Faith – Lesson 5
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The place of the commandment of faith in Maimonides as the foundation of obligation
- Faith, religiosity, and the “hyphen” between faith and commandment observance
- Observing commandments without faith-based obligation, and the correspondence between Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe
- Maimonides in the laws of idolatry: “accepting something as a god” as the definition of religiosity
- Examples from prayer: obligation as the first floor versus “a commandment of men learned by rote”
- Intention in prayer and the “floors” structure in serving God
- Rabbinic commandments, “do not deviate,” and the concern of idolatry in obeying a person
- Doing commandments for benefit: “do not practice divination,” separating challah, and charity
- “Tithe so that you will become wealthy” and the introduction to Eglei Tal: pleasure as a symptom, not as a motive
- Maimonides, Laws of Repentance chapter 10: serving out of love as doing the truth because it is truth
- Love as in Song of Songs in Maimonides: a metaphor for intensity, not necessarily emotion
- Is observance without the “hyphen” not for its own sake, or not a commandment at all: default intent is for its own sake, and commandments require intention
Summary
General Overview
The speaker presents Maimonides’ view that the commandment of faith is placed at the head of the Book of Commandments and at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah because it is the foundation of all halakhic obligation and religious service. He argues that Jewish faith is not merely a philosophical assertion that God exists, but a practical commitment that stems from command, and that without the “hyphen” between faith and observance of commandments, the service of God is incomplete and sometimes not even a commandment at all. He explains this distinction through Maimonides’ laws of idolatry, through examples of “dry” prayer done out of duty, and through Laws of Repentance chapter 10, where Maimonides defines serving out of love as doing the truth because it is truth and not for reward or benefit.
The place of the commandment of faith in Maimonides as the foundation of obligation
Maimonides opens the Book of Commandments and the Mishneh Torah with positive commandment no. 1: “to know that there is a First Being, and He brings all beings into existence, and all that exists exists only through the truth of His existence.” The speaker says that this placement teaches that the basis for halakhic obligation and religious service is the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and that observing commandments that does not stem from obligation to that command is not the service of God, even if a person is meticulous about every minor law as about every major one. He describes a shift from deism as a philosophical conception with no practical expression to theism as binding religious faith, and argues that in the Jewish context, the very meaning of faith is practical commitment.
Faith, religiosity, and the “hyphen” between faith and commandment observance
The speaker distinguishes between a Christian-cultural context, where belief in God is identified with religiosity, and a Jewish context, where a person can believe and still say he is not religious because he does not observe commandments. He also points to the figure of the “traditional” Jew who believes in a religious God but does not actually observe. He argues that two extreme views are both mistaken: you cannot be religious only through belief without practical expression, and you cannot be religious only through commandment observance without a connection to binding faith. He uses the image of a “hyphen” and cites Avraham Burg’s remark about a “religious Zionist” in order to clarify that the essence lies in the combination that creates something beyond the simple sum, and so here as well: observance of commandments must be because of faith.
Observing commandments without faith-based obligation, and the correspondence between Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The speaker refers to the correspondence between Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe about putting tefillin on people in the streets, and argues in Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner’s name that in practice “there is no point at all” in putting tefillin on someone who is not obligated in commandments, because “even if he puts these boxes on his head, he has not fulfilled a commandment.” He formulates a sharp example: if a person put on tefillin with Chabad in the morning and repented in the afternoon, he would need to put them on again, because he had not fulfilled his obligation that morning. He uses the example of Ahad Ha’am—and the phrase “more than the Jewish people kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept the Jewish people”—to argue that observing Jewish law for reasons of identity and culture rather than out of faith is not Sabbath observance and not fulfillment of a commandment. He adds an even stronger claim: even someone who believes, but still observes for other reasons such as education and habit, “has never fulfilled a commandment in his life.”
Maimonides in the laws of idolatry: “accepting something as a god” as the definition of religiosity
The speaker returns to Maimonides in Laws of Idolatry chapter 3, law 6, and rules in accordance with him that someone who worships idolatry out of love or fear is exempt, emphasizing that Maimonides explains this as love and fear of the idol itself and not of a person, unlike most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim). He also notes that the Raavad and Kesef Mishneh comment on this. He explains that according to Maimonides, “actual” idolatry is when a person “accepted it upon himself as a god,” and interprets “god/gods” in the Bible as having the sense of judges: an entity such that “whatever it says has to be done because it said so.” He distinguishes this from obeying the laws of the Knesset or considerations of benefit and logic, and states that idolatry is doing something “because it said so,” without the rationale of being right, beneficial, or desirable. With regard to the Holy One, blessed be He, however, this is the proper basis of serving God: “If He says it, I do it… not because of the rationale of the verse… I do it because He said so.”
Examples from prayer: obligation as the first floor versus “a commandment of men learned by rote”
The speaker cites Nadav Shnerb’s example of a tired person who remembers that he did not pray the evening prayer, mumbles it quickly “ten centimeters above the bed,” and argues that this is “the loftiest prayer,” because it is done out of obligation to the command and not out of experience or benefit. He also brings a story about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, about a Jew who left the synagogue with tallit and tefillin in order to fix the yoke of the wagon while mumbling the prayer, and explains that the value lies in the fact that the person does not give up on prayer because he feels obligated. He argues against rebukes directed at routine prayer as “a commandment of men learned by rote,” saying that for many people such prayer actually expresses profound service of God. He contrasts this with prayer performed in order to obtain healing or livelihood, which he presents, via Leibowitz, as relating to the Holy One, blessed be He, as a kind of “health fund.”
Intention in prayer and the “floors” structure in serving God
The speaker stresses that he does not mean to dismiss intention, love and fear, the intentions of the Ari, or devekut, but rather to say that these are “the second, third, and fourth floors” built on top of “the first floor,” which is the very fact that prayer is a commandment and the need for “intention to fulfill one’s obligation.” He states that someone who intends only lofty mystical intentions without intending to fulfill the obligation “can pray again,” because he has not fulfilled his obligation. He mentions the Rema, who relaxes the requirement of concentration in the Amidah because it is difficult to concentrate properly. He quotes Rav Chaim as saying that there are three kinds of intention in prayer: intention regarding the words, the intention of standing before God, and the intention to fulfill one’s obligation as with any commandment. He argues that it is a mistake either to leave only “the first floor,” in a Leibowitz-style approach, or to erase “the first floor” and leave only the second floor and above.
Rabbinic commandments, “do not deviate,” and the concern of idolatry in obeying a person
The speaker is asked about rabbinic commandments and answers that there is no fundamental difference, because if a person fulfills the words of the Sages “just because he said so,” that is “actual idolatry,” and the binding basis is “do not deviate.” He notes that this is a dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides, but says that according to everyone there must be an anchoring in the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and that a person fulfills the words of the Sages “because this is God’s will, not because the Sages said so.”
Doing commandments for benefit: “do not practice divination,” separating challah, and charity
The speaker refers to the discussion of Meron and the “Meron carnival,” popular challah-separation gatherings, and using commandments as a means to be saved or healed, and argues that there is a Torah prohibition involved. He cites Maimonides and the Rif in the name of the Talmudic text, that it is forbidden “to make the commandments into a means for healing through them, for being saved through them,” and refers to chapter 11 of Maimonides’ Laws of Idolatry regarding “do not practice divination.” He says that someone who thinks that separating challah itself “will help him” violates “do not practice divination.” He notes that there may be room to be more lenient when one says “in the merit of” the commandment, but stresses that precision is needed even there, and argues that the very emphasis on challah separation points to a conception that it “does something” in and of itself. He excludes charity from this discussion, saying that it requires “a separate treatment.”
“Tithe so that you will become wealthy” and the introduction to Eglei Tal: pleasure as a symptom, not as a motive
The speaker rejects reading “Tithe so that you will become wealthy” as an instruction to serve in order to become wealthy, and interprets it as a consequential promise that is not the motivation for fulfilling the commandment. He cites the introduction to Eglei Tal, according to which joy and pleasure in Torah study are not “not for its own sake,” but part of the commandment itself. Still, he says in the name of Eglei Tal that someone who studies “for the sake of the pleasure” is indeed acting not for its own sake. He offers a practical test: if a person studies even when he does not enjoy it, that shows that the motive is the commandment and that the pleasure is accompanying it, not causing it.
Maimonides, Laws of Repentance chapter 10: serving out of love as doing the truth because it is truth
The speaker quotes Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 10 of Laws of Repentance: “A person should not say: I will fulfill the commandments of the Torah… in order that I receive all the blessings… or in order that I merit the life of the World to Come… It is not fitting to serve God in this way.” He emphasizes that Maimonides defines proper service as service out of love, and quotes his language that “one who serves out of love… not because of anything in the world… but does the truth because it is truth, and the good will ultimately come because of it.” He explains that “the good will ultimately come” is not a motive but a result, and identifies “love” in Maimonides as an intellectual-cognitive love of recognizing truth, not as an emotional thrill, maintaining that any service motivated by some rationale or benefit is “service not for its own sake.”
Love as in Song of Songs in Maimonides: a metaphor for intensity, not necessarily emotion
The speaker quotes the continuation of Maimonides, which describes love of God as being “sick with lovesickness” and uses Song of Songs as a metaphor, and raises the difficulty of how this fits with the previous definition of “doing the truth because it is truth.” He suggests that the metaphor is meant to illustrate the intensity and continuity of attachment to truth throughout the day, not to require specifically emotional love, and warns against taking a metaphor “one step too far.” He says that emotion may appear as a natural symptom in someone who truly understands the matter, but it is not the engine because of which one fulfills the commandments.
Is observance without the “hyphen” not for its own sake, or not a commandment at all: default intent is for its own sake, and commandments require intention
The speaker is asked whether this falls under the category of “not for its own sake,” and says he is undecided. He raises the possibility that observance by a believer who acts for alien reasons is at most “a commandment not for its own sake,” and sometimes perhaps not a commandment at all, depending on “the psychological depth of the person.” On the other hand, he explains, one could view it as “default intent is for its own sake,” similar to the passage at the beginning of tractate Zevachim about default intent being for its own sake, and to the words of halakhic decisors regarding “commandments require intention,” according to which someone who performed a commandment without explicit intention has fulfilled his obligation so long as there was no contrary intention, because the very context reveals an inner commitment even if it is not conscious. He concludes that the focus in Maimonides’ view is that the commandment is done because of the command, and that if the “hyphen” does not exist, this is at most service not for its own sake and perhaps not even a commandment, whereas the perfection of the commandment is when one fulfills it “because I believe.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Oops, every now and then I get surprises here in my Zoom, I don’t know, it reacts differently every time to the same clicks. There are wonders here that I still haven’t fully figured out, you know. Okay, let’s begin. Last time I spoke a bit about Maimonides’ commandment of faith, positive commandment no. 1, and its placement. I spoke about the essence of this commandment, about the contradictions that seem to exist within it, but I want to focus on one more point, and that is Maimonides’ decision to place this commandment at the beginning of the Book of Commandments, just as he also places the halakhah parallel to this commandment at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah. The positive commandment is to know that there is a First Being, and He brings all beings into existence, and nothing that exists exists except through the truth of His existence, and so on and so on. Meaning, this is basically an elaboration of positive commandment no. 1, and it too appears at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah. The significance of this is that the basis Maimonides sees for all halakhic obligation and religious service—and we already spoke about the connection between them, that religious service in the Jewish context is Jewish law, and not necessarily ritual and religious emotion and all sorts of other things that may be more common, for example, in Christianity—this thing has to come out of obligation and the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. And if it doesn’t come out of obligation to His command, then it is not really the service of God, even though you may be meticulous about every minor law as about every major one. And to explain this matter, the connection between faith and obligation—which is really the connection that moves us from the philosophical world, where we decide that we believe in God, to practice, to what we do with that decision—this is, in a certain sense, a reflection of the transition from deism to theism. Deism is belief in God in a philosophical sense, and theism is religious faith. And the connection or difference between philosophical faith and religious faith is the practical expressions. On the philosophical level, some tie the difference to the question of whether this is an intervening God or a God who remains in heaven. I use it in a somewhat different sense: whether it obligates me in anything—then it is a religious God—or whether I believe on the philosophical level, I know there is something or someone like that, He created the world or whatever, but that’s where it ends. It’s a philosophical conception that has no expressions, no practical expressions. I want to argue that in the Jewish context, not only is there a connection between the two things, but this is actually the meaning of faith itself. If I stop someone on the street and ask him, tell me, do you believe in God—say, if I were to ask him whether he’s religious—then in a Christian context I think we would get different answers than in a Jewish context. In a Christian context, if a person believes in God, he would say yes, I’m religious, I think. I don’t know Christians well enough, but I think so. In a Jewish context, if I ask a person on the street whether he is religious, he may be a great believer in God and answer no. Why? Because he doesn’t live like a religious Jew, he doesn’t observe commandments. Yes, there are people who believe in God and don’t observe commandments. Or because they believe in a philosophical God and not a religious God; there are also those who believe in a religious God but it doesn’t suit them right now—they’re often called traditional. Okay? So they’ll answer in one way or another that they’re not religious. Not religious means that the philosophical faith that may exist within them is not realized in their practical life, and it doesn’t find practical expression. And I think that this discourse, where I’m speaking about people who are not great philosophers and not great religious thinkers, but are just speaking naturally—as people speaking innocently, according to their own understanding—as people speaking innocently, that basically tells us that there are two different conceptions here of what religiosity is, or what faith is. And I already spoke about this, I spoke about Kant, yes, who talks about feeling and religious feeling, the religious emotion, and moral obligation as an expression of being religious, as opposed to the Jewish world, where the expression of being religious is whether you observe Jewish law. Again, in principle; everyone has his own bugs, but in principle. Whether you are committed to Jewish law. So it seems to me that this really reflects a true conception. It’s not just some misunderstanding or something like that. And I said that Jewish philosophers, Kant’s students, worked very hard to explain that he didn’t understand and tried to show him his error, and in my opinion he understood excellently, much better than they did. In any case, I want to sharpen this point a bit because it is an essential point with regard to faith, at least in its
[Speaker D] Jewish sense.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is something necessary here: this connection between faith and observance of commandments, this hyphen between faith and observance of commandments, seems to me to be the essence of Judaism. It comes to exclude two opposite conceptions. When I talk about the hyphen, yes, it’s like “religious Zionist,” yes, that example of Avraham Burg, when they asked him what a religious Zionist is, and he said that the main thing in “religious Zionist” is the hyphen between the two words. Meaning, because there are many people who are Zionists, there are many people who are religious. There can also be people who are both Zionist and religious, but they are not religious-Zionist. Because a religious-Zionist is someone who has the hyphen in the middle. What does that hyphen mean? That his Zionism is religious, and his religiosity is Zionist. I, for example, don’t define myself that way. I, for example, think—I’m a Zionist, like Ben-Gurion. And I’m a religious person, like, I don’t know, like the Haredim. There is no connection in me between these two things. So for me, for example—and I say this only to sharpen the point—there is no hyphen, even though I am both Zionist and religious. Meaning, very often in compound concepts of this kind, combining the two elements creates something that is beyond their simple sum. And here too, in this context, of course a person who observes—a religious person, a religious Jew—has to both believe and observe commandments. That’s not my innovation and not anyone else’s innovation. But it seems to me that there is something very strong in Maimonides, who puts the emphasis on the hyphen between the two things: that he observes commandments because he believes. And here this comes to exclude two opposite conceptions. One conception is that you can be religious by believing, even if it doesn’t find expression in your practical life. The second conception is that you can be religious by observing commandments; it doesn’t matter what you believe right now. Also not true. Both conceptions are incorrect. If you observe commandments not out of the fact that you believe, then your commandments are worth nothing, they’re not commandments. I already mentioned the correspondence between Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe regarding putting tefillin on people in the streets—the campaign of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, yes, where his Hasidim go out and put tefillin on people in the streets. And Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner wrote to him that this is completely lacking in value. There is no point at all in dealing with this. Why? Because a person who is not truly obligated in commandments—even if he puts these boxes on his head—has not fulfilled a commandment. Or in sharper wording, I would say: let’s say a person put on tefillin with Chabadniks in the morning, and in the afternoon he repented—he has to put tefillin on again; he has not fulfilled his obligation. Meaning, he did not fulfill the commandment of tefillin that day. So that is basically what Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner argues, and the meaning of this is that observance of commandments in itself is not the service of God. And again, I’m talking about—there can be a person who is meticulous about every minor law as about every major one, theoretically. Usually that doesn’t happen, but theoretically. Say, Ahad Ha’am. Ahad Ha’am advocated the idea that more than the Jewish people kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept the Jewish people. It sounds like a saying of the Sages, but it’s Ahad Ha’am. And he was basically saying—the phrase expresses the idea that people should observe Jewish law, on one level or another, but they should observe Jewish law not because they are religious and not because they believe in God, but because they are Jews. And as part of your identification with the culture through the generations, with previous generations, with your people today as well, you should be committed to Jewish law. Yes, a bit like the way people talked about raising pigs in the Land of Israel—it was Tabenkin, I think, I don’t remember anymore who it was that wrote against raising pigs in the Land of Israel. Not for religious reasons, but for these Ahad Ha’am-type reasons. A more moderate Ahad Ha’am-ism, of course. Now let’s say we have such an Ahad Ha’am, who tells us to keep all of Jewish law, all of the Mishnah Berurah, every minor law as every major one—not just Sabbath in general, lighting candles and wearing a white shirt, but really every minor law as every major one, with all the small clauses of the Mishnah Berurah—but from Ahad Ha’am’s rationale or framework of thought, not out of faith. Then that person never observed the Sabbath. He never observed the Sabbath in his life. He didn’t fulfill any commandment, not just Sabbath observance, because he didn’t do it out of faith. That’s the point I want to argue now. Meaning, the point is that it’s not enough that you both observe commandments and believe. Those two things are necessary, but they’re not sufficient. What is also needed is that there be a hyphen between them. And here this is a stronger point than what I said about Ahad Ha’am. I want to claim something stronger. If there is someone who believes in the Holy One, blessed be He, and he also observes commandments, but not out of faith—he observes commandments because of Ahad Ha’am-ism—then he too has never fulfilled a commandment in his life. Meaning, not only Ahad Ha’am, whose theological outlook maybe I don’t know, maybe he certainly didn’t believe in a commanding God, I don’t know exactly what he did believe. But I’m talking about someone who does believe in that, but he doesn’t—he observes commandments only because that’s how he was educated, or because, I don’t know, he’s Jewish, a Jew does this, that’s what a Jew does. He has not fulfilled a commandment.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, doesn’t this fall under the category of not for its own sake? Can you hear? Rabbi, doesn’t this fall under the category of not for its own sake?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, let me say it again—I’ll probably sharpen this a bit more later on. It could be that this is still called a commandment done not for its own sake; we’ll come back to that in just a moment, okay? So now, that’s basically the claim. Last time I already started this, I just think I didn’t put it in a sharp enough framework, so I’m going back to the framework, and now I’ll start from where I left off last time. Last time we talked about Maimonides in the laws of idolatry, chapter 3, law 6. And there Maimonides rules in accordance with Rabbah, that someone who worships an idol out of love or fear is exempt. And I said that most medieval authorities explain that this means someone who worships an idol out of love or fear of another person—you want to please some person whom you love or fear, so you worship the idol because that’s what pleases him. Okay? That’s what he wants people to do. Why do the medieval authorities explain it that way? That’s not the straightforward meaning of the Talmudic text. Why do they explain it that way? Because they simply can’t imagine that if someone worships an idol out of love or fear of the idol itself, that wouldn’t count as full-fledged idolatry. After all, that’s idolatry in the strongest possible sense. Whatever you do toward the Holy One, blessed be He, you direct toward an idol—that’s idolatry. What more could there be? So if worshiping an idol out of love or fear isn’t idolatry, then what is? Therefore they say no, apparently it has to mean love or fear of another person. But Maimonides doesn’t say that. In fact, the Raavad already comments on this, and so does the Kesef Mishneh and others. Maimonides says it’s talking about love and fear of the idol. So what is actual idolatry according to Maimonides? We talked about this; I’m just summarizing. What is actual idolatry according to Maimonides? It means someone who accepted it upon himself as a god. That’s Maimonides’ formulation. What does that mean? So I explained that the concept of a god, in the Bible, the words for god and gods can mean judges. Judges are called gods. “Then the master of the house shall come to the judges.” Right? So why are judges called gods? Because a judge is someone whose word has to be obeyed. Not because he’s right, not because he’s wise—those things may all be true—but that’s not why he must be obeyed. He must be obeyed because he is the judge. That’s the meaning of the term “god.” The meaning of the term “god” is someone or something whose word must be followed because he said it. Not because it’s true, not because it will benefit me, not because it will make the world better, but because he said it. And all of those things may also be true—that it helps, that it’s true, that it makes the world better. All of that may be true. But that’s not why one is supposed to do what he said. One is supposed to do what he said because he is the god. And I distinguished that from, say, someone who obeys the law. Is someone who obeys the law an idolater? After all, he’s essentially obeying commands of some body that is not God—the Knesset, or the police who enforce the Knesset’s laws. So the answer is no. Why not? Because he has reasons why he does it. You do it because it’s beneficial, you do it because it’s right—right, meaning right for you and for the state—exactly, formal authority, I talked about that. You do it because that’s what reason says, that’s what the intellect says. And of course there are people who do it out of fear—they’ll punish me or something like that—it doesn’t matter, each person has his own considerations. That’s exactly why it isn’t idolatry. Idolatry is doing something because the idol said so—because it said so. Not because it’s right, or because it’s useful, or because of who knows what. No—because it said so. And that is called accepting it as a god. Accepting it as a god means relating to some factor, some entity, as a god—meaning that whatever it says, whatever it commands, I do. That’s called a god. That’s the definition of a god. And when I— I think I mentioned this—if I say to someone, look, murder is immoral, and he says yes, yes, I know. Why, in practice, not murder? That question indicates a lack of understanding. You don’t understand what it means to say that murder is immoral. “Murder is immoral” includes within it, by definition, that you are not supposed to murder in practice. It’s not an abstract statement. It’s a statement that is supposed to have practical expressions—do and don’t do. Okay? Same thing when I say that God commanded. Someone can come and say to me: listen, God commanded, but why do I have to fulfill it? Let’s call it God commanded, not the Holy One, blessed be He, because I want to talk about the concept of God. God commanded—why do I have to fulfill it? I say: then apparently He is not your God. You don’t understand what God is. Either you don’t understand what God is, or you do understand but the Holy One, blessed be He, is not your God. Because if He were your God, there would be no room for the question: okay, God commanded, but why do it? That’s the meaning of “God commanded.” God means something or someone such that when He commands, it must be done. That is the definition of the concept of God. There is no room for a question of that kind. Now, someone may live in a world in which there is no such concept. There is no God in his world, as people say today. What does that mean? It means he is not willing to accept the authority of any factor whatsoever. Meaning, for him there is no entity in reality whose word I would do because it said so. So he is an atheist. Fine. But you can’t say: no, no, I understand that God commanded, but why fulfill it? No, no—you don’t understand. You don’t understand that God commanded. Because if you understood that God commanded, you wouldn’t ask why fulfill it. Like someone who understands that morality forbids murder, but asks himself: okay, but still, why not murder? That’s a failure to understand what morality is. So God is in the religious sphere, morality is in the ethical sphere, but it’s the same logic. Exactly the same thing. And therefore, what I want to claim is that this is what Maimonides wrote here regarding idolatry—to accept the idol as a god. But of course the concept of god in its proper form, not in its corrupted manifestations, in its proper form is supposed to refer to the Holy One, blessed be He. When I say that the Lord is God, I am directing that title toward Him; I am relating to Him as God. What did I say by that? What I said by that is the hyphen, the hyphen I spoke about earlier. That if He says, I do. Why do I do? Because He said. That’s it. Because He said. Not because it’s useful, not because of explanations, not because of the reason for the verse, not because of anything—no explanation. The explanations may be true, they may not be true. They are not the reason why I do it. I do it because He said. Yes, I brought up Mallory—I’m remembering now—the mountain climber, who was asked why he climbs Everest, and he said: because it’s there. Fine. There are things for which I don’t need to answer. Someone who understands what I understand won’t ask that question. That’s how a mountain climber feels when he sees Everest. I’ve never felt that. What I feel is, I see Everest and I run away. But mountain climbers, when they see Everest, apparently when you see it you simply climb. You don’t ask why, maybe yes, maybe no—it’s just self-evident. That feeling seems to me very similar to what I’m trying to describe here. And therefore I think this Maimonides sharpens very much what I described earlier as the hyphen. That hyphen between faith and practical obligation, practical commitment—that is exactly it. Faith does not mean merely theoretically believing that there is a God who created the world, not just that. That there is a God who created the world and so on. Rather, that He is God. What does it mean that He is God? When I say that I believe He is God, what I have really said is not that He created the world. He also created the world, but that’s not what makes Him God. God means an entity such that if it says something, it must be done because it said it. That’s it. No entity in the world may be given such a status. Not a legislator, not one wise man or another wise man, or whatever you want. Nothing in the world may be given such a status. Because to give such a status to something else—that is idolatry. That is giving divine status to something else. You may do what so-and-so commands you. You may do what the Knesset legislates. It is permissible and desirable to do what the Knesset legislates. But you do it because of something. And then it is no longer idolatry, because you do it because of something. In relation to the Holy One, blessed be He, I do it because He said. Just like that. Not because of anything. Therefore it is religious service. And that may not be directed to any factor other than the Holy One, blessed be He, because otherwise it is idolatry. And in that sense I’ll give just an illustration. I think I mentioned that this interpretation of Maimonides in the laws of idolatry I heard from my good friend Nadav Shnerb, who gave me this reading of Maimonides. And at the time he gave me an example—I think this was the example, if I remember correctly. He said: think of someone who lies down at night shattered with exhaustion, closes his eyes, and just before he finally closes them for good, he suddenly remembers that he didn’t pray the evening prayer. Real depression. In short, what does he do? He’s terribly conflicted, he doesn’t know what to do, he’s exhausted, he has no strength left. The evening prayer is optional, as is well known. No strength. What does he do? Fine, so he puts on one sleeve of his shirt so at least he’ll be somewhat decent, stands maybe ten centimeters above the bed—not really standing, not sitting either—mumbles the evening prayer quickly and goes to sleep. He doesn’t forget the bedtime Shema either. Goes to sleep. Okay? How would you relate to that prayer? Usually, I think the reactions would be: this is routine religious behavior, what kind of prayer is that? You had no intention, you didn’t do it properly. He told me: this is the loftiest prayer that could be. Why? Because it is a prayer done out of obligation. After all, he isn’t really praying; he probably didn’t even fulfill his obligation. They certainly won’t answer any request he made in that prayer, because it’s not serious, he didn’t fulfill his obligation, he mumbled… But why did he do all these little tricks? He did all these little tricks because it was obvious to him that if there is an obligation to pray the evening prayer, then there is an obligation to pray the evening prayer, period. It doesn’t matter right now what I’ll get from it, and how, and what will happen, and from the standpoint of— I don’t know. I simply do what I am obligated to do. “What the Merciful One imposed upon the world”—do what you were commanded. And in that sense it expresses service of God at a very, very deep level. And something else he pointed out to me then—when I quote things in someone’s name, I think this too came from him—the story about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev. There are lots of stories like that, and I always laughed at them, saying they’re Hasidic tales for idiots. But, but there is one story there that, when you look at it through these lenses, suddenly you see that there is something there after all, even though it’s a Hasidic tale. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak tells there about a Jew who, in the middle of prayer, remembered that the yoke-pole of his wagon had broken, and he had to set out on a long trip after the prayer. He leaves the synagogue wearing his prayer shawl and phylacteries and starts fixing the wagon’s yoke-pole. And while doing this he keeps mumbling the prayer. And you look at him and say, wait a second, what is that prayer worth? Forget it—don’t pray; it’s worth nothing. So Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev says: Master of the Universe, look what a nation of righteous people You have. They pray in the synagogue, they pray while fixing the wagon’s yoke-pole, they pray at home, they pray in the bathtub, they pray everywhere. Look what righteous people. Now on the face of it this sounds like a story for fools, a plea in their defense that really doesn’t hold water. But if you think again and ask yourselves why this person really did it—after all, he had to fix the wagon’s yoke-pole. Then let him not go to the synagogue at all. Forget the phylacteries and prayer shawl and everything, forget it, cut corners, let everyone think you were at the other synagogue. Okay? And you know why you need two synagogues on a desert island. Not on a desert island—on a non-desert island, sorry. So everyone will think you were at the other synagogue. No—he went to the synagogue, put on a prayer shawl and phylacteries, and with them went out to fix the wagon. Why? Because he has a sense of obligation. He has to pray. What do you mean? There is a commandment to pray, so he has to pray. True, he has drives and constraints and he has to fix the wagon and he wasn’t okay. He wasn’t okay; he should have postponed it. All true—maybe all true. But there is still here an expression of a very deep sense of obligation. And in that sense it is true. He didn’t give up. He didn’t give up on the prayer. He cut corners, he did things, fine, we’re all human, but he didn’t give up on it. Why? Because he has a very deep sense of obligation. Now again, of course this can come from habit, or from what people will say about me, or all kinds of things like that. That’s a different matter. But if it doesn’t come from there—and it doesn’t always come from there—but rather from a place where you know, it’s clear to me this is what has to be done, the Holy One, blessed be He, said so, this is the Jewish law, what can I do? So I cut corners here, cut corners there, but I will not give up on fulfilling Jewish law. In that sense there is very deep service of God here. There is very strong commitment here, even in a difficult state, to do what you need to do. True, you cut corners, maybe you didn’t fulfill your obligation, you didn’t really do it properly—but you didn’t give up on it. You did something; you really didn’t give up despite the constraints. It’s like a person who comes to his regular synagogue—forget the wagon’s yoke-pole. A person comes to synagogue. Usually our prayer is not exactly something extraordinary. Doubtful whether we even fulfill our obligation at all by the usual standards, right? Today even the Rema gives up on concentration in the Amidah because we can’t concentrate. The required concentrations. So what does that mean? Why does a person go there, basically mumble the prayer, he doesn’t think it’ll help him, he doesn’t— it’s just, he says it, he goes to synagogue, mumbles the prayer, and goes on his way. He faithfully fulfills the section in the Shulchan Arukh, section 156, because afterward he goes out to his business. That, that’s the one thing he fulfills with complete precision. But in all the 155 sections before that, he’s not especially strong. Okay. Now the question is: why? Why does he do it? Everyone scolds these people, saying it’s rote performance, yes? “Routine commandment observance.” You say: you, you’re not praying, you don’t feel cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, you don’t really understand the meaning of the words, you just show up, it’s worth nothing. There is no greater mistake than this. It is a wonderful prayer. It is a wonderful prayer because the person does it because he is obligated, because Jewish law said so. He doesn’t need them to answer him with healing and livelihood, and he also doesn’t believe it will help him in those areas, and that’s not why he comes there. And he also doesn’t concentrate, because he’s a human being and he has drives and other things that occupy him. You know—“these trust in chariots and these in horses, but we invoke the name of the Lord”—you know that one. There are those who, to travel to America, need a car and horses and planes; we invoke the name of the Lord—just start praying and we’re already in America. That’s what his prayer looks like. So what does that mean? Seemingly it’s worth nothing. Not true—it’s worth a great deal, because in the end this person does what he was obligated to do. And in that sense it is a prayer that very, very deeply expresses service of God, commitment to the service of God. Precisely such a prayer. Because someone who comes to pray because he wants healing and livelihood and all kinds of things like that, as Leibowitz says, yes? God is a health fund for him—then he isn’t coming to pray, he isn’t coming to fulfill the commandment of prayer, he’s coming to take care of his needs. In that sense that is worship not for its own sake, or maybe not worship at all. Here I’m beginning to return to the remark from earlier: this is actually not prayer in its purest sense. Fine—it’s just to obtain things you need. And therefore I think this way of looking at things changes a great deal in how we view many planes of our service of God. This isn’t some theoretical discussion; it’s a discussion with very, very practical implications in life. But here I want to sharpen an important point. I do not mean to say that you do not need to concentrate in prayer, or that you shouldn’t love and fear the Holy One, blessed be He, and make prayer a basis, say, for love and fear of the Holy One, blessed be He—whoever manages—and the kavanot of the Ari if you want, and whatever you like, everything is possible. All I mean to say is that all those things are the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of the commandment of prayer. There is a first floor before everything. The first floor is that prayer is a commandment. And commandments require intention. What does that mean, intention? Intention to fulfill one’s obligation. That is the most basic intention of prayer, the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. Someone who intends all the Ari’s mystical intentions in prayer, and love and fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, can pray all over again; he has not fulfilled his obligation. Were it not for the Rema I mentioned earlier, that nobody today can really concentrate, but were it not for that, he would not have fulfilled his obligation. Why? Because commandments require intention. “Commandments require intention” means intention to fulfill one’s obligation. There are other intentions in prayer: love and fear, desire for livelihood and healing perhaps, doesn’t matter, each according to his outlook. All that is the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. There is the first floor, without which one does not fulfill one’s obligation. Intention to fulfill one’s obligation. According to the view at least that commandments require intention, yes? I’m not getting into the nuances here; there are nuances. Now the point is that people claim there is only the second floor and up. As if prayer—if someone doesn’t have the second floor and up—then it’s routine observance, a prayer worth nothing. By the way, Leibowitz makes the opposite claim—that there is only the first floor. Both are mistakes. There is the first floor, and after it the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, true. You just mustn’t forget the first floor too, and on top of it you can add the second, third, and fourth. And I’m saying the same now with regard to service of God in general. When I speak about accepting Him as God as the basis of serving God, I mean to say that first of all, above all, I do commandments because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. That is why I do commandments. On top of that, a person can also bring in love and fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, maybe the significance of the commandment for him and what it is trying to achieve if he understands what it is trying to achieve, I don’t know. Each person will pour into it whatever content he pours into it. But the foundation is accepting Him as God. On top of that there can be many additional things, but not in place of it. If someone does it in place of that, like Ahad Ha’am, then that is not fulfillment of a commandment. Therefore one has to beware of the two extremes. One extreme says there is only meaning and the existential dimensions, and the other says there is only Leibowitz-ism. I think the full picture says that the foundation is the Leibowitz-ism, and on top of it there is the whole tower. After all, prayer is formulated as requests and praises and everything. According to Leibowitz—and I think he wrote this somewhere—you could have been asked to recite the telephone book three times a day. What difference does it make? The main thing is that you do what you were commanded. But the Sages did not formulate prayer that way. The fact is that prayer is formulated in a meaningful way. There are requests here, praises, various thanksgivings, things of that sort. So it cannot be that this is just something one can ignore. Clearly they expect—or God apparently expects—that you also direct your mind to those things. But it is true that at the foundation, prayer is first of all a commandment. And one must intend to fulfill one’s obligation. And someone who didn’t intend… Now that same wagon yoke-pole, that same story, that same person who comes to synagogue every morning without all the Ari’s mystical intentions and love and fear and excitement and all these things—he has the first floor. And when he has the first floor, then first of all he certainly did the commandment at the basic level. By contrast, someone who does not have the first floor and has all those lofty things—he dances in prayer all day—it could be that he did not fulfill his obligation at all. If he is not doing it because of the obligation, but rather because it is an experience and cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, and all that, then he simply did not fulfill his obligation. According to the one who says commandments require intention—again I qualify—according to the one who says commandments require intention, he did not fulfill his obligation. And the intentions in prayer—this is already Rabbi Chaim—there are three intentions in prayer: the intention of the words, the intention of standing before God, and the intention to fulfill one’s obligation like any other commandment. It is a commandment like any other commandment; for some reason people forget that. And the same is true regarding the service of God. When I fulfill a commandment, I fulfill it because of accepting Him as God first of all. On top of that I can also love and fear and think that it attaches me to the Holy One, blessed be He—everything is wonderful—not instead of it, but on top of the first floor.
[Speaker B] But all these intentions—to attach oneself to the Holy One, blessed be He, and emotional experience and so on and so on—aren’t those themselves the reason for the commandment of prayer?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe that is the reason for the commandment of prayer, but I perform the commandment of prayer not because of the reason. We don’t derive practical law from the reason for the verse, aside from that. I perform the commandment of prayer because it is a commandment. Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, command me in this? Fine, He apparently had things He wanted to accomplish; that’s perfectly fine. But my basic motivation to do it is because He commanded. After that I can also try to think about what this is meant to achieve and try to connect to it, okay, possible—second floor, third floor, and onward. But first of all there is the first floor. There is a difference between our perspective on the commandments and the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, on the commandments. The Holy One, blessed be He, established these commandments and not others; apparently He had good reasons why He did this. So there is a reason—what is the purpose, what is the commandment trying to achieve. But as far as I’m concerned, I should even have recited the telephone book. The fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, chose not to give me the telephone book—so He told me, look, I probably also expect from you the second and third floors. But first of all there is the first floor. First of all there is service through accepting Him as God. After that, love and fear and everything and cleaving and all that is wonderful, but first there is accepting Him as God.
[Speaker E] And is there a difference when it’s a rabbinic commandment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. Why should there be a difference?
[Speaker E] After all, God didn’t command it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t want to—
[Speaker E] —to do it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] because… No, the Holy One, blessed be He, did command it. If I do a rabbinic commandment and God did not command it, then I am practicing idolatry. Because I am basically doing—seriously, I’m not saying this ironically—actual idolatry. It’s idolatry because I’m fulfilling the words of a human being simply because he said them.
[Speaker B] So where did the Holy One, blessed be He, command? In “do not deviate.” In “do not deviate.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True, that’s a dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides, but it’s obvious that even according to Nachmanides there has to be some basis that anchors this in the Holy One, blessed be He. Without that, one isn’t obligated. I don’t serve any human being. To serve a human being is idolatry. I do it because it is God’s will; at the moment I don’t care where I know from that it is God’s will. But I fulfill what the Sages say because it is God’s will, not because the Sages said it. So what if they said it? That is literally idolatry. This is somewhat similar to—or connected a bit with—a discussion now in the WhatsApp group about Meron and all the festivities there. The Meron carnival, the challah-separation ceremonies of all kinds, and all these popular things that happen today, where in the end they border on—and in my opinion are on the forbidden side of the border—an actual Torah prohibition. Not only is it inappropriate, not only is it inadvisable—it is forbidden, simply forbidden, forbidden by Torah law. Maimonides brings it, and so does the Rif—it’s in the Talmudic text—they rule as law that it is forbidden to use the commandments as a means of healing oneself, of being saved through them. One must do the commandments because one was commanded. Chapter 11 of Maimonides’ laws of idolatry. Someone who thinks that separating challah will help him in some way violates “you shall not practice divination.” If he says that in the merit of separating challah, in the merit of separating challah the Holy One, blessed be He, will help me—there is room to be lenient about that; there are decisors who say that is permitted, though even there it requires precision. It’s not so simple. Because then the question is: if it only creates merit, then why are you separating challah? Study Torah, pray, do something—do any other commandment. Someone who emphasizes specifically separating challah, that means he isn’t just looking for merit, because merit comes from every commandment. Rather, he understands that separating challah itself does something. That is a Torah prohibition. Aside from charity.
[Speaker F] You hear? Aside from charity.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Charity is an interesting question, because the Talmudic text says, “on condition that my son live,” and so on. That’s a topic unto itself. I think maybe I’ll write something about it soon, and then I’ll address it, if I hope I get to it.
[Speaker G] Yes, but what about “tithe so that you become wealthy”? What? What about “tithe so that you become wealthy”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Tithe so that you become wealthy” is not saying that the motivation should be to become wealthy. Someone who tithes because of that motivation does not fulfill a commandment. Well, that’s how it sounds in the article. No, I don’t think you’re right. “Tithe so that you become wealthy” means that if you tithe, then you will become wealthy. It’s a literary expression. They aren’t telling you: fulfill this in order to become wealthy. That would be absurd. According to how you’re reading it, it would mean there is a commandment to tithe in order to become wealthy. If someone doesn’t want to become wealthy, then he doesn’t have to tithe?
[Speaker G] No, no—that there’s an outside motivation, not only that I’m doing service of God, but I also have—they need to give a candy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking a question: if you read it literally, then you have to read it the way I’m saying. “Tithe so that you become wealthy”—that’s what it says, no? I’m claiming it shouldn’t be read like that.
[Speaker G] I read it more as a kind of candy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I didn’t understand.
[Speaker G] I read it more as a kind of candy. Not that you should do it because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, if so, then we don’t disagree.
[Speaker G] So they’ll pat you a little.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If so, then we don’t disagree. So in the end you tithe because it’s a commandment. You just think it will also make you wealthy—very good. So what?
[Speaker G] No, because then it’s not a pure motivation of service of God.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is a completely pure motivation. Completely pure. I’ll now bring the introduction of the Eglei Tal. I think I mentioned it sometime already. In the introduction to the Eglei Tal, he writes that there are those who err from the path of reason and think that studying Torah with enjoyment, enjoying your Torah study, is study not for its own sake. And he says that this is a great mistake. Clearly joy and pleasure are part of the commandment of Torah study. Yes, every morning we bless, “Please make the words of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths.” We want it to be sweet to us. Why? Because when we enjoy and rejoice, then it connects to us more, we understand it more, we internalize it more. Clearly enjoyment contributes to learning. Everybody knows that part from the Eglei Tal. But the next sentence is less well known. In the next sentence he says: but someone who studies for the sake of the enjoyment—that really is study not for its own sake. Meaning, he says there is no problem at all with your enjoying and rejoicing—on the contrary, it is desirable to enjoy and rejoice—but not that the learning should be for the sake of the pleasure and joy. Because that is study not for its own sake. So what yes? I study because one must study; in addition, I also enjoy and rejoice. But not that the pleasure and joy are the motivation for the learning. Obviously, one need not extinguish the pleasure and joy and try to suffer. That’s obvious. On the other hand, if my motivation for learning is pleasure and joy, then that is study not for its own sake. What’s the criterion? Wait a second, wait a second. The criterion is what happens if one morning I wake up and I don’t feel like learning. I don’t enjoy it, I’m not happy, I don’t have the strength right now, I want to go to the beach. Fine? Do I still learn? If I still learn, then that means that even when I enjoy it, I am not learning because of the enjoyment but because of the commandment—besides the fact that I also enjoy it.
[Speaker G] You could say the opposite here too. I learn when I’m not enjoying it because I want to enjoy it again. So the motivation is enjoyment, but it doesn’t work all the time, yet I still want to enjoy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s not get into psychological diagnostics. It can be interpreted one way, it can be interpreted another. I only mean to illustrate the point. You have to learn because of the commandment and not in order to enjoy. How you measure whether you’re that kind of person or not—about that one can argue; let’s leave it to the psychologists. It’s not important to me exactly how to measure it. What matters to me is the principle. The principle is that— the principle is that you should learn because of the commandment, and enjoy it, but not learn because of the enjoyment. That is the same logic I’m talking about here. Meaning, you can—you can perform commandments and also, not just can but should, love and fear the Holy One, blessed be He. Love and fear of God—those are commandments. Certainly you are supposed to love and fear the Holy One, blessed be He, but you are not supposed to do it because of the love and fear. That’s the point. According to Maimonides, any religious service that has a reason is service not for its own sake. If you do it because of something, because it gives you something, that is service not for its own sake. You have to do things because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. And one of the strongest expressions of this is found in Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 10 of the laws of repentance. There is a wonderful Maimonides passage there, I really love it. These are the Maimonides passages of Litvaks. These are the passages the Litvaks live off of. I share Maimonides’ view. “A person should not say: behold, I perform the commandments of the Torah and engage in its wisdom in order to receive all the blessings written in it, or in order to merit the life of the world to come; and I separate myself from the transgressions against which the Torah warned in order to be saved from the curses written in the Torah, or in order not to be cut off from the life of the world to come. It is not fitting to serve the Lord in this way, for one who serves in this way serves out of fear, and this is not the level of the prophets nor the level of the wise. And one serves the Lord in this way only among the ignoramuses, women, and children, whom one trains to serve out of fear until their knowledge increases and they serve out of love.” So Maimonides says: it is not fitting to serve not for its own sake, for reward or out of fear of punishment. That is service out of fear, and it is not fitting. One should serve God out of love. Now, law 2: what does it mean to serve out of love? You might think, ah, love of God—but that contradicts what he said in the laws of idolatry that we just learned. Because there he said that someone who worships an idol out of love or fear is exempt. Meaning, if religious service comes from some emotional motivation, fear or love, that’s not good. One should do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. Here Maimonides says otherwise. He says not to serve out of fear, but to serve out of love—yes, to serve out of love. Look what he writes in law 2. “One who serves out of love occupies himself with Torah and the commandments and walks in the paths of wisdom not because of anything in the world, nor because of fear of evil, nor in order to inherit good.” So what yes? “Rather he does the truth because it is truth, and in the end the good comes because of it.” Notice, he doesn’t say fear of evil and inheriting good only in the sense of reward. He says “not because of anything in the world.” You can see the words. But he says because of good. He says not because of anything in the world, not because of fear of evil and not in order to inherit— I don’t understand. “In the end the good comes.” “In the end the good comes,” so what—what does that have to do now with motivation that good will come? No, that is not the motivation. You’re repeating the same mistake. Let me explain again. Maimonides says that one who serves out of love walks in the paths of wisdom not because of anything in the world. He has no reason whatsoever; he just does it. Not fear of evil, not in order to inherit good, but what yes? “He does the truth because it is truth.” That’s why you do it. Wait, wait, wait. “He does the truth because it is truth, and in the end the good comes because of it.” That does not mean there is no world to come, no reward, no benefit to the commandments. There is. But that is not why you do it. You do the truth because it is truth, and in the end the good comes. As the Lithuanian says. You are saying exactly the opposite of what he says.
[Speaker D] Why does he say because it is truth? He doesn’t say because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. He says because it is true, because it is right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then why—
[Speaker D] Right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —is there a reason to do it? No—why is it right? It is right because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. It is right because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it, first of all.
[Speaker E] Apparently it’s also right because if He commanded it then there is some reason for it, but after all I don’t know that reason. I know that if the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it, I need to do it. I’ll show you this in other places in Maimonides too; these things are explicit in Maimonides. We’ve only just started this Maimonides passage. But clearly that’s what he means. “He does the truth because it is truth” means that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. And nothing—no benefit. He says not anything in the world, not benefit that this will also bring to the world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By benefit I mean positive benefit, spiritual benefit—not the world to come or that I’ll have more money.
[Speaker E]
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nothing in the world. No—if you do something for a reason, then it’s like what he said about idolatry. If you do something for a reason, that is not religious service. Religious service is when you do something because God said so. That’s it. But Maimonides continues: “And not every wise man merits this.” I didn’t say it is forbidden; I said it is service not for its own sake. It’s not forbidden. In idolatry we are speaking about prohibitions. Here we are speaking about commandments. There is no prohibition on doing a commandment in that manner; it’s just not the correct way to do it. It is not fitting to do it that way. But that’s for the treasured nation. I’m talking right now about the model Maimonides presents. The question is how many people manage to reach this model. That’s another question—maybe few. But this is the model. And “in the end the good comes” is exactly like the Eglei Tal. In the end there is pleasure and joy and everything, and it brings benefit. Everything is fine. But that’s not why I learn. That’s what Maimonides writes here. “And this level is a very great level, and not every wise man merits it; and it is the level of Abraham our father, whom the Holy One, blessed be He, called ‘My beloved.’” Notice again: this is what he calls love. Doing the truth because it is truth—that is what he calls love. It’s not a feeling of love, that I love the Holy One, blessed be He, and do it the way I love someone and do things that make me happy. No. The love Maimonides is speaking about here is intellectual love. Cognitive love, yes? It’s something— I understand that this is the truth. That’s what he calls love. In a moment we’ll see this.
[Speaker B] The continuation, where he says it is like the love of a woman—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, one second. We’ll get there.
[Speaker B] And if it is the level of Abraham—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Our father” — meaning Abraham our father — whom the Holy One, blessed be He, called His beloved, because he served only out of love. And this is the level that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us through Moses, as it says: “And you shall love the Lord your God.” And when a person loves God with the proper love, he will immediately perform all the commandments out of love. The intention here is love of virtue — meaning, since you understand that what the Holy One, blessed be He, says is the truth, that’s what you do. You do it because He said it. And now look at what follows, what Eliav pointed out earlier. Here, apparently, there’s a contradiction to what I’m saying. “And what is the proper love? It is that one should love God with a great, exceeding, intense love, until his soul is bound up in the love of God, and he is continually obsessed with it, like someone lovesick, whose mind is never free from love of that woman, and he is preoccupied with her constantly, whether sitting, whether rising, and even while eating and drinking. Even more than this should the love of God be in the hearts of His lovers, constantly occupying them, as He commanded us, ‘with all your heart and with all your soul.’ And this is what Solomon said, by way of metaphor: ‘For I am sick with love,’ and the entire Song of Songs is a metaphor for this matter.” Apparently, Jewish law 3 directly contradicts the previous Jewish laws, Jewish law 2. You’re telling me love — what is love? To do the truth because it is truth. The most Lithuanian-style love imaginable. And suddenly you become ultra-Hasidic on me. Love of God is like Song of Songs, it’s like love of a woman, it’s to be constantly absorbed in it, to be full of it so that it never leaves you. How do these two Jewish laws fit together?
It seems to me that what you have to be careful about here — and this often happens — is not to take a metaphor one step too far. What do I mean? Maimonides says this: love is to do the truth because it is truth. That’s what he calls love here. Now it may be that once I understand that this is the truth, some kind of love for these things naturally arises in me. That’s a symptom — meaning, it’s an indication that I understand that this is the truth — but I do the things because of the truth, not because of the feeling that was awakened as a result.
And now Maimonides says this: since we’re talking here about love of virtue, what you might call cognitive love, not emotional love, we have a certain tendency to see, okay, this is something cold, something rational like that, so you say a pious formula in the morning and everything’s fine, and basically I’m doing things for the right reason. And by the way, that’s actually true. But Maimonides says that this great level — that only Abraham our father attained, and few attain — is that when this accompanies you the whole day, not necessarily in the emotional sense. He gives an illustration from love of a woman. In love of a woman it’s very easy for us to understand this. There everyone understands it, not just people of high spiritual level. Everyone understands it because it’s an experience many people have — that it basically accompanies you all the time, you are always preoccupied with her love. Maimonides says the whole Song of Songs is a metaphor for this matter. What does he mean by metaphor? He doesn’t mean that love of the Holy One, blessed be He, also has to be emotional. Rather, that love of the Holy One, blessed be He, even though it is not emotional, still has to be like emotional love — meaning, it has to be intense and accompany us all day, like emotional love does.
It seems there’s someone here who’s in tremendous love — good for him. So the claim, basically, is that this metaphor in Jewish law 3 is a metaphor for the intensity of the love, but not necessarily for its character. This love does not have to be emotional love. If it is, fine. But that is not the commandment, or at least not what Maimonides is talking about here. Maimonides is speaking here about love of virtue. Love of virtue means understanding that this is the pure truth and doing it because it is the truth. Usually, people who truly and sincerely understand this are also people who will feel an emotion of love, because that’s how we’re built. But that’s not the point; it’s only a symptom. And even if you don’t feel it, it doesn’t matter. The real point is to do the truth because it is truth. And the comparison to Song of Songs is a metaphor to explain the degree of intensity that this should take in my world, not necessarily the degree of emotionality.
I don’t see how one arrives at emotional love toward the Holy One, blessed be He, like love between spouses. I don’t know, it sounds strange to me. Maybe there are people who manage it, I don’t know. But I don’t think that’s what Maimonides means here. Rather, he continues consistently along his whole path. Maimonides defines that the service of God must be done without a reason. To do the truth because it is truth. That’s it. If there is any other reason, even a spiritual reason, a good reason, an excellent reason, it doesn’t matter — it’s already not that, it’s already service not for its own sake.
And here I’ll return to the point you raised earlier, Eliyahu — the question whether that is worth nothing, or whether it is service not for its own sake. And here I return to the distinction I made earlier with the hyphen. If I believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, but I serve like “the average person” — an ordinary fellow works, I work like “the average person” — here it becomes very subtle, and I don’t know what to answer. Why? On the one hand, I can say this is service, it probably is a commandment, but perhaps a commandment not for its own sake. So it is a commandment. Unlike the average person, where if he doesn’t believe then it’s not a commandment at all. But if someone does believe, then it probably is a commandment. I’m just unsure why it is a commandment.
You could say it’s a commandment because in the end, if a believing person performs commandments, that probably stems from his belief — it’s not accidental that he does it. So deep down, even if he’s not aware of it, deep down what moved him to do this commandment is religious obligation. That’s obvious. Like the story about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. Meaning, he himself wouldn’t explain to himself that he’s doing it because of religious obligation; on the contrary, he’d feel guilty — what kind of prayer is this, I fixed the wagon while praying. But when I look at it from the side, I see something that he himself אולי didn’t even notice: that there is something in his commitment that doesn’t let him leave the prayer; he has to do it. And in that sense, there really is commitment here even if you are not aware of it.
This is somewhat like the explanation regarding whether commandments require intention, for example. In the issue of commandments requiring intention, the claim of many halakhic decisors — and it starts already among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) — is that if you did it without specific intention, you still fulfilled your obligation even according to the one who says commandments require intention, unless there is opposite intention. For example, I came to synagogue, put on tefillin, and prayed; I didn’t intend to fulfill an obligation or anything. Many halakhic decisors say: you fulfilled your obligation. Why did you fulfill your obligation? Because when I ask myself why I’m there, what am I doing there, it is clear that deep inside me I’m there because I am bound by the Jewish law that tells me to do this. The fact that this is not presently in my conscious awareness — true, that may even be a certain deficiency — but you can’t say I’m not doing it because of the obligation. I am doing it because of the obligation; I’m just not aware of it.
This is similar to the explanation there at the beginning of tractate Zevachim, that an unspecified act is presumed to be for its proper sake. Someone writes a bill of divorce for a woman, but he is not explicitly thinking “for the sake of this woman.” So the question is whether the unspecified act is also considered to be for its proper sake. Is it clear from the context that he is writing it for the woman, and therefore even though it is unspecified, it will be considered writing a bill of divorce for its proper sake? The discussion there in the Talmud is that there is a difference between sacrifices and a woman; with a woman, unspecified probably does not count, and with sacrifices it does. But that’s the discussion there in the Talmud at the beginning of Zevachim, right at the start, on page 2.
So the halakhic decisors say: the same applies regarding whether commandments require intention. Also with commandments requiring intention, if the person is a believer, then what is he doing in synagogue? If he is not a believer, then people invite him to synagogue, he comes to complete a quorum, to do people a favor; he is not there in order to pray. So that, I said, he’s a potted plant. He doesn’t count. But if there is someone who comes to synagogue, he is a believing person, he prays, he comes to synagogue — right now the commandment is not on his mind and he doesn’t intend it; he’s actually thinking about his business. But he came to synagogue. Why did he come? After all, he’s a believing person, he regularly keeps commandments. It’s obvious he came because it’s a commandment. Even if he is not aware of it, deep down that is clearly his motivation. An unspecified act is presumed to be for its proper sake.
Therefore my claim — or at least that’s how I think — is that if such a person fulfills a commandment not for its own sake, it may be that it is even a commandment for its own sake; not only that it is a commandment, but not for its own sake. Unlike the average person, where it’s not a commandment at all. I said: for him it is a commandment, but maybe not for its own sake. And here it may be that it is even a commandment for its own sake. Because at the end of the day, you are doing it because of the obligation. Otherwise why did you come at all? You’re doing it because of the obligation. True, it isn’t present for you consciously. So maybe the “for-its-own-sake” here is not the highest form; there are levels in doing something for its own sake. If it is also present for you and you’re aware of it all the time, then that is an enhanced, superior doing-for-its-own-sake. But still, there really is a commandment here. And there is a commandment here because you really are doing it because of that.
But someone who really does not do it for that reason, even deep down — it may be that he has no commandment here at all. Not that it is a commandment not for its own sake. It may be — I’m undecided about this, and that’s why I told you to wait a bit before I answer that question — whether it is a commandment at all, not a commandment at all, or a commandment not for its own sake. I’m a bit undecided; it may depend on the person’s psychological depth. I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that.
Okay, but on the principled level, what I want to summarize — and I see we’ll have to devote a bit of next time to this — is that Maimonides’ position, in my view, is that the hyphen between belief and practical obligation is really the focal point of the issue. If that hyphen does not exist, then at best it is service not for its own sake, if it is service at all, if it is a commandment at all. It is highly doubtful whether it is a commandment at all. But if it is, then it is a commandment not for its own sake. Okay? Because that hyphen is very important. That I do it because of the command. Not that there is a command and I do it because it is good. No — I do it because of the command. It is not enough that I both believe and observe. I have to observe because I believe. Only then is the commandment a full commandment, or only then is it perhaps a commandment at all. That’s the hesitation I mentioned earlier. Okay, so that is basically Maimonides’ method. Next time I want to go through another three sources in Maimonides and try to convince you even more that this is indeed his position, and then we’ll move on to more.
[Speaker E] I have a basic question. Maimonides emphasizes the intellect. Hasidism would say: we don’t rule like Maimonides. Fine, health and happiness to them. Okay, the Baal Shem Tov…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m presenting my position, and I’m presenting what I think is also Maimonides’ position. Whoever doesn’t accept it, doesn’t accept it. What can I do? I’m not… okay.
[Speaker E] I’m saying—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that it also makes sense logically, not just because Maimonides said it. I would say it even without Maimonides. But fine, I’m saying, they probably disagree with me. Very well, then they disagree. There are many other things I don’t agree on with the Hasidim either. Nothing to be done. All right, does anyone else want to comment or ask?
[Speaker B] Yes, please. Someone who separates challah in order to be healed — is that idolatry? I can’t hear. Right? I can’t hear. Someone who separates challah in order to be healed?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not idolatry; it’s not “do not practice divination.” It’s in the orbit of idolatry, yes. In the Laws of Idolatry in Maimonides, chapter 11, he discusses there the prohibition “do not practice divination.” What?
[Speaker B] Yes, so why isn’t that… so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They can’t hear you, you’re cutting out. Can’t hear.
[Speaker B] Yes, can you hear me?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes.
[Speaker B] Why is someone who separates challah in order to be healed not included under the category of not for its own sake?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I said, there is a specific prohibition here; not because it’s not for its own sake. It’s “do not practice divination.” Not-for-its-own-sake is one factor — that’s from the passages of Maimonides we just saw. Besides that, there is also the prohibition of “do not practice divination.” Not because of that; that’s in addition. Because the claim is — and this is in the Talmud, and the Rif and Maimonides bring it as Jewish law — that if a person uses the commandments as a means to be healed, that is “do not practice divination.” It’s like believing that a black cat brings bad luck.
[Speaker B] Okay, but another example: someone who performs the commandments because he thinks it’s good for him — that falls under not for its own sake, right? And that’s not idolatry. Right. Okay. And also, to obey someone — if I obey someone because I love him, because I fear him, is that formal authority or another kind of authority?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the opposite of formal authority. You do it because you have a reason. Formal authority means that you do it because he said so.
[Speaker B] So there is formal authority, substantive authority, and another kind of authority, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, substantive authority is the same type. I don’t care right now whether there are several nuances, but it’s the same type. Substantive authority means that I obey someone because of certain abilities he has, because he’s wise or because I love him or for this or that reason.
[Speaker B] So you’re basically saying that one must obey the Holy One, blessed be He, because of formal authority?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. Ah, okay.
[Speaker B] Not because He is right and…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. He probably is right too, but not because of that.
[Speaker B] Yes, okay, I understand. Nice. Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyone else?
[Speaker C] Thank you very much and Sabbath peace. Can’t hear.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you very much and Sabbath peace.
[Speaker B] Sabbath peace. There’s someone who sent — I don’t know how to say it in Hebrew — but someone asked, yes, in the chat, what is meant by Rabbi Eliezer’s statement, “One who makes his prayer fixed, his prayer is not supplication”? Well, what didn’t I understand? Because you said one has to pray because of the obligation to pray, because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so, so that’s basically “one who makes his prayer fixed.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can explain that in ten ways. First, who says he’s talking about obligatory prayer? He may be talking about prayers that you do beyond the obligation. Second, it could be that one whose prayer is only fixed, his prayer is not supplication. That’s the mistake of being only Leibowitz. So I’m saying: there is level one — you have to do beyond the obligation, you also need supplication. That’s Leibowitz’s mistake. But there is still level one; you just need level two on top of it. Things like that can be explained in many ways. Okay.
[Speaker B] Very good, thank you very much.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, goodbye, Sabbath peace.
[Speaker B] Sabbath peace.