Q&A: The Expectation of Revelation
The Expectation of Revelation
Question
You have argued more than once that morality by itself is unlikely to be the purpose of the world, since God could have created the world already perfected, and therefore it is reasonable that He revealed Himself with a book of laws. I wanted to ask a few things about that.
A. In a lecture I heard from you, you explained that the purpose of the universe is, among other things, to create a deficiency that completes itself. In other words, God is perfect, and the only level higher than something perfect is something lacking that became complete. (And this is the explanation for the saying, “Penitents stand in a place where the completely righteous do not stand.”) So here we have found a logical reason to create the world specifically as morally lacking. More generally, by the same reasoning one could also say that this is why people were created lacking in their character traits. Character refinement = the work of completing the human deficiency.
B. Also regarding the commandments of the Torah, you explain that you do not understand their purpose, and all you know is that God commanded them and therefore they must be observed. Seemingly, the same reasoning could be said about the moral command that He engraved within us as well (also according to your view). He engraved it within us so that we would keep it even without understanding why and whether it has any purpose.
C. In any case, one has to ask why the world was created morally lacking, if there is no purpose in that at all. That question stands on its own. And apparently one must conclude that moral deficiency itself does indeed have a purpose in its own right.
Answer
A. It is not morality that constitutes the goal, but rather the completion of the Holy One, blessed be He. It is true that the laws of morality themselves can do the job, but the benefit is not achieved through the moral benefit; rather, through the benefit of self-improvement. Therefore the claim that there must be a benefit beyond morality still stands. Now the question whether that benefit is achieved through moral acts and that is all, or whether additional instructions are needed, is an open question. Tradition comes and decides it. That is also the answer to question B. Indeed. I did not understand C. That is exactly my claim regarding perfection and self-perfection.
Let me sharpen the point. If there were only morality, without the benefit of the completion of the Holy One, blessed be He, then there would be no categorical command. That is, in a situation where the act brings no benefit (such as tax evasion, voting in elections, and many other examples I’ve given—see, for example, Column 122 and many others), we would not be supposed to do it. The obligation to behave this way even when there is no utilitarian consideration is itself a divine command (and not really morality in the sense of improving society).