Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. We continue to talk about the concept of doing and not accomplishing.
In Pirkei Avot, it says, Lefum Tzaara Agra/According to the pain is the reward.
Hashem rewards for pain and effort, not for accomplishment. There's an interesting Arizal, quoted by the Chida on that Mishna. He says, The greatness of one’s soul doesn't depend on his actions, but on the generation he's in. A small deed done in our generation could be as great as a huge mitzvah of previous generations, because in our times, the Yetzer Hara is much stronger. The Arizal was talking about 400 years ago in Sefat. We can't imagine what the difference is from that generation to today. It’s beyond us. And he was calling that a time with the Yetzer Hara so strong. Imagine if he were here today!
A mashal that I like to use is somebody lifting five pound weights. He keeps picking them up, one after the other, very quickly, doing multiple reps, with people saying, “Wow, look at this guy. Look what he's doing! Look how many times he's picking it up.”
But in the other corner, there's a man that's lifting a thousand pounds. He can hardly move an inch, and he's wincing as he picks it up.
Who's greater, and who's actually having more of an impact? The one that's lifting the light weights has no resistance. His muscles aren't being built. The one that's straining to lift a thousand pound weight and barely moving an inch is the real hero, because he's doing so much more.
That's what's going on with us. The amount of resistance that we have today, to do anything right and moral and proper, to be modest, to have all the qualities that we're supposed to have, is a tremendous undertaking. And therefore, although it might look like we're hardly moving, we're doing great things- and we might not be accomplishing anything.
But that’s not what Hashem wants. Hashem wants our service. He doesn't need us for anything. The sefer Shevat Yehuda describes something that happened in the Bet Hamikdash thousands of years ago. They were giving a goy a tour of the Bet Hamikdash, showing him all the different miracles that happen there. Fire comes down from heaven, the bread stays warm etc.
And then they showed him the different chambers. When he saw a chamber for storing wood, he got upset and told them they were lying. They asked what he meant.
He said, “You said God sends a fire from heaven, so why do you have a chamber for storing wood? And why are you putting wood on the Mizbe’ach?”
They said, “Well, you're right. God doesn't really need it, but He wants us to have a part.”
The goy became enraged and said, “This is Diburim Yehudim/ Jewish talk! You think God needs you? If I had power from the Caesar now, I'd kill you all!”
He couldn't handle it. He couldn't fathom that God appreciates and wants our avodah, that He's not concerned with our accomplishments.
There's a interesting story about the famous Rabbi Moshe Sherer, from Agudat Yisrael, who worked for years on trying to get the government to help with tuition in private schools, because, as we know, the yoke of tuition is a tremendous challenge for many families. In the end, he was not successful. When news about the failure reached Rav Hutner, he sent a letter to Rabbi Sher, saying that Rabbi Yisrael Salantar had three rules for somebody involved in community work: Number one- don't get angry. Number two-don't get tired. Number three-don't get obsessed with winning. And he told him, You've been successful in your life. I see you don't tire, and I never saw you get angry, but now you have the test that it’s not about winning. And he pointed to Avraham Avinu, who never actually sacrificed Yitzhak Avinu at the Akeda, but that did not detract one iota from the merit that was accrued to him and all of his descendants.
He also quoted the statement that we said previously, Man is commanded to do and not to accomplish. And Rav Hutner adds, the rest is up to Hashem.
Rav Sherer himself added to this thought based on a Gemara in Berachot 6A that says, If person thought to do a mitzvah, and he's prevented from doing so by circumstance beyond his control and did not do it, it is accounted by the Torah as if did it. It says, Ma’aleh Alav/it's put upon him. It's way of saying, As if he did it.. But Rav Sherer quoted a great man as interpreting Ma’aleh Alav as meaning that the reward for the unfulfilled Mitzvah is even higher; Ma’aleh/it's above, because the person who sought to do the mitzvah doesn’t even have the satisfaction of having performed it. So it's like when you try to bake a cake for an event and the cake flops, you get a bigger reward because you didn't even have the pleasure of baking the cake.
It's not about accomplishing, it's about doing.
And again, this religious outlook on life gives meaning and purpose to our daily activities.