Behar

The sicha for parshas Behar is in Vol. III of Likkutei Sichos.

One of the mitzvahs that this parsha mentions is the mitzvah of not taking interest on a loan – the mitzvah of ribus, and the posuk concludes by saying, I am G-d, your G-d, who took you out of Egypt to be your G-d. So the Sifra says, that whoever accepts upon himself the mitzvah of ribus, also accepts upon himself the yoke of heaven, and he who cannot, removes from himself the yoke of heaven, because whoever accepts the mitzvahs of ribus, accept also the coming out of Egypt, and whoever denies the mitzvah of ribus, is as if he also denies the coming out of Egypt.

From the fact that the Torah says don’t charge interest and then concludes by saying I am G-d, your G-d who took you out of Egypt, implies that if you follow the mitzvah of not taking interest, then I took you out of Egypt and you recognize the coming out of Mitzraim. But if you don’t keep this mitzvah, then you don’t recognize that G-d took you out of Mitzraim. Also “I took you out of Mitzraim to be your G-d”, means to accept upon yourself the yoke of heaven, to have G-d be your G-d, whereas if you don’t accept the mitzvah of ribus, then you have basically denied that G-d is your G-d.

So we have to understand what is the mitzvah of ribus, why is it so important and central that without we have no exodus from Egypt and no acceptance of the yoke of heaven?

Rashi explains according to the Gemarrah, that for the last plague of the killing of the first born, G-d differentiated between the first born of the Jews and those of the Egyptians, which is why we are so grateful for that miracle that while the Egyptian first born were dying, the Jewish first-born were being spared. This shows that G-d pays attention to the details and that when the first-born are being punished G-d distinguishes between the first born of the Jews and the first born of the non-Jews.

When a person charges interest for his loan, the Gemarrah says, he usually does so by saying that the money isn’t his, that it belongs to a non-Jew and therefore he has to charge interest because it is not his own. So the person can fool himself into thinking that G-d can’t distinguish or doesn’t pay attention to the minute detail of exactly whose money it is and therefore think that he can fool G-d, by claiming the money belongs to a non-Jew. He denies the attention G-d does pay in distinguishing between the Jewish first born and the Egyptian first born.

But this of course doesn’t explain why charging interest is forbidden and is connected to the coming out of Egypt in all cases not only in the case where the Jew claims that it is not his money. We still need an explanation as to why the charging of interest is a denial of the coming out of Egypt? Also, when a person charges interest for the money he is loaning to another, there is a lack of trust in G-d’s providence where he feels that he can’t afford to let his money make money for someone else, that he needs his money to be making money for himself. This is a lack of trust in G-d who provides for living beings their needs.

So when a person cannot lend out his money without charging interest, he is showing that he doesn’t really trust in G-d, and that is why he is rejecting the yoke of heaven. But that too is not accurate, because it shows he has a lack of trust, but not that he has a lack of faith. And the lack of trust exists in all mitzvahs of tzedaka. A person who doesn’t want to lend out money at all, not only the one who lends out with interest, but he won’t lend out money at all for the same reason – he feels he needs every penny to be working for him, to be making him more money. This too is a lack of trust.

Since this lack of trust is not unique to the lending out of money with interest, we still need to understand how it is that lending money with interest is denying the exodus from Egypt and the yoke of heaven.

When a person performs mitzvahs, in the manner of kabbalos ole, bearing the yoke, it means that in heaven G-d so to speak participates in the mitzvah that the Jew does. As we say in the bracha before we do the mitzvah, “asher kiddishanu b’mitzvasav” G-d sanctifies us with His commandments, with the commandments that He does, which means that that which G-d does He commands us to do as well. We also find an expression that says that when we do a mitzvah, as a response to our doing the mitzvah, G-d does the same mitzvah.

So there are times when G-d does the mitzvah first – the mitzvahs that G-d performs already, He then tells the Jews to perform as well – and then there are the times when G-d does the mitzvah in response to the Jew doing the mitzvah. Now it is understood that the mitzvahs that we do and that G-d responds and does the same, are certainly not equal – there is no comparison at all between the mitzvahs that we do in our finite, human way to the mitzvahs that G-d does above. And yet this is how G-d responds to our mitzvahs, by doing the same mitzvah. And even though our mitzvah can’t compare to the mitzvah performed above, yet G-d does respond to our mitzvah for two reasons.

G-d does the mitzvah before we do because in order for the mitzvah to be a Divine act, G-d has to do it first, which is what makes it a Divine act. Therefore when we are doing a mitzvah, it gives us the ability to accomplish the G-dliness which the mitzvah is supposed to accomplish.

When G-d responds to our mitzvah, it is a whole different influence and affect on our mitzvah as we will soon explain. First we have to understand why is it that doing mitzvahs is difficult, is a struggle. Why can’t G-d create us in such a way that we automatically and effortlessly do mitzvahs? Particularly according to the explanation that G-d created the world in order to do us a kindness, then certainly it would have been a greater kindness if G-d not only created us and gave us the opportunity to do mitzvahs but also made it easy for us and natural for us to do so.

The explanation is that true goodness given from G-d to creation is only the kind of goodness that is earned and not given for free, for nothing. Something that a person gets but feels he doesn’t deserve and hasn’t earned is called “naama d’kesufa” “a shameful bread” – it’s a gift but it is embarrassing to receive such a gift, because you feel that you didn’t deserve it. And since G-d’s goodness is a true goodness, therefore G-d gives us a goodness that we can appreciate as a true goodness and a deserved goodness.

So now according to this we will be able to understand why it is that G-d responds to the mitzvah and does the same mitzvah that we do. When a person gets paid, in other words when G-d gives us what we need, because of what we have done, we have earned the pay so it is not “naama d’kesufa”. However if a person is working but knows that the particular work for which he is getting paid, is of really no use to the person who is paying him, that basically defeats the whole purpose of the work. It would fall into the category of “naama d’kesufa” and it would be embarrassing to take this kind of reward, even though you worked hard to get paid but you know that the work that you did wasn’t really necessary at all.

The Rebbe gives the example from the Previous Rebbe about a king who told his servant to bring a scythe and go through the motions of cutting wheat, standing in the king’s chamber and for this work, he will pay him very well. And at first the servant was thrilled, he didn’t have to go out in the fields in the hot sun, he could do exactly the same labor here in the chamber and get paid even more than he would cutting the wheat in the field. But after a half hour of doing this, the servant said to the king, I would rather go work in the field. I don’t see any results from this work.

And that is very frustrating to the human spirit. So in addition to the fact that we have to earn what G-d gives us, in order that it shouldn’t be “naama d’kesufa”, we also need to know that this work is actual useful, it has a benefit to the employer, to G-d, who is rewarding us for our work.

And so G-d’s let us know that there is in fact a powerful result from the efforts that we invest in doing the mitzvah, that when we do the mitzvah G-d does the same mitzvah – it causes an equal and opposite reaction above in heaven.

Besides it being shameful doing work that isn’t necessary, if we don’t know the affects of our labors, then the labor, even though it is being performed correctly, is not performed with any enthusiasm or joy. So by knowing that our mitzvah has an affect above, we can do the mitzvah with enthusiasm and joy, which will animate our avodah.

The fact that G-d responds to our mitzvah is the result of a general mitzvah that we perform here below, and that is the mitzvah of lending money without interest. Interest means getting paid for money that you have lent out, but you still want to benefit from it because it was originally yours, even after you have lent it out. That is very different from making money from leasing something out. If you rent out an apartment, it remains yours, it is not something that was once yours that is now making you money – it is yours now and it is making you money now. But with ribus, by lending out the money, it is no longer yours to use and yet you want to make profit on that money because it was once yours. And that is forbidden.

When a person behaves this way below, when he declines to make money from that which was once his, and he wants to earn a profit only from that which is his at the moment, then G-d respond in kind, and treats us that way as well.

If a person charges interest and wants to profit from that which was once his, then from above also G-d does not participate in his mitzvah, even though He still does the mitzvah before the person, which gives him the ability to do the mitzvah, but G-d does not participate in the mitzvah because he has insisted on taking profit from that which he already gave away. Whereas the person who was careful not to make a profit on what was once his, then he is rewarded by G-d participating in the mitzvah even when the person is doing the mitzvah.

So now we will understand why the mitzvah of ribus is so powerful that it affects your relationship with G-d and your relationship to the exodus from Mitzraim. Through the mitzvah of ribus which is a general mitzvah, you make G-d your partner in your mitzvahs and in your avoda. When you don’t charge interest G-d participates in your mitzvah and so you have accepted upon yourself ole malchus shomayim, you are doing the mitzvah with the yoke of heaven, meaning to say that G-d participates in the mitzvah. And when you are this closely related to G-d, that takes you out of Egypt, out of all the restrictions and limitations that the world could place on you.

Now tzaddikim are similar to their Creator. Just as G-d behaves this way in that He does the mitzvah before you do the mitzvah, so that you are able to do the mitzvah and then He participates in your mitzvah – He is a partner with you in the mitzvah, even when you are already doing the mitzvah – the same is true with tzaddikim.

Tzaddikim, and particularly those who are called Nasiei Israel, the leaders of the generations, also give us the ability to go out on shlichus and to do what they need us to do in spreading Yiddishkeit and so on, and even while we are doing it, they participate in our avodah, they are partners with us in our efforts. This we saw very clearly by the Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe says, where not only did he send shluchim and give them the ability to affect their environment, and strengthen Judaism and to spread the teachings of Chassidus wherever they went, even in the later years, when he had already raised up a generation of students who were themselves producing students, the Rebbe could have been content with allowing the students to do the work, and taking credit for all that they had accomplished, yet he didn’t sit back and let them do it by themselves but he remained involved in their avodah in every detail.

So this is the lesson for all of us who follow in the teachings of the Rebbe, that we should never be content with having students who have been taught and been inspired to become the teachers themselves and to sit back and say, now that I have accomplished this, I can allow my students to do my work for me, and I will receive credit for all that they accomplish, but a person has to always himself remain involved with others, and not retreat into his own world. By doing so, you remain partners with your students, and you remain an active inspiring element in what your students do and you yourself are also involved with the community and with others.

What’s the reward for being careful to avoid taking interest? In other words, wanting to benefit from that which was once yours, having inspired students and sent them out to be teachers, now you want credit, you want to collect on that which was once yours, they were once your students, and now that they are doing good work, you want collect reward for what they are doing, that is considered taking interest, because you are benefiting from what was once yours.

By not doing that, by being careful not to be content with the fact that your students are doing good things and that they were once your students, and you can in some way claim credit for what they do, when you don’t do that, the reward for that is that not only is your own avodah better, but you will have the participation of the Rebbe in your work, the Rebbe will be partners in your avodah, and through the Rebbe, also G-d Himself, kabbolos ole shomayim, you will have G-d Himself participating in your mitzvah, and that will bring for you yetziras Mitzraim, it will elevate you above all the restraints and constrictions that the world places on a person’s avodah, and you will be able to transcend them all and serve G-d without restriction.

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