THEMES of Featured Ascent Lights

The Tanya explains that those who make their body primary and their souls secondary are incapable of truly loving. When the Jews gathered at Sinai, they had attained true unity; real love for each other. So too in our generation, if we begin by loving our fellows, we are capable then of loving G-d, and any commandment is easy.

If we do G-d's commandments properly, G-d will help us to not be driven by our physical urges except when a specific need arises, like eating or sleeping. Other than those times, G-d is promising that we will be free of our physical desires in order to be able to invest our energy in spiritual thoughts and actions connecting to G-d.

At the superficial perspective, God is telling us that since He brought us out of slavery, we are really His slaves now. And since He gave us this land we are dwelling on, we are not its owners.

But at a much deeper perspective, we see here that the Torah is telling us that just like the land must go back to its original owner, so will our personal portion of land, our body, go back to the place it came from, back to the earth.

Any person who serves G-d is most certainly blessed for his efforts with all manner of physical and spiritual blessings. Nevertheless, it must be done sincerely for G-d's sake, without an ulterior motive of "serving the Master for the sake of receiving a reward".