Setting the Price | Rabbi Yisroel Besser

How much is a Mitzvah worth? What's the price of a Mitzvah? Is there a list somewhere? How do you go check that out? The Chofetz Chaim would say that we set, people set the prices, the value of their own Mitzvos. What does that mean? Imagine you're on your way to do a Mitzvah. Say, you're going to be מבקר חולה, you're going to visit somebody who's sick. And a friend stops you on the way and says: Hey, do you want to come with us? We're going out for ice cream. And you say, But I’m going to do a Mitzvah, I'm going to visit somebody in bed. They say: Yeah, but it’s a hot day. Come have ice cream. And you say: I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to come with you. The Mitzvah is more important to me. Okay. What if they say: We’re going out for a steak dinner. We’re going out to a new steak house. Everything is delicious. I have a gift card, it's free. Come, you’ll have a good supper. And you say, Okay, it's tempting. I'm going to come. I'll be מבקר חולים another day. So you just set the price of your Mitzvah. It's worth more than ice cream and a little less than steak. So we know exactly how much it's worth, because that's how much you're willing to give up for it, and that's how much you're not willing to give up for it. Once I read about a Yid, who did not have an easy life, but he was always very happy. He was an upbeat person, he had tremendous energy and Simcha in Mitzvos. And they asked him why and he said, He worked in a neighborhood where there were a lot of challenges, a lot of Nisyonos, a lot of things that would pull a person to look. He didn't want to look, he wanted to remain above it. So he trained himself to say, This block? This block is $10-worth of Schar, for sure. The next block, where there are bigger billboards and bigger signs, that's $50. And when I get to that intersection where there are a lot of Nisyonos, a lot of challenges, a lot of things that are pulling me to look, that's $500. He said: Every single night in bed, I would make an accounting how much money I made that day. I walked on that block three times, that's $30, and then I walked down the bigger block once, that's another 50, and I passed the intersection twice, that's twice $500. And he says, And it would amount in my head, I would amassed a huge bank account of Zchusim, of how much value every one of those Nisyonos has. So of course, I appreciate a Mitzvah, because I set the value of the Mitzvah in my mind. A friend of mine told me he was in Vegas on business, and the hotel where he stayed had put up new signs and new billboards and new lighting. And one of the managers was chatting with him and he told him that they had invested $750,000 in just looking attractive in the facade of the building, on the outside of the building. They said: Because there’s so much competition from the other hotels, that they need to stand out and they're trying to get people to look at them and look in their directions. So my friend told me, They spent $750,000 to get people to look. If I don't look, that means not looking is worth more than $750,000, because they spent all that money, and they can't get me to look. So my Schar for the Mitzvah is more than $750,000. It's time to start appreciating, celebrating our own heroism, celebrating our own strength, appreciating the value every single time we stand tall, because as much value as we give a Mitzvah, that's how much value it's going to have.