[Avodah] Cave or desert island

[Michael Makovi]

>>>REB says that the beris sinai is national. Which, I am
>>>condeming as giving no purpose or motive to observing >>>any
halakhah beyond the 7 mitzvos benei Noach outside >>>of the context of
a Jewish community in Israel.

>>I'm still not sure why Sifra saying keep them in chutz as a >>reminder,
>>isn't enough to justify this.
>
> Because why would a commemoration of beris Sinai
> outweigh beris Noach?
> What the Sifra is saying, taken at face value, it that the Jew > in chu"l is a ben Noach who is carrying on a reminder of
> another beris not in play. Where then do priorities lay?
>
> How can someone in chu"l eat the meat of a shechted
> animal that didn't yet stop quivering? Or allow himself to be > killed for something permitted to benei Noach?
>
> When a couple make aliyah, shouldn't they have to
> remarry, this time for real? And shouldn't every divorcee try > to get their get in EY, so that they would be permitted to
> remarry even if they later make aliyah?
>
> And the real problem with taking this Sifra to mean that
> beris Sinai is on a national level ONLY... The numerous
> baalei machavah who, contrary to REB speak of the role of > mitzvos in terms of perfecting ones tzelem
> E-lokim (R' Saadia Gaon, RYS), building a yedi'ah of the
> Borei (Rambam),
> getting close to Him (Ramchal, Besh"t), teaching
> fundamental truths in
> a way they can be internalized (RSRH's essay on
> symbolism in halakhah)
> and many other variants on the theme. Explaining the role > of mitzvos in terms of their impact on the person. REB simply runs counter to the general trend in Jewish Thought.
>
> :-)BBii!
> -Micha

I think we might have some confusion between a national-only brit and
a -nation-as-a-collection-of-individuals brit.

I'm not saying the brit is national only; if it were so, then only the
melech and the kohanim would have mitzvot, and the individuals would
just be there to do who knows what.

Rather, the brit is of the nation as a collection of individuals. This
is to say, the purpose of the Torah is not to perfect the individual,
but rather to create a society of perfected individuals.

Therefore, when in chutz, you keep the Torah (and not sheva mitzvot)
because you need to keep the mesorah alive for when we return to eretz
yisrael. If it were only the individual at stake, then in chutz, he'd
be a Noachide not a Jew. Davka because it's a brit of the nation, he
remains a Jew, because despite of the fact that he as an individual is
in chutz, the fact remains that there is still an am (ayin mem) at
stake.

I am thus puzzled why say that were the brit only nation, it'd mean
that in chutz a person ought to drop the 613. Rather, it seems to me,
if the brit were individual, then he ought to drop the 613; davka the
brit being national is why he keeps the 613 even in chutz.

As for REB (Rabbi Berkovits, right?) being contrary to the general
trend in Jewish thought, I fail to see how. Certainly, his views on
TSBP are out of the norm, and his Zionism is outside too, except for
DL. But his basic Jewish hashkafa in G-d Man and History is quite
ordinary, as far it seems to me. Dayan Grunfeld in his introduction to
RSRH's Horeb, say that God Man and History is an excellent exposition
of Jewish thought (so putting RSRH and REB as a machloket seems odd),
except for ONE point: REB trying to use kashrut as a means of training
one's self-control as preparation for the true battles of life, like a
soldier training in mock-battle for the real war. Rabbi Shalom Carmy
in his review of REB's Essential Essays, heavily critiques REB's TSBP
but says that it is dangerous to evaluate someone on his most
controversial views, as Rabbi Carmy says that G-d Man and History is
an excellent basic work of hashkafa, with few chiddushim but putting
them in an outstanding presentation.

Mikha'el Makovi