Introduction to Ta'amei Hamitzvot - Why the Commandments? Mystical or Utilitarian?

Growing up I was taught that when I did a mitzvah I somehow changed something in heaven that would make good things happen and if I sinned a similar but opposite celestial change would bring about bad things. As a little boy in Paris, my first tutor was a Lubavitcher Chassid who taught me Aleph Beis. I remember him telling me that if I said the words with proper Kavanah (whatever that meant to a 5 year old child), I would be immediately rewarded. As I scrunched my head reading the letters, suddenly a candy flew down from the ceiling. I remember even then thinking, “who is he kidding?” but there was a smidgen of doubt and a feeling of guilt about being skeptical so I shut up. That was the concept of Mitzvot and consequent reward and punishment I knew as the basis for keeping them. As I got a little older, I started questioning this. For the sake of full disclosure, it was not a purely intellectual problem triggered by skepticism and the quest for truth, but rather me trying to deal with my urges and why it was forbidden to succumb to them. If all these prohibition were for this mystical, irrational and not provable consequence, they were just there to torture and nothing more. So I rebelled and did things just to satisfy my parents and keep them off my back. I also started searching for some understanding. It is when I bought myself, in Sao Paulo where we lived during that period, my first Moreh Nevuchim which I still have. I did not understand much but I had the intuition, based on what the bookstore owner, R. Rafi Fisch ZL told me about Rambam’s approach, that I would find in there some answers to my perplexity. When I came to Yeshiva in Israel, I was at the height of adolescence and rebellion was simmering in me. Fortunately, I was approached by an older Bachur who introduced me to Ramban, Nefesh Hachaim, Tanya and other Sifrei Chassidus. For a while, I got into that and loved going to Rebbes and Tischen, Viznitz, Ger and Klausenburg were my favorite Shabbat experiences. The interesting thing was that it never worked. I now had two personas, the spiritually seeking person who had temporary ecstatic experiences and the human being with urges to repress. I could easily swing from one persona to the other, feeling pangs of guilt when I entered my spiritual state for the actions of my physical self, but not enough to prevent them. If I got depressed in those moments of conflict, I resorted to the Breslov dictum that “Mara Shechorah (depression) is not a sin but the consequences of Mara Shechorah are greater than those of any sin” and that somehow kept me going. I forgot all about Rambam and after a while, I became an automaton doing things out of convenience and comfort without any conviction. These ecstatic experiences became less and less frequent and especially after getting married and dealing with day-to-day pressures, this theological quest fell to the wayside. I just continued doing things out of habit without any conviction. I had an instinctual feeling that I had to make sure not to go too far off the Derech, so I became this split personality, with chumrot at one end but also able to act very badly at other times. Unfortunately, now I see many of my brethrens in this conundrum and I understand very well where they are coming from. It is a painful and miserable life.

To make a long story short, at some point I got interested in learning again and realized that ignorance was at the base of my problem. I also got professional help while I was learning and gathering information. I remember the great breakthrough came when I discovered Yeshayahu Leibowitz and his take on Rambam. It renewed my interest in Rambam and I believe that it was the key to my rehabilitation. My internal life has since changed dramatically.

I am writing this not because I have exhibitionist tendencies but rather to share with others who may have similar experiences and hopefully, as they follow some of the things I work through on this blog, they will find the same solace and sense of integration rather than a conflicted split persona. Especially important to deal with this issue, is what I want to address as the next subject, Ta’amei Hamitzvot. What is the purpose of all these commandments and prohibitions? When we transgress, we feel guilty. For what exactly are we feeling guilty? Is it because we hurt God, our soul or the consequences that we brought down on ourselves? If it is God that we hurt, is He not a petty tyrant being hurt because I picked a rotten tomato out of a batch on Shabbat? If it is our soul, what does that mean? What exactly is that soul? If it is consequences why feel guilty? Take them like a man (or woman) and move on. I hope to answer these questions as I progress with this subject.

Unlike Ramban who believes, that Mitzvot change things in heaven especially in Eretz Israel, and therefore have an intrinsic value, Rambam believes that they are purely utilitarian. Their purpose is to help us become better people by developing our innate potential as human beings. The laws are just practical tools to help us focus on the important issues and not be distracted and derailed into a purely selfish and thoughtless survival mode. For a thorough treatment of the difference between these two approaches I highly recommend Professor Menachem Kellner’s “Maimonides: Confrontation with Mysticism” where he has a chapter that does a great job explaining this. I think that the most compelling difference is that according to Ramban there is only one way to do the Mitzvah for it to accomplish its purpose, the way the Torah tells us. According to Rambam, there may be other actions that would accomplish the same thing but we as Jews, have taken upon ourselves to follow the one the Torah chose and ordered. That acceptance itself is utilitarian rather than the only true way.

What then is the utility of Mitzvot?

“But the truth is undoubtedly as we have said that every one of the six hundred and thirteen precepts serves to inculcate some truth, to remove some erroneous opinion, to establish proper relations in society, to diminish evil, to train in good manners or to warn against bad habits. All this depends on three things: opinions, morals, and social conduct.” (MN3:31)

The way I would like to deal with this subject is to follow Rambam’s exposition which is to first examine the exact meaning of each of these categories and what is their importance in making us better people. Some are more obvious than others are, though I am sure, if we think about them carefully, we will find that our preconceived ideas about them may be wrong. I will address this in upcoming posts. As usual, I do not stay with a subject exclusively, so I beg your indulgence for my regular digressions to things that catch my attention or come up indirectly in this endeavor.