Q&A: The Purpose of a Person in Life
The Purpose of a Person in Life
Question
I would be glad to hear your view about the purpose of a person in this world: what should a person want to do in the world? Did we come into the world in order to eat and drink and tomorrow die [if there is no World to Come], with only a system of commandments in the background that we are morally obligated to fulfill in order to satisfy the will [-?] of the One who created us—but once we have discharged our obligation, are we then free to use the world for our own needs? And if so, what are these needs of ours? What can be positive and desirable here in the world that would be worth working and living for?
For example, a person decides to study physics and philosophy—what drives him to that? Is there value in knowing all that information and those insights? The philosophers of old at least thought that in this way they became united with the Active Intellect and so on, and reached some sort of purpose. But investing effort merely for money or honor or areas of interest—is that the purpose a person should place before his eyes in life?
Is a person who eats, drinks, and sleeps worth anything more than a cow? True, intellect enables him to perform more complex actions and understand subtler systems, but—is that all it amounts to?
Answer
For some reason I didn’t see the question.
I do not know how to answer about the purpose of man. I have no information on the matter. A person has halakhic and moral obligations. But that does not mean he has no purposes beyond them.
In general, values cannot be justified, because justifications are given in terms of values. There is a clear sense that knowledge and understanding are values and constitute a realization of the human being. I do not know how to justify this (just as I do not know how to justify why murder is forbidden), and I also do not think it needs justification. If there were a justification for it, then the justification would be the value, and now you could ask about it why, and look for further justifications.
Discussion on Answer
Someone who asks what the purpose of man is, is a person who has no sense of goal and mission; he feels purposeless and only compelled to do things in order to survive, but he does not have the “what for” of surviving.
And those who do not ask what the purpose of man is (most human beings) do have goals and objectives, and the “what for” of surviving.
This is a simplistic explanation.
The question that should be asked is what is different about those who feel a lack of purpose. And here psychology comes in.
As a starting point, it would be worthwhile to read Erikson’s stage theory:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/the theory of_the stages_of_Erikson
Eliezer, I’ve been troubled by this fundamental question for 15 years and more. And I’m very troubled by why, if so, people do not address it. Aside from Torah and the commandments, assuming they must be observed, what else is one supposed to do here? Have you found an answer to that? I see that the Rabbi still has not answered it in the meantime.
So a person who does not have that said feeling regarding anything that can be done here in the world [beyond the spiritual, which, if there is a World to Come, is eternal and worth working for], and on the other hand has a clear sense that suicide is forbidden, is condemned to drag out his hundred and twenty years without knowing why to get up and why to go to sleep. What a shame.
Doesn’t it seem strange to you that people act energetically all their lives to achieve something, solely from a sense that there is something positive in it, without any ability to justify it? All the more so when the purpose they have set for themselves is only a small and fleeting moment, where the effort to attain it is a thousand times greater than the pleasure of attaining it.
I don’t know what I want from you [really, you’re not a psychologist…], but it seems strange to me that such a central and important issue is neglected for lack of any need for justification.
Maybe one of the readers can make me wiser with his insights on the subject???