mydiresearch, ~discoveries & further ~developments

Grijze lucht met regendruppels & het geluid van de wind. Terug en vooruit dus maar weer met Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Uri Davis & Danny Boyarin:
ends & means, faith & language, visions & practices of people then & there, here & now through all ages, places, cultures & human development.

Y makes a sharp distinction, drawn by Maimonides & reflecting Aristotelian influence, between ends-in-themselves & secondary ends, which are ends for us only because they subserve some further end. The original context of this distinction was a teleological concept of nature according to which things had their natural ends. As used by L, without any reference to such a context, the distinct is rather similar to the familiar classification of values as intrinsic & instrumental. Yet there is a difference. Though there is no natural hierarchy of ends, some ends, once recognized, must be take as ultimate. They are incapable of being validated by reference to further ends. But YL goes further: he adopts two crucial doctrines of Maimonides on this matter: first, the religious end is not only an end-in-itself but is THE ultimate end; second, an ultimate end is desecrated when it is made to serve as a means to some other end.

What is the religious end? For YL it is worshipful service of G d, or halakhic praxis. It could not affect G d, & bears no comparison with ordinary human values. The religious practitioner will divorce his religious action from any hope for reward of fear of punishment other than the status before G d achieved in living the life of Halakhah. This is a religious content , not a sociological one. One need not deny the functionality of religious practices for social solidarity or their role in preserving the national identity of Jews. But these are empirical questions that are religiously irrelevant. To attempt to justify adherence to Mitzvoth by its consequences, whether for society, nation, or individual, is to take up a secular point of view which does not recognize the primacy & ultimacy of the worshipful service of G d. Religiously, this is an inversion of the scale of values.

Beetje ingewikkeld? Je kunt al die namen & begrippen natuurlijk ook gewoon opgoogelen & er zelf mee aan 't goochelen gaan zoals "christenen" e.d. over 't algemeen al doen voor bijna alweer meer dan tweeduizend jaar met alle gevolgen vandien all over this 'complicated world'!