11:
We must understand the words of Antigonos of Sokhoh against the background of the matters upon which we have elaborated in the previous shiurim. That is to say that his words are connected with the idea of the resurrection of the dead [
Teĥiyyat ha-Metim]. It is not just we who say so, but the sages themselves say so as well, as we shall see later on.
12:
Ideally, the purpose of serving God should simply be to serve God. The moment one substitutes a different purpose for service of God the service itself depreciates and is marred. The sages recognize two kinds of divine worship: worship that is altruistic and worship which has an ulterior motive. But the Torah promises blessing for obedience; so if we keep the commandments in order to receive that blessing is that wrong? In a very long excursus in his commentary to the first mishnah of the tenth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin Rambam relates to the difference between worship that is altruistic and worship which has an ulterior motive. Because this matter is very relevant to the words of Antigonos in our present mishnah I shall here quote what Rambam has to say there.
13:
Rambam begins by discussing a question connected with education. What is the real purpose of education? That is, why do we want our children to learn, and why do we want to learn ourselves? The answer is surely self-evident: we learn in order to gain knowledge. But that is a tautology: we learn in order to gain learning! In other words, we learn in order to learn! The real purpose of learning is learning, it is itself its own purpose. A child, however, cannot appreciate the worth of learning for its own sake. We might tell a child that if he learns well we will give him a sweet, or a star on a chart, or a bicycle (or we might threaten to stand him in the corner or to give him a whack on the backside if he doesn't learn properly) – depending on the child's age and the importance of the learning in the eyes of the adult. The child learns, but not for learning's sake, for his as yet undeveloped intellectual ability will not permit him to perceive the real purpose of learning. He will learn in order to obtain the promised prize (or to avoid the threatened punishment); he will see the learning process as a burden to be borne in order to achieve the 'consummation devoutly to be wished'.
14:
Thus we have a perfectly valid objective for learning: learning itself. We study in order to gain knowledge, we learn in order to learn. But because the immature are not motivated by such a consideration we have invented artificial objectives: a sweet, a star on a chart, a bicycle, a report card, matriculation, a university degree, a doctorate, avoiding a smack on the behind. What, then, is the purpose of observing Torah? Obviously, the corollary must be that the purpose of observing Torah should be observing Torah! We should observe Torah for its own sake. Now Rambam continues:
When we observe Torah for some reason other than itself the sages call this "for an ulterior motive". That means that someone keeps the commandments, studies Torah and makes an effort to be a religious Jew not for these virtues themselves but for some other benefit that will accrue. The sages warn us
[Avot 4:5] "Do not make them a crown with which to glorify yourself or a spade with which to dig" and thereby they hint that one should not have any other purpose to one's observance – not to be honoured by people, not to gain wealth, not to occupy oneself with God's Torah in order to earn a living: the only purpose of learning Torah should be knowing it… The perfect person should not ask, "When I perform the commandments which are the true virtues and when I keep clear of the sins which are the bad vices that God has commanded us not to do – what will be the reward that I will get for doing so?" This would be like the child asking what he will be given if he learns. This is what that most excellent of men, Antigonos of Sokhoh, was hinting at when he said
[Avot 1:3] "Do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward, but be like servants who serve the master in order not to receive a reward." He means that one should believe in the truth because it is true. It is this that we call worship out of love, and the sages said
[Avodah Zarah 19a], "
'Taking great delight in His commandments' [Psalm 112:1] – Rabbi Eli'ezer said 'in His commandments' – not in the reward for keeping His commandments.
To be continued.
Yehudah Wiesen writes, bringing us back to the issue of sacrifices:
Even if we imagine that all Shelamim were accompanied by a personal prayer of some kind, as you suggest, and further imagine that some of the prayers were petitionary, this is very different from today when, in a very explicit fashion, petitions are central to our prayers (prayers for health, success, etc.) Why was there no individual offering explicitly petitionary in a manner similar to our prayers? Didn't people have the impulse to make such offerings? Didn't they need guidance in when to do so and when not? If petition was a common function of sacrifice, would not the Talmud have discussed it (for example, as it discusses when to bring a Toda)? And where and when did our tradition for written petitionary prayer come from if it did not exist, or had such an understated place, in the sacrificial services?
I respond:
Traditionally there are two kinds of prayer: statutory prayer (as found in public worship, for example) and voluntary prayer. The details, "the how and the when" of statutory prayer are predetermined and not very flexible. But voluntary prayer has no rules at all (with the exception of the prohibition of a 'vain prayer'). Unlike statutory prayer, voluntary prayer may be offered whenever a person feels the need and according to any text that a person wants to say – an example would be the most succinct prayer of Moses [Numbers 12:13]: "O God, pray heal her". This tradition of voluntary prayer must derive from the prayers that were offered together with the voluntary sacrifices. And the best known example must be Hannah's prayer [1Samuel 1:11]. While her husband, Elkanah, is offering the family's sacrifice she steals into the Tabernacle in order to make her personal petition: "O God of Hosts, if You will look upon the suffering of Your maidservant and will remember me and not forget Your maidservant, and if You will grant Your maidservant a male child, I will dedicate him to God for all the days of his life; and no razor shall ever touch his head."
