Parshat Ki Teitze

I'd like to briefly look at something from last week's Torah portion before moving on to Ki Tavo.

What intrigued me was the commentary on the commandment to send the mother-bird away from her nest before taking her young (Deuteronomy 22:7).  In commenting on this verse the Talmud states that if someone prays to God, saying: "Have compassion on us, for Thou art the compassionate One, since Thy mercies reach even to a bird's nest," his prays are silenced.  This seems like a horribly odd thing for someone to have their prayers silenced over.  People pray for wealth and success, other vain and shallow things, but we don't hear that their prayers are silenced.

The Rambam gives an answer that the Ramban expands on.  They say that a person who prays as written above is misunderstanding God's commandment.  The commandments do not reflect God's mercy on the bird.  If the Torah was a book of God's mercy for all creatures it wouldn't allow us to shecht (ritually slaughter) animals.  In addition, it doesn't matter to God if we perform a mitzvah or sin.  It is of no concern to Him what we eat, if we put on tefillin, etc.  The Torah is a book given to the Jewish people by God to instruct us to live our lives with mercy and compassion, fulfillment and happiness.  When performing all the mitzvot we must have this in mind: we are performing an act sanctioned (yes, by God) in order to make us better people.  We are instructed to have compassion on the bird because of how it can transform us, not because of God's mercy for the bird.

As first I did not like this idea, but it has grown on me.  The Torah was given to us, the Jewish people.  It is our Book of Life.  It instructs us.  It certainly includes merciful attributes of God, but these are also to serve as a guide for our human actions.  Based on the Rambam and Ramban I have come to realize that when we perform a mitzvah we aren't doing it for Him, but because of Him.  We are doing it because God told us to, with the belief that whether we can understand the action or not, it will make us a better person because that is what God had in mind when He gave us the Torah.