I understand that the Rabbi is committed to God’s command.
I am asking: why should I commit myself to God’s command?
Why does what He said obligate me?
I can behave morally even without keeping every commandment that God gave.
If He does not punish me when I sin, and does not reward me when I fulfill His command, why should I fulfill His command when I do not see the benefit in it—not benefit in the sense of self-interest, but even in the sense of repairing the world, improving society, refining character traits?
I keep the moral command because I understand why every moral act is intrinsically good, and therefore I do it.
Not because someone said so.
By contrast, regarding God’s command, I do not understand why I should do what He says.
And I am familiar with the Rabbi’s thesis that judges are called “god,” and from that one infers that God is the supreme authority and therefore must be obeyed.
But I listen to judges not as a matter of formal authority, but because I think they are right, or because I see benefit in what they say.
And if those two conditions are not met, the only thing that would make me obey them is an external motive, such as a system of punishment and reward.
Therefore, I ask again:
Why should I keep the commandments?
Why should I obey God’s command?
And the answer, because He is God, is not really satisfying to me, as I already wrote.
I am asking because I genuinely want to know and understand.
I would be glad if the Rabbi could help me understand.

I answered. If you want my comments on the tautological claim that if you do not see value then you do not see value, I have nothing to add on that.
If you want to continue the discussion, you need to address what I said and comment on it. You are just repeating what you wrote before.

He may be saying there is no value, but what he is really asking you is: why do you see value in it? Just as a person can explain why he sees value—not necessarily obligation to that value—in behaving morally, why should you see value in keeping the commandments if there is no reward and punishment and no benefit? In my opinion, by the way, someone who keeps the commandments is supposed to believe that there is reward and punishment and that there is benefit, and that explains the idea of the commandments better. Of course, he needs to explain himself more because he is claiming more. But someone who says there is no reward and punishment and no benefit bears no less of a burden of explanation, because then the above question naturally arises, and it is very compelling.

There is a principled question here: why are the Creator’s commandments binding? And there is an empirical question: do people receive reward and punishment for them? On the empirical question, the Talmud already says that there is no answer in this world, but only, if at all, in the World to Come. The principled question is not derived from the empirical one. What is forbidden is forbidden, regardless of the question of punishment, as Sefer HaChinukh writes, and what is commanded is commanded, regardless of the question of reward.

As usual, the best defense is an attack 🙂
I understand that the Rabbi sees value in the commandments,
and therefore I am not asking why a person who sees value in the commandments should keep them.
I am asking why the Rabbi claims that the very fact that God commanded the commandments makes observing them a binding requirement and not merely a recommendation for someone who sees value in them.
Hope I made myself clear.
This is not a tautological claim, as the Rabbi is trying to paint it.
I understand that there are people who see value in keeping the commandments.
But the Rabbi’s claim is that even someone who does not see value in keeping the commandments, but believes that God commanded them, is also obligated to keep them.
And that is exactly my question: why, by virtue of His being God, are His commands binding on me even if I do not see value in observing them?

commands*

The best defense is defense. And the best attack is passive-aggressive. I wrote explanations and you are not addressing them. So what is the point of the discussion? If you do not formulate a question that has not yet been answered, I will not respond further.

You can also look at my article on philosophical (ontic) gratitude.

Elisha, I think your stumbling block is in understanding the concept of “value.”
I cannot know that something is true and at the same time know that it is not true.
If it is true, then it is a binding value.

I will try to clarify myself, because I see we are not making much progress.
The Rabbi wrote: “The obligation to observe the commandments is because of the commitment to God’s command. One is obligated to fulfill His command not because it is useful (although it is probably useful).”
My question is: why do the Holy One, blessed be He’s commands obligate me by virtue of His being God?
I am not asking whether there is value in the commandments.
I understand that if there is some value in the commandments, then there are people who will observe them.
The Rabbi’s claim is that one must fulfill the Holy One, blessed be He’s command simply because He is God.
That is exactly my question.
Why does the very fact that He is God obligate me to fulfill His command?
Hope I made myself clear.

As stated, you can also look at my article on philosophical (ontic) gratitude.

I would be glad to receive the article. I also do not really understand what the reason is that I am obligated to this. Second, I wanted to ask: how is it possible that God accepted Manasseh’s repentance, when he sinned and caused others to sin out of spite, murdered, and did a great deal of evil? How did God not prevent him from having the possibility of repentance, as with Pharaoh—as Maimonides says in the Laws of Repentance, that when a person continues in very severe sins for too long, God prevents the possibility of repentance?

All my articles are here on the site.
I do not know the Holy One, blessed be He’s considerations, nor am I familiar with the differences in the situations of those two figures. You understand that this comparison is extremely crude (it is a good example of why there is not much value in studying the Hebrew Bible). By the way, I am not familiar with the claim that the Holy One, blessed be He prevented Pharaoh from repenting. It says that He hardened his heart in order to bring Israel out. Where does it say that He prevented repentance?