Why and How to Observe the Commandments in Light of Maimonides’ Thought (Column 631)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

I have addressed more than once my view regarding the basis of serving God and of our religious obligation. My claim is that they cannot be grounded on any moral or other principle that precedes them. Parts of this have already appeared briefly and partially in several places on the site. I thought it worthwhile to present my approach to the matter fully and systematically (hence there will be some repetition of things already written).

Here I rely on various sources in Maimonides’ writings. This is done to assist those who need sources (unlike me); in these matters there is no room to lean on someone’s authority. For my purposes this is correct in its own right, and the engagement with Maimonides is mainly in order to “say a thing in the name of its speaker,” as well as to clarify Maimonides’ position—“to magnify Torah and make it glorious.”

The Axiomatic Foundation of Serving God

In Sanhedrin 61b the Talmud brings a dispute among the Amoraim regarding idolatry performed out of love and fear:

איתמר העובד עבודה זרה מאהבה ומיראה אביי אמר חייב רבא אמר פטור אביי אמר חייב דהא פלחה רבא אמר פטור אי קבליה עליה באלוה אין אי לא לא.

According to Rava, one who worships an idol out of love and fear is exempt. The obvious question arises: what motivation for idolatry would incur liability? Seemingly, such a person is directing toward the idol the deepest religious motivations—love and fear—that ought to be directed toward the Holy One, blessed be He; and if even in such a case he is exempt, it is unclear how we can ever find a first-rate idolater beyond this.

Apparently for this reason Rashi there writes:

מאהבה ומיראה – מאהבת אדם ומיראת אדם, ולא חשבה בלבו באלהות.

Several other Rishonim wrote likewise. Admittedly this is a strained reading of the sugya, for the simple sense is love and fear of the idol (no other person is mentioned there), but the difficulty apparently leads them to force the interpretation.

Maimonides, however, in Laws of Idolatry 3:6, interprets it in its straightforward sense (see also my columns 71 and 199):

העובד עבודת כוכבים מאהבה כגון שחשק בצורה זו מפני מלאכתה שהיתה נאה ביותר, או שעבדה מיראתו לה שמא תריע לו כמו שהן מדמים עובדיה שהיא מטיבה ומריעה, אם קבלה עליו באלוה חייב סקילה ואם עבדה דרך עבודתה או באחת מארבע עבודות מאהבה או מיראה פטור, המגפף עבודת כוכבים והמנשק לה והמכבד והמרבץ לפניה והמרחיץ לה והסך והמלביש והמנעיל וכל כיוצא בדברי כבוד האלו עובר בלא תעשה שנאמר ולא תעבדם ודברים אלו בכלל עבודה הן, ואף על פי כן אינו לוקה על אחת מהן לפי שאינן בפירוש, ואם היתה דרך עבודתה באחד מכל הדברים האלו ועשהו לעבדה חייב.

He of course rules like Rava, following the rule that the law accords with him against Abaye except for a handful of cases (יע״ל קג״ם), but he takes Rava at face value: it is about love and fear of the idol itself, not of a person. Indeed, the Raavad there objects to him on precisely this point:

ואנו מפרשין מאהבת אדם ומיראת אדם ולא מאהבת עבודת כוכבים ולא מיראתה.

How are we to understand Maimonides? He reads the sugya simply, but the difficulty remains: how can we find an idolater who will be liable? What motivation could there be beyond love and fear?

Maimonides himself in that halacha addresses this point and formulates it thus: “If he accepted it upon himself as a god—he is liable to stoning.” In other words, he contrasts worship out of love and fear with worship that stems from “accepting it as a god.” What is this acceptance as a god? It must be a different, more fundamental motivation than love and fear.

I once heard an explanation of Maimonides’ words from my friend Prof. Nadav Shnerb (whose words were later written up in this article). He explained that idolatry must be done out of absolute and fundamental commitment to the commands of the idol. If it is done out of love or fear of the idol, then the worship is “foreign” also in the sense of the worshiper’s motivation. He is essentially serving himself—his own interests and feelings—and not the idol. He wishes to gratify his own feelings (the love and fear he feels toward the idol), and these are what lead him to worship the idol. Therefore such a person is not considered an idolater “par excellence.”

Think of a person who wishes to take a certain path and sees a fire there, so he detours in order not to be burned. Is he not “worshiping” the fire out of fear? He is obeying the fire out of fear of it. Well, in the case of fire one can argue, since some would say idolatry is only when the idol is powerless and the fear is imaginary. Beyond that, there is no idol issuing commands here. So what would you say about someone driving faster than the speed limit who, upon seeing a traffic officer, slows down—does he practice idolatry? He is apparently obeying the officer (and the law) out of fear. He fears the punishment of the “idol,” and therefore slows down. How is this different from idolatry? The fact that the officer is a person and not a statue should not change anything. It is certainly possible to engage in idolatry toward human beings, even more so than toward idols of wood and stone. If so, this would seem to be idolatry out of fear.

This seems to depend as well on a dispute among the Rishonim (see briefly here): some hold that there is no real substance to idolatry’s power. But the officer’s threat is real, not imagined. Yet there are Rishonim who hold that worshiping an idol is prohibited even if it does possess real powers. Maimonides, in several places including the halacha cited above, maintains that there is nothing to it (“as its worshipers imagine that it bestows good or evil”). Even according to him, however, we can ask: what about a person who errs and thinks someone is a police officer and slows down? Here there is error. How is this different from idolatry (which, according to Maimonides, is itself an error)? Consider also the case of someone who obeys the Talmud’s instruction not to enter a ruin or not to walk in the desert (on account of demons). Assuming that is an error, is this idolatry out of fear?

Simply put, the prohibition of idolatry is not founded on the error, but on the idolatry itself. The error is at most a condition (and as noted, this is itself disputed among the Rishonim). What, then, is the difference between worship out of fear of an idol and obeying someone disguised as an officer? One senses that ritual plays some role here. But rituals are merely a set of actions imagined by the idol’s worshipers. How is that different from the instructions of an officer or of a demon? How do we define acts that are religious worship?

It seems to me that in this halacha Maimonides offers a reasonable and compelling resolution. His claim is that any obedience contingent upon something (fear of a consequence, imagined or real) is not religious service. If you obey because you fear some outcome, you are not serving the idol. Religious service is service done “for its own sake,” i.e., not for any external consideration. You accept the idol upon yourself as a god—that is, you are committed to obey it with no ulterior motive. You obey it by virtue of its being a god. This is the essence of religious service and his definition of ritual. If you direct those motivations toward an idol, that is idolatry par excellence. Idolatry out of love or fear is performed for side reasons and not out of a mandatory, unconditional commitment to the command; thus it is not idolatry par excellence.

The Motivation for Serving God

From here we can learn about the motivation for serving God. We saw that religious service—whether positive or negative—is only service that stems from “accepting God as God.” Any other motivation is “foreign.” Religious service is not done to attain something or to prevent something; it is a fundamental value in and of itself. Hence, any teleological or outcome-based consideration is not religious service but rather rational action to achieve some goal or interest.

In Scripture, the term “Elohim” also describes judges (“Then shall the owner of the house come near to the elohim,” see Sanhedrin 3a and elsewhere). The reason is that judges have authority that obligates one to heed them. Obedience is obligatory by virtue of their being judges—not to obtain or avoid anything, and not even because one agrees with them. This is precisely the meaning of “God” (Elohim) with regard to the Holy One as well. Accepting Him as God means seeing Him as one whom one must obey by virtue of what He is, and not for some teleological or other reason.

This connects to a distinction I have drawn here more than once (see, for example, columns 477, 568, and others) between formal authority and substantive authority. Substantive authority is that of a physician or other expert. I accept his statements and instructions because he understands this and is likely not mistaken. My reason for following him is not his authority but my desire to achieve some outcome and the recognition that he is an expert who knows better than I how to achieve that outcome. This is not really authority in the full sense of the word. One who does not heed a physician, a physicist, or a mathematician is simply being foolish—but not committing a transgression. There is no obligation to obey them; it is simply rational to do so. By contrast, the authority of a parliament or a judge is formal authority. One obeys them not because they are never wrong or because they are experts—certainly not. One obeys them because they are institutions vested with authority. By virtue of the Knesset being the supreme legislative body, there is an obligation to obey it. In this terminology we can say that God is a source of formal authority, not merely substantive. He may also be right and all-knowing, but the obligation to obey Him does not derive from that, rather from His being God. Accepting God as God is the internalization and decision to accept His (formal) authority as God.

I will only note that obedience to the Knesset cannot truly be for its own sake and without an external reason, for otherwise obedience to the Knesset would itself be idolatry. Not for nothing do some columnists and Haredi rabbis indeed view it that way. There is something to that. Obedience to parliament must derive from halacha or from morality, which themselves are based on divine command. Absent that, it would indeed be idolatry. For this reason I have often explained that even commitment to morality must derive from religious commitment to God. Note, this is a religious claim—i.e., one who acts against it is a transgressor. One must distinguish it from the claim that without God morality has no validity. That is a different claim, belonging to the philosophical rather than the religious plane (see column 456); one who violates it is inconsistent, i.e., mistaken.

You can see this conception at the beginning of chapter 10 of Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance (see also column 559), where he writes:

א. אל יאמר אדם הריני עושה מצות התורה ועוסק בחכמתה כדי שאקבל כל הברכות הכתובות בה או כדי שאזכה לחיי העולם הבא, ואפרוש מן העבירות שהזהירה תורה מהן כדי שאנצל מן הקללות הכתובות בתורה או כדי שלא אכרת מחיי העולם הבא, אין ראוי לעבוד את ה’ על הדרך הזה, שהעובד על דרך זה הוא עובד מיראה ואינה מעלת הנביאים ולא מעלת החכמים, ואין עובדים ה’ על דרך זה אלא עמי הארץ והנשים והקטנים שמחנכין אותן לעבוד מיראה עד שתרבה דעתן ויעבדו מאהבה.

ב. העובד מאהבה עוסק בתורה ובמצות והולך בנתיבות החכמה לא מפני דבר בעולם ולא מפני יראת הרעה ולא כדי לירש הטובה אלא עושה האמת מפני שהוא אמת וסוף הטובה לבא בגללה, ומעלה זו היא מעלה גדולה מאד ואין כל חכם זוכה לה, והיא מעלת אברהם אבינו שקראו הקדוש ברוך הוא אוהבו לפי שלא עבד אלא מאהבה והיא המעלה שצונו בה הקדוש ברוך הוא על ידי משה שנאמר ואהבת את ה’ אלהיך, ובזמן שיאהוב אדם את ה’ אהבה הראויה מיד יעשה כל המצות מאהבה.

Any extraneous motive for serving God is considered service “not for its own sake.” The service must be done under the rubric of “doing the truth because it is truth.” Religious obligation is not grounded on a more fundamental rationale; it is a value in itself and is grounded in itself.[1]

A Look at Chains of Justification

At first glance, this seems an irrational demand. Why should I do something merely because someone commanded it? Why do things absent any benefit or reason to perform them? In column 120 and elsewhere I discussed altruism and action without self-interested motive, showing that it exists, and indeed argued there that without it there is no morality in the world. Here I will explain a bit more.

Every chain of justification must eventually end at axioms that themselves are not based on anything prior. This is true for all kinds of justification: mathematical, legal, philosophical, moral, halachic, and so on. The alternative is an infinite regress of justification, which is patently unacceptable (see my book “The Necessary Being”, Conversation Two). Does this fact render all justification pointless—since in the end everything is based on assumptions that themselves are unjustified, so what is the point of such a chain? The only way to see justification as meaningful is if we regard the axioms as claims that are self-evident. These are foundational principles that require no justification, for they are true even without it. Descartes called this “evidence,” i.e., self-evidence (Heb. ovidencia): a claim is true to me because when I hear it I feel within me its self-evidence.[2]

What confuses people is the feeling that assumptions are necessarily arbitrary (because we lack justifications for them). Not so. Assumptions may perhaps be arbitrary, but then the entire structure built upon them lacks the significance of truth (it is a mere logical pastime). Chains of justification that yield claims to which we ascribe truth and validity must be based on assumptions that are not arbitrary but self-evident.[3]

Returning to faith and religious obligation: if we seek justification for our commitment to God’s commands, we will have to hang that commitment on more fundamental values, whose own obligatory force would itself require justification. I already noted that moral values are grounded in commitment to God’s command, and therefore they cannot in turn provide a circular justification for our commitment to His commands. The conclusion is that commitment to the divine command is the foundational principle, and therefore it is necessarily self-evident. By virtue of His being God it is clear that one must obey Him (see columns 294 and 395, and also my article here). I will explain a bit what this means.

If someone were to say to me that he understands that murder is prohibited, but he still does not understand why he should act accordingly in practice, that would indicate that he does not truly understand that murder is prohibited. If he did understand it, it would be clear that the meaning of the prohibition is that this is how one ought to act. Perhaps he thinks that people believe murder is forbidden, but he does not really grasp the substantive (not descriptive) claim that there is a prohibition on murder. The same applies to one who says: “I understand that there is a God and that He commanded, but why should I obey Him?” Here, too, there is a misunderstanding. God, by definition, is a being whom one is obligated to obey. One who does not understand that does not truly believe in God. Such a person may believe in a Creator of the world, or in some being or other, but that is not God. As we saw above in the discussion of “accepting [an idol] as a god,” formal authority is inherently included in the very concept of divinity by definition.

It is therefore a mistake to claim that if I am obligated without a reason, I am acting irrationally. Every rational justification begins from principles that themselves have no reason (i.e., justification, grounds, or basis). The only question is: what is the foundational principle upon which all our obligations can be based? In the religious conception this is the commitment to God’s commands. Therefore it itself requires no justification. People who do not live with this consciousness (atheists, or those who do not believe in a God with authority to command) see such commitment as irrational fanaticism, but they themselves feel such commitment to other principles—even if not to the religious one. With respect to their principles (for example, moral commitment), they too are “fanatical” and “irrational,” since for foundational values they provide no justification and cannot do so. The very concept of rationality that is based on justifications inherently contains the fact that at the basis of justifications lie principles for which we lack justification. This is the basis of all rational thinking and justification; thus to regard such beliefs as irrational is itself a misunderstanding (i.e., an irrational stance).

The Meaning of Command

This means that the obligation to halacha is founded on the divine command—or, more precisely, on the obligation to obey Him. Observance of halacha is a product of the obligation to obey, not of the benefits of the commandments or the harms of the transgressions. That is the meaning of religious service. This of course does not mean that there are no benefits or harms. On the contrary, it is very plausible that there are, as Maimonides writes in Part III of the Guide for the Perplexed (ch. 13 and chs. 25–26). God does not command us arbitrarily, and therefore it is plausible that at the base of each command, positive or negative, lies some result one wishes to bring about or prevent.

In column 342 and elsewhere (see also in my article “Teshuva” in R. A. Weiss’s Collected Essays) I argued that every commandment or transgression has two dimensions: the command and the substance. Thus, when one transgresses, one both rebels against the command and causes some spiritual harm; and when one fulfills a commandment, one both obeys the command and brings about some spiritual benefit. The Ritva and Tosafot ha-Rosh explained that this is the meaning of our Sages’ saying “Greater is the one who is commanded and acts than one who is not commanded and acts.” The one commanded both obeys and achieves the benefit; the one not commanded achieves only the benefit. Still, as we saw, although every mitzvah has these two aspects, the obligation to fulfill the commandments derives from the obligation to obey the command and not from the desire to gain benefits or avoid harms. Activity to bring about outcomes is not by virtue of “accepting [God] as God,” and therefore is not pure religious service.

Obligation to Command vs. “Dictates of Reason”

Maimonides refers to the obligation to command in two additional places. In Laws of Kings 8:11 he discusses the laws of a resident alien (ger toshav) and writes:

כל המקבל שבע מצות ונזהר לעשותן הרי זה מחסידי אומות העולם, ויש לו חלק לעולם הבא, והוא שיקבל אותן ויעשה אותן מפני שצוה בהן הקדוש ברוך הוא בתורה והודיענו על ידי משה רבינו שבני נח מקודם נצטוו בהן, אבל אם עשאן מפני הכרע הדעת אין זה גר תושב ואינו מחסידי אומות העולם אלא מחכמיהם.

Maimonides here states that a resident alien who keeps the Noahide seven commandments out of the “dictates of reason” (because this seems right and proper to him, logically or morally) is among the sages of the nations but not among their pious. In our terms: it has value, but not religious value. He is a good person acting properly, but this is not a commandment and not service of God (religious service). Religious service is only when one acts because of the divine command in the Torah given to Moses at Sinai. In my article on “Causing a Secular Jew to Sin,” I explained that one who does not believe in the giving of the Torah, or in the obligation to what was given there, does not fulfill commandments. Fulfilling a commandment is only when the act is done out of commitment to the command—regardless of the benefit or value of the act in itself. This is “accepting [God] as God.”

A simple argument (see R. Frankel’s Sefer ha-Mafteach on the site, who cites some Acharonim who wrote this) is that this applies not only to a non-Jew but also to a Jew. A Jew who performs commandments because they bring about some outcome is not acting “for its own sake,” and this is not pure religious service.

A similar source appears in Maimonides’ Commentary to the Mishnah, Chullin 7:6. The Mishnah there brings a dispute among the Tannaim regarding the sciatic nerve (gid ha-nasheh) in a non-kosher animal:

נוהג בטהורה ואינו נוהג בטמאה רבי יהודה אומר אף בטמאה אמר רבי יהודה והלא מבני יעקב נאסר גיד הנשה ועדיין בהמה טמאה מותרת להן אמרו לו בסיני נאמר אלא שנכתב במקומו:

The Sages argue against R. Yehuda that the parasha of the sciatic nerve was said at Sinai, and only in the editing of the Torah was it arranged in Genesis alongside the story of Jacob and the angel.

Maimonides explains it somewhat differently:

ושים לבך לכלל הגדול הזה המובא במשנה זו והוא אמרם מסיני נאסר, והוא, שאתה צריך לדעת שכל מה שאנו נזהרים ממנו או עושים אותו היום אין אנו עושים זאת אלא מפני צווי ה’ על ידי משה, לא מפני שה’ צוה בכך לנביאים שקדמוהו, דוגמא לכך, אין אנו אוכלים אבר מן החי לא מפני שה’ אסר על בני נח אבר מן החי, אלא מפני שמשה אסר עלינו אבר מן החי במה שנצטווה בסיני שישאר אבר מן החי אסור. וכן אין אנו מלים בגלל שאברהם מל את עצמו ואנשי ביתו, אלא מפני שה’ צונו על ידי משה להמול כמו שמל אברהם עליו השלום, וכן גיד הנשה אין אנו נמשכים בו אחרי אסור יעקב אבינו אלא צווי משה רבינו, הלא תראה אמרם שש מאות ושלש עשרה מצות נאמרו לו למשה בסיני, וכל אלה מכלל המצות.

He explains that this is not a merely historical claim—when the parasha of the sciatic nerve was written—but mainly a normative claim: why must we obey it? We must obey and not eat the sciatic nerve because of the command at Sinai, not because of the custom of the children of Jacob described in Genesis (and indeed the verse’s language there is a description of a custom, not a prohibitive command—“Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve until this day”).

Seemingly he is reiterating what he wrote in Laws of Kings (though there the subject is a resident alien, and by argument we extended it also to Israel; whereas here it is explicitly about Israel). But it seems there is another difference between these two sources. In Laws of Kings Maimonides speaks about the intention that ought to be present in the consciousness of the one fulfilling the commandment: when he does it, he should intend to do so because of the command. In that article I explained that this is a deeper layer of the law of intention (kavana). There is a dispute whether commandments require intention, but Maimonides here wishes to add that according to all opinions commandments require faith. Without faith there is no fulfillment of commandments. It is not necessary that this intention be explicitly present in his mind at the moment of performance, but it should be his motivation for doing so. By contrast, in the Commentary to the Mishnah he is dealing with a theoretical question: by what authority are we obligated to fulfill the commandments? What is the foundation of their binding force? In the title of this column I wrote that I will discuss the “how” and the “why” of fulfilling commandments. In this terminology, in Laws of Kings Maimonides is dealing with how to fulfill them, while in the Commentary he is dealing with why to fulfill them.

To sharpen this, consider that for a state legislator the question of what is in the mind of the law-abiding citizen is of no concern. As long as he keeps the law and does not violate it, there is no claim against him; even if he violates it, he will be prosecuted regardless of his intentions. That is to say, the “how” discussed in Laws of Kings is a religious foundation; it does not exist in a secular legal system. By contrast, the “why” in the Commentary exists also in secular legal systems: there, too, there is a discussion about the theoretical question of the binding force of the law, and the accepted answer is that it derives from legislation (command).[4] In Hans Kelsen’s terminology (the Austrian legal philosopher and one of the chief proponents of legal positivism), this is a discussion of the “basic norm” (Grundnorm), which is not uniquely religious; such a discussion exists for every legal system.[5]

Thus, the command at the giving of the Torah at Sinai plays two roles in the halachic world: (1) A practical role concerning how to perform the commandment (out of faith and commitment to the command). (2) A theoretical role concerning the binding force of the commandment—on what basis we demand that a person fulfill it. The first role is religious in character; the second exists also in other legal systems.

The “Exalted” vs. the “One Who Subdues His Inclination”

I will end with an apparent contradiction between what we have seen thus far and Maimonides’ words in chapter six of his Eight Chapters. There he discusses whether it is preferable for a person to have a natural inclination to do good and avoid evil—the “exalted” (ha-me’uleh)—or rather for one to have desires not to do so yet overcome them and do what is right—the “one who subdues his inclination” (ha-koveish et yitzro). In R. Kook’s terminology these are “upright” and “subduer.”

Let us see Maimonides’ own language:

Chapter Six: On the Difference between the Exalted and the One Who Rules Himself

אמרו הפילוסופים, שהמושל בנפשו, אף על פי שיעשה המעשים המעולים – הרי הוא עושה הטובות והוא מתאוה למעשי הרעות ומשתוקק להם, והוא ניפתל עם יצרו, ומתנגד במעשהו למה שיעירוהו אליו כוחו ותאוותו ותכונת נפשו, והוא עושה הטובות והוא מצטער בעשייתן. אבל המעולה – הרי הוא נמשך במעשהו אחר מה שיעירוהו אליו תאוותו ותכונתו, ויעשה הטובות והוא מתאוה ומשתוקק להן. ובהסכמה מן הפילוסופים, שהמעולה יותר טוב ויותר שלם מן המושל בנפשו. אבל, אמרו, אפשר שיעמוד המושל בנפשו במקום שהמעולה עומד בהרבה מן הדברים, ומדרגתו פחותה בהכרח, להיותו מתאווה לפועל הרע, ואף על פי שלא יפעלהו, אבל תשוקתו לו היא תכונה רעה בנפש. וכבר אמר שלמה כיוצא בזה, אמר: +משלי כא, י+ “נפש רשע איוותה רע”. ואמר בשמחת המעולה במעשה הטובות, והצטער מי שאינו מעולה בעשייתן, זה המאמר: +משלי כא, טו+ “שמחה לצדיק עשות משפט, ומחתה לפועלי און”. הרי זה מה שייראה מדברי התורה, המתאים למה שזכרוהו הפילוסופים.

Thus, the philosophers prefer the “exalted.” What about the Sages? Maimonides continues:

וכאשר חקרנו אחר דברי החכמים בזה הענין, מצאנו להם, שהמתאווה לעבירות ומשתוקק להן – יותר טוב ויותר שלם מאשר לא יתאווה להן ולא יצטער בהנחתן. עד שאמרו, שכל מה שיהיה האדם יותר טוב ויותר שלם – יהיו תשוקתו לעבירות וצערו בהנחתן יותר חזקים, והביאו בזה מעשיות, ואמרו: “כל הגדול מחברו יצרו גדול ממנו”. לא די בזה, אלא שאמרו כי שכר המושל בנפשו גדול כפי שעור צערו במושלו בנפשו, ואמרו: “לפום צערא אגרא”. ויתר על כן, שהם ציוו שיהיה האדם מושל בנפשו, והזהירו מלומר: אני בטבעי איני מתאווה לזאת העבירה, ואפילו לא אסרתה התורה, והוא אומרם: “רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר, לא יאמר אדם אי אפשי לאכול בשר בחלב, אי אפשי ללבוש שעטנז, אי אפשי לבוא על הערוה, אלא אפשי, ומה אעשה ואבי שבשמים גזר עלי”.

There are several passages implying that specifically the one who subdues his inclination is superior.

Now Maimonides raises the difficulty:

ולפי המובן מפשטי שני הדברים בתחילת המחשבה, הרי שני המאמרים סותרים זה את זה. ואין הדבר כן, אלא שניהם אמת, ואין ביניהם מחלוקת כלל.

The very framing of the difficulty is striking. We might have expected that after noting such a contradiction, Maimonides would simply say that from Hazal we see the philosophers were wrong—end of story. But for him, such a contradiction is a difficulty requiring resolution. He immediately adds that he has a resolution, and now proceeds to set it out:

וזה, שהרעות אשר הן אצל הפילוסופים רעות – הן אשר אמרו שמי שלא יתאווה להן יותר טוב ממי שיתאווה להן וימשול בנפשו מהן, והם הדברים המפורסמים אצל בני האדם כולם שהם רעות, כשפיכות דמים, וגניבה, וגזל, והונאה, והזק למי שלא הרע, וגמול רע למיטיב, וזלזול הורים, וכיוצא באלה. והן המצוות אשר יאמרו עליהן החכמים עליהם השלום: “דברים שאלמלי לא נכתבו ראויים היו לכותבן”, ויקראון קצת חכמינו האחרונים אשר חלו חולי ‘המדברים’: ‘המצוות השכליות’. ואין ספק כי הנפש אשר תתאווה לדבר מהם ותשתוקק אליו – היא נפש חסירה, וכי הנפש המעולה לא תתאווה לדבר מאלה הרעות כלל, ולא תצטער בהימנעה מהן. אבל הדברים אשר אמרו החכמים שהמושל בנפשו מהם יותר טוב ושכרו יותר גדול – הן המצוות השמעיות, וזה נכון, כי אלמלא התורה לא היו רעות כלל, ולפיכך אמרו שצריך האדם להניח נפשו על אהבתם, ולא ישים מונעו מהם אלא התורה.

Regarding the rational commandments (moral ones—but not only those), the “exalted” is preferable; regarding the revealed/“auditory” commandments (shemi’ot), the “subduer” is preferable. He now proves this from Hazal’s own language:

והתבונן בחכמתם, עליהם השלום, ובמה המשילו. שהוא לא אמר: לא יאמר אדם אי אפשי להרוג את הנפש, אי אפשי לגנוב, אי אפשי לכזב, אלא אפשי ומה וכו’; ואמנם הביא דברים כולם שימעיים: בשר בחלב, ולבישת שעטנז ועריות. ואלה המצוות וכיוצא בהן הן אשר יקראן ה’: ‘חוקותי’, אמרו: “חוקים שחקקתי לך ואין לך רשות להרהר בהם, ואומות העולם משיבין עליהן, והשטן מקטרג עליהן, כגון פרה אדומה ושעיר המשתלח” וכו’. ואותן אשר קראון האחרונים ‘שכליות’ – ייקראו: ‘מצוות’, כמו שבארו החכמים.

The examples Hazal bring are indeed all “auditory” (and yes, arayot—sexual prohibitions—are classed as “auditory”; see column 177 and also the responsum here on mufursamot and muskalot, and to which category morality should be assigned).

He concludes:

וכבר התבאר מכל מה שאמרנוהו, אלו עבירות יהיה מי שלא ישתוקק אליהן יותר טוב ממי שישתוקק אליהן וימשול בנפשו מהן, ואלו מהן יהיה הדבר בהן להפך. וזה חידוש נפלא, והשלמה מופלאה בין שני המאמרים, ולשון שני המאמרים מורה על אמיתת מה שבארנוהו. וכבר נשלמה כוונת זה הפרק.

On the face of it, his words here contradict what we saw above, and in the next section we will examine this.

The Apparent Contradiction

Above we saw that one must fulfill the commandments out of commitment to the command, not out of identification with their goals. Moreover, this would seem to apply also to the rational and moral commandments. In Laws of Kings this is explicit: the seven Noahide commandments that a resident alien keeps are rational commandments (see Maimonides in the next halacha there, Laws of Kings 9:1: “and reason inclines to them”), and yet he writes that one who observes them out of the dictates of reason is not among the pious of the nations. Thus, when a person performs kindness or a morally good act, for it to count as a mitzvah he must do so out of commitment to the command. If he does so out of the dictates of reason, he is a good person—but he has not fulfilled a commandment thereby.

It is true that the baraita in Pesachim 8a states:

והתניא האומר סלע זו לצדקה בשביל שיחיה בני או שאהיה בן העולם הבא הרי זה צדיק גמור.

The baraita says that charity can be given for another goal (without “accepting [God] as God”), and yet the giver is a completely righteous person. There are many interpretations of this baraita, but briefly, according to Maimonides it should be read as follows: the donor gives to fulfill the command, but he wishes that, in its merit, his son live. The goal that his son live is sought by means of fulfilling the command; but fulfilling a commandment is an act done out of commitment to the command. A similar foundation can be found in Ariel Finkelstein’s article “Intention in the Commandments between Man and Fellow” (though there he speaks about intention and not about faith; above we saw these are different requirements). The upshot so far is that fulfillment of a commandment is an act done out of commitment to the command.

By contrast, in chapter six we saw that Maimonides concludes that the rational commandments should be done out of identification and inclination—i.e., out of the dictates of reason—and not by subduing one’s inclination out of commitment to the command. Only the “auditory” commandments should be performed by subduing one’s natural inclination. This would seem to contradict what we have seen until now.

A Resolution

On second thought, there is no contradiction. In chapter six Maimonides is not discussing how to fulfill the commandment (as in Laws of Kings), nor why to fulfill it (as in the Commentary). Here he discusses an entirely different question: whether one ought to work on one’s traits so as to create a natural identification with the commandment or not. His claim is that for rational commandments one should strive for identification; for “auditory” commandments one should not. But there is no statement here about why or how to fulfill the commandment. One can fulfill it because of the obligation to obey, even if there is within him full identification with the commandment and its goals. The identification exists, but it is not necessarily the motivation and reason for why I do it. Thus, in moral/rational commandments, I can cultivate identification (and usually it exists naturally) and still perform the commandment because of commitment to the command.

This means that sometimes a person can act out of dual motives (akin to the sugyot in Pesachim 59b and Zevachim 2a and elsewhere: “for the sake of a Passover offering and for the sake of a peace offering”). He performs the moral/rational commandment both out of the dictates of reason and out of response to the command. The indication that this is a complete mitzvah is that if, say, one morning he wakes without the moral desire, he will nevertheless do the thing because of his commitment to the command. If this holds, then even when he has the inclination and acts also out of the moral inclination, it will still be considered a mitzvah lishmah, since commitment is a sufficient reason (even if not a necessary one) for fulfilling the commandment. Maimonides innovates in chapter six that although one should perform the commandments out of commitment to the command, there is no interest in extinguishing the natural identification we have with the rational and moral commandments. There is no command to be a robot and ignore our natural conscience. What must be maintained is that commitment be a sufficient condition (even if not a necessary one) for action—i.e., that commitment alone would suffice to move me to act. In such a state, even if I have another reason, it will still be considered a mitzvah lishmah.

Something similar appears in the introduction to Eglei Tal (the passage was also cited in column 120). He discusses Torah study lishmah and writes his well-known words:

ומדי דברי זכור אזכור מה ששמעתי קצת בני אדם טועין מדרך השכל בענין לימוד תוה”ק ואמרו כי הלומד ומחדש חדושים ושמח ומתענג בלימודו אין זה לימוד התורה כ”כ לשמה כמו אם היה לומד בפשיטות שאין לו מהלימוד שום תענוג והוא רק לשם מצוה. אבל הלומד ומתענג בלימודו הרי מתערב בלימודו גם הנאת עצמו. ובאמת זה טעות מפורסם. ואדרבא כי זה היא עיקר מצות לימוד התורה להיות שש ושמח ומתענג בלימודו ואז דברי תורה נבלעין בדמו. ומאחר שנהנה מדברי תורה הוא נעשה דבוק לתורה. [ועיין פירש”י סנהדרין נ”ח. ד”ה ודבק]. ובזוה”ק דבין יצה”ט ובין יצה”ר אינן מתגדלין אלא מתוך שמחה. יצה”ט מתגדל מתוך שמחה של תורה. יצה”ר כו’. ואם אמרת שע”י השמחה שיש לו מהלימוד נקרא שלא לשמה או עכ”פ לשמה ושלא לשמה. הרי שמחה זו עוד מגרע כח המצוה ומכהה אורה ואיך יגדל מזה יצה”ט. וכיון שיצה”ט מתגדל מזה בודאי זה הוא עיקר המצוה.

Up to this point he writes that joy and pleasure in learning do not render it learning “not for its own sake.” Moreover, in the blessings of the Torah we ask “Please, Lord our God, make the words of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths,” i.e., we ask that learning be pleasant to us. Clearly, then, this is not objectionable.

He then adds a less-known passage:

ומודינא דהלומד לא לשם מצות הלימוד רק מחמת שיש לו תענוג בלימודו הרי זה נקרא לימוד שלא לשמה כהא דאוכל מצה שלא לשם מצוה רק לשם תענוג אכילה ובהא אמרו לעולם יעסוק אדם כו’ שלא לשמה שמתוך כו’. אבל הלומד לשם מצוה ומתענג בלימודו הרי זה לימוד לשמה וכולו קודש כי גם התענוג מצוה:

Although it is fitting and good to enjoy and rejoice in learning, one who learns for the sake of pleasure truly learns not for its own sake. How can one manage this? Strive to enjoy—and at the same time be sure that we are not learning for the sake of enjoyment. As we saw above, one can enjoy learning and yet learn out of commitment. Even if the pleasure alone (absent the duty) would suffice to make me learn, still, if duty alone would also suffice (absent the pleasure) to make me learn—then this is learning lishmah par excellence. This is precisely what I suggested for chapter six of Maimonides regarding identification in rational commandments.

[1] In the next halachot there, Maimonides turns to love in the emotional sense. On the relationship between those halachot, see this article, column 22, and elsewhere.

[2] It is important to note that self-evidence is not necessarily certainty. Self-evidence is a criterion for adopting a claim as true, but not necessarily as certain.

[3] See my article on the two notions of arbitrariness in Leibowitz and in general.

[4] There is room to tie this to the dispute between positivists and those who advocate natural law; this is not the place.

[5] I just saw an article by Danny Statman on this (though it is not accessible to me).