Too many mitzvot?

A guest post by JS:

SephardiLady posted recently about personal responsibility (see here).

Specifically, the post dealt with a report that worker's at the Raleigh Hotel were not paid on time due to a snafu which, purely by coincidence I'm sure, happened last year around the Chagim as well. YWN and VIN both posted articles on the matter. Some of the comments on the sites are simply beyond belief. A sample:

Interesting enough!! You could have thought that the high end workers were delayed pay. I was at the hotel this summer & I recognise every single face in the picture. These a re the cleaning goites who half the time don't do their jobs. They should be happy that even have a place to work. If I were the manager I would have fired them long ago.

SephardiLady points out that kashrut (external signs of frumkeit) always seems to take the place of yashrut (internal signs of frumkeit). I couldn't agree more. In fact, it made me wonder if, as if it were possible, do we have too many mitzvot?

After all, there are so many mitzvot, and so many customs, and so many chumrot on the mitzvot and on the customs that it's just too easy for one to pick and choose what he wants to keep and what he doesn't want to keep. All the while, this person believes they're frum because, after all, they do so many mitzvot. And more often than not, it's the external mitzvot, customs, and chumrot that people choose to observe. And why not? They give the greatest immediate reward, from an external observer the person appears to be frum. The internal mitzvot, those of being a good, upright person, offer no such incentive, no one can see when you don't cheat or steal, when you give tzedaka privately, when you hold you tongue and don't slander someone.

I almost wish that the only mitzvot we had were yashrut-related. Can you imagine if the only way to gauge whether someone was frum was how upright and upstanding they were? That people could eat and drink whatever they want and wear whatever they want, but all we'd care about is if they were good people to the core? Wouldn't this be, on some level at least, a better form of Judaism? Is this not in line with what God tells us time and again through his Prophets, that God does not care for our sacrifices and our fasts, he just wants us to care for and do justice by the needy, the orphans, and the widows?

The other issuse is that it's so easy to pick one maxim over another and still be frum all the while. When it's beneficial to your cause you can point to dan l'kaf z'chut (when you're the one being judged) or you can point to lashon ha'ra (when you're the one being exposed). Just too many mitzvot and the focus is always on the wrong ones it seems.

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