On Divine Intervention and Prayer
Good morning, Honorable Rabbi! If I understood your words correctly, the Rabbi claims that prayer cannot help and that we pray only for something miraculous that is beyond the ability of man to achieve on his own, and I also understood that the Rabbi claims that God no longer intervenes in the world of humans. So why should I, as a believer, sit for two hours in a synagogue or even observe Shabbat when there is no reward system of reward and punishment? Why obey a one-time revelation from thousands of years ago?
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Let no one say, “I am doing the commandments of the Torah and engaging in its wisdom so that I may receive all the blessings written in it or so that I may merit life in the world to come, and I will abstain from the transgressions that the Torah warns against so that I may be saved from the curses written in the Torah or so that I may not be cut off from life in the world to come.” It is not appropriate to worship God in this way, for one who worships in this way worships out of fear and not the virtue of the prophets or the virtue of the sages. And none worship God in this way except the people of the land and the women and the little ones who are educated to worship out of fear until their understanding increases and they worship out of love.
Halacha in
The worker out of love engages in Torah and mitzvot and walks in the paths of wisdom, not for anything in the world, nor for fear of evil, nor in order to inherit goodness, but rather does the truth because it is truth and the end of goodness comes because of it…
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But maybe the truth was true for its time? Who guarantees to me that it is the truth for the 21st century?
I don't understand. Do you see anything here that depends on time? It's a value statement.
What is the end of the good that comes because of her..?
Maimonides wants to make it clear that he does not dispute that there is reward and punishment. He merely argues that the work of God should not be done because of reward and punishment. Do the commandments because this is the truth and the end of good to come.
What is the reason for telling the truth because it is true? (Or in other words, what is the concept of truth in this matter?)
I didn't understand the question. You can also ask the same thing about the reason I will give you. Truth is a reason for itself and that is its essence. It does not need a prior reason. It is like asking why what is true is true. It is true because it is true.
Why are God's commandments considered truth? To commit adultery, to commit a sin, and to block an ox in its treading water is a lie?!
The sentence “Thou shalt not murder” is not a claim, but a command. What is not a claim cannot be true or false, because it does not describe anything (see my article on the eighth root of the Maimonides).
What I said is that observing the halakha is correct conduct, not that the claim “Thou shalt not murder” is true. My claim is that this is the right and proper way to behave, not that any claim is true. If you insist, perhaps the claim “Thou shalt not murder” is true in some sense (this will lead to the correction of the world), but the command “Thou shalt not murder” is not a claim, and so on.
It is like with moral commandments. There too, the claim that forbids murder is neither true nor false. But it is forbidden to murder because it is not proper to do so.
I believe that such a basic issue needs a long and reasoned explanation. Note that the writers here do not understand what you are writing, and you are dismissing them with some kind of incomprehensible and insufficient proverb.
We are talking about someone who believes that there is no punishment for transgressions, and no reward for the commandments, and yet you believe that there is something that obligates him to keep the Torah. For God's sake, what is this obligation? Why, if God commanded and willed [in the past tense, I don't know about the present tense] something, is it a reason that I, as His creature who developed intentionally or by chance, should do it?
Do you see a philosophical reason why an intelligent robot [or clone] created by a human being would be obligated to something to its creator and would not become an independent creature with self-will? Is a son created by his father morally obligated to do whatever command comes to his father's mind?
This is about the basis of the basis of all our obligations in the commandments according to your system, and I am surprised that you hardly explain it.
In another thread I saw that you accepted this for moral laws that people observe for their own sake and not for reward.
And indeed, as you were told there, even the moral laws of a normal person do not observe them because they are ‘right’ but because he feels bad about himself when he does them [we were born with a conscience, what can we do. Hitler already complained about this], but even if we assume that they should be done from the perspective of their truth and value, it is true in some way that a person accepts this as a binding truth, but in our topic, note that no one understands why we have a need to fulfill the wishes of the one who created [or directed] creation throughout our lives, why this is a binding reason – he does not want us to be killed, he wants to let us live.
[And in particular the prohibition against losing oneself is absurd, because if I want to take my life, it means that living for me is only a burden, and how is his command supposed to be a reason for me to avoid it]
You brought here the explanation and analogy to morality. Whoever does not accept the existence of an altruistic action – for health (I would just stay away from it even as a neighbor).
You decided that in our topic no one understands why to comply. If you declare in the name of the entire universe – for health. But it turns out that there are probably quite a few who do understand this. On the contrary, even those who look for reasons and explode unconvincing reasons in my opinion are simply unaware that they have an intuition that there is an obligation to comply with the commandment of ’ like an obligation to comply with morality. This thing does not require explanation, because it is a basic intuition.
That's what I have to say. If you have a concrete question, you can ask. If you disagree – then no.
Hi. The Rabbi wrote to Eliezer that this is a basic intuition even though some are unaware of it.
A. But does it exist within them? Who said?
B. The Rabbi wrote to me that it is equivalent to asking why what is right is right. Is this a different answer than the answer the Rabbi gave to Eliezer?
C. The analogy of the Rabbi Maimonides with the statement that what is right is right only highlights the manner of the Maimonides’ desired assumption. There is a person who will determine what is right for him according to a certain value that he has arbitrarily set for himself as a goal. The commandments are true. Their goal is true. But what is that goal? Without a goal (which is the situation we call “just”) this is not true.
D. I can accept that the goal of the commandments is unknown to the human mind, but we are certain of the righteousness of the path since someone greater than us has commanded us to walk it. That is, man's arbitrary goals are a lie, while God's goals are true, for He created everything and knows everything. A mother knows what is best for her child. God knows what is true and right for His creatures. But it is still not clear why this is a labor of love.
Have a nice afternoon.
I think I explained my position well. I simply don't understand what the discussion is about. Don't accept? Absolutely. What's the point of going back over and over again?!
A. Let them examine themselves and see if it's there or not. I'm not supposed to tell people what's in them. But let them examine honestly and not follow first impressions.
B. No. That's the same answer.
C. I already explained. Truth doesn't require explanations and goals. Truth is the goals themselves.
D. You're repeating what I wrote here. That's exactly what I'm claiming. Love is nothing more than doing the truth because it is truth. This is what the Maimonides I quoted above writes. Love for God is not an emotional matter. See column 22 and articles on emotions in halakha:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94
Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.
Everything is fine 🙂
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