Part of the hangover of the Covid pandemic is that we’ve reduced, or in some cases stopped, making physical contact. Handshakes and kisses are out of style.

For Jewish people, there is a religious significance as well – we are accustomed to kissing objects like mezuzot. We also kiss our talit, tzitzit, Torah scrolls, our tefillin and our holy books.

Sephardi Jews are generally known to be more spiritual are even more scrupulous about this – the Jewish comedian Modi has a routine on their zest for mitzvos.  There are Sephardic Jews who have the custom of kissing the matzah on Passover before eating it. Others have the custom of kissing the Esrog, and Jews have the custom of kissing the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, when they visit it.

If you’ve visited Israel, you may have noticed that many Jews have the custom of literally getting down on hands and knees to physically kiss the earth when they land in the Holy Land. Even Sir Richard Branson got in on the act.  

However, there is no mitzvah or requirement to kiss the mezuzah, or any holy object or entity, for that matter. Because kissing expresses love for the object or entity, a commandment to kiss an object would not work - you can’t make a person love something to the point that he or she kisses it. That kind of love would have to come from the person, not from an order. Jewish law describes such kisses instead as chibuv mitzvah, or “endearment of the mitzvah.”

This week we read about Noah and the Great Flood. G-d tells Noah to build the Ark, in which he will rescue his family and all the animals, birds and insects. To do so, he would need to build a giant vessel, a craft, about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall by today’s measurements.

It took Noah many years to build the Ark. The Biblical commentator Rashi tells us that it actually took 120 years. The Lubavitcher Rebbe asks the obvious question - why did it take Noah so long? If he had been given an order by G-d Himself to build the Ark, he should have done it as quickly as possible, like any other command from G-d. So Noah should have hired a whole crew of woodworkers and contractors to build the ship in the quickest possible time!

When we analyse G-d’s command we understand the answer. What G-d actually said to Noah was, “Make for yourself an ark of wood”— in other words, the order was that he should personally and literally build the Ark, not delegate the labour to others. Yes, Noah could have shared G-d’s command, this special mitzvah, with others - but we can say that because he loved the mitzvah so much, he wanted to do it all himself. So, it took 120 years.

After a month of praying and feasting our enthusiasm for mitzvot may be waning a bit. Whether we are kissers, huggers or less emotive, we can all find ways to increase our endearment of mitzvot.