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Date Posted: 21:14:56 05/23/03 Fri
Author: schwabra
Author Host/IP: dialup-67.72.176.253.Dial1.Detroit1.Level3.net / 67.72.176.253
Subject: Commandments

"A STELLAR PERFORMANCE"

This Shabbat we read the Torah portions of Bechukotai, the final portion of
the book of Leviticus.

Bechukotai begins with the Divine promise: "If you will walk in My statutes,
and keep My commandments and observe them"--then G-d will bestow many
blessings, including rain at the right time, ample produce, security and peace.

The question could be asked: Should we be fulfilling the commandments for the
sake of material rewards, or should we be doing them for their own
sake--because G-d commanded them?

There are many answers given to this question. Maimonides offers the
following: The commandments must, indeed, be fulfilled unconditionally and without
regard for reward. However, there are inevitably various distractions and
difficulties connected with daily life that makes their performance a constant
challenge.

When these distractions are minimized, it is much easier to fully carry them
out. But when material circumstances are not quite so satisfactory, though the
same performance of the commandments is expected, it requires a greater
effort. For it is obviously harder to concentrate on Torah and its commandments
when one has to overcome outside pressures.

So G-d's promise of material rewards is not meant to bribe the person into
keeping the commandments. Rather, it is a promise that where there is a firm
resolve to walk in G-d's ways and keep His commandments, He will make their
performance easier by providing one's material needs and by reducing outside
pressures to a minimum.
-----------------------------

A TELLING STORY
When Reb Meir of Premishlan was a young man, before he became a Rebbe, his
livelihood came from one cow. Even then, he always lived as modestly as
possible, in order to have the wherewithal to buy meat to distribute to the poor in
honor of Shabbos. This practice he maintained into old age, supplementing his
own meager savings with alms which he himself collected.

One Wednesday, since he had not a single copper coin with which to buy meat
for the poor, he sat down to think of what could be done-until the solution
dawned upon him. He would have his cow slaughtered and give away its meat to the
poor. In the dead of night he led his cow off to the shochet (ritual
slaughterer) and had it slaughtered, and managed to distribute all its meat to the poor
while it was yet dark. Early in the morning his wife went out to milk the
cow, and was amazed that it was nowhere to be found. When all her searches were
in vain, she ran in, all alarmed, and gasped the bitter news to her husband:
the cow was lost!

The tzaddik was quick to reassure her: "The cow isn't lost, G-d forbid. It
has ascended to heaven."

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