The consciousness of a servant of God

Just to clarify your opinion:
Do you perceive the Halacha and the mitzvot as a framework for life and not as the content of life itself?
That is, is there a time in the day that is “free” when I do as I please (as long as it does not conflict with the Halacha)?

Of course, my question is whether it is appropriate (=the will of God), and not whether it contradicts the Halacha.

I do tend to think this way about the commandments. Of course, I have no evidence and I don't know how to provide evidence for this. We can talk about verses like “In all your ways, know Him” and the like, but they can be interpreted in different ways (like the verses of the Bible in general).
Torah, unlike mitzvot, is indeed a way of life (and this difference was already discussed in Nefesh Ha-Hayim, which devoted a separate chapter to Torah, and more). Study and application in decision-making and in the way of looking at things do take and should take a significant and central part in our lives and thinking (and also in our attitude to everything that happens around us, and in our society). This is called living according to Torah, and I think that it certainly has value. But there are people who are not suitable or are not interested in living in this way, and apparently that is also legitimate (even if as a second priority, at least for those who are built for it). These are the homeowners, a legitimate institution in my opinion (although I wouldn't want to be one).

Only one. Jewish society is supposed to be built in circles. At the center are the Torah scholars who engage in Torah at the center of their lives as I described. Around them in ever-widening circles are the Baal’batim, and Jewish society is the combination of all of these. The people in the fields do not have to live with the Torah in their minds throughout the day, but rather lead their lives as any person does (like the returnees from the war in my words above). Just as not everyone has to be a priest, but the people are made up of all the circles: Cohen, Levi, and Israel. In short, the ideal model deals with the form of society as a whole and not the form of an individual. Perhaps this is what saves and gives meaning to the life of an individual, who, if he were to live outside the framework of Jewish society that includes all the circles and strata, would be supposed to fulfill all the meanings and functions by himself and alone (both being his own Torah scholar and his own Baal’bat). This is the advantage of society.

Hi

I'm trying to understand from your words what the priorities of what you call a “Jewish society” (= a society that lives according to the Torah).
On the one hand, you say that ”at the center are the people of the Torah”, which according to what you say here is a ”way of life”.
On the other hand, there are the “commandments” intended for everyone, including the &#8221 people of the Torah”, presumably.

Now if I were to point a gun at your head and ask: What comes first? What, from the perspective of the Torah (probably referring to the Pentateuch itself), is more important?
What would your answer be?

I answered that. Even at gunpoint, I wouldn't change what I wrote. 🙂

Since I am naturally difficult to understand, I ask this question to make sure I understand: From your perspective, does the way of life of the Torah people precede the way of the Baal-Bats? Prior, meaning more important. True?

I can't explain it any better than I have done so far. Apologies.

Okay, so your honor will make a decision that he understood and your answer is “yes”. ?
In my next response I will allow myself to make it difficult for you based on this decision

Well….
Basically, the topic you are talking about here is religious-spiritual excellence and the question is what, according to Judaism, at least in your interpretation, is the more desirable norm to achieve that excellence.
Your answer: The sage norm (Torah as a way of life), as opposed to the Baalbati norm.
Are you with me this far?

Doron, have you decided to exhaust me? I wrote my opinion above. It's not as simplistic as you present it.

I didn't mean to be rude, of course, but if it happened even unintentionally, I can only thank God for small and pleasant favors like these.
Simplistic, you say? Why simplistic? You present an ideal wise norm and you write explicitly that it is superior to the Baalbatish norm. What is wrong with what I said and what is “simplistic” about it? Your words above are sharp and clear.

I wrote that in the private sector it is better. But there is also a level of society that is naturally divided into circles. We can talk about an ideal model for society and not for an individual.

Michael Shelly…

Shabbat to my spread? Is there any point in issuing a stern warning to the innocent and helpless sandwiches roaming the streets of your website, exposed to your attacks…? Small sandwiches, devoid of spread and empty of content who do not know about your plots to cover them with your spreads…

In the meantime, I understand that you agree with my analysis regarding the private sphere.

In my next response I will address the public sphere (if I do not find myself buried under layers and layers of viscous spreads that will hide the sunlight from my soma eyes 🙂

I lost you. Is there any argument you are making?

Yes, there is. Here it is:
The principle of spiritual excellence in Judaism, as you interpret it, is logically flawed.
The flaw lies, in my opinion, in the relationship between what you call the private level of “wise” excellence and the social level that includes the entire public (in the household and the wise).
In fact, the social level “does not belong”, as you dosis say, to excellence at all. The Torah does not attribute any virtue or “good” or excellence to the norm of observing the commandments. According to it, the commandments given by God are obligatory to observe and there is no logical or “moral” reason for this. The entire power of the commandments derives from the fact that they were given by a higher being.
In fact, you yourself hint at this when you say that the private homeowner takes a ride on Jewish society, at the center of which stand the sages, and it is they who ”elevate” him to the path of the wise Torah. A Jew who keeps nothing but mitzvot (whether he is a layman or a truly wise man) does not “elevate” at all.
To summarize this part of my argument: the social category “complementary” to the private wise norm is an empty category in the context of this discussion.

So far I have only analyzed the reality that I think emerges from your words. I have not yet pointed out the problem explicitly. I will do that in the next response.

And here is the logical problem in all its severity:

The embarrassed Jew (I wanted to write “The embarrassed person”, but a burst of delightful auto-anti-Semitism attacked me from within for no wrongdoing on my part) who aspires to religious-spiritual growth faces the following trap:

The commandments from God are supposed to be the platform in relation to which he is supposed to grow spiritually: to study Torah, interpret it, delve into it, shape his lifestyle in new ways from it, etc. But according to what you say from the outset, it is not possible to extract any meaning from that platform at all. This platform is supposedly indifferent to man's spiritual aspirations.
It is not for nothing that the intelligent reader asks you whether, in your opinion, the commandments are only a framework for life and not content, and you answer that you are indeed inclined to think so.
On the other hand, we know very well that Jews - like humans in general - certainly manage to grow in spiritual aspects (intellectually, culturally, morally, etc.). But since, according to your words, it appears that they do not grow from the materialistic platform (the commandments), it appears that this spiritual development is not Jewish at all. All the good, beautiful, and rich that grows from the Torah of Israel is not Israeli at all.

(The following comment is in parentheses because a beast like me knows a righteous soul, and in the opinion of that beast, this righteous one would say that he does not understand what I am saying at all… Therefore, I write to myself solely as a therapeutic act, although I have no doubt that in my case nothing will be of any use to me.
There is a deep connection between the analytical position and the logical structure that underlies your perception here. Analytical thought is generally based on the negation of separations in reality: our judgments have no separate and independent content of their own and are therefore empty, that is, they exist as tautologies. This is how complete certainty is apparently achieved for those judgments.
But in many cases, the analytical theory or ideology sets up pairs of opposites or separations at the beginning with the aim of returning to and nullifying them later. A kind of dialectic. In our case, the pair of opposites is the social plane, the foolish one, versus the private plane, the wise one.
As I have shown, at least in my opinion, the apparent duality between A norm that is a “wise” norm is false.
Given that this is the case, the theory defeats itself: it is based on a paradoxical principle or idea.

The gullible reader who bothers to follow my comments on this site knows very well that this argument, which I repeat again and again, repeats itself in different contexts. The logical structure is always the same structure, only applied in different contexts. For example, the false duality that I always recognize in Judaism between the Torah and God. It seems to me that this falsehood can also be found in the relationship between the written Torah and the written Torah, and in other places.

It seems that I need to clarify a few points in my method.
I am not claiming that the mitzvot have no value and no point. On the contrary, they have a lot of value and a lot of point, but not on the moral level. Those who live by the mitzvot are certainly better than others, but not necessarily in a moral sense but in a religious sense.
The commandment is the reason that requires their existence but not the reason that is achieved by existence. As in the law, the reason that gives it validity is the legislation, but it is not correct to assume that all laws have no value and no point. Value and point are not the basis for the obligation to do something but only indicate the benefit of doing it.
The picture of the circles that I described, with the students of the Sages as the core and the Baalbatim as the periphery, is a social model that tries to achieve the above religious values.
It is certainly possible to extract meanings from the world of the mitzvot, but usually not moral meanings. A halakhic and Torah perspective influences the perception of the world in general, even if it cannot always be articulated.

A. The Rabbi wrote that legislation gives validity to the law. And I ask, who gives validity to legislation? The general principle that laws with reasons are needed. In any case, when there is a law without a reason, legislation has no validity if it were not for the logic anchored in the law that a law must be observed even without a reason in order to maintain order and not for everyone to judge for themselves. It turns out that every law without a reason has a general reason for its observance while it is defined as a law. And the same goes for the commandments. If the reason for their existence on the part of the Creator is doing good, I do not care on the part of man. If the commandments advance man morally, what do I care about the reason for observing the commandments? In practice, he behaves morally. The question of what is the motive for a man's good deeds belongs when his motive is part of the judgment and motivation, and without it the man would not have performed that good deed. (However, the Rabbi will say that a good deed without intention is not defined as good.) However, in religion, as the Rabbi emphasized, the man observes because of the commandment. And not because of the motive. In any case, the motive does not concern his moral positions, but only his actions. The enforcer of the commandment is not a player on the field here. He is only the coach.
B. If we assume that the commandments are supposed to advance a person to where he is and to make him a better person, then God made them in such a way that they will indeed advance a person. If so, the one who keeps them will necessarily become a better person. A child takes medicine because his mother told him to. Not to be cured. But he necessarily gets cured. So, simply put, it does not belong to reality that a person keeps the commandments properly (it is possible to throw them away and use them as a hatchet, but this method is not in accordance with our Torah and here is a deviation from the manufacturer's instructions).
C. What is the source of the rabbi's reason for keeping the commandments?

You answered yourself. The reason for a system of laws is a general reason for maintaining the system and not a reason for each law separately. In my third book I distinguished between two types of value principles, עשר.
I did not understand the question. In my opinion, the reason for the mitzvot is religious and not moral. And the analogy to morality is complete: there is value in existence if it is done out of a commitment to the commandment.
The mitzvot are intended to advance the person or the world for religious and not necessarily moral purposes. Without the intention, this purpose is not achieved (at least not in full).
Refer to the fifth notebook or the fifth conversation in the first book.

Mikhi,
I don't see any sense in this move in which he attributes a "religious" rather than a moral value to the commandments. Especially not in light of your insistence that they are a framework without content (as you explicitly wrote above). A framework, as you know, is empty, and the fact that you attached the attribute "religious" to it will not suddenly fill it with meaning and content. If so, what good did the owners of the houses gain by regulating them?

I also don't find in your words any reference to the paradox I pointed out, according to which the path of the wise Torah is a prerequisite for the commandments but at the same time is also conditioned by them.

Leibowitz before you, who held a position very similar to yours, said something of the same logical form:

"Halakha is founded on faith, but it is also what establishes this faith. In other words, the Jewish religion creates the belief on which it is based. This is a logical paradox, but not a religious paradox.

Beautiful words, but in my opinion they are meaningless. What is a "religious paradox"? What kind of animal is this? When you add the attribute "logical" to the word "paradox," is the paradox supposed to be solved as if by magic? Very strange.

In the first place, I bring up Leibowitz because I think that on this point you hold the same failed position.

Correction (What? Only a shill is allowed to fool his readers..?):

“When you add the attribute “religious” to the word “paradox,” is the paradox supposed to be solved as if by magic?

Doron,
You burst into an open door. I have written more than once about how I do not accept paradoxes, religious or not. A paradox does not solve anything but only declares that there is no solution. Therefore, do not associate me with Leibowitz, and if he says any nonsense, please address your claims to him and not to me.
But I really do not understand what the problem is. When I say (and not “insist”) that Halacha is a framework for life, I mean to say that it is not everything but only an expression of their religious dimension. The general moral and ethical dimension runs parallel to it and does not overlap with it.
Very simple and, as far as I understand, completely devoid of paradoxes.
I did not understand what the paradox was that I did not refer to.

It seems to me that our concepts of doors and their opening are a bit different.

In your last response you used the spatial image of Kabbalah (“going on in parallel”), while in your first responses you used a different image (center and periphery). I personally prefer the image of floors on top of each other, but oh well.
Of course you can protest and claim that I am being petty about metaphors, but in this case your (unconscious?) stylistic change reveals the essence behind it.

In my humble opinion, your first image reflected much more your perception and the failures I find in it here and there. It is not for nothing that I linked you to Leibovitz in this case, despite your protests.

So I allow myself to return to my earlier and more authentic mikhi (sorry and pardon my later mikhi). If you join me, it will be very easy for you to understand - even if you do not agree - my claim that there is a paradox here:

The plane of the Baal’bati commandments serves as a condition and basis for the intellectual plane, but at the same time it is based on it. To me, this seems like a classic paradox.

You must deal with this claim.

[I reiterate a more general statement: I have the impression that there are hidden logical territories that you have not yet explored in the analytical universe. And less metaphorically: I dare to claim that you do not see the very strong connection between negative dialectics (a movement that defeats itself) and the analytical position.]

Doron, we've reached the point where I've completely lost you.

Miki, I'm not buying. Sorry.

Sellers only

((Reflections I wrote down for myself:

First point: At first you used the metaphor of the periphery to the center. This metaphor implies that there is a relationship of emanation (or at least conditioning) between the two sides: there is no meaning to spiritual growth and the ”Torah path” if there are no given commandments that can be referred to and from which one can grow, as it were. The commandments on the periphery supposedly give the wise “Torah path”.
What is not clear?
Then you slipped, in my opinion without noticing, into another metaphor of “Kabbalah”: the Torah path in the new version is entirely parallel to the commandments (i.e., it no longer conditions them). The commandments in the new picture are not related to the Torah path at all, but are simply in close proximity to it.
That's my description of what you did. What is not understood here?

A second point concerns the manner of conditioning, which in my opinion is paradoxical. This paradox arises from the metaphor of center and periphery: in the absence of a platform of commandments in the periphery, there is no spiritual growth possible in its center. The concept of center has no meaning without the concept of periphery. On the other hand, the commandments in the periphery have no meaning if the person does not relate to them and interpret them. In other words, the commandments do not “exist” at all without the path of the Torah that addresses them. The center carries the periphery on its back.
(As I said, I prefer the metaphor of levels because it better illustrates the conditional relationships and the paradoxes that I believe are in the background)).