And the Rebbe explains that of course, the reward is not that a person will receive lots of gashmiyus when he does mitzvos—for this is very precarious for a person, and it would not be considered a blessing.
So, what is the nature of the blessing as promised in the Torah? The person will be given the wisdom and the ability to utilize his material possessions to serve Hashem! This is indeed the greatest blessing! The Ribbono shel Olam tells a person, “If you will do your best to fulfill My mitzvos, I will enable you and assist you in utilizing your gashmiyus to serve Me. For example, I will assist you in making your home a gathering place for talmidei chachamim.... I will ensure that your material possessions will not become untethered from their spiritual source, and thus they will not decay. To the contrary, your gashmiyus will become a home for My Presence.”
We all know the well-known Chazal that מצוה גוררת מצוה, one mitzvah brings after it another mitzvah. This is commonly understood to mean that when a person does one mitzvah, he will merit to do more mitzvos. If a person does one chessed, he will be assisted with opportunities to do more chessed.
But, according to Rebbe Mendele’s teaching that we have just learned, it goes deeper: When a person utilizes his material possessions to perform a mitzvah, he will be assisted with the wisdom and the ability to see his material possessions as vessels for kedushah. He won’t become materialistic by interacting with them... and this is the greatest blessing—to bring the light of the Shechinah to our material world.
