לקוטי שיחות חלק כ״ט - כי תצא ג

“You Shall Pay His Wages on That Day” — Seemingly, Hashem Is Obligated to Pay the Jewish People Their Reward “On That Day,” Not “Tomorrow to Receive Their Reward”?

Regarding the verse (Devarim 24:15), “You shall pay him his wages on that day,” there is a seeming difficulty. Our Sages teach, “He declares His words to Yaakov” — meaning that Hashem Himself fulfills the commandments that He commands the Jewish people. Why, then, does Hashem not pay the Jewish people their reward on that very day, and instead, “today is for performing them, and tomorrow is for receiving their reward,” in Gan Eden?

The commentators explain that this is because the entire lifetime of a Jew constitutes one single period of employment. The law is that wages for a period of employment become due only upon its completion. Therefore, the reward is received specifically after the period of employment has ended — in Gan Eden.

This explanation, however, would seemingly not accord with the view of the Ramban, who maintains that the principal reward for the mitzvos is in the World of the Resurrection. According to his opinion, then, Hashem seemingly delays payment of the reward until the time of the Resurrection. How can this be reconciled with the command to pay a worker his wages on time?

This can be understood based on the Alter Rebbe’s explanation in Tanya that the ultimate purpose of the creation of the entire world is “to make for Him, blessed be He, a dwelling place in the lower realms.”

Accordingly, the service of all the Jewish people throughout all the generations constitutes one single period of employment, and wages for this work are not due until the work is completed — in the World of the Resurrection. For it is then that the ultimate purpose of creation, making this world a dwelling place for Hashem, reaches its complete fulfillment.

It may further be said that Hashem is, so to speak, obligated to provide the Jewish people with their physical needs in this world as a form of compensation, based on the laws governing a worker. This is in addition to the Rambam’s explanation that the material blessings promised by the Torah are not the reward for the mitzvos themselves, but rather benefits granted to strengthen and enable us to continue observing Torah and mitzvos.

For the law states that when a person “gives eggs to the owner of hens so that he should have the hens sit upon them until the chicks hatch, and the owner of the hens then raises them, with the profits to be divided between them,” the person who supplied the eggs is obligated “to provide payment for his labor and his food each day.”

The same applies, in a comparable sense, to the Jewish people. They are partners with Hashem in bringing about the fulfillment of the purpose of creation. The world already possesses, in potential and in a concealed state, the capacity to become a dwelling place for Hashem — just as the chickens are already present potentially within the eggs. The task of the Jewish people is to bring this potential into revelation, so that the world actually becomes a dwelling place for Him.

Therefore, Hashem is obligated, so to speak, to provide the Jewish people with “payment for their labor and their sustenance each day” — supplying them with their material needs in this world so that they can carry out their Divine service.