[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 02:03:45PM -0400, hankman wrote:
: I think the answer is trivially simple! It is to do the rotzon of
: HKB"H at all times to the best of your ability. All the rest is detail
: and that is far from trivial.

I thought the whole question was "What one theme is central to His Ratzon
for what we should be accomplishing in life?"

R' Simlai (Makos 23b-24a) boils it down from 613 to 11 to 6 to 3 to 2 to
"Tzadiq be'emunaso yichyeh." The three tannaim I already named make it
more about BALC. (And your phrasing about essence and non-trivial detail
resembles Hillel's "ve'idakh peirushah, zil gemor!") Vekhulu.

Of more interest to me is how various members of the chevrah go about
identifying the/a central theme(s). After all, we're talking about
humans identifying Divine Will -- there will be no One True Answer. Just
many models, simplifactions whittled down to fit in our own puny minds.
And each mind being different, this means multiple derakhim, each pursuing
its own way of looking at the central problem -- "al pi darko".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
micha at aishdas.org        of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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