 |  | At the beginning of Parshat Bechukotai, God promises the people abundant blessings if they follow in His ways and keep His mitzvot, as it says, “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their seasons, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and your vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land” (Vayikra 26:3-5). According to Rashi, based on the Sifra, “you shall eat your fill of bread” means, “you will eat only a little and it will fully satisfy you.” Rav Moshe Feinstein is curious about the nature and purpose of such a blessing. After all, if God had already promised the people “that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit,” why should the people care if they get full from a lot or a little? That is to say, in a world like this, why should getting full from eating only a little be a blessing? God’s promise of plenty indicates that He will only add to the people’s prosperity and not detract from it.
Rav Moshe answers his own question, saying, “It seems that the blessing here points to a higher spiritual purpose. Ideally, a person does not want to get bogged down in material matters. This is because if a person gets immersed in physical concerns, they can easily overtake him and consume all of his time and energy. As a result, that person will end up getting pulled in different directions, always trying to satisfy various physical desires” (Sefer Kol Ram, Parshat Bechukotai 170:3). In other words, the more enmeshed in the material we get, the harder it becomes to extricate ourselves from its grip in order to devote our time, attention and abilities to higher, spiritual pursuits. Therefore, Rav Moshe says, if a person is sated by only a little of the material world, then he will have more time and ability to devote himself to searching for his higher spiritual purpose and calling. “This is what this blessing is all about. A person should not live for material purposes alone, for they may distance him from Torah and the fear of heaven” (Ibid.) Rather, the point of a person’s life is to connect to their spiritual source and discover the true meaning and purpose of their lives.
We must all tend to our physical needs. We must all be responsible for our own welfare. Judaism does not reject or negate the material world. However, materialism, that is, allowing the physical world, with all of its allures and temptations to determine our values and goals is not a Jewish value. We must use the resources we have in order to help us achieve something transcendent. Thus, we should strive to be satisfied with just enough physicality, just enough materialism, just enough earthly comfort to give us the strength we need in order to continue our search for our greater spiritual missions. In the 1971 film, Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye the Milkman famously sung “If I were a rich man…I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day, and that would be the sweetest thing of all.” All that we have in this world are not ends in and of themselves, they are but the means by which we achieve something greater, holier, higher than ourselves.
This Shabbat, let us seek to be satisfied with just enough of this world in order to move towards that which is beyond. Let us engage in the affairs of this world, while keeping an eye on the next. Let us see the purpose of our lives as being so much greater than anything materialism has to offer, and in so doing, we can fulfill that which is said, “Better a little with the fear of the Lord, than great prosperity constantly hounded by vexation” (Mishlei 15:16).
Shabbat Shalom!
- Rabbi Dan
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