Hebräische Bibel
Hebräische Bibel

Chasidut zu Jeschijahu 61:8

כִּ֣י אֲנִ֤י יְהוָה֙ אֹהֵ֣ב מִשְׁפָּ֔ט שֹׂנֵ֥א גָזֵ֖ל בְּעוֹלָ֑ה וְנָתַתִּ֤י פְעֻלָּתָם֙ בֶּאֱמֶ֔ת וּבְרִ֥ית עוֹלָ֖ם אֶכְר֥וֹת לָהֶֽם׃

Denn ich, der Herr, liebe das Recht und hasse freveln Raub. Ich will ihren Lohn getreulich geben, einen ewigen Bund schließe ich mit ihnen.

Kedushat Levi

‎It is also possible to understand Leviticus 4,27 in a similar sense ‎where the Torah describes the commission of a sin in a peculiar ‎way by writing: ‎נפש כי תחטא....בעשותה אחת ממצות ה' אשר לא ‏תעשינה‎, “when a person commits a sin through performing one of ‎G’d’s commandments which should not be performed.” What is ‎meant is that “someone sins by the manner in which he performs ‎a commandment, i.e. giving himself credit for performance, an ‎act of arrogance.” In other words: we must guard against being ‎smug about our level of service to the Lord. It is described as: ‎ואשם‎, he became guilty.‎We can also say that this is what our sages had in mind in ‎‎Sukkah 30 where they derived the rejection of someone’s ‎offering on the altar, the presentation of which was possible only ‎through the prior commission of a sin, from a verse in Isaiah 61,8 ‎the prophet saying that G’d hates a burnt offering which was ‎offered as a result of the donor having first stolen the animal ‎offered, i.e. ‎כי אני ה' אוהב משפט שונא גזל בעולה‎, “for I, the Lord Who ‎loves justice, hates robbery with a burnt offering.”‎
Our author understands the concept of ‎מצוה הבאה בעברה‎, ‎‎“performance of one of G’d’s commandments at the cost of ‎committing a sin,” as the “sin” consisting of the smugness of the ‎party concerned about the other commandments he has already ‎performed. Such smugness, i.e. spiritual arrogance, is considered ‎sinful. He considers the verse from Isaiah 61,8 that we quoted ‎above as referring to this kind of sin. Any Jew who considers ‎himself a ‎יש‎, “a somebody,” as a result of his having performed ‎commandments instead of his having acquired a more profound ‎sense of humility, has failed to absorb basic lessons of Judaism. ‎He forgets or forgot that even the strength, physical and moral, ‎to perform these commandments was something granted to us by ‎the Creator; it is not something “homegrown.” ‎
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