Directing or establishing
From what you wrote, I understand that you see the Torah as foundational. What is the reason for thinking so?
It seems to me that the Torah is intended to:
- This is my a priori explanation. I do not believe in Torah and commandments that have no purpose. The concept of a commandment without a purpose is foreign to me.
- Moses expresses several times that listening to the voice of God and keeping the commandments are the path that leads to happiness (even in this world).
- It seems to me that the Sages also perceived the Torah as intentional [“that the commandments were given to unite the creatures with them,” “I will look into the Torah and create a soul,” and more. And in the MSI: ” And the means that bring man to this goal (to delight in God) are the commandments… by means of these means that are available to him here, he will be able to reach the place that has been prepared for him… to be satisfied there with the good that he acquired through these means “].
- The very concept of Kabbalists’ intentions is based on the assumption that there is a direction and purpose to the mitzvot.
- The concept of “reward and punishment” seems puzzling in the image of a founding Torah (and perhaps even childish: is punishment revenge? And what does reward come for?). It is not interpreted as the Ramchal interpreted it above (which is nothing but the result of our actions). So what is their goal? Are they also “founding”?
I am aware that the sources I cited do not express exactly the same purpose, but it appears from all of them that the Sages’ view is that the Torah has a purpose, meaning that the Torah came to guide man to a specific purpose that God, the Blessed, has chosen, and not only that the purpose was also known to man (this is proven by the fact that the Sages explain it to us).
This discussion has two parts:
- Does God Himself have a purpose for which He gave us the Torah? (In my opinion, it is inconceivable that He does not)
- With the power that He has, did He, in giving the Torah, only want to impose on us the things necessary to achieve His goal (and we are, in this role, no more than robots), or did He seek to include us in His “vision” and its fulfillment (to be partners in the act of creation)?
I’ll make it short.
Where did you get these things from? I also agree that the Torah is directed towards some values/goals, but I don’t know what they are.
From our perspective, perhaps we can say that it is constitutive because we don’t understand what the goals are. But that’s just a technical matter. It clearly has goals.
By the way, the expression “constitutive” or “determined” is not accurate in this context. The question you are discussing is whether it has reasons or whether these are arbitrary acts.
Constitutive or directional is a distinction in analytic philosophy between different systems of rules. The question is whether they are constitutive of the heat they deal with (like the rules of chess) or directional (like traffic laws). In both cases, the rules have a purpose (pleasure or safety and order).
(If I understand correctly, the meaning of the concept “establishment” is “that which itself constitutes the goal or value”.
Not as a direction, which has no value in itself, and is not an end in itself, but rather it serves only as a means and a way to achieve a goal or purpose external to it.
In contrast, arbitrariness does not consider any internal value, and does not even strive for a goal or value external to it, right?)
To the point:
1. Are you claiming that it is impossible to understand what the goals of the Torah are, or that you just do not see them?
As I have shown, many believe that they understand and know. In your opinion, they are wrong? So in what?
2. What are the conditions that make it possible to understand (or, more accurately, guess) what the general goal of a given set of laws is,
or what are the values that underlie it?
Does a synthetic view of the system as a whole show us its general direction?
You understood correctly, and it does not contradict my words. See explanation and examples in my previous message.
1. I cannot say that it is impossible to understand. I do not understand. In the cases that I have seen, I have great doubt whether anyone has really proposed a reasonable solution for the sake of the mitzvot. I do not know of one.
2. I do not know how to say. A synthetic view is of course the direction, but as mentioned in the case of the Torah, I am unable to reach a reasonable explanation. Perhaps this is my weakness (although I doubt it).
On second thought, perhaps the sages did not rely (primarily) on an a posteriori synthesis of the details of the Torah revealed before them, in order to understand the reasons for the commandments, and the purposes of the Torah, but rather on an a priori evaluation of the concepts of religion, Torah, and God.
That is, they defined for themselves what God is, and what Torah and religion should look like,
and according to these beliefs, they “interpreted” the Torah in all its manifestations, its generalities, its details, and its grammar.
[It is clear that there are parts of Chazal's words that stem from observing the Torah itself (an extreme example: Rabbi Yochanan seems to have been a master at determining truths based on sermons in verses, such as when he called Vespasianus a "king", based on the sermon: "And Lebanon will fall, mighty", according to the Torah), but regarding the intentions and reasons for the Torah, this seems less possible in synthesis, as you wrote].
This is because the reasons for the commandments that arise from a synthetic perspective are "weak beliefs" (in the same sense as weak emergence),
since they are adopted retrospectively, based on "empirical" data.
They are “generalizations”, based on the data that is revealed to us (“bottom-up”).
In contrast, reasons and values that are adopted a priori are “strong beliefs”.
And they use ”interpretation” that ”imposes” ideas and beliefs on the findings (“top-down”).
[It seems to me that this division is what the Kabbalists define in the language:
“straight light” (top-down), and ”returning light” (bottom-up)].
If this claim is correct, it will be easier for us to understand the sages' picture of the Torah if we also seek to understand a priori what Torah and religion are, and what is the place of God in the life of human and natural man, and only then, seek to understand how the sages dealt with these questions, and how they adapted their beliefs to empirical data.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
