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SERMON BY RABBI michael berk
May You Live Long and Prosper
August 24, 2007
This week's Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, contains a hodgepodge of mitzvoth, some with obvious reasons behind them, and some with obscure reasons if any at all. One of the most interesting mitzvoth in all of Torah occurs here; it's called shiluach hakan, which means, sending forth from the nest. The mitzvah comes down to this: when we come across a bird's nest and we wish to take the eggs, we Jews are commanded to let the mother bird go free, to actually chase her away from her nest, before we are allowed to take the fledglings for food.
The verse continues and says that if you keep this mitzvah and free the mother before taking the babies, you will, in the famous words of Mr. Spock of Star Trek, "live long and prosper." That promise of a reward is quite unusual for the Torah, actually occurring only one other time. In that case, the other mitzvah for which a reward given is the one I find myself having to remind my children of constantly: the mitzvah of honoring your father and mother. These two mitzvot, alone among all the other mitzvot in the Torah, offer a reward, and in both cases the reward is the same: the guarantee of long life.
When our rabbis counted the mitzvot in the Torah they counted 613. Of those 613, 99.7% do not promise rewards. Only .3% promise a reward. This raises the question, If the Torah doesn't promise a reward for my observance of mitzvot, then why should I perform mitzvot at all? Why should I do any good deed at all?
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Perhaps the Torah is trying to teach us a distinction used by modern psychologists between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. An extrinsic reward for, say, a job well done, is a bonus in salary or plaque on the wall or a letter of thanks from the boss. An intrinsic reward is the quiet and private feeling of satisfaction for having seen a task through to the end; it is the personal sense of accomplishment for achieving a desired goal; or simply the warm fuzzy feeling one gets after doing something one knows to be good.
We all need both forms of rewards in our lives, but too often we come to depend solely on the extrinsic reward. We look for the approval of others rather than self-approval; we yearn for the esteem of colleagues rather than rely on our inner self-esteem, and we seek public honor rather than build self-respect.
This is why the Torah is so stingy with its promise of rewards for mitzvot: to teach us to perform mitzvot and other good deeds for the inner satisfaction that they bring us. That is the meaning behind what the sage, Anitgonos of Socho, said in Pirkei Avot: "Don't be like the servants who serve the master on the condition of receiving a gift, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a gift."
What the tradition is asking of us is not easy to achieve; it is the highest order of moral reasoning. It is not easy to be selfless, and difficult to erase from our minds thoughts of reward for our good actions. But that is the type of character the Torah is asking us to develop.
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This lesson comes to us in another way in the portion. We are told in this portion that when we reap our harvest and overlook a sheaf of wheat we must leave it for the poor.
This is another very curious mitzvah because it is a mitzvah done unconsciously. All the other mitzvot in the Torah have to be conscious; we are aware of them and we are supposed to deliberately do them when we have the opportunity. This mitzvah, however, is only fulfilled by forgetting something.
The medieval writing of Rabbi Aharon HaLevy, the Sefer Hahinuch, suggests a reason for this oddity. He says that the mitzvot commanded in the Torah are intended to shape the Jew's character. The owner of the field who has forgotten, or overlooked, some sheaves, has obviously acquired a generous soul, so generous in fact that he doesn't even bother with the sheaf.
This is the sort of personality Jews are supposed to cultivate. We are taught to become generous, giving, sensitive, caring individuals for whom performing mitzvot is instinctive, something that is just part of who we are and how we conduct our lives, without regard to reward – indeed, without even having to think about it. We Jews have our mitzvot and our tradition as guides to lead us to this extraordinary level of moral goodness.
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