Reward - Part 2 - Ethics of the Fathers (1:3) - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

let's just do one more one more idea in this mishna the beauty of perkiavot is that you know a lot of times the missionaries have been explained in so many different ways that there's there's an opportunity to appreciate different uh perspectives on the same mishna so let's explain another another approach to this mishna okay and we're going to focus mainly on the term press and appreciate it's it's what it means so here we'll just quickly read just to get an idea of what we're talking about it says don't be like avadim that serve god to receive a press a bonus a reward whatever however we want to understand it but we want to appreciate what a process represents so the me farshim uh the bani shai and the uh adm explain and and others that the term pros really implies something that's only half something that's only partial it's a partial payment it's a partial reward it's a process it's half based on the pasuk is the splitting of one's kingship like breaking the peace also a piece of bread so if we appreciate that the word pros over here means only a piece of of something it's only a part of something so we can understand the mission is essentially saying don't serve god for only a piece of the reward that he wants to give you rather serve god for the entire reward that he wants to give you and that's that's a way to appreciate this idea but in order to fully appreciate it we're going to understand what what is what is how to appreciate what does it mean that not to only work for a part of what there is to get a part of what hashem wants to give us so for that let's just preface by mentioning this we know that a human being is made up of a body and soul we're not just one entity we're morocco we're it's a fusion of both body and soul right through the mitzvot both body and soul merit uh the world to come you know it's not just going to be for them you know after a person passes away so he's buried his neshama goes to the ulama eleon if he has to pay for his average he goes to genome if he's that have pleasure there but that's only a temporary realm the ultimate eternal place of of reward is going to be the world to come and that is for the body and the soul so we're going to explain what trust means in that context and we're going to start from the ultimate reward and we're going to work our way down there are three different explanations that we're going to offer based on the three different levels of jewish people the term con congregation in hebrew means sibor is made up of the letters sadiq bet and reish at sibor a congregation is made up of those three letters and those two letters are an indication of three levels of jews three levels of people the sadiq of course is the completely righteous person the bet is the benoni the intermediate average person and the reish is for the rasha which is the wicked person so each of these three levels represents a different understanding of what it is to receive partial reward so let's talk about the tsadek first as we started so that sadiq serves hashem without doing any avert a perfectly good person and when his life is over so his body is buried in the ground and his soul goes to gane that's not the ultimate reward because in the end the body and soul together worked to serve hashem and the body that was not even guilty of sin and even if it was guilty of minor sins so certainly that sadiq fixes them through either suffering or through chuva so the body doesn't deserve to suffer meanwhile the body is sitting in the earth it's not getting any reward and only the soul gets the reward in shaman so that cannot be the ultimate what hashem wants to give to the sadiq and that's what we can understand don't serve god amin not the kabbal pros in this context when talking to that sadaqa means don't serve god and think that allah is the goal allah is not the goal allah is a temporary place for the shama until the ultimate goal is when body and soul will be reunited and receive the ultimate reward together so that's the idea of that's the so what's the reward it's a process only to the neshama because it's only to the to half of the person it's only to a part of the person what's the full reward giving the reward to the body and soul together in in the world to come so that's how it means don't serve god for a prosperous sonic now what about the benoni what about the intermediate person so the intermediate person is a good person he does mitzvot but he doesn't always do mitzvot sometimes he doesn't do what hashem wanted exactly the way it's told not because that's why he's not a tadiq sometimes a intermediate person can also be guilty of doing avert not so many of course let's we save that for the rasha so what is the how do we define the life of the benoni so in the moments that he's doing a mitzvah so then certainly his body and soul is involved in serving hashem but in the moments that the average person is involved in the world and he's not doing that for for hashem he's not doing that in order to fulfill the will of god so in those moments he's fulfilling his own will he's doing what he wants for himself and in those moments he's not serving hashem and certainly he's not doing what his he's not serving his body and soul in those moments when he's using the world for its own sake he's only feeding his body and when he feeds just his body so he's only feeding half of him he's only taking half of what he could be taking so when a person is doing a mitzvah he's he's feeding his body and soul that's a full pro that's not a process not partial food that's a full reward when he's feeding only his body by using the world for its own sake for him for selfish reasons not to do a mitzvah not to do what hashem wants then he's only feeding his body and his soul is not getting anything so we could appreciate what a process for the bananee is when he's not getting his body and soul involved and doing the mitzvah so how does the better he receive not the prospect but the whole the whole reward when he uses this world for the sake of heaven that's the mitzvah of kidoshim to you that we're supposed to be kadosh we're supposed to be holy even in our mundane involvement even in worldly matters so when a person is going to sanctify himself in the mundane and make all his ma shem shamayim like it says in the mission of she you call my secret shaman that all your deeds should be for the sake of heaven that everything he does is a mitzvah and if everything he does is a mitzvah then his body and soul are going to ultimately benefit from everything that he does whereas in the first case if he's only doing partial mitzvahs and partial not mitzvahs so that whatever is not defined as a mitzvah his soul is not going to ever benefit from it so that's the way to appreciate the pros for the benoni one more point we have to add which we do now for the for the russia let's start now with the russia for the russia what does it mean to to get a process and to to get nada pros so unfortunately the rashad stoops to such a low level that more often he listens to the yetzara and not hashem so the rav for the for the for a wicked person who says who's his master who's he obedient to his desires which are really being driven by the sahara so his unfortunately the term which really means hashem in this context becomes the sahara for the russia now what's this let's imagine what does this evil person do he's listening all the time to the to his master which he became subordinate to which is the tzara to do and he does he does he does no mitzvot that means that he completely has starved and put his his neshama in jail so to speak and starved it and it's getting nothing he's only serving his body all of his life he's filling his stomach and more and more and more and everything he does in this world is only to serve the the now and and to serve the body and to serve you know his selfish motives and the soul he forgot about the soul the soul doesn't get any attention doesn't get anything it's like a dead person that's walking because if the soul is not ever able to express itself and it's not able to ever to get the spiritual food that it needs it's like a starving dead person so what do we say we say to this person that you need to realize that ultimately if you live this way all you're taking is a pros because all you're doing is feeding the body and you're not feeding your soul ever so how do we convince him to also feed his soul and and in order to not just take a prosper to take the full skrah that hashem wants to give us so we have to convince this rasha to try to do some mitzvoth now even though in the case of the rasha the the mitzvoth that he does is the minority of his acts it's a it's the miut most of his acts are not appropriate and it's only a few acts that are going to be involved in mitzvot for example you know even rashad sometimes could be very loving to his parents and he has the scar of of honoring his parents as a matter of fact the gemara says that even the israel the willful sinners amongst the jewish people are full of mitzvot like a pomegranate how can we understand that how can a russia that's a poche is ali he's one who does on purpose how can it be full of it's what like a ramon like a pomegranate because many things a person does either any favor he does is it many times he does mitzvot and even some people sometimes they they they commemorate a mitzvah they go to shul they do mitzvot so even in russia we have to explain to him and he has to understand that that is if he's going to listen to the yetzara all his life he's going to really you know give up forfeit any scar of allah and any shama but if he does even a small amount of mitzvoth he has to realize in those moments that he's doing the mitzvah that mitzvah is going to be scarf for the soul and the body as well so even though it's a small amount and normally the small amount is canceled negan the big amount but ascar mitzvah is eternal so you know this rashad can go through genome and ultimately the fume it's vote that he does succeed in doing is going to be there for him in the world to come this is an important message to give to people because a lot of people they give up hope on themselves they read perkier vote and see about the lofty levels that a person can reach and they give up they say ah i'm a lost cause how can i compete with these great sadiq and certainly i've lost my share in the world to come and that is wrong the mishna learning starts out with a quote from another missionary from sanhedrin that says that every person from israel has a helic in the world to come and the according to the mahzal vitri one of the rishonim he explains why is the mission why does the menace to read purchase begin by telling us about this exactly for this point to remind those that are on a low level don't think that because you're on a low level you're not going to be involved in the in the world to come because the little good that you do even if it's a smaller amount than that sadiq still that has eternal marriage and you will marry the place in the world to come through your good deeds and here too we want to say on the lowest of levels because we must explain each of these missions according to all of us so the sha'im how can they learn and benefit from this mishna by understanding that if they will succeed in overcoming their evil inclination and their desires even a little bit to do some it's vote for hashem that will give them an eternal reward which is not going to be just a process but it's going to be a complete reward in the world to come and so with this approach we have succeeded in explaining what it means to receive half a reward or a whole reward for each of the three levels that we are going to generalize all of claudia's swirl into the tsatik's message is even though you serve hashem all the time the reward of allah where it's only for your neshama that's not enough it needs to be the ultimate purpose is where the gabarian soul will reward together for the benoni the message is that you cannot only choose to serve god part of the time that you're in this world you have to train yourself and reach the level of serving hashem all the time and when you do that that means that you're earning a full reward because your body and soul are always having a hana a benefit from your involvement in the world but if you're only going to involve yourself in the world for your body's sake then in those moments your soul is not going to get anything forward and for the rasha as we said just quickly to recoup we say it that even though you're unfortunately most of the time you have not paid attention to you sharma if you don't do anything you will lose all of your reward in the world to come and you'll have only taken the prof that hashem the process of this world like uh when the door comes and eats the leftovers what is that so if you remember to also do mitzvoth in those mitzvoth you will earn a shalem a full reward in the world to come as well okay with that we conclude this mission you