FROM THE WORLD AT LARGE TO MITSVOT

Having, in the previous chapter, rejected the view that God acts according to Will alone, with no underlying motive, Rambam notes that there were those who suggested a similar theory about mitsvot. According to that view, there is no rationale behind the performance of mitsvot, it is all simply an extension of God’s Will.

Rambam, as we would expect, rejects this notion as well. That would imply, he says that God ordained futile acts (remember last chapter—acts lacking in any purpose) as the permanent responsibility of people. Rambam recognizes two traditional sources that seem to back up that view, which we will get to in a moment. There is, however, an inherent lack of clarity in Rambam’s discussion that I thought I would point out here.

Rambam seems to reject the possibility that mitsvot were commanded simply for the sake of God’s Will, when that might not be as purposeless as was true in the Creation of the World. If we were to say that God created the world simply as an act of Will, it indeed becomes a futile, purposeless act. We might have claimed, however, that God commanded people to perform a series of actions whose sole purpose was to train them to focus their thoughts on Him. The discipline of mitsvot could have been their purpose, in which case the command would not be futile. Rambam nevertheless rejects that option, saying that it is not true that laws were commanded simply to have us listen to a law, and he cites a Yerushalmi that comments on the verse in the Torah: "ki lo davar req hu mikem, for it is not an empty matter for you." The Yerushalmi adds "and if it is empty (im req hu)—it is from you (mikem). In other words, if mitsvot appear meaningless, that is our fault, not mitsvot’s fault.

HUQQIM—STATUTES BY VIRTUE OF WILL ALONE?

The first hurdle for Rambam’s claim is the whole notion of huqqim, which are interpreted in some places as laws for which there is no reason—in contrast to mishpatim, laws that have a reason. If that is the correct translation of the two terms, then it would be impossible for Rambam to maintain his position, since the Torah clearly attests to the existence of these two kinds of mitsvot.

Rambam therefore translates huqqim differently. According to Rambam, huqqim are those mitsvot whose reasons are not immediately apparent; with thought and proper consideration, however, even those mitsvot have an understandable reason.

PROF. TWERSKY ZTLL"H ON UNDERSTANDABILITY

When Prof. Twersky ztll"h taught me this chapter of the Moreh, he pointed out that in a few chapters from now, Rambam will clarify that he is making two claims about huqqim, not one. Rambam could have just said that there is a reason for the huqqim, but not one that is accessible to the human intellect. The rejected opinion would say that God has no reason for commanding the mitsvot, and Rambam would simply be saying He does, even though humans can never figure out those reasons.

Rambam, however (in Chapter 31, but it’s worth mentioning here as well), goes one step further than that. He says that the reasons for all mitsvot are accessible to human intellect. In fact, Rambam cites the verse "amarti ehkemah, ve-hi rehoqah mi-meni, I thought I would be wise, but it was far from me" along with the Midrash that Shlomo haMelekh understood the reasons behind all the mitsvot except for the Red Heifer (Parah Adumah for the Hebraists among you) as support for his view.

However, one more source suggests that Hazal saw the issue differently from Rambam and this source leads Rambam to an ancillary, but extremely important discussion.

WHAT DOES GOD CARE?

Rambam cites a Midrash Rabbah that says roughly "What does God care if an animal is slaughtered from the back or the front? Rather, the mitsvot were only given to purify people." At first reading, Rambam agrees, the source suggests that mitsvot have no logic to them, they are only there to purify people, to inculcate in them the discipline of God’s service.

Yet Rambam disagrees. He notes that the Midrash does not question why God made any commandment about how we eat meat, or any other mitsvah itself. Rather, the Midrash questioned whether there was any meaning to the specific place that God ordered us to slaughter animals—there, it was simply a question of choosing a rule.

NO REASONS FOR THE DETAILS

Rambam expands this idea to other mitsvot as well. While all commandments have a general reason, their details do not. Rambam applies this idea most explicitly (and famously) to the realm of sacrifices. He says that he will not question why there are two animals sacrificed on some occasions and eight on another. He makes the same claim regarding the choice of animals in the sacrifices—lambs, rams, bulls are all arbitrary selections. Rambam even says that some kind of animal and number had to be chosen, so that any choice could have been questioned.

The position Rambam takes here is so difficult to me that I am not even sure Rambam believed it. Ramban (Nahmanides) takes strong issue with Rambam on this question in his Commentary on the Torah (which I couldn’t find—if memory serves, Ramban claims that the details do have a reason, but I don’t remember his explaining those reasons).

My own difficulty with Rambam’s claim is that it only works if we see the Torah taking a simple stand. In the case of shehitah, for example, it is reasonable to claim that there is no difference between the front and back (although others will say there is), and therefore we need not seek a reason for the Torah’s choice. Similarly, had the Torah simply mandated one sacrifice of an animal on each of many occasions, Rambam’s claim would make sense—given that God wants sacrifices for some reason, there had to be some sacrifice made. But if we see an extremely elaborate system set up, in which there are very distinct types and numbers of sacrifices on various occasions, it becomes much more difficult to say that there is no reasoning in the details.

A REASON OR THE REASON?

An issue that will come up several times in our discussions of ta`amei mitsvot is whether Rambam believed he was providing the reason for the mitsvot, or a reason. R. Lichtenstein once told me that his brother in law (Prof. Twersky, ztll"h) told him that Rambam’s point at the end of the Moreh was to demonstrate that mitsvot have a reason; as soon as he could offer an explanation that would put the Torah in a rational light, Rambam was happy. Prof. Twersky never said that to me, but he raised a related question—did Rambam believe there was one reason for each mitsvah, or was he only interested in proving that there was a reason for the mitsvah? If it was the latter, then Rambam’s note here might mean something else.

If Rambam was only interested in the overall rationality of the mitsvot, he may not have wished to take responsibility for the details, since some details have no particular reason. As those discussions would take him too far afield from his central purpose—demonstrating the rationality of the system of mitsvot as a whole—Rambam announced that he did not intend to discuss the details and their reasons. This isn’t fully satisfactory, since Rambam gave the explicit example of the numbers and types of sacrifices, an area that I find it hard to believe did not have a reason, as I’ve outlined above.