Reply To: Should we try to encourage Mashichists and Elokists to return to the fold?

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#2083381
Avram in MD
Participant

n0mesorah,

“On yidishkeit. When a Yid does a mitzvah because he is a comitted Jew, that is the desired outcome of creation. This is even if the Jew has no concept of a creator or any idea of the god-head. Just the act itself, is included in ‘boruch asher yakum es divrei hatorah hazos’.”

Define “committed Jew”. You may have an unusual personal definition of this, but the vast majority of the frum world would say the term is synonymous with “G-d fearing Jew”, and the attention to the details of mitzvos flows forth from this fear and love of G-d.

If one has no concept of his Creator, how would he fulfill Anochi Hashem Elokecha asher hotzeitzicha meieretz Mitzrayim? Or Veahavta es Hashem Elokecha? Or es Hashem Elokecha tira? Keriyas Shema? Tefillah? The seder? Brachos? Sukkah and tefillin, for which specific reasons are given?

You are divorcing the mitzvos from their very essence and purpose, which is to serve Hashem (including the mind and heart!), and while bedieved one fulfills a mitzvah even if he didn’t have specific kavannah for it according to some opinions, like showing up to shacharis half asleep and waking up to figure out which yom it was to say “hayom yom chamishi”, that is only because he has a concept that what he did was a mitzvah (i.e., that there is a Creator, G-d, King of the Universe who commanded him to do such). Without that knowledge and belief, how can what he did be considered a mitzvah at all, or even more, the desired outcome of creation?? If a guy blows a shofar on Rosh Hashana because he thinks it’s a good luck charm to help the Mets make the playoffs, did he fulfill the mitzvah of shofar?