A vort from the Rebbe on this week's parsha, Parshas Shemot. In Parshas Shemot we find that the Aibershter spoke to Moshe Rabbeinu and He told him to go to Mitzrayim and take the Yidden out of Mitzrayim. And Moshe Rabbeinu asked, what zechut do the Yidden have that because of that they should be zocheh, they should merit to go out of the galut, out of Mitzrayim? Hashem said to משה רבינו, בהוציאך את העם ממצרים תעבדון את האלקים על ההר הזה. When you will take the nation out of Mitzrayim, they will serve Me, worship Me on this mountain, Har Sinai, which as Rashi says means Matan Torah. So the answer to Moshe Rabbeinu's question, what zechut do they have, the Aibershter answered that when they leave Mitzrayim they will receive the Torah on Har Sinai. And that's a big zechut.

But the Rebbe asks: How could something of the future be a zechut for now? The zechut of receiving the Torah is going to be after they leave Mitzrayim. How could that be a zechut for them to leave Mitzrayim? That the zechut why they're zocheh, they merit to leave Mitzrayim because they will do something later. Now, the real answer, the simple answer to the sheehlah is Hashem knows the future, He knows what they're going to do. But still, in Chassidut, the way the Rebbe explains, there's a deeper peshat to what it means that because they're going to do something later, that's why now they have the zechut. And the Rebbe says there's a Midrash quoted in the Ran at the end of Pesachim and other Rishonim that explains what's the source, the yesod, for the mitzvah of Sefirat HaOmer, that from after Pesach we count the days till Shavuot. Because when Moshe Rabbeinu told the Yidden that after they go out of Mitzrayim they're going to receive the Torah, they longed for it, and they anticipated and they were really waiting for it, they started counting the days. Now they actually started counting the days only after they left Mitzrayim, because they were told that you'll receive the Torah when you go out of Mitzrayim, so there's no reason in counting the days. But that shows how much they were waiting for it, that when the moment started that they left Mitzrayim, they started counting. So the days before also, when they heard, right away as soon as they heard from Moshe that they will receive the Torah later, they already then started waiting for it. Basically, they couldn't wait till it'll come. They longed for it. So the Rebbe says that's the peshat here. The zechut that they had is not the fact that they will receive the Torah, that's going to happen later. But what happened right away before they even went out is the fact that they were waiting for it. They anticipated, they were waiting, they couldn't wait to get to do this great thing of receiving the Torah. And that's the zechut! That when they had this anticipation to receive the Torah, that is the zechut that made them go out of Mitzrayim. And this happened months before they went out, because when Moshe told this to them, this was months before. And all those months they were waiting, that's the zechut that because of that they went out of Mitzrayim.

And from here we see the importance of anticipating to do a mitzvah. People think the ikar is the mitzvah, which is true, the main thing is the mitzvah. If a person anticipates and waits for it and longs for it and doesn't do it, doesn't count. So the main thing is to do the mitzvah, but nevertheless there's a great importance in the fact that we prepare ourselves beforehand to the mitzvah, that we're waiting for the mitzvah, we enjoy and we can't help till we do the mitzvah. That's the importance that we learn out from this vort of Rashi where he says that the Eibershter said that the zechut is the Matan Torah, it doesn't mean the Matan Torah itself, the zechut of their waiting. And same thing with us: when it comes to do a mitzvah, there is a very great importance of preparing for it and waiting for it. And to a certain degree, that is even more important than the mitzvah. Not chas veshalom the actual doing, the main thing is the mitzvah itself, but as far as the effect it has on the person. If you do a mitzvah without waiting for it, without anticipating, without preparing, the mitzvah is done, and many times don't have a feeling to it. But if you wait and you wait and finally you get to it, then you have a strong feeling, it has an effect on the person. And that's the limud that we learn out from this thing that the Eibershter said, that the zechus of מתן תורה is the zechus for the Yidden to leave Mitzrayim.