Eikev: 5785 - "V'haya Eikev Tishme'un" (And it shall be, because you heed): One of the explanations in Chassidus: Fulfill the mitzvos with kabbolas ol, out of bittul - and you will merit all the blessings. A beautiful story with a lesson…

00:02 Speaker 1 The weekly parsha: “And it shall be, because you heed all these statutes.” There are many interpretations of this verse. I think the Or Hachayim gave forty-two interpretations of it. What does “And it shall be, because you heed” mean? There are so many interpretations. Rashi, too, gives several interpretations, and Chassidus offers several as well. One interpretation given in Chassidus is this: What does “because you heed” mean? The word for “because,” eikev, also means “heel.” The heel is the lowest part of a person. There’s the head, the seat of the intellect; there’s the heart, the seat of emotion; and there’s the heel. The heel is called the angel of death within a person. It doesn’t feel anything. “And it shall be, because you heed”: If you fulfill the mitzvos in the manner of the heel, without any intellect or emotion, but only because Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded you, with complete self-nullification, Hakadosh Boruch Hu promises, “He will bless you and multiply you,” along with all the blessings written later in the parsha. You shouldn’t do it with a sense of self, but rather, “because you heed.” That’s one interpretation. There’s an interesting story connected with this. In a certain town there was a Jew who made his living baking and selling cookies. His name was Kalman the baker. Once, Kalman attended a farbrengen of chassidim. He sat there while the mashpia spoke about how objectionable a sense of self is: “I,” self-importance. How undesirable it is. “I think, I said, I spoke, and I’ll do it.” You have to erase the “I.” He spoke at length about this sense of self, this whole idea of “I.” Kalman was a simple, sincere Jew, one of those ordinary Jews whom the Baal Shem Tov loved so much. He took what he heard at the farbrengen very seriously and decided that the word “I” would no longer exist in his vocabulary. No self. Nullification of the self. Well, after the farbrengen, he came

02:13 Speaker 1 home and knocked on the door. His wife asked, “Who is it?” He said, “Not I.” She opened the door and asked, “What do you mean, ‘not I’?” So she tells—he tells her about the farbrengen: everyone had been so stirred up, and they’d spoken about how there’s no such thing as “I.” “I” means a sense of self. There’s no such thing. So he said, “Not I.” Well, the next day he got up, took his goods, picked up his basket of cookies, and went out to the market and around to people’s homes to sell them. Someone asked him, “Who baked the—the cookies?” “Not I.” The person didn’t buy from him. The next person asked, and the next, and each time he said, “Not I.” He came home with the whole basket of cookies. His wife looked at him: “What’s this?” He’d returned with a full basket of cookies, but his wallet was completely empty—not a single coin. So he explained it to her. She understood the problem and said, “Listen, if you don’t want to say ‘I,’ you can simply point to yourself with your finger. Yes, point your finger toward yourself.” Well, the next day he went out again with the cakes and made his rounds. People asked him, “Who made the cakes?” He pointed with his finger, but didn’t say a word. People were surprised: this man had suddenly gone mute. He couldn’t speak, but he was pointing to himself. So they bought the cakes from him. He sold the cakes, took two, and came home happy and in good spirits. When he got home, he knocked hard on the door in his excitement. His wife asked, “Who is it?” So he pointed with his finger, pointed... His wife couldn’t hear a thing.

04:05 Speaker 2 She didn’t open the door.

04:06 Speaker 1 She didn’t open the door. It happened several times. He stood outside for a few hours. After a few hours, he began shouting, “Open the door! I’m freezing!” She heard her husband’s voice and opened the door for him. She asked him, “What? What happened?” He said, “I followed your advice. I was showing you the whole time. I was pointing to myself with my finger.” His wife realized that wasn’t a solution. She said, “Listen, you don’t have to point to yourself. If someone asks you, say your name is Kalman”—because his name was Kalman. “Say ‘Kalman.’” No problem. He listened to his wife. The next day, once again, he went out with his basket of cookies. He went to the market and from house to house. Unfortunately for him, just around that time, a madman had come to town whose name was also Kalman.

04:57 Speaker 2 Wow.

04:57 Speaker 1 This man would go into homes, cause damage, and break all sorts of things. So Kalman the baker began going from house to house and knocking on doors. People asked, “Who is it?” and he answered, “Kalman.” When they heard “Kalman,” nobody opened the door. Once again, he came home with all the cookies. He hadn’t sold anything. Nobody had wanted to open the door for him. His wife asked, “What happened?” So he told her. He said, “I did exactly what you told me.” His wife saw that she couldn’t solve this on her own, and she said, “Listen, you’re coming with me to the rabbi now. We have to solve this problem. We have a problem here. You’re coming with me to the rabbi, and we’ll ask him what to do.” She took him to the rabbi and told the rabbi everything that had happened. What were they to do? They had a problem. The rabbi explained to Kalman: “Listen, there’s nothing wrong with saying the word ‘I.’ The problem is when it’s in your head—when, in your thoughts, you think ‘I,’ and you become proud, and you think you’re someone important in your own right. That’s the problem. There’s nothing wrong with saying the word ‘I.’ You can say ‘I.’ That isn’t the problem.” From then on, Kalman went back to saying “I.” But what was he thinking in his head the whole time? “Not I. Not I.” And here we learn something about many of the problems people have with all sorts of things. The problem is in your head. What are you thinking? The problem isn’t whether you say the word. The problem is in your head. That’s where you have to solve it. May we have a peaceful Shabbos. Good Shabbos!