We continue with the discussion of why the Torah does not explicitly state that if you do a Mitzvah, you go to Olam Habah.
Yesterday we began reason four, which is that the Torah only records something that’s a natural progression. “Do a Mitzvah and you can you go to the next world” sounds nice, but it’s not true. The Torah is Emet. Everything written has to be true and valid. The truth is, we can’t say that the natural progression is that you do a Mitzvah and then you get Olam Habah, because even after all your good deeds, you still don’t deserve it! The Torah tells us what we deserve. Can G-d say that we deserve Olam Habah? No. Because everything that we get as a reward is חסד אלוקים, ונדבה טובה all kindness and generosity.
As the pasuk in Tehilim says,
ולך ה’ חסד כי אתה תשלם לאיש כמעשהו
It’s a kindness of Hashem’s, to pay a man for what he does for you. Normally, it’s not considered a kindness to pay a worker. For example, it’s not a favor to pay the contractor. But when your child, who lives in your home, wears clothes that you bought, and eats food that you cooked, goes out to mow the lawn, and now wants to get paid for it, he doesn’t deserve it. If you try to figure out how much you owe your son for these chores, you’ll find that he owes you much much more. I can’t say I owe my son $100 for mowing the lawn because it’s not true. I might pay him because I’m kind, but I don’t owe him.
This is an eye-opening way of looking at our relationship with G-d. We’ve all heard the stories about the child who does a favor for a parent, then wants to get paid. So the parent delineates all the expenses incurred from the beginning of his life. Of course, as the child will see, the parent doesn’t owe him anything.
The Hovot HaLevavot continues to explain this important message, beautifully. In his words:
כי אם היה מעשה האדם כחול הים במספר לא יהיה שקול בטובה
Even if a person’s good deeds were numerous like the sand of the ocean (this is endless), they would not weigh enough to cover even one favor that G-d has done for him in this world.
We are alive, we are breathing, we had a cup of coffee this morning- by the letter of the law, these things alone would weigh out all the good deeds we’ve done.
כל שכן אם יהיה לו חטא
We aren’t even discussing if you’ve sinned.
We aren’t talking about that. If we wanted to get paid for our deeds, just one of G-d’s kindnesses to us would weigh more.
ואם ידקדק הבורא עם האדם בתביעת הודאת הטובה
And if G-d was exacting on a person, and demanded from us a thank-you for everything, then every good deed of ours would be forgotten in the goodness of G-d.
There’s a concept like this called תביעת הודאה
Demanding a Thank-you
Well, G-d doesn’t demand thank-yous.
Of course, we can say 100 blessings a day, and that’s great. If we have kavana it’s even better.
But if we had to thank Hashem for everything He does, we would be thanking Him every second of the day, for every breath in and out. It would be endless. We are engulfed in G-d’s kindness, and yet how often do we say Thank You?
Just the demand of thanking G-d alone would be enough to put us in debt.
So why does G-d pay us?
ומה שיהיה מגמול הבורא לו אינו מגיע לו על מעשהו אלא הוא מחסד הבורא עליו.
Any payment we do get from Hashem doesn’t match what we did. It’s all G-d’s kindness.
So, it doesn’t say, “if you do this, you’ll get that,” because that is not correct. You shouldn’t get that. It happens to be a kindness of G-d to give us Olam Habah as a reward, but that’s all it is. It’s not built- in. Just like your son can’t demand to get paid for mowing the lawn. You might do it out of kindness, but he doesn’t deserve it.
This is a whole new way of looking at life.
We often wonder why we aren’t getting rewarded for one deed or another. We are looking at it all wrong. We should really be looking at it the other way around. How much are we getting? How much are we receiving? Once we start looking at it that way, then we can start talking about what we are owed.
Have a wonderful day.