Chukim and Rambam's Reason For Shiluach Haken

I have had many discussions about the concept of chukim in the Torah. Inevitably, someone will say, "A chok is a mitzva that makes no logical sense." I've even heard, "The chukim teach you that there is no reason for any mitzva." I usually ask about whether not murdering makes sense, or I mention the argument whether the arayot are chukim, and that usually makes them change their tune. But while I disagree with this answer, and I believe the many rishonim who wrote books which gave reasons for the commandments disagreed with it, there is many sources that seem to lend this support the concept in the Talmud, for example Berachot 33b:

מתני' האומר על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך ועל טוב יזכר שמך מודים מודים משתקין אותו: גמ' ...על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך מ"ט פליגי בה תרי אמוראי במערבא רבי יוסי בר אבין ורבי יוסי בר זבידא חד אמר מפני שמטיל קנאה במעשה בראשית וחד אמר מפני שעושה מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא רחמים ואינן אלא גזרות

Mishna: If one [in prayer] says, "Your mercy reaches to the bird's nest",  "Your name should be remembered for the good things," or "We acknowledge , We acknowledge " he is silenced.

Gemara: ...  "Your mercy reaches to the bird's nest" - Why [is it forbidden to say]? Two amaraim argued in the West, one Rabbi Yossi Bar Avin, the other Rabbi Yossi bar Zvida. One said, "Because it places jealousy into the natural world [that God only has mercy for the bird]." The other one said, "Because he presents the measures taken by the Holy One, blessed be He, as springing from compassion, whereas they are but decrees."

Thus, at least according to one opinion in the Talmud, there is no reason that we are allowed to posit for the commandment to send away the mother bird.

(As an aside, while we're on the topic, Rav Reuven Margolios has a fantastic book which is dedicated to figuring out all the "one said this... one said that..." of the Talmud, called Shem Olam. I think it goes without saying that such a project, before the age of computers (and even were it so), bespeaks a great deal towards Rav Reuven's genius. Since we have a "one said... one said..." we might as well use it. 
The same argument pops up in Yerushalmi Berachot 5:3, where it says "Rabbi Yossi (and when it says just Rabbi Yossi, it means Rabbi Yossi bar Zvida, see Yerushalmi Challah 1:1 and Bavli Menachot 70a) says in the name Rabbi Simone, 'It is like setting a limit on God's mercy [that it only extends to birds but not other creatures].' Rabbi Yossi bey R' Bon [similar to "Bar Avin"], 'Because he presents the measures taken by the Holy One, blessed be He, as springing from compassion..." See also Yerushalmi Megillah 4:10.)

(Another interesting aside is the grammatical mistake that is often made when pronouncing "shiluach haken" as "shiluach hakan". This mistake stems from the use of the phrase "kan tzipur", with a patach, which is meant to show possession. So people started to call it "shiluach hakan". I laughed out loud in the seforim store when I found an entire book devoted to the mitzva called "A Practical Guide to the Mitzva of Shiluach HaKan." !!! To their credit, pretty early on in the book they explain the grammatical situation, and say that they asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who advised they go against the grammar, and go for common usage. Interesting, but I can't fathom that logic.)

The Rambam in the Guide for the Perplexed (3:48) goes explicitly against the second opinion here:

This is also the reason for the commandment to let [the mother] go from the nest. For in general the eggs over which the bird has sat and the young that need their mother are not fit to be eaten. If then the mother is let go and escapes of her own accord, she will not be pained by seeing that the young are taken away. In most cases this will lead to people leaving everything alone, for what may be taken is in most cases not fit to be eaten. If the Law takes into consideration these pains of the soul in the case of beast and birds, what will be the case with regard to the individuals of the human species as a whole? You must not allege as an objection against me the dictum of [the Sages], may their memory be blessed: He who says: Thy mercy extends to young birds, and so on... For this is one of the two opinions mentioned by us — I mean the opinion of those who think that there is no reason for the Law except only the will [of God] but as for us, we follow only the second opinion. (Pines Translation, v.II, p.600)

Thus, the reason for sending away the mother bird is truly compassion, and Rambam feels no qualms disagreeing with an opinion in the Talmud over another. It thus came as quite the surprise to me to find that the Rambam, in including the law into Hilchot Tefilla 9:7, had this to say:

מי שאמר בתחנונים מי שריחם על קן ציפור שלא ליקח האם על הבנים או שלא לשחוט אותו ואת בנו ביום אחד ירחם עלינו וכיוצא בענין זה משתקין אותו. מפני שמצות אלו גזרת הכתוב הן ואינן רחמים. שאילו היו מפני רחמים לא היה מתיר לנו שחיטה כל עיקר. 

One who says in his supplicatory prayers: "May He who showed mercy on a bird's nest prohibiting the taking of the mother together with the chicks, or the slaughter of an animal and its calf on the same day, also show mercy on us," or [makes other] similar statements should be silenced, because these mitzvot are God's decrees and not of mercy. Were they of mercy, He would not permit us to slaughter at all.

I had given hope in reconciling such a huge contradiction in the Rambam's thought, and chalked it up to the fact that the Rambam probably wrote the Guide much later than the Yad, and so might have changed his mind. Indeed, Tosaoft Yom Tov on Mishna Berachot 4:9 suggests this exactly for a different contradiction in the Rambam. Alternatively, I thought, his different objectives with both books allowed him to state different things at different times, but I thought that that had much wider implications than I was willing to commit to, although the Ben Yedid suggests something very similar to that. Recently, I came across an article by Roslyn Weiss on this topic, and she has a footnote devoted to previous answers to this question, which I will post here:

See the commentaries of Shem-Tov and Narboni on the Guide of the Perplexed, 3.48; Maharal of Prague, Sefer tiferet yisra'el (Bene-Brak, 1980), chapter 6; Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (New Haven, 1980), pp. 356-514; Jacob Levinger, "Abstinence from Alcohol in the Guide of the Perplexed," [Hebrew] Bar Ilan University Annual: Decennial Volume (1955-65): 299-305.

When I came home from a year in Israel for summer, Parshat Chukat came up, and I was looking at the bookshelf in the den for something to read, spying my father's old Frameworks books by Rabbi Matis Weinberg. They're very large, somewhat long, but it is nice to read the poetic language he writes in, and so I started to go through them. Well, he raises this very question, and makes three distinctions when one tries to understand the commandments:

1) The reason for the mitzva - i.e. what caused God to give it.

2) The purpose of the mitzva - i.e. what God meant to accomplish through it

3) The connotations of the mitzva - i.e. what it teaches and implies

These are very important categories to put taamei hamitzvot in, and might even have a nafka mina in what it means to be "doresh taamah d'krah".

The Rambam explains in a few places how to understand chukim in the Yad, for example Hilchot Me'ilah 8:8, or Hilchot Temura 4:13. It would see that the Rambam felt that the chukim should be contemplated, and we should assign explanations to them. This very much sounds like number 3, the connotations of a mitzva.

We cannot claim that God's mercy applies to the bird's nest, because we don't know. But certainly we can take away lessons, moral guidance, even if we don't understand their true meaning. And therefore the Rambam could say in the Guide that it teaches us that if we have kindness to animals, certainly to other humans.

This is slightly different than my good friend, Adam Friedmann's take on the issue of Rambam and reasons for mitzvot, after I misquoted him, as I am wont to do:

I did say that the RAMBAM in Meilah taken in isolation seemed to imply that there are certain mitzvot with no reason. However when taken together with his approach in the Moreh where he claims reasons for mitzvot quite confidently one might conclude that the RAMBAM held of stratified meanings of mitzvot where one can know A meaning which is correct in a sense but not THE meaning.

Looking back at Meilah now I realize I was completely wrong. The RAMBAM there does not posit that there are mitzvot with no reasons. Nor does he write that we should come up with systems of understanding which we know to be false. Rather he paskens an obligation to understand the laws of the Torah to their fullest:

ראוי לאדם להתבונן במשפטי התורה הקדושה ולידע סוף ענינם כפי כחו

Then he writes:

ודבר שלא ימצא לו טעם ולא ידע לו עילה אל יהי קל בעיניו

The RAMBAM uses two terms to describe the “reasons” of mitzvot טעם and עילה. A quick Davka search reveals that these refer to two different sorts of rationales. טעם seems to a be a cause which relates directly to the effect. The practical purpose for חז"ל to impose a two day Yom-Tov in ארץ ישראל is a טעם (Hilchot Shvitat Yom Tov 1:21). עילה is a much less common word in the RAMBAM. It appears to imply an underlying motive for an action which is not directly related to the action itself. Thus the עילה is accomplished by the action but דרך אגב. For example the potential unsavory reasons for a person to convert to Judaism (i.e. marriage, money etc.) are an עילה (Isurei Bia 13:14, 14:1. See also Tmidin U’Musafin 7:11).

Thus the RAMBAM refers here to two separate levels of potential meaning in mitzvot, one which is very clear, and one in which a motive is perceived which is accomplished indirectly by doing the mitzvah. In no way however is this statement an indication that there is no meaning at all. In the continuation of the RAMBAM he mentions that the reasons of the חוקים are not known:

והחוקים הן המצות שאין טעמן ידוע

However, they do have reasons and אין ידוע does not necessarily mean they cannot be known. Though the חז"ל which the RAMBAM quotes next might seem to indicate otherwise:
אמרו חכמים חוקים חקתי לך ואין לך רשות להרהר בהן

That is still up for debate I suppose. There are also further דיוקים to be made in this RAMBAM, but they are not as related. Overall, if one were to conclude from this Halacha that the pursuit of a rational/philosophical view of Torah is impossible, or even unnecessary they would certainly be תופסין טפל ומשליכין עיקר. The whole point of this RAMBAM is to emphasize the importance of pursuing the meaning of Torah DESPITE the difficulty of its attainment. Having said this the RAMBAM does seem to concede, here and in other places, that certain facts within Torah are beyond the range of rational discussion. Rav Soloveitchik discussed this concept in several places most beautifully in ובקשתם משם in the first few chapters. (Yes Adrian, even Rav Kook admits to teleological suspension of natural ethics in Torah. See Drasha 22 of Midbar Shur). These warrant a separate discussion. However, what is clear is that “being in the system” is a prerequisite to the ultimate search for philosophic truth through the lens of Torah as concluded להלכה by the RAMBAM, not an excuse to give up on such a search.

I could talk a bit about how I think this applies to understanding why anything happens in the world, especially catastrophes, but maybe I'll hold that to another time.