15- Ordinances
It is written in Midrash Rabbah, “Another explanation: ‘These are the ordinances.’ Idol-worshippers have judges and Israel have judges, and you do not know the difference between them.”
There is an allegory about a patient that a doctor came to see. He told his family, “Feed him anything he wants.” He went to another patient and told them, “Be sure that he does not eat this or that food.” They said to him: “You said to the first one that he can eat whatever he wants, but to the other one you said that he should not eat this or that food.” He replied, “The first one will not live; this is why I said that he can eat whatever he wants. But as for the one who will live, I said, ‘Be careful with him.’”
Likewise, idol-worshippers have judges and they do not engage in Torah and do not do it, as was said, “And I also gave them laws that are not good and ordinances that they will not live in” (Ezekiel 20). But what is it written about the Mitzvot [commandments]? “The one who does them will live by them” (Leviticus 18).
We should understand: 1) The verse that the Midrash brings from Ezekiel, that the meaning of the verse about the judges of the idol-worshippers, that verse concerns the people of Israel! 2) The allegory about the doctor who said “Feed him anything he wants,” meaning he has no limitations, but the verse, “laws that are not good and ordinances that they will not live in,” implies that there are rules and limitations contradicting the allegory.
We should interpret that the intention of the Midrash when it says that idol-worshippers have judges, it is not the nations of the world. Rather, it concerns Israel. When he calls them “judges of idol-worshippers,” it means that all the Mitzvot that they do and that the mind obligates them to, and which do not follow the path of faith, to achieve Lishma [for Her sake], that mind is called “a judge of idol-worshippers.”
Since all that the judge obligates is on the path of Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], meaning that his aim is not to thereby achieve Dvekut [adhesion] in life, it follows that he is not intended to live.
To this one he said, “Feed him,” meaning his nourishments of life is anything he asks and he has no special conditions because he will not survive. Thus, what he does is of little consequence.
This is not so with the judges of Israel, when the power to judge is because of Israel, meaning because of faith to achieve Dvekut. At that time, he has special conditions, for not from everything is he permitted to receive vitality. Rather, with every thing, he must be careful not to eat this or that food. In other words, he must not receive vitality even of Mitzvot and good deeds, unless it brings him to Dvekut.
This is the meaning of the prohibition not to eat certain things, meaning not to draw vitality from something specific: from the will to receive.
This settles the two questions: 1) His intention is Israel and not the nations of the world. 2) Even in a state of Lo Lishma, there are Mitzvot and rules, but they are not good, as our sages said, “If he is not rewarded, it becomes to him a potion of death” (Yoma 72b). However, we must try to make the judge be from Israel, and then we will cling to the Life of Lives.