Torah Portion Yitro (5761)

With God's help, eve of the holy Sabbath, Torah Portion Yitro, 5761

Whom can one command? And what can one command?

In our portion, the Ten Commandments appear, opening with the first commandment: ‘I am the Lord your God who

brought you out of the land of Egypt…’ (Exodus 20:2), an affirmation of faith. Maimonides treats this utterance as a command, and counts

it as a positive commandment (Positive Commandment 1): a commandment to believe in God.

Maimonides' position raises a great many difficulties. Some point out that one cannot command the articles of

faith, for if a person already believes in them there is no need for a command, and if he does not believe in them, what use is a

command? (Some even rely on Maimonides' own words in his Commentary on the Mishnah to tractate Sotah and elsewhere, although

in my humble opinion there is no proof from there.) In light of this, a command concerning faith itself already seems like a genuine

logical paradox. Beyond the difficulty in the previous paragraph, every command presupposes the existence of a commander

(that is, one who issues the command), and if I do not believe in the existence of a commander, it is clear that I will not heed his commands either. Let us imagine

a person who does not believe in God encountering the command ‘I am the Lord your God.’ Is it reasonable

that, as a result, he will begin to believe in Him? Only after he is convinced that there is a commander can one lay out

before him the various commands.

Several approaches may be suggested for understanding this position of Maimonides.

One may interpret Maimonides to mean not a command concerning faith itself, but rather a command for those who already

believe to deepen their faith (at the beginning of his Mishneh Torah he writes: ‘To know that there is a

First Being…’—Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah 1:1).

One may also say that Maimonides counts this principle as a foundational principle that underlies all

the commandments, for reasons of legal-juridical hierarchy (the source of the authority of the laws naturally appears

at the head of the law code). That is, this is not a commandment like any other commandment, but rather a foundational

determination that stands at the head of the commandments (in Maimonides' enumeration there are other commandments as well that are really

legal clauses lacking the content of a command).

Following our discussion over the last two weeks, I would like to propose a deep principle in the human soul that lies

at the root of Maimonides' approach. There really is a command here to believe. There are people who regard themselves as

non-believers, and the very fact that this command stirs them is itself

an indication that faith exists within them. This can be described on the psychological level, and parallel

to that, also on the logical level.

I have already discussed the logical level in the past. In yeshiva circles there is a common ‘proof’ that every Jew is obliged

to go about wearing a hat. It is written in the Torah: ‘And Abraham went’ (Genesis 12:4). A Jew like our forefather Abraham certainly did not

go without a hat. Therefore, it is clear that every God-fearing Jew is obligated to walk in the ways of

our forefather Abraham—that is, with a hat.

At first glance this is no more than a joke, but on closer inspection one can discern here an actual proof.

Every logical proof is based on premises. Deriving the conclusion from the premises

rests on exposing the fact that the conclusion had already been hidden within them. The premises

are accepted by my interlocutor even before the discussion, for the discussion is based upon them. Thus it

follows that the same is true of the conclusion that was latent within them. Every logical proof is based on assuming

the very point at issue, almost like Abraham and the hat. Thus, the command to faith in fact also constitutes an indirect proof

of the existence of faith in the one being commanded. Up to this point, the logical level.

The psychological level as well can be illustrated by means of a well-known story. A pair of heretics lived in peace

and tranquility, until one day the wife heard her husband reviling and blaspheming God, and immediately began

to cry, utterly shocked. Her husband turned to her in astonishment and asked why she was crying when he was

reviling and blaspheming a being in whose existence she did not believe at all. The weeping woman answered him that the God

she did not believe in (!) was specifically ‘slow to anger and abundant in kindness and truth’ (Exodus 34:6), rather than cruel and wicked

like the one her husband did not believe in.

This too may at first seem an amusing phenomenon, but some of the claims made by Holocaust survivors who ceased

to believe in God and even developed resentment toward Him because of the terrible experiences they underwent represent

a very similar phenomenon. Just as the woman cried when a nonexistent being was reviled, so too these people harbor

resentment toward One in whose existence they ostensibly do not believe. More than that: in many respects, such hatred constitutes

a profound expression of faith. One who succeeds in continuing to serve God without any difficulties even after

the Holocaust—sometimes this is an expression of wondrous levels of faith, but sometimes what we have here is simply

counterfeit faith (even if it is accompanied by observance of the commandments). Such a person is actually quite rational,

and he indeed does not become angry with One in whose existence, deep in his heart, he does not believe.

We may continue with the story of one of the so-called ‘enlightened’ men—meaning an adherent of the Jewish Enlightenment—who wished to repent on his

deathbed, and all this only in order to refute the saying of the Sages that the wicked, even at the entrance to Gehenna,

do not repent (Eruvin 19a). I invite the reader to consider whether that man was a denier or a believer.

Another logical-psychological level is the desire to jolt a person out of his slumber. A person who does not believe,

when he reaches the heavenly court (and especially the court of his own conscience), will have to give an account of why

he did not examine his beliefs. He cannot claim, ‘I did not know there was a God,’ for in any case

he should have examined this issue more seriously. This is certainly a basic layer of the command

‘I am the Lord your God’ (Exodus 20:2), and as such it certainly addresses even those who do not believe. Thus, it seems

entirely possible that there can be a command even for one who does not believe in the existence of a commander. This is in fact the command

to be rational, and it of course addresses every human being as such.

Have a peaceful Sabbath.

This may be placed for respectful disposal in any synagogue or yeshiva. Comments and responses are welcome.

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