When Only You Can Do It
The Gemara (Mo’ed Kattan 9b) tells us that when a mitzvah can be performed only by you, it takes precedence over even Torah learning. When your brother-in-law celebrates the bris of a child, but you have a chavrusa, attending the simchah is a mitzvah that cannot be accomplished by anyone but you! No one else can take your place. Everyone will notice if you’re not there. No one can fill in the chessed that it is to attend this event. And this is what the Torah means when it says that when it’s a mitzvah that cannot be performed by anyone else, you close your Gemara.
And one shouldn’t have the attitude that he’s being forced to do this chessed. For the Ribbono shel Olam has enough bored people in the world whom He could have sent there... but He placed you at this time and place because it is good for your neshamah to stop all the other good things that you’re doing and attend this simchah and merit the mitzvah.
The Tosafos on this Gemara ask, why indeed is it that a person must stop learning in order to perform a אחרים ידי על להיעשות אפשר שאי מצוה, a mitzvah that cannot be performed by anyone else? We know that תורה תלמוד כולם כנגד, Torah learning supersedes every other mitzvah. The answer is that your neshamah needs this mitzvah! Now isn’t the time to learn! Now is the time to sweat for kibbud av v’eim! Now is the time to take care of your child! You need this! And so, if the Ribbono shel Olam expects you to spend time schmoozing with someone, it means that you need this now.
