[Avodah] Our Attitude Toward Mitzvos

[Yitzchok Levine]

What should our attitude toward observing mitzvos be?  I have at 
times heard people say, "I do this and that, but such and such I do 
not believe that I have to do."

Rav Dr. Breuer in his essay Chorev: One Hundred Years that appears in 
the new book A Unique Perspective writes

To him who is imbued with such an unshakeable emunah, Rav
Hirsch addresses the theme of his interpretive essays with these
powerful words:

Even if every Divine precept were a riddle to us and
presented us with a thousand unsolved and insoluble problems,
the obligatory character of the commandments would
not in the slightest degree be impaired by this. Whatever
command or prohibition of God it may be that prompts one
to ask why one should do this and not that, there is always
but one and the same answer: Because it is the Will of God,
and it is your duty to be the servant of God with all your
powers and resources and with every breath of your life. This
answer is not only adequate; it is essentially the only one
possible, and it would remain so if we were ourselves able to
penetrate into the reason for every commandment, or if God
Himself had disclosed to us the reason for His commandments.
We should have to perform them, not because there
was such-and-such a reason for any commandment, but because
God had ordained it. How else could we be servants of
God? How else could we obey God?

For him [Rav Hirsch] there is only one possible and adequate answer, and
that is: service to God. How else could we, whose lives are determined
by God's Will, be servants of God, if we did not let God give
direction to our lives and submit to Him in humble obedience? 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20100411/0227501c/attachment-0001.htm>