Preparing for Mitzvos: Reward Even in This World

1“If you will walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them, then I will give your rains in their season.”¹ The commentators raise a well-known question, which the Kli Yakar cites:² how can the Torah promise this, when “there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world”?³

2The Midrash says:⁴ “This is what is written, ‘I considered my ways, and I turned my feet back to Your testimonies.’ Dovid said: Master of the world, every single day I would plan and say, ‘I am going to such-and-such a place, to such-and-such a house,’ and my feet would bring me to the synagogues and the study halls.” The holy sefarim ask: did Dovid HaMelech really have errands like these? He sat and learned Torah from midnight on!⁵

3The Baal HaTurim comments on how our verse is joined to the one before it.⁶ Parshas Behar, the parshah before ours, ends with the verse “You shall keep My Shabbosos.”⁷ What is the connection between Shabbos and “If you will walk in My statutes”?

4aLet us first cite a teaching of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on the verse “and keep My commandments and do them.” Here tishmeru, “keep,” is used as in “and his father kept the matter,” which speaks of waiting eagerly for something.⁸ So “and keep My commandments” means preparing for the mitzvah, and “and do them” means that the preparation will count as doing the mitzvah itself. How is a person privileged to reach this? By sanctifying the material side of life. That is why the verse goes on, “then I will give your rains in their season.” Gishmeichem, “your rains,” hints at gashmiyus, material things. The verse is saying that when you are busy with material things, they will be “in their season,” at their proper time: you will think carefully about which material things you need to deal with, and how much.

4bWith this my father explained a passage in the early Midrash Tanna Devei Eliyahu:⁹ “As soon as Israel accepted the yoke of the kingship of Heaven with joy and said, ‘All that Hashem has spoken we will do and we will hear,’ the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moshe to tell Israel to make Him a Mishkan, as it says, ‘Speak to Bnei Yisrael … and they shall make Me a Mikdash, and I will dwell among them …’” Na'aseh, “we will do,” he explained, alludes to material things, which belong to the realm of action. By saying “we will do and we will hear,” Bnei Yisrael took it upon themselves to handle even their material affairs in the spirit of “we will hear,” in keeping with the Torah. That is why they were privileged to have the Mishkan, “and they shall make Me a Mikdash”: because they made it in holiness, Hashem's Shechinah would rest even in the physical world, on the wood of the Mishkan and its physical vessels. That is the gist of his words.

5My father's words also give us a hinted reading of the Midrash about Dovid. Dovid HaMelech was saying: “Even when I was busy with material things, in such-and-such a field or house, I was still one of the ‘masters of reckoning,’ weighing how to do them according to the Torah.”¹⁰ That is the meaning of his feet leading him to the beis midrash, the study hall: everything he did was a preparation for reaching the beis midrash.

6This explains well why the Torah promised reward here to those who keep the mitzvos. The reason there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world, as is known, is that the whole world does not hold enough to pay for even one mitzvah. But here, as we have explained, the verse is speaking of a fence around the Torah, a safeguard and preparation for it: the “keeping” of “keep My commandments.” [Though the preparation is counted as the mitzvah, it is not the mitzvah itself,] and for that, reward can be paid in this world too.

7This also explains why the mitzvah of Shabbos is placed next to Parshas Bechukosai. On Shabbos, avodah, the service of Hashem, is carried out through material things as well. Rashi writes in a similar vein that the neshamah yeseirah, the additional soul of Shabbos, was given for eating and drinking.¹¹ Eating and drinking, too, must be done as preparation for the sake of the Torah [since they give a person the strength to learn Torah], and holy Shabbos has the power to sanctify them. Because Shabbos sanctifies these preparations for the Torah, Chazal said that the Torah was given on Shabbos.¹² This is the meaning of “You shall keep My Shabbosos”: be sanctified with the holiness of Shabbos. Then you will be privileged to fulfill “If you will walk in My statutes and keep My commandments,” sanctifying the fence and the preparation for the Torah as well.

8This is also the purpose of Sefiras HaOmer, the counting of the days between Pesach and Shavuos: to be privileged to refine our middos, our character traits, which are a fence around the Torah. As Chazal said, “Derech eretz, decent conduct, came before the Torah”:¹³ good middos are the prelude to the Torah, and through them a person can go on to learn Torah. So we must take care to prepare ourselves before receiving the Torah on Shavuos, by refining our middos.

9My holy great-grandfather explained along the same lines in his sefer Divrei Binah. He asked why the Ten Commandments include commands even about lowly matters, such as “Do not covet,” “Do not commit adultery” and “Do not murder.”¹⁴ When Bnei Yisrael stood at Mount Sinai they were on wondrous levels of holiness and purity. What did people like that have to do with such things? The answer is that the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted Bnei Yisrael to receive the Torah in holiness, and for this they needed preparations and fences. These prohibitions, which keep a person away from everything lowly, were meant as that fence and preparation for receiving the Torah. The same idea is the reason for the three days of hagbalah, when bounds were set around the mountain.¹⁵ That is the gist of his holy words.

10May Hashem grant that we see fulfilled in us the blessing my holy great-grandfather of Biala, zy"a, gave: that we be privileged to receive the Torah with both hands, “Length of days is in its right hand; in its left hand are wealth and honor,”¹⁶ and to see the coming of Moshiach. Amen, may it be His will.