Q&A: Service of the Creator
Service of the Creator
Question
Hello,
I wanted to ask the Rabbi the following question:
God is perfect, so it necessarily cannot be that the commandments we perform help Him, or that He needs us.
He gave us commandments, so if so there seems to be no escape from claiming that the commandments are meant to correct some deficiency in us, for example so that we can in some sense be our own cause, or because of some deficiency elsewhere in creation. In any case, according to this, I am really serving myself and not Him.
What does the Rabbi think about this? Are we in fact serving ourselves? How can one do something for God if He does not need us? Does God's perfection mean that it is impossible to serve Him? And if it is possible, then why did He give commandments after all…?!?
Answer
This touches on what the medieval authorities (Rishonim) called “service for a higher need,” meaning that He does indeed need us and we serve for His sake. That is the meaning of “Ascribe strength to God.” This does not mean that He is not omnipotent. He can do all, and therefore He creates us as a completion for Himself.
In principle, it cannot be that our service is for ourselves, because if that were so, He should simply not have created us, and then there would be no need for the service either. We + our service are needed for Him.
Rabbi Kook, in Orot HaKodesh, vol. 2, discusses the problem of perfection and perfecting. He says that one of the human perfections is the very process of perfecting ourselves (the process by which we become more complete). That perfection cannot exist in the Holy One, blessed be He, because He is already perfect and cannot become perfected. Therefore He created us deficient, and through our process of perfecting ourselves He possesses the quality of perfecting. The service for Him is to perfect ourselves and the world.
For a sharper formulation of the idea, see here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%96%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA1/
Discussion on Answer
No. I am claiming that there was a deficiency in Him that was completed through our creation. But speaking of there being a deficiency in Him is only figurative. His perfection is such that He exists alone until a certain stage, and from then on we are created and become perfected. All of this together is the form of a perfect being. All of this (as much as one can speak at all about such an infinite process) is one long process of perfecting.
You wrote there in the article about Zeno’s arrows that there is a process with no practical significance, like a ball with velocity that collides with a wall.
There you argued that with God too it is the same thing, that there is not really any deficiency and the concept of perfecting is purely potential.
If so, here you are contradicting yourself, since here you claim that He does indeed have a deficiency.
Moreover, if there really is a process of perfecting with no practical significance in reality, why was a deficient world created in order to become perfected?
No contradiction. His “deficiency” is that He cannot become perfected.
The world was created so that the potential perfecting would be actualized (through a transition to a greater perfection in actuality). In mechanics too, the potential (= velocity, momentum) is indeed actualized. If not through change of place (when you are next to a wall), then through heat, mechanical deformations, and the like.
“In principle, it cannot be that our service is for ourselves, because if that were so, He should not have created us, and then there would be no need for the service either. We + our service are needed for Him.”
I did not understand why that is impossible. It could be that He saw that if He created us we would enjoy the good, and therefore He created us, even though He personally has no need for it,
And about this the verse says, “If you are righteous, what do you give Him?” And see Nachmanides on Parashat Shemini at length.
If we do not exist, then it cannot be said that our creation is for us. Before we were created, there is no “us.” This is parallel to the question of wrongful life, which I discussed in my article on gratitude. If the Holy One, blessed be He, is now doing something and there is nothing in the world besides Him, then it is done for Him. There is no one else of whom you can say that it is being done for him. Even the need to benefit others is His need, and therefore creation for that purpose too is done for Him.
Thank you very much, but you wrote, “He is all-powerful and therefore creates us as a completion for Himself.”
I am not disagreeing from the standpoint of His omnipotence. I am speaking from the standpoint of His perfection, and if He is indeed perfect, then according to your words why did He create us in the first place?
If I understood correctly, you are claiming that before creation there was no deficiency in Him of perfecting Himself. Only *after* creation—when He created deficiency in the world so that the world could become perfected—then such a deficiency in Him arose as well.
Am I right? But if so, why did He create the world in the first place?