In his introduction to Ahavas Chessed, the Chofetz
Chaim dwells on the apparent difficulty in understanding the
verse from our parsha, "And you shall heed the
commandments of Hashem your G-d, to walk in His ways and to
fear Him." We find here that "walking in His ways" precedes
fear of Hashem.
Later on in the parsha (10:12), it is written, "And
what does Hashem your G-d ask of you if not to fear Hashem
your G-d, to walk in all of His ways and to love Him." The
Torah changes the order here and writes "walking in His ways"
after "fearing Him" and before "loving Him."
At the end of the parsha (11:22) it is written, "For
if you shall verily heed all of the command . . . to love
Hashem your G-d, to walk in all of His ways and to cleave
unto Him . . ." Here the Torah states "walking in His ways"
after love and before adherence. All of these variations beg
explanation.
The Chofetz Chaim attempts to do just that. His lofty words
deserve to be our guiding light, a beacon showing the path to
all those who seek Hashem. He says:
The Ramban explains that there are three levels in our
worship of Hashem, namely: fear, beyond that -- love, and
surpassing that -- adherence to Hashem. The second degree
denotes love as an emotion that occasionally wells up inside
a person's heart and overflows, whereas in deveikus,
the third level, that love is firmly anchored in his heart,
always, causing the person's soul to cleave fast unto
Hashem.
The Torah teaches here that a person cannot attain any level
of spirituality before training his soul from the first to
walk in the path of the goodness of Hashem, that is, to
emulate His attributes of lovingkindness and compassion and
to perform the acts that express these traits.
This is why the Torah begins here with the first level of
following in Hashem's ways and fearing Him. Something must
precede the level of G-d-fear -- and that preparation is the
good practice of "walking in His ways" (emulating them). The
Torah then goes on to reveal that even after we have attained
G-d-fear, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that in
order to ascend further to the level of love for Hashem it is
necessary to isolate oneself to contemplate matters of
yirah, the fear of and exaltedness of Hashem, to study
Torah, and refrain from social contact and ignore those in
need of some form of assistance.
This is not so! The Torah goes on to say: "And to fear Hashem
your G-d, and to walk in all of His ways and to love Him." It
teaches that whoever has attained that level of yiras
Shomayim and wishes to proceed to the next plane of
ahavas Hashem, requires more than asceticism. It is
not proper to renounce worldly things and immerse oneself in
Torah and G-dly service. The second level can only be
attained by embracing the practice of walking in His ways,
that is, emulating the good characteristics of being kind and
merciful; this is only reflected and carried out through good
deeds towards one's fellow man.
At the end of the parsha, the Torah teaches us another
lesson: A person may already have attained the first two
levels of yirah and ahava, and wishes these to
become permanent features of his makeup, yet he mistakenly
assumes that the means to this is through severance from
worldly vanities, which necessarily includes a lack of
attention to the needs of those surrounding him for the sake
of concentrating all of his attention upon the goal of
adherence to Hashem. This is a misconception, says the Torah,
"For if you verily heed . . . to love Hashem your G-d, to
walk in all of his ways and to cleave unto him . . . " -- you
must continue to put into practice those attributes of
Hashem, which includes addressing yourself to your fellow man
and not isolating yourself in order to attain higher degrees
of adherence.
Adherence can only be translated through the very
extrapolation of the divine good traits -- putting them into
action. In the merit of one's positive interaction with his
fellow man, and not his isolation from them, will Hashem
grant a person the higher level of adherence.
The words of the Chofetz Chaim serve to grade the values of
those good traits and the relationship towards one's fellow
man on an entirely different scale. It is false to consider
the two spheres of between-man-and-fellowman and between-man-
and-G-d as separate and different. Similarly, one must be
aware that one cannot advance in the second category without
parallel progress in the first one. Furthermore, the way and
means of ascending in the second category is precisely
through those commandments and traits involving man and
fellowmen. Every good deed performed for another is a
simultaneous ascent, a rung closer to the ultimate goal of
adherence to Hashem.
The Chofetz Chaim omitted to explain why this is so. Perhaps
because in his holiness and at his level it was superfluous;
he took it for granted since it seemed so obvious. But we may
try to strengthen our own understanding and to absorb it into
our consciousness through the very illuminating words of the
Maharal, who explains that the term deveikus in Hashem
means a striving to emulate Hashem's traits as best as
humanly possible. Literal adherence is impossible. What is in
our realm is a constant striving to imitate His good
practices and characteristics as we see them reflected in
this world: Hashem's compassion, mercy, kindness and
goodness.
