To be a Jew -and this may surprise you - is to exercise - your mind, your soul, and your body.
Why are there 248 positive mitzvot? Say the rabbis: One for each major organ of the body. Just as you need all your "parts" to live, so you need all the mitzvot functioning properly. Why 365 mitzvot in which we refrain from doing? One for each day of the year, so we can "work out" every day.
There is something valuable, something healthy that happens every time we keep a mitzvah. Conversely, a part of our neshama is negatively affected every time we fail to observe a commandment.
Imagine how difficult it must have been, in a purely agricultural society, to observe the laws of Shmita. For a whole year, I have to shut down my business, stop my livelihood cold in its tracks. How will I make it? How will we survive? The temptation to keep plowing straight ahead must have been enormous. Many must have succumbed to that pressure. And then, even if I do follow the Shmita laws, it will be another seven years until the mitzvah rolls around again. I'll be "rusty," out of shape. I may succumb again.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein z"l quotes the Gemara (in Kiddushin 20) as saying that the punishment for one who tills the land in Shmita is that he will have to borrow money at interest. Rabbi Moshe is puzzled; in a pristine Torah environment, no one is allowed to take interest. So how can he borrow at interest if no one charges it?
Rabbi Moshe explains: This Shmita-violator will fall into debt. He will become desperate and seek financial help, even if he has to pay high interest. But then - he will go to others for a loan and they will refuse to take a penny of interest. At that moment, the message will hit him: You can prosper even though you forego monetary gain, as the Torah promises. Suddenly, he starts to understand: ?Hmm. He loaned me money interest free, and seems no worse for it. If I keep the mitzvah, I can do just as well!?
What a lesson the Torah presents. To teach someone a mitzvah, do it by example. You have faith - he'll have faith. You believe - he'll believe. Hashem could have punished the Shmita-violator with a fine, or worse, but He chose (for us) to teach the lesson in a much more positive way. He chose to make each of us "personal trainers" and help one other stay in superb, sublime spiritual shape.
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Rabbi Weiss is Director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra?anana.
Why are there 248 positive mitzvot? Say the rabbis: One for each major organ of the body. Just as you need all your "parts" to live, so you need all the mitzvot functioning properly. Why 365 mitzvot in which we refrain from doing? One for each day of the year, so we can "work out" every day.
There is something valuable, something healthy that happens every time we keep a mitzvah. Conversely, a part of our neshama is negatively affected every time we fail to observe a commandment.
Imagine how difficult it must have been, in a purely agricultural society, to observe the laws of Shmita. For a whole year, I have to shut down my business, stop my livelihood cold in its tracks. How will I make it? How will we survive? The temptation to keep plowing straight ahead must have been enormous. Many must have succumbed to that pressure. And then, even if I do follow the Shmita laws, it will be another seven years until the mitzvah rolls around again. I'll be "rusty," out of shape. I may succumb again.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein z"l quotes the Gemara (in Kiddushin 20) as saying that the punishment for one who tills the land in Shmita is that he will have to borrow money at interest. Rabbi Moshe is puzzled; in a pristine Torah environment, no one is allowed to take interest. So how can he borrow at interest if no one charges it?
Rabbi Moshe explains: This Shmita-violator will fall into debt. He will become desperate and seek financial help, even if he has to pay high interest. But then - he will go to others for a loan and they will refuse to take a penny of interest. At that moment, the message will hit him: You can prosper even though you forego monetary gain, as the Torah promises. Suddenly, he starts to understand: ?Hmm. He loaned me money interest free, and seems no worse for it. If I keep the mitzvah, I can do just as well!?
What a lesson the Torah presents. To teach someone a mitzvah, do it by example. You have faith - he'll have faith. You believe - he'll believe. Hashem could have punished the Shmita-violator with a fine, or worse, but He chose (for us) to teach the lesson in a much more positive way. He chose to make each of us "personal trainers" and help one other stay in superb, sublime spiritual shape.
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Rabbi Weiss is Director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra?anana.