Thank you for the answer, and it follows from your words that regarding the question of whether the Torah came to perfect the world—that is, the question people discuss, whether the reasons for the commandments are to perfect the world or not—there is no proof.

Indeed. Those are two different questions. But from looking at the system of commandments, at least the great majority of them do not appear intended for moral-social improvement.

Why do you say that?

Aside from a few isolated commandments that require deep explanation, all the commandments are very understandable, whether as worship of God and cleaving to Him, or as repairing the world, or as moral conduct.

Which of your four categories fits things like breaking the neck of a firstborn donkey if one does not want to redeem it, eating the leftovers of meal-offerings and the prohibition of leftovers, slaughtering specifically in certain ways, not eating the sciatic nerve, not eating certain parts of an animal and blood and meat with milk, mixed kinds in plants and clothing and animals, forbidden sexual relations, Ammon, Moab, Egypt, Amalek, and “the poles shall remain in the rings of the Ark; they shall not be removed from it”?

Which of the four?

Breaking the neck of a firstborn donkey—what’s unclear? About a firstborn donkey the Torah explicitly states the reason. Eating the leftovers of meal-offerings etc.—again, that is a detail in the laws of sacrifices, whose whole idea is the form of worship toward God. To slaughter in certain ways—this causes the least suffering. Not to eat the sciatic nerve—the Torah states the reason. Blood—the Torah explicitly states the reason. Forbidden sexual relations are very understandable. Egypt, Ammon, and Moab—the Torah says why. In short, most things are explicit, and those that aren’t require thought, but that is no reason to say they have no reason.

I don’t see any good reason here in any of what you brought. Even if the Torah explicitly says, for example, that Ammon did not greet you with bread and water and therefore they may not enter the congregation of the Lord, the reason still isn’t understood in the sense of why the reason written in the Torah is itself reasonable. If in your eyes the explanation that Jacob wrestled with an angel and it touched his thigh, so therefore it is forbidden to eat the sciatic nerve, is a good enough explanation—then good for you. In my opinion it is obvious that behind this “explanation” there is some explanation on a more “elevated” plane that is beyond attainment. In Maharal’s language, the cause behind the cause. And all this is still with the “big” commandments—if you get into the details of the commandments (about which Maimonides himself threw up his hands and said that whoever looks for reasons for them is driven utterly mad), which by rough estimate are 99% of the effort in the Talmud and the halakhic decisors, then people are no longer working directly on the plane of reasons and purposes, but trying to decipher some abstract world of “correct” principles; in other words, they are not trying to perfect the world. And even according to your own line, even worship of God and cleaving to Him—which already make up the lion’s share of the “big” commandments—there is no explanation for why one needs to offer sacrifices and observe His Sabbaths and remember that He created the world, unless there is here some higher need, lofty and hidden, exalted and transcendent. And in my opinion, had it not been written, I would not have thought that there is in this any “improvement” to the human soul any more than a person planting zucchini in a field of holy apple orchards.

If you write me your phone number I’ll explain it to you, but broadly speaking, you can’t take simple things written in the Torah and make up other things. If the Torah says that with Ammon and Moab the problem was that they did not come forward, then that is exactly the problem. Now, as for the details of the commandments, no—the point is not that they have no reason, but that every law has a framework and an edge case. Regarding keeping the Sabbath, I have no idea what you wrote.

You didn’t touch the point at all, and between you and the point there is a distance like a bowshot. Let’s take Ammon and Moab. “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord because they did not greet you with bread and water.” Is that an explanation? It is only the most initial explanation. It’s like telling a child: don’t read a storybook at night because then you might fall asleep late. And what’s wrong with falling asleep late? Because you won’t get up on time in the morning. And what’s wrong with not getting up on time in the morning? You’ll be late to class. And what’s wrong with being late to class? You won’t know the material. And so on—until you reach a reason that is a final explanation. That is somewhat like what Maharal calls “the cause behind the cause,” as I noted. So too with Ammon and Moab. If the forefathers of the Ammonites didn’t greet the forefathers of our forefathers, so what? If we let them into the people of Israel, what will happen? Will the flowerpots in the garden wither? Will the water channel start flowing backward? Do we want to take revenge on them for the sins of their ancestors’ ancestors so that their descendants won’t merit coming under the wings of the Divine Presence? These are empty and wind-blasted things. Therefore one performs a “retreat to metaphysics”—an Ammonite who converts apparently has some spiritual defect, that he is “not fit” for “the people of Israel.” And this unknown defect apparently also found expression in the fact that they did not come forward and they hired Balaam. These are mystical words, but without them the Torah becomes a mockery and absurdity. The rest I leave to the wise, and if there is emptiness, it is from you, etc.

I don’t think Michi Abraham thinks in your direction, but you too are saying that the commandments bring improvement, only it is not apparent to our eyes.
On the substance of the matter: at the time, their deeds were very ugly, and the Torah established a rule that one does not intermarry with such a corrupt nation. Apparently they lived with a clear awareness that they owed gratitude to the Jewish people, so there was such a collective identity then. Now, to ask why one should not accept an individual convert from them—that is not a correct question, because this is the rule: you set a boundary and do not cross it. I don’t see any need here to add a matter of souls.

Of course there is no question about why we don’t accept them today. First, it was a rule set then, and at that time the revulsion was on a level that could remain for many generations. Second, today, when it no longer fits, it indeed no longer exists because Sennacherib mixed up the nations.

Of course there is improvement through the commandments—who says otherwise? But it’s not that the improvement comes from things that make ordinary sense and are merely hidden from us (like anonymous giving); rather, the improvement is in higher, more abstract layers.

I’m asking you now: had there been no Sennacherib, and if now the entire Ammonite nation came as one man with one heart to convert, why would we not accept them? Are you explaining that the reason is that they would be corrupt converts and commit many interpersonal sins? Is that the explanation?

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t exist today. So we can circle around it from above.

Maybe if Sennacherib had not mixed up the nations, they would still have the same character today, just as many nations have a certain character, like Arabs and the like. It may be that if the nations had not intermingled, it would have been far more ingrained in their nature.
And maybe it could be that since the Torah decreed it that way, it is a law that does not change. In short, the gates of answers have not been locked.
.But to take things written in the Torah and add an extra layer that has no source, and then say that this is the necessary plain meaning—that is very strange.