[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[Zev Sero]

On 5/07/2012 10:22 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> For example, why mashiach more than "Rabbi Chizqiyah beshem Rav: Asid
> adam litein din vecheshbon al kol shera'as einav velo akhal"? (Closing
> of Y-mi Qiddushin.)

I don't understand the question.  How does the fact that a person will
have to account for something turn it into a goal, let alone a "main
idea of Judaism"?

"Lehavi liymos hamashiach" is in a sense the ultimate goal of everything
we do, because that is what the world was created for.  But that's not a
very practical "main idea".  It doesn't really affect what we do.  We
would have to do the same mitzvos in the same way, even if there were no
Moshiach at the end of it all.  So calling it the "main idea of Judaism",
while *true* on at least one level, doesn't strike me as all that helpful.
And in some hands it can obscure all sorts of intermediate goals and
"main ideas" that ultimately lead to that goal.


-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon