Divine Need: An Authentic Torah Idea - It's Conclusive

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Yitzchak Botton’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Does Hashem (God) actually care that we should do the mitzvot (commandments) and do all this in order to get close to Him, which is what Teshuva really means, or is it all just about us? This question is actually quite hot at the moment, because in the yeshivos, and in the explicit, more revealed sources, the standard sources, you will find very explicit statements that no, fundamentally, in His very essence and being, Hashem does not care. He’s too great for that. He is one and alone, and there is nothing outside of Himself. Even once the creation happened, it still is nothing compared to Him. So how can it make any difference to Him, and how can petty, physical actions by finite, tiny human beings make any difference to Him? Of course not, they say. The mitzvot are just there for us. Getting close to Him is for our benefit, not His. However, as we know right now, there seems to be a big pushback against that, and it’s coming from the Kabbalistic (esoteric mystical) sources, as well as the Chassidic sources, which came later and took the idea even further. To the point where we can say not only does Hashem care, He needs us, and He needs us to do the mitzvot. This idea is being peddled by Rabbi Manis Friedman, shlita (may he live well), and it’s caused a great controversy online. So in this video, I’m going to be dealing and addressing that question and trying to back it up from the sources, to those who have heard of the idea and have never seen any justification for it. It is fully justified in our sources. It is very, very true, and the depth and beauty of the idea is something that I feel everybody should find out about. So this

Jump to a moment

1. 0:07Does Hashem (God) actually care that we should do the mitzvot (commandments) and do all this…
2. 4:25would say that saying Hashem does not need us, or does not care about us doing…
3. 8:46really rails against the philosophical arguments and constantly criticizes them, and constantly says, “No, Hashem didn’t…
4. 13:00it precedes the desire for a king to have a people, it precedes the desire to…
5. 17:23one is “atzmi.” “Atzmi" is sometimes translated as essential, but that also means needed, necessary. Now,…
6. 21:46still not the real me. Can you imagine having a different intellect, somebody else’s brain? Like,…
7. 26:01Friedman points out, rightly, that this son is not any closer to her at all. You…
8. 30:12Like I said before, we have an essence and we have an expression, and everything that…
9. 34:31but my essence is what is doing the loving. It’s myself who loves. There can also…
10. 38:51one thing you can definitely say about it is it needs to be itself. Mechuyav Hametzius,…

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