Q&A: Why, really, keep the commandments?
Why, really, keep the commandments?
Question
Why, really, keep the commandments? Let’s say that the commandments really do advance us as human beings and make us better people through some of them. Why does that matter?
And in addition, what will be after the Messiah? Why would God want the Messiah to come at all? After the Messiah, won’t it simply be a superfluous world? What is the role of human beings in a world to which the Messiah has already come?
Answer
Who told you that this is the purpose of the commandments? Even as a matter of fact, in practice it really doesn’t seem that the commandments do that. One should keep the commandments because that is what is right. We need to obey the One who created us and the world. And there is probably also some sort of spiritual benefit for us or for the world. But that is not necessarily on the moral plane, or on some other plane that you could see.
I have no idea about the Messiah, and I’m also not especially interested. There is no way to know, and nothing depends on it.