Ubiquitin, you had that reaction to my mentioning how the Bal Hatanya explains their form of Kiyum Hamitzvos. That is because you’d take nothing less than the simple first-impression understanding. But you do this in the name of not wanting to take the Midrashim literally.
This was well illustrated when I brought up Teffilin Demarei Alma (insert ‘non-literal’ for the benefit of our 13th century friends here) to illustrate that we find Teffilin being something much more than what you wrap around, and that what we are doing is a fulfillment of a certain concept — a concept that even relates to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Your response to that was again to toss around literal or non-literal. Which means that the attitude towards such a Sugya, rather than to see what the Maharal or other Sefarim explain, is to say it’s not literal. But that doesn’t teach you what it is.
Now, as for the ‘Shomer Torah Umitzvos’ idea, which Torah and which Mitzvos? Does that just mean that he was Mishalech Lifnei Hashem? Well it already says that in the Pasuk. And, what does Afilu Eiruvei Tavshilin supposed to mean? Is this all really just an overly fancy way of telling us what we already know?
Can our conversations ever get past 13th century issues? It was a wonderful accomplishment of the Rambam to effectively dismiss the physical minded interpretations of the Torah and of Hashem. As we see, many of his writings reflect this battle. But, the battle was won. Let’s get on.