“AND the Lord called to Moshe, and spoke to him out of the Tent of Meeting, saying…” (Vayikra 1:1)

In the Tefila Uva Letzion we recite something called “kedusha desidra” – “kedusha” that is part of the order of davening. In that kedusha, we say the Aramaic translation of the verses according to Yonasan ben Uziel, which contains the words “וּמְקַבְּלִין דֵּין מִן דֵּין וְאָמְרִין”, meaning, “And they receive one from another, and say…”.

The Chasam Sofer (Moses Schreiber 1762–1839) explains that what each receives from the other is an injection of spirituality. Thereby, Hashem’s name was glorified to a greater degree than it would be with their individual abilities of exalting Hashem’s name, because each of them received a piece of the other one’s kedusha added to their own kedusha. He explains further that this verse is quoted in the midrash in reference to “Vayikra el Moshe” – the first verse of the book of Vayikra, because when Hashem called Moshe to the Ohel Moed, the same phenomenon happened there: Moshe was charged with more kedusha, raising his prophecy to a higher level.

There are times that someone is asked to do a mitzvah, and other times one may say, “Why should I wait to be asked? I will just do the mitzvah on my own volition!” Each of these approaches has a positive aspect that the other one doesn’t. The person who is responding to a request has extra Divine assistance given to him through the merits of the person who requested it. In the second case, the person who grabs the bull by the horns and performs a mitzvah to which he wasn’t obligated, shows enthusiasm and interest in performing a mitzvah to a far greater degree than is evident when just following a request.

I would like to share with you an incident that happened in a yeshiva in America. A toilet overflowed and none of the students who passed by came forward to clean up the mess. The Rosh Yeshiva walked by, saw the mess, and he himself began to clean it up. When the students saw the Rosh Yeshiva doing this, they proclaimed: “For the honor of the Torah we will do it and not the Rosh Yeshiva.” To this the Rosh Yeshiva responded, “You already had your chance to honor the Torah! Now it is my turn!” Here the Rosh Yeshiva grabbed the mitzvah, and all the students lost the opportunity.

There are also stories the other way: I was once asked by my Rosh Yeshiva to bring charity money to a certain needy individual. I felt honored that I was selected to perform this mitzvah. When I gave over the monies, I saw that the people were moved by the fact that the money was sent by the Rosh Yeshiva himself. This is a situation where the power of your action is based on the person who sent you.

When it comes to cleaning for Pesach, we find ourselves in a tricky situation. We know that the better job we do, the more reward we get. But we also wonder, “Why should I do more than the halacha dictates?”  I believe the answer to that is that the person who does more than he has to shows that he has a love for Hashem and his mitzvos, which one doesn’t show by doing only the minimum demanded of him.

May we merit that while we clean for Pesach, we understand that there is a Vayikra – Hashem is calling out to us to do the best we can – and if we accept this request from Hashem, our efforts will be blessed with extra Divine assistance. May we all merit to have a chag kasher v’samayach.