Chasidut for Sukkah 59:1
משום דהוה ליה מצוה הבאה בעבירה שנאמר (מלאכי א, יג) והבאתם גזול ואת הפסח ואת החולה גזול דומיא דפסח מה פסח לית ליה תקנתא אף גזול לית ליה תקנתא לא שנא לפני יאוש ולא שנא לאחר יאוש
For the reason that it is for him a commandment that is fulfilled through a transgression. As it says, "And you have brought the stolen [animal], the lame [animal], and the ill [animal as offerings] (Malachi 1:13)." [Therefore, we see] a stolen offering is similar to a lame one. Just like a lame animal has no way to fix it, so too a stolen animal has no way to fix it [to render it permissible]. It does not matter whether it is before the owner despaired of finding the animal, or after he despaired.
Kedushat Levi
It is also possible to understand Leviticus 4,27 in a similar sense where the Torah describes the commission of a sin in a peculiar way by writing: נפש כי תחטא....בעשותה אחת ממצות ה' אשר לא תעשינה, “when a person commits a sin through performing one of G’d’s commandments which should not be performed.” What is meant is that “someone sins by the manner in which he performs a commandment, i.e. giving himself credit for performance, an act of arrogance.” In other words: we must guard against being smug about our level of service to the Lord. It is described as: ואשם, he became guilty.We can also say that this is what our sages had in mind in Sukkah 30 where they derived the rejection of someone’s offering on the altar, the presentation of which was possible only through the prior commission of a sin, from a verse in Isaiah 61,8 the prophet saying that G’d hates a burnt offering which was offered as a result of the donor having first stolen the animal offered, i.e. כי אני ה' אוהב משפט שונא גזל בעולה, “for I, the Lord Who loves justice, hates robbery with a burnt offering.”
Our author understands the concept of מצוה הבאה בעברה, “performance of one of G’d’s commandments at the cost of committing a sin,” as the “sin” consisting of the smugness of the party concerned about the other commandments he has already performed. Such smugness, i.e. spiritual arrogance, is considered sinful. He considers the verse from Isaiah 61,8 that we quoted above as referring to this kind of sin. Any Jew who considers himself a יש, “a somebody,” as a result of his having performed commandments instead of his having acquired a more profound sense of humility, has failed to absorb basic lessons of Judaism. He forgets or forgot that even the strength, physical and moral, to perform these commandments was something granted to us by the Creator; it is not something “homegrown.”
Our author understands the concept of מצוה הבאה בעברה, “performance of one of G’d’s commandments at the cost of committing a sin,” as the “sin” consisting of the smugness of the party concerned about the other commandments he has already performed. Such smugness, i.e. spiritual arrogance, is considered sinful. He considers the verse from Isaiah 61,8 that we quoted above as referring to this kind of sin. Any Jew who considers himself a יש, “a somebody,” as a result of his having performed commandments instead of his having acquired a more profound sense of humility, has failed to absorb basic lessons of Judaism. He forgets or forgot that even the strength, physical and moral, to perform these commandments was something granted to us by the Creator; it is not something “homegrown.”
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