of the commandments can adapt in the face of modern values and norms.)

Now, here’s an important point: in Jewish tradition, G-d’s covenant is with the whole of the Jewish people. We are responsible for upholding our end of the agreement as a community. When we come together on the high holiday of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, it is as if we are returning to Mount Sinai to apologize and hold ourselves accountable for the many ways we have fallen short of fulfilling the commandments — both individually and collectively. Ideally, we emerge from the holiday with renewed resolve to wrestle with our human weaknesses in order to sanctify this world by living out the commandments. (In an interesting contrast with how people often think of sin, Judaism regards sin more as “missing the target” than as an evil act, per se.)

Which brings us back to the Mitzvah Tank. Those bearded men and yeshiva students are not there to proselytize to non-Jews. Their mission is to help bring the Jewish community ever closer to fulfilling its obligations, one mitzvah at a time, even if it is through something as small as helping one more Jewish person put on tefillin that day.

What about the non-Jews? Here’s the thing: the Talmud teaches that G-d has expectations of non-Jews, as well. The obligation of fulfilling the 613 commandments falls specifically to the Jewish people, but there are universal commandments that apply to everyone: don’t worship idols, don’t commit blasphemy, don’t murder, avoid sexual immorality (a concept that is always in flux), don’t steal, don’t be cruel to animals, and establish just and fair legal systems. Judaism doesn’t focus heavily on the afterlife — its focus is on this life and doing what we can to make the world we live in holy — but what it does teach is that all who strive to fulfill the mitzvot expected of them have a seat in the world to come, whether they are Jewish or not. Jews don’t try to convert you to save your soul because your actions are what make you holy, not membership in our tribe.

We all have a part to play in repairing the world — what Jewish tradition calls tikkun olam. Jews consider our role an important one, even though our numbers are small (0.2% of the world population). Imagine you open a new 500-page ream of printer paper and peel one page off the top as a test page. Population-wise, Jews are that one test page, but getting that part right helps the whole enterprise succeed.

To the TikToker who said that Jews don’t visibly want to share what we hold most dear: Jews don’t proselytize, but we do welcome converts. In fact, there is a deeply held Jewish teaching that converts are especially beloved because they volunteer to take on the rigors of Jewish obligations rather than being born into them. Just imagine: a convert who not only volunteers to take on these sacred obligations, but who also — in doing so — brings our people even closer to fully living out the commandments! But this is not to be taken lightly, just one reason why rabbis take pains to make sure potential converts know what they're getting into before accepting them as students.

As for the 613 mitzvot, sometimes they come calling even for the less observant among us.

On December 14^th, 2025, a pair of terrorists brought hunting rifles to Sydney’s Bondi Beach. There, they killed 15 Jews at a family-oriented celebration of the first night of Hanukkah — children, Holocaust survivors, and rabbis were targeted only for being Jewish. Over the following week, a small mountain of flowers grew at the site, an outpouring from the wider community who supported the Jewish community, even if many of them might not have understood us.

On the last day of Hanukkah, my wife and I visited to pay our respects, but at first I wasn’t sure how to do so in a way that honored my own obligations to millennia-old tradition. Then I saw them, the Jewish men at the table with the tefillin, and I knew. They helped me place a box upon my forehead and wind the leather strap down my arm, as I recited the blessing: “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam…”

Every flower placed at the site was a righteous act; what I could offer was one more Jew fulfilling a mitzvah.