The commandment of faith in it'
Hello Rabbi
The first commandment that the Rambam listed in the Book of Mitzvot is the obligation to believe in God. And I heard that in some of your lessons you said that it is impossible to command or obligate a person to think something if he does not truly think and believe in it and that the commandment can only apply to the actions that a person does even if he thinks they are wrong, but he cannot be commanded to think that they are right because that simply does not make sense. And according to this, I wanted to ask the Rabbi how it is possible that belief in God is a mitzvah, since even if belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, is the basis of all Torah, it is still impossible to command a person to think for the reasons I wrote above. (And from what I have checked, there is no one among the mitzvot who does not list belief in God as a mitzvah.) And if so, is this the same case here or is this principle not present in the matter of the mitzvah of faith and in fact the commandment here is more complex?
It is clear that belief cannot be commanded because it is a fact. It is quite clear that the commentators were not aware of this. Even those who make it difficult do not make it difficult. Interpretations can be offered that will save the number of commandments, you can decide whatever you like. I see no way to decide
But this is a very logical thing to do, so how is it possible that none of the commentators paid attention to this question, (and in general no one in the general religious community paid attention to this question)? Perhaps it is because they were afraid that this question would arouse heresy, since it follows from this that it is possible to keep the Torah and commandments even if one does not believe in God. Does this sound reasonable to you or is this a baseless argument?
(Although this is more of an explanation for why no one asked this question than why this belief is a commandment)
You're taking me into the realms of psychology. I have no interest or skill in that field.
The Book of Mitzvot was originally written in Arabic, and in the Hebrew translation of the first mitzvah, the word 'faith' is a bit confusing because in its original Arabic translation it is 'to be convinced', and not necessarily to believe in the religious sense.
It is certainly possible that this is what Maimonides meant. You cannot command someone to believe in facts, but you can certainly command them to investigate those beliefs in order to reach conviction.
What Maimonides would say about someone who inquired and was not convinced is another discussion.
I think belief is a choice. Usually unconscious, but it is still a choice. Those who understand NLP and know how to control the subconscious through various actions can perhaps understand better. For example, why I say that belief is a choice: When I meet someone on the street and ask their name and they answer me Yossi, then when I say to myself, oh, that's not Yossi, he's lying, I chose not to believe, and vice versa, and that is also essentially faith, this choice to be convinced that it is true.
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