356 - The Cutest Baby

Our goal in this world is to train ourselves to truly and sincerely believe and trust in Hashem's prescription. Hashem commanded us to perform many mitzvos. Some of them are easier to understand with our limited understanding, whereas other mitzvos are more difficult to understand. For example, Hashem commanded us to visit a sick person. That is very logical, even in our minds, that's a nice thing to do. Honouring one's father and mother is also a logical mitzvah. However, many mitzvos are counterintuitive. If we lived at a time where we were able to absolutely ascertain who belonged to the nation of Amalek, picture this situation, a cute little two-year-old child, the cutest child you've ever seen. Hashem gives you a mitzvah now, you need to go and kill that child.

One second, I don't want to be the one to do that, that's not nice, that's dangerous, people are going to view me as a murderer. Again, the reason we perform mitzvos should not be based on our own agreement to Hashem's will, as if He needs our stamp of agreement. Rather, we fulfill the mitzvos just because Hashem said so. In fact, one of the great halachic commentators, the Aruch HaShulchan, writes that the reason we honour our father and mother is not because we appreciate them. We honour them because Hashem said so. Any mitzvah we perform, we do so just because Hashem said so.

The Vilna Gaon writes that when it comes to the mitzvos that the rabbis enacted, many times, even when the reason that the rabbis have given us for performing this mitzvah is no longer applicable, we nevertheless still perform the mitzvah. And the reason for this is because there may be a thousand reasons for the performance of this mitzvah where the rabbis decided to disclose only one of the reasons. Again, our belief in Hashem and our belief in the great sages who were given the license to enact certain mitzvos, we perform those mitzvahs just because we believe that that is what we're supposed to do, even if we don't understand.

This line of thinking will help us to take all of the mitzvos and all their intricacies much more seriously. For example, we may say some lashon hara - bad words to another individual in privacy about someone else. And let's say these words never get out, no one ever discovers this private conversation of mine. How serious can what I did be? We know that the whole main purpose behind the prohibition of not speaking lashon hara about another is so that you shouldn't cause them detriment. But in this case, it was kept private and nothing actually happened. So how bad could it be? If we apply our own line of reasoning for the performance of the mitzvos, we could be led to making grave mistakes.

But if we treat the mitzvos as an expression of our emunah in Hashem - I believe in Hashem, and if He instructed me to do something, I believe in that. And if He told me that Lashon Hara, whether the negative information I related privately to someone was ever discovered, or even if it wasn't, if Hashem said that that is one of the most serious sins sometimes comparable to the three cardinal sins, idol worship, immorality and murder. Really? Is it that bad? If it's based on my belief in Hashem, I have no questions, because I believe Him. When we do mitzvos, let us internalize that the reason we are doing so is not because we understand, but because we believe.