What Is A Mivtza?

By: Yochanan Gordon 

By Yochanan Gordon 

No, it’s not a typo. This article isn’t meant to define what a mitzvah is, but rather a mivtza.

Mivtza is a Hebrew term meaning “mission” or “operation,” a word commonly employed in military parlance. It is also the term the late Lubavitcher Rebbe chose for the ten mitzvah campaigns he established to bring merit and spiritual protection to the Jewish people at moments when it was most needed.

In the weeks leading up to the Six-Day War, dread and uncertainty gripped Jews throughout the world. If there was one person who refused to respond with fear, choosing instead a proactive spiritual response, it was the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Rather than focusing on military strategy, the Rebbe launched Mivtza Tefillin, urging Jews to take to the streets and help fellow Jews put on tefillin.

In the sichos of that period, the Rebbe cited the Gemara’s interpretation of the verse:

“And all the nations of the earth shall see that the Name of Hashem is called upon you, and they shall fear you.” Chazal explain: “These are the tefillin worn upon the head.”

The Jewish victory that followed—defeating the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian armies in six astonishing days—was seen by countless Jews as a remarkable affirmation of the Rebbe’s spiritual vision and the power of mitzvos.

Over the years, the Rebbe expanded this initiative into ten mivtzoim: Mivtza Torah, Mivtza Tefillin, MivtzaMezuzah, Mivtza Tzedakah, Mivtza Bayis Malei Sefarim, Mivtza Neiros Shabbos Kodesh, Mivtza TaharasHamishpachah, Mivtza Kashrus, Mivtza Chinuch, and Mivtza Ahavas Yisrael. Each campaign was introduced deliberately and with remarkable precision, addressing the spiritual needs of its particular moment.

A well-known story is told about Mivtza Neiros Shabbos Kodesh.

The Baba Sali was known to foresee periods of danger facing the Jewish people. On one occasion, his intense avodah suggested that he anticipated a major war. When the year passed without catastrophe, his followers asked what had changed. He reportedly replied, “I didn’t know that the Lubavitcher Rebbe would establish Mivtza Neshek.”

Neshek is the acronym for Neiros Shabbos Kodesh, but it is also the Hebrew word for weaponry. The Baba Sali was suggesting that the spiritual “weapon” of Jewish women and girls lighting Shabbos candles had altered the heavenly decree.

Although the last of the ten campaigns is Mivtza Ahavas Yisrael, the truth is that every one of the mivtzoim is, at its core, an expression of Ahavas Yisrael. That makes this an especially fitting subject during the Three Weeks.

Recently I found myself reflecting on the word mivtza, and a thought occurred to me.

When Yosef’s brothers plotted against him, Yehudah argued:

“Mah betza ki naharog es achinu v’chisinu es damo”—“What do we gain by killing our brother and covering his blood?”

It struck me that the word mivtza can be viewed as a contraction of the words mah betza.

Ironically, shortly after convincing his brothers not to kill Yosef, Yehudah left. During his absence Yosef was sold into slavery and disappeared into exile for twenty-two years. Rashi notes that Yehudah had withdrawn to fast and repent over his earlier involvement in moving Yaakov’s bed into Leah’s tent.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe derived a profound lesson from this episode. People often assume that exile is born only from sin and spiritual failure. Yet here we find that exile began because a holy man became absorbed in holy pursuits while his own brother remained abandoned in a pit.

Sometimes even holiness, when detached from responsibility for another Jew, can become the seed of exile.

Perhaps that is the deeper meaning of mivtza. It is the rectification of mah betza. Instead of asking, “What spiritual gain is there for me?” a mivtza asks, “What does another Jew need from me?”

For decades after Mivtza Tefillin was launched, many distinguished Torah scholars questioned whether encouraging non-observant Jews to put on tefillin was an appropriate initiative. Even after the miraculous events surrounding the Six-Day War, not everyone was convinced that this represented the ideal Torah approach.

Yet the Rebbe saw something different.

I recently came across a beautiful explanation that Hashem derives even greater pleasure when a Jew who is distant from Torah and mitzvos puts on tefillin than when a great tzaddik does.

A tzaddik is likened to Shabbos. Just as tefillin are not worn on Shabbos because both serve as an os—a sign of the covenant between Hashem and the Jewish people—so too, on a certain level, the tzaddik already embodies that sign. The Jew who has drifted away, however, needs that os. Every pair of tefillin wrapped around his arm and head proclaims that he, too, belongs to Hashem.

To neglect such a Jew—to refrain from offering him a mitzvah because we are occupied with our own spiritual growth—is, in a sense, to repeat the question of mah betza ki naharog es achinu. Every mivtza is a declaration that no Jew should ever be left in the pit.

There is a famous story of the Mitteler Rebbe, who had put his infant son to sleep before immersing himself in Torah study in his father’s home. At some point the child fell from the bed and began to cry. The Alter Rebbe heard the crying, entered the room, picked up his grandson, comforted him and put him back to sleep.

Later, the Alter Rebbe told his son what had happened and remarked:

“A Jew should never become so absorbed in his own pursuits that he cannot hear the cry of a Jewish child.”

Perhaps that is the essence of every mivtza.

To hear another Jew’s cry.

To refuse to ask, mah betza—“What do I gain?”—and instead ask, “What does my fellow Jew need from me?”

If the sale of Yosef marked the beginning of exile, then every act of reaching out to another Jew becomes an operation against exile itself.

That is a mivtza. 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.