The Perfect Mitzvah
by Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

Mazal Tov! A woman had just given birth. The Torah describes the laws if the baby is a boy or if a girl. Then the Torah proceeds to describe the karbanos that the woman should bring when she comes to the Beis Hamikdash. Says the Talmud: Why does the Torah require the woman to bring a korban after childbirth? It is because during the birthing process she may have cried out in pain in an improper way. Therefore the Torah requires her to bring a korban [to atone].
What is so difficult to understand is why this woman needs an atonement. The birthing process is so monumental, and also so painful. [I know this from reliable sources.] Can’t the Torah be a bit more forgiving? So what if she called out improperly during her pain? Does that really require that she bring an atonement offering?
I once read a story of a great Chasidic Master who was staying at an inn for a few days in the winter. One cold, stormy night when there were no other customers, the inn keeper was just sitting around hoping for work. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. The innkeeper hurried to open the door and found a downtrodden Jew waiting to be allowed in. The innkeeper, thinking that he now had another customer, invited him in with great joy. But the poor man did not make a move to enter the inn. Instead he said, “I appreciate your welcome, but I really need to tell you that I am a poor man and cannot pay for your services. Please, if you can be so kind, invite me in from the cold. Let me eat some food. But I must tell you that I have no money and I cannot pay.”
The innkeeper thought for a moment, and realized that he had nothing to lose. The food was cooking anyway. The beds were available. And in this weather he could expect no other customers. So he graciously invited the man into the inn.
He showed the man to a room where he could get comfortable. Then he invited the man to sit down and eat a hearty meal. When the man was done eating, he turned to the innkeeper and said, “What you have done for me is truly extraordinary. You have been most generous. But there is another thing that I would like to ask of you, if it isn’t too much. Please, could you be so kind as to give me a small drink of schnapps?”
The innkeeper thought for a moment and agreed. He headed to the back storeroom and from his special supply of schnapps he poured a small glass for the man.
Suddenly he began to eye the glass thoughtfully, and looking disappointed and upset with something he poured the drink to the floor and refilled the glass. Again, he eyed the precious drink, was somehow upset with it, and he spilled it out. The third time that he filled the cup he seemed pleased, and gave the man the drink that he had requested.
From the corner of the room, the great Master beckoned. The Master had apparently watched the entire procedure with great fascination. He had seen the generosity of the innkeeper to his fellow Jew. But the intentional spilling of the precious schnapps had left him confounded. “Please explain to me…” the Rebbe began.
The innkeeper smiled. “To have a non-paying guest on a cold, winter night, is disappointing. But I realized that I really have nothing to lose. The soup is cooking anyway; the beds are available. That part of the mitzvah I was able to do for this needy person. But when it came to the schnapps it was not so simple for me. After all, the schnapps will last until I can give it to someone who will pay its worth. As I poured him a glass I realized that I did so with resentment. And this is not the way a Jew must do a mitzvah.
“So I spilled it out and tried again. But this time, too, I realized that I was questioning why I should give the drink to someone who didn’t deserve it.
“So I spilled it out and tried again. This time I was able to pour the glass with generosity, hoping only good for my newfound guest. It was this glass that I was willing to serve him.”
When we considered the woman who gave birth, we asked why she needs atonement. Isn’t the mitzvah of bringing a child into this world great enough? Can’t the Torah be a bit more forgiving if she cried out improperly in the midst of her pain?
Perhaps it is precisely because of the greatness of the mitzvah that the Torah requires an atonement. Her mitzvah is so close to perfect that she might as well make it right.
Childbirth is indeed so painful that her exclamations and thoughts could well be forgiven. But that would leave her with an extraordinary mitzvah that is slightly imperfect. Let her instead come afterwards and fix the imperfections. Let her become a perfect partner with Hashem in having brought life into this world.
The Mesilas Yesharim in chapter 16 writes that when doing a mitzvah one can hardly help but to have a slight motivation or thought that is less than perfectly pure. “We humans, born of a woman… What can we do? We can only hope that the slight imperfections and ulterior motives are nullified in the vastness of good.”
His words “born of a woman,” are most poetic. For it is the woman of childbirth who teaches us an important lesson in the perfection of mitzvos. She may be human, and she may have the frailties and imperfections of humanity. But her’s is greatness, as she strives to perform the perfect L’Chayim.

© 2014 by TEACH613