Apr 23/05 — Shabbat Acharei Mot

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker

“And you shall observe My decrees and My laws, which man shall carry out, and you shall live by them—I am Adonai.” (Leviticus 18:5)

It’s so easy to overlook two of the most important words in the Torah: vechai bahem—“and you shall live by them.” At first glance, they seem to be a promise: if you fulfill these commandments, you will be rewarded with extended life. Yet, as Rabbi Yosef Albo, writing in his Sefer Ha'Ikkarim points out, such an assurance contradicts our experience of life: if someone is strictly observant of the Torah commandments, he or she does not necessarily live longer than someone who ignored them. Centuries earlier, the great biblical commentator Rashi also dismissed this way of thinking: “’You shall live by them—that is, in the World-to-Come.” He sees the reward for mitzvah observance as eternal life, not an extended life in this world.

This particular verse has a more familiar and immediate application. In the Talmud, the ancient rabbis debate how we know that pikuach nefesh—the preservation of life—is a mitzvah and that it takes precedence over all the other Torah commandments (with three important exceptions). In order to preserve a life, we may, for example, violate Shabbat observance or the laws of kashrut. In the volume of the Talmud called Yoma (85b) the Rabbis attribute this principle to our two little words vechai bahem— “’You shall live by them—and not die by them.”

In other words, the Torah is given not to cause the loss of life, rather it is given that we may live, and therefore by logic we cannot be expected to endanger human life through the keeping of the Torah. This ruling, that human life is more important than almost all mitzvot, is well known, but we need to understand it properly. After all, if, as Rashi teaches, the true reward for a mitzvah is eternal life in the world to come—then why be so concerned about ordinary human life, to which the ancient Rabbis referred as chayeh sha'ah—“temporary life”? Isn’t fulfilling the mitzvot more important? Even if someone lives for eighty, ninety, or a hundred years, life will end anyway. And since the reward for fulfilling the mitzvot is everlasting, surely fulfilling each mitzvah should be more important than human life.

The answer is that God’s declaration “Vechai Bahem” is telling us that life itself is a mitzvah. The Torah commands us to live our lives with enthusiasm and appreciation—to relish and enjoy life. We are not permitted to view life as merely biding our time in this world until we pass on to a better, greater existence in the afterlife. Instead, it is God who establishes that we must see life itself as a tremendous gift and opportunity, to be savoured and valued for itself.

To emphasize that these two words are a central principle for Jews, the Karliner Rebbe once asked: “What should the reward be for a Jew who keeps all of the commandments of the Torah, but does so without enthusiasm, without ruach—in a lifeless way, devoid of any enjoyment of this world?” He answered that after his death, he would still be granted eternal life—but eternal life without any enjoyment or spirit.

Those two simple Hebrew words—vechai bahem—tell us that we are commanded not only to fulfill the commandments—we are commanded to put life into everything that we do. Choosing to preserve human life at the expense of breaking of a commandment turns out not to be a paradox or puzzle. It is, rather, an affirmation that living itself is one of the most significant mitzvot.