Q&A: Question
Question
Question
Dear Rabbi Michael Abraham, greetings.
I wanted to ask: I studied Maimonides’ introduction to the chapter Chelek, where he explains that to keep the Torah and commandments for the sake of some goal is not proper, except for fools or for those who still have not understood; and that in truth the real reason is not for the sake of any end whatsoever, but rather the Torah and the commandments are themselves the goal, since they are the truth.
And I really want to know whether this can be understood.
That is, I myself definitely feel a need and an attraction to do what is true even without reward (at least sometimes).
But I assume that the fact that I feel this does not prove anything, since I have several other inclinations in life,
and presumably they are not correct.
I would be very glad if the Rabbi had the opportunity to answer this with a clarified explanation.
Best regards
Answer
You are not distinguishing between an urge or inclination and an insight that this is what ought to be done. They are not the same thing. Even if you are drawn not to steal or to help others, at the same time you also think that this is what ought to be done.
Discussion on Answer
What does it mean to ground it? Every grounding is an argument, and every argument always has premises from which it proceeds.
You can never ground the premises themselves (by virtue of their being premises). You adopt them because it is clear to you that they are true, and then you can begin to ground things on their basis.
I elaborated more on this in my books Two Carts and Truth and Unstable.
I assume that what the Rabbi means is what is written in one of the appendices of God Plays Dice, with the example given there
of the premise that between two points there is only one straight line and that two parallel lines will never meet.
So I’d really be glad to understand this better.
Would we say the same thing about the fact that one plus one equals two?
For apparently that assumption is built not only on empirical observation but also on the fact that I understand why it is so; that is, I can arrive at it
also by way of calculation based on the data.
Am I right?
No. Every axiom is the result of intuition. The fact that you “understand” means that your intuition tells you so. You have no proof at all, and yet if someone were to say otherwise, you would have him hospitalized and would not say that this is merely your subjective position.
What exactly is the definition of an insight that something is correct?
After all, I can’t manage to ground it intellectually/logically.