Q&A: The Limits of Authority and Its Sources
The Limits of Authority and Its Sources
Question
I’m having a hard time with your approach. I read the book No Person Rules the Spirit, and my question is: what exactly motivates you to observe Jewish law like any religious person, if about significant things like individual providence you cast major doubt, and you’ve said that in prayer you don’t direct things toward yourself personally.
I understood from what you said that only something that can be proven by reason, or that has a clear tradition that it was actually said at Sinai—you said this is a small part of Maimonides’ principles of faith—obligates you.
My question is really an innocent one: what exactly obligates, if there is no personal connection between me and God? This authority you speak about—what is it? The agreement of the Jewish people? If so, then individual providence is also something agreed upon. What, in your view, does count as a clear tradition from Sinai even though it isn’t written in the Torah?
I’m throwing out a lot of questions here, but something very simple is bothering me: what exactly could convince me to keep Jewish law over time, and also pass it on to the next generation, in the kind of path you’re proposing?
I’m a 19-year-old guy. I left yeshiva because I got fed up with the beliefs I encountered there. Right now I don’t really believe, but I’m really afraid—not so much that maybe I’m mistaken, but that these doubts will bother me my whole life. Your trilogy really helps me organize my thinking logically, but what troubles me is less what you write and more what I actually see in the way you live—that you keep Jewish law even though you don’t believe in, or aren’t sure about, individual providence.
Thank you very much.
Answer
You assume that observing Jewish law is meant to bring us benefit from the Holy One, blessed be He, who is involved in the world. I disagree with you about that. The obligation to keep the commandments is because the Holy One, blessed be He, created us and the world, and there is an obligation to obey Him (that is the meaning of the concept “God”). Beyond that, if He commanded something, then apparently it is beneficial in some way—that is, it improves reality—even if I don’t understand how or where. Therefore there is no need at all to assume divine involvement in order to explain commitment to the commandments.
As for individual providence, that is a factual claim (a claim about reality). Authority and public acceptance can apply to norms, meaning Jewish laws. There one can say to me: you are obligated to do X or not do Y because the public accepted it upon itself. But when it comes to factual claims, authority and public acceptance have no significance whatsoever. If I think it isn’t true—meaning that in my view there is no individual providence—then why should I care that the public decided there is? Then it is simply mistaken.
Discussion on Answer
There are two ways to approach such a question: 1. By reasoning: He created us and the world, and therefore one must obey Him. See my article on gratitude. 2. This is simply part of the very definition of the concept “God.” About that, there is nothing to ask—why—because that is the definition. Someone who does not conceive of God that way is simply conceiving of something else, not God. It’s like asking why the wall in front of me is white. It is white because it is white. That’s what it is. You simply see it. So too regarding God: whoever grasps the concept understands that there is an obligation to obey Him. It accompanies our very perception of Him.
You can see that in most cases, the argument with secular people is over whether He exists and whether He commanded anything (that is, whether there was a revelation at Mount Sinai). But it is rare for people to argue that even if He exists and commanded, that still wouldn’t obligate us. People understand that God is someone whose commands are binding.
The same is true of morality. The fact that murder is wrong immediately also means that it is forbidden. The existence of the norm entails the obligation to follow it. That is part of its definition.
Why is the meaning of the concept “God” an obligation to obey?