This week's parasha, Terumah (offering), starts off with Hashem speaking to the Jewish people, and God says, “Take for me Terumah.” The language “take for me” is very strange. The pasuk (verse) should say, “Give to me. Give to me.” Why say “take for me”? The answer is that everything we do spiritually is all taking. We’re not giving anything. Imagine a poor person comes to the door, and we give him a couple of things. We give him a couple of dollars; we give him five dollars. So, compared to what we’re receiving in the next world and the blessing in this world, those few dollars that we give are nullified.
Now I sit in yeshiva learning all day, and lately I’ve been feeling, “Why am I doing this? The world is so gorgeous outside—all the animals, all the nature—and there’s so much that the world can give me. So why don’t I go out and have a good time?” Then I learn the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers), which says that one smell in the next world will be greater than all the delights from the beginning of creation till the end of creation. All the delights in this world. Everything. One smell of the next world is greater than all of that. So I told myself, “Why go outside? Sit and prepare for Olam Haba (the next world), and by sitting and preparing yourself, you’re just taking and taking more and more for yourself now.” We’re so lucky to be Jews, and we really have something to be proud of. Shavua Tov. Thank you for letting me speak here.