[Avodah] Does God Change His Mind?

[Michael Makovi]

> And what if a person wants to behave in a Divinie of "G-dly" manner.
>
> To put it simply, he knows no Halcha but he is  motivated to live up to his
> innate sprit/soul/highernature etc.
>
> --
> Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
> RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com

That's another good objection, but not to Kant per se, but rather, to
any morality sans revelation. If a person wants to be good, well and
good, but how will he know how? Ein am haaretz chasid, the Gemara says
regarding Avimelech. (See Rav Hirsch's beautiful comment on this
incident and on objective actual deed versus kavana of the deed. Much
of the same thought is found in David Hazony's "Why Judaism Has Laws",
www.azure.co.il, based on Rav Berkovits.)

One may wish to say that Noachides must have some way of determining
the truth by reason, for the Torah seems to demand this - only Jews
saw Sinai, after all. To this, I'd say that Jews are to be their
example (ohr lagoyim, mamlechet kohanim v'goy kadosh, chochmatecha
u'vinatecha b'einei ha'amim), and so this may in fact be their
"revelation". (But what of Aztecs and Chinese that never saw a Jew? I
don't know. This question is disturbingly similar to Christian
question of a person who never met a Christian to tell him about J-man
- does he get salvation despite not choosing J-man?) Second, even if
they don't need revelation per se, they still need some sort of G-d
concept to justify their morality - Rambam says a Noachide who does
what he does not because G-d said so, is wise but not righteous.

Mikha'el Makovi