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שבת שלום -פרשת בהר / בחקתי

Video Shiur

Click play to watch the video shiur by Rabbi Scott Kahn about ברכת החמה

News and Notes

On Monday night, Lag BaOmer, some of our students made the three hour trip to Meron, which houses the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and serves as the traditional center of Israel's Lag BaOmer celebrations. Most students, however, stayed in Beit Shemesh, and enjoyed the many local bonfires which dotted the city. Later in the evening, our rosh yeshiva, Rav Kahn, hosted a kumsitz and barbecue at his house. On Tuesday morning, the yeshiva was honored to host Dan Marans, the executive director of Zomet Institute. Zomet is at the forefront of cutting edge research regarding Halachah and technology, and Mr. Marans gave a fascinating presentation that dealt with Hilchot Shabbat, the basis for the prohibition on electricity on Shabbat, and various technological innovations that can assist doctors, the disabled, and others to use certain electrical devices without violating the laws of Shabbat. Following the Zomet presentation, our rosh yeshiva, Rav Wolicki, offered a special Lag BaOmer shiur on the life and personality of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. This Shabbat is the yeshiva's annual Old City Shabbaton. The students will be staying in Jerusalem's Old City, and will participate in numerous activities, including a guided tour, a visit to the Kotel tunnels, and a much-anticipated talk by the well-known speaker, "Guru Gil" Locks. We thank Rav Ariel Greenberg and Rav Meir Arnold and their families, who will be joining us for Shabbat. Finally, we wish another mazal tov to Dov Muchnick, who completed Seder Nezikin on Thursday. This is Dov's tenth siyum this year - kein yirbu!

Blessings and Rewards
By Rabbi Scott Kahn

"If you walk in My statutes, and you guard My mitzvot, doing them, I will give your rains in their seasons..." (Vayikra 26:3-4)

This verse presents an explicit Divine promise that proper shmirat hamitzvot - guarding and keeping G-d's commands - leads to direct physical benefit in this world. This idea, however, is directly contradicted by Rabbi Yaakov's statement in Masechet Kiddushin (39b) that, "There is no reward for a mitzvah in this world [i.e., all reward is reserved for the World to Come]." How can the Gemara's statement be reconciled with the above Biblical promise?

The Maharsha suggests that Rabbi Yaakov's claim that reward is reserved exclusively for the World to Come refers only to reward given to an individual for his good deeds. When the community as a whole is deserving, however, the reward is, indeed, manifest in this world. All the Biblical promises for worldly good represent reward for the community, rather than the individual.

The Rambam, however, presents a very different approach:

"Given that it is known that the reward for mitzvot and the good we will merit if we keep the way of Hashem as written in the Torah is the life of the World to Come... What, then, is the meaning of that which is written throughout the Torah that if you listen you will receive so-and-so, and if you don't listen the following will happen - all in this world - such as plenty, famine, war, peace, kingship, lowliness, dwelling in the Land, exile, success, loss, and everything else in the Covenant? All of those things truly happened and will happen; when we do all of the mitzvot of the Torah, we will receive all the good of this world, and when we violate them, the evils that are written will occur to us. However, those good things are not the end of the reward for mitzvot, and those evils are not the end of the vengeance that is avenged because of violating all the mitzvot. The meaning is as follows: The Holy One, Blessed is He, gave us this Torah - a Tree of Life - and anyone who does all that is written in it and knows it with a full and complete knowledge merits the life of the World to Come through it... and He promised us in the Torah that if we do it with joy and exuberance and constantly meditate upon its wisdom, He will remove all of the things which prevent us from keeping it properly, such as sickness, war, famine, and so forth. He will also bring upon us all the goodness which help us to keep the Torah, such as plenty, peace, and wealth, so that we do not need to be involved in physical needs all our lives, rather we may be free to learn wisdom and do the mitzvot, in order to merit the life of the World to Come." (Hilchot Teshuvah 9:1)

In the Rambam's view, the promises written in the Torah are not types of reward, but rather blessings which enable us to keep the Torah without distraction. Our success in keeping the Torah's commands engenders blessings which further ease the path for us to keep the Torah, thereby allowing us to merit the true reward in the World to Come.

This idea is echoed by the great Chassidic leader, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. In his work Kedushat Levi, he suggests that while there is no physical reward in this world, there remains a distinct reward that we do receive: "The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah." (Avot 4:2) This means that each mitzvah we do further enables us to perform additional mitzvot. Thus, explains Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the performance of mitzvot leads to "rains in their seasons" - that is, a strong economy which in turn enables a person to do mitzvot that cost money, such as giving tzedakah. Just as the Rambam suggests that rain is not a reward per se, but a means for us to avoid being preoccupied with worldly affairs, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak states that rain is valuable not as a reward, but as a wellspring from which the opportunity to perform additional mitzvot flows.

The principle that, "There is no reward for a mitzvah in this world" holds particular resonance in these trying times. The blessings G-d confers upon us cannot be seen as a reward for our good deeds, but rather as a means for us to perform additional mitzvot, and with ever greater alacrity. The absence of these blessings makes the performance of mitzvot significantly more difficult: a person who must work harder than before has less time and energy to learn; a person who has lost money has fewer resources with which to give tzedakah; a person who is preoccupied with a dwindling stock portfolio has less ability to concentrate on the most important things in life. The message of the Rambam and Rabbi Levi Yitzchak is that, to the best of our ability, we must overcome the psychological and physical difficulties, and attempt to perform mitzvot and learn Torah with even more energy than before.

Everywhere one looks, he sees people who have lost so much, and whose lives are irrevocably changed. May the message that the true reward still awaits us in the World to Come serve both as a source of comfort, and as a source of motivation so that we work harder than ever before to fulfill the Divine will.