This post is actually an edited version of something i wrote a good couple of years ago, so if you feel it is not up to par (whatever exactly my par is)……….then i have an excuse!!!!
The gemara in sanhedrin asks, how do we know that we have to make shoftim and shotrim? the gemara goes on to answer that it is cuz it says “shoftim veshotrim titen lecha” firstly- what is the gemara out to tell us? for a change this is actually a limud we could make on our own! and secondly why do we need a commandment in the torah telling us to do that? every nation/religion/cult etc. knows that without a set of rules and without judges and a police force they simply can not exist, so surely bney yisroel would have appointed ppl anyway, why does the torah have to “waste” a pasuk on this commandment?
There is another gemara which quotes rabbi meir (im in the question mode) as saying that he could come up with 150 reasons why a sheretz should be tahor. So what is rabbi meir doing? bragging? showing off his talents? (r”l) i will now attempt to answer both questions with one answer (don’t try this at home)-
We as inteligent human beings (and for a change I actually mean it when i see we and not i………if that sentance mixed you up, you still have hope) often make the mistake of applying the same logic as the goyim do when doing certain mitzvot. Meaning- if there is a mitzva which seems totally logical to us (respecting parents, not hurting other ppl, adultry etc.) we keep them because they make sense to us, now even if the logical explanation we came up with is indeed the correct one, we r still being mistaken in our way of thinking. when we do a mitzva (regardless which mitzva it is) we have to do it cuz hashem told us we have to do it, if u wanna make up reasons go ahead, but remember that you are still doing the mitzvas simply cuz we were commanded to!! when r”m was saying that he could be metaher a sheretz in all those ways, he didn’t mean to show off, he was showing that eventhough logic (150 times over) pointed towards saying that a sheretz is tahor, nevertheless since hashem said it is tamey then……it’s tamey and no questions asked.
We should do mitzvos simply because Hashem said so. (i actually meant to pronounce that last period……..Hasehm said so PERIOD.)
We all know this yesod but we tend to think that it only applies for chukim when in fact it applies to all mishpatim AS well, when the torah was telling us to make judges it was trying to point this out to us (as was the gemara) eventhough all other nations might appoint judges simply cuz it makes sense to them (i know that they are also commanded as one of the 7 mitzvos bney noach to have courts, but we all know that that’s not the reason they go out and do it) we have to appoint them cuz…….THAT’S WHAT G-D WANTS FROM US, no questions asked.