Answer

I’m not all that well-versed in the literature of Jewish thought, and I also don’t see much value in it. Even if Maimonides says something, that doesn’t really matter to me if I want to say otherwise—at least in the realm of thought, and a bit less so in Jewish law.
Most of these debates are empty of content and say the same thing in different words, or just put forward people’s own idle thoughts. So why is it important to study this?
Why say that there is a real reason for the commandments? Maimonides himself writes in Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, that every rational being acts for some purpose, and therefore it is unreasonable that the Holy One, blessed be He, would not do so. That would make Him lesser (= less rational) than His creatures.
It is fairly clear that the reasons, even if we find such reasons, are formulated in our language and within our world of concepts and thought. Therefore one must distinguish between the question of the reasons for the commandments within our system, and the question of why create such a system in the first place, with such reasons within it—something like the Euthyphro dilemma, which in my opinion is also illusory. For example, one can say that the reason one should help another person is that then he will feel better. But there is still the question why he was created in such a way that if someone helps him he feels better. He could have been created so that if someone beat him he would feel better instead—a masochist.
 
Also with regard to the intentions behind actions, it seems to me that Maimonides assumes in several places that one should do only things of value. That does not mean it is forbidden to do other things. For example, in his commentary to the first chapter of Avot, he distinguishes between five kinds of speech, among them speech that is permitted and has no particular value. You see from there that there are permitted things that are not forbidden even though they are not beneficial. And still, it is best to avoid them. Who would argue with that? It seems obvious to me.
And again, if you need to do something else in order to clear your head or rest, then there is benefit in that. This debate too is empty in my opinion, like most of these debates.
 
The craft of scholars of Jewish thought is to manufacture topics and debates where there really aren’t any. They latch onto words and don’t ask what exactly they mean, and they present things as though there are two conflicting positions here. But when you get into the meaning and the underlying assumptions, you discover either that there is no argument at all—they are saying the same thing, or talking about different things—or that they are simply saying things that have no clear meaning. This is a general characteristic of the study of Jewish thought, and even more so of academic scholars of Jewish thought. In my opinion, most of it is nonsense. A few of them deal in sensible ideas.
 
All the best,
Michi
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Questioner:
So regardless of Maimonides—what is the answer to the Euthyphro dilemma? Did the Holy One, blessed be He, define the commandments arbitrarily (and one could explain away the irrationality by saying He had to define something additional, otherwise how is it different from any other social law, and/or in order to increase His authority over us), or do they have a reason, and we need to work to find it? My question is aimed only at commandments that have no apparent reason, the statutes. The commandments with a social reason don’t matter to me, because the Holy One, blessed be He, had to create the world in some way, and if helping a person were done by beating him, then that question would still remain. Wouldn’t it?
This question makes a very big difference to our approach to the commandments.
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Rabbi:
It seems to me that here too it depends on what level you are asking. If the question is whether the matter depends on Him, then certainly yes. That is, the reasons for the commandments are not forced on Him, and before the world was created He could have created it in any form He saw fit. He could have created a world in which the commandments given to us, or commandments in general, were not relevant at all—think of a world with human beings of a completely different character or essence from ours. But once the world was created as it is (and we are in it), it is very plausible that the commandments have reasons in terms of this world (like the example of helping another that I gave regarding morality). So here too the arguments are usually illusory. We can think only within our own conceptual framework. Therefore I feel these discussions are somewhat pointless. We have no tools to reach a meaningful conclusion, because we are trapped within our own modes of thought, and the basis of these questions lies in a world beyond us (what was there around the Holy One, blessed be He, before there was a world and before the forms of thought and values within it).
Even if the purpose of the commandments is to build His authority over us—which I am not inclined to accept—that may look bad in our eyes. But after all, He does not need that for Himself, so perhaps even that is beneficial only from our perspective. But as I said, these are fairly speculative claims, and we really have no tools to reach a conclusion about them.
 
As an aside, I’ll say that there is a strange phenomenon in these discussions. When someone raises an argument like: if He created the world for some purpose, then He ought to reveal Himself in order to tell us what that purpose is that is incumbent upon us—the manufacturer’s instructions—many respond that this is anthropomorphism, personifying Him. Who says He is built like us? We are projecting our own modes of thought onto Him. But when discussing the purpose of the commandments, some of the difficulties themselves also stem from anthropomorphism—for example, the pursuit of honor and status is considered improper, why should He care whether one slaughters from the neck or the back of the neck, and so on. Here too people are evaluating Him by what is accepted among human beings.