The Meaning of the Giving of the Torah: Observance of Commandments Without a Commander (Column 71)
With God’s help
This week the festival of Shavuot falls, and this is an appropriate time to discuss the meaning of the Giving of the Torah. By way of background, I will cite here a few sentences from an email I received from Elhanan Shilo, who has just published a new book. This is what he wrote:
My philosophical book Existential Judaism has been published. This book (whose writing took some 20 years), I see as my life’s vocation: to offer an alternative between religiosity and secularity, to create "a continuous Judaism, between Jewish law and secularity" (the title of the first chapter) and a consciousness of "observing commandments without a commander" (the title of the second chapter).
I have not read the book, but I have already encountered enough articles and essays that try to do similar things. To the best of my judgment, all these works suffer from a very fundamental error that touches on the meaning of the Giving of the Torah, and I assume the same is true of this book.
Reasoning of Torah-level status[1]
I will begin the discussion from the perspective of Jewish law. Several authors have already pointed out that laws derived through reasoning have the same status as laws written explicitly in a verse. In several places the Talmud asks: "Why do I need a verse? It is a matter of reason.", that is, if the matter can be derived through reasoning, it is unclear why it must be written in a verse. Sometimes the Talmud presents this as two alternatives: "If you wish, say it is derived from a verse; and if you wish, say it is derived from reason.", meaning that the law under discussion can be learned either from a verse or from reasoning.
An example of the application of this conception can be found in the Pnei Yehoshua on tractate Berakhot 35a. The Talmud there explains that the obligation to recite a blessing before food is grounded in reasoning:
Rather, it is a matter of reason: it is forbidden for a person to derive benefit from this world without a blessing… The Sages taught: It is forbidden for a person to derive benefit from this world without a blessing, and anyone who derives benefit from this world without a blessing has committed sacrilege.
On this, the author of the Pnei Yehoshua comments there that, in light of this conclusion, the force of the obligation to recite a blessing should have Torah-level status, since reasoning is like a verse. In practice, however, blessings recited before enjoyment are rabbinic, and in my article I explained why. By contrast, the author of the Tzelach writes there as a simple matter that reasoning is not Torah-level, and therefore it is obvious why the obligation to recite a blessing is rabbinic. In my article I explained that, according to the Tzelach , reasoning can introduce a detail within a law that appears in a verse, or an interpretation of that verse, but not a new law that has no source in the Torah. A novel law derived through reasoning will not receive the status of Torah law.
What underlies their dispute? The approach of the Pnei Yehoshua assumes that verses are meant to tell us something. If we can arrive at it on our own by reasoning, the verse is redundant. The verse is intended to bring to our awareness something we would not have reached by ourselves.[2] The Tzelach, by contrast, understands the role of verses differently. A verse is not necessarily meant to tell us something we would be unable to reach on our own. The verse adds a dimension of command, sometimes on top of reasoning we already knew beforehand, and sometimes it also introduces the reasoning itself.
By way of analogy, think about laws enacted by the Knesset. Suppose the Knesset had not legislated a prohibition against crossing at a red light, yet it was still obvious by reasoning that such a crossing is very dangerous. In such a situation, is there a legal obligation not to cross on red? Certainly not. At most, it is a rational, moral, or some other kind of obligation. But a legal obligation requires legislation. Without legislation, the act may be sensible and plainly called for, but an obligation cannot exist or be created without legislation.
According to the Tzelach the role of the verse is to command, not to introduce novelties. The command You shall not murder ("You shall not murder") does not come to tell us that murder is forbidden or that it is wrong. The verse comes to tell us that there is a halakhic obligation not to murder, or a prohibition against murder. The same applies to the verse about theft, honoring parents, and all the other verses that command things that are obvious to all of us through rational or moral reasoning.[3] A particularly clear example is the verse And you shall do what is right and good ("and you shall do what is right and good"). The verse does not spell out what that right and good are, and apparently the Torah assumes that it is clear to all of us what right and good are demanded of us. So why is the verse needed? To tell us that there is here a religious demand as well.[4] Of course, there are commandments for which we have no such reasoning, and in those cases the verse tells us both that there is benefit in this act (that it is positive and proper) and that it is commanded.
On the view of the Tzelach the verse adds the halakhic layer to the moral norm or to the idea. From this it follows that one can assign reasoning the same status as a verse only where there is no need to add that layer. For example, if there is a verse that commands us to do something, and reasoning teaches us an interpretation of that verse or adds some detail to it, then we say that the halakhic status of that detail or interpretation is as though it had been written in the verse. The reason is that in such cases we have a source of halakhic validity, namely the verse, and reasoning merely uncovers its content. Reasoning is not the source of the authority, or the source of the obligation to observe the matter, but only an explanation of the content of that obligation.
The implication is that according to the Pnei Yehoshua the verses that command or prohibit are informative verses. They teach us facts: that a given act is proper or improper, or that God wants us to do it or not do it. But the Tzelach teaches us that verses that command us are not informative verses but imperative verses.[5] The verses do not merely tell us that a certain act has positive or negative value, but command us to do it or not to do it.
There is no doubt that the Tzelach is correct at the principled level. Without a command there is no halakhic obligation. It is perfectly clear that without a command there is no punishment by a religious court for any transgressive act (for Punishment is imposed only if a prior prohibition has been stated. — there is no punishment unless there was prior prohibition). It is likely that the Pnei Yehoshua too is speaking only about blessings recited before enjoyment, since there there is no punishment and no fulfillment of a positive commandment. I assume that he too would agree that without a command one cannot administer lashes or impose punishment.
Extending the foregoing: the meaning of the Torah and of the Giving of the Torah
So far we have considered the meaning of verses. But in truth this concerns the meaning of the Torah as a whole. The Torah does not necessarily come to tell us new ideas that we would not understand on our own. On the contrary, Saadia Gaon, in his Emunot Ve-De’ot, argues that one can arrive at all the commands of the Torah through reasoning, and that the Patriarchs indeed did so.[6] What, then, is the function of the Torah, at least regarding those commands that can be reached through our own reasoning? Why was it given at all? Is the Giving of the Torah intended only for those who are unable to understand the content on their own?
As stated above, the Torah comes to invest these norms with the force of halakhic obligation. Without the command there may be a proper act here, rationally or morally, but obligation is created only by command. This, of course, is also the primary meaning of the Giving of the Torah. God’s revelation at Sinai was not intended to introduce novelties. The Ten Commandments contain mainly principles that are entirely intelligible, and we could have arrived at them by ourselves. The Torah comes to tell us that these principles are halakhically binding. The event at Mount Sinai is the legislation that gives these commandments their force. In essence, the Giving of the Torah is the event of command, a kind of big bang through whose power the halakhic system was created. Without a command there is no Jewish law, and no observance of Jewish law.
Two aspects of every commandment[7]
Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman, in his Kovetz Ma’amarim , in the essay "Repentance," cites in the name of the Ramchal that every act commanded by God has two aspects: obedience to God’s command, and the benefit that the commandment brings (= the reason why we were commanded to do it). And so too with a transgression, which also has two aspects: rebellion against the command and the defect created by it (= the reason why we were warned against it). Some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain in this way the saying of the Sages, Greater is one who is commanded and performs than one who is not commanded and performs.. One who is commanded and acts is greater because in his action he fulfills both things: he both brings about the benefit and obeys the command. One who is not commanded and yet acts, by contrast, only brings about the benefit but does not obey a command (because no command applies to him). Thus, for example, women, who are not commanded in positive time-bound commandments, if they observe them then at most they bring about the benefit but do not obey a command. Therefore the acts of one who is commanded are greater.
We can now understand better what we saw above. The benefit of the commandment or the defect created by the transgression exists even without the command. They are rooted in the nature of reality itself and do not require a command. Moreover, one can sometimes arrive at them on one’s own, through rational or moral reasoning. But the second layer, obedience in the commandment or rebellion in the transgression, is created only by the command. Without it, it cannot exist. The Giving of the Torah, which is the event of command, created the halakhic sphere, and only within it do obedience or rebellion have meaning.
Two aspects of the command
Maimonides addresses this point in two main places in his writings, and in each of them he emphasizes a different aspect of it. The first source is at the end of chapter 8 of the Laws of Kings, where he writes:
Anyone who accepts the seven commandments and is careful to observe them is among the pious of the nations of the world and has a share in the World to Come—provided that he accepts them and observes them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moses our teacher that the descendants of Noah had previously been commanded regarding them. But if he observes them because reason so dictates, he is not a resident alien and is not among the pious of the nations of the world, but rather among their wise men.
Maimonides here determines that performing commandments by force of reason, that is, because in the view of the person acting it is proper, rationally or morally, to do so, is not considered commandment-observance but at most a good deed. One who performs commandments in this way is among the wise of the nations (= the moral among them) and not among their pious (= servants of God). In free translation, I would say that he is determining here that such an act is not really commandment-observance and has no religious value. At most it has moral or human value. The doer is not pious (= religious) but wise (= moral, behaving properly). Maimonides’ commentators there assume that this is true of Jews as well, and that seems to me obvious on simple grounds of reason.[8]
Another source in which Maimonides deals with this issue is the Commentary on the Mishnah to tractate Hullin, chapter 7, mishnah 6. The Mishnah there cites a tannaitic dispute regarding the prohibition of the sciatic nerve in a non-kosher animal:
It applies to a kosher animal and does not apply to a non-kosher animal. Rabbi Judah says: It applies even to a non-kosher animal. Rabbi Judah said: But was not the sciatic nerve prohibited already to the sons of Jacob, while non-kosher animals were still permitted to them? They said to him: It was stated at Sinai, but was merely written in its place.
At first glance, the Rabbis’ claim against Rabbi Yehuda is a historical one. The command prohibiting the sciatic nerve was not given in the days of Jacob’s sons, but only in the Torah given at Sinai. But Maimonides, in his commentary there, explains this differently:
According to Rabbi Judah, one who eats an olive-sized portion of the sciatic nerve of a non-kosher animal is liable to two sets of lashes: one because it is a non-kosher animal, and one because of the sciatic nerve. But the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Judah. And note well this great principle taught in this Mishnah, namely their statement: ‘It was prohibited at Sinai.’ That is, you must know that everything from which we refrain, or that we do today, we do only because of God’s command through Moses, not because God commanded it to the prophets who preceded him. For example: we do not eat a limb from a living animal not because God forbade the descendants of Noah to eat a limb from a living animal, but because Moses forbade it to us through what was commanded at Sinai, that a limb from a living animal remain forbidden. Likewise, we do not circumcise because Abraham circumcised himself and the members of his household, but because God commanded us through Moses to circumcise, just as Abraham, peace be upon him, circumcised. And similarly with the sciatic nerve: we do not follow the prohibition of our patriarch Jacob, but the command of Moses our teacher. Surely you see their statement that 613 commandments were given to Moses at Sinai, and all these are included among those commandments.
His claim is that the command may indeed have been given already then, but we observe it today not because of that earlier command but because of the command at Sinai. The same is true of all the other commandments with which we were charged before the Giving of the Torah (a limb taken from a living animal, circumcision, and more). The obligation to observe all of them derives from the command at Sinai.
There is a difference between these two sources. In the Laws of Kings, Maimonides is dealing with the consciousness of the one who observes the commandment. He explains that the observance must be carried out as a response to the command given at Sinai, and not because of rational judgment. In the Commentary on the Mishnah, by contrast, Maimonides is dealing with halakhic theory. There he explains that the demand made of us to observe the commandments is based on the command at Sinai. The Giving of the Torah is the theoretical basis of halakhic obligation.
To understand this better, let us look comparatively at state law. Clearly, the legislator has no interest whatsoever in the motivation of the citizen who obeys the law or violates it. He does not instruct him to obey the law because he is responding to the command (the law of the Knesset). From the legislator’s standpoint, the only important thing is that the law be obeyed, nothing more. But in legal theory it is customary to say that the legal system is based on a basic norm (grund norm, Kelsen’s term), from which all the other norms are derived. Thus, for example, the basic norm in Israel is the obligation to obey the laws of the Knesset. This is the basis for demanding that every citizen obey the law, and for the possibility of prosecuting and punishing him for violating it. In Jewish law, by contrast, both aspects are important: both the consciousness aspect (the motivation for observing the commandment or committing the transgression) and the legal-theoretical aspect (what, according to Jewish law, is the foundation that obligates every Jew, and in fact every human being, to obey its directives).
Implications: observance of commandments by people who do not believe
In my article On Causing a Secular Jew to Transgress I argued that from these words of Maimonides (and likewise from simple reasoning) it follows that, in practice, a commandment performed by a Jew who does not believe has no religious value. In Maimonides’ terminology, one could say that he is at most wise but not pious. Moreover, I argued there that for the same reason, a transgression committed by such a person is also not a transgression. One who does not believe is entirely outside the realm of commandment-observance and transgression (though he is obligated by them, of course, like every Jew). From the wording of Maimonides cited above in the Laws of Kings it follows that this belief includes not only belief in God in an abstract sense, but belief in God as Commander and in the Giving of the Torah at Sinai through Moses. Only one who performs commandments out of responsiveness to God’s command through Moses at Sinai is considered to be performing a commandment.
A Jew like Ahad Ha’am, who preached the observance of commandments for national, cultural, and similar reasons, even if he had been scrupulous about every minor and major ruling of the Mishnah Berurah, still would not thereby have observed even a single commandment. It is possible that his actions had some value (I am doubtful about that), but certainly not religious value. So too the pioneers (the atheists among them) who sacrificed themselves to drain the swamps in the Land of Israel never thereby fulfilled the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. That does not mean that what they did lacked value, or that we do not owe them gratitude and deep appreciation, but the religious value of commandment-observance was not present here.
In that article I argued that although there is a dispute among the decisors over whether commandments require intention, all agree that commandments require belief (and commitment). Without belief and commitment to the divine command, acts of commandment apparently have no meaning, and probably neither do acts of transgression.
This also follows from Maimonides’ words in a third source, the Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, law 6:
One who worships idolatry out of love—for example, because he is attracted to this form on account of its especially fine craftsmanship—or who worships it out of fear of it, lest it harm him, as its worshippers imagine that it does good and evil: if he accepted it as a god, he is liable to stoning; but if he worshipped it in its usual manner, or by one of the four forms of worship, out of love or out of fear, he is exempt. One who embraces an idol, kisses it, honors it, sweeps before it, washes it, anoints it, dresses it, shoes it, or does anything else of this sort as an act of honor, violates a prohibition, as it is said, “You shall not worship them,” and these acts are included within worship. Even so, he is not flogged for any one of them, because they are not stated explicitly. But if one of these acts is its normal mode of worship, and he did it in order to worship it, he is liable.
Maimonides rules here that worship of idolatry performed out of love or fear of the idol is not full-fledged idolatry. Only worship rooted in accepting it as a god is considered full idolatry. The idea is exactly the same: religious worship is not the mere performance of one act or another, but the performance of an act out of responsiveness and commitment to the command of a god. Without that, there is no religious worship here. This is true with respect to a foreign idol exactly as we saw with respect to God and His worship.
Back to Elhanan Shilo and to observance of commandments without a commander
This is the time to return to the opening point. Elhanan Shilo is looking for a path to secular observance of commandments, that is, observance of commandments without a commander. I already mentioned that there are others seeking similar avenues as well (Moshe Meir, Yoav Sorek, and others). But as we have seen here, one can of course do various acts without recourse to a command or commitment to a commander, but this will have no religious value. At most these may be good deeds, if that.
At this point one could of course argue that these projects concern people who do not believe, or are not committed to, the command given to us in the Torah from Sinai, so why should it matter to them what Maimonides wrote or what arguments I am making here? More generally, it is likely that the religious value of the commandments they may perform is of no importance to them, and that moral, national, and human value is enough. Seemingly, all the arguments I have raised until now belong to the sphere of Jewish law and religion, but that is not the relevant plane of discussion. But if we try to think a bit more about observing a commandment without a commander, we immediately see how incoherent it is.
One possibility is that we are speaking about commandments that have rational grounding, such as giving charity, honoring parents, or refraining from theft or murder. In these cases it is very reasonable to do them, and indeed many people do such things even without faith and religious commitment. But why describe this as commandment-observance? Not only is there no observance of a commandment here, there is not the slightest connection between this and Judaism. Is a gentile not also supposed to honor his parents, not steal, not murder, and so on? What does this have to do with Jewish identity?[9] What theoretical model is required to enable a secular Jew to observe such commandments?
Perforce, the model being sought must concern ritual commandments and not the moral ones. But in that case, I cannot see how a non-believing Jew would take a lulav or build a sukkah, and what value on earth there is in such senseless acts. Why do them at all? Perhaps one can do this in order to create some sort of identification with Jewish tradition and culture (such are the strange workings of secular distress), but if so, then once again I see no need to build a theoretical model to make this possible. Anyone who wants can do it (and in fact does do it. Secular Jews built sukkot even before Shilo’s book was written).
Therefore the project of commandments without a commander seems to me futile and senseless. It certainly has no religious value, but even the universal or national value of such acts does not require the construction of a theoretical model. If someone finds meaning in one commandment or another, he will observe it, for reasons of his own (this will of course lack religious value, but from his standpoint that is not really important). And if he does not find meaning in it, he will not observe it. Commandment-observance in its religious sense requires a commander, and it is impossible to remove the system of commandments from the religious-belief framework.
It is unclear to me whether the aim of the project is to cause secular people who see no point in this nevertheless to observe commandments. Or perhaps to cause them nevertheless to feel obligated? Or perhaps only to enable those who desire it to observe commandments? As I explained, the first two possibilities are senseless and the third is unnecessary. Well, perhaps one needs to read the book in order to understand, but on the face of it this project seems to me to belong to the realm of nonsense.
I cannot refrain from referring to the enthusiastic responses that came back by email from all across the mailing list. I had the impression that the responses expressed a very great need among people for such a framework (the task of the generation). I truly do not understand which of these three needs animates the respondents, but whether it is the first, the second, or the third, this is something I simply do not understand at all.
Summary: back to the Giving of the Torah
This project assumes an incorrect conception of the Giving of the Torah. Observance of commandments without a commander assumes that the command is needed only in order to tell us that these acts have value (positive or negative), and therefore in principle a person who understands that value can observe commandments even without commitment to the command from Sinai. But this is a mistake. The essence of the Giving of the Torah is the creation of obligation, and without a commander there is no obligation, and without obligation there is no commanded person, and if there is no commanded person then there is no observance of a commandment either.
[1] See an extended discussion of this in my article Torah-Based Reasoning and Its Halakhic Status.
[2] On his view, there is room to wonder why the Torah writes things that are obvious to reason (such as the prohibition against murder or theft, and the cases about which the Talmud says, If you wish, say it is derived from a verse; and if you wish, say it is derived from reason.).
[3] See on this, from a somewhat different angle, in Column 15.
[4] True, for most of those who enumerate the commandments this verse is not included in the count and is not regarded as a commandment, but that is apparently because the Torah preferred to leave this norm outside the domain of Jewish law. Morality is a religious obligation outside the halakhic domain. For an explanation of this, see my aforementioned article.
[5] See on this distinction in the Fourth Notebook.
[6] As for me, I am very doubtful about this claim. It is hard for me to see how one can arrive at most of the Torah’s commands through reasoning. But for our purposes here, what matters is Saadia Gaon’s principled view that the Torah did not come to tell us things that cannot be reached through reasoning.
[7] See also on this in my aforementioned article on reasoning.
[8] The fact that this was written in the laws of the ger toshav (resident alien) apparently stems from the fact that the seven commandments with which he is obligated are commandments grounded in reason, and therefore it is especially with respect to them that the conception of observance based on rational judgment can arise. See my aforementioned article on reasoning, and also my article On Causing a Secular Jew to Transgress.
[9] See on this my article on secular Jewish identity in Akdamot and in Nekuda.
Discussion
The question is why they observed the mitzvot
apparently there was no specific command incumbent upon them
for each mitzvah as upon the Children of Israel.
But apparently they did have a general command, such as “they kept My commandments,” “walk in My ways,” and the like.
After all, there is an explicit verse: “For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children,” etc.
Thank you very much for the article.
There are conceptions (in Kabbalah, for example) according to which the very act of a mitzvah has an effect on the world (the physical, the spiritual, the divine, and all the rest). Even according to those views, does a mitzvah have no significance (that is, it has no effect) if a person does not do it out of commandedness?
A few questions:
A. Why is one obligated if one does not believe? (Along the lines of the Ramban’s objection to commandment 1 in the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvot.)
B. According to your view, is there no issue of “placing a stumbling block before the blind” with an atheist?
C. Is a secular person who circumcises his son, celebrates the Passover Seder, or gives his life for settling the Land of Israel to be classified as an atheist or as a transgressor? Seemingly, if he is an atheist, why would he do these things? (I once thought of saying that these things fall under “the heart does not reveal to the mouth,” and are like “every mitzvah for which Israel gave their lives was preserved in their hands.”)
There is moral-human value, and perhaps also halakhic value regarding what they were commanded in (like circumcision).
By the way, I am not sure that “so that he may command” speaks of command in the post-Sinai sense. “He may command his children” is in the sense of bequeathing and passing on.
Here there is room for discussion: whether a mitzvah without intention and without faith at all achieves that spiritual benefit or not. This is akin to the dispute among the halakhic authorities whether forbidden foods eaten permissibly dull the heart. And even if such acts do achieve the spiritual benefit – they have no halakhic significance. It is not a mitzvah-act, but an act that attains a spiritual benefit (like a moral benefit).
A. They are obligated because they were commanded. The fact that someone does not believe does not exempt him from the obligation itself, but it does exempt him from punishment for his transgressions and from reward for his mitzvot. He is obligated, but he cannot fulfill or transgress (see my article in Tzohar on causing a secular Jew to sin, and the responses published בעקבות it).
B. Indeed. See my article there. However, directly feeding him with one’s own hands is prohibited, like with a minor.
C. A secular person is not necessarily an atheist. If we are speaking of a secular person who does not believe in a commanding God and/or does not believe in his own obligation to these commands, then for our purposes he is an atheist, and his actions have no religious significance whatsoever. Indeed, there is no reason to do these actions, but there are cases (sometimes strange ones) in which people nevertheless do so: routine by force of habit, social pressure, cultural and national considerations (Ahad Ha’am), or simply because they think these are right acts – this is the Rambam’s “determination of reason” (mainly regarding moral commands), and so on.
What about a person who does not believe in a commanding authority (not necessarily in the existence of God), but regularly acts to complete a minyan in a sparsely attended synagogue. Does the fact that he does not believe render his act of prayer devoid of religious value, and therefore he does not actually complete a minyan, and on the contrary, does he in fact cause the minyan to fail (assuming he is the tenth and they do not look for someone else in his place)?
Indeed. There is no minyan there. They could put a flowerpot there. It’s the same thing.
Can he discharge others of their obligation in kiddush that he recites for them, and the like? (A completely practical question for me.)
Because in practice what emerges from your words is that a person like me, who is not a believer (to his regret) but has a clear and strong connection to Judaism and to believing people, really ought to distance himself from halakhic observance so as not to cause others to stumble. If he participates in a meal with three men, he should declare that he cannot respond to the zimmun; he cannot serve as a witness at the wedding of a friend who is getting married, and so on.
Regarding the prohibition of idolatry even in a case of danger to life, it would seem from the post that when someone is forced to bow to an idol, from his perspective there is no religious act here (because he does not believe in idolatry). If so, why should this count as idolatry, and why should it be prohibited at all? There is not even reverence for the idol here, since the reverence is for the people who err after it and not for the idol itself (so seemingly there is not even a rabbinic prohibition here).
Indeed. You cannot discharge others of their obligation in kiddush, nor complete a minyan, nor serve as a witness at a wedding. I do not know the nature of the “connection” you mentioned, but if you do not accept halakhic obligation, your actions have no religious significance whatsoever.
As for testimony at a wedding, that requires discussion, since some halakhic authorities hold that Sabbath desecrators are today valid as witnesses because nowadays they are not perceived, and do not see themselves, as transgressors (like a child taken captive among non-Jews). If so, there is room for the reasoning that the same applies to one who does not believe.
Indeed, this is a difficult question that arises from the Rambam’s words. My friend Nadav Shnerb dealt with it, and I believe he explained the matter. See here:
http://www.bmj.org.il/userfiles/akdamot/19/Schnerb.pdf
2 questions, with your permission:
A. I once heard in a lecture that the difference between zimmun and prayer with a minyan is that in zimmun the goal is truly that three people eating together and understanding that they must thank the Holy One, blessed be He, for the food should magnify and publicize His name. Therefore, with zimmun the obligation applies specifically where there are three “religious” people (and this has many halakhic ramifications). But in prayer, the minyan creates a “community” that has some spiritual quality by which it is stronger than the prayer of an individual, even if he is the greatest righteous person of the generation. There are many sources in the Gemara that speak about the advantages of prayer with a minyan (for example, that prayer with a minyan is accepted even if the person lacked intention), and about why the Shekhinah appears specifically among ten Israelites.
B. How do you define a believing person? Faith is something subjective, and it is hard to compare one believer to another. More than that, there are so many approaches and understandings of what the mitzvot are, how we were commanded in them, what prayer does, etc. I am convinced that you yourself would define some of the approaches within Judaism (especially from the more conservative sectors) as completely bizarre, and even close to idolatry. So how do you define a believer?
Do you think it would be correct to propose, on the basis of this article, that the entire prohibition of idolatry applies only when there is some belief in the idolatry, but when there is no belief in it, then there is no idolatry here at all, even though an idolatrous act is performed (just as when an atheist recites kiddush, there is neither kiddush nor a mitzvah)?
Where can one get the book Existential Judaism?
A neighbor of my parents decided at age 65 to take off his kippah. Since he used to read from the Torah, he asked the community rabbi whether that was still acceptable to them. The rabbi gently asked him not to read from the Torah anymore, and he indeed stopped.
I didn’t completely manage to understand the claim here, and I would be happy for an answer.
What essential problem is there in observing mitzvot without a connection to the Commander?
Take honoring one’s parents as an example. As I understand it, a secular person who honors his parents out of moral motivation is not inferior, in this respect, to a religious person who does so because of the commandment. I assume that the Holy One, blessed be He, when He commanded this mitzvah in the Torah, did not do so merely because He wants human beings to develop an attitude of obedience and submissiveness toward Him, but because there is value in the act of honoring parents in itself. If so, a moral motive is also possible (for that too is God’s motive in giving the command).
Your approach somewhat undermines the principle of the reasons for the commandments. You turn the Holy One, blessed be He, into a kind of “discipline sergeant” who wants people to do what He said just because He said so. By contrast, Elchanan Shilo’s view (as presented here; I haven’t read the book) portrays the Holy One, blessed be He, as more rational (and indeed also, to some extent, similar to an ordinary legislator of a state, though I do not understand what is problematic about that) – the commandments were given because of the rationale behind them. Therefore anyone who fulfills them because of that same rationale is a complete person, whether he acknowledges the Torah or not.
Does a person who performs mitzvot out of love have the consciousness of being “commanded”?
I do not think there is no prohibition at all, but it is true that this is not full-fledged idolatry (there is no death penalty). Just as service of God not for its own sake has some value. But I have not looked into the Rambam’s words now. I only remember that indeed the conclusion from his words is unclear, and that Nadav discusses this in his article.
A. I do not think there is such a difference between zimmun and blessing. By simple reasoning, I would say that the Shekhinah dwells among ten people praying, not ten flowerpots. It seems to me that when ten Jews ride on a bus, the Shekhinah does not dwell there.
B. I do not have a sharp definition, but it is supposed to be someone who understands that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded and that His command is binding. Within that there is quite a lot of latitude, and I do not think any of it is disqualifying. Not that everything is correct, but anyone who holds a conception within that framework joins a minyan. There is no prohibition against including bizarre people in a minyan, or even transgressors who worship idols (if they believe they are sinning in the sin of idolatry). But people who do not believe do not join.
From the author. And, if I remember correctly, it was published by Schocken, so surely it can also be obtained there.
Elchanan Shilo’s email was sent to you by private email.
I did not understand the question. Do you mean that if on some bright morning he suddenly stops feeling love, he will not observe it? Then he does not have fulfillment of the mitzvah for its own sake. See a similar distinction in the introduction to Aglei Tal regarding Torah study done with joy.
Of course one must distinguish between absence of intention and absence of faith. Performance without intention (to discharge one’s obligation) is a dispute among the halakhic authorities whether mitzvot require intention or not. But that concerns a believing person. My claim is that performance without faith, according to all opinions, does not count at all.
This is not a question of worse or better. A person who honors his parents by rational determination (= moral motivation) without faith has not fulfilled a mitzvah. He has done a good act, but not a mitzvah.
It is true that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded honoring parents because He cares that they be honored, but He also cares that this be done out of obedience to His command. That is why He commanded not to murder, even though it is obvious to everyone that murder is immoral. You do not need the Torah for that.
In the second passage, this is the same mistake you made above. My view does not undermine the reasons for the commandments, because it only adds the dimension of obedience to the rationale; it does not replace the rationale with obedience.
Beyond that, as I wrote, it is hard for me to see a person redeeming a firstborn donkey or refraining from selecting on Shabbat if he does not believe and is not committed to halakhah. On the other hand, moral commandments are observed by secular people even without theories that posit a continuum between religiosity and secularity. Therefore, as I wrote, mitzvot without faith is a hypothetical discussion empty of content.
Publishing someone’s email so that it can be found on Google may increase the spam they get.
Service of God not for its own sake is still service with belief behind it, but here we are talking about someone who worships idols with no belief in them at all. Just as if someone recites kiddush without belief, we would not say that he recited kiddush not for its own sake and therefore fulfilled it after the fact; rather, he did not fulfill it at all. That is, whichever way you look at it, if there is some prohibition in idolatry without belief, then there is also some mitzvah in serving God without belief.
Indeed. That is what reason suggests. But I have not checked in the Rambam whether that is in fact the case. As far as I recall, that is not what emerges from his words. For example, the rule of “be killed rather than transgress” with respect to idolatry. Seemingly, this refers to a person who worships with no belief at all, only because he was forced to. Meaning that in the ordinary case there is actually no “be killed rather than transgress” at all, because it is not idolatry. That does not seem to be the implication of the Gemara and the Rambam. Perforce, even such worship contains at least a prohibition of ancillary idolatrous acts, and even for that one must be killed rather than transgress.
One could, with some difficulty, say that we are dealing with a person who believes there is something real in idolatry (many Rishonim thought so, that there is something real in these things, only that they are forbidden; unlike the Rambam and those of his school), but because of the prohibition he was careful not to worship it. Now that they force him, he truly worships with belief in the matter. But all this is far-fetched.
I do not remember what Nadav writes about this.
Where does one get faith? How does one know that the Torah is from Heaven? If it is only an arbitrary decision, then faith is cognitive and not emotional.
After all, one can accept or not accept, or even accept and not accept – perhaps? Refutation, Michi, refutation.
Was there a question here? I didn’t notice one. That is aside from the confusion of concepts (cognitive versus emotional).
It can be purchased from Schocken, or directly through me at a discounted price. This is my email: elchshilo@gmail.com and this is a link to the publisher’s site: goo.gl/vWEzAt
The difficulties:
Where does one get faith? What is it בכלל?
How does one know that the Torah is from Heaven?
If this is only an arbitrary decision, then is faith intellectual rather than emotional?
If these are not questions – then here is a question:
How are you doing, Michi, after you have shed so much? The very body of it is difficult.
The last question you wrote is not so clear,
you assumed that if the decision is arbitrary then it is intellectual rather than emotional,
but practically speaking, if the decision is arbitrary then it is neither emotional nor intellectual; it is simply arbitrary.
The arbitrariness of the decision certainly does not mean it was made through the intellect, and it also does not mean it was made through emotion (which is the correlation people usually assume, so what you wrote is surprising).
If a non-believing Jew betroths a woman, does his betrothal have no halakhic validity?!
The meaning of betrothal is that by fulfilling the mitzvah of betrothal, a binding halakhic bond is created between the man and the woman. If someone does not believe, there is no mitzvah in the act of betrothal, and consequently there is no betrothal.
It would follow that even though he performs the act of betrothal in order to betroth the woman, nevertheless, since he does not believe in God, his act has no halakhic significance.
Not true. There is no connection between the mitzvah of betrothal and its legal effect. Betrothal is a contract. If a person intends to enter into a contract according to what is written in the Shulchan Arukh, the contract takes effect even if he does not believe and is not obligated in mitzvot. Just as if a person deposits something with his fellow for paid safekeeping, he becomes liable for theft and loss. True, such a person would not thereby fulfill the mitzvah of betrothal (according to those views that there is such a mitzvah at all).
Will the woman be a married woman in every respect that follows from that in such a case (assuming there was no intercourse)? Also, would the get written in court (according to the terms of the contract) be merely technical as well (according to the terms of the contract), without any need for even religious content?
Every question that arises would be resolved according to contract law and not according to the laws of betrothal?
The woman is a married woman in every respect, since there is a contract between them. The get too would be a counter-contract that dissolves the first contract. A question that touches on the validity of the contract will be resolved according to the laws of betrothal and divorce, which are the relevant laws of contract. Questions of prohibition and permission, mitzvah or transgression, will be discussed according to the halakhah relevant to a person who does not believe (who is not subject to transgressions or mitzvot).
A wonderful article. One thing is unclear to me: some bring proof that morality is not connected to the command of the Torah, for were there no prior moral obligation of some kind, then even after the divine command there would be no source obligating obedience to that command. Similar to what you wrote: that even though in state law significance lies only in obedience and not in recognition, still the punishment is based on the norm that obligates obedience; only in religion there is independent value in the motive of obedience. And in one of the comments you wrote that even the secular person is obligated in the command, for he was commanded, and what of it that he does not believe – except that he is exempt from punishment. I therefore do not understand what the source of obligation is, for either an atheist or a believer, to obey that command absent some prior moral obligation?
Unless there is such an obligation but no basis for punishing its violation?
I retract – it seems to me that I have finally understood your position… According to your view, there is no connection at all between the moral or legal layer and religion. From a legal or moral standpoint, it may be that there is an obligation to do the good and the upright or to obey God, but religion is not concerned with morality. Therefore, from a religious standpoint there is no validity to punishing the atheist; from a religious standpoint there is also no place to obligate him, since he does not believe in the commanding God. What you wrote, that he is obligated – is only from the moral standpoint. Did I understand correctly?
1. Can you explain why the Holy One, blessed be He, punished the Canaanites for all their abominations if they did not know that it was forbidden to worship idols?
2. One can raise a religious claim, as Rav Kook did in “The Generation,” according to which from a religious but non-halakhic point of view (let us call it a “prophetic point of view”), the pioneers who drained swamps heard in their hearts the great call of the Holy One, blessed be He, and did the right thing because they saw reality eye to eye with God. According to this, there are cases in which a person does God’s will even not by the accepted route of following the Torah of Moses.
3. It is possible that those who argue for mitzvah observance without commandedness understand the Sinai covenant differently. The prophet Jeremiah recognizes a new covenant engraved upon the hearts of Israel, i.e. emotional identification with the things desirable in God’s eyes.
4. There is the Jerusalem Talmud’s statement on the verse “They have forsaken Me and kept My Torah?!” which reads the verse with an exclamation: “Would that they had forsaken Me but kept My Torah.” How can this be reconciled with your words?
1. Punishment for moral abominations does not require knowledge. If the punishment is for idolatry and not only for the abominations associated with it, then indeed the assumption is that they did know and their inclination overcame them. Without that, there is no punishment. My claim is that this is the assumption regarding all ancient idolatry, and therefore it warrants punishment. Today that is not the case, since there are those who truly do not believe and not because of inclination.
By the way, the harder question is actually about punishments by a court for idol worshipers, not about the Holy One, blessed be He, as you framed it. For as regards the Holy One, blessed be He, He who tests the kidneys and heart certainly knows when a person sins deliberately and when he sins under compulsion. דווקא regarding the court one can ask how they once punished if there is a possibility that the sinner acted under duress. To that I say that they relied on a presumption (“we burn and stone on the basis of presumptions”) that a person is a believer, and if he sins in idolatry it is due to his evil inclination. Today the presumption has reversed.
2. As I wrote, without conscious recognition of the command, this has no religious value. I know this is not Rav Kook’s view, and nevertheless it seems to me simple logic.
3. Likewise.
4. Rav Kook once said that it is preferable to sin out of baseless love than out of baseless hatred. And I, the small one, say that it is best of all (slang, of course) not to sin in either way. That is what this saying means too: if they abandon the Holy One, blessed be He, and do not keep His Torah, then it is at least preferable that they keep the Torah even if they abandon Him. Apparently the intent is that this is preferable even to cleaving to Him without keeping the Torah. But of course the best is to cleave to Him and keep His commandments.
I have now reached the end of the third section of your book Enosh KaChatsir, pp. 363–364.
There you explain the Rambam regarding “coercing the giving of a get willingly”; you wrote there that the reason the Rambam says that every Jew’s inner will is to fulfill mitzvot (except that his inclination coerced him) is that “in the background we must remember… the religious idea is prevalent in society.”
This definition is not entirely clear, and one could say that this is also the situation today.
Another possibility for explaining the Rambam’s words is based on the Sages’ statement that Israel are “believers, children of believers,” and that is why we say that the husband’s inner will is to fulfill the mitzvot.
A similar conception of an a priori determination of faith regarding every Jew, you also wrote in a note (p. 364) that “syntheticity” exists a priori in every person, including among analytic thinkers…
If so, even though mitzvot require faith, the faith exists on an inner level in everyone. And just as it suffices for the validity of a get, it would also give significance to the fulfillment of another mitzvah.
I do not think Rav Kook sees them as mitzvah-observant, but rather as connected to the collective of the nation in its essential, intrinsic sense. In the voluntary sense of mitzvah observance they do not belong, and Rav Kook writes this explicitly as well in the article “On Our High Places Lies the Slain.”
The faith of a Jewish atheist is worth nothing. At least on the halakhic level, faith is something a person decides upon consciously. A get-refuser is a believing person who sees himself as obligated by halakhah (not in his heart but in his mouth and his deeds. So this is not because of the Sages’ statement that Jews are believers, children of believers, but because of what we all see – that this is a believing and committed person), and therefore a reasonable assessment is that he is acting so only because of his evil inclination, but inwardly he truly believes and is obligated in the mitzvot and wants to perform them (consciously; after all, he decided this). What does that have to do with speculation about some latent faith in a Jewish atheist who never thought about this and never imagined that he believes and is obligated? Beyond the fact that this is speculation (that deep inside there is faith) and has no basis, even if we were to say that there is something like that there – halakhically it is worth nothing.
What needs to be written about a secular religion? Already the philosopher in the Kuzari advised the king of Khazaria to invent a religion for himself.
There is no necessity that if a mitzvah performed by a non-believer is not a mitzvah, then his transgression should also not be a transgression. A mitzvah is a positive act. A transgression is itself harmful. On the contrary, from the Rambam’s words about Jeroboam son of Nebat, that he will be punished even for minor sins, it would seem the opposite. Though he was a believer.
Indeed there is no necessity, but it is simple reasoning. The fact that the transgression is harmful does not mean it is a transgression. For there to be a transgression here there also has to be violation of a command, and under the assumption that a non-believer neither violates nor fulfills commands, there is no transgression here. Now one must discuss whether there is harm here, or perhaps harm too depends on its being a transgression. I discussed this here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%A0%D7%96%D7%A7-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%A4%D7%A1%D7%97-%D7%91%D7%9C%D7%99-%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%94/
And what about secular people who fast on Yom Kippur (it is almost impossible to get any reason for it out of them)?
From knowing them I would say that their point of doing things “for their own sake” is so high that if there is any social angle to it at all, they simply will not do it. They fast only because “everyone” fasts, and therefore no one makes an issue of their fasting. If someone makes an issue of it or even tries to infer from it that they believe and therefore mitzvot can be imposed on them, they will declare: we do not believe, and start eating.
What is the question?
In the article you divided matters in a simple binary way between those who believe in divine command and those who do not (whether for atheistic reasons or for deistic reasons). Those who believe can, under certain political conditions, be coerced into observing mitzvot (and one may even kill them if they violated a karet prohibition three times), while those who do not cannot be coerced (since they do not believe).
But reality is not binary. Quite a few secular people I know – people with a secular consciousness – fasted on Yom Kippur even though, on the face of it, their act is senseless. One can always claim that no proof is brought from a fool, but since I know them, it is hard for me to claim they are fools. I tried to explain it, but I am interested in how you understand the phenomenon (does it fit your view? just traditionalism? some kind of Rav Kook-style interpretation?).
Every binary division is a cut made within a continuum of possibilities. In the end the question is whether they accept the command as binding; I do not care whether they have certainty or not.
I do not think everyone who fasts is a fool. Sometimes it is just culture/folklore, sometimes doubt, sometimes an opportunity for personal soul-searching, and sometimes plain nonsense. And sometimes, of course, hidden faith (which they themselves are not always aware of).
Rabbi Michi, שלום
Your assumption that the foundation of the Torah’s commandments is obedience to the divine command and acceptance of His authority is not clear to me.
According to your view, why does the first stage that you defined obligate me (the command itself, before its rational content).
Does the fact that there is a king in some place who thinks I must do a certain act obligate me? Even if I believe in his existence, why must I accept his authority, and what is the source of that authority?
One possibility is that God is truth, and so is His command. And since a rational person strives to do what is true, he will naturally also want to fulfill the divine command.
But the possibility that seems more plausible to me is that there is a dialogue between man and God. There is a relationship. Man prays and asks; God promises and gives reward. God asks of man and man fulfills. This dialogue cannot be an empty command, and neither can obedience and acceptance of authority. The dialogue must have content and meaning, and therefore so must the mitzvot. This does not necessarily mean that man always understands the meaning, but he trusts that there is meaning.
And as for our issue – there are many who are unwilling to acknowledge authority, yet do maintain a dialogue. They pray, listen (Torah study), and observe some of the mitzvot. Of course, dialogue at this level is not complete, but it should not be belittled. And I wonder whether it is inferior to someone who observes all the mitzvot mechanically and maintains no dialogue at all between himself and God.
Incidentally, even regarding a person who claims not to believe in God at all, one must ask whether his denial is of that religious, commanding God who imposes His authority. Does he not maintain some kind of dialogue with a different kind of God (or spiritual force)?
Binyamin
The picture you describe turns Ahad Ha’am into a religious Jew. That is, a person who does these acts in themselves, even if he does not believe in God, is a religious person in every respect and his mitzvot are mitzvot. That is completely unreasonable. Religiosity is the service of God and obedience to His commands. From this it follows that even if a person does believe, but sees God only as a source of information (He is the one who told us that such-and-such an act is positive or not), he is not fulfilling mitzvot. Mitzvah comes from the root of command, and therefore fulfillment of a mitzvah is a response to a command. This of course does not mean that mitzvot have no reasons. There is probably a reason why God commands us, but the reason that obligates us to fulfill is not the correctness of the command but the very existence of a command. Therefore the Sages define “beware,” “lest,” and “do not” as a prohibition, because expression of God’s negative wish is not enough; a command is required. See my article on the eighth root (my articles on the roots here on the site).
This is the meaning of the Sages’ midrash about the nations, that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to them with the Torah, and when they asked what was written in it they rejected it. They wanted to examine the commands in light of their content, whereas Israel said “We will do and we will hear.” Not because they were certain it was rational, but because reason is not the root of obligation.
As for your question why one should be obligated by the command itself, that is like asking why one should be obligated by the moral command. The moral command obligates by its very existence, and one who does not understand this does not understand what morality is. There is no such thing as understanding that this is what the moral command says and then asking why one should fulfill it. Incidentally, there too it is not because of its utility (I wrote a post here on the categorical imperative; see there), but because of its very existence.
God is a being whose commands have authority. One who does not understand this is not religious, and no explanations as to why one should fulfill them will help. And one who does understand this does not need explanations, because every explanation rests on a principle that we understand intuitively. For a religious person, this itself is the fundamental principle that requires no explanation (the obligation to the divine command). And that is the meaning of the Rambam’s words in the laws of idolatry that I quoted in the post above.
“The commentators on the Rambam there assume that these things are also true with respect to Jews, and that seems to me simply evident by reason” – it was not specified which commentators on the Rambam wrote this. I found it in Responsa Maharam Alashkar, no. 117 (p. 302 in the S.L.A. edition, 1988).
In general this is an interesting responsum in which he defends the Guide against one of his contemporaries who attacked it.
See the index volume there.
Your conclusion is (as you write in the next column) that the verses of the Torah are verses of command; that is correct only according to the Tzelach, right? Or would the Pnei Yehoshua also agree with the Tzelach and disagree with him only regarding blessings over enjoyment? You wrote something like this above, but I did not understand how it could be that the Pnei Yehoshua establishes a theory of declarative verses but only with regard to blessings over enjoyment?
The Pnei Yehoshua holds that it is biblical with respect to the laws of uncertainty, but it is not plausible that there should be punishment without a command. We do not punish unless we first warn.
As for the laws of uncertainty, I have shown in several places that no command is needed.
Wonderful post. Thanks.
Just wondering: what about the cases where there is no command, not only the Patriarchs, whom you argued above were commanded, but the cases that R. Elchanan brings in his Divrei Sofrim – for example, a minor according to the opinions that the obligation is incumbent upon him himself, or the court of Shem and Ever regarding a Jewish girl who had relations with a gentile, etc. There he concludes that this must be some kind of divine will in the balance (not even ordinary reasoning, since he thinks that would already make it an ordinary biblical law).
Similarly, when you say that our ethics are a matter of God’s will, how can we know this without an explicit command, and are the implications different?
What is “the will of God” in this context (especially for R. Elchanan, if that is how you understand him), and what binds us to it besides the general sociological impulse to cling to leaders and community?
When there is God’s will without a command, that too is binding. True, it is not a mitzvah in the ordinary halakhic sense, like a moral obligation. Reasoning is a tool for knowing God’s will (as in morality). One might perhaps also learn it from Scripture.
There is no value to the mitzvot that the Patriarchs kept before the giving of the Torah???
Granted, “greater is one who is commanded [and performs]” etc., but this too is something. No?