In Parshas Bechukosai, we have the brachos, and the pinnacle of the brachos is והתהלכתי בתוככם. “I will walk amongst you.” Sounds nice, but what does that mean?
Even before we know what it means, it’s not hard to hear the והתהלכתי בתוככם is a zeh l'umas zeh of im bechukosai telechu. In other words, whatever the tochen of the avodah of bechukosai telechu is – and even that needs hesber – the avodah of bechukosai teleichu yields a Ve-his'halachti Besochechem. I want to try to understand that.
The Ba’al HaTurim also hits on this point. The Ba'al HaTurim says over here that Ve-his'halachti Besochechem, shnayim b'mesora. There's two places where the word Ve-his'halachti appears in Tanach. One is over here and one is a posuk in Tehillim, it says Ve-his'halachti Be-amitecha, Dovid Hamelech says he will walk in HKBH’s truth. And the Ba'al HaTurim explains והתהלכתי בתוככם תמורת והתהלכתי באמתך. That והתהלכתי בתוככם is the schar for והתהלכתי באמתך. So clearly a zeh l’umas zeh. We just need to understand what is v’hishalachti?
Rashi explains his’halachti and says והתהלכתי בתוככם אטייל עמכם בגן עדן. Once again, sounds nice, but what exactly are we describing? HKBH is taking a tiyul? What does that even mean?
The truth is we find elsewhere that the teitch for hishelech is Tiyul. Onkelos in Bereishis by the words mishalech bagan teitsches mishalech as metayel. So the word hishalech and tiyul do mean the same.
But then the Ba’al HaTurim is shver – because a tiyul usually connotes something enjoyable. So I can understand how his’halachti means a tiyul, which is an enjoyable schar. But the same word is describing avodah והתהלכתי באמתך. Avodah is work, it’s something hard. So, how is Hishalachti both an inyan in schar and in avodah?
There's a difference between halicha and hishalech. Hishalech is reflexive, meaning to cause yourself to do something. Ahalech means “I will walk,” Eshalech means “I walked myself.” What does it mean I walked myself? For contrast, the word erchatz means I will wash. Esrachetz means I will wash myself. So, I can understand how the reflexive clarifies the subject. I will wash what? I will wash myself. But by walking, I’m always the subject of the walking. When a person walks they are clearly walking themselves. So what is the reflexive adding?
Halacha actually distinguishes between tiyul and halicha. In Hilchos Nidda, for instance, walking I with one’s wife is fine, but tiyul is not. If a person’s going to the grocery store, so that’s not a tiyul. A tiyul is when the trip itself is fun, like a hike or a stroll, where there’s more kirvas halev and so on, so halacha treats them differently. And this distinction is also noge'a the very core of tzuras adam.
An adam is called a holech. נתתי לך מהלכים בין העומדים האלה . A person's called a holech because a person was created to go someplace. Adam l'amal yulad means a person is doing, moving, progressing, going somewhere. So halicha is Adam as an amal as going someplace as doing something.
At the end of the Adam’s halicha there’s a tachlis. They reached their destination; they’re no longer progressing. They’re in a state of menucha. Shabbos is the makom menucha, a person has their makom shvisa, Al yeitzei ish m’mekomo. A person stops being a holeich on Shabbos.
But there’s a paradox in Adam’s drive. On the one hand, when he's a holeich he wants to reach a state of menucha. But when he's nach he feels restless that he's not amal. Adam l'amal yulad – if a person is forced to sit idle, he feels stifled. He doesn't feel good.
So it's a no-win situation. If a person's working he want to retire, if a person's retired he wishes he was working. What a shver matzav! Is there a way to get out of that?
The teretz is, we need to somehow find a way where there’s a tachlis in the halicha. If a person can be a holech and within the halicha they can taste the tachlis, that is how we can resolve the paradox.
Chazal say צדיקים אין להם מנוחה לעולם הבא shene'emar ילכו מחיל אל חיל. We understand Olam HaBa as the ultimate makom hamenucha, and yet the tzdikim don’t have menucha there. Instead they have halicha. How’s that fair? The teretz is for the Tzaddikim, they found the ultimate Oneg, not in a state of menucha, but in a state of halicha. Their Oneg is in the halicha.
There is a metzius where a person feels the ta'anug in the halicha itself. That metzius is called tiyul. When a person goes on a hike, the oneg is in the halicha. L’mashal if I have a close friend and we want to take a walk and someone offers to take us by car, which will take much faster. I'll say no, I'd rather be walking with the person. If I’m trying to get to a destination, then the car is faster and makes more sense. But when I want to be with the person then I don’t care to reach a destination quickly. The walk is the destination! A tiyul means he's not going any place but the walk itself is what the person wants. It’s where the halicha is mikoach ta'anug and not mikoach getting some place.
A person doesn’t get an Oneg in being stagnant. When people read Chazal saying, צדיקים יושבים ועטרותיהם בראשיהם they're sitting and mis'angim miziv hashchina. It’s pictured as a static metzius. As if it’s Hakadosh Baruch Hu is out in His full glory, we're out in our full glory, and you could just take a class picture, and zehu, lanetzach netzachim. No, not at all! Without hilluch a person is dead, he’s a domeim. If he's not a holech, that’s not a schar, that’s not a Gan Eden, that’s not an olam haba.
No, their Olam HaBa is a contant halicha! What’s happening is that there's a constant new chiyus from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the person gets a new havanah, a new omek, a hitchadshus and a chiyus – and it’s a constant motion, a constant halicha.
The metayel beGan Eden is exactly that – the person is having a tiyul with Hakadosh Baruch Hu kavyachol, the person is constantly in a state of halicha, but not going some place to reach a destination and gendik, but going because the going is the end in itself.
That’s also the understanding in V'his'halech ba'amisacha. It means a person doesn't take the emes of Torah and freeze it to say, "This is what it says, there are yud gimmel ikkarim, there are the 613 mitzvos." I know it, I memorized it, gamarnu, zehu. That is not v'his'halech, that's halicha. I got to the end, I do everything picture-perfect, I’ve reached the tachlis. That is not v'his'halech. V'his'halech ba'amisacha means that in the emes of Hakadosh Baruch Hu if the person will pace back and forth there'll be a deeper emes. And it’ll be in the same spot – he paces back and forth in the same spot, he's not going any place new, but if he paces back and forth he’ll be to’em another omek, another havanah. V'his'halech ba'amisacha means that in the emes of Hakadosh Baruch Hu there's a pnim and a lifnai v'lifnim and לפני דלפני ולפנים. That's v'his'halech ba'amisacha.
And that's the zeh tmuras zeh that the Ba’al HaTurim said. Because I was m’tayel with HKBH, HKBH was m’tayel with me. In the his’halech, that’s where I found my oneg.
That’s the pshat in the reflexive of the word – his’halech. It’s the person moving himself, as opposed to the destination moving the person. With most movement, the end point is what drives the person. I’d really like to sit on my couch, but I have to get up, and if I get up, I really want to get to my destination as quickly as possible. That’s Hilluch. Walking towards a destination. Hishalech means my internal drive is driving me. I’m not looking to get to a destination and be done. Instead the person sets his sights on a constant movement. He’s not just looking to attain a goal, but he want to be an oleh, with constant aliya.
Until the halicha becomes a tiyul, the halicha itself it's just drudgery. It’s just the annoying part of the job that I wish I could get done as quickly as possible. It’s just בזיעת אפיך תאכל לחם, kotz vedardar tatzmi’ach – there's no oneg in that avoda, no hana'ah in that halicha. But when a person is mis’halech, when a person is metayel with Hakadosh Baruch Hu it means he's mis'aneg behalichaso, and that’s why אין להם מנוחה לעולם הבא.
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Let’s apply this to us.
When a person's learning, there definitely needs to be the goals of knowing, of getting the material down. And in mitzvos, there’s the goal of doing the mitzvos kehilchosan kekidkukan. Those are definitely very important goals. But that’s a flat picture, missing avodah in its real dimension.
Real avodah is Im Bechukosai Telechu, where the person understands that the goal of avodah is avodah. That it's not hilluch to a certain makom, but his'halech lifanav v’heyay samim, the going, the constant movement. The fact that the person's a mishalech.
A person needs to ask themselves what am I doing? What's my avoda? If the answer is “to do everything picture perfect” meaning, if I could train myself to be mekayem all the mitzvos exactly like they say, I get up at the right time, I daven every word with kavana, I do everything picture perfect. That is not this avoda we’re discussing.
A person’s ma'asim have a gvul. Even if you introduce every hiddur – there’s an end point to how much hiddur you can introduce on the outside. But once you get to that point, now what? You stop moving? To know all Shas – wow, sounds great. But when you finish, now what? Are your sights set on an avodah that has an end? And any avodah m’bachutz has a defined end-point. We need to set our sights on an avodah that has no end – and that’s an avodah b’fnim. On the inside. Deepen your havana. Don’t just review the material to memorize it, but try to tease out a new havana. That’s the ameilus b’Torah. You’ve seen this gemara before, you’ve already walked down this path, but you’re not done because every time you walk back over it you can taste a new insight.
The Ohr HaChaim says on v'his'halachti besochechem – the emphasis is besochachem. Within you. Meaning, we picture spiritual attainment as an outside. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is there and we have live up to it, strive to it, we have to get there. There's a certain thereness to it. Be'emes, you don’t have to get there because in the pnim ha'pnimiyus of every single person, there's a neshama that's a cheilek eloka mima'al, a chibur to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, from which is noveia a hischadshus, and a chiyus. But it’s only if you’re his’halech. If you’re looking to be done, you’ll walk right past it, and you won’t be able to extract the chiyus of your avodah.
If your goal is to reach an end point, then, yes you’ll reach an end point and be done. The Baal HaTanya says somewhere that מתהלך לפני השם בארצות החיים is the hilluch of artzos hachayim. It’s Chayim because they’re constantly moving. People that stay in one place are dead. In the artzos hamesim, people make their way to a certain place and then they have menuchas olamim. They are stagnant. In the artzos hachayim, a person is constantly walking. And not because there's a definitive goal that's attainable and gendik, because that's artzos hamesim. In artzos hachayim, it's a constant מתהלך לפני השם.
Sof davar, a person is a mover. But he needs to choose if he’s just going to be a holech, or is he going to be mishalech. Is he moving because he wants to reach a destination and be done. Or is he moving because he tasted the ta’anug within ameilus, within the avodah, and that’s where he finds his chiyus? צדיקים אין להם מנוחה לעולם הבא shene'emar ילכו מחיל אל חיל. התהלכתי באמתך and that’s why he was zoche to התהלכתי בתוככם.
Good Shabbos!