How can the concept of mitzvot be meaningful to us today?

One of the great tasks of Jewish education is to deliberately create an atmosphere of rebellion among its students. Rebellion, after all, is the great emancipator. To paraphrase English writer Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832): We owe almost all our knowledge and achievements not to those who agreed but to those who differed. It was this quality that brought Judaism into existence. Avraham was the first great rebel, destroying idols, and he was followed by his children, by Moshe, and by the Jewish people.

…When we tell our children to eat kosher, we need to tell them that this is an act of disobedience against self-indulgence, by which human beings are prepared to eat anything as long as it tastes good. When we go to synagogue, it is a protest against man’s arrogance in thinking that he can do it all himself. When young couples are asked to observe the law of family purity, it is a rebellion against the obsession with sex. The celebration of Shabbat must be taught as an enormous challenge to our contemporary world, which believes that happiness depends on how much we can produce.

…Judaism is in essence an act of dissent, not of consent. Dissent means renewal. It creates loyalty. It is the stuff that world growth is made of. (Needed Redemptive Halakha, by Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo, Journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, “Conversations”, September 2015)

Go forth and be a rebel!