This week’s parsha begins with the instruction: צו את אהרן ואת בניו לאמר זאת תורת העולה הוא העולה על מוקדה על המזבח כל הלילה עד הבקר ואש המזבח תוקד בו - “Command Aharon and his sons saying: This is the law of the olah offering: It is the olah-offering [that stays] on the flame, on the mizbayach all night until the morning, and the fire of the mizbayach shall be kept aflame on it” (Vayikra 6:2). The korban olah is a korban that was totally burnt. With most korbonos someone eats something. A korban shelomim is mostly eaten by the one who brings it, a chatos is eaten by the Kohanim, however, the korban olah is consumed entirely by the fire of the mizbayach.
Rashi comments: אין צו אלא לשון זרוז - “the connotation of the word ‘command’ is to encourage”. The question is, why was it necessary to encourage Aharon? He certainly does not need any special kind of motivation lecture?
Rashi brings: אמר ר׳ שמעון ביותר צריך הכתוב לזרז במקום שיש בו חסרון כיס – “R’ Shimon states that it is necessary for the Torah to give extra encouragement when a monetary loss is involved”. People don’t like to waste money or lose money. When a mitzvah involves cost with no apparent “payback,” the Torah finds it necessary to encourage those commanded to more fully motivate them and help them overcome their hesitancy.
People find it hard to take an animal, which may have cost them a thousand dollars, and merely have it “go up in smoke” without anyone getting any physical benefit from it. Therefore, by the korban olah, the Torah says: צו את אהרן - encourage him, because a monetary loss is involved.
Why is It like this? I saw an interesting observation from Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro. The world says “Time is money” but the way it should really be stated is “Money is time” — meaning in order to make money, a person needs to spend time on it and time is the most precious commodity in the world. Almost anything else can be replaced, but time can never be replaced.
Chazal tell us a strange thing: “For righteous people, their money is more precious to them than their bodies”. This is counter intuitive. We would think: Tzadikim? They don’t care about their money.
The reason that “for righteous, money is more precious than their bodies” is because tzadikim realize that to gain money, they somehow need to invest time. Therefore, their money is precious to them because “my time was invested in acquiring this.” This is why “in a place where monetary loss is involved” even people of the highest stature (like Aharon HaKohen) need to be charged and encouraged to nevertheless diligently proceed with the mandated expenditure.
Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro (in Zohav Mashbeh) who was a talmid of the Brisker Rov and Rosh Yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel writes as follows:
It is known that the people of America have been blessed with affluence and no doubt Hashem rewarded them in this fashion due to the merit of their generosity and the merit of the charities they occupy themselves with. However, I believe, there is also another factor here. I have noticed two significant attributes which certainly also merit the bestowal of riches upon them: First of all, they are diligent in their businesses (זריזים בעסקיהם ). From the time they start their task at work until they finish, they do not allow anything to disturb them. This is different than the workers in our country who take coffee breaks every half hour. Americans appreciate their time and in that merit they have been successful financially. A second attribute he brings is, that they don’t waste their money. If they need to buy a house for a million dollars then they will, however, if something isn’t entirely necessary, then they won’t spend even a cent. Because they appreciate what time is, they don’t waste money earned in that time.
Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro then mentions the following very interesting incident. The Ponnivitzer Rav and Rav Elchonon Wasserman learned together b’chavrusa in the kollel in Radin. They wanted to look up something in a certain sefer quoted by the Chofetz Chaim in his Sha’ar HaTziyon commentary to the Mishnah Berurah. The sefer was not available in the Beis HaMedrash so they went to the Chofetz Chaim’s house, knocked on his door, and asked “Can we see that sefer you quote in Sha’ar HaTziyon?”
The Chofetz Chaim told them he did not have the sefer. They were surprised as he had quoted it in his commentary. He told them that when he needed to look up something in a sefer he borrowed it from someone and then returned it. The Chofetz Chaim told them “I did not want to buy the sefer because I only buy seforim I actually need! If I don’t need a sefer I don’t buy it.” At that point, the Chofetz Chaim turned to his bookshelf and let out a sigh. They thought he let out the sigh because he had so few volumes in his personal library. He corrected them: “No. What bothers me is that maybe I bought a sefer amongst my collection that I don’t use enough and therefore I really shouldn’t have purchased it — I gave out my money for something I didn’t really need.”
This is a very interesting story and it is contrary to conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is that people like to have large libraries. The Chofetz Chaim’s opinion was if you do not absolutely need something you do not buy it, because money was very precious to him — because time was very precious to him. This is in line with the idea that “in a place where there is monetary loss encouragement is necessary”.
