No Cap on Mitzvah Observance
One Shabbat, my dear disciple, R’ Michael Ben-Shushan was walking with his young son from the yeshiva building to his house, when a strong gust of wind blew his kippah off his head. He instinctively covered his head with his hands and began pursuing his kippah. Finally, the kippah came to rest under a parked car. R’ Michael bent down and tried mightily to extract it from under the car. His Shabbat suit became filthy in the process, but how could he continue walking without a kippah?
R’ Michael demonstrated to his son that one does not forego his kippah; a Jew does not walk without a head-covering. A kippah indicates yirat Shamayim, as the Gemara teaches (Shabbat 156b), “Cover your head in order to obtain fear of Heaven.”
When R’ Michael bent down to retrieve his kippah from under the car, he was surprised to find another kippah resting there. It was a blue one, with the emblem of our institutions on it. Had his kippah miraculously changed into this one? R’ Michael bent down once again to see if his kippah was in another spot under the car. He found it stuck under a wheel. He managed to extricate it and found his name on the inside. He placed the kippah upon his head and continued homeward. The entire time, he and his son discussed the wonder which had appeared before their eyes.
- Rabbi Michael Ben-Shushan, in the center
When he related this incident to me, I said, “The first kippah which you found belonged to someone else. His kippah, too, was blown off by the wind. The difference between the two of you is that he surrendered his, while you did not. The other man probably continued on his way bareheaded.
“When Hashem noted your mesirut nefesh not to go bareheaded, you discovered the second kippah, as a sign of sorts that your deeds are admired in Heaven.” I continued, “Were you happy to find the kippah with our emblem?”
He replied, “Since I became a ba’al teshuvah, I never felt such joy as I did then.”
“If so,” I concluded, “since you did the mitzvah with such self-sacrifice, you merited the gift of being joyful on Shabbat, which reinforces your level of service of Hashem. This is in line with our Sages’ statement (Avot 4:2), ‘The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah.’”
One who has spiritual yearnings for mitzvot is granted the opportunity to do more mitzvot, bringing the joy of keeping a mitzvah to a greater level.
