In both EmunahSpeak:
If You Feel Blessed and EmunahSpeak:
If You Feel Blessed (2) we put
forth the yesod hayesodes of the Chovos Halavovos, which is that we owe
everything to Hashem, and we rationally concluded that being makker tov to
Hashem should be the focus of our lives.
In EmunahSpeak:
If You Feel Blessed we said
that if you feel that Hashem has bestowed you with extra tov you should feel
obligated to pay back a little more by adding something to your avoda, be it an
extra twenty minutes of learning, a little more kavana in davening, or perhaps
resolving to put more effort into doing chesed.
And in EmunahSpeak:
If You Feel Blessed (2) we took
the proposition a step further by stating that this principle (of giving
back a little more) also works on a national level because Klal Yisroel, even in golus, has almost always lived better than the people in whose midst they lived.
Okay, so in the
spirit of all that is written above, you took stock of all of the tov (both
gashmiyous and ruchnius) that Hashem has been showering upon you since day one
of your earthly existence, and driven by a desire to be makker tov you began to
learn seriously or took on one or a series of mitzvahs big time so as to bump up
your Avodas Hashem.
As far as the
Chovos Halavovos is concerned, you’re good to go, in that you have responded
in kind to the beneficence that Hashem is bestowing upon you. And we said in EmunahSpeak:
If You Feel Blessed (2), in
relation to your response, that Hashem will continue to shower upon you that
special shefa that distinguished your lot from that of others. And that He will
even add to it.
And when He in
fact does, your recognition of such will once again push you to respond in kind,
and so it goes in what will hopefully be an endless cycle of ever increasing
Avodas Hashem.
But we’re not
quite finished as yet.
Whereas the
Chovos Halavovos looks upon your increased learning and all of your other
aliyahs in Yiddishkeit as a form of payback for what Hashem has sent your way,
the Mesillas Yesharim takes somewhat of a different view.
Rabbi Yisroel
Brog tells us that rather than look upon your growth in Torah and Mitzvahs as
satisfying, in some small degree, your obligations to Hashem, the Mesillas
Yesharim’s take on the matter is that those madreigas that you climbed actually
increased those obligations.
You’re learning
half a day and your beard and clothes are commensurate with your newly minted
madreiga so that your appearance is that of a serious Ben Torah? Then you have to increase your Tikun HaMiddos
accordingly, says Rabbi Brog.
Torah is
supposed to improve a person.
So if someone is
immersed in Torah while his middos are merely floating on the surface,
this disconnect between what he appears to be and how he conducts himself is a
denigration of the Torah and therefore a chillul Hashem.
Therefore, if
Hashem gives us more, we understand from the structure of the mitzvahs that we
are supposed to do more than we have heretofore done.
Or put
another way, if you feel blessed you should be putting a little more on the
table.
And we could
add, as per the Mesillas Yesharim, that when you put that little extra on the
table make sure you use your finest china and silverware so that it will ‘look’
as good as it ‘tastes.’
