The Tosefta in Peah relates a story of a righteous man who forgot a bundle in the field & said to his son, “let's go bring a korban oleh & korban shelamim”. The son asked what's so special about this mitzvah that you want to celebrate more than any other mitzva? Answered the father, “every other mitzvah was given to us to be done with intent; however, this one was given to us to do without intent, for if you leave the bundle purposely you don't fulfill the mitzvah. Since Hashem felt me worthy of this bonus mitzvah, I celebrate.
Why the anomaly? Why is this mitzva done only unintentionally? Why didn't Hashem command us to deliberately leave a bundle over for the poor person? Also curious: why did the righteous man bring an oleh which atones for not doing a positive commandment? What did he do wrong?
The sefer אגרא דפרקא explains beautifully that we know that all one’s actions in this world are not for naught. Even ones thoughts are not for nothing. Accordingly, even when one davens without kavana, it’s not for nothing. The Zohar says that there is an angel that holds onto all the words & when this person says one tefilla with proper intent, all the previous tefilos go up with it.
The same would be true with mitzvos that require action. We would think that if we do them without intent, we’d lose them. However, instead of them being worthless, Hashem gives us the mitzvah of שכחה that only works without intent, so when we do this mitzva it brings along with it all the other mitzvos that were done without intent.
That's why the end of the posuk says למען יברכך ה אלקיך בכל מעשה ידיך that Hashem will bless all the work of your hands, for through this mitzvah, all the previous mitzvos are credited too.
When the righteous man saw that he forgot the bundle, he brought the olah for he understood that he must have had mitzvos that he did without intent. This meant that he had positive commandments that he didn't fulfill, so he brought the Shelamim as thanks to Hashem for letting him fix his misdeeds
Another anomaly in this parsha involves the בן סורר ומורה , the wayward son whom the parents have to bring to court to be killed. The gemara says that the wayward son never happened & never will happen. It is written just so that you should learn about it & get reward. The בן איש חי asks, “we know that we are supposed to learn, not to get the reward. Why here does it say that the only reason the Torah includes this is that we learn & get reward?
Perhaps we could answer this with what we have just learned. There are certain mitzvos that we do just as a catalyst for other mitzvos. The reason we need to learn something that seemingly has no point is so that it will then take all the learning that we do without the proper intent & bring it all along. This teaches us an important lesson. Even when mitzvos seem to make no sense to us, don't take them lightly for we can never know what else they are accomplishing!
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