What’s in it for me?

I have lost count of how many times people have come to me with the inevitable question: W.I.F.M.? – What’s in it for me?

It is one of the defining questions of our age. Before accepting a responsibility, joining an organization, making a contribution, or adopting a new practice, we want to know what we will receive in return. Will it make me happier? More successful? More respected? Will it save me time, improve my health, advance my career, strengthen my relationships, or bring me closer to God?

The question is not inherently selfish. Human beings need motivation. Judaism itself speaks openly about blessing and reward. Still, when every decision begins and ends with “What’s in it for me?” something important is lost. Life becomes transactional. Relationships become exchanges. Even religion can become a spiritual rewards program in which mitzvot are the points we accumulate and blessing is the prize we expect to redeem.

Parshat Re’eh challenges that way of thinking. Moshe tells the Israelites: “See, I set before you this day blessing and curse: the blessing, that you heed the commandments of the Eternal your God; and the curse, if you do not heed the commandments” (Deuteronomy 11:26–28).¹

The Hebrew contains a striking asymmetry. With regard to the curse, the Torah says im lo tishme’u – “if you do not heed.” We would expect the blessing to be presented in the same way: “the blessing, if you heed the commandments.” Instead, the Torah says et haberakhah asher tishme’u – literally, “the blessing, that you heed the commandments.”

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch calls attention to this change. The Torah does not say only that blessing will follow obedience. Hirsch understands the fulfillment of God’s commandments to be part of the blessing itself. The mitzvah is not merely the price paid for a future reward. A life shaped by mitzvot is already a blessed life.²

That idea has deep roots in Jewish tradition. Antigonus of Sokho taught: “Do not be like servants who serve the master in expectation of receiving a reward” (Pirkei Avot 1:3).³ He did not deny that actions have consequences. He warned against reducing service to compensation. Once the reward becomes the sole reason for the act, we are no longer truly serving the other. We are serving ourselves through the other.

Maimonides develops this distinction with characteristic precision. In The Guide for the Perplexed, he writes that “the Law as a whole aims at two things: the welfare of the soul and the welfare of the body” (III:27).⁴ The Torah seeks intellectual and spiritual growth, but it also seeks moral character, social stability, justice, and what Maimonides calls the best possible relationships among human beings. The commandments, then, are not arbitrary hurdles placed between us and divine approval. They are practices through which a human life and a humane society are formed.

The mitzvah of tzedakah does more than transfer money from one person to another. It teaches us that what we possess carries obligations. The laws governing speech do more than prohibit gossip. They cultivate restraint and protect human dignity. Shabbat is not merely a test of whether we can refrain from work. It teaches us that our worth does not depend entirely upon what we produce, purchase, or accomplish. Honoring parents, visiting the sick, comforting mourners, returning lost property, welcoming the stranger, each mitzvah responds to a particular need. Together, they form a certain kind of person and create a certain kind of community.

Maimonides is also careful not to promise that mitzvot will make life painless. In Hilchot Teshuvah 9,⁵ he explains that the material blessings described in the Torah are not the ultimate reward for obedience. Peace, health, and security provide the conditions in which people can pursue wisdom and perform further mitzvot. They are means, not the final purpose.

Good people still become ill. Honest people sometimes suffer losses. Generous people are not always rewarded with prosperity. A life of mitzvot is not an insurance policy against grief, disappointment, or misfortune. Its blessing lies elsewhere. The reward of generosity is that we become more generous. The reward of integrity is that we become people whose words can be trusted. The reward of gratitude is that we become more capable of noticing what has been given to us. The reward of Shabbat is not something deposited into our account after Havdalah. It is the experience of inhabiting sacred time, of living for one day without treating the world, or ourselves, as instruments of production.

Maimonides takes the argument further in Hilchot Teshuvah 10.⁶ The highest form of religious service, he writes, is undertaken “not because of fear that evil will occur, nor in order to acquire benefit.” The mature religious person serves God מתוך אהבה – out of love. This does not mean that we always feel inspired. Love does not eliminate obligation. In our most important relationships, love often takes the form of obligation. We make the telephone call because it is time to call. We visit because someone should not be alone. We apologize because the relationship matters more than our pride. We show up because people who depend upon us should be able to depend upon us. At first, we may act because we know we should. Gradually, the act itself deepens the relationship. Duty becomes devotion. What we repeatedly do begins to shape who we are.

Centuries after Maimonides, Baruch Spinoza expressed a related insight at the conclusion of his Ethics: “Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself” (Ethics V, Proposition 42).⁷ Spinoza’s sentence could almost serve as a commentary on Moshe’s words. “The blessing, that you will heed the commandments.” The Torah does not entirely dismiss the question “What’s in it for me?” It answers by asking us to reconsider what we mean by “IT” and what we mean by “ME.” What is in the mitzvah for me? A different way of seeing. A disciplined heart. A more generous spirit. A trustworthy life. A community in which people assume responsibility for one another. A relationship with God expressed not only in what we believe, but in how we use our time, our possessions, our words, and our power. And who is the “ME” that benefits? Not simply the person I am at this moment, seeking an immediate return. The mitzvah serves the person I am still becoming.

On Monday morning, there may be no visible reward for speaking patiently, returning a phone call, giving credit to someone else, or refusing to repeat a damaging story. No one may applaud. Nothing may appear in our account. The world may never know that we made the more difficult choice. And still, something has happened. A relationship has been protected. A person’s dignity has been preserved. A measure of trust has entered the world. Through the choice we made, we have become a little more like the person we hope to be. What’s in it for me? The blessing is in the doing. And in the person the doing allows me to become. 

Sources

1. – Deuteronomy 11:26–28; see also Deuteronomy 6:24.

2. – Samson Raphael Hirsch, Commentary on the Torah, Deuteronomy 11:27.

3. – Pirkei Avot 1:3.

4. – Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 27.

5. – Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 9:1 

6. – ibid 10:1–2

7. – Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Part V, Proposition 42.

Biblical and classical translations have been adapted for readability.