Community Magazine March 2014

22 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE A person once came to the Hazon Ish and asked how he could generate within himself enthusiasm and passion for mitzvot . The sage remarked that it is worth coming into this world and enduring all the suffering experienced by Iyov in order to put on tefillin just once. We put on tefillin every morning, six days a week. Shouldn’t that be exciting? Gd has come specifically to us and asked us to do something. What could possibly be a greater privilege than that? The Real of Kabbalat HaTorah The Talmud teaches that in the wake of the Purim miracle, the Jews of the time reaffirmed their kabbalat haTorah – their formal acceptance of the Torah. Our ancestors first accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai, as we commemorate on Shavuot, but there is a fundamental difference between the acceptance at Sinai and the acceptance in Persia. At Sinai, Gd forced the Torah upon us, suspending the mountain over our heads and threatening to kill us if we did not commit ourselves to His will. This kabbalat haTorah was thus characterized by a sense of obligation and responsibility. After the Purim miracle, however, the Jews proclaimed a much different type of commitment – a commitment borne out of genuine joy. In response to the miracles they had just experienced, theywere overcome by love for Hashem and a passionate desire to fulfill His will. They rid themselves of all negativity, and resolved to serve Gd with vitality and exuberance. As mentioned earlier, the Megillah describes the Jews as “resting” on the 14 th of Adar. After the miracles of the previous day, they enjoyed spiritual “rest,” peace of mind and contentment. They felt the joy of religious observance, the beauty of religious life and the gratification that only Torah and mitzvot can provide. Religion was no longer boring or inconvenient; it was magnificent and a source of joy. On the 13 th of Adar, the Jews destroyed the physical Amalek, but on the 14 th , they accomplished something far more significant – they destroyed the spiritual Amalek, the negativity and fatigue that threatens our devotion to Torah. And thus the real victory was on the 14 th , and this is when we celebrate. Many years ago, I was walking out of my kollel and a young man I knew saw me. We began talking, and he asked me how I was able to spend the entire day poring over complex, intricate, ancient texts. “Imagine a child walks into a candy store in the morning and spends the day helping himself to the goodies on the shelves,” I told him. “It would not surprise us in the least that he spent a whole day doing that. This is what we’re doing in kollel. We’re spending the day grabbing ‘candies’–words of Torah – and enjoying them.” Baruch Hashem , this youngster grew to become a Torah scholar, and years later he mentioned this brief conversation as the source of his desire to learn. The joy of Purim is about the joy of Torah. It is supposed to rekindle the fire and passion for Hashem and His mitzvot , and inject within us the energy to get up early for Daf Yomi with the same enthusiasm with which we get up for an early flight to Florida for vacation. We should perform mitzvot the way we eat candy, not the way we file our taxes. This is our weapon in the ongoing battle against Amalek, which ensures our ability to remain loyal and devoted to Gd and transmit this same loyalty to our children and grandchildren.