Mitzvos

I feel that they are both.

For example: giving Tzedakah is an obligation, but also we get schar for olam haba when we give maser money. I donated seven dollars towards someone’s fundraising campaign who is running for Yachad because that is all I could afford to give and I felt bad for her because she hasn’t even raised half the funds necessary to run in the marathon. I felt really good about myself after donating to her fundraising campaign, as someone who doesn’t always have a ton of money, I prefer to donate larger amounts of money like that to people who I know are running marathons, or raising money for a cause than to people who are collecting money in the street.

Another Example: Respecting our parents is an obligation. For most of us, when we were kids, although we know that our parents love us unconditionally, our relationships would be much better with them when we respected and honored them than if we didn’t.

Are Mitzvos an obligation or a privilege?

Why does it have to be one or the other?

The Wolf

When one perceives something as an obligation, the yetzer hara comes out and uses its guile to try to get the person to refrain from doing it. Something that one perceives as voluntary (read that privilege) there is no need for the yetzer hara to work so hard.

Hashem gave us tzvuyim – commandments – obligations – in order to give us schar. If we just want to do things that we like/want to do, then the schar is less, really for whom are you doing it?

Mitzvos is what Hashem gave us to do and if we do them we get reward in the world to come.