'To love G‑d... and to listen to His voice... for this is your life and the length of your days...'

The Torah gives man pure life in this world and an exalted reward in the World to Come. In fact, the Torah is the very being of man. This may be compared to the following:

Man's life-force is equally present throughout the body, in the toes no less than in the head. Some higher soul-powers (such as intellect, vision, hearing etc.) are indeed in the head, but these are merely specific soul-powers. The life-force itself, that which makes us living beings, is equal throughout the body, in the heels of the legs no less than in the brain of the head.

So, too, it is with the Torah. Every aspect of a Jew's life draws its vitality from the Torah. The Torah permeates and penetrates everything in the life of the Jew, from the most sublime aspect of his soul to the smallest details of his physical reality. This is evident from the reward promised for the observance of Torah: it is not restricted to a spiritual bonus in Heaven, which befits spiritual engagement in Torah-study and so forth. On the contrary, we are told: "If you walk in my ordinances... I shall give your rains in their seasons and the land shall yield its produce..." (Bechukotay 26:1-2). The fact of physical and material rewards thus indicates that the Torah relates to the total being of the Jew, to his physical reality no less than to his spiritual reality.

This explains the promise of wondrous physical benefits in the Messianic era, such as "The Land of Israel is destined to bring forth cakes and silken garments" (Shabbat 30b). Why would there be such extraordinary physical benefits in an era marked by the increase of knowledge and wisdom, when the Jewish people will be totally immersed in pursuing the "knowledge of G‑d"? In context of the above, however, it is clear. Precisely that phenomenon demonstrates how all of creation is literally and completely bound up with the Torah and with G‑d, who is the "Giver of the Torah."

When those wonders are revealed and become manifest in the material life and reality, all will know and realize that the Torah is literally "your life and the length of your days"-in all physical matters as well.

Living With Moshiach
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