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observance

שו”תCategory: faithobservance
asked 1 year ago

Hello Rabbi
Almost all the mitzvot that I keep are out of habit, and not out of a true understanding of the mitzvah. If I act from inner sincerity, I cannot continue to keep those incomprehensible mitzvot until I explain their meaning. But explaining all these little details is a matter of years, and even that is not necessarily possible, so I am actually at a point where I have to choose whether to continue to keep certain mitzvot out of habit, or only keep what I understand. Either way, it is a significant decision that as time goes by I cannot remain without a choice. Now it is clear that you as a rabbi will not write to me not to keep a mitzvot, but I need a real and deep investigation into the observance of the mitzvot (perhaps a book that you can recommend?). I will emphasize that I believe in God and the Torah, and I strive to keep all the direct commandments from God. The point is the mitzvot that were written by humans.
Thank you very much in advance!


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מיכי Staff answered 2 months ago
I don’t know what is expected of me as a rabbi. I tell people that if they don’t believe, they won’t keep it. A person should act according to his conclusions and positions. Of course, he can be held accountable if he is wrong. But to your question, I don’t agree that one must understand the details or even the mitzvah as a whole in order to fulfill it. Why would that be? If you have faith in the giver of the Torah, then you see that his words must be fulfilled, and apparently they are also beneficial. So why not fulfill them? And why don’t you take a medicine prescribed by a doctor if you don’t understand how it works? And why isn’t the law binding if you don’t understand it or agree with it?

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ת replied 1 year ago

I don't trust the resident”A… this was written by humans and they can certainly be wrong in their conclusions

מיכי Staff replied 1 year ago

If you don't have faith, then what's the question? Those who don't have faith will not keep it. I just noted that contrary to what people think, faith does not depend on authenticity. Even if the sages did not intend the intention of God when giving the Torah, they still have the authority to interpret the Torah and therefore their interpretation is binding. This is written in the Torah itself in "You shall not turn aside." Therefore, the question of whether to obey them does not depend on whether they were right or wrong. It must be understood that without interpretation, the Torah is raw material empty of content. Anyone can interpret it as they wish. Therefore, it is reasonable that God gave the Torah assuming that people would interpret it.

טירגיץ replied 1 year ago

But you hold the view that in general the Sages in their considerations did indeed aim at the will of God (and it was evidently also the case at the time of the giving of the Torah), and only for this reason is there a fundamental importance to the study of Torah. In other words, for the study, trust is indeed critical. And so it is not possible that the Torah is raw material as empty as a telephone pole. https://mikyab.net/posts/85100/#comment-79910
And hence the question, in your opinion, is it true that a person who does not believe in authenticity at all, that is, thinks that the Sages were wrong in all their words and interpretations, must indeed obey all the laws that they demanded from the Torah, but in his opinion there is no point in teaching oral Torah that is not practical law.

In the 3rd of the month of Omer, the Lord commanded in His Torah, “Do all the Torah that is written in it.” Thus, He handed over His Torah to the interpretation of the sages.

With blessings, Shchel

And Hillel has already shown the stranger who claimed that he only accepts what is explicit in the Torah, that even in order to read the Torah, he needed the tradition that teaches that A is A and B is B, and all the more so since the text of the Torah needs the reliability of its morals.

מיכי Staff replied 1 year ago

Tirgitz, this is a difficult question. It seems to me that in such a situation there is an obligation to observe because “you shall not depart”, but studying Torah becomes empty. Because there is no point in learning things just because they are obligatory. You study to understand the truth. Study will become a mitzvah instrument for observing the mitzvot.

יחיאל replied 1 year ago

To Mr. Tirgitz's question -
In the book Maggid Meishram of Beit Yosef it is told that once Beit Yosef innovated some innovation, and then the Maggid came to him and told him that the innovation was not true, Beit Yosef asked him if he should delete the innovation and the Maggid replied that he forbid him to delete it because he is sharp in the Torah's subtleties even when it is not true. And this seems to me to answer your questions here and in the responses to the above columns, because unlike the halakha in practice there, one must completely refine the truth that he intended, so studying Torah is a mitzvah anyway.

טירגיץ replied 1 year ago

Yechiel, if this is not Torah at all, then why should there be a mitzvah to study Torah? It is not clear that the essential virtue of Torah study (devotion) should not exist, nor should a regular mitzvah be, like the one who eats a lemon and believes it is an etrog, and that is how I understood Rabbi Michai's answer, which is that there is only a mitzvah device. [And it does not appear that after a mitzvah to fulfill then there is an inherent mitzvah to learn what one is commanded to fulfill, just as there is no mitzvah to study one's father's words in order to know how to honor him]. The word "chadi" does not determine that there is a mitzvah in this, and in general, evidence from the Maggids (and the words of Kabbalah) is not sufficient.

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