A vort from the Rebbe on this week's parashah, Parashat Mishpatim. In Parashat Mishpatim, there's a pasuk that says, \"לא תהיה משכלה ועקרה בארצך את מספר ימיך אמלא\". The literal translation is: meshakelah is a woman who loses her children, she miscarries or they die young, God forbid. Akarah is a barren woman who cannot have children, which means these are an example of women who don't have children, so the Torah says the Oybershter will give you a berachah, if you serve Hashem, you will not have a משכלה ועקרה בארצך in your land, and then \"את מספר ימיך אמלא\", Hashem says, \"the number of your days I will fill\". And the question is: what's the connection between these two halves of the pasuk? The beginning talks about that you'll have children, you won't lose any children in your land, and then it speaks about that Hashem will fill the number of your days.

And the Rebbe explains as it follows: We know it says in Chasidut, children refer to middot, emotions: ahavah v'yirah, love or fear, because the way you can have an emotion is only if you understand first the thing in your brain. It's born out of your intellect. If in your intellect you understand how good this is, you will like it. You will have a feeling of love to it. If you don't understand, you don't know, you won't have. So when we talk about having children, it refers biruchniyut to having the middot. But there's a possibility sometimes that you lose the middot, or you don't have the middot to begin with, and the pasuk tells you why, because בארצך. Torah says berachah that it shouldn't happen, but it's telling you what could happen, and the Torah says, \"I will make sure it doesn't happen.\" But what could happen? You could be a person that's missing the children, missing the ahavah v'yirah. Why? If it's בארצך. בארצך, the word aretz, which means land, also comes from the word ratzon, will. If a person serves Hashem because he feels good about it, which means he feels because that's what he likes, so he's doing it because he likes, that's a problem. Then the middot will not stay, cuz if you base your service of Hashem on what you decide and what you like, even though it happens to be a good decision, but you know what? Tomorrow, you might like something else and not like this, so you will stop doing it, and who knows how long you could fall. So that's the peshat in the pasuk. The Oybershter gave him a berachah, it shouldn't happen, but what could happen? You could be a משכלה ועקרה, not have ahavah v'yirah, not have server- the middot of Hashem, if you do it because בארצך, because that's your ratzon. What do you do in order, should you do in order that you should serve Hashem just because Hashem said so? So the pasuk says, \"את מספר ימיך אמלא\", the number of your days. If you start thinking, realizing that the Eibershter gave you a certain, specific amount of days, and every moment of the day has a mission, if you start thinking about that, that'll help a person do his service of Hashem not because he feels it's good and it's the right thing to do just for that reason—that's a good thing to do, to feel good, but not just because of that. If you feel, if you realize that the Eibershter gave you days to fill with the serving of Hashem, that'll push you to to do everything that you do to serve Hashem not just because you like it, but because Hashem wants you to do it. And then the Rebbe says there's another nekudah here. The pasuk says, \"את מספר ימיך אמלא\", I will fill the number of your days.

This hints to another point. A person could say, \"Well, if so much time, so many years passed by and I didn't do my mission, so it's too late. I missed certain days.\" So the pasuk says, \"No, if you don't have a משכלה ועקרה בארצך,\" which means that you serve Hashem just because the Eibershter wants, and not only because you have the ratzon, then the Eibershter will fulfill those days that you missed. \"את מספר ימיך אמלא\", the Eibershter will fill those days that you missed as if you didn't miss it. That's the idea of teshuvah. But that's all comes when you start thinking that the Eibershter gave you amount of time, every moment is in order to serve Hashem and do his- your mission that Hashem sent you for, and not to get involved in other things. And if you feel that, then the Eibershter makes sure that there's no משכלה ועקרה, and also begashmiyut, that this is a berachah for having children.