It states (28:1, 7) אלקיך 'ה בקול תשמע שמע אם והיה עליך הקמים איביך את 'ה יתן ...מצותיו כל את לעשות לשמור לפניך נגפים, "If you will listen to the voice of Hashem, your G-d, to obey and to observe all of His mitzvos... Hashem will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be beaten before you..." We wonder, if we perform Hashem's mitzvos, why should there be any enemies?
But the answer is that there will always be enemies, and there will always be struggles. That is a reality of life that cannot be changed. Hashem promises though that if we perform Torah and mitzvos, we will prevail over our enemies and overcome all struggles.
The same applies to avodas Hashem. Avodas Hashem wasn't intended to be easy. Avodas Hashem means never giving up and serving Hashem even when it is hard.
The Torah doesn't mention the mitzvah of bikurim until this week's parashah. The Beis Yisrael zt'l says that this indicates that even if one transgressed the entire Torah, he could begin now. Even at the end of the year, and even after committing many aveiros, r'l, we can start anew. Bikurim is synonymous with newness (the new crop of fruit); no matter what occurred, we can begin anew.
Reb Shlomo Karliner zt'l said, "The reason yungerleit don't grow in avodas Hashem is because they don't value their deeds." Instead, they compare their mitzvos to how tzaddikim (past or present) performed them and feel that their deeds are worthless. But all our deeds are incredibly precious.
The Arizal taught that a simple act that people do in the later generations can be as precious to Hashem as the mitzvos that the Tanaim performed. Although they performed mitzvos with perfection that we can't even comprehend, Hashem measures each generation according to their tests. In our times, there is a lot of tumah in the world, making it extremely difficult to perform mitzvos. Therefore, each good deed means so much.
