Musar su Deuteronomio 11:27

Concerning the curses mentioned in the Bible it is said : "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes" (Deut. 28:15), and it is written : "The blessing, if he shall hearken unto the commandments of the Lord your God, and the curse, if ye shall not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord your God" (Deut. 11:27-28). In all of these quotations which say : "Thou shalt surely listen" the meaning is not merely listening with the ear, but what they wanted to say was "listen with willingness to fulfill the commandments." So we find with Jacob our father, upon him is peace, that he willingly listened to his mother and he listened to her counsel concerning the blessings. He willingly listened to his father and to his mother (when they advised him not to take a wife of the daughters of Canaan) and chose a wife as they requested. Therefore he merited that there should come forth from him the twelve tribes. And it is written : "But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell securely, And shall be quite without fear of evil" (Prov. 1:33).

את הברכה אשר תשמעו . We may ask why the Torah (11,27) uses the preposition אשר when describing the blessing, whereas in connection with the curse the Torah (28,15) uses the preposition אם. Some commentators explain that we can understand this when we understand the saying of our sages in Avot 4,2 that שכר מצוה מצוה, "the reward of performing one מצוה is another מצוה" The meaning would be that "once you start listening to G–d's commandments your reward will be that you will feel the urge to observe still more of the commandments." This would be analogous to והיה אם שמוע-תשמעו, (11,13 et al). The difficulty with this explanation is that we find a similar construction used in the Torah when the opposite attitude is described, i.e. והיה אם שכח תשכח (8,19).

Let us go back to the parable from the Yalkut which we quoted on pages earlier. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish who demanded fulfillment of every single commandment in the Torah can hardly reconcile this with the parable of the pit in the Yalkut. We have divided the commandments into 248 positive ones and 365 negative ones. The sages use the number 365 as signifying the concept "day" as in the solar year which comprises 365 days. The pit may be compared to man. When the pit is not filled with “commandments performed,” it is empty, but just as in the case of the pit the brothers threw Joseph into, this does not mean that it did not contain potentially lethal creatures such as dragons and scorpions (cf. Rashi on Genesis 37,24). The "scorpions" mentioned are a metaphor for the forces of the קליפה, forces created by our sins. Only when the pit has become filled and does not leak a drop (of the commandments performed which have filled the pit) have these forces of the קליפה become totally neutralized. When the foolish laborer described in the parable expressed his chagrin that he would never be able to fill the pit, he referred to the negative commandments. He knew that performance is of paramount significance. He also knew that 365 of the 613 commandments are incapable of being "performed," since observing them consists of lack of activity, i.e. שב ואל תעשה, refraining from violating the commandment. He therefore could not understand how one could receive rewards for what one did not do! This foolish worker did not understand that the 365 negative commandments are performed by consciously abstaining from committing acts which would be transgressions. In other words, our thoughts play a key role in מצוה observance. This is the "joy" that the other labourer referred to when he said "I am happy that I have found work for myself." The "happiness" is an allusion to the "performance" of negative commandments by deliberately refraining from eating pig because G–d had forbidden it, not because there was none to be had. This kind of attitude is regarded just as the deed of handing out charity, for instance. We see that there are many commandments which are "performed" by thought rather than deed, something that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish was aware of and agreed with. We have proof of this in Psalms 119,3: אף לא פעלו עולה בדרכיו הלכו, "They have done no wrong, but have followed His ways." This means that when one foregoes the opportunity to violate a negative commandment this is considered as if one had performed a commandment. The same principle applies when one cannot perform a positive commandment for one reason or another. When the Torah states in the opening line of our portion: את הברכה אשר תשמעו, "The blessing when you listen, etc.," the message is that from the moment we undertake to study the commandments with a view to fulfilling them, the blessing, i.e. the reward is already due us. Should we be prevented from performance by some accident, this does not diminish the merit we have already acquired.