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How can Avos 2:14 tell us to remember God's reward when Avos 1:3 says serve without expecting reward? The resolution turns on recognizing that God created mitzvos entirely for our benefit, not His - since He lacks nothing. This transforms our avodah from burden to enthusiastic opportunity for growth.
This shiur explores a fundamental Mishna from Pirkei Avos 2:14 that presents three seemingly unrelated obligations: learning Torah (תורה) with diligence, knowing how to answer a heretic (apikoros), and recognizing that God will reward our efforts. Rabbi Zweig addresses the apparent contradiction between serving God without expectation of reward (as stated in Avos 1:3) and being conscious that God rewards us. The resolution lies in understanding that God created the entire system of mitzvos not for His benefit, but exclusively for ours. Since God is perfect and lacks nothing, He designed the 613 mitzvos as opportunities for human perfection and spiritual development. When we perform mitzvos with this understanding - that we're doing them for our own benefit rather than God's - we approach them with enthusiasm and joy rather than burden. This perspective transforms Torah study into a blossoming experience (the word 'shekeid' relating to almonds, the first to blossom) where we become like a wellspring of creativity and fulfillment. The best answer to skeptics is not philosophical arguments but demonstrating through our own enthusiasm and fulfillment that mitzvos truly benefit us. Rabbi Zweig extends this principle to explain the fundamental dispute between the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Sadducees maintained an employer-employee relationship with God, believing they deserved reward for serving Him. This led them to reject rabbinic interpretive authority over Torah text. The Pharisees understood that since everything is ultimately for our benefit, God entrusted us with interpretive latitude through the oral law - demonstrating that this is 'our business' rather than His. The oral law itself embodies the principle that God created the world for our sake, not His own.
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Pirkei Avos 2:14
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Why does Akavia Ben Mahalalel's teaching about contemplating our origins and destiny focus on accountability rather than judgment? The shiur reveals this deals with self-definition: God gives us potential (intelligence, abilities) that we must 'return' by actualizing it. Our true self consists only of what we accomplish with borrowed gifts, not the gifts themselves.
