[Avodah] Cave or desert island

[Michael Makovi]

>> Any individual by himself can be righteous. And it's not because it's
>> easy. Rather, there's nothing to do! True, I haven't stolen or lied or
>> injured, but I couldn't if I wanted to! There's a saying, something
>> like "When there's nothing to steal, the thief regards his virtue as
>> real". So it isn't merely that the achievement was easily won. Rather,
>> there's no achievement at all whatsoever!

> I disagree with this sentiment for the above reason. There ius more to
> personal perfection than not sinning.

Of course. This is my point. There is more to being a tzadik than
simply not sinning. Being a tzadik means:
1) Not sinning WHEN you have the opportunity. In seclusion, you have
no opportunity, and no influence from your yetzer hara.
2) Doing chesed. In seclusion, you have only bein adam l'makom.

This is why the Torah wants us to live in society. Because the Torah
does not want to create the ideal sinless individual, but rather the
sinless and mitzvah-full society. As I said (with the double >):

> Weaving togather another point of RMM's from the paragraph before that
> one and the sentence after it:
>> But the purpose of the Torah is to perfect the society! As Rabbi Aryeh
>> Carmel puts it in Masterplan, the aim of the Torah is not the
>> perfected individual, but rather the perfected society.
>> ...
>> Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits touches on this, in several places...

> This thread started with RRW championing REB's version of this idea,
> and my objection to the notion that a perfected society is the sole
> goal of beris Sinai, the only thing added beyond the beris with Noach.
>
> My argument was that if this were true, there would be no value to
> doing mitzvos specific to Jews when cut off from all other Jews.
> Perhaps even when cut off to the point of not having contact with 10
> Jewish adults. (Of either gender; qiddush Hashem doesn't require the
> minyan be men so we see a quantum of Jewish community isn't
> necessarily gender specific).

The Sifra says this on the Tochacha (I think) - when you go into
galut, keep doing mitzvot, AS A REMINDER. Our doing mitzvot in chutz
la'aretz is only a reminder so that we remember how to keep them in
haAretz. It is davka in haAretz where we will be a mamlechet kohanim
v'goy kodash, and thus an ohr lagoyim.

As Rabbi Berkovits puts it, it takes a nation to influence a nation.
Despite Rav Hirsch's words to the contrary, the gentiles will not be
disposed to looking to Jewish aliens in their midst for guidance; for
one, we are weak and unattractive in galut, and two, we don't have an
army, government, or economy, and so they will say, "It's all nice and
good that you are righteous, but you don't know what it's like. We
have to run an entire country, and sometimes it takes moral
compromise. All you need to do is live your own little personal life".

Any individual can be a tzadik. For example, I've never robbed in my
life. But does anyone look at me and say, "Wow! Mikha'el Makovi's
never robbed!". But what if the entire country of Israel didn't have a
single robber? Imagine what the world would say! Individually, a
tzadik can fade into the background. But as a collective, the whole is
more than the sum of its individuals.

Now, regarding the ideal society being the only thing added onto Torah
from brit Noach: I never said this. Brit noach requires a just society
too - the seventh law is to institute courts of justice. Now, you'll
say, that just makes it worse! Before you thought that the Torah is
merely Noachide + just society, but now I say that Noachide itself has
just society as a requirement! Indeed. What is the purpose of the
Torah? Is it to create a small nation that worships Hashem while the
rest of the world does whatever? Absolutely not. The purpose of Am
Yisrael is to do kiddush hashem, to proclaim Hashem to the world.
Examine Aleinu:

Aleinu l'shabeach ladon hakol...shelo asanu ke'goyei ha'aratzot, vlo
samnu k'mishpachot adama

Hashem made us different, distinct. Atah bachartanu, mikol ha'amin.
Ahavtah otanu v'ratzita banu, b'romamtanu mikol hal'shonot.
V'kidashtanu b'mitzvotecha, v'karavtenu malkenu la'avodatecha.
V'shimcha gadol aleinu karata.

But why? Why did He choose us? Why did He love us? Why did He sanctify
us with His mitzvot and proclaim His name on us?

AL KEN n'kaveh...AL KEN. The reason He chose us, the ENTIRE reason,
the entire reason for the entire first paragraph of Aleinu, is for us
to bring the whole world to worship Him. So there really isn't
anything special about our relationship with Hashem. It is simply the
relationship which all men are supposed to have, and will have, once
we accomplish our task. See Rav Hirsch to Shemot 19:5-6. In fact, this
theme constantly repeats through the entirety of Rav Hirsch.

> : But the ikkar Torah is in a community.  Bedi'avad of course one does
> : what he can on a desert island
>
> Why would he even have a bedi'eved duty? After all, it's a community's
> duty, and his actions have no impact on Jewish community.

As Sifra says, in galut, keep mitzvot as a reminder. Not because they
have any intrinsic value. Were it not for the reminder aspect, then a
Jew in galut could just be a Noachide. (I don't see the difference
between galut of the the nation and galut of the individual, as far as
the individual goes. If an individual ought not have to keep mitzvot
when he is in galut with the nation, then so too when he by himself is
in galut.)


> You didn't give me motivation to make that distinction. After all,
> according to your position, any mitzvah beyond the 66 included in the
> 7 mitzvos benei Noach only gain their relevancy from the community.
> Even bein adam laMaqom ones only exist to sanctify that community. No?

I'd agree with this, as above. A Jew in galut logically ought to
become a Noachide.

> I would instead follow the Ramchal, that mitzvos exist to perfect the
> self, as he understands the tanna's mashal of "prepare on erev Shabbos
> so that you can feast on Shabbos".

So why create a nation? This brings us right back to our starting
point. If one understands Ramchal this way, we have an enormous
kashya.

> Why then do Jews have more mitzvos. "Ratzah HQBH lezakos es
> Yisrael..." Peirush haRambam -- because it gives us more opportunities
> to have that moment of epiphany (koneh olamo besha'ah achas) by which
> we get olam haba.

And we serve for olam haba? Perhaps according to a philosophical
standpoint influenced by the Greek-Philosophical preoccupation with
the soul, but this is not true Judaism. Judaism never said that the
way to righteousness is through philosophical contemplation nor
through intellectual perfection - see Rav Hirsch's attack on Rambam in
his 19 Letters, following the Chasid Yaavetz.

(To be fair, I'll acknowledge that you yourself said,
> I might not share the Rambam's love of phrasing the goal in terms of
> yediah, as per a conversation we had back in vol 2, about the Rambam
> thereby concluding that mentally retarded people have smaller souls.)

Likewise, we don't serve for Olam Haba. See Rav Hirsch towards the end
of Bereshit perek tet. There, Rav Hirsch says that Judaism exists for
this world, and that is why the Torah doesn't speak of olam haba -
because it's really not very important. In fact, I'd say that Olam
haBa is almost meaningless, because after all, we're just going to be
resurrected and live on the physical world again. Hashem created the
world because He desired a dwelling in the lower realms - can we
imagine for even a moment then that He'll destroy that lower realm
someday? No! Rather, the Messianic Era will come, and we'll be
resurrected, and thus we'll live in the Messianic Era for eternity -
see Rabbi Berkovits at the end of the last chapter (or maybe the
second-to-last chapter) of G-d Man and History.

See Rav Hirsch in his letter on aggadah (the link was posted
recently), where he says he's never really thought about olam haba or
techiyat hameitim or any of that, because it's not important. In
Pirkei Avot, there's the one mishna that talks about doing mitzvot and
being judged and all that, and being resurrected. Rav Hirsch writes an
entire page on the first half of the Mishna, but on the second half
(concerning afterlife), he writes one or two measly sentences, merely
parroting what the Mishna already said.


> However, the notion that more mitzvos means more tools or
> opportunities to accomplish one's tafqid stands.
> More opportunities is only good if you take one. More wasted
> opportunities is reason for culpability. Jews play for higher stakes.

Tov, we want to mitzvot. Lo plige. But why? Because we want to
proclaim Hashem's name in the world. NOT for our own selves. And
what's the best way to proclaim His name? As Rabbi Berkovits puts it,
the actualization of the deed, in history, requires a community; an
individual cannot do it.

> That's in addition to being part of a national covenant. As I wrote
> shortly before RMM joined, there were at least two berisim in Sinai.
> Not only is a Jew a component of a holy Kelal Yisrael, but Kelal
> Yisrael is composed of holy Jews. We need both.

There's an interesting article on www.azure.co.il, by a rabbi at Bar
Ilan. He shows that the covenant section of Shemot has striking
similarities to a Hittite suzerainty treaty. The nafka mina, he says,
is that the brit was not made with the nation as a collective, as it
was with each individual unto himself.

This is certainly important. This rav says, that otherwise, we would
think that the entire nation is one before Hashem, and so the king can
serve Hashem in the Temple (as was done by other Near Eastern nations)
while everyone else does his thing; after all, if the nation is one,
then one man can represent the entire nation. In contrast to
Babylonia, where only the priest had religious duties, in Israel,
everyone is a priest.

Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the collective is important too.
The revelation at Sinai was directed to each individual as an
individual, but it was each individual as part of a nation. We are
reminded by Moshe in Devarim that the entire NATION saw the
revelation. Moshe asks, what other NATION has been taken by Hashem to
be His? Etc.