For V'etchanan
Not yet available on the Nishma website.
Study Question
1) How do you understand what would seem to be the absolute requirement that such study will necessarily lead to such love of God? It would seem to be a powerful statement in regard to the psychology of human beings. How would you explain the case -- if there is one -- of a person who has undertaken such study but does not experience this love of God?
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You 'should' love the Lord your God -- should, as a natural effect of a given cause -- not a demand but a transcription. You should be full -- you just ate a sandwich -- and if you aren't? -- a responsible and concerned investigation ensues.
ReplyDeleteI once suggested on my blog that the Chinukh's 6 constant mitzvos were in reality two pairs of three: three beliefs each of which could and should be used to engender a particular attitude. I think it parallels what you say here in your opening sentence specifically about Shema (the Chinukh's mitvah temidis #1) and Ve'ahavta (#4).
ReplyDelete1- Belief in a Creator
4- To Love G-d
Belief in a Creator should be used to reach love, just as belief that she is my mother is sufficient cause for love. Not a necessary causality, but part of the ideal.
2- Not to believe in anything but Him
6- Not to veer after the thoughts of the heart and the sights of the eyes
And if we realize G-d's Uniqueness, it would dim our desire for things that do not serve His Plan.
3- Belief in G-d's Indivisibility
5- Yir'a (Fear/Awe) of G-d.
Belief in His unfathomable unity should lead to yir'ah, because it's simply so beyond what everything else is.
One of the ways in which Maimonides follows Aristotle is in how he values knowledge. The Guide opens with two chapters on how the Fruit of Tree of Knowledge reduced human will from being on the plane of making judgments about truth to that of desire and aesthetics. Similarly he closes the Guide with a hierarchy of judgments, the highest being truth. Unlike most formulations of Judaism, where character is made more primary.
My theory implies that the Chinukh disagreed. That ideas have value as part of attitudes toward life, not in and of themselves.
Rabbi Berger's ideas are most interesting. The perception of Rambam is that indeed his focus was on the cognitive yet, if Rambam believed that love would flow directly from knowledge of God and that the mitzvah of Anochi was actually a mitzvah to gain this knowledge, there may have still been a very strong existential side to his view. Rabbi Berger's theory, of course, is maintaining that love still takes work and is not a direct cause of this knowledge. The mitzvah of V'ahavta is thus to develop this love.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Ben Hecht