Parshas Eikev 5779

In this week's parsha, Parshas Eikev, it starts off by telling Bnai Yisrael that if they listen to HaShem's rules and mitzvos, they will be blessed and protected. When reading it, though, I had a question right away. It sounds repetitive! In the last passuk of last week's parsha, Parshas Vaeschanan, it says essentially the same thing, and it's also been the common theme of the last few parshiyos. What's different about this week's parsha?

As Rashi states, this passuk is referring to the "small" mitzvos, the ones that we tend to overlook or view as unimportant, chas v'shalom. The Torah makes it a point to single these mitzvos out, so that we will know how important each and every mitzvah and halacha is. As it relates to us, this idea of treating all of the mitzvos equally pops up in two situations that everyone will find themselves in as they develop themselves as servants of HaShem.

As human beings, we come across moments where we can feel the proverbial angel and devil sitting on our shoulders. We are confronted with a test, and sometimes the Yetzer Hara wins. However, instead of accepting the harsh truth that we've lost a battle to the Yetzer Hara and messed up, we tend to justify our actions. We let that piece of lashon hara slip out, but it made our friend laugh so it was totally for toeles, right? Or that skirt we bought is just a little too tight, but it was so cute and it was on sale! We view these as "small" transgressions, not realizing how big they really are. We keep shabbos, we keep kosher, we daven, and so we think that we are good Jews, even though we aren't careful about these small areas of halacha. In truth, we are still good Jews, but aren't we all striving to be better Jews?

This is what Chazal are trying to teach us when they tell us to award the same importance to the mitzvos and halachos we deem as "small" and the mitzvos and halachos we view as the most important. Knowing human nature, knowing that we have a hard time accepting responsibility, Chazal tell us straight out that we need to train ourselves to view all of the mitzvos as being equal in order to keep the Torah properly.

The second half of the passuk from the mishna corresponds to the second situation I want to talk about. Sometimes we do things for other people that we think are really simple. We send someone notes, or give someone a ride. We're there for our friends and give them a shoulder to cry on. To us, these things seem simple, and it's easy to minimize our efforts and brush off the sometimes monumental effect that these efforts can have. We were taking the notes anyways, and we were already in the car heading that direction for shabbos. We're there for our friends simply because isn't that what friends do?

Chazal remind us that we don't know the schar we will get for doing these things. To us they may seem small and easy, but we cannot discredit ourselves because we don't know how these actions will impact things in heaven. We can never say, "Oh, I just helped her out a bit," because it's not that you just helped her out- you were there for her, and to HaShem, that's huge. We think that unless there's serious mesiras nefesh involved, or unless it's a huge undertaking, our act of kindness is relatively insignificant, and Chazal are trying to teach us otherwise.

In the haftorah for a fast day, we read the above passuk from Yeshaya that I think encapsulates this idea perfectly. Ultimately, if we want to be close to HaShem, we need to realize that we don't understand His calculations and decisions. We cannot know what he holds dear and what he values most, and so we need to try to keep everything as best as we can. This is what Rashi and Chazal are trying to teach us- in order to be the best Jew we can be, we can't settle for simply being a good Jew, we need to strive to be a better Jew. We need to constantly try to fulfill and keep even the most nuanced mitzvos in the Torah, while at the same time understanding that all mitzvos are deeply valued by HaShem and those around us, even when it feels like we didn't do much.