The Torah tells us, “You must love G-d, your G-d, and guard His charge, His rules, His ordinances, and His commandments, all the days.”
When you love someone, doing what they want isn’t a burden, it’s a joy. You don’t think, “I have to do this,” you think, “I want to do this.”
Serving Hashem from a place of love changes everything. The only question becomes: What does Hashem want from me right now?
There’s a story told about Reb Zusha of Anipoli, a righteous man from the 1700s.
Reb Zusha once owned an extraordinarily valuable pair of tefillin. One year, before Sukkot, having no money to buy the Four Species, he sold his precious tefillin and used the money to buy an exceptional etrog.
When Reb Zusha’s wife found out, she was furious. She couldn’t understand how her husband could sell something so sacred for a mitzvah that lasts only one week!? Especially when they had pressing needs like food, clothing, or repairing the leaky roof. In her frustration, she took the etrog and bit off its tip, making it unusable for the mitzvah.
Reb Zusha saw what happened, and remained silent, some say he started dancing. Later, it was revealed to him from Heaven that his silence in that moment was even more beloved to Hashem than the sacrifice of selling his tefillin.
Why didn’t he get angry? Because in that moment, the question wasn’t, “How could she?” but rather, “What does Hashem want from me now?” The etrog was no longer kosher. The mitzvah in front of him had changed from shaking the lulav to celebrating the holiday with Joy and accepting this moment with love and patience.
When the Torah commands us to love Hashem and guard His charge, it’s telling us to serve Him from a place of love. To let every action, even the unexpected, even the inconvenient, even the annoying, be guided by one question: I love Hashem and Hashem loves me. What does Hashem want from me right now?
Have a lovely Shabbos,
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman
Charles wrote...