Faith – Lesson 4

Table of Contents

• Characterizing faith as a factual claim and its relation to emotion
• Intuition, a faculty of faith, and foundational assumptions in reason
• Can one command faith, and the distinction between facts and norms
• Responsibility for outcomes as derived from negligence, and the car-accident analogy
• Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?”, and the dispute over the duty to investigate
• Maimonides: the commandment of “I am” as a command to believe, and the internal difficulties
• Possible ways to understand Maimonides’ view, and the duty to examine as a possible compromise
• Discussion of the proposal of “And you shall love” as background for inquiry, and criticism of rejecting investigation
• Religious faith as commitment to commandment, the move from deism to theism, and the meaning of “God”
• Maimonides, Laws of Idolatry 3:6: “he accepted it as a god,” and serving God for its own sake
• Love and fear, “not dependent on anything,” and the distinction between experience and motivation in the service of God
• An open-ended summary on the commandment of faith and the lack of a full solution

Summary

General Overview

The central claim is that faith is a factual claim about reality, not a mental stance, an emotion, or a matter of free choice, and therefore one cannot directly command faith any more than one can command acceptance of facts. Emotions can at most be an expression of faith for some people, but the real value lies in the cognitive apprehension itself, especially in the intuitive ability to grasp truths and adopt foundational assumptions. From there, the question of the commandment of faith in Maimonides is examined, along with the difficulty of commanding belief in the very existence of the Commander, and a possible interpretation is proposed: responsibility is tied to the obligation to examine and investigate, not to an obligation to “believe on command.” Finally, the essence of religiosity is presented as dependence on commitment to commandments, along with a distinction between deism and theism, and a reading of Maimonides that defines “accepting something as a god” as the axis of religious service for its own sake, rather than something based on love and fear.

Characterizing Faith as a Factual Claim and Its Relation to Emotion

Faith is defined as a factual claim, such as the claim that God exists, and not as an attitude, a psychological state, or a matter of free choice. Faith is not essentially connected to emotion, and emotions at most express faith in some people but are not its central value. The value of faith lies in the perception it expresses, while emotion is at most a secondary expression that for others may not appear at all.

Intuition, a Faculty of Faith, and Foundational Assumptions in Reason

A distinction is made between emotion and intuition, where intuition is an immediate apprehension of the truth of reality and is not a subjective matter. Faith can stem from a direct perception that is not based on a complex logical argument, and its similarity to emotion comes from the fact that it too is not built on a chain of proofs but on direct apprehension. Faith is presented both as a certain cognitive content and as a cognitive instrument—that is, as a capacity to grasp truths and adopt foundational assumptions on which logical inference rests. Logic derives conclusions from premises, and the initial step of adopting premises rests on intuition as part of reason, not as emotion.

Can One Command Faith, and the Distinction Between Facts and Norms

A command belongs to norms like laws and commandments, because one can choose whether or not to carry them out, whereas factual claims are not given over to free choice in the same way. A person cannot decide to believe a fact against what is forced upon him by his own perception, and therefore a command to believe seems impossible. The possible responsibility is examined through the possibility of commanding examination and inquiry, so that the claim is not about the factual conclusion itself but about the avoidance of examination that leads to mistaken conclusions.

Responsibility for Outcomes as Derived from Negligence, and the Car-Accident Analogy

A distinction is presented between guilt for the act and guilt for the results, with the example of driving at excessive speed: the guilt for the act is the same whether or not actual harm occurred, but when consequences result there is responsibility for them as well. Similarly, if a person did not examine his beliefs and arrived at mistaken beliefs, one can attribute responsibility for the outcome to him because it stems from a chosen omission—failing to investigate. If he did investigate and came to the conclusion that he does not believe, that conclusion is presented as factual coercion, something one cannot be commanded about.

Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?”, and the Dispute over the Duty to Investigate

Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, in Kovetz Ma’amarim, is described as arguing that even an Eskimo who has never heard of Jews or of God is obligated to set out on a journey of investigation out of wonder at the world—“Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?”—until he reaches the Jews and learns from them about the seven Noahide commandments. The speaker disagrees and argues that the reasonable conduct of an ordinary Eskimo does not include searching for Jews, and therefore there is no justification for demanding this of him, just as we would not demand it of a reasonable person in his place. At the same time, the distinction is maintained between a claim against non-belief and a claim against failure to learn and investigate.

Maimonides: the Commandment of “I am” as a Command to Believe, and the Internal Difficulties

Maimonides opens Sefer HaMitzvot with Positive Commandment 1: “The commandment with which we were commanded to believe in divinity… ‘I am the Lord your God,’” and relies on the Talmudic text in Makkot 23: “ ‘I am’ and ‘You shall have no other gods’—they heard directly from the Almighty” in order to include this among the 613 commandments. Two main difficulties are presented: a command about a fact is problematic, especially a command to believe in the coming of the Messiah or in any other fact; beyond that, there is an even sharper circular problem in commanding belief in the existence of the Commander, because commandments already presuppose recognition of the Commander’s authority. A possibility is suggested of seeing this commandment as a “definitional commandment,” similar to the definitions of impurity or the annulment of vows as legal details, but this is rejected in light of the note that in Maimonides it is counted among the sixty necessary and constant commandments, and therefore it is not merely a technical introduction.

Possible Ways to Understand Maimonides’ View, and the Duty to Examine as a Possible Compromise

One possibility presented is that Maimonides thinks one can demand belief in facts—perhaps because anyone who investigates will necessarily arrive at the truth, or because there is justification for demanding that the masses accept the words of the sages who did investigate—but the speaker has trouble accepting this because of the abundance of sages with contradictory conclusions. The only practical compromise proposed is to interpret the commandment as an obligation to examine and investigate, so that responsibility for non-belief stems from failure to investigate and not from a command about the fact itself. Even this interpretation remains imperfect, because even “the obligation to investigate” does not seem like an ordinary commandment dependent on divine command, but rather like a binding rational requirement for any thinking person.

Discussion of the Proposal of “And You Shall Love” as Background for Inquiry, and Criticism of Rejecting Investigation

It is said that in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, Maimonides describes a path to love and fear through contemplation of His creations and His wondrous deeds, but this is presented as a means of reaching love, not as a command to investigate in itself. It is argued that in principle one can demand investigation even if most people do not do so, just as many people violate the prohibition of evil speech. It is also argued that even someone who investigated and came to the conclusion that he does not believe has fulfilled the obligation of investigation according to this understanding, and the uniqueness of this “commandment” is that it does not derive from command but from reason. It is argued that rabbis who say “it’s not worthwhile to investigate” come across, within this framework, as encouraging the non-fulfillment of an obligation, and in this context the position of the Yad Ramah in Sanhedrin regarding the prohibition of incitement to transgression is discussed.

Religious Faith as Commitment to Commandment, the Move from Deism to Theism, and the Meaning of “God”

The focus of Jewish religiosity is presented as commitment to commandments, and religious faith is defined as holding that there exists a commanding factor, not merely a philosophical deity. Deism is described as belief in God in a general, non-obligating sense, whereas theism is described as belief that generates halakhic commitment. It is emphasized that in principle there is no expectation that someone who has concluded there is no Commander should continue observing commandments, and the distinction between the “classification” of a heretic and “guilt” is preserved as a matter of the outcome of the investigation.

Maimonides, Laws of Idolatry 3:6: “He Accepted It as a God,” and Serving God for Its Own Sake

A dispute between Abaye and Rava in Sanhedrin is cited regarding “one who worships idolatry out of love or out of fear,” and Maimonides in Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, Jewish law 6, rules like Rava and explains “out of love” as desire for the image because of its beauty and “out of fear” as fear of it lest it cause harm, and nevertheless rules exemption if one worshipped in this way “in its usual manner or by one of the four forms of worship” without “accepting it as a god.” The Raavad objects and interprets love and fear as directed toward a person, but Maimonides remains with the interpretation of love and fear as directed toward the idol itself. “He accepted it as a god” is defined as accepting binding authority, similar to the biblical use of “elohim” for judges, and as religious service based on “because He commanded it” and not on motives of love, fear, reward, or punishment.

Love and Fear, “Not Dependent on Anything,” and the Distinction Between Experience and Motivation in the Service of God

It is argued that love and fear are commandments, but they are not supposed to be the reason for observing the commandments if the service is “for its own sake.” An analogy is brought from the introduction to Aglei Tal, according to which one may enjoy Torah study without that enjoyment being the motivation, but if one studies because of the enjoyment, that is “not for its own sake.” The proposed indication is persistence in the service of God even when love or fear are not being felt, and the emphasis is on “doing the truth because it is truth,” as Maimonides writes in Laws of Repentance, chapter 10. The service of God is described as “not dependent on anything,” similar to the distinction between love that depends on something and love that does not depend on anything.

An Open-Ended Summary on the Commandment of Faith and the Lack of a Full Solution

It is said that there is no sufficient and clear interpretation of Maimonides’ commandment of faith beyond the proposal of “the obligation to investigate,” and even that does not fully fit the concept of a commandment as the result of a command. It is argued that Maimonides probably assumes a social model in which the public follows sages, and the speaker notes that he does not accept this view but suspects that this is the spirit of the approach. The concluding point is that religiosity comes down to commitment to commandments, and religious faith means recognition of a commanding factor and its authority, not merely a philosophical assertion about the existence of God.

Okay, up to this point we’ve been dealing with the characterization of faith / belief, and the claim was, first of all, that faith is a factual claim and not an attitude or a mental state or free choice—not free choice in the sense that the emphasis is mainly on the “free,” not on the “choice.” Meaning, that you can freely decide whether you believe or don’t believe, and reality has nothing to do with it. No. Faith is a factual claim. I claim that there is God—that’s the meaning of this concept. And from there I moved on to discuss a bit the question of emotion in relation to faith, and I said that in my view there is no connection between faith and emotion. Faith is entirely here, in the mind, though it can have emotional expressions in certain people, but those are, at most, just expressions—and I also don’t see great value in them. Meaning, since we’re built in a certain way, it could be that there are people for whom, if they really believe, that will also find expression on the emotional plane. But if, say, there’s someone who’s built differently, and his faith has no emotional expressions, then nothing happened, nothing is wrong—he’s simply built differently. The real value is not the emotion of faith but what it expresses, and what it expresses is a conception of faith. The emotion is, at most—if at all—an expression of that.

And I made some distinction between emotion and intuition, if I remember correctly, and my claim was that very often faith can stem from some kind of immediate sense and not from some very elaborate argument or something like that. A person says: it’s obvious to me that there is God, I experience that there is God. And very often a statement of that kind gets interpreted as a subjective emotion. Okay, you feel that way, and I feel that I’m afraid of the cold. Everyone has whatever they feel; that has nothing to do with what’s actually happening in reality itself. So here I’m saying we need to distinguish. There are cases where we really are talking about emotion, and then it’s a subjective matter. There are cases where we’re talking about intuition. Intuition means some kind of direct perception of the truth of reality—not something subjective. Why does it look very similar to emotion? Because it too is not built on logical arguments, but basically on perception, on immediate sensing. Meaning, I simply see that this is so.

And we’ll talk more about this later, because I really think that faith has two meanings—maybe I already mentioned this. Faith has two meanings as far as I’m concerned. One is cognitive content. Meaning, if I believe in the existence of God, then I have a belief in my heart, the belief that God exists, okay? But in my view faith is also a cognitive instrument, not only cognitive content. Faith is also a kind of faculty a person has for grasping truths. Not necessarily God. God is perhaps the clearest example, but not only. I can have beliefs about many things, and I call them beliefs because of what I described before: I don’t have a clear justification for them, but intuitively I think they’re true. I identify the faculty of faith with intuition. Intuition is basically what we call our faculty of belief—the ability to adopt beliefs. That is really the faculty we call intuition. And belief in God, or belief in some particular thing, is a certain content that reached us through that faculty, okay?

So sometimes people speak about faith as a mode of cognition. People say that faith is above reason—I talked about that. That faith is above reason is nonsense, of course. Faith is part of reason, where part of reason is that faculty we have for grasping truths intuitively, and those truths can be truths in scientific or philosophical contexts as well as in relation to God. Meaning, we have all kinds of philosophical assumptions, and we can ask where they came from too. And if someone answers you, “Because I believe that’s how it is,” what does he mean? He means: it’s clear to me that that’s how it is. I don’t have an argument or proof that shows it, but it’s clear to me.

If we speak in terms of a logical argument, then the conclusion—I’m jumping ahead a bit, but we’ll talk about it later—the conclusion of a logical argument follows from premises. There is no conclusion that doesn’t follow from premises, right? Every argument assumes premises. Now, the conclusion follows from premises—but where do the premises come from? If we say that premises are a subjective, arbitrary matter, then the conclusion has no significance either, because what do I care that you proved the conclusion from the premises if the premises themselves are arbitrary, subjective? So if I accept a conclusion proved by a logical argument, that means I also accept the premises. Now I ask: on what basis do I accept the premises? I have no proof for them—that’s the meaning of the fact that they are premises, they are primary assumptions. You can talk about premises that themselves have some argument grounding them, but in the end, at the end of the chain, we have to finish the story somewhere. So the first step we take—what is it based on? Intuition. And intuition is the faculty through which we adopt premises. And again I emphasize: this is not emotion, and it’s not something subjective. It’s part of reason. And more than that: it’s a part of reason without which even the parts that everyone agrees are reason would be impossible—namely, deriving conclusions from premises. Because that logic that derives conclusions from premises—everyone agrees that that is reason. But if the premises themselves are not justified, then it has no meaning. Therefore, you can really say that intuition is the faculty we have for adopting basic assumptions. Adopting. And there may be a person for whom belief in God is a basic assumption. Meaning, it is obvious to him that it is true. He doesn’t look for proofs because it itself is obvious to him. Fine, we’ll talk about that more later.

In any case, I now want to move one step further, and I’ll open with a question that came up at the end of the previous class. I don’t remember who asked it already. He asked whether one can command belief in God, okay? Or demand of a person that he believe. So here I really want to discuss this a bit, because it sharpens what we’ve been talking about. As I said before, faith is a factual claim. And a factual claim is not given over to our free choice. Meaning, I cannot freely choose whether to think that there is a table in front of me or there isn’t a table in front of me. If I trust what my eyes show me, and they show me that there is a table here, then the conclusion that there is a table here is forced on me. It’s not a matter of my personal choice. I can of course refuse to trust my eyes, and then I won’t accept it. But whether to trust my eyes or not trust my eyes is a question of how I perceive—it’s not a question of free decision, okay?

And therefore, if there is a commandment of faith or a demand for faith, then in effect people are expecting a person to believe on command. There is a commandment incumbent on him to be a believer, which seems to me impossible. Meaning, in matters of fact you can’t demand of a person, and you can’t command him, to adopt one fact or another. No one can command me to believe that now it’s daytime outside. If I’m convinced that it’s daytime outside, then I believe it; and if I’m not convinced that it’s daytime outside, then I don’t believe it. The command won’t help or hurt here. A person can threaten me: listen, I’ll put you in jail if you don’t believe that now it’s night. I can tell him that I believe now it’s night, but I know that it’s day now. So then he’ll put me in jail—what can I do? It won’t help. Because what I believe or don’t believe is simply a factual question. Meaning, if I think that’s the fact, I believe it, and if not, not. Where does command belong? Command belongs in relation to norms, like laws or commandments or rules—the rules of the basketball association. So you can command a person not to commit fouls—in basketball, I mean. Not to commit fouls, okay? Why? Because he can decide to commit a foul and can decide not to commit a foul. You can command a person not to sort on the Sabbath, because he can decide whether to sort or not to sort. But you can’t command a person to believe that there is a table before him. Because either he believes it or he doesn’t believe it. Commandments can deal with norms because norms do not follow necessarily from facts. That’s the naturalistic fallacy. I cannot derive norms from facts. Given the same facts, I can act one way and I can act another way. But what are the facts? Here I don’t have two options to choose between. Whatever I conclude are the facts—those are the facts in my eyes. It’s not a question I can decide freely. So what does it mean to command me to believe? Therefore, once faith is a factual claim, you can’t command or demand that a person believe.

What perhaps you can do is command or demand that a person investigate and arrive at whatever conclusions he arrives at. That, in principle, you can do. Of course you can—well, we’ll see in a moment—but if you command him to investigate, and he didn’t investigate, then you can come to him with complaints not about why he doesn’t believe, but why he didn’t investigate. Or tell him: the fact that you don’t believe is indeed a factual matter, and I can’t command you in that itself, but since it stems from the fact that you didn’t investigate, then I do place responsibility on you for that as well. Because not investigating is a transgression. Meaning, I could come to you with claims about that, and therefore I could command you about it, and therefore if you didn’t do it, that’s not okay. And if there are some consequences—for example, that you have incorrect beliefs—then perhaps one can come to you with claims, because those consequences are due to your wrongdoing, due to the act you did not do.

For example, often a person drives negligently. So very often we encounter—we hear about some terrible accident someone caused, or whatever, he was driving 120 on the road, hit someone and killed him. Wow, what a criminal, we have to throw him in jail immediately. Until we all remember that all of us do that too. Except that, fortunately, usually nothing happens. The one time it does happen, then of course the whole country erupts, they put him on trial and throw him in jail. But in fact, many, many people do the same thing. So in a certain sense, on the one hand I sincerely think that everyone who does that is equally guilty. You can decide how much guilt there is in it, but the same guilt exists whether in the end you killed someone or didn’t kill someone, because what depends on you is the speed you were driving, not whether you killed. Once you drove at 120, then killing is just a result. But you had the choice not to drive at 120. So one can discuss how much guilt there is in driving at 120, but once you drove at 120, then the fact that you killed is just a result, and others who did not kill simply happened to be in situations where it didn’t happen—not because they were more righteous than the others. Therefore the degree of guilt, seemingly, does not depend on the outcomes but on what you did.

On the other hand, it’s clear that someone who drove at 120 and killed—responsibility for the killing falls on him. I drove at 120 and didn’t kill anyone, so I’m equally guilty, equally wicked, but on the other hand, what exactly am I supposed to pay for? No one was harmed—who should I pay? If I committed a transgression, responsibility for the results falls on me, even though my problem is the transgression, not the results. Yes—but if those results were caused by my transgression, then they place responsibility on me for the results too. But that’s if there are results. If there are no results, then there are none.

So in that sense I’m saying: everything that can be demanded of a person is not to believe, but at most to investigate—and then decide, arrive at whatever conclusion you arrive at. True, if I required him to investigate and he didn’t investigate, then the conclusion that eventually emerged—say, that he doesn’t believe—is because he didn’t investigate. So because he was delinquent and did not investigate, the result came out that he doesn’t believe. Then the result that he doesn’t believe now does become something for which he is responsible, even though it’s a fact and in principle his conclusion is his conclusion—you can’t command facts. But it’s a consequence of something in which he was not okay, and responsibility lies with the one who was not okay, because he created the result. Only in that sense can I understand reproaching a person for not believing. All in all we’re saying to him: you weren’t coerced. Because if you didn’t investigate, then you weren’t coerced. If you investigated and reached the conclusion that you don’t believe, then you’re coerced. But if you didn’t investigate, then don’t tell me, “What can I do? I don’t believe.” What can you do? Investigate. If you didn’t investigate, then you are not coerced.

This is also somewhat connected to what comes next. Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman writes, I think, in one of his essays in Kovetz Ma’amarim, he asks there: after all, the seven Noahide commandments apply to all human beings, even non-Jews, everyone. He says: I can’t understand how some Eskimo will come before the heavenly court—he never heard in his life about Jews, or about God, or anything of the sort. He lived in his igloo, I don’t know, at the North Pole. And he comes before the heavenly court, and they say to him: “Tell me, why didn’t you keep the seven Noahide commandments?” He asks them: “Who is Noah? What do you want from me?” Meaning, how can one come with claims against such a person, who never heard of this and never saw it? And then Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman claims that if that Eskimo sees around him such a wondrous world, he is obligated to set out on a journey of inquiry, yes, to investigate: “Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these.” It’s a simple matter of reason that every person should have thought of. And if he had investigated—traveled around the world, checked and asked and researched and so on—then eventually he would have reached the Jews, asked them, and they would have told him, and then he should have kept at least the seven Noahide commandments, if not converted enthusiastically. And therefore, he says, it is possible to come with claims even against the Eskimo. That’s what he claims. He says it’s such a simple matter of reason that everyone should have thought of it.

I don’t think he’s right. It seems to me that the average Eskimo does not go looking for where there are Jews to ask. Therefore, if that is how a reasonable Eskimo behaves, then what do you want from the Eskimo? That’s reasonable behavior; if you had been there, the same thing would have happened to you. But for our purposes, this really means that one does not come to the Eskimo with claims for not believing; one comes with claims for not learning, for not investigating, okay? Meaning, the demand of a person is not to believe but to investigate.

Fine, so that’s regarding the demand to believe. Why am I saying this? Because as is known, Maimonides opens his Sefer HaMitzvot with positive commandment no. 1. I’m sharing it now: “And now I will begin to mention commandment by commandment.” Yes, so this is the beginning of Sefer HaMitzvot, and the first commandment is: “The commandment by which He commanded us to believe in divinity, namely that we should believe that there is a cause and reason and agent for all existing things,” and this is what He, may He be exalted, said: “I am the Lord your God.” And at the end, the Talmud in tractate Makkot says: 613 commandments were told to Moses at Sinai. Yes, that’s the Talmud there on page 23. “What verse?” From where do we know there are 613 commandments? “Torah Moses commanded us,” meaning, the numerical value of “Torah.” Torah is 611. And they objected to this and said: “Does ‘Torah’ have that numerical value? It is 611.” Yes, that’s 611 and not 613. And the answer was—all of this is in the Talmud there—the answer was: “‘I am’ and ‘You shall have no other gods’ they heard directly from the Almighty.” Behold, it has already been explained to you that “I am the Lord” is included among the 613 commandments, and it is a commandment of belief, as we explained. Meaning, the Talmud essentially says that Israel was commanded 613 commandments at Sinai. 611 are “Torah,” plus two that they heard directly from the Almighty: “I am” and “You shall have no other gods.” You see that “I am” is one of the 613 commandments—that’s Maimonides’ proof. Therefore, the commandment to believe is one of the commandments. So that’s the commandment that opens Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvot.

Now regarding this matter, the commentators raised several difficulties. The first difficulty is: how can one command a fact? What I said before. Faith is either something I believe or something I don’t believe. How can one command me to believe? But here there’s something even much worse than simply commanding a fact. In general, commanding facts is problematic. For example, to command me to believe in the coming of the Messiah is impossible. Convince me that the Messiah will come—don’t command me. If you convince me that the Messiah will come, then I’ll believe; and if you don’t convince me, I won’t believe. But if I don’t believe, no command will change that, because that is a fact—either the Messiah will come or he won’t. You can’t command facts.

But in the context of faith there is an additional problem. Beyond the fact that we’re dealing with a fact and you can’t command facts, how can you command someone to believe in the existence of the Commander? After all, the whole idea is that I keep commandments because I believe in the existence of a Commander and in the authority of the Commander. But if I still do not believe in the existence of the Commander, then how can one command me to believe in the existence of the Commander? Who commanded me this commandment itself? It’s impossible. A commandment can only be addressed to someone who believes in the existence of a Commander. Once you believe He exists and that what He says has force—that what He says is binding—then He can begin to command you and you’re supposed to listen and obey. But to believe in the existence of a Commander—aside from the fact that it’s a fact, this particular fact is even more problematic than any other fact. Because there is no room for commandments at all before you believe in the existence of a Commander.

Isn’t it like the Rabbi said—that really what’s needed is that they command you or guide you and say to you: go check this, first make this effort? We’ll see in a moment, we’ll see. I’m getting there. All that was just the introduction. I’m getting there in a second.

At first I once thought—so how does Maimonides really include such a commandment? There are all kinds of suggestions one can make; a large number of them don’t sound persuasive to me. At one point I thought that maybe this commandment in Maimonides is really not a commandment in the usual sense of the term commandment. In Maimonides there are commandments—we talked about this, I think—there are commandments in Maimonides that are definitional commandments. For example, there is a positive commandment that someone who touches a corpse is impure. One of the positive commandments. No. 95, 96, something like that. What commandment is there here? A commandment to become pure? Not a commandment to be impure. No, no. It’s the commandment that someone who touches a corpse is impure. Nor is there a commandment upon him to purify himself, by the way. There is no commandment on him to become impure, and no commandment on him to become pure. And yet it is a commandment. And the same is true of the commandment of annulment of vows. The commandment of annulment of vows—that the husband, on the day he hears them, in the case of vows involving self-denial and matters between husband and wife, if the husband hears the vow on that same day on which he hears his wife’s vow, he can annul it for her. Okay? And if not, then not. And again, there is no commandment here. If you want to annul it, annul it; if you don’t want to, don’t annul it. But there is no commandment here. Regarding impurity, for a priest maybe it is forbidden to become impure, but that is a commandment in itself—that a priest may not become impure. An ordinary Israelite may become impure and is also not obligated to purify himself. There is no issue here of obligation or prohibition. It is a definition of a state: if you touch a corpse, you are impure. So in what sense is this a commandment?

You see, Maimonides himself feels the problem here. I don’t even remember at the moment the exact number of that commandment. But in any case, Maimonides says—I’ll say it from memory—Maimonides says that these things are commandments even though they impose on us no obligation and no prohibition. And why? Because these things have halakhic significance. Now this has to be understood carefully. Say the halakhic significance of impurity is that one may not defile terumah, or one may not enter the Temple while impure—but those are counted as separate commandments. There are such commandments: not to enter the Temple while impure, and not to defile terumah. The very definition of impurity when you touch a corpse, or a creeping thing, or one with a discharge, or whatever it may be—that is a definition. The halakhic consequences have separate commandments devoted to them. So why does the fact that something has halakhic consequences turn it into a commandment, if the consequences themselves have already been counted? I would say that the definition of impurity is simply a defining detail within the framework of the commandment prohibiting entering the Temple while impure. So within that framework one also needs to define who is impure. Then it says: one who touches a corpse is impure. That is the definition required in order to understand what the commandment says. But it isn’t a commandment; it’s a definition or a detail within the commandment.

You see that Maimonides—think, for example, of a state lawbook. A lawbook also contains definitional laws, right? You can say: a minor, for the purposes of Israeli law, is anyone who has not yet reached age 16. Something like that, fine? What kind of law is that? That law forbids nothing, permits nothing, obligates nothing. It defines. It defines what is called a minor and what is called an adult. But there is such a law. There is a law that defines the concepts appearing in the lawbook. Now if we understand that according to Maimonides Sefer HaMitzvot is simply our lawbook, then it’s called Sefer HaMitzvot and not Sefer HaTzivuyim—not “the book of commands” but “the lawbook.” In a lawbook there are also commandments that are definitions. Therefore, what Maimonides calls a commandment is really, I once thought, basically an interpretation of the concept of law. Understand, usually that’s not exactly the same thing, but for Maimonides commandment means law. And then what does that mean? In a lawbook it would be very reasonable—if I were writing a Torah lawbook, it would be very reasonable to open it with the statement: “I am the Lord your God. I gave you the Torah at Sinai, and from there all the commands emerge, everything I want from you.” So that opening clause, that great preface, would be section 1 of the lawbook. So for Maimonides it is commandment 1 in Sefer HaMitzvot. In truth it imposes no command on me, just as the definition of impurity imposes no command and no prohibition, but it is certainly a clause that needs to appear in the lawbook, and therefore it appears in Sefer HaMitzvot. If we translate Sefer HaMitzvot as a lawbook, then perhaps there is room for the existence of such a commandment.

Once, when I said this, someone made a correct comment to me—Dror Fixler, a professor from Bar-Ilan. He said that in Maimonides there are sixty constant, ever-present commandments that accompany us all the time, and one of them is the commandment to believe. If so, then I’m wrong, because according to what I described, the commandment to believe does not really impose any obligation on me. It’s the opening of Sefer HaMitzvot, the definition of what a command is or the basis for your being commanded, and not something I am supposed to fulfill—and certainly not something I am supposed to fulfill constantly. I never fulfill it. I simply live within that conceptual framework. Once Maimonides defines this as one of the sixty necessary commandments, the ones that must be fulfilled all the time, he is basically telling me that this thing is a commandment; it’s not just an introduction to the lawbook. And then he is really right, meaning this proposal of mine is apparently incorrect. That is not the way to understand Maimonides.

The only conclusion I can really draw from here—well, at one point I thought maybe before that, maybe after that—fine, then maybe Maimonides really, because Maimonides also established the Thirteen Principles. The Thirteen Principles are all essentially a conceptual and factual framework for Jewish faith, and Maimonides says that someone who doesn’t believe in the principles is a heretic with respect to the principle, and certain sanctions apply to him. Meaning that Maimonides really does demand from us belief in facts—he does indeed demand it, despite what I said earlier. At one point I thought: okay, so if so, apparently that’s what Maimonides thought—that one can demand of a person to believe wise people, yes, philosophers or sages, and one can indeed come to him with claims if he doesn’t believe them. That’s what he thought. I don’t believe that and I don’t think it’s correct, but it seems that this is Maimonides’ view. That is, Maimonides apparently thinks that one can command facts, because his basic assumption—sorry, Rabbi, Maimonides says in the first commandment: to know that there is a God, not to believe—to know. Meaning, as the Rabbi says, he leads us to the idea that we need to investigate and know. Just a second, just a second, I’ll get to investigation, I’ll get to it, I said I would. To know and to believe are synonymous terms, there is no difference between them—it’s the same thing. The point is that perhaps Maimonides really thought that, first, like Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, anyone who investigates will indeed discover that there is God and that one should obey Him and that there was a revelation at Mount Sinai, and so on. That whoever investigates—and whoever is not wise enough to investigate, there is definitely justification to demand of him to listen to the sages who did investigate. And therefore one can indeed come with claims against a person, or demand of him, that he adopt factual beliefs. It could be that that is true in Maimonides’ position.

I personally do not believe this, and I don’t think it’s true, because it is not true that everyone who investigates will necessarily come to those conclusions. And I also don’t see how one can tell a person, “Listen, believe the sages.” There are sages on the opposite side who say otherwise. There are great sages who are atheists. Which sages am I supposed to believe? If I’m unbiased, I’m a blank slate now, and I ask myself: okay, what is my duty in this world? I don’t know—should I believe Dawkins or should I believe Moses our teacher, obviously with all due distinctions? Both are wise men. So what am I supposed to do now? Whom am I supposed to believe? This is a somewhat outdated way of thinking. I find it hard—hard—to accept.

What can really be considered here, and again I say, it may be that there is no such commandment and I don’t accept what Maimonides says—but perhaps, following what I said before, maybe one should explain it like this: the obligation is an obligation to investigate. That is the obligation. Once there is an obligation to investigate, then even if you do not assume, as I said before, that everyone who investigates will indeed reach that conclusion, still, if you investigated and did not reach that conclusion, then you are exempt. But if you did not investigate and you live in an erroneous world, within erroneous beliefs, then responsibility for the fact that you live in erroneous beliefs falls on you—not because one can demand factual conclusions from you, but because one can demand of you to investigate. And if you were negligent and didn’t investigate, like with the traffic accident, if you were negligent and didn’t investigate, then responsibility for the outcomes—if erroneous outcomes emerged—falls on you.

What about someone who didn’t investigate but lives in a religious home and therefore remains religious all his life? He didn’t investigate. Yes, he drove at excessive speed but didn’t run anyone over. So what can you do? There’s nothing on which to place liability, so they don’t place liability on him. That doesn’t mean he is more righteous than the other. But it does mean there is nothing to place liability on, whereas in the first case there is—there are problematic results to his negligence, to his failure to investigate, and therefore responsibility for them falls on him. This is the only meaning I can accept regarding this matter.

And here too one must notice that it still doesn’t go completely smoothly. It doesn’t go completely smoothly because a person can come and say: how can you place even the commandment to investigate on me? After all, if I don’t believe in the existence of a Commander—and here I return to the second difficulty I mentioned before, namely that belief in the existence of a Commander is even worse than belief in facts in general, because here there is also circularity. As long as I don’t believe in the existence of a Commander, what is the meaning of commandments imposed upon me? Why should I obey them? Now if there is a commandment to investigate, I ask: as long as I haven’t investigated and I don’t believe in the existence of a Commander, why should I obey this commandment itself, the commandment to investigate?

So perhaps one can say: look, here you don’t need the existence of a Commander. To examine your path in life and your beliefs—this is a demand made of every rational person. Every rational person should be responsible for his actions, investigate the truth, clarify things, and formulate his own position. And in that sense one can demand it of him even without there being a commandment here, but rather as a matter of reason. Meaning, everyone is supposed to investigate. And if you didn’t investigate and you live as an atheist—you don’t believe in the existence of a Commander or in the existence of commandments—then responsibility for that falls on you because you didn’t investigate. Maybe. I don’t know. Although if so, then it’s not a commandment in the full sense. Usually a commandment means responding to God’s command—that is a commandment. Here the commandment is by force of reason, that by force of reason a person should investigate. And if you should investigate, then…

Rabbi? Yes.

Yesterday I heard a lecture, and there this investigation the Rabbi is talking about now may perhaps be included in Maimonides’ commandment of “and you shall love.” In several places Maimonides defines “And you shall love the Lord your God” as examination and investigation, contemplation of the world and the commandments that God exists. Maybe that’s the commandment of… Maimonides in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah writes this explicitly. He says: “And what is the way to love Him and fear Him? He contemplates His creations and His wondrous deeds,” and so on. Except that there the claim is that the investigation is an instrument for the commandment. Maimonides says that if you investigate what is happening in the world, from that you will come to love of God. He doesn’t say that there is a commandment on the investigation itself. If you love God without this, no problem—then love Him without it. If you don’t love Him without it, the way to increase love is to do this kind of investigation. Therefore it seems to me that what Maimonides writes there is not this.

But more than that—even if that were true, I return and ask: then what is the commandment “I am the Lord your God,” the commandment of faith, sorry, the commandment “I am the Lord your God,” the commandment of faith? That still remains unexplained. Therefore I say: in any case, I think that if one is going to place this anywhere, I would place it here and not in the commandment of love of God.

I have another question. Most people just don’t think about things like this, don’t investigate life. Even religious people—what’s called simple faith or something—and they don’t go into this philosophy, maybe… Okay, so there’s an obligation—you can’t say there is an obligation to investigate for ninety-five percent of people? Why can’t you say that? You can say it. You certainly can say it. The fact that they don’t… so what? Ninety-five percent of the population also speak slander. What I just did now was also slander. Okay.

Another question, if possible? Yes, please.

We—those listening to the lecture—are also in the opposite situation. Meaning, the basis is faith, maybe according to most of us, but we receive a commandment about something that already exists. We do, we believe. That’s why I say, if the commandment is to investigate, then it’s not true that it already exists. The fact that you reached a conclusion, the fact that you live in a world of faith, is not necessarily the result of having investigated. It may be that you drove at excessive speed but didn’t kill anyone only because you happened to be in a deserted place. You didn’t investigate, and by chance you are in a place where the correct faith prevails, so therefore you live out of correct faith—but you didn’t investigate, it just happened by chance. So if the commandment is to investigate, then if I come out with the conclusion that I have no faith and there is no Holy One, blessed be He—have I fulfilled my obligation? No. Yes. Yes indeed. So I fulfilled a commandment even though I don’t believe in the commandments of faith? Correct. Correct.

That is simply a reflection of what I said before: that this commandment to believe, if I’m right in this interpretation, is very different from all the other commandments. Because in all the other commandments, the commandments are exactly what the term means—a commandment. What is a commandment? A commandment is the result of a command. But the investigation—I am supposed to do the investigation not as a result of a command, because I still don’t know about the existence of a Commander, but by force of the simple reasoning that a person should examine his path and seek the Name of God. So to call that a commandment is strange, because it does not come by force of a command; it comes by force of reason. But yes—if Maimonides calls it positive commandment no. 1, then he apparently thinks it is a commandment. One can refuse to accept what he said, but Maimonides’ view apparently is that such a thing is a commandment. I admit, I don’t know. He doesn’t spell it out here.

Based on what he said, many rabbis say what is again called simple faith. They say it’s not advisable to investigate; you’ll come to questions and so on, and they actually push for most people not to think about these things because it might lead to problems. In light of what I’m saying now, those rabbis are in the category of an inciter who causes people not to fulfill a commandment. Meaning, you know, there is Yad Ramah in Sanhedrin who says—the Talmud there says, “We do not argue in defense of the serpent.” Yes, what could they have argued in defense of the serpent? “When the words of the master and the words of the disciple conflict, whose words does one obey?” It’s in the sugya of an inciter. So there Yad Ramah says: after all, the serpent did not incite Eve to idolatry. The prohibition Eve violated was that she took from the fruit of the tree even though the Holy One, blessed be He, had said not to eat. That isn’t idolatry—it’s a prohibition; she violated God’s command. What do you see? You see here that there is a prohibition of incitement even regarding a transgression that is not idolatry, even though usually in halakhic thinking the idea is that an inciter and one who leads astray refers only to idolatry. Someone who incites someone else to desecrate the Sabbath is not considered an inciter. There is no halakhic prohibition on that as such. Maybe “do not place a stumbling block” or something like that, but there is no intrinsic prohibition on the matter. But Yad Ramah claims there is. Yad Ramah claims there is a prohibition of incitement for every transgression in the Torah. And if so, then I return here: those rabbis who say such things are inciters and misleaders.

Maybe because Eve had only one commandment, so by denying that one commandment, which was the only one she received, it’s a kind of idolatry, a kind of inciter and misleader? What’s the difference? And if I deny one commandment out of 613, is that not idolatry? What difference is there? I am still not doing what I was commanded. I don’t see the difference.

In any case, another question: is this entire first commandment, and also the Thirteen Principles, perhaps from Maimonides’ perspective—I don’t know, I’m asking—is this not a kind of threshold that says: wait, excuse me, you haven’t passed this stage, I’m not speaking to you at all, leave me alone with the commandments, you’re not in the category where you need to keep commandments? They aren’t speaking to you. No problem. That is a completely possible definition. I would accept that happily if it appeared in Maimonides. That’s also my own simple view. But in Maimonides it is presented as a commandment. Therefore I say it is problematic.

But if you didn’t pass—if you didn’t fulfill it, meaning you reached a state where you didn’t pass, you investigated, investigated, and decided “I don’t believe”—it could definitely be that one can block you and say that you are a heretic, but that is not blame. It’s classification. Meaning: okay, so you are not part of Israel, because you do not hold the beliefs or the conceptual framework of the people of Israel. So as a classification, you are a heretic. But there is no claim against you, because all in all you did your investigation and that is your conclusion. That, yes, that is definitely possible.

There’s no expectation that you continue keeping the commandments? No. No, absolutely not. If you came to the conclusion that it isn’t true, then why in the world should you do it? I’ve often said that I think someone who doesn’t believe in God does not join a minyan. And people get very upset. What do you mean? Again, many include them in the minyan—“a tenth is a tenth,” you gather anyone you can from the street, as many as you can from the street so they can complete your quorum—and really what is their fault? They’re like captives among non-Jews and all kinds of things of that sort. What I’m saying is that they are not guilty of anything. This is not a sanction. People think that not including them in the minyan—or that I think one should not include them in the minyan—is a sanction. It’s a punishment for not believing. It’s not a punishment. It’s all right, they don’t believe. But what can I do? I don’t count flowerpots for a minyan. I count people who are praying for a minyan. Putting in a flowerpot does not complete a minyan.

But they believe—they just don’t observe. There’s a very big difference. So you can include anyone as soon as he comes to join the minyan; that means there is something here that he does believe, otherwise he wouldn’t be joining. That proves nothing. I’m talking—I said before—I’m talking about someone who does not believe, not about someone who doesn’t keep commandments. Someone who doesn’t keep commandments is a different story. But someone who doesn’t believe—that’s who I’m talking about.

The fact that he comes to join the minyan because he’s doing you a favor—so what? Like those people who put on tefillin with the Chabad people in the street—are they all great believers? Some of them say: okay, put it on my head and leave me alone. Fine, you can’t know. I’m saying, again, I can’t know either; I’m just speaking on the principled level. On the principled level, if there’s someone who does not believe, then it has no significance.

But just as you assume that he doesn’t believe, assume that he does believe but simply doesn’t keep the commandment. That’s all, and therefore you can include him in the minyan. I’ll say it again. I’m not assuming anything. I’m not assuming he doesn’t believe and I’m not assuming he does believe. I’m saying: if we are dealing with a person who does not believe—how you make the diagnosis, decide for yourself—but if we are dealing with a person who does not believe, then he does not join a minyan. That’s it. I’m not assuming anything. It may be that he does believe, it may be that he doesn’t believe, it may be that I don’t know. But assuming I did know that he doesn’t believe, or he tells me “I don’t believe,” then he does not join a minyan.

A person comes to a bar mitzvah as a guest. He doesn’t come to synagogue because he wants to pray, but because—whatever—his son, his brother, his cousin has a bar mitzvah. Does he join the minyan there? I say no. If he—again—if he does not believe. If he does not believe, the fact that he is there proves nothing.

If I understand correctly, when the Rabbi says “believes in God,” he means believes in a commanding God? Correct. Because there are many people who look at the world and believe in God, but don’t believe in… Obviously. Believes in a commanding God, and I would even say more than that: a Commander at Sinai. Maimonides—we’ll see this later—Maimonides speaks of it as a condition: that the commandment must be believed to have been given at Sinai, otherwise your commandments are not commandments. So if…

Yes? Rabbi? Could you sharpen the uniqueness of the problem in the context of believing in the existence of God? I understand that the Rabbi says that generally there is a problem with commanding belief in facts—that part I understood. But what I didn’t understand is what the Rabbi explained before—the uniqueness involved in this specific… In this specific fact? In this specific fact, the fact that there is God, that there is an additional problem in commanding it. Exactly, that I didn’t understand—if you could give an example or something? Good. So the problematic part is that a commandment generally presupposes the existence of a Commander. Right? If I don’t believe in the existence of a Commander, there’s no point in addressing commandments to me, because from my perspective there are no commandments as long as I don’t believe in the existence of a Commander. Now how can one command me to believe in the existence of a Commander? That is an oxymoron. This very commandment—where does it come to me from? I still haven’t reached the conclusion that there is a Commander. The commandment is to believe that there is a Commander, but only after I believe that there is a Commander can one begin addressing commandments to me. Therefore, this particular fact—the existence of God—the command concerning it is more problematic than concerning any other fact. Okay? Fine.

Good. So the point is, in the end I think that Maimonides’ commandment of faith—the only meaning I can give it, and again, it’s not written there—but the only meaning I can give it is the obligation to investigate. And even then one has to understand that it’s not smooth. Because if you say there is an obligation to investigate, then I can understand placing responsibility on me if I arrived at incorrect conclusions. Not because one can command me to arrive at correct conclusions, but because if I didn’t investigate, then responsibility for the consequences—that is, for the fact that my conclusions are incorrect—falls on me. That’s everything I explained before. So what Maimonides writes, basically—yes, look here at his wording. “The commandment by which He commanded us to believe in divinity, namely that we should believe that there is a cause and reason and agent for all existing things,” and so on. According to my explanation, really this should be read as follows: if you do not believe all this, you have neglected a positive commandment. Responsibility is placed on you. Why? Because you did not investigate. But if you investigated and did not arrive at these conclusions, then everything is fine. Meaning there is no problem, because really the command is to investigate; the command is not to believe. The wording is about believing because responsibility for the failure to investigate is placed on you through the incorrect conclusions you reached. But only—you understand that this is not the plain sense of Maimonides’ words, but I just can’t find another reasonable meaning for this command.

So I don’t know. Either I’m right, or that really is what Maimonides meant, or I simply disagree with him. So the simple person and the one who does not know how to ask cannot fulfill this commandment. Correct. It may be that he cannot due to coercion, fine, but he cannot. Yes indeed. For some reason, my feeling is that Maimonides thinks there are too many simple people and too many who do not know how to ask. Maimonides thinks that the average person is the simple one and the one who does not know how to ask, and there is a very, very thin layer of philosophers or thinkers or Torah scholars who can be called the wise one. And therefore, when the Torah addresses the general public, it can indeed expect them to follow the wise and not ask questions. That is a conception I cannot accept, but my instinct tells me that this is Maimonides’ assumption, that this is basically what he means to say.

Okay, in any case, the final conclusion is that—as I’ve discussed in the past—the essence or focal point of Jewish religiosity is in practice the commandments. Really, what I expect from a believing person is to be committed to the commands. Okay? That is the essence. And faith in itself, ultimately, is philosophical faith. To a large extent, it is not even clear to what degree one can see it as a commandment at all. Maybe yes, maybe no—that’s everything we’ve discussed until now—but its meaning from my perspective as a religious person, as a theist, not a deist, is that faith means holding that there exists a commanding factor. That is the meaning of religious faith. Here we move from deism to theism. Deism is belief in God in some general philosophical sense, where even a secular person can come to the conclusion that there is God. The difference between him and the religious person is that he doesn’t think that obligates him in any way, okay? Really the essence of faith is religious commitment or halakhic commitment.

And perhaps the clearest expression of this, I think I already talked about this Maimonides, is Maimonides in the Laws of Idolatry—wait, I’m opening it. Maimonides, Laws of Idolatry, chapter 3, halakhah 6. Here, I’m sharing the screen. There is a dispute in tractate Sanhedrin, a dispute between Abaye and Rava, about one who worships idolatry out of love or fear. Is he liable or exempt? And Maimonides rules like Rava, that he is exempt. Abaye says liable; Rava says exempt, and the law follows him—yes, the law follows Rava except in the six cases abbreviated by the mnemonic. What does “one who worships idolatry out of love or fear” mean? Most commentators, including Rashi there and Ritva and almost all the medieval authorities who speak about this, say that the intention is love of a person or fear of a person. Meaning, I worship idolatry because I love some person or fear some person, and in order to please him I worship idolatry. But if I love or fear the idol itself, the idolatry itself, that is full-fledged idolatry. Yes, that is obvious. But Maimonides does not seem to make that distinction. Let’s read.

“One who worships a star or constellation out of love, for example because he desired this image due to the craftsmanship, because it was especially beautiful”—you see? That is love for the worship object itself, for the idol itself. It is not love for some person. “Or worshipped it out of fear of it, lest it harm him, as its worshippers imagine, that it does good or evil.” Again, both the love and the fear are love and fear of the idol, of the idolatry itself, not of a person. “If he accepted it as a god over himself, he is liable to stoning. But if he worshipped it in its usual manner, or by one of the four modes of worship, out of love or out of fear, he is exempt.” So Maimonides rules like Rava and interprets it literally. One who worships idolatry out of love and fear means out of love and fear of the idol, not of a person. And look at the Ra’avad’s gloss below. “And we explain it as love of a person and fear of a person, not love of the idolatry and not fear of it.” And that is like Rashi, like everyone—everyone explains it that way. But Maimonides does not.

Why everyone explains it that way is understandable. Because in the end, if you worship that idol because you love it or fear it, then that is seemingly first-rate idolatry, just as one worships the Holy One, blessed be He, out of love or fear—that is worship of God. To direct those same forces toward an idol is idolatry. So what’s “wrong,” in quotation marks—what’s “good,” yes—with idolatry done out of love or fear of the idol? That should seemingly be full-fledged idolatry; certainly one should be liable for such a thing. That is what troubles the early authorities, and therefore they explain—and this is not the plain sense of the Talmud—but they explain this way because of that difficulty, that the love and fear are of a person, not of the idol. And if it is love and fear of the idol, then it is full-fledged idolatry. But Maimonides, who doesn’t write that, who doesn’t say that—then what is idolatry for which one is liable? Let me put it another way: then what is full idolatry according to him?

There’s… to accept it as a god! What? Idolatry is what he says: “if he accepted it as a god.” If he worships it just because it’s fashionable and trendy and beautiful and suits him somehow… He spoke about love and fear. You started well and ended less well. Meaning, if it’s trendy then fine, I agree. But if he loves it or fears it? Even so—but it’s not… it’s not a god for him; he simply didn’t accept it as a god. So what is a god? That’s the big question. What is a god? Seemingly it’s the love and fear—that’s what says I see it as a god, no? No. If “as a god” means someone who commands you and tells you, do such-and-such and such-and-such—that is a god. Okay.

So here, I really think that is indeed the intention. The alternative Maimonides presents—I blacked out these words here—the alternative Maimonides presents, what counts as full idolatry, is “if he accepted it as a god over himself, he is liable.” Meaning that love and fear, from Maimonides’ perspective, are not called accepting it as a god. Acceptance as a god—when I worship idolatry, it means that I see this idol as my god. If I merely love it or fear it, that still doesn’t mean I accepted it as a god. What does that mean? What is acceptance as a god?

Look—suppose idolatry out of love or fear were full-fledged idolatry, as most of the early authorities say, unlike Maimonides. When I drive on the road and I’m afraid of the police, so I drive at the legal speed—I drop down to 90 kph and don’t drive at 120 as is my way—am I practicing idolatry? Seemingly yes. After all, I fear the policeman or the law or the punishment or whatever, the judge, fine, and therefore I drive lawfully, obeying his command. That’s outright idolatry, no? What—must an idol be some lump of stone or wood? If the idol is a human being, then it’s not an idol? One can practice idolatry toward human beings too. Haman, according to at least some opinions, they worshipped him there as idolatry—that’s why Mordechai did not bow and did not prostrate himself. So here, is this idolatry? What do you say—is obeying a policeman idolatry? No. Why not? Because when I obey a policeman, whether out of love or fear, whether because I think that’s the right way to behave or because I fear the punishment—everyone has his reasons—but it’s love and fear. Obedience out of love and fear is not religious obedience.

So what is a god? What is religious obedience? What is religious service? Religious service means—what is a god? You know that in the Bible, “elohim” is a title for judges. “Then the owner of the house shall be brought before the judges”—elohim means judges. Why? Because elohim means someone whose word has to be carried out. That is the judge. What the judge says must be done. That is what it means to be a judge, the authority entrusted to the judge. The whole essence of the judge is the authority given to him, that if he says something it must be done. That is a reflection of a deity. “Elohim” is someone whose word I do—that is called acceptance as a god.

Now, that is not love and not fear. If I now move toward the Holy One, blessed be He, not toward idolatry—this corresponds to that—then there is also religious service toward the Holy One, blessed be He. If I do the commandments because I love Him or fear Him, that is not service for its own sake. I do fulfill the commandment of love of God and fear of God, but that is not service for its own sake. Service for its own sake means doing it because He is God. “The Lord, He is God,” as we always say at the close of Yom Kippur. So acceptance as a god means that someone asks me: tell me, according to you the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded such-and-such, but why do you obey? So He commanded. Say fine, I’m convinced, there was Sinai, and He commanded, all true—but why do you obey? Then one can answer: because I love Him, because I fear Him. That is not service for its own sake. That is not called acceptance as a god. A policeman too—that is true—I obey him because I fear him. That is not idolatry and it is not religious service at all. So what is it? To say: because He is there. I need no other explanations for why I obey Him. I obey Him because He is God. That’s all.

My favorite example is the famous British mountaineer Mallory, who climbed Everest, and they asked him, “Tell me, why are you climbing Everest?” And he said, “Because it’s there.” From his perspective, that isn’t a question. Once he sees Everest, it is obvious to him that it should be climbed. He does not look for reasons why to climb Everest, because it is there. Essentially, acceptance as a god means they ask me: tell me, the Holy One, blessed be He—let’s say it’s true, I’m convinced, there was Sinai and He commanded, everything is true—but why do you obey? So one can answer: because I love Him, because I fear Him. That is not service for its own sake. It is not called acceptance as a god. The answer is: because He is there. I need no further explanations for why I obey Him. If you understand what God means, you understand that God means someone whose word you are supposed to do. That is called God. That is the definition of God, okay?

Therefore, it’s like asking me: “Tell me, I know morality says not to murder, that it’s immoral to murder—but why obey that? Why not murder?” Someone who asks that doesn’t understand what morality is. Morality is: when you say it is immoral to murder, by that you have said that one must not murder, right? That’s the meaning. So there’s no point in asking: wait, granted that it’s immoral to murder, but why obey that? Why not murder? Someone who asks such a question doesn’t understand what morality is. There is no way to answer him, right? I can’t answer in any way. If that is what morality says, then by definition it follows that that is what must be done—or may not be done, in this case. The same is true regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, or regarding God. Someone who worships idolatry does this in relation to another factor, not to the Holy One, blessed be He. But that is the meaning of religious service. Religious service means acceptance as a god. Acceptance as a god means that I do it because He commanded, because He is there. No—I don’t have explanations: love, fear, reward, lack of reward. That is all service not for its own sake.

So notice: this is a fairly major novelty in Maimonides. You see it in other places too, but it is a fairly major novelty in Maimonides, that Maimonides says all religious service is service done without any motive whatsoever. Including the loftiest and most exalted and valuable motives there are, like love and fear of God. Someone who does commandments because of love and fear of God is not serving God for its own sake. He is of course fulfilling the commandments of love of God and fear of God, but if that is the reason why he does the commandments, then he is not serving for its own sake. Service for its own sake is serving Him because of acceptance as a god. I accepted Him over myself as God.

According to Maimonides’ wording there, which David mentioned earlier, apparently it’s a little more than a little connected. Meaning at some stage, according to Maimonides, you can’t separate them, because you become filled with love since you began with faith and saw nature and saw the Torah. The fact that I become filled with love does not mean that my observance of the commandments is because of love. Those are two different things. It’s hard to say—it’s hard to say such a thing. No, why? It’s very easy to say. In the introduction to Eglei Tal, he writes there—that’s the example that always comes to me in this context—he writes in the introduction to Eglei Tal that there are those who mistakenly think that someone who enjoys Torah study is studying not for its own sake. True, we know those statements. But many people like me in this lecture think this is nice Torah and distinctions and all kinds of things, but it’s a bit strange. There are many great authorities in major books who simply… I’ll explain again, I’m answering that. It’s not relevant, it doesn’t touch us. I’ll explain again. Eglei Tal says that you can—not can, but should—enjoy Torah study. That is not study not for its own sake. But in the next sentence he says: yes, but if you study because of the enjoyment, that really is study not for its own sake. But that’s obvious. No, it’s not obvious, because that is exactly what you didn’t say before. Because what he says there is that even if you do have enjoyment from the study, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you study because of the enjoyment. But if I enjoy it—let me finish, let me finish the answer. Wait. I’m saying the same thing regarding the Holy One, blessed be He. I’m saying: the fact that I become filled with love for the Holy One, blessed be He, is all wonderful. That doesn’t mean that my service of the Holy One, blessed be He, is because of my love for Him. Those are two different things.

And therefore, the fact that I become filled with love for the Holy One, blessed be He, does not contradict the fact that I need to serve Him because He is God. Besides that, I also love Him. One of the indications of this state will be: what happens if I get up in the morning and today I have no energy for Him? I don’t love Him today. I don’t know, I got up on the wrong side of the bed. Fine? Do I continue serving Him? If yes, then I am serving God for its own sake. So even in the state where I do love Him—on a morning when I get up on the right side of the bed and do love Him—it is clear that I am serving Him not because of the love, because the proof is that even when the love doesn’t exist, I continued serving Him. So I am serving for its own sake. The claim is not that I am not supposed to love Him or fear Him—of course I am. Those are two positive commandments: to love Him and to fear Him. The claim is that those should not be the reasons why I serve Him. Those are two different things.

Rabbi, is that parallel to love that depends on something? If the thing disappears, the love disappears. Exactly. Maimonides says that service of God should not depend on anything. Service of God is its own reason. Its own reason. And therefore Maimonides writes in chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance—we may see this next time—that one should do the truth because it is truth, and in the end the good will come. Meaning, you do it because it is true, not because good will come to you as a result, like the World to Come. Here he says the same thing about love and fear. Love and fear too are not the correct motivations for serving God. Even though they are commandments and one must love Him and fear Him, still that is not the reason why you serve Him. It’s two different things. The question is what happens when the love disappears or the fear disappears. Right. That’s the indication. If you continue serving Him, then it means you serve Him because He is God, not because of love and fear. And then the service is for its own sake.

Now of course, you are also required to love Him and fear Him. Those are additional requirements. But that’s not the reason why you serve Him—rather, because you accepted Him over yourself as God. Like a servant serves his master because he is his master. Not because he has this or that justification, or because he loves him, or because he fears him, but because a servant has an obligation toward his master. And besides that he also loves him, true. There is no contradiction.

So there are three definitions here, going back to Maimonides’ first commandment, where he says to know that there is a God. That is the first commandment. Okay, yes. So there is also the group that does not know that there is a God. Meaning, he is an atheist, right? And the third is idolatry. Meaning, there is a god, but not my god. It’s some other god. No, obviously—I didn’t understand. There are idolaters and there are atheists. That’s true. How is that relevant? And this is just a side question, but did Maimonides know there were atheists in Maimonides’ time? Meaning, is this definition… And is it Maimonides’ innovation that one must know that there is a God? Meaning, that there is a God who exists and brings all reality into existence, and by whose power all existing things came to exist? There are people who don’t think that. Even in Maimonides’ time there were people who thought there was idolatry. Idolatry is someone else. But the idea that there is no god at all? No god? No—but even idolaters think there is no god in the sense Maimonides defines Him. You don’t need there to be atheists for him to write those words. I understand. I understand. Okay.

Okay, let’s stop here. If anyone wants to ask or comment further? Yes, Rabbi. Yes. Regarding the problem of belief in the First Existent that we spoke about earlier—so in the end, is there an answer to that question, to that problem, or do we remain with it unresolved? What, what commandment is there? Yes—if I still don’t believe in His existence, then how can one command me? I said—I can’t find any meaning for that except the meaning of the obligation to investigate. And I say that this is not the plain sense of Maimonides’ words, so I’m not sure this is Maimonides’ intention. In any case, I can’t understand any other intention that would be reasonable, any other interpretation. But even the obligation to investigate needs there to be some Commander who says it—at least that there be a Commander—even that isn’t there. That’s why I say that even the obligation to investigate is not an ideal interpretation, because in the end the obligation to investigate is a result of reasoning and not of a commandment, so it’s hard to define it as a commandment. Right, I completely agree. I wouldn’t put such a positive commandment there. Understood, thank you.

Rabbi, may I ask something more general, in some sugya, some logical issue I’m unsure about here, or should we stay with this sugya? No, please, yes. The Talmud makes the following move. The Talmud tries to prove whether a man can betroth a woman without giving her the payment, the coin, and without her receiving the coin in the betrothal. It asks whether it could be that a person betroths a woman… You’re talking about page 7 there, the law of the guarantor and the law of the Canaanite slave? Exactly, exactly. Okay. Yes. So the Talmud makes the move that it could be that a person betroths a woman without the man giving and without the woman receiving. Or-or? Or-or. Not both. Exactly. So what I wanted to understand is the case where without him… exactly, without him giving and without her receiving. So the Talmud makes that move because we saw with a guarantor that she can become betrothed without her… “Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will be betrothed,” from the law of both? From the law of both? Exactly. The question is whether the inference from the law of both—that she can become betrothed without her receiving and without him giving—is that inference… That requires a whole lecture. If you want, I wrote about it at length. I can send it to you by email. Send me an email and I’ll send it back. Okay? To do that here I’d have to give a whole lecture on it. Thank you. Anyone else?

Good Sabbath. Okay. Good Sabbath. Goodbye. Good Sabbath. Goodbye.