Observance of the Commandments, Lesson 1

Table of Contents

• Clarifying the question “Why keep the commandments?” and the chain that never stops
• The naturalistic fallacy and the gap between facts and judgments
• Facts, utility, free choice, and the failure to ground obligation
• The regression of values, arbitrariness, and Leibowitz
• Contracts, law, and the justification of punishment
• Infinite regress in logical arguments, infinity, and Hilbert’s hotel
• Axioms in geometry and the parallel to a value-based starting point
• Judaism, faith / belief, and the inability to give one canonical answer
• Maimonides and the Talmudic text: “one who worships idolatry out of love or fear” and “accepted it upon himself as a god”
• Serving God for its own sake, self-interest, and the reasons for the commandments

Summary

General Overview

The text tries to clarify what the question “Why keep the commandments?” actually means, and what could count as a sufficient reason. It shows that factual reasons cannot generate normative obligation because of the naturalistic fallacy and the gap between “is” and “ought.” It argues that trying to ground obligation in some other value creates an infinite regress of justifications, so it seems as though the question has no answer and that obligations collapse into “because I feel like it.” But in the end it suggests a way out in the form of value-axioms that are self-evident. Against that background, it brings Maimonides in the laws of idolatry, where he distinguishes between worship out of love or fear and “accepting it upon oneself as a god.” From that distinction, serving God for its own sake is defined as an obligation that is not conditioned by benefit, love, or fear, even though love and fear and reasons for the commandments can exist as additional levels that are not the foundation of the obligation.

Clarifying the question “Why keep the commandments?” and the chain that never stops

The text says that before looking for an answer to the question “Why keep the commandments?” you first have to clarify what kind of “why” is being asked, and what would count as a sufficient reason. It shows that every attempt to base commandment-observance on some fundamental value immediately leads to a further question: why are we obligated to that value? So “a guarantor itself requires a guarantor,” and the chain needs a stopping point. It presents the possibility of stopping at a “fact,” but rejects it, because you cannot base an obligation on facts.

The naturalistic fallacy and the gap between facts and judgments

The text explains that you cannot derive judgments and obligations from facts, and calls this Moore’s naturalistic fallacy, which already begins with Hume’s distinction between is and ought. It illustrates that even if the facts are true—like a material description of a wooden platform with a sheet of glass—the aesthetic conclusion “therefore it is beautiful” does not follow without some additional normative assumption connecting fact to judgment. It applies this to the Kuzari’s claim about the revelation at Mount Sinai, and clarifies that even if “there is a command” is a fact, that still does not create obligation without an additional value-assumption—and about that too one can ask “why.”

Facts, utility, free choice, and the failure to ground obligation

The text rejects attempts to justify commandments on the basis of utility or “the right kind of life” in the sense of what benefits life, because utility remains a fact and does not create a “should.” It emphasizes that free choice does not cancel normative demand, but rather presupposes a distinction between right and wrong, and still, facts do not provide a basis for obligation. It argues that one can always answer “I just don’t feel like it,” even in the face of a world that is factually “better,” and wherever such an answer still seems problematic, it is clear that the disagreement is not about facts but about the move to “should.”

The regression of values, arbitrariness, and Leibowitz

The text concludes that trying to justify obligation by means of other values creates an infinite regress, and so it appears that there is no answer to the question and seemingly no obligation either. That leads to the view that everything is arbitrary, in the style of Leibowitz: “that’s what I decided because I feel like it.” It argues that reducing obligations to instinct empties them of content, because instinct is a fact and does not establish value-based justification. It adds that the problem applies to every value, not just commandments, including gratitude, charity, helping others, and honoring contracts.

Contracts, law, and the justification of punishment

The text applies the same critique to contractual obligation and argues that the fact that I signed a contract does not explain why I am obligated to keep it, and even “I committed myself” is a value that requires further justification. It explains that if everything is reduced to “because I feel like it,” then punishment too becomes “I feel like punishing,” and there is no basis for concepts of right and wrong in any value-laden sense. It sharpens the point by saying that someone making a cognitive claim—“this is the right way to act”—sees the other person as mistaken even if there is no universal agreement, and therefore demand and punishment are possible even toward someone who does not share the same starting point.

Infinite regress in logical arguments, infinity, and Hilbert’s hotel

The text broadens the problem to every logical argument and asks why the assumptions are true, presenting the image of “turtles all the way down” as an infinite retreat of justifications. It argues that infinite regress is considered a fallacy because it assumes a concrete infinity and not merely a potential one, and illustrates this through Hilbert’s hotel and the paradoxes of an infinity of occupied rooms that can always take in more guests. It explains that once you are already at “x equals zero” in a chain of causes that continues to “minus infinity,” that assumes we have already somehow “passed through infinity,” and therefore the model does not provide an explanation.

Axioms in geometry and the parallel to a value-based starting point

The text suggests that in mathematics and geometry, basic assumptions are accepted not because they are arbitrary but because they are evident and self-evident, and proof is just “crutches” for what is not self-evident. It refers to non-Euclidean geometries and explains that for physicists they describe different spaces, and so given a particular space there is one geometry that is correct for it. It suggests applying that same model in the value domain as well, through value-axioms that are accepted as a basis without further justification.

Judaism, faith / belief, and the inability to give one canonical answer

The text rejects the demand for one single answer “according to Judaism,” and places the responsibility on the person to decide what his starting point is with regard to recognition of the Holy One, blessed be He, and obligation toward Him. It says it is legitimate for people to hold different approaches, including those who see God’s existence as an axiom and those who seek proofs, and that disagreement still does not cancel the possibility of obligation for someone who accepts a value-axiom. It emphasizes that facts of faith / belief by themselves still do not create obligation, because the move from fact to “should” remains an unjustified leap.

Maimonides and the Talmudic text: “one who worships idolatry out of love or fear” and “accepted it upon himself as a god”

The text brings the Talmudic text in tractate Sanhedrin 61a about one who worships idolatry out of love or fear, the dispute between Abaye and Rava, and notes that the Jewish law follows Rava: he is exempt unless he “accepted it upon himself as a god.” It presents Rashi’s interpretation, which explains love and fear as love of a person and fear of a person. It then brings Maimonides in the laws of idolatry, chapter 3, Jewish law 6, who interprets it literally: love of the form because of its beauty, and fear of the idol lest it harm him. He rules that one who acts out of love or fear is exempt, and is liable to stoning only if he accepted it upon himself as a god. The text uses this in order to distinguish between a religious act and behavior driven by self-interest, and suggests that a “god” is someone of whom one says: “whatever he says, I do,” unconditionally.

Serving God for its own sake, self-interest, and the reasons for the commandments

The text argues that acting in order to achieve some result, even a “good” result, is not serving God but serving oneself or the world, and therefore worship out of love and fear in the self-interested sense is not religious service. It explains that accepting Him as a god means an obligation that does not depend on benefit, punishment, or gain, but rather: “the very fact that He commanded obligates me.” From this it derives that the answer to the question “Why serve God?” is a value-axiom of the type “that’s just how it is”—not “that’s how it is because I feel like it,” but “that’s how it is because it is clear that this is how it is.” It distinguishes between the level of obligation and the levels of love and fear, and argues that one can and should love and fear God, and that there are reasons for the commandments as emerges from The Guide for the Perplexed, but the obligation does not rest on those reasons. It ends with the claim that a person obligated to the commandments ultimately keeps them because he understands that he is obligated, and the attempt to look for additional explanations is like a dictionary that explains a familiar word by means of words that are less familiar.

We’re going to start dealing a bit with why one should observe commandments at all, or we’ll try to define the concept of serving God for its own sake, which belongs to the same family of ideas. And after that maybe, based on this, we can expand to additional topics—we’ll see—but not today.

When we ask ourselves why to observe commandments, we tend, as soon as we hear a question, to look straight for an answer. But very often, before looking for an answer, it’s worth clarifying the question very, very well. That also helps in finding the answer, and sometimes you discover that you don’t need to find an answer—that there is no answer. So I think it’s worth clearing up the question a bit.

When we ask why to observe commandments, we need to try to think in what sense “why” means—meaning, what kind of answer would count as a sufficient justification for this. Can we, say, point to some particular fundamental value that would bring us to observing commandments? Because if so, then of course the question will arise: then why observe that value? In other words, “the guarantor needs a guarantor.” If, say, gratitude. We observe commandments because of gratitude to the Holy One, blessed be He. And why should one feel gratitude? That too will need explanation, right? At some point that chain has to stop. How do you stop such a chain of justification?

There are two possible ways to think about it. One way is to arrive at something that is a fact. We simply saw it. That doesn’t need justification—we saw it, so therefore it’s true. If we manage to ground the obligation to observe commandments on a fact or facts, then the problem is solved. But of course that’s impossible—or rather, before we’ve even begun searching, we’re still at the stage of analyzing the question. It’s impossible because you can’t ground an obligation or a judgment or a norm on facts. That’s the naturalistic fallacy. I think I mentioned it once already. It says that any argument built in such a way that its premises are facts and its conclusion is a judgment—ethical, aesthetic, halakhic, legal, whatever it may be—is an invalid argument. Its conclusion cannot follow from the premises, because facts never say anything in other senses except the fact itself. Meaning, you can’t derive from them anything that is not itself a fact.

If I say that this platform is made of wood and has a sheet of glass on it, and therefore it is beautiful—the fact that it is made of wood and has a sheet of glass on it, that’s a fact. And the fact that it is beautiful is a judgment, in this case an aesthetic judgment. The judgment never follows from the fact unless you add another premise to the argument saying that something built of wood with a sheet of glass on it is beautiful. Okay? If we add that premise, then the conclusion does indeed follow from the premises. But the nature of that premise is not factual, right? If we say that everything made of wood with a sheet of glass on it is beautiful, then there is some assumption here connecting the factual plane to the plane of judgment, the aesthetic plane, right? If it’s brown and has glass, then it’s beautiful. If fact, then judgment. Meaning, we can never move from the plane of facts to the plane of judgments without some lever that makes that transition. One second. Only with another premise that makes the connection between the factual sphere and the sphere of judgment.

So what comes out is what is called Moore’s naturalistic fallacy—this is how Moore formulated it. It starts with Hume, the difference between “ought” and “is”; we talked about that once. And it basically means that you can’t derive judgments from facts.

So the search for why to observe commandments—now if we return to our specific question—cannot stop at facts. That is, facts will not be a good answer.

Now yes, go ahead. There’s the claim of the Kuzari that there were six hundred thousand people who all saw the revelation at Mount Sinai and the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He, to the people of Israel. Okay, so according to the Kuzari there is a fact, and part of the fact is that commandments were given at that event. The fact that commandments were given is a fact—so what? What does that have to do with me? Part of the command is that it was given there. The command itself is a fact? If I command you, will you do it? If I command you to do something, will you do it? No. No. So what? The fact that there is a command doesn’t mean anything. So there’s a command. I don’t want to. Why am I obligated to do it? Is the fact that someone commanded me a reason that I should do it? The fact that someone commands me is a fact. He comes and commands me. If that is a true fact, then okay, there was such a fact. But you still can’t derive obligation from it. Never—there is no way to derive obligation from facts. You always have to add something else.

You can add that if the Holy One, blessed be He, commands me something, that creates obligation. But then you’ve already added something else, and of course I’ll ask you where that assumption comes from. How do you know—or why—that if the Holy One, blessed be He, commands, then you must do it? Meaning, we cannot solve this problem by pointing to some fact. Again, I’m not even talking about a specific answer. I’m trying to examine the question and see whether it can even be answered, or where to look for the answer. How do you answer such a question? Facts won’t give us what we want.

So what will? We need to look for something of the same type as the conclusion. Meaning, if the conclusion is “one ought to serve the Holy One, blessed be He,” “one ought to observe commandments,” then that is a normative conclusion, a religious obligation—whatever category you put it in—so something in the premises must also be of the same type. There are never transitions between—this isn’t only about the relation between facts and judgments. Different kinds of judgments also cannot follow from one another. There is a collection of certain spheres that you can’t move from one to another just like that. There are facts, ethical judgments, aesthetic judgments, whatever you want—but none of them talks to the other. Each one is a monad, standing on its own. It can’t serve as a basis for something in another sphere.

So if that’s the case, I need to look for something in the same sphere. But if it’s something in the same sphere, then I can already tell you now that it won’t help us. It won’t help us because we’ll need to find some other obligation to ground this obligation. And then of course the question will arise: why am I obligated to that other obligation? Right? It isn’t any holier than the obligation I’m talking about now. I’m assuming—I haven’t yet found it—but I’m saying I’m searching, I’m trying to see what I can find. So apparently that won’t provide a solution either.

Meaning, even if I find some type of obligation—moral, religious, whatever—it still won’t really solve the problem. It may explain why one should observe commandments, but then the question will arise: why observe it, or why be obligated to it? And once again I’ll start the discussion over again—a regress. Now go back to the beginning and start the discussion again about the new principle.

Facts won’t justify it; another obligation won’t help because we’ll ask the same question about that too, and so on. Meaning, you can’t stop the—

Maybe by reason? What do you mean by reason? The Holy One, blessed be He, created us. He knows that the commandments operate us properly, and that’s it. What do you mean, “and that’s it”? Every maker knows how to operate, how to run his creation. Same thing here. No. If you’re speaking on that plane, what does “properly” mean in that sentence? Properly means what—that it will be best for us? Yes. Okay, if that’s so, those are facts. But I’m saying—you’re not talking about facts. So I don’t want to live well; am I allowed? Yes, sure. That’s all. So there is no claim on me that I should listen…

Free choice? One hundred percent. No, free choice doesn’t mean there is no claim on me. There is free choice also to murder. You have no claim against someone who murdered? Of course you do. Having free choice does not mean—on the contrary, precisely because there is free choice, you have a claim against someone who doesn’t choose correctly. What do you mean? Does free choice mean that everyone does whatever he wants, or that everyone can do whatever he wants—but it is not true that whatever everyone does is right. That’s not the meaning of free choice; the opposite. The whole meaning of free choice is that there is a right and a wrong, and you have to decide.

So now I ask why—if you tell me that what’s at stake here is really a more proper life in some factual sense, I don’t know, you’ll feel better, fewer people will be harmed, I don’t know, the world will be in one form or another, whatever—then all that is facts. But facts can never serve as a basis for obligation, for norm. And where do you see that? In the place where someone says: you know what, maybe factually you’re right and the world really will look better—but I don’t want it to look better. I don’t feel like it. So what? Do you have some issue with him? If you do have an issue with him, that means your argument with him is not about the facts, because he is not arguing with you about the facts. So your argument is about the question of what the facts mean. Because the fact that the world would look better—therefore I really ought to act that way—there you have already jumped to the plane of “ought” from the plane of facts. But you didn’t justify that. And there will always remain the non-factual element that I’m talking about.

Meaning, any reasoning you bring up—what you called “reasoning” before—will always be composed in that way, by definition. Because if in the end we need to reach an obligation, facts alone will never do the job. There will be something beyond the facts, something extra. And about that extra thing—that alone—is what I’m asking. Okay?

So if that’s so, we’re basically in a kind of hopeless tangle. Because facts can’t give us an answer, and other values also won’t be the answer. At least not a final answer. That is, we’ll need to ask the same question about them too. So that means that this question is in fact a question with no possible answer. It cannot be answered. So what are we looking for when we ask why observe commandments?

The way out—yes? And this is mainly with regard to commandments between man and God, right? Between man and his fellow… Every commandment. Because from the outset we related to things beyond the Torah that have a communal norm, where in principle the community says that… The community says—and I don’t say. So what if the community says? Why is that more binding than what the Holy One, blessed be He—? Is the community holier than He is? Why is it binding? I’ll ask the same question about that too. No difference. Okay?

No, again, I am saying one should fulfill those obligations. I’m only asking why. Meaning, there isn’t a better explanation here, I think. So basically, when you dig around in this question a bit, you discover that there is actually no way to answer it. Facts won’t answer it; other values won’t answer it either. And after all, any answer or any basis for a value must itself be of the same kind—that is, it too must be a value. So that means this is a question with no answer.

So basically what you’re saying is that values don’t exist at all. Ah, that’s my next sentence. One second—or the one after. Just a moment.

So what emerges is that the seemingly obvious possibility is: okay, so it really is arbitrary. There is no explanation. That’s just what I decided, and that’s it. A kind of Leibowitz approach, yes? That’s what I decided because I feel like it. Fine. Good. Health to you. Do what you feel like. But that is not what we usually call obligation, and certainly you can’t come with a claim against someone else who doesn’t feel like it, who doesn’t feel the same thing. Of course you can say: I feel like making a claim against him. Fine. But then that completely empties the discussion of content, because basically—you feel like it and he doesn’t. That’s not a real discourse.

Someone who reduces all obligations to a kind of instinct empties them of content. Because instinct too is some kind of fact. The fact is that I have such an instinct. Okay, that says nothing in the ethical sense, in the religious sense, in the essential sense.

So there’s a problem here that apparently has no way out, and it really leads certain people or certain thinkers—one second—to the conclusion that one really cannot speak about obligations or things of that sort. It’s all arbitrary, what I said before: because I feel like it. But then they will really have to say that all these feelings of criticism toward someone who doesn’t do it, meaning the feeling that this is how one ought to behave, are illusions. That too is part of the same “I feel like it.” It’s not really something on whose basis you can bring justified claims. More than that: there is no such thing as justification at all. What is justification? There is no right and wrong in the evaluative sense according to this view. And apparently that is the obvious conclusion. There’s no way around it.

One second—someone here earlier, sorry. The connection—or the answer—you’re saying that there is no answer is correct only if you define your question from the outset as “why are we obligated to observe commandments.” If the question is “why observe commandments,” and you’re going in the direction not of obligation but, as came up earlier, because it can lead us to X, Y, or Z, then that’s already a different kind of question. Meaning, there is no obligation here. The question is why… Sure, right. Meaning, if you say that the commandments are more useful for a good life, maybe that’s true, maybe not, I don’t know. But even if it is true, that’s a fact. So that fact does not produce obligation. That fact says okay, therefore I want to do it—and that’s perfectly fine, it’s your right, it feels good to you. But the question is whether there is something beyond that, whether you are not obligated—or make a claim against others: why aren’t you doing it? Meaning, you too are really supposed to do it.

If not, that’s exactly what I was talking about before. Because of this difficulty, some people withdraw back into themselves and say: right, really, I don’t know, I can’t feel any obligation here… I can’t make a claim on someone. There is no obligation. I chose to act this way because it suits me, because it’s pleasant for me, because I don’t know what, because that’s how I feel. I have no explanation. But then you really can’t produce something genuine. Genuine in some sense—meaning, something that is also a claim on others, or even on myself. Tomorrow morning I may no longer feel like it. There isn’t anything here that I am obligated to in the sense we usually speak about that concept.

If that’s so, then you can’t punish. Yes, obviously. You can’t punish? Of course not—unless you feel like punishing, but again, that’s the same thing, reducing everything to “I feel like it,” yes? But this whole issue in the legal realm of contracts—there is a contract. For example, if I sign a contract, why do I need to keep it? Excellent question. What do you say? Because I committed myself. So what? I committed myself, and now I don’t want to. Yesterday I wanted to, today I don’t want to. That assumption—that one should keep commitments in contracts—is also a value-assumption. The fact that I signed a contract is a fact, but that fact by itself does not explain why I am obligated to fulfill it.

Again, I assume we all understand that if you sign a contract you should fulfill it. But I’m asking why that is. Where does it come from? If there is someone who doesn’t feel that way, is he also obligated? Why? I feel that way and he doesn’t. The same question I’ll ask, yes.

This very search for an answer to “why”—that is really the search for “He held the mountain over them like a barrel.” Okay. If there were a clear external “why,” then there would be no question at all; then it would be “He held the mountain over them like a barrel.” About that assumption I’m not sure I agree. There are many things we think are right and still we don’t do them. Many people think that dieting is a good thing, okay? We don’t always do it. You need someone to hold the mountain over us like a barrel in order for us to do it, right? And still that doesn’t stop it from being right. Come on, obviously, yes.

I’m saying that the fact that “He held the mountain over them like a barrel” is not needed only because we don’t really have a justification. It doesn’t prove there is no justification, because otherwise why need coercion? Even if there is a justification, coercion may still be needed.

No, what I’m saying is that if there really were a matter of coercion, of the mountain like a barrel, then we wouldn’t ask why, because the why would be clear—it’s forced on me. What does “forced” mean? So it’s forced—if I can’t do otherwise, fine. But then what’s the question? I’m programmed to act that way, or I don’t know, there’s no alternative or they’ll kill me. Fine, but then again, that’s not obligation. We’ve gone back to the plane of facts. Meaning, whoever doesn’t do it will die. That too is a kind of argument like “if you don’t do it the world will be corrupted,” only it’s a different kind of corruption. So we’ve gone back to the plane of facts.

Now if someone wants to commit suicide, do you have a claim against him? He doesn’t want to do it and they’ll kill him. Fine, I have no claim against him—only he should take the consequences into account. The question is whether that really is the case. If so, then we’re back to what I said before, the retreat into instinct, yes, into “that’s how I feel like it,” or whatever. That there is no answer. Yes, exactly.

Now, there is a correct comment in what you said earlier: this question is not only about why observe commandments. Every value is exposed to the same attack, a two-pronged attack. If you justify it by facts, that won’t work; and if you justify it by another value, then an infinite regress is required, because we’ll ask the same question about that other value too. So in fact the analysis I made here is true of every value, not only the question of why observe commandments. For example, keeping contracts—I did the same thing also with the value of keeping contracts.

So what this analysis basically says—apparently says—is that there really is no way to answer questions in the realm of values. Not just the observance of commandments. Any value. Why should one feel gratitude? Why give charity? Why help another person? Why keep contracts? All sorts of things. Every such thing is exposed to the same attack.

It says more than that: it doesn’t just say there is no answer to the question, it says there is no obligation. Yes, obviously. “There is no answer to the question” means there is no obligation. The question says: clearly one is obligated, we just have no answer why. If there is no answer, then there is no obligation. You can only say: I do it because it pleases me, because it’s nice for me, because I feel like it—but obligation demands some basis. What is the basis?

Now this is a bit disappointing, because—utilitarianism. Utilitarianism. So again, facts. Again facts. This is what brings the greatest good to the broadest public. Yes, the greatest benefit, not the greatest good. Benefit is a fact. Good is already not a fact. That distinction is very important. The moment you reduce it to facts, we’re back to the same problem. Okay? It won’t help. There’s a philosophical problem here that can’t be bridged. No answer will help. Every example you bring, I’ll ask you either way: is it a fact? Then it doesn’t work. Is it a value? Then I’ll ask you what we do with that value itself. It won’t help. It doesn’t matter what proposal you raise now—it will always work in the same way. So the analysis I’m making does not depend on a particular kind of answer. This is the logical status of this kind of question.

So basically there is here a kind of question with no way out, whose conclusion should apparently be that there is no meaning at all to talking about any kind of obligation—value-obligation, obligation to commandments, obligation to morality, to law. And then the question is whether that really is so.

Sorry, yes, I’m just trying to understand the logic. Let’s say I do take—meaning, you’re right in the part where if the premise is a fact or if the premise is a value—but let’s say I do take as a foundational assumption that I believe A, B, C: that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and that He gave the Torah and all that. That is my basic assumption. Those are facts. Okay. Can I derive from that assumption that if I believe all these things—that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah and all that—then the giving of the commandments by Him in the Torah obligates me? That’s part of my belief. Doesn’t that answer everything? No. No. Why? It’s exactly the same problem. You took facts and derived obligation from them.

I ask the same question. Even if I believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and gave the Torah and wrote such-and-such in it and expects me to do something—all that is facts, assuming I accept them, but they are facts. Okay, now the question is why should I do it? It’s the same question. Meaning, you are still making some kind of leap here. No factual justification will help.

So then I’ll answer: because I’ll be punished, or because I believe and I want to. So we’re back to facts. We’re back to facts—because it feels good to me, because it will feel bad if I don’t do it. Again, there is no escaping this. It won’t help.

Actually, this analysis raises a broader question, because even in every logical argument, not just in the realm of values, the conclusion always follows from some premises. And then when I ask why the premises are true, maybe you’ll find other premises by which to prove them—but then I’ll ask about those. At some point it has to stop.

So in every logical argument—not just, I’m broadening the problem even further now—in every logical argument this is how it works. Every logical argument depends on its premises, and if I can’t ground the premises themselves, then seemingly the whole structure built on them loses its meaning. So what will you say—that there is an infinite regress of justifications? Yes? Meaning, a set of premises A grounds proposition B, proposition B grounds C, C grounds D, and so on down to minus infinity. You know the turtles—we talked about this once, right? Turtles all the way down. What holds up the world is a big turtle, yes? So what holds up the turtle? Another turtle. And that turtle is held by another turtle, and there are turtles all the way down, to minus infinity.

So why is that not an explanation? Because an infinite regress is generally considered in philosophy to be a fallacy. Why? I think the explanation is that an infinite regress really assumes a concrete infinity. But infinity is a potential concept. Meaning, those who have studied a little mathematics know that when we define infinity, we define it as a kind of limit. We don’t speak of infinity as an object. We speak of a number that is as large as you like, larger than any number we know. We never speak about what it is; we speak about what it is not. It is not one of the numbers we know—it is bigger than them. But we cannot speak about it itself.

The accepted assumption is, at least—even though Cantor and others raised all kinds of challenges on this point—the accepted assumption is that infinity is a potential concept, not a concrete one. Infinity doesn’t really exist; there is no such object called infinity existing somewhere. Infinity describes something beyond everything we can think about. But it is not something I can speak about in some positive way.

A nice illustration of this is what’s called Hilbert’s Hotel. There’s a Wikipedia entry on it; anyone who wants can read it. There’s a whole series of amusing examples there of why the assumption of concrete infinity leads to paradoxes. If you have a hotel with infinitely many rooms, okay? Say countably infinite, because that’s easier to describe there—meaning the rooms are numbered one, two, three, okay? Now all the rooms are occupied. A new guest comes and says to the hotel owner, I want a room. He says, listen, all the rooms are occupied, impossible. So the guest says: I don’t understand the problem. Move each guest in room n to room n+1, and give me room 0. What’s the problem? Is there any guest in the hotel who won’t get another room? Any guest you mention I’ll tell you which room he is in now. Okay?

Now a bus of fifty guests arrives. No problem, right? We do the same thing fifty times. Now a bus of infinitely many guests arrives. We can accommodate that too. No problem. You can do it with prime numbers, powers of prime numbers. Fine? Meaning, you move them to rooms that are 2 to the power n, 3 to the power n, 5 to the power n—any number of infinities, no problem. Each one sits on a different power of a prime, and everything is fine. I can fit however many people you want into this hotel.

Now okay, maybe indeed a hotel with infinitely many rooms can hold any number of people. Fine. But you understand that this demonstrates something: that when we talk about infinity as something positive—not as something that is not any number we know—that’s not really what we think. Meaning, it is not some number called infinity. It doesn’t work the same way as one thousand, a million, two, or any other number. Okay? So look there, it’s very nice.

In any case, I think the reason an infinite regress is a fallacy is that an infinite regress of explanations means not that the number of explanations is as large as you like—that doesn’t answer the problem. The number of explanations is concretely infinite, not merely as large as you like. Because when we move backward in the chain of explanation, say we are now at the point x = 0. Its reason is x = -1, just for the example. The reason for that is x = -2, right? But we are already at 0. Meaning, we have already passed the entire left half-axis from minus infinity until now.

If we are going forward, then you can say we will always go on and never arrive. But if we are coming from there and are now at x = 0, that means we have already passed infinity. We have already gone through an infinite chain of explanations. That really assumes there is a concrete infinity, that there is an existing infinity here. There is no such thing. Therefore I think in philosophy it is accepted that an infinite regress is a fallacy.

Meaning, we cannot say: okay, so this value justifies that value, and this value is explained on the basis of another value, and that one too is explained on the basis of another value. Because right now I say one ought to serve God. I am already standing on some particular value, and I am saying clearly: it is binding. Ah, if it is binding, then the one before it is probably also binding—and also I need the minus-infinity prior ones, or the infinite number of prior links in the chain, in order to now stand on one particular value that is already binding. Okay. Therefore an infinite chain, an infinite regress, an infinite retreat of explanations is considered a fallacy.

Fine. So if that’s the case, we’re in very serious trouble. So what do we do with this?

It seems to me that in the context of logical arguments—for example in geometry or whatever—the obvious solution is to say that when I seek a justification for something, I am basically assuming that without a justification it is not true. Therefore it needs a justification in order to be true. Okay. Now axioms in geometry, say “through any two points there passes one straight line.” If I ask why that is true, what am I really saying? I’m saying I don’t accept it unless you bring me a justification—that is, a proof, in the case of mathematics. Okay.

But if I say, what are you talking about? To me it’s obvious that it’s true. It is obviously true, so I don’t need a proof. A proof is a kind of crutch that I use when I’m not convinced of something. So if they bring me a proof, then they’ve convinced me. But if I know it even without proofs and it is clear to me that it is true, why look for proofs? It is simply true, because I know it is true.

Meaning, the axioms in geometry—contrary to what people are often used to thinking—the axioms in geometry are not something arbitrary and therefore needing no explanation because they are arbitrary. I’m not saying they’re true merely by assumption and let’s see what comes out of them, let’s see if it’s fruitful, useful. The axioms in geometry are something that is true, self-evident. They are true in an obvious way. Therefore I don’t need proofs. Not that I don’t have proofs and therefore it’s arbitrary. Rather, it is self-evidently true, and therefore I accept it without proofs. You don’t need proofs for a proposition that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees—it’s not trivial to me, it’s not self-evident. So someone gives me a proof of that proposition on the basis of the axioms. And the axioms themselves—how do you know them? Turtles all the way down, right? It’s the same question. No—the axioms are self-evident to me. So since that is so, I don’t need a proof for them.

And from that point onward, what isn’t clear to me, I make use of proofs. So that means facts? No, not facts. You can call this facts, but it doesn’t have to be specifically a claim that something exists in the world. These are facts of another kind. Fine? It need not specifically be facts. It can be something that is self-evidently true to me, even if it is not a fact. Okay?

Now, that murder is forbidden—I’m now returning to our question, the evaluative question—and this is exactly the story of non-Euclidean geometry, where there was something that had been obvious to the entire world: that two parallel lines do not meet. And afterward they said no, that’s not true. No, but from the perspective of a physicist—you’re a mathematician, I think, right? From the perspective of a physicist, that is actually an example that supports me. Because if you look at non-Euclidean geometry, then you know it exists; it lives in a non-Euclidean space. But given the space, there is only one geometry. There aren’t two geometries.

No, no matter. I’m saying something simple. If there is a sheet of paper—a sheet of paper is what is called a flat space, okay? Euclidean space, fine? On that sheet draw a triangle. The sum of its angles is 180 degrees. Nothing will help you. There are no other geometries there. Now, in mathematics they define other geometries, and that is seen, at least by many, as a blow to the view I described before, the view that says geometry is something true and self-evident, it cannot be otherwise.

But I say that is from the perspective of a mathematician. Because the mathematician sees the basic assumptions and says these are consistent and those are also consistent, and now I can derive from either whatever I want. So from these assumptions I’ll derive that the sum of the angles is 180 degrees; from other assumptions I’ll derive that it is 272 degrees. From there—no problem—I can produce for you any geometry you want. Tell me what you want the sum of the angles in a triangle to be, and I can produce such a geometry.

So what does that mean? That everything is arbitrary? But that’s not true. Because physicists—and mathematicians know this too, but from the physicist’s perspective—physicists say that such a geometry simply describes a different kind of space. Non-Euclidean geometry, say spherical geometry on a sphere, fine? Draw a triangle there and it won’t satisfy those conditions. Or parallels on the sphere, depending how you define it, but they will have different properties. The parallels will meet, right? If they all pass through the two poles, then they meet at two points. Right? What does that mean? The geometry there is different, but it is different because the space it describes is different.

But if you give me a given space, there is only one geometry for it, no more. And there too there is only one geometry, on the sphere. Exactly. On the sphere too. Every given space, not only Euclidean—anything. So what does that mean? On the contrary. The example of non-Euclidean geometries, geometries that assume things different from what we met in high school, actually shows the opposite. It shows that the moment there is a geometry with different assumptions, that means you are talking about a different concept, a different space. For one given space there are no games. There is one correct geometry, no more.

And therefore I return to my claim that geometry is true; the assumptions of geometry are axioms not because I chose them arbitrarily, but because it’s obvious that they are true. I don’t need proofs. I look and say: obviously it’s true—these two parallel lines never meet. Why? I have no proof. Did I walk with them all the way to infinity to see that they don’t meet somewhere out there? No. But I’m telling you already now: walk as far as you want, they won’t meet. I promise you, they won’t meet. And I assume I don’t need to promise you; you all know that. Even though none of us went all the way, none of us has a proof about those parallel lines, still it is obvious to us that it is true.

But for many years people believed in Euclidean geometry, and now we know there is the world of Riemann. So what, both exist? Obviously—in different spaces. But they’re here. They’re not here; they’re in a different space. There is some debate about what exactly the nature of our space is, whether it is Euclidean or not. Fine, that’s more a question for physicists than mathematicians. Einstein, for example, says our space is non-Euclidean because masses curve it. Never mind. But given the geometry, the character of the space, there is only one geometry; there isn’t more than one geometry in a given space. When people talk about other geometries, what they are hiding behind that is simply the fact that you are talking about, or are in, a different kind of space. That’s all.

So therefore I say—and on the contrary—in that other space, that geometry is the correct geometry. Meaning, it actually shows exactly what I said: that geometry is something self-evident, and therefore I assume those assumptions—not because it’s arbitrary and I’m allowed to assume whatever I want.

According to Judaism, is the existence of God an axiom, or is it something that needs proof? I just said that when I answer questions of this sort, I usually analyze the question. I don’t know what “according to Judaism” means. Who is Judaism? Your Judaism? My Judaism? His Judaism? I don’t know. Let everyone give his own answer. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, also has to answer me how I am supposed to come to recognition of Him and obligation toward Him. That’s our decision. Each person has his own way of getting there. I don’t know what some universal canonical answer is that all of us are obligated to.

But the proofs too are based on axioms, as is known, okay? Fine. So the axioms merely retreated one step backward. So you’re saying both can live together? Meaning, also in Judaism, both those who think the existence of God is an axiom and those who need proofs? Yes, why not? This is legitimate and that is legitimate. And if I think it isn’t legitimate? Then that’s your assumption that it isn’t legitimate, but he thinks it is. Am I the Holy One, blessed be He? Fine—because I think something, someone else thinks differently. I don’t think I know how to answer questions of the kind “what does Judaism say” about something. What you decide, that’s what Judaism says about that matter for you. Maybe I won’t agree, then we’ll argue, not agree, won’t live together—as you defined axioms.

But even on that basis you still can’t ground an evaluative judgment, presumably. No, these are axioms regarding facts. I’m working in the factual realm because it’s easier for me to demonstrate there; in a moment I’ll return to the evaluative realm. You can’t say that through two points there passes one line and therefore it is beautiful. Obviously, because that’s a fact and this is a judgment. I haven’t solved that problem yet, obviously.

Now, this analysis I made of mathematical claims or factual claims or any logical argument whatever—I want to come back and apply it also to values. In the evaluative realm too, I think one must work in the same way. Facts cannot be the basis—that’s clear; we remove that from the table. So what can be? A value-based justification. But a value-based justification is an infinite regress, because if I bring a value to justify this one, they’ll ask me why that value. You need to go farther back, right? But that’s exactly what I asked about the axioms too. So here as well I’ll say the same thing.

When there are certain values that are self-evident to me, or it is self-evident to me that they are true, why do I need to look for some other basis to justify them? Our assumption somehow is that there always has to be something that proves it. But after all, whatever proves something is itself also based on some axioms. Meaning, in every case we will always start from some point of departure that we apparently accept because it is self-evident to us, and for which we don’t need proofs. Okay?

So if that’s so, then it may well solve for us the problem of evaluative justification too. There may be one person for whom the obligation to serve God is the basic justification. When you ask him why, he says: that’s just how it is, because it is self-evident. If the Holy One, blessed be He, said so, then it must be done. That is an evaluative axiom—not a factual one, but an evaluative one—so there is no problem here of moving from facts to values. Okay?

Someone else will say no, there is some prior value that explains this value of obligation to serve God. Then they’ll ask him what about that prior value. At some stage he too will retreat farther back—it doesn’t matter—at some stage he too will choose for himself some value that for him is an evaluative axiom. And from there he starts. What’s wrong with that?

My question assumed that one cannot adopt something if we have no proof for it. I now want to deny that assumption, deny that assumption. It isn’t true. If something is self-evidently true to me, then I adopt it. If something isn’t, then I look for proofs to see yes or no. Okay? But proofs are not a condition for accepting something. Proofs are crutches for when there is something I don’t know whether to accept or not.

Okay? But the problem is that it isn’t universal. In mathematics, in Euclidean geometry, all the axioms are accepted by everyone. But here the axiom isn’t accepted. Right, agreed. And still I think that even someone for whom it isn’t accepted—I think he is mistaken. True, he doesn’t agree with me and we have a dispute, but I have still managed to ground an obligation from my point of view. Meaning, I claim that this is how one ought to act.

How can you now obligate someone else on the basis of— No, are you asking how practically I can obligate him? No, conceptually I can, because that is what is right. He is wrong. How can you obligate someone not to murder? He too has an axiom. Right. But I go by my axioms. According to my axioms, he too is obligated, not only me. Why is your axiom truer than his axiom? Because that’s what I think—what do you mean? You may not think so, so we’ll argue; if we don’t succeed, then we’ll fight. But how can you ground some ideology that will be accepted by everyone by means of the axioms of one specific person? “Ground” is again the wrong question, because “ground” again means how you conduct the discussion. That’s a practical question. I don’t know how to conduct the discussion. I think there are ways to conduct such a discussion; maybe we’ll talk about that. But I’m not talking about the practical question. I’m talking about whether there is justification.

Someone comes and says, I think murder is permitted. Do I have a claim against him if he murders? Yes, I do. Because he may be mistaken, and he may truly be under compulsion because he really thought murder was permitted—possibly—but still I determine clearly that the man is a criminal, the man did something wrong. We’ll put him in prison, or I don’t know, or into treatment, whatever. Okay? Meaning, we do indeed proceed from our assumptions even though someone else may not accept them. Otherwise, from my perspective too I would have no ability to make claims against him, because what I do too is just because I feel like it. Okay, I’m built a certain way and he is built another way.

But if I make a cognitive claim, I say no—this is the right way to act. Now true, he still doesn’t agree, but now I say fine—but if I think this is the right way to act, then I also have a claim on others to do it. Maybe I won’t succeed in persuading them practically, okay, that happens. And by the way, I might also be wrong—not certain that I am right, I too may be wrong. That too is possible. But that is what I think. So I act according to what I think. But when I think it, I think it—not that “that’s just how I’m built and I feel like it.” That’s the distinction I’m making. Okay?

Now, can you hear? Now let’s try to look at an interesting Maimonides. And it starts in the Talmud. The Talmud discusses idolatry and says as follows in Sanhedrin 61a: “It was stated: one who serves idolatry out of love or out of fear—Abaye said he is liable; Rava said he is exempt. Abaye said he is liable, because he served it. Rava said he is exempt: if he accepted it upon himself as a god, yes; if not, no.”

Meaning, Abaye says: you are liable the moment you served idolatry. What difference does it make if it was out of love or fear? He served it. Rava says no—if it was out of love or fear, he is exempt; only if he accepted it upon himself as a god is he liable. So there are here two views—and the law follows Rava. Abaye and Rava, except for the cases encoded in the mnemonic, the law follows Rava.

So what do we see here? That serving out of love or fear is actually exempt. When is one liable for idolatry? If you accepted the idol upon yourself as a god. Now on the face of it, this is strange, because we are used to—“God made one corresponding to the other,” meaning there is idolatry and there is the service of God. It should work the same way. When you do the thing that should be done toward the Holy One, blessed be He, and direct it toward an idol, then you are serving idolatry. That is what is called religious service. Okay?

So now let’s see what counts as religious service from the sugya of idolatry, and from that we will learn what religious service is supposed to be also in relation to serving God. So in idolatry, Rava tells us—and this is how it is ruled in Jewish law, by Maimonides and all the halakhic authorities—that idolatry out of love or fear is exempt, and if he accepted it as a god he is liable. What does that last sentence mean? In a moment—I need to understand both, in a moment.

Now what does “out of love or fear” mean? When we are used to speaking about serving God, they always tell us, what do you mean? One should serve out of love, serve out of fear. Those are the motivations with which we are supposed to come to the service of God. So here you have someone doing the greatest kind of religious service possible—out of love and out of fear—but to an idol. So he is an idol worshiper in the most impeccable way, no? You don’t have a more refined idol worshiper than that. If you’re looking for someone to stone bright and early in the morning just for fun, you really have someone here.

Love means love of God—service means the service of love of God, not love of the service. Yes, love of God. And what surrounds Him is really the service itself. We’ll see in a moment. No—the plain meaning is love and fear of the idol, love and fear of the idol.

So in a moment. The medieval authorities (Rishonim), almost all of them, explain here that the meaning is love and fear of a human being. Meaning, if you serve idolatry because you love or fear some person, that is not real idolatry. You are not really developing a religious relation to the idol. You’re doing it in order to satisfy someone you love or fear.

And if you say that, then you’ve stepped out of “be killed rather than transgress.” That’s a very interesting question. In any case, this Talmudic passage needs to be understood. In the plain sense, I’ll say in one sentence only, because it requires halakhic analysis, but it seems to me that indeed once you served idolatry under threat, what they kill you for is not the prohibition of idolatry. Because the prohibition of idolatry you committed under duress, so that isn’t idolatry. And they kill you for desecration of God’s name. Fine, that’s a major novelty—that one can be executed for the transgression of desecration of God’s name; where do we find a death penalty for that? But let’s leave that.

“And you shall love… with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” It’s fairly clear, because according to this approach there is no room to speak of idolatry when you do it under compulsion. Meaning, then you didn’t really worship it; it’s not even love and fear, certainly not acceptance as a god, which we’ll define in a moment. None of that exists here. So why should I be liable? I’m exempt. True, but even idolatry for which I am exempt is still forbidden to do. And since I did it, I am liable to death—but not for idolatry, because an act of idolatry done under compulsion does not incur death; according to Jewish law he is exempt. Okay? I am liable to death for desecration of God’s name. Fine.

In any case, as I said, most of the medieval authorities explain love and fear as love and fear of a person. Because of this difficulty. Because it is obvious to them that love and fear of the idol is certainly first-rate idolatry. That is idolatry in every respect. But Maimonides, of course—if everyone says one thing, then Maimonides says the opposite, as is well known.

Here is Rashi, for example, there: “Out of love or out of fear”—out of love of a person or fear of a person. “And he did not think in his heart of divinity.” Not that he really loves or fears it—it isn’t his god—but rather because of love or fear of some person. According to Abaye, didn’t he serve? What? According to Abaye? Abaye holds that it is a consequential prohibition. Meaning, the action itself makes him liable. Meaning, even if here it is love and fear of another person, Abaye just says he served without any— No, love and fear of another person—what do you mean? That is what Abaye makes liable for. Abaye obligates and Rava exempts. Ah, okay. That is the case under discussion for both Abaye and Rava.

But that’s Rashi. Maimonides says in Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, law 6: “One who serves a star-worship object out of love—for example, he desired this form because of its craftsmanship, because it was especially beautiful”—here we arrive at what someone said before, that this is love of the artifact, not of the idol itself—“or who served it out of fear of it, lest it harm him, as its worshipers imagine that it benefits and harms—if he accepted it upon himself as a god, he is liable to stoning. But if he served it in its usual manner or by one of the four forms of worship, out of love or out of fear, he is exempt.”

So Maimonides rules this law according to Rava, that if you serve out of love or fear you are exempt, and if you accepted it as a god you are liable. But in Maimonides this is a legal book. If Maimonides meant to say “out of love or fear of another person,” he should have said so. If he served it out of love or fear of another person, as Rashi explains, then he is exempt. But Maimonides doesn’t say that. “If he served it out of love or fear”—plainly. The terms serving out of love or fear appear in Maimonides in other contexts, and there too it is certainly referring to love and fear of the idol. And that is how his commentators understood him as well: that Maimonides rules the Talmudic text according to its plain meaning, not as the medieval authorities strain it away from its plain meaning because of the difficulty, obviously. But Maimonides rules it in its plain meaning: one who serves out of love or out of fear is exempt. Love and fear of the idol.

So what is “accepting it as a god”? What is this condition that must be met in order to incur liability? How can one nevertheless be stoned for idolatry? If someone is very troubled by that, then yes, an answer has to be given.

So I once heard this from a good friend, and I think it’s a very nice explanation. He says: idolatry can be directed toward any object. It can be directed toward a person, toward a stone, toward some heavenly body, okay? Meaning, if I do something because I fear or love the idol, Maimonides says I am exempt. Now suppose a police officer is standing on the road and I slow down—I’m driving 130, heaven forbid—and I slow to the legal speed because there is a police officer. I fear him. Have I served idolatry? Have I turned the police officer into an idol, something I fear and therefore obey his instructions or the law’s instructions? Is that idolatry? If I obey the law because I’m afraid they’ll punish me, is that idolatry? Doesn’t sound likely, right? So what’s the difference?

That when he’s not there you won’t do it. So what? Fine—out of love and fear, if he isn’t there then no problem. The fear is a condition, but it doesn’t define the service. You also need a definition of an act of worship. That’s what I’m looking for—what is missing here? Rather, what’s missing is your will to do it. Fine, I have a will—out of fear. Because I don’t want to get a fine, I have a will. Like someone who serves the Holy One, blessed be He, out of fear, in order not to get Gehenna. What’s the difference? I didn’t understand. It’s the same thing. This is service out of fear and that is service out of fear. So idolatry, no?

Meaning—notice that when we look at service out of love or fear, we have clarified it into some sort of self-interest. In a place where I do something in order to achieve some result, that is not religious service. We’ve returned to the realm of facts, right? If I am committed to serving God in order that, say, the world be more repaired—then that is not the service of God. That is not the service of God. Maybe the world will be more repaired and maybe not, I don’t know, but that is not the service of God. It is the service of the world, the service of yourself, the service of whatever you want—it is not the service of God.

When you do something in order to obtain some result, that is not the service of God. The service of God, says Maimonides, is when you do something because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. What is “god”? Now that is the question—what does “accepted it upon himself as a god” mean? What is a god? The police officer is not a god. Why? As you said before, if he isn’t here I won’t do it. Or because the fact that I obey what he demands of me is not due to some inner relation of mine to him, some existential commitment to him, but because I want to obtain a result—not pay a fine. Okay?

And if you take medicine, is that idolatry? Because the medicine lowers your fever. Obviously not. You do something in order to obtain the result that thing gives. What’s the problem? What does that have to do with idolatry? Therefore service out of fear—and perhaps out of love too, though that’s subtler—but service out of fear certainly is not the service of God, it is not religious service. Someone who does that to an idol is at most mistaken. He thinks that if he doesn’t defecate to Peor, then he will get sick. As the worshipers of idolatry imagine, yes, that it benefits or harms. The fact that he is mistaken does not turn him into an idol worshiper.

If someone takes a medicine that doesn’t work, is he an idol worshiper? He takes something in order that it heal him. Fine. It doesn’t work, so he is mistaken. An idol worshiper also does something to an idol in order that it do something for him—but he is mistaken. It won’t do anything for him. That is not idolatry. Why? Because what is missing is a very fundamental element of religious service, and that is acceptance as a god. “Acceptance as a god” means: what it says, I do. That is a god. That is the definition of a god.

Meaning, any other factor in the world that I obey—what it expects of me or demands of me—that is because I want to achieve something. Or even just to please it, that too is achieving something, never mind. Fine? That is still achieving something. When I do something because someone said so, period—not because it leads to something, not because it benefits me or benefits him or benefits I don’t know whom, but the very fact that he commanded obligates me—that is called a god. God means that my obligation to him is conditioned on nothing. I do not do it in order to obtain something.

And on this Maimonides says that if you serve idolatry—one second—out of love or out of fear, that is not religious service. You did not serve idolatry. Exactly as serving God out of love or fear is not religious service. It is not religious service. Religious service means that the divine object to which you relate—or God, yes, to whom you relate—you accept upon yourself an obligation that depends on nothing. It has no lashes, no benefits, no explanations. Simply: what He says obligates me by virtue of the fact that He said it.

In the last chapter of Laws of Repentance. Right. “Do the truth because it is truth.” Yes. So why does Maimonides give reasons for the commandments? It’s closer to what Leibowitz says—everything is arbitrary, right. And Leibowitz isn’t wrong, and that still doesn’t contradict the fact that Maimonides gives reasons for the commandments. In a moment I’ll say something about that. Okay? Leibowitz took it one step too far, as is his holy custom—usually in his mistakes.

Do every commandment of the king—you have a king, the king… Are you doing it because you’re afraid of him? Or are you doing it because if the king said it, then it has to be done? If so, that’s idolatry. Idolatry—if you do—and therefore this is a very important point. Notice, for example, in the Nuremberg trials there was this sort of approach: they argued, the law said so. What does it mean, “the law said so”? It means that you are treating the law as though it were God. In other words, whatever is written in the law must be done, period, without criticism, without thinking about where that leads, what it means, whether it is right or not right. Such an attitude can be taken.

What about Hasidism? In a moment, I’ll get to that too. Can I ask you about this week’s Torah portion, about the binding of Isaac and Sodom—there he argues, and here he doesn’t argue? No, you can argue. But the assumption is that if in the end the Holy One, blessed be He, demands it of me, he will do it. No problem—arguing is allowed. Asking “why” is also allowed. But in the end there is an obligation. What the Holy One, blessed be He, said, I do. And that is what is called accepting Him as a god. That doesn’t mean not arguing.

But according to that, then the whole discussion regarding Abraham going to the binding—it doesn’t even get off the ground. What do you mean? There is no moral judgment standing opposite the command of God? No, why not? The question is whether your obligation to the service of God necessarily outweighs your moral obligation. Even if I have an obligation to the service of God that is unconditioned by anything, but opposite it stands another value, it may be that I won’t fulfill it, because when values conflict, I will always fulfill one and not the other. I’m speaking now only about one side of the equation. If there is a second side, perhaps I’ll be in conflict and I don’t know what I’ll do.

In this week’s Torah portion, Abraham himself—the binding—he was speaking with the Holy One, blessed be He, guests arrived, and he left Him. Yes. When values conflict, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in one of the values. When there is a conflict, one must choose. His thought was that serving God is such that even—exactly. Meaning, the value of serving God exists by virtue of the fact that He commanded—not because it is useful and not because, I don’t know, there is some reason or another reason, but by virtue of the fact that He commanded. That is called religious service in relation to idolatry, and that is called religious service in relation to serving God. It is the same thing—one corresponding to the other. Okay.

Now really I have to finish here, so I’ll just close the circle and we’ll continue next time. Because of course the questions are obvious—so what are people talking about when they speak here about love and fear, serving God out of love, serving God out of fear, and so on? This is Leibowitz’s mistake: he always takes a correct principle and carries it one step too far. And here too, the same thing.

The fact that I serve God by virtue of the fact that He commanded—that is what obligates me, not love, not fear, not one benefit or another, not a health fund, as he always used to say, yes—those kinds of things. That’s true. But it does not mean one should not love and fear Him. It does not mean that the reasons for the commandments that come up in the Guide for the Perplexed are irrelevant; it does not mean that the commandments have no reasons. Of course they do. It’s just that the reason I do them is not because of the reasons.

Meaning, does the fact that I do something because I am obligated to it mean it has to be irrational? We talked about that yesterday. Does the fact that I do something because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it mean the thing has no logic, no reason? Of course not. Or that I shouldn’t love and fear the Holy One, blessed be He? Of course I should. That’s unrelated. It’s just that my service of Him does not depend on my love and fear of Him. The service depends on this. If one morning I wake up and I don’t love Him, don’t fear Him, I don’t know, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, He annoyed me during the night—fine, I don’t love Him and don’t fear Him right now. But I’ll continue observing all the commandments. That is religious service in every respect.

What then? The first level is there—there is service of God here—not perfect service, because the level of love and the level of fear are not here now. Fine. But that is levels B and C, not level A. Level A is obligation.

And I think that if you ask any person who is committed to the commandments, this isn’t such a great novelty. If you ask any such person why he observes commandments, then of course, in the usual way—if he hasn’t gone through the whole process we just went through—he’ll immediately look for answers, he’ll pull all kinds of things out of the granary and the winepress. But no answer really stands up. No answer really stands up. The reason he does it is simply because he understands that he is obligated, period. That’s all.

But it is very hard for a person to accept such an answer because—what, that’s not rational? What are you, an idiot? You just do things for no reason? It’s not “just things.” There are things that are self-evidently right to me. That is not a whim. Rather, it is an evaluative axiom. Meaning, self-evident, like an axiom in geometry. The axiom in geometry is not arbitrary; rather, it is self-evidently true. Here too, same thing. That is an enormous difference.

Someone might come and say: I do it because, well, I feel like it, arbitrarily. Then that’s nothing—that’s not the service of God, it’s just nonsense. But if someone says: I do it; I have no more basic reason that justifies it, but I don’t need a more basic reason. It is clear to me that if the Holy One, blessed be He, commands, I need to do it, because I have accepted Him upon myself as a god. That is what it means to accept Him upon myself as a god. Okay? That is an excellent answer. In my opinion, the only one there is.

Okay, therefore I think that what Maimonides is really saying here, in a certain sense, answers the question why serve God—even though this is in the Laws of Idolatry, it answers the question why serve God. The answer is: that’s just how it is. That’s just how it is. What do you mean? “That’s just how it is” not in the sense of “that’s just how I feel like it.” By the way, I think Leibowitz himself was a bit confused about this. I don’t think he understood himself, in my opinion. Meaning, when he said “that’s how it is,” I think at least what he really meant was the second kind of “that’s how it is.” He presented it as some arbitrary “that’s how it is,” “I feel like it,” and if not I’ll shoot you—those sorts of remarks.

What was he trying to say? It was a kind of collapse, a helplessness: I have no justifications for you, I don’t know how to justify it. And as a positivist, if he has no justifications, then it isn’t rational. But that’s not true. Positivists are wrong about this, because every justification assumes basic premises—we talked about the positivists—because every justification assumes basic premises. Even when you have a justification, you need to start from basic assumptions. So how will you explain why the basic assumptions are true? Because it is self-evident that they are true. So the “that’s how it is” here is that—not the arbitrary “that’s how it is,” but “that’s how it is because it’s clear that that’s how it is.” The Holy One, blessed be He, made me, so I need to fulfill what He said. That is what is called accepting Him upon myself as a god.

When students once asked me in Yerucham why one needs to study Torah, they began looking for explanations: it’s useful, it helps fulfill the commandments, I don’t know, you become a more complete person, all kinds of explanations. I asked them a question about the question: why do I need an explanation for why to study Torah? If that explanation is given to you in terms of value X, you’ll ask, so why is value X right? The question is what your basic value system is. If you know how to point to it, then it does not need explanation in terms of more fundamental values. Rather, these are my basic things, my evaluative axioms. In my eyes, Torah study is one of those. So I don’t look for a more fundamental explanation for why to study Torah. In my eyes, it is more self-evident than anything else. And therefore I study Torah.

So if you bring me an explanation in terms of something else, how does that help me? It’s like an English-English dictionary that explains one unclear word by means of ten other words that are even less clear. It’s the same thing. Your explanation doesn’t help me at all. You are taking a principle that is self-evident and explaining it to me by means of something that itself is not clear to me. And what for? If I have something self-evident, I don’t need a dictionary. Fine.