Part II. Never Ending
The Heavenly Laborer
Now, even if we would have time to list here all of the ways we can apply this principle of u’betzeiso u’bevo, we have to understand that actually it’s not limited to examples; because it’s a principle that applies to all of our lives – from beginning to end.
There’s a possuk we say on Rosh Chodesh as follows: Yetzei adam lefa’alo ule’avodaso adei arev – A man goes out to his toil, and to his work that he labors down to the evening (Tehillim 104:23). It’s a possuk from Borchi Nafshi and it’s talking about the day laborer; in the ancient times when men were hired by the day they began working as soon as daybreak occurred and they continued all the way adei arev, down to sunset.
Now, on this possuk the Gemara comments, adei arev avodaso b’shleimus – The verse is talking about a person who completes the job down to nightfall (Bava Metzia 83b). But it’s a comment that seems superfluous. Of course that’s what it’s talking about. That’s exactly what the possuk said.
The answer is that the Gemara is talking about a different type of laborer – it’s not somebody laboring for earthly wages, for money, but the one who’s laboring in avodas Hashem for heavenly wages. That’s the one whom we extol for working adei arev, until the evening.
The Real Boss
Now I have to explain this. The Gemara says in Bava Metzia that po’el yachol lachzor b’emtza hayom – a worker can leave the job in the middle of the day (ibid. 10a). That's the din. And you have to pay him for his work, for whatever time he already worked. You can't fine him for leaving you in the middle of the workday. Unless you can't find anybody to finish up and you have to pay extra wages to get somebody to work the second half of the day, so you can collect from the first man's wages to pay for the second man's extra pay. But if you can get somebody to finish up, you cannot penalize the man for leaving in the middle of the day.
Why? Because ki li bnei Yisroel avadim, avadai heim – “The children of Yisroel are My servants,” declares Hashem (Vayikra 25:55). It means that Jews are not slaves to anybody but to Hashem.
And so, suppose in the middle of the day a Jew says, “Look, enough Olam Hazeh already. I can’t ruin my life just working and working. That’s it! I'm off to the yeshivah.”
Imagine that. A Jew, in the middle of the day, he sees that he's wasting his life and he drops everything.
So his boss says, “Chaim, where are you going?”
“Sorry boss,” he says, “I'm giving up this foolishness. I'm going back to the yeshivah.”
From Work to Kollel
That’s his right. He’s allowed to quit the factory in the middle of the day and get busy with his real job, for his real Boss.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not recommending that. It’s a good ideal but I’m not recommending it because first of all you have a family to support. That’s also avodas Hashem. You made a commitment in your kesubah. You promised when you got married: efalach ve’ezunach. When you're a chosson, you take hold of the handkerchief that the two eidim bring to you and you promise. It’s a shame; the chosson thinks it's just a ceremony. He takes hold of a handkerchief, that's all.
It's a kinyan! You're meschayav yourself. efalach ve’ezunach, I'm going to work. Palach means to work. In Arabic falachin means workers, laborers. efalach ve’ezunach, I'll work. ve’ezunach, I'll support you. And so, if you already promised that’s a different story.
Don’t Quit Just Yet
Also, I’m experienced with this already, with proposals like these. A man told me a while back – and this has happened to me more than once – that he would like to be a kollel man; he is thinking of giving up his job and becoming a kollel man.
So I said to him, “You don’t need to give up your job; on Sunday become a kollel man. You don’t work on Sundays so on Sunday morning pack up lunch in a brown paper bag, say goodbye to your wife, and don’t come back till Sunday night. Sit in the beis medrash in front of the Gemara all day. You’ll be a kollel man all day long and it won’t harm your parnassah.” A good idea I gave him.
That was years ago I told him this; he still hasn’t done it! He doesn’t go to the beis medrash on Sundays. The answer is, he didn’t want to be a kollel man; what he wanted was not to work!
However, the point is that you have the right to do it. Imagine somebody is sincere and his wife is maskim too; so according to the strict Torah law he can quit his job even in the middle of the day. And the boss has to pay him because he’s not doing anything wrong. He belonged to Hashem before he belonged to the factory.
A Different Type of Job
All that however is in this world – there’s no need to work till sundown. But when it comes to heavenly wages, it is essential that you work down to the time that the whistle blows. adei arev avodaso b’shleimus – You have to complete your job down to nightfall (ibid. 83b). Nightfall means when the sun of life sets; you cannot stop work before the sun sets.
And that’s because this Torah teaching of u’betzeiso u’bevo, that the end has to be just as accomplished as the beginning, is a much bigger teaching than just the kohen gadol or how to end your Shemoneh Esrei. It means that not only the end of the mitzvah counts but that the end of life counts. How you live the beginning is not the entire story. How you live the middle is not the entire story either. What matters is from beginning all the way to the end.
Youthful Idealism
You know there are many people who in their youth were idealists. Let's say when they were eighteen a wave of enthusiasm washed them up upon the shores of Judaism and they began doing mitzvos and gaining some yiras Shamayim; but then they were left stranded with the enthusiasm that they had at twenty years old. They stopped making progress and they’re left in the same place where their first wave of enthusiasm deposited them.
Here’s a former yeshivah man who learned in yeshivah in his youth and he loved Torah. “Once upon a time,” he says, “I knew this and this sefer by heart. I remember how we sat up all night mishmarim studying. All my days were only in learning Torah.”
What happened? He cooled off. He wasn’t prepared for life because didn’t understand enough the lesson of u’betzeiso u’bevo and therefore he slacked off.
Don’t we see examples again and again of good boys who eventually went out of the yeshivah; they left the Torah world? It doesn’t mean they become chas v’shalom apikorsim. We’re not talking about that. But they went out of the yeshivah and they went into profession and they lost their taste for Gemara, for mussar, for avodas Hashem.
Yes, from time to time they learn, but now they’re head over heels in the practical world and as they look back, it’s with a little bit of amusement that they view their former enthusiasm. In the olden days, their greatest pleasure was to say a chiddush, to learn the sugya and ask a lot of kashes on it and understand it and add some ideas of their own. But subsequently, because of the exigencies of life, they went into some profession or business and they become so busy with the great task of making money in this world and now in the second half of their lives they slack off. They have a taste for other things.
Youthful Idealism Forever
Oh no! adei arev avodaso b’shleimus means how good it is to remain with your youthful aspirations all your life; the idealism that you gained in the yeshivah - your love for Torah, your fire, your hislahavus, should be always, from beginning to end.
And even if you’ll be the owner of a big department store, you’ll be sitting in your office with a Rabbi Akiva Eiger and you’re making notes in the margin. That’s your life!
That’s your life! If somebody comes in and brings a sheath of checks or orders, so you say, ‘Put it down. Soon.’ This, the sefer, is your business. That, the business, is only incidental.
And when you come home, you’re not taking your business with you home. When you come home, you get back to your seforim. That’s your first love and your last love. Forever and ever, your head is in the Torah.
Kollel Forever
A woman too. Here you have a woman whose husband studied Torah in the kollel. She was proud to be a kollel wife, to have a kollel family. When a girl marries a young man who sits in the yeshivah and learns, you have to know that home is not an ordinary home anymore. It’s a kollel home. It’s influenced by the spirit of Torah. Every day the husband goes off to the kollel and the wife goes off to work. She’s a kollel wife, a different kind of wife, and the children are kollel children, different kind of children. Everything is different – it’s a different life. He’s working at learning and she is working making a parnassah; it’s a beautiful beginning.
But that’s not enough. Because eventually when he’ll take over the earning of the livelihood, the family should continue to be a kollel family. They established themselves as a kollel family, the children are already established as kollel children, and that attitude of kollel life – it has very many ramifications; the primacy of Torah learning, the shunning of luxuries – should remain all their lives. Even though he leaves the kollel later and goes into business it’s already a different family forever and ever.
But suppose it’s many years later; her husband is out of the kollel now for many years. And she's talking with a circle of so-called friends. And she says, “I remember the old days when my husband learned in the kollel. The ...
