wayfe, you are certainly entitled to your beliefs but just want to point out that you do not speak for all Jews. I was brought up- and currently subscribe- to a very different, rationalist approach than what you describe, achieving perfection by pursuing knowledge, striving to understand the deeper ideas to mitzvos so we can understand exactly how they are supposed to perfect us,
Yes, we are all entitled (at least according to American law) to believe what we choose. I'm not sure I understand what you've written but if you're saying that you only do Mitzvos because they make you a better person or because it a humane way of life- then I (respectfully) challenge your belief system.
which is a bit more involved than just doing it BECAUSE we are commanded to do it...
Your addition of the word 'just' indicates that you did not understand my post.
I specifically added to my post
ETA: This doesn't mean that religious people can shut off our minds and disregard logic. We always use logic to explore any topic to the limits of our minds, but ultimately we understand that logic is not the be and end all. There's more.
I see it as the balance of striving to attain more knowledge and acceptance of the suprarational divine as cyclical;
As human beings, we are finite creations. As such, it should be impossible for us to understand the divine, the infinite. According to the laws of logic- something finite cannot contain infinity. How can a finite mind understand infinity? As we delve into and explore any topic in Torah intellectually and logically- we stretch the limits of our minds but eventually we hit the glass ceiling. We know there is more yet we can't understand it. At that point, we bypass the limits of our logically constrained minds and understand with our soul. This in turn enriches and broadens the mind so that it has even more capacity to understand- and the cycle starts again.
Not sure if this made any sense, but I tried...