Shiur #20: Are There Reasons for the Commandments?
A good portion of Book III of the Guide is devoted to the question of the reasons for the mitzvot. We shall look at some of what the Rambam writes
Shiur #20: Are There Reasons for the Commandments?
A good portion of Book III of the Guide is devoted to the question of the reasons for the mitzvot. We shall look at some of what the Rambam writes on this topic in chapter twenty-six and in chapter thirty-one.
The Rambam introduces the discussion in chapter twenty-six by presenting a fundamental dilemma in religious thought: does God act out of wisdom? This dilemma has arisen over and over again since the time of Plato, who presented it in the following manner in his dialogue Euthyphro:
Socrates: Consider, if you will, this question: is piousness beloved because it is piousness, or is it because it is beloved that it is piousness?
Euthyphro: Socrates, I do not fully understand you.
Socrates: I shall try to state it more clearly…
Socrates: What, then, shall we say concerning piousness, Euthyphro? All the gods then love it, according to what you are saying.
Socrates: Is that because it is piousness, or for some other reason?
Euthyphro: For that reason.
Socrates: If so, the gods love piousness because it is piousness. It is not that it is piousness because the gods love it." (Euthyphro 10a)
Plato raises a fundamental question here: does a religious world-view leave room for morality and goodness as an independent yardstick? Plato formulates the question thus: does God seek goodness because it is “objectively” good, or do we refer to as “good” whatever God wants? Do good and evil have any independent status, unrelated to God's position on them, such that God prefers that which is good? Or is there actually no such independent concept as “goodness,” such that the word 'good' actually means “that which God has chosen” for His own arbitrary reasons? According to the second possibility, there is no essential difference between charity and murder; neither of these actions is in itself either “good” or “bad.” The difference between them is simply that God desires charity and hates murder, but by the same token He could have preferred things the opposite way around.
Many, many generations later, the same dilemma was formulated as follows in the words of Rav Charlap (as quoted in Malki Ba-kodesh Responsa 4, p. 80):
Does the verse asserting [of the Torah], "Its ways are ways of pleasantness" (Mishlei 3:17), mean that the ways themselves are, by definition, pleasantness and truth, peace and tranquility, but our human consciousness does not perceive their value, so God revealed them to us? Or does it mean that their pleasantness and sweetness is the consequence of our having been commanded in them?
It is not a simple question to answer. On one hand, from a religious perspective it is difficult to assert that there is an objective, universal “good” that is not dependent on God's will, since this would imply that God is subservient, so to speak, to laws of morality. On the other hand, it is equally problematic to suggest that there is no objective system of good and evil, and that God commands us one way or the other arbitrarily. While both approaches exist in Christianity as well as in Islam, it is difficult to find Jewish philosophers who have claimed that there is no good and evil except for God's will.
Why is the tendency in Jewish thought to assume that there is an objective good, despite the theological questions that this position raises? Perhaps because as early as Sefer Bereishit we find an unequivocal position in this regard, expressed by Avraham in his argument with God:
God said: “The cry of Sedom and Amora is great, and because their sin is exceedingly grave, I will go down now and see if they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come to Me; and if not, I shall know it”… And Avraham drew near and said: “Will You then destroy the righteous with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous people within the city – will You still destroy, and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in its midst? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to kill the righteous together with the wicked, such that the righteous will be like the wicked. Far be it from You; shall the Judge of all the earth not perform justice?” And God said, “If I find in Sedom fifty righteous people, within the city, I shall spare the entire place for their sake." (Bereishit 18:20-26)
Avraham's argument is clearly based on the assumption that God operates in accordance with moral standards – and that these moral standards are comprehensible to human beings. One might have thought that absolute good and evil do exist but that man is incapable of comprehending them. But Avraham rejects even this idea. He approaches God with a moral demand: shall the Judge of all the Earth not perform ju