When you follow a Torah life, even without spiritual awareness, these things rarely happen. You will have a peaceful home with a Jewish family that stays together. If there were no other benefits from following the Torah than this, it would be worth all the effort. But indeed, there is much more to be gleaned from the Torah than its family and social benefits. Its spiritual benefits are even greater.    To find the spiritual benefits of living a life filled with Torah you must direct your attention to both its physical and spiritual aspects. Doing this, you will realize that, like us, the body of the mitzvah is just a vehicle for its soul. As important as the physical details are, they are not the essential change that comes about when you do a mitzvah. It is the mitzvah’s spiritual effect that is the purpose of the mitzvah, not its body. Surely, the physical details are essential, for without them there could be no mitzvah at all. But still, the physical ingredients are merely being used in order to bring about the spiritual result.

    Both the person doing the mitzvah, and the material used to do the mitzvah are elevated when the mitzvah is done correctly. The food that is blessed before it is eaten is elevated. And since it was eaten in a holy manner, so is the person who eats it elevated. The home is elevated when mezuzahs are affixed and, in turn, the elevated home elevates the people who live in it. The clothing that is worn for modesty is elevated and it elevates the person who wears it.     Usually, we only think of this elevated status when only the object itself becomes holy, such as, animal skin that becomes a box for tefillin, or is used for a mezuzah. But all of the objects used for the mitzvahs are elevated and elevate.     This spiritual elevation is the actual reason for the commandment, not the mere shifting around of the physical objects. In fact, spiritual elevation is not merely the purpose of the mitzvah; it is the very purpose of creation.    These objects that are used for mitzvahs have a certain degree of holiness even as they sit on the shelf waiting to be used. If you would like to test this principle, put a charity box in a room where there presently is none. Every day put a coin in it and see how the atmosphere in that room changes. When we become aware of the holiness that permeates our physical possessions, we begin to see that we are surrounded with holiness. Our homes become sanctuaries, our thoughts more pure. And this leads us to want to grow even more.

    Some argue and say, “No, the physical mitzvah is what was commanded and this is to be our sole concern. We should be concerned only with the physical details of the commandment, and leave the spiritual aspects of the mitzvah to the spiritual world. We must do the physical requirements only because G-d commanded them, and we should have the fear of punishment over our head.”