Exploring Judaism

This site is dedicated in memory of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg who were murdered at their Chabad House in Mumbai. This is the place to learn more and ask those questions you were always too shy to ask.

1:12 AM

Performing a good deed with happiness

Posted by Scholar

In this weeks Parsha(Torah portion) we learn that Yaakov(Jacob) lived in the house of Lavan who was known to be very wicked but yet he didn'tlearn from his evil ways. We are told that Yaakov kept all 613 commandments of the Torah and never had the thought of not performing anyone of them. When Yaakov said he didn't learn from Lavan's evil ways we already knew that as he stated he kept all 613 commandments. We have a rule in Judaism that no word in the Torah is extra, every letter is there for a reason so what is this seemingly repeat of Yaakov not learning from Lavan's ways coming to teach us?


Yaakov was in fact upset that he didn't learn from Lavan's ways. He used to watch Lavan everyday enthusiastically perform sins. Yaakov didn't apply Lavan's level of excitement to his Torah learning and mitzvot. Yaakov thought if only he performed the mitzvot(commandments) with such excitement and vigor like Lavan had performed his sins.


1 comments:

Traveling Chossid said...

That is so true, when one does a good deed one needs to be charged and excited with it and not that it should become routine.
Well put!

Post a Comment