Malachi 3:16
אז נדברו יראי יהוה איש את־רעהו ויקשב יהוה וישמע ויכתב ספר זכרון לפניו ליראי יהוה ולחשבי שמו׃
It was spoken between those who feared God, each man to his friend, and God paid attention and heard and it was written in the book of remembrance before him about those who feared God and those who thought of him.
In Masechet Berachot 6a in the Talmud we find a discussion of this biblical passage. The first part of the discussion uses this passage to demonstrate that each time two people meet to study Torah, the shechina is present. My experience is that the shechina is present whenever two souls truly connect, though studying the torah definitely makes it easier. This is a topic I wrote about earlier.
What follows is a wonderful lesson. Rav Ashi teaches that the last phrase "and those who thought of him" refers to those who thought about doing a mitzvah, but "were coerced and failed to do so". He continues that we learn from Malachi that God writes their deeds in the book of remembrance as if they had done the mitzvah. Later commentators teach that the coercion comes from the Yetzer Harah, the evil inclination, which always tells us to not do mitzvot. So even when we think of doing a mitzvah, we have to push through the additional layer of the yetzer harah in order to do it. If we don't always make it, we still get credit for trying.
What I love about this is the inherent forgiveness it implies. It's easy to beat oneself up for not doing things on a regular basis. I constantly hear people disparaging themselves for not meditating or praying or studying or working out or eating right, and sometimes using that as an way to keep themselves from doing it. Rav Ashi gives us another way a looking at it. We get credit for truly intending to do something that we just didn't manage to get done. Since the need for spiritual practice is the same everyday, we always get another chance to do it. We get credit for our intention, so we don't have to feel bad about not getting to it, and we get to try again tomorrow. It is our responsibility to try to be better, and if there are things that prevent us, even our own inclinations, we just have to try again with no punishment because we missed the time before. What a wonderful way of looking at things!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
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3 comments:
Nice piece of Torah, Aaron. I particularly like that it fits into an opinion I've held but did not have substantive source to point to but now I do thanks to you: that 'not yet' is a significant and meaningful answer to many questions of Jewish concern.
Do you keep kosher?
Do you mark Shabbat differently than the other days of the week?
Have you visited/made aliyah to Israel?
Have you given 10% of your yearly income to tzedakah?
Have you visited the sick this month?
The 'not yet' answer acknowledges the positive ideals expressed in the question.
It's taken me a long time to even get close to this position. I used to wake up on Monday mornings, as an example, and if for whatever reason I didn't get up and exercise right away, that would mean, forget it, the rest of the week was blown for exercising. If we can move to the position of forgiveness (and compassion) I think we can break some of the cycles of "Oh, I never meditate." or "I tried but I can't. . ." It feels really helpful to know the rabbi's teachings on intention. It adds to the sense that our efforts to move toward something (more awareness, better eating habits, more prayer, etc.) are worthy.
Absolutely what I was talking about. It's the honest effort, not the achievement that matters in spiritual growth.
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