The Verse:
The prohibition of orlah forbids a person to eat the fruits of a fruit tree for the first three years after its planting. The fruit of the fourth year may be eaten in Jerusalem, as an expression of praise and thanks to G-d. Only in the fifth year of the tree’s life may the person begin to enjoy the benefits of the tree.
The Torah concludes the passage laying out the orlah law as follows:
“And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit; to increase its produce for you. I am G-d, your G-d.” (Vayikra 21:25)
The Rashi:
To increase its produce for you—This commandment which you will observe, will be “[in order] to increase its produce for you,” because as its reward, I will bless for you the fruits of [your] plantings. Rabbi Akiva used to say, “The Torah stated this to counter man’s evil inclination: so that a person should not say, ‘For four years I suffer with this tree for nothing!’ Scripture therefore says here, ‘[in order] to increase its produce for you.’”
I am G-d—I am the G-d Who promises regarding this and Who is faithful to keep My promise.
The Question:
There are many instances where the Torah specifies a reward for fulfilling a mitzvah. Yet Rashi never explains in those contexts that the Torah offers the reward specifically to counter the evil inclination’s objections. How does the verse suggest this meaning to Rashi?
The Explanation:
If the verse was simply informing us of a reward, it would have used the usual language describing reward, “in order to...”. But here the verse says, “And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit; to increase its produce for you,” which implies that the person’s intention in fulfilling this mitzvah should be “to increase” their future produce. Similar to the verse proscribing Shabbos observance, “remember the Shabbos day, to make it holy,” where “to make it holy” is not a reward but an instruction for how to fulfill the mitzvah. So, too, here the verse means to explicitly instruct the person to fulfill the mitzvah of orlah with the intention of reaping reward in their future produce.
A question arises: If the verse means to instruct the person with an intention for the mitzvah, then it should have been supplied earlier, with the command itself, along the lines of “for three years, the fruit shall not to be eaten, to increase its produce for you.” By appearing at the end of the passage, the verse implies that it is indeed a classic reward.
Rashi alludes to the answer by departing from the verse’s language of “produce,” to “I will bless for you the fruits of [your] plantings.” The intention here is that the blessing will not only be in the planting and growing of the fruit, but it will continue to extend to the fruit that have already grown in the fifth year and ready to be consumed. By inserting this guarantee after the Torah’s allowance to eat the fruit of the fifth year, the Torah is alluding to the quality of the reward, that those fruit will be blessed even after their growing is complete.
As for why the Torah makes an exception in this mitzvah and a) commands the person to fulfill the mitzvah with the intention of receiving the reward; b) promises an unusual reward—this Rashi explains with Rabbi Akiva’s teaching about the evil inclination. Because this mitzvah invites a particularly convincing objection from the evil inclination—For four years I suffer with this tree for nothing!—therefore the Torah offers a greater reward, and instructs the person to have it in mind to overcome the internal objections.
Rabbi Akiva’s Saying:
A perceptive student might still ask why the Torah makes concessions to a person who is manipulated by the evil inclination? Why does the Torah promise so much and allow a person to have a personal, selfish intent in the fulfillment of this mitzvah?
Rashi answers this by including the author of this teaching, Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva routinely sought ways to find merits for the Jewish people, he maintained that loving a fellow Jew with the cardinal principle of the Torah, and therefore it is understood that the Torah would engage with a person who needs help resisting the demands of the evil inclination.
Furthermore, Rabbi Akiva himself first began to study at the age of forty with the intention of receiving reward, and went on to become the foundation of the Oral Torah. He, too, “suffered for forty years for nothing” yet used an incentivized study to become an authentic Torah sage. Thus, he is a model for the effectiveness of the Torah’s allowance to speak directly to the objection of the evil inclination.
On a deeper level, the Torah addresses the evil inclination because the objective of the Torah is exactly this—to refine the person’s baser instincts and harness the ego’s strength for positive ends. The beginning of this work entails restraint and hardship, “to suffer for four years,” but when the evil inclination is transformed into a force for goodness, “its produce is increased.”
