enjoy!

On new tefillin, or a new tzitzith tied onto an old garment, we don't say the berachah shehechiyanu. What's the reason? We only say shehechiyanu on things we benefit from, and we weren't given the mitzwoth to benefit from them. (Yalkut Yosef - Hilchoth Tzitzith)

That's a mind-opening statement. A lot of times we will try and convince people to perform mitzwoth because it is actually better for them. Either it leads to a healthier lifestyle, or it gives you a new perspective, or it will benefit you financially. From this halachah we can see a deeper level of mitzwah observance.

This isn't a new idea, it's clear from Pirkei Avoth: Don't serve HaShem like servants expecting a reward, serve Him like servants who expect no reward. (Or in the original: Serve Him like servants who serve in order to not receive a reward.) The Talmud also says it straight to the point: there are no rewards for mitzwoth in this world. (שכר מצוה בהאי עלמא ליכא)

Yet, how do we deal with this mindset, don't we enjoy the performance of the mitzwoth a lot, and shouldn't that be encouraged? The answer lies perhaps in Torah learning. We see that by Torah learning, one must always start out from a place of ulterior motives (shelo l'shmah) in order to get to Torah learing for the proper reasons. (l'shmah) Maybe it's the same by the mitzwoth, just no one told us, the reason we start to do the mitzwoth is for all the apparent ancillary benefits, but the reason we keep doing the mitzwoth is in order to serve HaSHem.

We can see this education happening almost automatically: When we discover mitzwoth, or a new mitzwah, we may perform it out of the simple pleasure of doing something new. Once we are already involved in the mitzwoth we arrive at all kinds of obstacles, times when perhaps it would be easier to ignore the mitzwoth or at least put them on hold. Yet, often we don't put them on hold, because when think about it, or even try it, it just doesn't feel right. Suddenly we're performing the mitzwah not because of how much we benefit from its performance, but rather because we feel it is necesary.

HaShem even built this system into the nature of the world. Our pleasure threshold naturally rises. Whatever got us very excited last week, is certainly less exciting now, and the more we are exposed to the exciting stimulus, the less exciting it becomes. We need to pursue new and more extreme forms of excitement. This is a truth of HaShem's creation that finds its expression in so many places, including our brain chemistry.

We might start to do something because it is exciting, but what will keep us doing that thing after the excitement wears off? Only our own discipline and effort.

There has to be a higher level, you are thinking right now. Life isn't just about how robotic and determined we are. There are endless passukim about enjoyment and pleasure. Two come to mind: והתענג על השם - enjoy HaShem (i'm pretty sure coke stole the idea from HaShem) and טעמו ורעו כי טוב השם - taste and see that HaShem is good. I think these two passukim clarify the issue pretty significantly. The mitzwoth aren't to be enjoyed for themselves. Rather, the relationship with HaShem that is brought about through the mitzwoth is what can and should be enjoyed.

If we were to enjoy the mitzwoth themselves then we would be possibly (heaven forbid) treading in the very murky waters of idolatry. What's to stop us from enjoying the mitzwoth for their own sake, thinking it is the mitzwoth that do good for us, and not (heaven forbid) HaShem who is good to us, because we keep His mitzwoth? Unfortunately we see this happening sometimes, when people want to take the mitzwah upon themselves for health or other reasons, but don't want to have anything to do with HaShem.

Still, I wonder about the various cases of Shehechiyanu, that seem to involve mainly a mitzwah. Like lulav or sukkah, or hannukah. In such a case it seems like the time component is the critical part, with HaShem's help we'll revisit this topic with a clearer understanding.

the daily one hundred

I only just realized this morning that the essence of our tefillah, the central focus of our energies three times every day (and four or more times on chagim) during prayer is a collection of 18 (19) blessings.

I always related to the Amidah (aka. Shemoneh Esrei) as a unit. It was only this morning that I realized it is essentially 18 (19) unique blessings that Chazal lumped together intentionally.

This made me rethink the whole idea of a berachah. With some siyata d'shmaya, today before tefilla I happened to learn the three halachoth in Yalkut Yosef - kitzur Shulchan Aruch on the kavanah of berachoth. It made me realize that the essence of berachoth is the essence of tefillah. Every time we get to say a berachah it is an oppurtunity to tefillah and everything it entails.

Here are a few short details about berachoth that have accumulated in the attic of my head over the years:

1. a berachah literally entails a desire to draw HaShem into the world, make Him (figuratively) more imminent.
2. a berachah regarding some benefit (hana'ah) involves delaying our gratification (for the time we take to make the blessing) as a means of becoming holier through overriding our desires, even temporarily. (Rav Steinsaltz pointed this out to me.)
3. we are careful to make one hundred blessings every day. (attributed to David haMelech in the Talmud)
4. It is important not to say a berachah when there is no need. (since one mentions HaShem's name, which requires the appropriate honor and respect.)
   
5. It is important not to swallow or skip any letters or words of a berachah.

Two insights from the Noam Elimelech related to berachoth that I learned recently:
(1) Each berachah comes from and relates to a specific world, but the answering of amen after a berachah spans all the worlds. (He goes into a complex explanation of when we answer amen after our own berachah, namely when our berachah spans more than one world, otherwise one doesn't answer amen to his own berachah, unless he is the Tzaddik of the generation in which case all his berachoth span all the worlds.)

(2) The only berachah of Bilam's that persisted (kiyyum/kayyam) was the berachah of mah tovu, the reason according to the Noam Elimelech is because it was the only berachah that Bilam made with complete intent, ie. without any desire to curse Bnei Yisrael. The other berachoth were attempts at cursing Bnei Yisrael that HaShem altered and turned into berachoth. From this perhaps we can see that when a blessing is made with proper intent, HaShem gives His ok, His Amen, and it is a berachah that persists and takes on a life of its own.