Becoming a mind

The Torah, according to Ralbag, is “a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success”. This “regimen” seems to be divided into three stages- Mitzvot, political behavior and the wisdom of the universe:

A) The first element, mistakenly thought of by many as the entire mission of the Torah, are the Mitzvos which encompass what we have been commanded to believe and do as well as what not to believe or do. This category includes 613 Mitzvos according to the traditional method of counting.

B) The second element encompasses the study of political behavior and society generally. This area is a domain outside of legislative action, because it presupposes a level of human development well beyond the capacity of the standard citizen. To illustrate, let us consider if the Torah were to legislate that we must not be angry except for what one ideally should be angry about, and even then only to the ideal measure of anger, in the proper time and place. Or perhaps that one should not be happy except for what one ideally should be happy about, and even then only to the ideal measure of happiness, in the proper time and place…. All people would be in violation of the law continuously, excluding a minute few...

C) The third element includes what the Torah grants us of the Wisdom of the universe, that cannot be attained through human research, save by exhaustive effort, if a man should fail to avail himself of its prophetic stories that guide us to this hasaga (apprehension)

These three stages seem to be complementary elements of a developmental curriculum as Ralbag states later on. The core of the curriculum seems to be the Mitzvot, which the other two stages “build upon”.

It is of necessity that the Torah regimen should be divided into these elements, since human excellence can not be fully realized, except by attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research to the most excellent degree. Now the element that encompasses the study of political /social affairs that are beyond command and prohibition, is a next step that builds upon what has already been attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's psychological constitution. The study of the wisdom of the universe is a next step that builds upon what has already been attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's soul...

1) What does Ralbag mean by “attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research“ and how is this attainment accomplished through “building upon the Mitzvot” ?

2) In what way is this process of “attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research“ connected to Ralbag's previous tefilla?

To answer this we must understand something of Ralbag's concept of “becoming”. As mentioned in the previous post, Ralbag's first order of business was to awaken a reader used to thinking of himself as an independent power to the reality of Hashgacha as an external cause of his own ability. This Hashgacha is clearly an outgrowth of Chochmas Hashem that is behind the creation of the ecosystem of Earth of which man is part of

Praised be the Creator, who, because of His desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of Mankind

It is an essential feature of the Earthly ecosystem that all members undergo a “cycle of life”. Minerals become vegetables and vegetables become animals. In due course the living tissue degenerates and returns to being mineral. This cycle of life or “becoming” is not limited to the animal kingdom but extends to man as well,both in terms of his animal character as well as his mind and education.

This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained. It extends to guiding man along the path of mental development- the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone the lowly material of Aretz is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success.

The nature of the human condition is to be aware of a system of becoming of which he himself is a part. Unlike a chemical or vegetable or animal that mechanistically undergo a process which they are unaware of and are therefore incapable of controlling, man is aware of the very process he undergoes. As Rambam puts it

Every person is granted freedom. If he wants to steer himself toward the good path and be a Tzaddik-he has the freedom to do so. If he wants to steer himself toward the evil path and be a Rasha-he has the freedom to do so. This point is written in the Torah as its says” behold Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Brayshees 3, 22). What this means is that the species of man is unique in the material world, no other species is like it in the fact that Man himself, through his own thought and judgment, knows what is good and evil and acts as he wills with no one opposing him from doing good and evil...

It is our very awareness of the general process of becoming that gives us a choice of what we will become. We can choose to seek out the causes of the system we are part of and become minds that use our animal nature as a platform-or we can choose not to seek causes and become pure animals. It is this process of human becoming that Torah is an aid to. It is also within this process of becoming that we can understand the three stages of Torah education. In essence, the becoming of man revolves around the issue of re-engineering the animal platform away from being a tool of animal dominance and pleasure and towards being a tool of research. This re-engineering consists of two parts
a) creating a psyche that functions as an able platform for intellectual research b) creating an intellect that actually researches the wisdom underlying the Creations.

Both of these re-engineerings are begun in Mitzvos and “built upon” by later research. As Ralbag puts it “the Mitzvos ... encompass what we have been commanded to believe and do as well as what not to believe or do”. So long as we relate to our beliefs and actions authoritatively, ie without independent proof grounded in our intellectual understanding of “becoming”, they are rudimentary and need to be built upon. This building goes through two stages. The first stage is grasping the causes of Mitzvot as “political social” phenomena only, as instruments of maintaining order in society. The second level moves beyond, seeing mitzvot as part of order as seen throughout the “wisdom of the universe”.

We can now see the process of “attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research“. But what is the connection to the tefilla?

Man's challenge in recognizing his place in becoming is that we view the world through the lens of our animal eyes and psyche. Prior to re-engineering ourselves we do not see a world of “ becoming” governed by Chochmas Hashem of which we ourselves are part. We see a world of raw materials awaiting our own dominion and design. As animals we take our own internal drive to dominate as a given, an unquestioned premise whose good cannot be reflected upon let alone challenged. It is the Baal Mesorah who awakens us from this belief, helps us consider a new possibility. Ralbag's call to tefilla is therefore integrally involved in the “becoming” of his talmid the reader. To become aware of Hashgacha is not merely to leave a sense of power to know. It is to become aware of the animal material that was the source of our predisposition to believe we had this power and viewed the world as purely raw materials in which this power should be expressed.

One and the same realization is then the cause both of the need for tefilla as well as the order of limud Mitzvot. The special place of man in material becoming, the challenge of choosing to transform animality in the ways needed to embrace mindedness is the source of both.