Faith – Lesson 46
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
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Table of Contents
- [0:01] The distinction between moral gratitude and ontic gratitude
- [2:54] The limits of the moral obligation of gratitude
- [4:00] Wrongful birth – a legal-philosophical example
- [6:06] The valuation problem in tort claims
- [10:53] The impossibility of suing the creator for existence
- [12:16] A teenager suing his parents – a Scottish case
- [19:51] A quote from Maimonides on being the First Existent
- [22:06] Understanding Maimonides’ “There is none besides Him”
- [24:23] The connection between positive commandments and dependence on God
- [29:19] Total obligation versus the army’s demands
- [30:44] The exclusive claim of divinity
- [33:18] God’s percentage in a person – a fractal calculation
- [35:37] Love and fear in idolatry – Maimonides’ interpretation
- [43:09] God as the absolute authority to obey
- [46:30] The story of Rabbi Levi – motivation for prayer
- [51:09] Wittgenstein’s argument about religious obligation
- [53:07] Divine command as the absoluteness of the commandment
- [54:57] Conclusion and break – until next time
Summary
General overview
The text defines two kinds of gratitude: moral gratitude for a good deed done for me, and ontic-metaphysical gratitude that stems from the very fact that someone created me and constitutes my existence, based on the verse, “Is He not your Father, your Owner? He made you and established you.” Moral gratitude toward the Holy One, blessed be He, is presented as vulnerable to objections, whereas ontic gratitude is presented as deeper, as explaining total obligation to the point of self-sacrifice. The example of “wrongful birth” is used to sharpen the distinction between causing harm within a given life and a claim about being brought into existence itself, and from there a connection is built to Maimonides at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, who presents one-way dependence on the First Existent as “the principle on which everything depends” and as the basis for sanctifying God’s name. Later, a conception of serving God “for its own sake” is developed through Maimonides’ interpretation of exemption in idolatry done out of love or fear, and the distinction between acting for external reasons and “accepting something as a god,” leading to the claim that religious obligation is “because He said so,” not because of utility, reward, emotion, or rational judgment.
Two kinds of gratitude: moral and ontic
The discussion distinguishes between moral gratitude, in which someone who has done me good obligates me to return good as a moral duty, and ontic gratitude, in which the very fact that someone created me imposes an obligation toward him. The verse, “Is He not your Father, your Owner? He made you and established you,” is presented as giving two reasons for obligation toward the Holy One, blessed be He, with “He made you” understood as stronger than “and established you.” Moral gratitude toward the Holy One, blessed be He, is described as open to objections such as the claim that no effort was invested, that there is much evil in the world, and that He could have refrained from creating altogether, while the ontic plane is presented as a claim that does not depend on moral proportionality but on the metaphysical belonging of a branch to its root.
Ontic gratitude as the general case, and its implications for self-sacrifice
The text presents moral gratitude as a particular case of metaphysical gratitude, because moral good means that something of mine or something in my possession “came from him.” The obligations derived from moral gratitude are described as limited and not proportional to a demand for sacrificing one’s life, whereas the ontic claim makes it possible to understand a more absolute demand. It is argued that if the Holy One, blessed be He, created a person, then on the metaphysical plane “He has the right to demand that you disappear,” and “the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted,” and therefore one can ground a total obligation that does not stand on the basis of ordinary moral reasoning.
Wrongful birth: the valuation problem and the philosophical claim about existence itself
The example of “wrongful birth” is presented as a case in which a child born in a severe condition seeks to sue his parents for bringing him into the world and not having an abortion, with a distinction drawn between claims against a doctor for negligence and a claim against the parents themselves, along with mention of a possible direction in Israeli case law. The valuation problem is presented as central: in a tort claim one must compare a prior state with the state after the damage, whereas here there is no alternative state of that same person as “healthy and whole,” but only the possibility “that I not exist at all” versus “that I exist in this condition,” and therefore there is no comparative basis. Beyond valuation, a philosophical argument is presented: if the parents had done “their duty” according to the plaintiff’s view and not brought him into the world, he would not exist in order to sue, and therefore “the branch cannot sue the tree” when the plaintiff’s very existence depends on the one he seeks to sue for bringing him into the world in the first place.
Debate with students and the distinction between a tort claim and a criminal claim
A student argues that bringing someone into a world full of suffering is “the most logical claim possible,” including an example of a teenager suing over being ginger and the mention that “it would have been better for a person not to have been created.” The response distinguishes between a criminal claim, which he says is brought by the state rather than the person, and a tort claim, in which he argues that a person cannot sue over his very existence. A distinction is also made between suing over being brought into the world itself and a case in which a mother “sleeps with drugs” and there is a direct causal connection to a disability, which is likened to an active injury that can be sued over as harm within a given life rather than as a claim about creation itself.
Maimonides at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah: one-way dependence and “there is none besides Him”
Maimonides is cited at the opening of the Mishneh Torah: “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a First Existent… and all beings… exist only from the truth of His existence,” with emphasis on his statement that if one were to imagine that He did not exist, “nothing else could exist.” This is explained as a one-way dependence in which “all beings need Him, while He… does not need them,” and is connected to “And the Lord God is truth… there is none besides Him” as meaning “there is nothing that exists independently of Him,” not in the Hasidic sense of “there is nothing besides the Holy One, blessed be He.” The world’s continual governance is also presented: “He guides the sphere… and the sphere revolves constantly… and He… causes it to revolve,” as an illustration that “and established you” means ongoing sustenance and not only initial creation.
Sanctifying God’s name and self-sacrifice as the opening of practical Jewish law
The structure is presented in which, after the metaphysical chapters, Maimonides opens chapter 5 with “The entire house of Israel is commanded concerning sanctifying God’s name,” and the laws of being killed rather than transgressing, including the three severe sins, a time of persecution, and “even a shoelace strap.” The text argues that this placement is not accidental, because the ontic dependence established at the beginning of the book explains how the Torah can demand self-sacrifice even over minor details. A comparison is brought to military ethics, according to which there is no lawful order for a suicide mission but only for taking a risk, and the argument is made that only the obligation that arises from “the truth of His existence” can ground an extreme demand up to the point of giving one’s life.
The limits of the analogy to parents and the intensification of dependence on the Holy One, blessed be He
An objection is raised to the parental analogy through an example of sadistic parents demanding a kidney donation from their child, and the response argues that one must distinguish between parents and the Holy One, blessed be He, because dependence on the Holy One is more absolute. The rabbinic saying about “three partners in a person” is cited, and it is said that the Holy One, blessed be He, is also the basis for the existence of the parents, to the point of a recursive calculation that leads to a far deeper dependence. It is argued that the greater the dependence, the greater the possible demands, and therefore what seems excessive with respect to parents may be understandable with respect to “the cause of everything.”
Transition to the topic of “for its own sake” and the next discussion of “not for its own sake”
The text announces a move in two directions: strengthening the point of “serving God for its own sake” in light of the ontic foundation, and later the opposite discussion about motives that are “not for its own sake” and whether a person gains benefit from the service. At this stage, the emphasis is on serving for its own sake as service that does not arise from utilitarian or emotional reasons but from a fundamental obligation.
Maimonides on idolatry: out of love and out of fear, “accepted it as a god,” and the definition of a god
Maimonides is cited in the Laws of Idolatry 3:6, where he rules like Rava against Abaye that “one who worships idolatry out of love or out of fear is exempt,” and it is emphasized that most medieval authorities interpret love and fear as directed toward another person, whereas Maimonides is interpreted as speaking about love and fear toward the idol itself. Maimonides’ wording is quoted: “One who worships idolatry out of love… or who worships it out of fear of it… if he accepted it as a god, he is liable to stoning… but if he worshiped it in its normal way… out of love or out of fear, he is exempt,” and the Raavad’s note disputing his interpretation is emphasized. The text explains that the alternative to love and fear is “accepting it as a god,” and “god” is defined as an entity that obligates obedience not because of logic, interest, or emotion, but because it is a god, so that love and fear are forms of worship that are “not for their own sake.”
“Because He said so”: serving God for its own sake versus utility, emotion, and rational judgment
A conception is presented according to which even with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, serving out of love or fear is “not for its own sake,” whereas serving for its own sake means “doing the truth because it is truth,” as Maimonides writes at the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance. Examples are given to show that acting from self-interest is not religious in the sense of “accepting something as a god,” including the example of a driver slowing down because of a police officer, and the claim that if he obeyed “by virtue of his being a police officer” that would resemble idolatry. It is presented that the term “god” is also applied to judges and to Moses before Pharaoh (“See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh”) in the sense of an authority that obligates action “because he said so,” and that Maimonides in “The foundation of foundations” thereby defines divinity as the absolute dependence of all reality on the First Existent.
Hasidic stories, prayer without concentration, and the value of “the commandment of men learned by rote” as a basic level
A story is brought about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, who judges favorably a Jew going out with tallit and tefillin and repairing a wagon instead of praying, and the text argues that it contains the depth of a “sense of obligation” even without proper prayer. It is argued that a person who goes to synagogue “because he has to go” expresses the foundational level of serving God, and that “commandments require intention” is interpreted as the intention to fulfill one’s obligation because it is an obligation. An example is brought in the name of Nadav Shnerb about a rushed nighttime prayer that is almost invalid, which is explained as an expression of obligation “without calculation,” and it is said that such a prayer “is worth nothing as prayer” but “is worth a great deal as serving God” because it is done “because one is obligated.”
Wittgenstein, Ross, and Maimonides in the Laws of Kings and in the Commentary on the Mishnah on the sciatic nerve
Statements attributed to Wittgenstein are brought about religious obligation, where the answer to it is “that’s just how it is,” together with mention of an article by Yaakov Yehoshua Ross that expands this point. Maimonides is cited at the end of chapter 8 of the Laws of Kings, where a resident alien who keeps commandments “out of rational conviction” is “one of their wise men” but not “one of the pious of the nations of the world,” and this is explained to mean that there is no religious value in it because a commandment is done due to divine command. Also cited is the Commentary on the Mishnah in Hullin on the sciatic nerve, that the practice is obligatory because of the command at Sinai, “only repeated in its place,” as a principle of acting because of the command and not because of reason or the history of the command.
Conclusion: a question about a “fascist for its own sake”
At the end, a question is asked whether a “fascist for its own sake” is an idol worshiper, and the response is that “in the essential sense, yes,” with respect to a person who worships the state for its own sake.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, for our purposes. Right, so last time we basically talked about—talked about two kinds of gratitude. I called one moral gratitude, meaning the usual kind: someone did me a favor, so I give back to him; it’s a moral obligation to repay him. And ontic gratitude, yes, philosophical, metaphysical, however we want to call it, which is basically that by the very fact that someone or something created me, I have some sort of obligation toward him. And we saw this in the verse, yes: “Is He not your Father, your Owner? He made you and established you.” Meaning, there is the One who constitutes you, who sustains you all the time, and there is the fact that He made you, meaning that He created you. These are two reasons why we owe gratitude to the Holy One, blessed be He. And as I said last time—or the time before, I don’t remember anymore—I think that the reason of “He made you” is much stronger than “and established you.” Because moral gratitude toward the Holy One, blessed be He, is pretty questionable. Meaning, you can raise quite a few objections to the duty of gratitude toward the Holy One, blessed be He, on the moral plane. He didn’t expend effort, there’s also a lot of evil that we got here in the world, He could have chosen not to create us in the first place. Meaning, it would have been better for a person not to have been created, and so on. But the “He made you”… What?
[Speaker B] He did it for Himself—that’s also one of the arguments, that He didn’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, so we basically talked about all of those things. But “He made you” contains something that’s not on the moral plane, where because He was good to me I have to return good to Him; rather, it’s something on the metaphysical plane. Meaning, if you came from somewhere, yes, the trunk owes something to the roots. If you came from some place, then you owe it. And I think that in a certain sense this is even deeper than moral gratitude, for two reasons. First, I think that moral gratitude is itself really only a particular case of this kind of gratitude. I think I said that. Moral gratitude means that someone did me a good turn, so in effect there is something with me that came from him. Right? That’s what it means that he did me a favor: he gave me money, he gave me—he did whatever, something. Okay? So when he did something for me, that something is now with me and it came from him. And therefore my gratitude toward him is because something of mine was created by him. Or something, yes, from what is in my possession, or something of me literally, came from him. And from a broader perspective, if all of me came from someone, then that’s just the more general case; but in essence moral gratitude may be a particular case of metaphysical gratitude. That’s one thing. The second thing is that the obligations you can derive from moral gratitude, I think, are limited. How much can be demanded of me because someone did me a favor? That I dedicate my life to him? That I sacrifice my life for him? No, that sounds disproportionate. Meaning, the demand of Jewish law or of the Torah, yes, toward us—to the point of self-sacrifice in situations where that’s required—it’s very hard to see how you could ground that in gratitude in the regular moral sense. No matter how many favors someone did me, to sacrifice my life for him sounds—it sounds…
[Speaker C] Hard.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In contrast, if the claim is a philosophical one, not a moral one, a claim that says: look, He created you, so He has the right to demand that you disappear. Just as He created you, He can also make you disappear. Meaning, the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted. So here it’s not a moral principle, it’s a metaphysical principle. So the question is not whether you rebel against it, but whether there is some philosophical, non-moral justification here. And philosophically, I think you can hear it. One of the illustrations of this point—I think I mentioned it in passing at some point—one of the illustrations of this point is what our cousins the lawyers call wrongful birth. What is wrongful birth? Say a child, an infant, is born completely paralyzed, in a very, very severe condition, unable to do anything, unable to move, unable to perform almost any constructive activity. And now he wants to sue his parents for bringing him into the world. Why didn’t they have an abortion? Because they basically caused him all this suffering; they could have chosen not to bring him into the world. Now, there are such lawsuits against the doctor who advised the parents, and that is more accepted in legal systems around the world. But when you sue the parents themselves—because the doctor, for example, can be sued for negligence if he failed to draw the parents’ attention to the fact that the child would be born in a severe condition, and if they had heard that they might have considered an abortion—then as a professional advisor… as a professional advisor there is more room to make claims against him, and more—even then not in every legal system—but there are more legal systems in the world willing to accept that kind of claim. But a claim against the parents, I think—I’m not a lawyer—but as far as I understand, in most legal systems in the world that isn’t possible. You can’t sue the parents in such a case. In Israel, by the way, apparently you can in one way or another. There was once a Supreme Court ruling, also with Barak, by the way, there was some statement there, and I think the problems with that ruling are not simple. But it does seem to me that in Israel there is such a direction in case law, not necessarily in legislation. In any case, there is a very lively discussion about this among philosophers, philosophers of law: can you sue for wrongful birth? Yes? Can birth itself be wrongful? Can one make claims against the parents for bringing me into the world and not having an abortion? Now, what is the problem with that type of suit? There is one problem that I think is the important one for me—let me formulate it first. One problem is the valuation problem. Meaning, how do you assess damages? This is a tort claim. After all, I’m not now asking my parents to shoot me in the head; that I know how to do on my own, or I can ask someone else to shoot me in the head and that’s it. What I want from my parents is compensation, yes, it’s a tort suit. Now, this tort suit is basically meant to demand a certain sum of money from the parents. So let’s try to think about how I determine the relevant amount of money. Usually, in a tort claim the amount of money is the result of a comparison. Even at the beginning of the chapter dealing with bodily injury in tractate Bava Kamma, there’s a dispute between Rashi and the Rosh: when I injure a person, you assess him—say I cut off his hand—what was his value before, what is his value without the hand, and the difference is what I have to pay. It’s not the value of the hand, but the value of the whole person without a hand and the value of the whole person with a hand, and the difference between them is what I have to pay. Now the question whether this is assessed as a Canaanite slave or a Hebrew slave is a dispute between Rashi and the Rosh, but in principle the assessment is comparative. Now in our case there is no way to make a comparative assessment, because if they hadn’t brought me into the world, it’s not that there are two situations here. I could have been born healthy and whole and my parents caused me to be born in a severe condition; then I can say, look, this is the gap between the two values. Say I would have been sold as a slave for this much or sold as a slave for that much—you can assess what the difference in value is, okay? But there is no option that I would be born whole. This was my condition—let’s say it’s genetic and not a defect caused during birth itself or something like that, let’s say it’s genetic, okay? So basically there is no option that I would be born whole. There is the option that I not exist at all, or that I exist, but then I exist in this condition. So how do you compare two things like that? I can compare two states of the same person—when he is whole and when he is disabled, when he is impaired, okay? I can’t compare a state in which a person is disabled to a state in which he doesn’t exist at all.
[Speaker B] I don’t think you even need to get to valuation. I think there’s no causing damage here at all. What is damage? A person injures someone; first there was X, and he caused damage so now he lacks something or whatever. Here, from the outset, this is what you got, okay? This is what they were able to produce for you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, they could have chosen not to bring you.
[Speaker B] They caused you damage?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, this is what you got? But they could have chosen not to bring me into the world.
[Speaker B] Who asked you?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, who asked me? I’m suffering here—what do you mean, who asked me? You caused me suffering. You could have chosen not to bring me into the world, and then I wouldn’t suffer.
[Speaker B] But causing damage means that first you were like this, and now I—you…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying this is only a failure to prevent damage, not active causation—is that the claim?
[Speaker B] I’m saying—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let’s say we’re suing over failure to prevent harm, fine? Just for the sake of discussion. You still understand that there’s the valuation problem. There’s no way to compare these two situations. They’re not two situations of the same person. It’s either the given situation of a given person, or there is no such person. Why? At one point I suggested comparing two states of the world, not of the person—the world without me, or the world with me in it when I’m disabled.
[Speaker D] What about the side of treatment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Say that again?
[Speaker D] What about the side of treatment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The treatment side isn’t relevant either, because the treatment side is problematic. Because to cure me would be to bring me to a condition that is not my natural state. It’s not that I used to be healthy and then they made me sick. So even if it’s possible to cure me, it’s still not clear that that is the parents’ obligation, because they didn’t take me healthy and make me sick. I became sick—well, what can you do, that’s what I am. Not became sick, rather I always was. Even in the case of treatment, it’s treatment and not damage. I’m talking about damage. But even under a cause of action for treatment, even there it’s not simple at all. But that’s one aspect. There’s another aspect, though, and that’s the more philosophical one. And the philosophical aspect basically says—let’s formulate it like this—if the parents had done their duty, according to your view that their duty was not to bring you into the world, then you wouldn’t be here to sue. Meaning, the very fact that you exist here is only because the parents decided not to have the abortion. Meaning, your existence in the world is because of that very decision over which you are suing. You can’t sue over something that is the cause by virtue of which you exist in the first place. Because your right to sue—and this is connected to the earlier argument, except now it’s philosophical and not just about tort valuation—but it’s connected, the logic is similar. Meaning, you can’t—the branch cannot sue the tree when the tree is what created it and without the tree it doesn’t exist. You can sue if, like I said before, you exist and there are two possible states for you: someone caused you to be in a bad state, whereas otherwise you would have been in a good state. But if otherwise you wouldn’t exist, then you can’t sue—not only because of damage valuation. You can’t sue because your very existence, even as a plaintiff, is due to the parents who brought you into the world. You can’t sue the one whose shoulders you are standing on, because if he moves aside, you won’t be there. So this can be phrased in various ways, but I think there is a philosophical intuition—quite a strong one, I think—that says this is not just a problem of tort valuation. There is a philosophical problem here: the branch cannot sue the trunk or the roots. It can’t—without them it would not exist. I mean, to sue them not if they simply cause you damage. If my parents beat me and cause me injury, then yes, maybe I can sue them. But for the very fact of bringing me into the world—you can’t sue them for that. Now, I think that’s a good example.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, rabbi, why not? I think that’s the most logical claim there is, literally the most logical and the most basic one. I know it exists, I know someone sued—a 14- or 15-year-old boy in Scotland or Belgium sued his parents because he was ginger and he suffers as a ginger, and they knew he would be ginger, and he sued them for something like two million dollars or pounds. And I think that’s the most logical claim in the world. Because everyone agrees—go and see—Hillel and Shammai, that it would have been better for a person not to have been created. You were bored and wanted someone to help you in your old age and so on, and wanted to be normal, so you brought a child into the world, caused him suffering and pain in 80 hard years of life, and this is the most logical claim there is, the most logical claim there is. I really don’t understand what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On what theoretical basis does the rabbi reject this? Fine, I’ll explain for a moment. Okay. Your claim is at most a criminal claim. You were bored and decided to bring me into the world. I’m talking about a tort claim. A criminal claim is brought by the state, not by you. I’m talking about a tort claim. In a tort claim, you—this is what I said before—you cannot sue. You cannot sue someone over your very existence. That’s the claim. Now, you may disagree. It’s hard for me to explain it better than that; I’m bringing it as an example. But one has to distinguish between the criminal claim and the tort claim.
[Speaker C] Something is strange here—why not? The rabbi is stating some axiom, but why that assumption? Why not? What’s illogical here? You decided, or did it thoughtlessly, and dragged me into this suffering-filled world. At least pay the price, something—some million dollars are due to me, yes? So at least do that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll explain: not even a penny is due to you, not just not a million dollars. And the reason is what I explained before, which you may reject. Fine. I’m giving an example here—an example which, in my opinion—
[Speaker C] Fine, the rabbi states some convention, but why? Wait.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —an example that I think is at least intuitively accepted by many people, because I have some experience with this. It’s not the first time I’ve used this example, including among my own students. Now someone can come and say, listen, this example doesn’t seem right to me, I don’t agree. Fine, then I didn’t manage to convince you. I’m bringing this example in order to draw the attention of people who do understand the logic behind it. If you don’t understand, fine, then no.
[Speaker E] So let’s take an example from somewhere else. Let’s say a company creates a second company, its subsidiary, okay? And now the new company argues that they created it improperly, okay? I think legally that might be possible, okay? So there too, why can it do that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll tell you why. Again, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know what the legal situation is—one second, there’s noise here—but I’ll answer according to my own logic. My logic is that there’s a difference between a company and a person, because in a company the people behind the corporate veil exist. Now you created—you created a company, but I, as a person working in that company or managing that company, was harmed as a person. The limited company itself would not be able to sue the company that created it, because the alternative was not to create it, so what are you complaining about? According to my logic—and again, this is not a legal ruling, I’m saying what my own logic says. But here this is not creation ex nihilo. After all, there are people who work in the subsidiary, and those people say: wait a second, you put me into a situation that harmed me. Without that I would have worked, say, in the parent company or some other company, doesn’t matter, and you created a situation that harmed me. Now, I don’t exist because of you. The company does; I don’t. And therefore here it’s different. Here I would accept the claim.
[Speaker E] Okay, I’m not a lawyer either, but I think they don’t look at the people, they look at the companies.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s what I’m saying. As far as the company is concerned, I wouldn’t accept such a claim. Again, not legally—I personally wouldn’t. I wouldn’t accept a claim by a company against the company that created it. In that case I would pierce the corporate veil, as they call it, and let the individuals appear as the plaintiffs. Because beyond the corporate veil, the company itself, in my opinion, cannot sue the parent company. That’s the logic.
[Speaker F] What about a mother who sleeps with drugs, and there’s a one-to-one connection between the child’s disability and the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a bit different. Again, we’re getting too deep into this issue—this is only an example for me. But that’s a bit different. Maybe there’s room to compare that to someone who beat his son and injured him and made him disabled. It’s obvious that a parent can be sued for something like that, even though he’s a parent. I’m talking about a claim regarding your very existence. Meaning, that you should not have brought me into the world—not that you shouldn’t have used drugs while bringing me into the world. That’s an ordinary tort claim. Okay?
[Speaker B] Right, there’s no end to this. A person will sue his parents because—after all, some people are born smarter, more successful. Let’s say we measure it in money, that they’ll be millionaires and know how to make money, and some stay—how do you call it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] House cleaners.
[Speaker B] Whatever that may be.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that’s similar. I think it’s similar—to sue your parents for bringing you into the world even though you have below-average intelligence.
[Speaker B] Yes. Why would I want you to give birth to me more successfully?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that you—
[Speaker C] Asking questions isn’t answering them. Chaim also asks this, asks it very nicely, and also says that this is basically heresy against God, because on the same basis you can make claims against Him. But he doesn’t really answer; he says that it’s really faith, the person’s true faith, the person’s desire to believe, not because objectively it’s true.
[Speaker G] I—
[Speaker C] I even think, rabbi, I even think that what drives human society to improve itself is parents’ guilt over bringing their children into the world. They understand—that’s what—they subconsciously feel guilty about it, and therefore they take care that…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s not—let’s not make rulings in psychology. That’s not interesting. I’m asking whether it’s justified to sue, not whether it’s useful to sue, or what good results might come out of it. That doesn’t interest me.
[Speaker C] There is no more justified claim than this. There is no more justified claim in the world than such a claim.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I think otherwise. Everything’s fine; disagreement is allowed. What I’m saying is that this is an example. For someone who identifies with this example, I think it can illuminate our issue. For someone who doesn’t identify with it, of course not. Like any argument: if you don’t accept the premises of the argument, you won’t accept its conclusion. Fair enough. But this example, from my perspective, illustrates very well the claim about obligation toward whatever or whoever created you. There’s something different about that as opposed to obligation toward someone who did you a favor. In the case of wrongful birth, it’s someone who did you harm. I’m basically making the same distinction on the side of evil as on the side of good. On the side of evil I’m saying: you can harm me, and then I sue you in tort. But if my very coming-into-being in a bad condition is because of you, I cannot sue you in tort. On the side of good it’s the same thing I said earlier, last time and at the beginning. On the side of good as well: I can be grateful to you because you did me good. I exist with it or without it, but you improved my condition. So for that I owe you moral gratitude. But if you created my very existence, then that isn’t moral gratitude; it’s the inverse parallel of wrongful birth. Yes? So the good here, or the bad here, is my very existence—not something that happened to me when I would have existed without it anyway. And therefore there is a difference here which, to me at least, is very clear—though of course one can argue—a very large difference between moral gratitude and philosophical gratitude. And I think that with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, philosophical gratitude is really the essence, the more essential thing. Now look. Maimonides, at the beginning of his Mishneh Torah, writes the following. These are famous words, but take a look. “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a First Existent, and He brings every existing thing into existence, and all beings from heaven and earth and what is between them exist only from the truth of His existence.” Meaning, Maimonides establishes here the foundation of foundations: that the Holy One, blessed be He—yes—that He is some kind of First Existent from whom everything here derives, from the truth of His existence; He is the basis of everything that exists here. “And if it could enter your mind that He does not exist, no other thing could exist.” What is the point of this emphasis? That all of us are by His power. Meaning, if He were not, of course none of us would be here. He is the root from which all the branches grow. “And if it could enter your mind that all beings besides Him do not exist, He alone would still exist, and He would not cease to exist if they ceased to exist, for all beings need Him, but He, blessed be He, does not need them nor any one of them; therefore His truth is not like the truth of any one of them.” Meaning, the dependence is one-way dependence. We are branches in relation to a root. The root does not depend on the branches; the branches depend on the root. Notice that the first three laws in the Mishneh Torah are devoted to statements that are, it seems to me, almost logically equivalent. And Maimonides’ purpose is to sharpen the fact of the one-sided and absolute dependence between us and the Holy One, blessed be He. “And this is what the prophet says”—that’s law 4—“‘And the Lord God is truth’; He alone is truth and no other has truth like His truth. And this is what the Torah says: ‘There is none besides Him.’” Meaning, it’s not that there is literally nothing besides Him—after all, we are here too. It’s not true that nothing exists except Him. Rather, nothing exists independently of Him. That is what “there is none besides Him” means, contrary to what the Hasidim think—that “there is none besides Him” means literally that the contraction is not literal, that there is nothing except the Holy One, blessed be He, only He exists in the world. That’s just nonsense, of course. Maimonides says that “there is none besides Him” means there is nothing that exists independently of Him. But if He exists, then obviously other things exist too. And that’s what he says: “He alone is truth and no other has truth like His truth, and this is what the Torah says, ‘There is none besides Him,’ meaning, there is no true existent besides Him like Him.” “This Existent is the God of the world, the Lord of all the earth, and He guides the sphere with a power that has no end or limit.” Notice, until now this was the conceptual understanding. Now this is “and established you,” right? He guides the sphere, meaning He sustains us continually, not only created us in the beginning. “With a power that has no interruption, for the sphere revolves continually, and it is impossible that it revolve without one who causes it to revolve. And He, the Holy One, blessed be He, causes it to revolve without hand and without body.” He’s obviously not speaking only about the celestial spheres—that’s astronomy, yes, old Ptolemaic astronomy—but about the very functioning of the world, the laws of nature. The Holy One, blessed be He, basically causes the laws of nature to operate all the time. Now, law—sorry, one second, I can’t get rid of this bar, this… this…
[Speaker B] There’s no bar here, everything’s fine. Huh?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but at the bottom, I can’t see law 6.
[Speaker B] We can see it, we can see it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, yes?
[Speaker B] We can see number 6.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because on my screen the Zoom bar is covering it and I can’t get rid of it. I don’t know how to remove this bar.
[Speaker H] There’s an arrow at the bottom—if you press it, it jumps to the top of the screen. Wait… a curved arrow. The arrow is at the upper edge of the bar, of the toolbar.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, thank you. And knowledge of this matter is a positive commandment, as it says, “I am the Lord your God.” And anyone who entertains the thought that there is another god besides this one violates a prohibition, as it says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Yes, so this is the positive commandment of “I am the Lord your God.” Notice: the knowledge here is not merely that the Holy One, blessed be He, exists, but rather of our absolute dependence on Him, our ontic dependence on Him, and perhaps also understanding, and also “and He will grant you grace,” but mainly understanding. Those first four halakhot are about understanding. The fifth is “and He will grant you grace.” The sixth says that these two are a positive commandment, and notice how it ends. Why is this the great principle on which everything depends? I think it is the great principle on which everything depends because the obligation… what does “everything” mean? Remember, we are in the opening laws of the Mishneh Torah, in the comprehensive book of Jewish law, right? The first laws at the foundation of the comprehensive book of Jewish law say: our dependence on the Holy One, blessed be He, is the principle on which everything depends. Meaning, everything that comes from here on out really stems from this. From what? From our dependence on Him, that without Him we do not exist, mainly from the first aspect, and only very little from the second. Okay? And I think that when you read Maimonides through these lenses, that is exactly what is written here. What is written here is that the halakhic obligation, the obligation of serving God, the whole Mishneh Torah rests on this principle: that we exist by virtue of the truth of His existence, and if He did not exist, we would have no existence. Our ontic dependence on Him is the basis of obligation; that is essentially what Maimonides is saying. And what is interesting about this… okay, now if we remember the structure of Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah in Maimonides, that is the first collection in the Mishneh Torah. Yesodei HaTorah: the first four chapters are devoted to spheres, angels, and metaphysics. It opens with the halakhot I just read, and then four chapters of all kinds of separate intellects, spheres, and all kinds of, I don’t know, Aristotelian matters. Okay, in chapter 5 Maimonides comes back down to earth, to reality. Okay? And how does he open? Meaning, that metaphysical introduction is over, whose essence we just described in those laws—that everything depends on this. The next halakhah, from our standpoint, is really the beginning of chapter 5. Now what happens at the beginning of chapter 5? “All the house of Israel is commanded regarding the sanctification of this great Name, as it says, ‘And I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel,’ and they are warned not to desecrate it, as it says, ‘And you shall not desecrate My holy Name.’ How so? When an idolater stands up and forces a Jew to transgress” and so on, “to transgress, and if he dies and does not transgress, then he is liable with his life. In what case is this said? With regard to all other commandments except idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed. But with these three sins, if one says to him, ‘Transgress one of them or be killed,’ he should be killed rather than transgress. When is this? When the other person does not intend his own benefit,” and so on. “And all this is when it is not a time of persecution, but in a time of persecution, when a wicked king like Nebuchadnezzar and his companions arises and decrees against Israel to nullify their religion or one of the commandments, one must be killed rather than transgress even one of the other commandments,” right? Even over a shoelace. In a time of religious persecution, yes—even the color of the shoe straps. Whether he is coerced in front of ten or alone with idolaters, even without ten. Meaning: absolute obligation to self-sacrifice. And this is the first halakhah in the Mishneh Torah. Why? I think it continues exactly the same line. After Maimonides says that this is the great principle on which everything depends, in the opening halakhot that we read, this dependence on the Holy One, blessed be He—I’ll call it ontic gratitude—is the basis of all our obligation. Now I can also explain to you how it can be that one may demand of you self-sacrifice at the level of giving up your life entirely over any tiny thing, over a shoelace, over shoelaces. Because if this were gratitude or some other kind of reason, it would be very hard to see how it could justify such a total obligation, that my entire being is obligated. If necessary, I give up my life—even over shoelaces. To whom would I ever be willing to grant the right to tell me to sacrifice my life? What kind of obligation could possibly demand such a thing of me? There is no such obligation in the world. Even the obligation to a state, say, right, that demands of soldiers that they risk their lives—we talked about this, I think—the ethical rule is very basic, in the IDF too but generally as well, I think it is a very basic ethical rule: you cannot send a soldier by order on a suicide mission. Right? Yehuda Kantor at the Mitla Pass is the famous example from Raful. You cannot send a soldier on a suicide mission—you can’t. You can demand that soldiers risk their lives, go to war because there is no choice. We are all supposed to share in this, each in turn, and if life has to be risked, then life is risked. And it may be that you will die too, and that is a demand that is possible, because without it we will all simply die. But a demand that says to a person: you go and sacrifice your life so that we can be saved—there is no such order, it is impossible to give such an order. In a mission that is clearly a death mission, yes, where the demand is to commit suicide, not to take a risk—there is no such thing, you cannot give such an order; it is an illegal order. You can ask for volunteers, and that is what Raful did there at the Mitla. But you cannot give such an order. Why? Because no obligation in the world is strong enough to say to a person: I demand that you commit suicide. Only this obligation, says Maimonides—this ontic obligation, from the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, that all of us exist by virtue of the truth of His existence, and without Him we would not be here—this is the only thing that can ground such an extreme demand, to the point of giving up one’s life when necessary. And therefore I think Maimonides opens the Mishneh Torah with these words: “And this is the principle on which everything depends.” And after he finishes all the Aristotelian philosophy, in chapter 5, where the Mishneh Torah really begins—the book of Jewish law—he begins with sanctifying God’s name. He begins with self-sacrifice. Because after we have explained this, I can begin with you from the maximum point, with the greatest demand that can exist anywhere in the Mishneh Torah. That is the most extreme demand made of us, and it appears right at the beginning of the book. Why? Because after explaining the infrastructure, the first aspect, yes, the ontic obligation, now you can understand why the obligation is so total, to the point of giving up your life over a shoelace. And everything else already starts to become banal: keeping the Sabbath, honoring parents, whatever you want, ritual impurity and purity—it’s already peanuts. If what is required of us is to give up our lives over a shoelace, all the rest is already obvious. That set the framework; everything else follows from it. And therefore this is exactly the great principle on which everything depends. That is exactly the point.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, rabbi, according to this, for example in the analogy the Rabbi gave about parents, if, God forbid, there were a pair of parents who were simply sadistic—that was their nature—and they brought a child into the world so they would have an object for their sadism, and the child was born and now they tell him, look, we need a heart donation, give us your heart so we can keep living—does the Rabbi really want to say that the child is obligated, because they brought him into the world in order to abuse him, that now we are obligated to give up our lives for you?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the most absurd thing imaginable. So I think on this point I would distinguish between parents and the Holy One, blessed be He. Parents are an example, but not a good enough example. Because Maimonides says not only that I came from the truth of His existence; all reality does not exist without Him. Meaning, when my parents brought me into the world, there are three partners in a person, as Hazal say. The father, the mother, and the Holy One, blessed be He. At the root of it too—this is a calculation I once saw someone do—you know that fractal? What percentage of me belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He? It’s not one third. Because after all, He is also one third of my parents. This is really Koch’s snowflake, right? He is also one third of my parents, so if you carry the calculation all the way through, I don’t remember what it comes out to, it comes out to some percentage, you can calculate some sort of percentage. In one sense, from a certain perspective, it is one hundred percent. And there is some very interesting recursive calculation there, I no longer remember the details, that gives some number between zero and one. What percentage belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He? It is not a simple one-third, one-third, one-third. And why not? Because He is also the basis of the existence of the parents, who then bring me into the world—incidentally, also by His commandment. Meaning that in the final analysis it is obvious that with regard to the Holy One, blessed be He, our dependence is far more substantial and stronger than our dependence on parents, and the greater the dependence, the greater the possible demands. And therefore I think that here there really is a question of proportionality. It seems to me that a demand that a child commit suicide for the sake of his parents sounds excessive even to me. But with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, who is the cause of everything—without Him there is nothing—that is already something else. And of course this too is only in very extreme cases, but yes, in very extreme cases it could be so. Okay, in any event, that is basically the claim I wanted to make, and with that I’ve more or less finished the main move. Now I want to do two things. And this will remain not only for today but also for next time; maybe next time we’ll already finish this whole series. First, I want to return to a point I already touched on, but in light of what we saw now I think it becomes much stronger, and that is the point of serving for its own sake—serving God for its own sake. And the next question will be the exact opposite: that is, is there a reason, for serving not for its own sake, for serving God—do I also derive benefit from it? That will be the next discussion. But right now I want to talk דווקא about the opposite, namely that serving God is really supposed to be done not because of reasons, but for its own sake. So on this point, I think this description of ontic dependence, yes, that I come from Him—this basically creates the obligation, my obligation toward Him—this sheds very clear light on what I already mentioned, Maimonides in Hilkhot Avodah Zarah chapter 3, halakhah 6. There Maimonides rules like Rava against Abaye, that one who worships idols out of love or fear is exempt. Abaye says liable, Rava says exempt, in the Talmud in Sanhedrin, and Maimonides rules that he is exempt. Now most of the medieval authorities, as I mentioned—I’m only doing this briefly—most of the medieval authorities understand, including Rashi there, including the Raavad, Rivash, everyone, they understand that worshiping idols out of love or fear does not mean love and fear of the idol, but love and fear of another person. I love or fear a person, so I worship his god in order to please that person whom I love or fear. Why do all the medieval authorities explain it this way even though it is not the plain meaning of the Talmud? Because it seems very implausible to them that if someone worships the idol out of love or fear of the idol, he would be exempt. That is classic idolatry. What more perfect idolatry could there be than that? Just as I serve God out of love or fear, so instead of the Holy One, blessed be He, I worship an idol out of love or fear. Well, that is idolatry in the fullest sense. But in Maimonides—and this is what the Raavad comments on, and it is clear—in Maimonides it is not like that. In Maimonides it says that the love and fear are toward the idol. Someone who worships idols toward the idol is exempt if it is out of love and fear. So what is the case? And we’ll look at it inside; I think we saw it already, but still there is value in seeing it. Here it is.
[Speaker B] Is that basically a captive infant? What? He is exempt because he is like a captive infant—if it is love and fear, that means he really understands reality that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand—what do you mean, a captive infant?
[Speaker B] A person who worships idols out of love and fear means that he believes with all his heart that this is reality, this is the truth. Right? And that is why he is exempt, because basically he is like a captive infant—what is he guilty of? That is how he understands and evaluates things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Then that is an exemption because of coercion; it is not that he is not worshiping idols. So he is exempt as someone coerced. Maimonides does not write it that way. The exemption of a captive infant is a different clause; that also appears in Maimonides.
[Speaker B] So that is not what is written.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is written in Maimonides—look, let’s quote him. “One who worships idols out of love, for example because he desired this form because its workmanship was especially beautiful”—notice, he desired it, he did not believe—”or he worshiped it out of fear of it, lest it harm him, as its worshipers imagine that it does good and evil—if he accepted it as a god upon himself, he is liable to stoning. But if he worshiped it in its normal way, or by one of the four forms of worship, out of love or fear, he is exempt.” About this the Raavad says: “Out of love and fear—and we explain this as out of love of a person or fear of a person, not out of love of the idol or fear of it.” But Maimonides explains it as love and fear of the idolater toward the idol. So I explained that the alternative to worship out of love or fear is acceptance as a god. You see? “If he accepted it as a god upon himself, he is liable.” So worship out of love or fear is not—meaning, the alternative to that is not worshiping like someone compelled by madness, but acceptance as a god. What is the meaning of acceptance as a god? So I explained this. What is a god? A god is an entity such that whatever it says I am obligated to do—not because it is logical, not because it benefits me, not because I have interests—but because it is a god. That’s it. The obligation to obey it derives from its being a god, not from other considerations. Therefore love and fear, insofar as they are lofty religious considerations, when directed toward the Holy One, blessed be He, that too is not service for its own sake—not even toward the Holy One, blessed be He. When you serve the Holy One, blessed be He, out of love or fear, that is service not for its own sake. Why? Because you are really serving Him because you think He may harm you, or because you want to please Him, give Him satisfaction or something like that. But you are supposed to serve Him because He is God, not for love and not for fear. Love and fear and everything else—all of that is really a form of serving yourself. You are trying to satisfy various feelings inside yourself. By the way, there are two kinds of love in this context, I do not want to get into that; there is a kind of love that really is toward the Holy One, blessed be He, but he is speaking here about a different kind of love. In Maimonides himself there are two such kinds of love. And therefore both love and fear, both in idolatry and in serving God, are not the motivations for which one should serve. They are not; that is service not for its own sake. Yes, when I see a police officer and therefore slow down while driving too fast, I see a police officer or radar and I slow down—is that idolatry? Seemingly yes. Why? I fear the fine he will give me, and therefore I do what he commands: literal idolatry. Why is it not idolatry? It is not idolatry because I am doing it from an interested calculation; I do not want him to fine me. If I were doing it by virtue of his being a police officer—because one must obey police officers—that really would be idolatry. Because religious service is service that takes place not because of any side reason, including love and fear, but because he is a god. I accepted him upon myself as a god. He is a god. A god is someone such that whatever he says I am obligated to do—without any calculation, not a calculation of love, fear, self-interest, nothing at all. What Maimonides writes at the beginning of chapter 10 of Hilkhot Teshuvah: to do the truth because it is truth. There he says, incidentally, that this too is love—that is the second kind of love Maimonides speaks about. To do the truth because it is truth. That—not reward and punishment, not Hell, not Heaven, and not even love and fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, not even that. Rather, because He is God. Therefore I mentioned that the Torah, when it refers to judges, calls them gods. Right? In the Talmud in Sanhedrin they learn that monetary cases require three judges because the word “gods” appears three times in the passage. “Gods” means judges. “See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh.” What is a god? A god is someone whose word must be obeyed; that is called a god. Now the Holy One, blessed be He, is of course the root of the matter, but there are other such functions. “See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh”—what does that mean? I am placing you in a godlike position with respect to Pharaoh. What does that mean? That he will have to do what you say because you said it. Or “gods” meaning judges—why are judges called gods? Because what they say must be done, not because they are right, but because they are the judges. If there is someone whose word must be obeyed because he said it—not because if he said it then it is probably true, not because if he said it then it will be useful, not because I love him and not because I fear him, but because he said it. Period. I mentioned the example of Thomas Mallory, the mountain climber. They asked him why he climbs Everest, and he said, because it is there. Anyone who needs explanations for why Mallory climbs Everest will not understand the explanations either. It is simply there; no explanation is needed. If it is there, I climb it. And that is a wonderful analogy for the concept of God—that is the whole idea. The concept of God is someone who must be obeyed because He is God, because of who He is. And therefore of course the root of all this is the Holy One, blessed be He, who is called God. Why? Because one must obey what He says because He said it. That’s it. Now what is the meaning of this? This is what I said before: the point is that the fact that we came from Him, that we do not exist without Him, the ontic bond between us—that is basically the definition of the concept of God in this context. God is someone—and that is why Maimonides begins: “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a First Existent, and He brings all beings into existence,” and so on. All those things are simply the definition of the concept of God. The concept of God is someone because of whom we all exist, and therefore we are obligated to what He says because He said it, without any further consideration. That is the concept of God. And therefore, when people always ask why serve God—is it because it is the best, because it is the most moral, because it will best repair the world, because it will give me satisfaction, because it will—I don’t know—various things of that sort—all those are irrelevant answers. One has to serve the Holy One, blessed be He, just because—because He said so. That’s it. And that is the best answer; it is not an arbitrary answer. The “just because” here—I spoke about two kinds of “just because,” I think I talked about this. There is a “just because” that is simply arbitrary: just because I decided, that is how I define it. But there is also a “just because” meaning this is the most fundamental thing, there is nothing more intelligible than it that I could use to explain it. It is as fundamental as it gets. So I tell you: just because. If you do not understand that, I have nothing to say to you. It is self-evident. This is the foundation of foundations and the principle on which everything depends, as Maimonides says. So you cannot ask, wait a second, and why is this principle true? If there were an answer to that question, then that answer would be the principle on which everything depends. Depends on it. If this is the principle on which everything depends, that means the entire chain of reasoning begins here. And anyone who does not understand this obligation—there is no way to explain it to him. That’s it, then he does not understand. He is a captive infant, so he does not understand. And therefore the picture I described earlier, of the ontic bond, is really the basis of the demand to serve God for His own sake. It is not even a demand—it follows from His being God. Serving God for its own sake. And all the explanations that come afterward, retroactively—one serves Him because it is useful, because it is good, because it gives satisfaction, because it gives meaning, all sorts of things of that sort—all those explanations, some of which may include values that are certainly praiseworthy, are not the basis for serving God. Yes, love and fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, are two commandments out of the 613 commandments. No one says that one should not love or fear the Holy One, blessed be He. Of course one should; it is a Torah-level positive commandment. The claim is that love and fear of the Holy One, blessed be He, are not the basis of serving Him, of obligation toward Him. That is the point Maimonides is making. Rather, once I am obligated because He is God, then I also need to love Him and fear Him and so on—additional levels. But on the first floor stands the obligation because He is God. That’s it. Everything beyond that is a second floor, a third floor, a fourth floor, and so on. I think that the claim about prayer—for example, about prayer—there is the famous story about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev saw a Jew leaving the synagogue wearing tallit and tefillin and starting to fix his wagon. He had no time to wait until the prayer was over. So he says, turning to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, look what a nation of righteous people. They pray in the synagogue, they pray while fixing their wagon, they pray in every situation whatever it may be. What a wonderful people that cleaves to You day and night. Now I always laugh at these stupid Hasidic stories, because really it is usually something for idiotic children. But in this story, in my opinion, there is a certain depth. I do not know whether he intended it, but there is a certain depth worth thinking about. Because the interesting question is: why is this person doing all these maneuvers at all? His prayer is worthless. He is not praying; he is wearing tallit and tefillin and fixing the wagon, so he is not praying. So why is he doing this whole ritual? Some would say rote observance, habit, social pressure, I do not know exactly what. I claim there is something deeper here. He does it because he has a sense of obligation. He is not fulfilling his obligation—that is all true—but there is a sense of obligation. He is not making calculations; he simply does it because that is what Jewish law says—to go pray. Fine. After that there are impulses and he fixes the wagon and everything—not an excellent prayer. He missed levels two, three, four, and five of that prayer, but he has level one. When a person comes to synagogue regularly, and he is always, yes, sort of without enthusiasm and without this, but he goes because you have to go, then immediately he gets rebuked by the moralists: rote observance, yes, “commandments of men learned by rote,” what is this, it is just habit, terrible, dreadful—yes, all the ethics books will scold him. You do not have anyone serving God greater than he is. Because this person goes there; he does not need from the Holy One, blessed be He, not healing, not prayer, not livelihood, nothing. He is not going for that. He does not need it. At least he does not think he needs it. He is not going to get it from there. So why does he go? He goes because one must. That’s all. That is the motivation for which one should go to synagogue. Exactly that, and nothing else. After you go because one must—that is what is called commandments require intention. Intention here means fulfilling the obligation, not the kavanot of the Ari. Intention in commandments means the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. To fulfill one’s obligation means because it is an obligation, that is why I do it. On top of that—this is pure Leibowitz. Where did Leibowitz miss it? Because on top of that one can add the second, third, fourth, fifth floors, of course. One can speak about experiences and cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He, divine inspiration and spiritual and religious energies for the course of the day—all excellent on the second floor and above. But the first floor is obligation. I go to synagogue because one must. That’s all, that is the only reason I go. “Commandments of men learned by rote.” That is not a criticism. “Commandments of men learned by rote” is serving God at the highest level—provided of course I am not speaking only about habit in the psychological sense; there there is room to judge it negatively. Rather, I am speaking about a sense of unconditional obligation. My friend Nadav Shnerb, the physicist—I first heard this idea from him about this Maimonides in Hilkhot Avodah Zarah—says, look: you are lying in bed at night, just about to fall asleep, wrecked with exhaustion, and then you remember that you did not pray Ma’ariv. You have no strength left for anything, right? So you stick one arm into the pajamas, I don’t know, you are half sitting, half lying, propped on your elbow, mumbling something in which maybe every tenth word of Shema appears, plus some representative—not representative—sample of words from the Amidah, and then you collapse back onto the bed exhausted. Now no Ma’ariv prayer came out of that. You did not fulfill your obligation. There is no intention here, you did not even say the words. So why did you do it? There is not even anyone there looking at you; it is not even a synagogue where people can see whether you do it or not. So why do you do it? You do it because it is obvious to you that there is an obligation. Regarding Ma’ariv, it is optional, but never mind, let’s talk about Shacharit. Fine? So you do it because there is an obligation. There is something very deep here in serving God. One has to understand. As prayer, this is worthless. But as serving God, this prayer is worth a great deal. It expresses the fact that you do it without calculation, not in order to achieve anything, and not even in order to fulfill your obligation, because you did not fulfill your obligation, but simply because one must. Because He said so. Because Everest is there—therefore I do it. There is an article, sayings of Wittgenstein, about religious obligation. He asks why people have religious obligation, why commandments are service of God. The answer is: just because. His answer is: just because. And people make a mistake when they think this is an arbitrary statement. He grasped the point exactly. There is a very beautiful article by Yaakov Yehoshua Ross—he is a professor at the Hebrew University, Tamar Ross’s husband. There is a very nice article in which he develops this Wittgenstein point somewhat—too little, in my opinion, but never mind—but there one can read it also in Hebrew. There is something in this search for answers to why serve God that misses the point by the very search itself, not by what one finds. The moment you find something, you have lost. You cannot find it. You serve Him because He said so. Because He is God. There is no—any explanation you give, even love and fear, which sound like lofty explanations, cannot be the explanation. That is the second floor. You must love, you must fear, but not for that reason serve Him. Those are two entirely different things. Therefore Maimonides writes in chapter 8 of Hilkhot Melakhim—if you want to finish with this—at the end of chapter 8 of Hilkhot Melakhim, Maimonides writes that a resident alien who observed his commandments, his seven commandments, out of intellectual conviction, is not among the pious of the nations of the world but among their wise. Or translated into our language—a translation I think is correct—it has no religious value whatsoever. A resident alien who keeps the seven commandments because that is the correct way to behave—this has no religious value. It has some moral, human value; he is among the wise of the nations of the world, but not among their pious. He is not religious. He is a good person, but he is not religious. Why? Because you have to do the commandments because of the divine command. Incidentally, Maimonides writes there: the divine command at Sinai through Moses our teacher—even for the gentile. But that is another detail. At the principled level, you have to do it because of the divine command and not because it is right, not even because it is right. Because of the command; otherwise it is not a commandment. A commandment is something you do because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. Even doing something because it is right is still not abstract enough to count as serving God. Rather, doing it because He commanded it. It is right to do what He commanded—one can discuss that—but that is what the motivation should be. That is the meaning of accepting Him as God. Also in the chapter on the sciatic nerve in tractate Hullin, there in the Commentary on the Mishnah, there too there is a dispute between Rabbi Yehudah and the Sages about the sciatic nerve of a non-kosher animal. Does the prohibition of the sciatic nerve apply to a non-kosher animal? So the Sages say no. Then they say—but the prohibition of the sciatic nerve was stated before the giving of the Torah, and before the giving of the Torah there was no distinction between kosher and non-kosher animals. So you see that the sciatic nerve is prohibited also in a non-kosher animal. And he says: it was stated at Sinai, only repeated in its place. That is how the Sages answer there in the Mishnah. And Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah there repeats—although it is not exactly the same thing, and I also once spoke about that—the principle he writes in Hilkhot Melakhim: that we do it because of the command at Sinai even if it was said to Jacob our father or to Jacob’s sons after his struggle with the angel. The reason we do it is because the Torah commanded it at Mount Sinai. Therefore it does not matter that it was said earlier. It is a similar principle to what he says in Hilkhot Melakhim, and again I am closing the circle. This whole idea of serving for its own sake reflects the fact that the obligation to serve God is because He is God—He said so. And what does that mean? That all of us are by virtue of the truth of His existence; that is what I called ontic gratitude. That all of us really came from Him. That is the basis. Okay, I’ll stop here. Fine. I’ll stop here, and forgive me, I can’t stay here now. I really have to run; I have a memorial service. So I ask your pardon. Okay.
[Speaker G] Rabbi, just one word—according to this, it comes out that a fascist for its own sake is basically worshiping idols?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not worshiping idols. He is not serving God for its own sake, but I have to move.
[Speaker G] No, I mean a fascist—a fascist for its own sake. A person who serves the state for its own sake is worshiping idols.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the essential sense, yes. In the essential sense, yes. Yes.