Hey Rabbi!
Hope all is well, I just wanted to mention that a point you brought up in last week’s shiur really had an impact on me – for some reason I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. You pointed to the different ways in which a person could engage the mitzvos, as an idolater, or as a Jew on either the mishneh torah or moreh hanevuchim levels. This really struck me, that you could do the mitzvos as an idolater, I mean I knew that but something about just coming out and saying it matter of factly struck me. Could you please describe this way of thinking about and doing mitzvos again?
David Rinde
David
The point I was making was regarding Mitzva as a kind of human action. Ralbag discusses this in the intro to aseres ha-dibros, in comparing a natural Mitzvat Hashem, to an artificial Mitzva born of tyrants. A natural Mitzva must be implementing a benefit within a causal understanding of Creation. Only such an act can be said to be human, a mind's response to perceiving Hashem's tzedaka in Creation.
An idolater does not act on a clear belief in Hashem's tzedaka. As such his Mitzvot are attempts at securing a psychological relationship with a Father figure. These acts are not reflections of understanding of tzedaka / causality, but rather a forgoing of pleasure to demonstrate subservience for its own sake.
One who does Mitzvot without regard for their systemic purpose, their source in tzedaka / causality is therefore acting to promote a fantasy psychological relationship- acting out of the motivation and mindset of an idolater.
3 comments:
Are you saying that you can only have "mitoch lo lishma, ba lishma," only in the realm of Talmud torah?
If the person is submerged in the realm of the psychological tov, then his continued mitzvah performance will not force him to make the necessary paradigm change to make the mitzvah performance instrumental to anything else.
Or with acceptance/immersion of the 13 Ikaarim, then "mitoch lo lishma, ba lishma" could apply to the realm of Mitzvos.
Your thoughts?
It requires a basic minimum in order to differentiate from mitzvat anashim melumada- motor activities whose end is showing loyalty to an apparition god, to being Mitzvot Hashem, acts instrumental to the end of growing as a mind aligned with knowledge in thought and deed.
Once one is involved in the pursuit of knowledge another question can be asked- what is the motive for knowing. Is it for the good of knowing as a value in its own right, or for some practical application. Involvement in knowledge for the sake of some application will lead to theoretical pursuit for its own sake.
However before mitoch shelo lishma can begin, the educational system must be oriented to the pursuit of knowledge at all, rather than the pursuit of a appeasement of apparitions.
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