The parsha of Vayakhel begins (35:1) with the Torah telling us that Moshe gave a speech to the Jewish people. At the end of the speech (35:20), the Torah tells us that the Jewish people went out from being in front of Moshe.
Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian (in his sefer Lev Eliyahu) explains that the reason the Torah tells us that they left the presence of Moshe was to highlight how significant it was for them to have been in the presence of Moshe Rabbeinu. The fact that they were in Moshe’s presence was recognizable even after they had left. Moshe’s impact on them was still clearly visible. When someone is in the presence of Moshe, they are influenced by his middos and his dedication to Hashem. They left the speech of Moshe as different people than they were before his speech.
He explains that the same thing is true about all of our experiences in life. We are impacted by all of them. Every experience we have carries over into our lives afterward, and the nature of our experience is reflected in our behavior afterward.
R’ Eliyahu Lopian quotes the gemara in Yoma (86a) that tells us that learning Torah has the ability to change us. Learning Torah can help us become more of a mentch. We will become a person who has more integrity, kindness, humility, and compassion. The gemara seems to say that one of the key intended goals (if not the main intended goal) of learning Torah is to assist us in improving our middos.
However, the gemara tells us that it is not automatic that when we learn Torah that our middos will improve. Our ability to develop our middos from our learning depends on having the proper motivations for our learning and it depends on whether we are focused on learning the lessons from the gemara that relate to our middos. We need to learn Torah with the intention of developing a greater appreciation of the greatness of Hashem and a greater appreciation of the importance of kindness and integrity. Our goal also has to be to apply the lessons that we learn to our lives. Then we are likely to become more of a mentch through our learning.
R' Eliyahu Lopian tells us that that when we are learning with a focus on developing our relationship with Hashem and with a focus on learning the lessons of kindness and integrity from the Torah, then when we are learning and even after we are finished learning we should see ourselves feeling closer to Hashem and being a nicer person and more honest person. However, if we see that when we are learning, we are not more in tune to the feelings of others, we are not more in tune to honesty, and we are not more focused on our relationship with Hashem, it is an indication that our learning is not coming from the proper sources and that we are missing out on the main intended goal of learning Torah. The gemara tells us that learning Torah can be the greatest tool for our developing a better understanding of Hashem, of honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion and all of the middos of Hashem. Learning Torah can help us develop our relationship with and to have trust and faith in Hashem and it can enable us to demonstrate to the world that the proper approach to a life of morality, dignity, and fulfillment is through the learning of Torah. It is important for us to learn the Torah with the proper approach and to achieve these goals to the best of our ability.
The same thing is true about our davening and our mitzva observance. It is important to approach our davening or mitzva observance with a goal of developing our trust and belief in Hashem, to focus on the greatness of Hashem, to express our appreciation of Hashem, and to clarify for ourselves that serving Hashem is the only thing that is important in life. When we have that focus, then as we are davening or doing a mitzva, we will be in touch with all of those thoughts and feelings and they will stay with us even after we finish our davening. We will walk away for our davening with more clarity in life, with more trust in Hashem, appreciation for Hashem, and more appreciation for Hashem. We will be a different person!
When we finish davening or when we finish doing a mitzva if we find ourselves feeling closer to Hashem and we find ourselves more honest and kinder, then we can reflect on our mitzva observance and recognize that we are doing the mitzvos with the focus on our closeness to Hashem and with our focus on developing our middos.
However, if our davening, learning, and mitzva observance is merely motivated by trying to keep up with social standards or if we are not actively focused on our relationship with Hashem and our middos development rather we are merely doing the mitzvos by rote, then the result will be that our Torah, refillable, and mitzvos won’t lead us to being a better person.
As we enter into the Pesach season, we will be spending much time, money, and energy into cleaning, preparing, cooking, and celebrating. We will also be following the mitzvos of Pesach and learning about them, and saying the special prayers for Pesach. If we are engaged in this process with a focus on our relationship with Hashem and with a focus on improving ourselves, then each step of the process will bring us closer to Hashem and will make us a better person. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of just going through the motions and not being properly intellectually engaged in the process, and that can hold us back from the intended benefits of the Pesach season.