[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[David Riceman]

I actually want to respond to RMB, but I think that a point I've been 
making has gotten erased, so I'll start by citing myself and RAM.

Me:
<<What I tell my son is that there are minimum standards that everyone 
must strive to perform, but beyond that one has quite a bit of 
flexibility about how much of an oveid hashem one desires to be, and how 
one [imminentizes] that desire.>>

RAM:
<<I am a very lazy person, but in my *desires*, I cannot imagine 
striving to be anything less than a *total* oveid Hashem. And I try to 
tell my kids that this should be their desire too. I hope to hear that 
"how much of an oveid hashem one desires to be" was an accidentally poor 
choice of words.>>

RAM again:
<<I'm not sure if I used the word "only" in this context. I'll tell you 
what: Even if I did use that word, I'll retract it now and say this: I 
am willing to concede that there are many legitimate aspirations, and my 
point is that being a "*total* oveid Hashem" is the most ideal 
aspiration among them.>>

I know and admire people who try to be "total* ovdei Hashem" (see H. 
Tshuva 10:3); unlike RAM, I don't want to be one of them.

In this post I don't want to address RAM, I want to address the people 
who claim that we don't disagree.  RMB's post is a good example:

<<If so, then perhaps we can just create a new parent ideal which 
combines those hierarchies into one. Starting with something like: 
Hashem made us to be autonomous creative beings who...

If you believe Hashem made us so that we should value other pursuits as 
ends in themselves (and I'm not asserting that, just paraphrasing my 
understanding of your point), then that too is part of the ideal of 
being what He made me to be.>>

This is a different ideal than being an oveid hashem.  Part of being an 
oveid hashem is precisely to abandon those aspects of one's personality 
which don't fit into the mold.  In fact, as I tried to point out in 
earlier posts, this ideal is so general as to raise the question of how 
one can fail to meet this particular aspiration.

I do think one can whittle it down.  I would, for example, like to have 
a really good vibrato on the violin some day, but that wouldn't be on my 
list of what RAM calls "ideal aspirations".  But how one can whittle 
RMB's criterion down to something acceptable is not an easy question.

That's the main point I wanted to make, but RMB's post was so long that 
it deserves some nitpicking:

<<There is a central message to Yahadus, and we should be able to figure 
out what it is from the Torah. Presumably this is about including Hashem 
in our plans, actions, and perspective on what happens to us.>>

I cited a Rambam ("ha'ikkar hagadol shehakol talui bo") paraphrasing a 
Mishna in Berachos to support this, but I think it needs better 
evidence.  Why should there be a central message? The Abarbanel (in Rosh 
Amana IIRC) denies that Judaism has ikkarim, and I think one can argue 
plausibly that Western ethical theorists have gone wrong partly because 
they spend too much effort looking for single unifying principles.

In fact multiplicity is an inherent feature of humanity and of the world 
we live in.  Shouldn't it equally well be an inherent feature of the 
Torah? It certainly seems to be.

<<Issur and chiyuv are categorical. If they covered every possibility, 
there would be no variety, no human component to avodas Hashem after the 
poseiq does his job.>>

This is the opinion of the Hovos HaLevavos, that Torah, when fully 
individuated, has no reshus, everything is either obligatory or 
forbidden.  He argues that the options are to leave room for individual 
variation.  I find his opinion scarily totalitarian.

<<Tangent: Where does the Rambam say this?>>

Shmonah Perakim, Perek 8.  In Kafih's translation it's on p. 262. 
Arguably either he changed his mind before writing the MT or he was 
polemicizing.

<<Actually, RSS says qedoshim tihyu is *it*, not just /a/ mitzvah. Which 
can make sense, "qedhshah" isn't as specific as "akhilas matzah", after 
all. Here's the relevent quote, right after discussing the Toras Kohanim 
and the Ramban on "Qedoshim Tihyu": And so, it appears to my limited 
thought that this mitzvah includes the entire foundation and root of the 
purpose of our lives.>>

I think this deserves a new thread.  There's a mahlokes between the 
Rambam and Ibn Ezra (in Sefer Yesod Mora).  Ibn Ezra argues that mitzvos 
are hierarchical; some include others as special cases.  The Rambam (and 
as far as I know all contemporary halachists agree with him) flattens 
out the hierarchy and argues that each mitzvah has an independent 
domain.  You seem to be construing RSS as following IE.

I don't think that's what he means.  There is a long exegetical 
tradition of playing up the significance of particular mitzvos.  In 
Hazal it takes the form mitzvah X shakul k'neged kol hamitzos. There's 
an essay attributed to the Ramban (printed in Chavel's Kisvei Ramban) 
which derives Taryag Mitzvos from asseres hadibros.

I think RSS is doing that with Kedoshim Tihyu.  I think he could have 
done something similar with many other mitzvos.

<<Picture if one Elul (or maybe even on a Hebrew birthday -- vedai 
lachakima beramiza <grin>) we did this for our Avodas Hashem...>>

I've used a version of this as a Yom Kippur derasha.  It's not enough to 
do tshuva for sins or even for dispositions: picture who you are now, 
who you wish to be next year (or in a Shemita or Yovel), and how you 
expect to make the transition.  The mechanism of transition is the most 
important part, and, as you hint, you need to break it down into small 
steps.

IIRC the Gaon in Kol HaTor alludes to this, as does Rabbi Kook in Orot 
HaTeshuvah.  I construed the midrash about Ya'akov Avinu sleeping at the 
bottom of the sulam and his picture at the top of the sulam as alluding 
to this.

<< Picture being able to tie why you're going to the store to what it is 
you plan on accomplishing in your life's avodah. I think it would be 
very powerful in making all of life, even recreation or side interests, 
holy -- however it is you define holiness.>>

Why doesn't it work just as well for just a little time every day? Not 
everything you do at work ties directly into the Master Plan.

David Riceman
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