Pleasing to Me

6 Nissan 5782

“G‑d spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: … When any man has a running issue out of his flesh …” (Vayikra 15:1-2)

“One verse says, ‘Black like a raven’ (Song of Songs 5:11), while other verses say, ‘His aspect is like Lebanon [from lavan, white], excellent as the cedars’ (ibid. 5:15), and ‘Their appearance is like torches; they run to and fro like the lightnings’ (Nahum 2:5) … This refers to those sections of the Torah which though they appear as if repulsive and black to be spoken of in public, such as the laws relating to issues, leprosy and childbirth, G‑d says: They are pleasing to Me.

You have proof that this is so, since the sections relating to a man who has an issue and a woman who has an issue are not stated as one, but each by itself, namely, ‘When any man has an issue …’ (Vayikra 15:1–18) and in a separate section (15:19–30), ‘And if a woman has an issue …’” (Midrash Rabbah)

“Now, although the soul of the person engaging in this Torah study or mitzvah does not stem from Atzilut, nevertheless, He is able to effect unity in the middot of Atzilut because the supernal will, which is clothed in this mitzvah, and in the case of Torah, it is not merely ‘clothed’ in it, but furthermore—it is indeed the very Halachah and Torah that he is studying—this supernal will is G‑dliness and is the Ein Sof-light of the Emanator [of the sefirot of Atzilut], since He and His will are one” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, middle of Chapter 40)

There are no weights in the laws of the Torah. All are equally dear to Hashem. All are His will and as such entirely one with Him. When we study or engage in, what seems to us, even the most repulsive of mitzvos, we bring great delight above, in worlds so high that not even our G‑dly soul reaches there.

“By David. Do not compete with the wicked; do not envy doers of injustice.” (Tehillim 37:1)

David HaMelech was the embodiment of humility and bittul to Hashem. He never looked to the wicked, to compete with them and envy their comforts. He rejoiced only in Hashem’s precepts, which he described as “perfect, restoring the soul” (Tehillim 19:8). As it says in Talmud, Berachot 4a:

“Thus spoke King David before G‑d: Master of the world, am I not pious? All the kings of the east and the west sit with all their pomp among their company, whereas my hands are soiled with the blood of menstruation, with the fetus and the placenta, in order to declare a woman clean for her husband. And what is more, in all that I do I consult my teacher, Mephibosheth, and I say to him: My teacher Mephibosheth, is my decision right? Did I correctly convict, correctly acquit, correctly declare clean, correctly declare unclean? And I am not ashamed.”