GEN922 In the Bible’s quite patriarchal tradition, Abraham is zerizut’s [zeal] great exemplar. We note how his zeal emphasizes velocity as he provides hospitality for God’s messengers: “Abraham went quickly into Sarah’s tent and said, ‘Hurry, make cakes.’ Then Abraham ran to the herd to select a tender and choice calf, and gave it to his servants, who hastened to prepare it.” [this and following verses] Some sages find zeal in Abraham’s response to God’s awesome command to sacrifice Isaac: “Abraham rose early the next morning, saddled his ass, took two lads and his son Isaac, the wood for the offering and set out for the place ...” Genesis 22:3   No wonder the classic description of proper religious vigor is zerizim makdimim le-mitzvot, the diligent rush to do a mitzvah Pesachim 4a. Judah b. Tema states this dramatically: “Be as strong as the leopard, soaring as the eagle, fleet as the hart, and mighty as the lion to do the will of our Father in Heaven” Avot 5:23   And of course we must mention those five diligent B’nei Brak rabbis who got so engrossed in performing the maggid (storytelling) step of their seder that they continued their discussion until dawn. As we read each Pesah, “everyone who extends the telling is praiseworthy.” But the rabbis did not promote religious zerizut unconditionally.  Consider the enigma of the highly esteemed second-century teacher Ben Azzai, who said: “run to fulfill even a slight precept as you would to perform a great one” Avot 4:2, a clear invitation to scrupulosity. When Ben Azzai died, the religious leaders of the day called him “The last of the industrious scholars” Sotah 9:15 But for some reason, he was never ordained. Did they sense that his devotion had subtly evolved into a compulsion to feed his pride? Whatever the case, in eight separate talmudic citations the rabbis debate whether taking on special stringencies of observance, humrot, leads to pridefulness, a grievous vice that should be shunned.   It is possible to become so meticulous about observing a law that one loses all sense of its never-changing purpose: building a Jewish relationship with God. One famous late-medieval Lithuanian halakhist, Solomon Luria, recorded the opinions of those who believed that it made no difference whether such practices were done publicly or privately—The person who did them should be put under a ban. Yam Shel Shelomo [the Sea of Solomon], Bava Kamma chapter 7, par. 41. Luzzato summed it up well: “No one should carry zeal or confidence to excess” Mesillat Yesharim BOROJMV 89-90