Logical vs. Illogical vs. Meta-Logical

You often hear people taking about all the laws of Judaism, and how many of them seem illogical. The prohibition against murder seems perfectly logical, but not being allowed to mix wool and linen seems illogical.

The term “illogical” is really not accurate here. There is nothing illogical about being told not to mix wool and linen (or any of the other laws), it’s just that we don’t understand the logic behind it. Not understanding the logic does not make something illogical; it makes it “meta-logical”.

We abide by the logical laws because we can see the reason for them. But why should be abide by the laws who’s logic escapes us?

Lets look at an example. Lets say you’re on your way home from work and you check your messages on your cell phone. There is a message from your husband/wife asking you to pick up a pizza on the way home. Do you do it? Probably. (The correct answer is “if you know what’s good for you”) Why, because it is a perfectly logical request. You and your family need to eat dinner, pizza is a good dinner so you pick it up.

Now what if the message on your cell phone was to drive 30 minutes out of your way down to the riverbank and fill a bag full of sand and bring that home. Would you carry out this illogical request? Depending on your relationship with your husband/wife, you probably would. The first request you carry out based on logic, the second you do out of love.

The same hold for G-d’s laws. The logical ones we do because we see how it’s good for us. The others we do out of love for G-d. We know that G-d loves us, and he would not tell us do to something if there wasn’t a reason; even if we don’t understand what the reason is.

But in fact, all of G-d’s laws (the seemingly logical and seemingly illogical ones) are meta-logical. Whether or not we think we understand the logic behind a law, how do we know if that’s the real reason?

Lets look back at our two examples. The pizza request seemed perfectly logical. But what if you get home and your wife gives the pizza to the neighbours and feeds you leftovers for dinner? You got the pizza because you though it was a logical request – you were going to have pizza for dinner. But it turns out that there was a different logic behind it. The request was, in fact, meta-logical.

The sand request seemed illogical. But when you get home and give the sand to your wife she gives it to your son who needs it for a science fair experiment. You carried out this seemingly illogical request out of love, but it turned out that there was a perfectly logical reason behind it – you just didn’t know what it was.

Presumably, all of Judaism’s meta-logical laws are in fact perfectly logical; it is just that we may not be able to fully understand the logic while in this world.