Can you elaborate more on why it’s unconvincing? You also admit that the Torah was given at a certain time in the past and probably tried to correct the particular ways people behaved 3,500 years ago. Why isn’t it reasonable to explain that shaatnez or meat and milk correspond to ancient pagan practices, and that the Torah came to correct that?

Most commandments do not correct anything, neither now nor in the past. Certainly their details are not relevant to Maimonides’ explanations (as he himself admits). So what exactly is there to explain here? Does a secondary transfer of milk flavor that got mixed with meat prevent some kind of idolatry? Do you really buy that?

1. The historical, cultural, religious, and political gap between us (including Maimonides’ own time) and the giving of the Torah is enormous. All we can do is make an educated guess—or really just shoot in the dark—about the context in which the Torah was given. Of course I’m not claiming that we can understand the reasons for the commandments today, only the principled claim that they could be understood if we properly understood the pagan context back then. So your emphatic assertion that the commandments corrected nothing in the past is unclear to me.

2. Even if the Torah has no divine source and was written by different people in different periods, there were probably social, religious, or political reasons for the commandments written in the Torah.

3. The concrete details really aren’t all that difficult. Maybe there was an explanation back then, maybe not, and something specific had to be chosen in order to give it the authority of a clear law.

4. Your claim about hidden reasons tied to some higher need seems very strange to me. The Torah is full of verses saying that the commandments are for our benefit. You bring this explanation in order to escape the lack of purpose the commandments seem to have nowadays, just like atheists bring in the theory of infinitely many potential universes to explain the fine-tuning of the physical constants.

1. You’re exaggerating your estimate of the difference between the periods. If the difference is really that great, then Maimonides’ reasons aren’t relevant either.
2. Completely—but not “even if,” rather “only if” (if it was written by people). If it was written by God, I claim it does not have such goals (that is, Jewish law does not).
3. Maybe. I’d be happy to hear hypotheses.
4. You’ve got the direction backwards. You can look here on the site for a discussion about the obligation to judge favorably (for example in my article on Ockham’s razor). I’m not saying this only in order to justify what I see in the Torah, although that too is legitimate. If I reached the conclusion that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah, then when I run into a difficulty I resolve it. Obviously I did not reach the conclusion that it was given to us from above by examining its content. But beyond that, a priori, in my view morality is not the purpose of the giving of the Torah, and therefore there have to be religious reasons and goals.
The multiverse theory of atheists is very strange, unlike this case here. First, because there is a much simpler and more natural explanation, so why run from it? Second, because we should have seen all those universes, or at least some of them (there would have to be an infinite number in order to justify our universe anthropically). The fact that we do not see them creates a difficulty for that theory.

1. Really, the chance that Maimonides was right about the reasons for the commandments is very slim because of the historical gap.
3. I don’t have hypotheses, precisely because the Torah was given in a completely different period. Just from reading the number of verses trying to fight the desire for idolatry that existed then, you understand that this could be a serious focal point when it comes to the reasons for the commandments. Again, finding a precise particular explanation is just shooting in the dark.
4. The discussion here does not depend on whether the Torah is true or not. Maimonides’ approach seems to me much more reasonable (the approach, not the specific explanations) regarding the reasons for the commandments than some hidden, obscure “higher need” invented after the fact because the laws are not understood.

All I can do is repeat that for me this is an a priori conclusion, not something derived from studying the Torah. It was not plausible that the reasons would be of Maimonides’ type even before I read them and found them unconvincing. And I’ll also repeat that the gap you’re describing is greatly exaggerated.

Your a priori claim is roughly as follows (correct me if I’m wrong): if the goal is only moral (in the broad sense, including correct beliefs that reject idolatry and the creation of an exemplary society, etc.), then He could simply not have created the world and that would be the end of it. There is no need for morality if there is no world. So perforce there must be a non-moral reason, and one that is meaningless from our point of view, which we call Jewish law. He could not achieve that halakhic result without us because He needs human beings who will choose Jewish law (they of course do not understand half of what Jewish law achieves in the upper worlds; they act only out of obedience to God).
And I ask—and this is a question I already asked in the past without receiving an answer I found satisfactory—maybe God needs human beings to choose morality in the broad sense, and then you don’t need to arrive at your claim a priori?

Well then, we’re back to that question. There’s no point discussing it again. I’ve said my piece.