Chap Arayn

3 Shevat 5782

“And you shall watch over the unleavened cakes, for on this very day I have taken your legions out of the land of Egypt, and you shall observe this day throughout your generations, [as] an everlasting statute.” (Shemos 12:17)

Rashi brings from Mechilta, “Rabbi Josiah says: Do not read:, אֶת-הַמַצּוֹת, the unleavened cakes, but, אֶת-הַמִצְוֹת, the commandments. Just as we may not permit the matzoth to become leavened, so may we not permit the commandments to become leavened, i.e., to wait too long before we perform them, but if a commandment comes into your hand, perform it immediately.”

“One must know an additional important principle in the beinoni’s service of G-d: Even if one’s intellect and understanding are incapable of producing a revealed love of G-d in his heart … this tevunah, intellectual emotion, is [still] clothed in the act, speech, and thought of the Torah and its commandments, providing them with intellectual power, vitality, and ‘wings’ that enable them to soar on high.” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, Chapter 16)

This entire chapter of Tanya comes to teach us not to fret when we don’t feel a revealed sense of love and fear of Hashem in our bodies. We should still “chap arayn,” and perform as many mitzvah’s as possible, with great vigilance and haste, because Hashem “joins a good thought to the deed.” He joins the purely intellectual love, which is too high to clothe itself in our performance of the commandments, with the action, so it “may soar on high.”

“Indeed, Your servant is scrupulous with them; in observing them there is abundant reward.” (Tehillim 19:12)

By being swift and scrupulous with Hashem’s commandments, in and of itself, we accrue abundant reward. How much more so when we manage to carry them out with a degree of revealed love—of “fiery flames, with a desire and a longing and a passion manifestly felt”—each according to his ability.