Rabbenu Yona writes that one of the fundamentals of reliance on Hashem is that God pays i us back for our work. He’s a good Boss and He pays very nicely. As it says, “Your boss is reliable to pay for your work.” The Hovot Halevavot says the same thing. We can count on Him to give us an Olam Haba.
I heard a beautiful class from Rabbi Kammer of Lakewood, where he made a beautiful calculation on the value of a mitzvah.
It starts with a Gemara in Masechet Bava Kama (91a) where it says that there was a man who slaughtered an animal for which the Halacha says that you have to cover the blood (for example a deer, a chicken or a bird).
But then somebody else went and covered the blood when it wasn’t really his mitzvah, so in essence, he had stolen his friend’s Mitzvah. They went to Rabban Gamliel, who said that the friend had to pay 10 zehuvim, which was the cost of the mitzvah. Tosafot says the same thing for a stolen beracha.
The Rambam, in the laws of damaging, says,
שכל המונע הבעלים מלעשות מצות עשה שהן ראויין לעשותה וקדם אחר ועשאה משלם לבעלים עשרה זהובים
Anyone that stops somebody from doing a Mitvat Aseh/positive commandment and went and did it first must pay ten zehuvim to the owner.
Unbelievable. That means if someone had a bird in their backyard, and I went and shooed away the bird, before the person had a chance to, I stole from him. I took away his opportunity, and now I have to give him 10 zehuvim.
What is the value of 10 zehuvim?
Using the most conservative calculations, 10 zehuvim is the equivalent of 250 silver dinar, which is currently 1200 grams of silver. In the current market, that comes out to $7,608.00.
That means if you stole a beracha from somebody, you owe him $7608. We say 100 Berachot a day, so that comes to $760,800 a day, for every day that we make 100 Berachot! That sounds like a lot of money. But that’s only for one day. When you calculate it for a year, it’s a lot more than that. Keep on calculating..It’s almost 3 million dollars a year! That is a lot of money! And that is just for your berachot. Forget about everything else.
Over a lifetime, we are in the billions, just for our daily berachot. (Of course, this is assuming that you made your berachot correctly.) And what about tefilin? Sisit? What about all your other Mitzvot? This is to the point, the Rabbi said, that if Elon Musk walked into our shul, he would feel like a beggar, like a vagabond.
And this is not referring to Olam Haba- that, only God knows what it’s like. This is referring to this world. This is something that could stand up in a court of law. The Rambam says that you could go into a court of law and say, “That man took away my mitzvah.“
I remember that when we were kids in school, they taught us that Mitzvot were worth a lot of money. So when my mother would ask us to do something, I would tell my younger brother, “Do you want a million dollars? Go do what mommy said.” At that age, I was willing to forgo the Mitzvah and give it to my younger brother. I was so benevolent.
But the point is that Mitzvot are really valuable. And if we really believe that, we walk around with that concept that we are relying on God and it is for real.
And the Rabbi brought it out in a beautiful way.
Of course, we don’t want to cash in now in this word, but technically you could get that money from someone if they stole Mitzvot from you.You could ask him to invest money with you, and then say, “Sorry, I’m keeping it because you owe me the money for the Mitzvot that you stole from me.” And the Bet Din would say you are right. This isn’t esoteric. This is real Halacha. That’s how real a mitzvah is. You could walk around feeling literally like 1 million bucks. Just from one day. We get all excited for money earned in sales, but we have to just appreciate what a mitzvah means. If you think about it, it is mind boggling.
B’Ezrat Hashem, we should all walk around like we just won the lottery, every time we just went through a day of Mitzvot
Have a wonderful day.