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

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#2083476
Avram in MD
Participant

n0mesorah,

“God fearing key is not so accurate. Fear of God takes a Jo’s of goods work for most of us. I mean continued to keeping the mitzvtos (within the Jewish community).”

I could not decipher what you were trying to say in this sentence, can you rephrase it? Also, if you are correct, than it’s wrong to see in sefarim Jews referred to as “yirei Shamayim” or “baalei nefesh”, etc. Shouldn’t those terms be eschewed in favor of “shomrei mitzvos” only, if that’s the ikar?

“The idea necessary for mitzvos is a mitzaveh -commander. Not boray – creator. You have a big swing there between a mitzvah for it’s own sake and a good luck charm. There is a lot in between.”

People do things for a reason, and if someone has no concept of Hashem, their “committment” comes from somewhere else. Sports fandom was a silly example, but is it less silly at the end of the day than an athiest doing “mitzvos” he thinks are worthless because of communal pressure, or a pushover resentfully doing them just to please grandparents, or from Holocaust guilt, or whatever other reasons that make a “committed Jew”in your mind?

Re: your distinction between Hashem as the Borei Olam and the Ribono Shel Olam – if someone believes that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, and the Xian man-god commands us to do the mitzvos… so long as he puts on tefillin every day, takes arba minim, and avoids melachos on Shabbos, he’s doing nothing wrong before Hashem in your mind and is even a “committed Jew”?

Also, you have ignored my point that one who does not know or believe in Hashem cannot fulfill any of the mitzvos properly, especially ones that deal directly with how we are supposed to feel and know about Hashem, such as loving Hashem, fearing Hashem, remembering the Exodus, etc.