Walking in Chukim, Longing for Mitzvos

1“If you will walk in My statutes and keep My commandments …”¹ Notice the wording. Why does the verse use the word “walk” for fulfilling the chukim, the decrees given without a reason, and the word “keep” for fulfilling the commandments? The same question arises on an earlier verse, in Parshas Behar: “You shall do My statutes and keep My laws.”² Why does that verse speak of “keeping” the mishpatim, the laws whose reasons we understand, but of “doing” the chukim? We must also ask why that verse puts the chukim before the mishpatim. It would seem it should have been the other way around, going from the easier to the harder, since the mishpatim, which have a reason, are easier to fulfill than the chukim, which have none.

2The Midrash says:³ “‘If you will walk in My statutes’: 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. That is what is written, ‘and I turned my feet back to Your testimonies.’” What does this Midrash have to do with the verse “If you will walk in My statutes”?

3We can explain it through a teaching that the holy sefer Yismach Yisrael, by R' Yerachmiel Yisrael Yitzchak of Alexander, cites in the name of its author's grandfather, zt"l,⁴ on the verse “Teach me good reasoning and knowledge, for I have believed in Your commandments.”⁵ Dovid HaMelech asked to be taught the reasons for the mitzvos so that he could explore and explain them when he learned Torah. But when it came to actually doing the mitzvos, he fulfilled them with simple faith, without understanding or reasoning, only because Hashem had commanded them. For if a person fulfills a mitzvah only because of what he understands and grasps of it, he may go wrong, since the human mind is limited. That is what Dovid meant by “Teach me good reasoning and knowledge”: teach me the reasons for the mitzvos. There is no fear that this will lead me astray in fulfilling them, “for I have believed in Your commandments”: when I fulfill the mitzvos, I do them with simple faith and not because of their reasons. That is the gist of his words.

4This explains the verse “If you will walk in My statutes.” If you fulfill the chukim with wholehearted faith, without questions or investigation, then as a matter of course you will “keep My commandments”: your desire for Torah and mitzvos will be so great that you will wait eagerly for the mitzvos. For tishmeru, “keep,” speaks of anticipation, as in “and his father kept the matter,”⁶ in the spirit of “When will it come to my hand so that I may fulfill it?”⁷ This also explains why the verse in Parshas Behar mentions the chukim first and only then the mishpatim. It comes to teach us this very idea: one who is privileged to fulfill chukim that have no reason reaches “keep My laws.” This idea also answers a question about the reward our verses promise in this world, “then I will give your rains in their season” and “you shall dwell securely in your land.”⁸ The commentators ask, as the Kli Yakar cites,⁹ how this can be, when “there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world.”¹⁰ But here the verse speaks of one who has reached the level of “and his father kept the matter,” waiting eagerly for the mitzvos and doing them with love, affection and good will before the Master of all. For this a person is rewarded even in this world.

5This lets us explain the Midrash about Dovid HaMelech. Even when he was busy with physical things, such as fields, houses and the like, he was thinking of Hashem's mitzvos and longing to fulfill them. That is the meaning of his saying that his feet would lead him to the beis midrash, the study hall. Even while he was busy with other things, Dovid HaMelech was always waiting eagerly to do the will of the Creator, blessed be He, wondering when his feet would lead him to the beis midrash. So we find that he said, “Your statutes were songs to me.”¹¹ To him, all of Hashem's mitzvos were chukim, kept only because Hashem commanded them, and because of this he was privileged to find them as sweet as songs. And surely, when a person reaches such a level, he will always, as a matter of course, stand waiting eagerly to fulfill the Creator's mitzvos.

6This also gives us a hinted reading of the Midrash on the verse “and keep My commandments and do them”: “If you have kept the Torah, I count it for you as though you yourselves had done them.”¹² That is, if you are on the level of “and keep My commandments” in the sense of “and his father kept the matter,” standing and waiting eagerly for the moment to fulfill the mitzvos, then you are rewarded at once, as though you had already done them.

7May Hashem grant that we be privileged to serve the Creator with joy and longing, and to fulfill the mitzvos with vitality and love, not as “a commandment of men, learned by rote.”¹³ Then we will be privileged to receive every good thing. Amen, may it be His will.