How to Connect to Hashem
In Parshas Teruma, the command to build a Mishkan is given. The Medrash (Shemos Rabba 34:1) states that Moshe asked: “Hashem, Your glory fills the entire world. How can such a small structure contain it?”
Hashem replied: “Your thoughts are not like My thoughts. Erect 20 beams to the north, 20 beams to the south, 8 beams to the west and I will bring My glory down to reside there.”
Rav Steinman asks: What did Moshe Rabbeinu find hard to understand? That Hashem’s glory could fit inside a small structure such as the Mishkan? But Hashem had first appeared to Moshe at the Burning Bush, which was much smaller! Furthermore, why didn’t Hashem simply answer that He could make His glory reside anywhere?
Rav Steinman explains: Moshe Rabbeinu certainly understood that Hashem can make His glory reside anywhere. Rather, his question was based on the fact that Hashem had commanded: “And they [the nation] shall make for Me a Mikdash and I will dwell within them” (Shemos 25:8). Moshe understood from Hashem’s commandment that in order to bring Hashem’s glory down to the nation, they would first have to demonstrate how much they desired His presence. This demonstration was to be accomplished by putting efforts into building the Mishkan. Therefore, Moshe asked how such a small structure could demonstrate the nation’s desire for Hashem’s glory? Shouldn’t they put in a lot more efforts and build something much larger and more beautiful?
Hashem answered: Your thoughts are not like Mine; you are limited and I am not. Therefore, you will never be able to know what sort of structure to build. Rather, “take the 20 beams to the north …” Meaning, instead of devising an elaborate structure according to your understanding, put all your efforts into following My commands in the most precise way possible. This will cause My glory to descend to you.
This is a principle, says Rav Steinman. The word “mitzvah” and the word “tzavsa” (connection) share the same Hebrew root, because every mitzvah is a way to connect to Hashem. And whatever the mitzvah, the main way to connect to Hashem through it is to fulfill its halachic details as precisely as possible.
Rav Yechezkel Levinstein notes that there are people who invest much time, energy and resources into mitzvos they feel are important, and significantly less for mitzvos they view as less important. This is a mistake. Every mitzvah, with all of its halachic intricacies, is a commandment from Hashem, and we have to put all of our efforts into it as a way to connect to Him. If a person picks a few mitzvos to be particularly careful in, such as matzos on Pesach and an esrog on Sukkos, but treats all the other mitzvos less seriously, he is not really observing Hashem’s commandments, but rather following his own understanding.
This mistake can have tragic consequences, as we see from Sefer Shmuel (1:15). There, Shaul Hamelech is condemned for failing to carry out the mitzvah of wiping out the nation of Amalek, and he fails to understand.
“Why did you not hearken to Hashem’s voice?” asks Shmuel Hanavi, and Shaul replies: “But I did hearken to Hashem’s voice…” (ibid. verses 19,20).
Indeed, Shaul killed the Amalekim, but he was commanded to kill their livestock as well. Shaul had “failed” to slaughter the sheep of Amalek, but even this had a reason: he intended to bring these sheep as Thanksgiving Offerings to Hashem, in honor of his victory in annihilating the Amalekim (Radak ibid, verse 15).
Nevertheless, Shmuel Hanavi informed Shaul that because he had failed to annihilate Amalek precisely as he had been commanded, his malchus would be taken from him. Shaul’s enormous loss for what seems a slight lack of fulfillment of a command teaches the great importance of being precise in our mitzvos.
Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapira would speak often of the Brisker Rav’s exceptional precision in mitzvah observance.
“The sense of fear was palpable in his presence, so intense was his concern over all the halachic intricacies that were behind each commandment. His yiras Shamayim burned within him, perhaps some slight detail was not in place?
“The Brisker Rav suffered a great deal in his life. He lost his wife and some of his children in the Holocaust, and had chronic health problems, but this did not affect him as it would a regular person. He did not ignore his pain, he indeed felt it, but what occupied him at all times was what halacha required of him.
“In the final weeks of his life, he told one of his sons: ‘For a person like me, it’s not good to be sick. How can one be meticulous in keeping all of the details in all the seifim katanim of the Shulchan Aruch if he is sick?'”
Even while suffering severe illness, his thoughts were about how he could fulfill mitzvos properly.
An accomplished talmid chacham once came to Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz and asked how he could better himself. This was a man who was fluent in Shas and had worked for years to perfect himself in tefilla and chessed as well. Still, he yearned to do more, and asked in what direction he should put his efforts.
“Try to fulfill every mitzvah with the utmost attention to halachic detail,” Rav Gamliel told him. “Before approaching any mitzvah, learn all the halachic intricacies and prepare yourself so that you do it in the most lechat’chila way possible. If you live this way, this will make a big difference in the way you are viewed in Shamayim.”
May we be zoche to be precise in all the mitzvos!