Day 18/50: We’re Not Really Giving Anything Up

כִּ֚י מִמֶּ֣נּוּ נִקַּ֔ח לַֽעֲבֹ֖ד אֶת ה’ אֱלֹקינוּ

Because from it (our cattle) we will take to worship Hashem our G-d

We’ve probably all asked ourselves, “Why did Hashem give us such strong desires for things He doesn’t want us to have?”

The answer is that Hashem wants to give us the opportunity to give Him our hearts, as the Pasuk says “Bechol Levav’cha” – and as Chazal explain the double lashon of lev to mean with BOTH your Yetzers; your Yetzer Tov AND your Yetzer Hara. 

When Pharaoh told Moshe to go serve Hashem but to leave the animals behind, Moshe responded, No! “ki mimenu nikach la’avod es Hashem” – from the animals themselves we will take to serve Hashem! The Beis Aharon of Karlin says that this is the beautiful hidden meaning of what Moshe was telling Pharaoh; our animalistic desires are the greatest sacrifice we can give Hashem.

Think about it, my dear friends. Would a kind and loving Father ask his son to give Him his heart’s deepest desires if He didn’t have something much better in mind? When we see something desirable and turn away, we are not really giving anything up. We are simply saying, “Hashem, I know that you have much better in store for me”. The Chassidic masters tell us that, aderaba, we should think to ourselves, “If this thing is so beautiful and desirable, how much more desirable must Hashem be, since He is the Creator and source of all beauty and good in the world!”