So does the Rabbi hold like Leibowitz, that the commandments are simply given, and that’s that? But if so, why should I care that 3,000 years ago some entity gave some freed laborers on a medium-sized mountain a law book that no one has any ability to understand?

I absolutely do not agree with Leibowitz. I am only claiming that although the commandments do have causes and reasons, they are not accessible to us. This is not an a priori assertion; rather, it is what emerges for me from reflecting on the suggestions raised in the books of commentary and from my understanding of Kabbalah.

I can understand the inaccessibility of one particular commandment or another—for example, that the reason for an eruv tavshilin is hidden from us—but why, heaven forbid, from what a priori necessity, is the entire field of the question of what the commandments are about concealed from those who seek it? What makes it so that we cannot even say whether the reasons for the commandments lie in upper worlds of winged messengers, in the equations of Hamiltonian and Lagrangian analytical mechanics, or perhaps in the splendid world of Akkadian statesmanship? After all, there are many practical implications here. If, for example, the reasons for the commandments belong to the realm of ancient culture and its customs, then we who do not live in it could free ourselves from this burden; whereas if we are dealing with hovering worlds, then the obligation from back then still remains.