The Sin of Doing One Mitzvah

Parshat VAYIKRa

by Rabbi Avi Billet

There’s a strange phrase that repeats itself several times in the parsha. “If a person sins… and does one of the commandments of God that one is [instructed] not to do” then a consequence follows. The consequence might be elaborated upon over several verses, or, as in the case, of 4:27, the consequence is preceded by the word, “v’ashem,” which means “and he is guilty.”

 Wouldn’t the verse make more sense if it said “If a person sins and violates a commandment…” or just leave it at “If a person sins…” and then list the consequence? It almost sounds like the Torah is saying that if a person sins through doing a mitzvah, then there is a consequence! How could a person sin through doing a mitzvah?!

 Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev was known to look at the good of every Jew. One tale finds Reb Levi Yitzchak encountering a Jew who was smoking on Shabbos. The sinner refuted each benefit the rabbi ascribed to him. “You probably didn’t know it was Shabbos.” The man knew. “You probably didn’t know smoking is prohibited on Shabbos.” The man knew. “You must be smoking for health reasons.” No – that’s not the case.

 Reb Levi Yitzchak turned heavenward and said, “Even when your children commit sins, they tell the truth!”

 And yet, Reb Levi Yitzchak did not hold back in criticizing the Jew who is satisfied with a minimal connection with God. In his Kedushas Levi, Reb Levi Yitzchak looked at our verse in question and creatively explained the way the Torah depicts the sin of the individual. The more a person sincerely serves God, the more the person appreciates the tremendous disparity that exists between the great and Almighty God and the tiny human being.

 But, as in our verse, when a person does one mitzvah and thinks this is an adequate form of serving God, even the one mitzvah is inconsequential. To put it more succinctly – there are mitzvot which people categorize as mitzvot “that I don’t do.” I have the mitzvot that I do, the ones I am comfortable with, the ones that work for me. But there are mitzvot that fall out of my comfort zone, so I never do them. Or, perhaps, I may do it once in a while.

 Reb Levi Yitzchak said that the sin is not the doing of the mitzvah – though he questions whether the occasional trek into mitzvah-doing is worth anything, as opposed to a total commitment to mitzvoth. The sin is in having the attitude that “I have mitzvot that I don’t do” while still feeling that this incompleteness is a proper form of serving God.

 Reb Levi Yitzchak lived in a different time. And while I don’t think his entire message is apropos today – it is certainly not applicable to Jews who know very little about Judaism – there is much introspection demanded of Jews who do know better, who claim to believe in God and who live observant lifestyles, but who opt out of certain mitzvot because “I don’t do those” or who focus on one mitzvah that does work (while ignoring many others) who still think, “I am serving God properly as a Jew.”

 We live in a cynical society where the loudest people are anti-religion. Ironically, the religious population of the United States of America is one of the highest percentages in the world. For people who identify as religious Jews, it behooves us to never be satisfied with our personal status quo, and to continue to challenge ourselves to take more obligations upon ourselves, and to humbly add to our service of God, as we become increasingly aware of that disparity between ourselves and our Creator.
The sin Reb Levi Yitzchak reads into this verse is a sin of arrogance, a sin of minimal obligation and responsibility, and a sin of checking out of mitzvot based on external criteria.

 Let us embrace our responsibilities and obligations, let us be humble, and let us increasingly get closer to God so that the verses in question need not apply to our own Jewish experiences.