Why the Commandments?
Are there any reasons for mitzvah performance?
Should observance be with blind obedience without any attempts to understand what lies within? Or should a Jew devote the time and effort to search for the meaning to the commandments?
What benefits does one expect such studies to yield and should these reasons influence a Jew’s underlying religious conduct?
In that every mitzvah is the means of connecting to God, it is of no consequence what form and nature the Torah laws assume. The central, underlying feature of each mitzvah is identical; namely that man is observing God’s will.
The divine directive is reason enough. It precludes any further investigation, asking that a Jew be content with the simple explanation, “This is God’s command.” Such unquestioning, unbending loyalty exemplifies the verse, “You shall be wholehearted with Hashem, your God.” The Children of Israel’s acceptance of Torah typified this in that it was not contingent upon human understanding. The gentile nations’ immediate reaction when offered the Torah was to ask, “What’s written in it?” The Jewish people’s reaction, on the other hand, was an affirmation of their commitment in the unanimous chorus, “Na’aseh v’nishma, we will do and [then] we will understand.” They indicated that mitzvah performance would not be dependent upon rationale or on the limitations of human logic. In the memorable words of Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, rosh yeshivah of Telshe, “A person must merge himself into the commandment, and not vice versa.”
The “Why” Question
Mitzvah performance necessitates answers to the questions of “how,” “what,” and “when.” An in-depth study of the complicated laws of tefillin, for example, is elementary reading so that a Jew knows what has to be done and how and when to do it. These are indispensable to the practical enactment of the mitzvah, as a servant must know the details to fulfill his master’s wishes. But there is no obligation to know the “why.”
Rav Yosef Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rav, was once delivering a Talmudic discourse before Rav Chaim Soloveitchik. He formulated a question with the Yiddish phrase, “Farvos zokt der gemara — Why does the Talmud say this?” Shaking his head, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik stopped Rav Yosef short with the pithy remark, “An eved fraigt nisht farvos, norr vos — A servant [of God] does not ask ‘farvos, why,’ but rather ‘vos, what’!” The great Torah scholar was indicating that the primary task of a Jew is to know what has to be done rather than to ask the question “why.”
It is in fact conceptually improper to pose the question “why” with regards to a mitzvah. “Why” is the desire to know the motivations and impetus for something. This is indeed a valid question in the physical world of cause and effect. The English word because is made up of “be cause,” namely the search for that which causes something to be. In reference to God, however, this makes no sense.
It is only possible to attribute incentives, impulses, and drives to man and to his interactions within this world. Trying to apply the same principles to the Creator is invalid since it presupposes a motivation, a “cause” on God’s part. This is flawed because the rules of cause and effect do not bind God. There cannot be any cause to God’s Will. It just is, just as He is.
