545. Laboring and Finding
May 8, 1977, Tiberias
It is written in Midrash Rabbah: “Anyone who fears Me and does words of Torah, all the wisdom and all the Torah are in his heart.”
We should ask according to what is explained, “I did not labor and found, do not believe,” how is it possible to be rewarded with the Torah without labor? According to a common question, How is labor related to finding, since finding comes absentmindedly, so why the word “labor” in regard to finding?
According to the above Midrash, we should say that if a person makes an effort in fear, and fear means faith, that one must believe that it is impossible to approach the Creator without equivalence of form in the form of a desire to bestow, and one makes the labor with the desire to bestow, so he is rewarded with finding. In other words, the Creator gives him Torah and wisdom as in the above-mentioned Midrash.
Indeed, we should ask why specifically the Torah of the Creator requires labor, while the rest of the teachings can be acquired without labor? After all, we see that nothing can be obtained without labor.
It can be said that what our sages call “labor” by which one achieves the Torah is different from the effort one makes in other teachings. Obtaining other teachings requires intellectual efforts. By exerting to understand the matters, one comes to grasp them, obtaining the teaching being taught.
This is not so with the Torah. The true Torah is called a “gift,” and the word “labor” has nothing to do with “gifts,” since a gift does not depend on the labor of the receiver but on the view of the giver. If he wishes, he gives gifts to anyone he wants. Thus, how can we speak of labor with regard to the Torah?
Rather, we see that usually when a person wants to give gifts, he gives them to his loved ones. Therefore, if the receiver wants to be given a gift, he cannot ask the giver for a gift. Instead, if the receiver tries to make the giver see that he is among the ones who love the giver, the giver will naturally give him gifts.
It therefore follows that in order to be rewarded with the gift of the Torah, he must exert himself with all kinds of actions so the giver will see that he is among the ones who love him. Then he will give him gifts anyhow.
It is a great effort to make the Creator see that he is among the ones who love the Creator, since a person must try not to want anything, and that his only desire will be to bestow contentment upon the Creator and not for his self-love, but for the love of the Creator. This is a great effort because it is against the nature with which he was created.
Through this labor, one is made to be among those who love the King, and then the Creator gives it to him as a gift.
This is why there is labor here—to love the Creator and not for self-benefit but in order to bring contentment to the Creator. At that time, “I found,” meaning that the Creator gives a person the delight and pleasure as a find, since he exerted himself in the opposite direction—to bestow upon the Creator. Finding means that the Creator bestows delight and pleasure upon the person.
A summary of the above-said:
1) Why can we not acquire Torah without labor, as this implies that the rest of the teachings can be acquired without labor?
2) What is the labor applied specifically with regard to the Torah?
3) Why is Torah called “finding”? If he comes to it absentmindedly, as with a find, how can we speak of labor?
4) The Torah is a gift and not a find.
5) If the Torah is a gift, how can we speak of “labor in order to receive a gift”? After all, the Kli [vessel] of a gift is called “love,” meaning that we give gifts to those we love.