Ilustration Credit: Noa Kelner
Midrash מִדְרָשׁ
אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם׃
If you walk in My laws, and keep My mitzvot, and do them…
This pasuk seems repetitive. What do we learn from its different parts?
"אִם בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ"—יָכוֹל אֵלּוּ הַמִּצְוֹת? כְּשֶׁהוּא אוֹמֵר "וְאֶת מִצְוֹתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם," הֲרֵי מִצְוֹת אֲמוּרוֹת.
הָא מָה אֲנִי מְקַיֵּם "אִם בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ"? לִהְיוֹת עֲמֵלִים בַּתּוֹרָה.
"If you walk in My laws”—Could this be talking about the mitzvot? But the pasuk also says, “and keep My mitzvot, and do them”—that part is talking about mitzvot already!
So what’s the meaning of “if you walk in My laws”? It means to work super hard on studying Torah.
According to this midrash, the opening line of our parashah is telling us to study and think about Torah with a lot of effort. This means working hard to learn, understand, and think about Torah all the time.
The Talmud suggests one nice outcome from all that hard work:
אָמַר רַב יִצְחָק בַּר אֲבוּדִימִי מַאי קְרָא שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "נֶפֶשׁ עָמֵל עָמְלָה לּוֹ…" (משלי טז:כו)? הוּא עָמֵל בְּמָקוֹם זֶה וְתוֹרָתוֹ עוֹמֶלֶת לוֹ בְּמָקוֹם אַחֵר.
Rav Yitzhak bar Avudimi said: What does the pasuk mean, “The spirit of a laborer labors for them…” (Mishlei 16:26)? You labor for Torah, and the Torah you worked hard to learn labors for you.
Rashi (1,000 years ago) thinks this means that the more you work on knowing and understanding Torah, the more Torah itself tries to help you out, even asking God to make it easier and more enjoyable for you to learn!
- When have you worked really hard at something until it finally made sense? How did that feel? Have you had the experience of something getting easier and easier for you the more you learned it?
The next line in the Talmud takes this a step further. Laboring for Torah is actually the reason we were created:
אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר כָּל אָדָם לְעָמָל נִבְרָא שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "כִּי אָדָם לְעָמָל יוּלָּד" (איוב ה:ז)...
כְּשֶׁהוּא אוֹמֵר "לֹא יָמוּשׁ סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה הַזֶּה מִפִּיךָ" (יהושע א:ח), הֱוֵי אוֹמֵר לְעָמָל תּוֹרָה נִבְרָא.
R. Elazar said: Every person was created to labor, as it says, “For people were born for labor” (Iyyov 5:7)...
And when it says, “Do not let this Torah leave your mouth” (Yehoshua 1:8), it must be that the labor we were created for is Torah.
- Why would laboring in Torah be the whole purpose of being created? What does that tell us about how we should live our lives?
- Try it out! Set aside some time to learn Torah every day. See how it feels after a day, a week, and a month. Does it become more meaningful? Does it get easier?
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