Taamei Hamitzvot - Reasons for the Commandments
Introduction to the Thought of the Ramban
by Rav Ezra
Bick
Taamei Hamitzvot - Reasons for the Commandments
Devising systems to provide the rationale for the
mitzvot and giving reasons for individual mitzvot is a recurring
theme in medieval Jewish philosophy, a theme that has continued to fascinate
Jewish thinkers up to the present time. This is a quintessential Jewish
occupation, because no other major religion has the body of detailed
commandments that Judaism possesses, and no other religion places such an
emphasis on the law and the commandments. The Torah is primarily the book of the
commandments, and Judaism is primarily the way of the Torah. The Ramban, in his
Commentary to the Torah, attempts to explain each and every mitzva in the
Torah. Unlike the Rambam, who, in chapter 35 of the third book of the Moreh
Nevuchim, offers a systematic analysis of taamei hamitzvot, the
Ramban's approach is piecemeal, one mitzva at a time. We will, in the
coming weeks, examine several of the individual rationales which exhibit points
of special interest within the philosophy of the Ramban. Today, I wish to
examine the comments of the Ramban concerning the general topic of taamei
hamitzvot.
The main discussion of the Ramban to this topic is found
in his commentary to Devarim 22,6 on the verse mandating the freeing of the
mother-bird before taking her eggs or chicks.
The complete text, in
English, of the Ramban's commentary to Devarim 22,6, is posted on the web
at
http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/ramban/ramban22-6.htm
.
It would be worthwhile to
read it in its entirety before and together with the
shiur.
The location is not accidental, and immediately creates
the ideological framework for the entire discussion, as the Rambam's discussion
of taamei hamitzvot is also based on the Talmudic statement concerning
the nature of this mitzva. The Ramban's discussion is clearly based on
the Rambam's.
IF A BIRD'S NEST CHANCE TO BE BEFORE
THEE. This also is an explanatory
commandment, of the prohibition Ye shall not kill it [the dam]
and its young both in one day, because the reason for both
[commandments] is that we should not have a cruel heart and be discompassionate,
or it may be that Scripture does not permit us to destroy a species
altogether, although it permits
slaughter [for food] within that group. Now, he who kills the dam and the young
in one day or takes them when they are free to fly [it is regarded] as though he
cut off that species
Right at the beginning the Ramban gives two different
explanations for the prohibition on taking the mother together with the chicks.
We are not going to analyze these explanations today, but it is worth paying
attention to several points. First, the Ramban indeed offers two explanations,
and not because there is anything wrong with either one of them. This is quite
typical of the Ramban. The Ramban sees nothing unusual in explaining a verse in
more than one way, and similarly he sees nothing strange in answering the
question, "what is God's purpose in giving this mitzva?", with more than
one answer. If we take a look at the two explanations, we see that they belong
to very different categories of reasons for commandments. The first, "that we
should not have a cruel heart that does not have pity," is a moral one, seeing
the mitzva as educating man to have the proper moral sensibilities. The
second, "that the Torah does not permit man to destroy a species totally, even
if it is permitted to slaughter (members) of that species," is based on a
doctrine of the Ramban that there is a mandate to maintain the species created
in Sefer Bereishit without change. The explanation of this mandate is
metaphysical, as we shall see when we discuss the prohibition of mixing species,
in a few weeks, and in fact is directly tied to a kabbalistic doctrine of the
Ramban.
But whatever the exact meaning of these two reasons
given by the Ramban, the point I wish to stress is that the Ramban in fact gives
two different reasons, without attempting to first explain why the first
reason isn't correct. This is typical of the Ramban. For many mitzvot, I
think even for most mitzvot, the Ramban will give two or more reasons. As
a matter of principal, he will, whenever possible, give one reason which he
calls pshat - the simple explanation, and another reason which he calls
al derekh ha-emet - the way of truth, which means the kabbalistic
explanation, without denigrating the first explanation. In our case he has two
explanations which are both pshat, both simple explanations, and
sometimes he will give even more than two. This is quite typical of the Ramban,
and is very untypical of the Rambam. In Moreh Nevukhim, the Rambam gives
one reason for every mitzva. The Ramban will, on a regular basis, give
more than one reason. I think the reason is because the Ramban's reasons for the
mitzvot are part of his exegesis; they are part of his commentary on the
Torah. Commentary by definition is multiple. It is not unusual for a commentator
to explain a text in more than one possible way, resulting in multiple
explanations and multiple reasons. The Ramban will give more than one reason to
explain a story in Bereishit, and more than one reason to explain a
mitzva. This reflects an important point which will come up a number of
times in the coming weeks. According to the Ramban, there are multiple levels of
meaning for existence and not only for text. In other words, the
mitzvot themselves have more than one reason because the text can have
more than one explanation, and the world has more than one explanation because
the world has multiple levels of metaphysical existence. If we remember that the
Ramban is a kabbalist, then it is important to realize that any theory of
Kabbala, in the way that the Ramban understands Kabbala, speaks of
the world as having an outer, visual kind of explanation and existence and an
inner, spiritual, deeper meaning. So the world always exists at least on two
levels. For the Ramban, that is the
way of thinking about the existence in general. Things exist on many, many
different levels and therefore, there is no problem whatsoever in offering two
totally different reasons for a mitzva, not contrasting them, not putting
one in opposition to the other, but simply presenting both - this is true and
this is true. We will come back to this point many times in our discussion of
different reasons for mitzvot which the Ramban will give in our
discussions in the coming weeks. Now let's go back to the discussion for today,
which is the Ramban's general theory of ta'amei
ha-mitzvot.
The Ramban now quotes the Rambam's analysis of the basic
question of reasons for mitzvot. The Ramban's discussion follows the
Rambam almost exactly, at least in the beginning. He quotes two different
statements of Chazal which seem to imply that there are no reasons for
mitzvot, or at least that we should not give reasons for the commandments. The
first one is a statement in the Gemara in Berakhot, that one
should not say "Your (God's) mercy extends to the nest of the bird." The
mitzvah, which is the subject of the Ramban's commentary which we are
reading, is that when one comes across a nest, one should send away the mother
before taking the eggs or the young. Chazal said that one is not allowed to say
to God - "You had mercy on this bird." Apparently the continuation would be, "so
You should have mercy upon us." The Rambam thought that this seemed to imply
that the commandment of the bird's nest is not based on mercy, but is simply a
Divine decree without any meaning whatsoever. And the Rambam in fact is willing
to admit that that is the explanation of this statement of Chazal, but he claims
that they themselves disagreed about this matter and we (meaning the Rambam)
hold the opposite opinion, that there are reasons for mitzvot. A second
statement appears in the Midrash, where the Midrash asks, "What
difference does it make to God whether one slaughters from the front of the neck
or the back of the neck? Rather the mitzvot were given in order to refine
the creatures, refine men (letzaref bahem et habriyot)." And again the
Rambam understood this, at least at first glance, to mean that there is no
logical distinction and no logical reason why one should slaughter from the
neck. Mitzvot were given to refine man by giving him tasks; they impose a
yoke upon man, and there is no logic or reason for the individual
mitzvot. The Ramban now goes on to state his opinion, which in fact is
not different from the Rambam's. The Ramban says that it is an incontestable
principle that is that all mitzvot were given for a reason, which is for
the benefit and improvement of man. In fact, even those mitzvot which are
classified as chukim, which implies that they don't have a reason, in
fact have reasons, though we are do not know them. The Ramban claims that great
individuals, for instance Moshe Rabbeinu, did know the reason, that Moshe
Rabbeinu knew the reason of the red heifer, of para aduma, but no one
else has known it. I think that the
Ramban here is interested in emphasizing that the reasons for these difficult
commandments are not merely theoretical, and are not only known to God. It is
important for the Ramban that at least one human being should have known the
reason. The logic is not some esoteric divine logic that no human being could
understand. It's not enough to say that theoretically there is a reason; Ramban
says there is a reason and human intellect can grasp that reason, although it
might be such a difficult reason that only one person in history ever achieved
it. But in principle, Moshe Rabbeinu does not have a different kind of logic
than the rest of us.
What then is the meaning of the statements that the
Rambam quoted from Chazal? The Ramban says the meaning is clear - not that there
are no reasons at all, but that there is no benefit to God. God doesn't care
whether you slaughter from the back of the neck or the front of the neck,
meaning it makes no difference to Him in terms of the benefit to God. God
doesn't benefit from the mitzvot, but you do. The logic of the
mitzvot is not to help God but to help man. The mitzvot form a system
that is a kind of religious humanism. The mitzvot all have reasons and
the reason is the improvement and correction and benefit of the man who performs
the mitzvot. The expression used in the Midrash, "to refine,"
refers to the process of purifying metals. The process of refinement means
improving the metals, producing pure silver out of silver ore by ridding it of
its impurities. In the same way, you refine man by getting rid of his bad
qualities and improving upon his good qualities.
Similarly, the statement about the bird's nest means
that God does not command us to send away the mother because He has mercy on the
bird. Ramban claims in an aside that the principle of divine providence does not
apply to individual birds, so God did not tell us to spare the mother because
God had mercy on the bird. He did, though, have a reason - it was to teach
us to have mercy upon the mother bird. God does not benefit from our
observing this mitzva, but we definitely do, and the reason why
God commanded us to send away the mother bird is that we should in fact develop
the very same quality that we thought this gemara was rejecting, the
quality of mercy for the mother and the desire not to cause her pain.
The Ramban, then, has established the principle that all
mitzvot in the Torah without exception have as their purpose the
refinement of man, of the individual man. There are no mitzvot that
reflect merely the will of God, without any logic or reason or goal. The goal of
all mitzvot is always, according to the Ramban which we have just read,
man-oriented. The goal of God in commanding the mitzva is not to increase
his own glory, which is irrelevant to him, not to somehow do something for the
majesty of God, but is to improve and to correct, to develop the man who is
observing the mitzvot.
This idea, that God's purpose in the mitzvot
reflects not his attitude towards the world but what he wants our attitude to be
towards the world, becomes a rather common theme in later Jewish commentary on
the mitzvot. I will give one very prominent example, prominent both
because many people learn the book and because of its influence on the history
of Jewish philosophy. The Sefer Ha-Chinukh on every mitzva gives a
bit of a philosophical explanation. When he comes to the mitzva of
charity, of tzedaka, the Sefer Ha-Chinukh states that the
reason that God commanded us to give charity is not because God wishes to help
the poor person. I think one could add here that if God wanted to help the poor
person, He could just help him on his own without commanding us to do so. The
reason is that He wants the rich person to develop the attribute of mercy and
charity towards poor people. His goal is not to help the poor person but to help
and improve the rich person. He wishes not to give money to the poor but to
inculcate mercy in the rich. And this is a classic example of the Ramban's
principle, which Ramban expressed in a more extreme manner about birds. God has
no mercy for individual birds, but wants us to distance ourselves and avoid the
attribute of cruelty. He does this by charging us with exercises in mercy. The
Ramban adds, in a fascinating aside, that people who do things which are in
themselves permissible, there is nothing wrong with them, but they involve the
psychological trait of cruelty, will in fact become cruel. He says it is well
known that butchers who slaughter large animals like oxen are themselves people
of blood, zovchei adam (the expression literally means that they
slaughter men). The Ramban is saying, if you are a ritual slaughterer - which of
course is not forbidden, it is a part of Jewish life - your personality will be
affected by the fact that you regularly shed blood. Therefore the Ramban says
there is nothing wrong taking the mother together with the young birds. God
doesn’t care about that. But if you do it, it will affect your soul and your
personality psychologically in a manner which would be detrimental. God wishes
us to be merciful in general - not necessarily for the bird - and therefore He
has found ways for us to practice being merciful.
Does the Ramban believe that the mitzvot have no
purpose or goal in respect to God but only in respect to people, only humanistic
reasons? The Ramban in fact elsewhere expresses the exact opposite opinion. The
statement that he rejects here, that God could have any benefit from
mitzvot, is in fact Ramban's opinion. In a section that we will see in a
few weeks concerning the sacrifices, he states that al derekh ha-emet,
meaning in the Kabbala, korbanot are based upon the principle that
the Divine Presence (shechina) in the world is not merely for the benefit of
mankind but in fact is a "need of heaven." In fact, all the Kabbalistic
references in the Ramban are based on the idea that the deeds of man in doing
mitzvot affect and improve and elevate the divine order in the divine
emanations. The expression that he agrees to state explicitly - "the Divine
Presence in the world is a need of heaven" - is based on the principle that we,
through our actions, provide and allow the divine presence to reside in the
world and this is a fulfillment of divine needs. How then can the Ramban state
so explicitly in our section that God gains nothing from the mitzvot but
all the mitzvot have humanistic needs. The answer, I think, is found in
the principle that I explained in the beginning of today's shiur.
Existence is multi-faceted. The mitzvot have multiple reasons, and
multiple reasons are not multiple possibilities but multiple truths. Both
reasons are true and they are true on different levels. In fact, even in this
mitzva of sending away the mother from her nest, the Ramban at the end
adds that in addition to the first two reasons given in the beginning, there is
also a "secret" reason, meaning a reason in the Kabbala. "Yesh
ba-mitzva sod" - there is a secret in this mitzva. I don't exactly
understand the reason that he gives and we will not go into it, but the reason
clearly refers to different sefirot, emanations, and when we observe the
mitzva of sending away the mother, we somehow affect the relationship
between the sefira called bina, represented by the mother, and the
seven sefirot underneath it, represented by the children. What the Ramban
is saying that we have a level of explanation based on pshat, and in the
pshat, all the reasons and the goals are humanistic, for the benefit of
man, but at the same time there is another level of explanation, of
understanding, and another level of the existence of the world, whereby the goal
is always the affect that human actions have upon the arrangements within the
divine sphere. These two explanations, these two types of explanations, are not
contradictory because existence itself functions on multiple levels which do not
contradict each other but exist one within the other. The Ramban is therefore
capable within one section of writing that all mitzvot have one reason,
one kind of reason only, the betterment of man, and God gets nothing from them,
and then immediately adds - and I think he adds it on purpose, such that you
realize the tension involved - but in the Kabbala sending away of
the mother has a secret interpretation. I suggest that the nature of the secrecy
involved is that this explanation is the opposite of the previous explanations
and not concurrent with them; and therefore it exists hidden within the regular
pshat explanation but cannot be open and disclosed next to and parallel
to the pshat explanation. In almost all cases, with only one or two
exceptions, which we shall see in the future, the Ramban never offers the
Kabbalistic explanation as the correct explanation, as the pshat;
he always offers first pshat, which is true, and then says that there is
a further, deeper hidden meaning which is reflected by the Kabbalistic
explanation. In the pshat all mitzvot are directed towards man and
that is correct, but there is a hidden explanation that says that mitzvot
are directed towards God. In both cases the mitzvot do not reflect the
arbitrary will of God but rather have a reason, an intelligent purpose and a
rationale which explains why they exist.
In the coming weeks, we will examine several ta'amei
ha-mitzvot, several explanations that the Ramban gives for individual
mitzvot, both to understand the particular ideas expressed by those
reasons and also to further enhance the understanding of the principle that we
saw today, about how different reasons can exist on multiple levels, reflecting
the multiple levels of existence itself.