Rav Pincus, Putting feeling into our Mitzvos

Rav Pincus z'l gave a really beautiful mashal that his father used to tell him about putting feeling into the mitzvos we do in our daily live. he tells the story about a tailor. this tailor was not a wealthy man and he was out of business for a long time until one day he was walking along the road and a man, a very wealthy man, was asking around saying that he was in desperate need for a tailor. he had a meeting very soon and his suit had torn and he needed someone to fix it as soon as possible. the tailor called out to him and said he can try to help, the wealthy man was relieved and the tailor was SO thankful to Hashem that he finally had a customer after all this time. he took the mans suit and with a tehillim in one hand and thread in the other,singing praises to Hashem with a heart filled with Hakaras Hatov for his new customer, he sewed up his suit. the wealthy man said that these stitches were PERFECT! he said that he was officially hired to be his tailor. wow baruch Hashem, this tailor is back in business. he took measurements for the whole family and would take his tehillim in one hand and needle in the other, with a overjoyed heart and made the most beautiful garments for this family. every stitch was perfect and neat. once the tailor gained popularity, he had a lot more business and was very happy and continued sewing stitch by stitch with his tehillim.

a big affair was coming up for the wealthy man and his whole family needed new outfits. the tailor had lots of work to do and not much time, so he decided to take his needle in one hand and thread in the other and get to work.. he finally finished and gave all the garments to the wealthy man...shortly after the wealthy man barged into his shop saying "all these clothing dont fit and the stitching is messy! the ball is in a couple of hours! how could you do this", the tailor replied and said "i dont understand how this happened, i did every stitch the way i do EVERY TIME i dont understand this, i did every motion the same like i always do"... the tailor went to his rebbe and told him the situation, the rebbe replied " yes, its true that you stitched each stitch exactly like you always do, but the difference between all the garments you made before and these, is that these new ones were not made with the same tefillah, and Chen that the others have inside every stitch, those garments were made with simcha and ahava for Hashem, these new clothing are made out of distress, the feelings you put into work totally changed the quality of the results" go home and restitch every stitch, but remember Hakadosh BAruch Hu and thank Him for this opportunity..the tailor went home restitched every stitch and made it just in time for the ball, the wealthy man was thrilled with his suit and the family looked beautiful...

what rav pincus was trying to stress here is that we can go through our daily lives, go through all the motions of our mitzvos and never feel our mitzvos. we can totally change the quality of our lives by changing the feelings we feel throughout our lives. there is a huge difference between doing a mitzvah because you are commanded to and doing it out of love. its obviously hard to do all mitzvos out of pure ahava but if we can just try to take one or two mitzvos and say "Hashem, i am so excited about this, i hope this truly brings me closer to you" we can make the mundane areas of our lives full of chen and beauty.