Faith – Lesson 35

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is it forbidden to do a moral act? I didn’t understand. So then what does “and you shall do what is right and good” mean? Does “and you shall do what is right and good” mean to do all the commandments we were counted as having, and not anything else? Then why do we need that command at all? Clearly the Torah expects moral conduct from us beyond the formal halakhic obligations, and that is not “do not add” and nothing of the sort. It’s “do not add” only in a place where you say that what you’re doing here is a commandment. Once you say that, then it really is “do not add,” because it’s not a commandment. But it is a moral act. You can’t say that such an act is improper or incorrect, that Jewish law forbids it—certainly not. On the contrary. Jewish law encourages it. What about returning a lost object after despair? That too, in the Talmud, yes, the father of Shmuel. Someone who finds a lost object after the owner has despaired—the Sages are pleased with him if he returns it to the owner. Why? According to the Torah he doesn’t need to return it, so what’s the problem? In the Shulchan Arukh it already appears that they compel this. They’ll force you to return it. After despair it’s yours; you’re not obligated to return him anything. They’ll force you to return it. Why? Because on the moral level, that thing is his. You know that it’s his, so what if he despaired? He despaired because he didn’t know they would find it, but in the end it’s his. Why should you take his item for yourself? On the moral level. Legally it’s not his, but on the moral level you should return it to him. And in the Shulchan Arukh, as I said, the Rema writes that they compel this. So clearly moral conduct is not forbidden; rather what goes beyond the strict law—on the contrary, “you shall be holy.” And there is such a thing as a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah: someone who does things because the Torah technically allowed them even though they are immoral is a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah. So what I want to say here—but notice an important point.

[Speaker B] Rabbi, the Rabbi assumes that if some person keeps and behaves morally, that surely stems from belief in God, even if he denies it and claims he’s an atheist. So why wouldn’t the Rabbi grant something similar to a Jew who keeps the Sabbath because—he claims it’s because of Ahad Ha’am—but in the end he’s doing something the Torah commanded? How is that different from an atheist, with or without quotation marks, who behaves morally?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying one of two things. In an atheist who behaves morally there are really two possibilities. That’s also what I wrote and said: either he is a hidden believer, or he is inconsistent. People also sometimes behave inconsistently; that happens too. Okay, with the same thing I say, I’ll say the same thing with regard to commandments. Someone who performs commandments probably has some reason for it: either he is a hidden believer or he is inconsistent. In this case, by the way, there are other possible explanations too—for example, an Ahad Ha’am-style explanation, which is a third explanation. He does it as national folklore, so it’s not that he’s inconsistent; he’s perfectly consistent, he does it as national folklore. So all these possibilities are interpretive possibilities. But whether he is a hidden believer, whether he is inconsistent, whether he is Ahad Ha’am-style—from all of these possibilities, it doesn’t matter: a commandment it is not. Because a commandment requires conscious belief in the Commander, not unconscious belief. The fact that inside the person there is some kind of faith intuition, but in his conscious mind he is an atheist and he observes these commandments because of Ahad Ha’am—doesn’t matter right now why—then even if I reached the conclusion that he is a hidden believer, and that’s not a necessary conclusion because there is the Ahad Ha’am explanation, but let’s say even if there weren’t and I reached the conclusion that he is a hidden believer, still, commandments done out of hidden belief have no religious status. Religious status belongs to things done out of a motivation that is visible to me, that I am aware of. I get credit for things, for decisions, that I made consciously, not for things my subconscious drives me to do. What my subconscious drives me to do—the credit goes to the Holy One, blessed be He, not to me. I am being moved here, not moving, right? Something is pushing me, something is using me, let’s call it that. So why should I get credit for that? Okay, so now notice an interesting novelty in Maimonides. Maimonides says it’s not enough to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, exists and wants it, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it through Moses our Rabbi, as it were at Mount Sinai. If someone performs commandments because he believes in the Holy One, blessed be He, but there is no standing at Sinai, no Moses our Rabbi, no Torah and none of that—Maimonides says that this too is not a commandment. What does it mean it’s not a commandment? I assume that if he has some theory, I don’t know what, such-and-such, that God commands us through our intuition or something like that, I don’t know, maybe such a thing could count as a commandment. But it has to be—ultimately, it is not enough to believe in God in some deistic philosophical sense; you have to believe in a commanding God, that you have an obligation to obey His command. And if you do the commandment because of that obligation, then it is a commandment. If not, then not. By the way, if you believe in some other command not at Sinai, then maybe it won’t have the value of a commandment because there simply was no such command; that is, you are living in a fictional picture. So there is no point in giving you credit for it—not because you’re not obeying the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, but because there was no such command; the command was at Sinai, there is no other command. So maybe—but that’s just a side remark, it doesn’t matter for our principal discussion. So in essence Maimonides is telling us that command is an essential matter for understanding the system of commandments. It’s not—we usually understand that when the Holy One, blessed be He, tells us “you shall not murder,” He is essentially revealing to us that murder is an abominable thing. That is a big mistake. The verse “you shall not murder” is not an informative verse; it is a commanding verse. It is not a verse that brings a fact to our knowledge. It is a verse that commands us. That murder is abominable I know even without the verse. The verse says that murder, the act of murder, has a halakhic prohibition. It is a command, like with a traffic light. The meaning of verses that command is not to reveal to us that a certain act is proper or improper in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. That may be curses, perhaps, other verses. “And you shall do what is right and good,” which is not a commandment. Various verses like these can reveal to us what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants and what He does not want. But they are not part of the system of commandments and Jewish law because there is no command in them. It is only a revelation; it reveals a fact to me. A verse that belongs to Jewish law is a verse that contains a command, to do or not to do. And without that, it is not a commandment. Also in the Commentary on the Mishnah to Chullin, in the chapter of the sciatic nerve, there too Maimonides says similar things. Yes, it says in Genesis: “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh-vein that is on the hollow of the thigh to this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the thigh-vein.” Yes, seemingly there is no command here; it’s a description of a custom. Right? This is how the children of Israel have practiced from time immemorial. But where is it written that there is a prohibition to eat the sciatic nerve? So the truth is I didn’t find a comment on this except the Rashba in his novellae on aggadah; he too doesn’t give an answer, and he says there was a tradition among the Sages that this nevertheless is a command. But simply speaking, in a place where there is no command, there is no prohibition. This is perhaps—I don’t know if it’s the only example or almost the only example—of something that entered Jewish law completely as a full prohibition, the sciatic nerve, and there is no verse at all that commands it. Because “therefore they do not eat”—the “do not” here is not commanding, it is describing. Therefore the prefix “therefore” shows us this. “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve” means: therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve. It is not a prohibitive “do not”; it is not describing a negative fact. Okay? In any event, that’s just a remark. Now the Mishnah says, in the Mishnah in Chullin, at the end of chapter 7, the chapter dealing with the sciatic nerve, a dispute of Tannaim is brought. “It applies to kosher animals and does not apply to non-kosher ones.” The prohibition of the sciatic nerve is only in kosher animals. The sciatic nerve of non-kosher animals is not prohibited. What does it mean not prohibited? It’s prohibited to eat it because you’re eating a non-kosher animal, but you did not violate the prohibition of the sciatic nerve. You violated only one prohibition and not two. Rabbi Yehuda says: “Even in a non-kosher animal.” Rabbi Yehuda says there is a prohibition of the sciatic nerve even in a non-kosher animal. Meaning, if you eat the sciatic nerve from a non-kosher animal, you have violated two prohibitions. You ate pork and you ate the sciatic nerve. Rabbi Yehuda said—so Rabbi Yehuda argues against the Rabbis: “But was not the sciatic nerve prohibited from the days of the sons of Jacob, and a non-kosher animal was still permitted to them?” After all, the prohibition of the sciatic nerve was said to the sons of Jacob. At that stage it was still before the Sinai revelation, so there was not yet any distinction between a kosher and a non-kosher animal. So that is proof that the prohibition of the sciatic nerve does not distinguish between a kosher and a non-kosher animal. That is how Rabbi Yehuda argues against the Rabbis. The Rabbis say only in a kosher animal; Rabbi Yehuda says also in a non-kosher one, because there is no difference. They said to him—so the Rabbis answer him: “It was said at Sinai, only it was written in its place.” This command was not given to the sons of Jacob; this command was said at Sinai. Rather, it was said at Sinai and attached—after the Torah was formulated, it was inserted into the section of Jacob. But in essence this command was given at Sinai, and indeed the prohibition exists because there was a command at Sinai. That is how the Rabbis answer Rabbi Yehuda. So Maimonides says in his Commentary on the Mishnah there: “And pay attention to this great principle brought in this Mishnah, namely their saying: ‘It was prohibited at Sinai.’ And it is that you must know that everything from which we refrain or that we do today, we do it only because of God’s command through Moses, and not because God commanded it to the prophets who preceded him.” I add in parentheses: or because reason independently decided it. This is really parallel to Maimonides in the Laws of Kings that we saw. We have to perform the commandments because of the command. An example of this: We do not eat a limb from a living animal not because God prohibited to the descendants of Noah a limb from a living animal, but because Moses prohibited to us a limb from a living animal in what he was commanded at Sinai, that a limb from a living animal remain prohibited. Here he is alluding to the Talmud in Sanhedrin, that anything prohibited to the descendants of Noah and repeated at Sinai—then it was prohibited, yes, then it was prohibited only to Israel. If it was said only before the giving of the Torah and not repeated, then it was prohibited only to Israel. “And likewise, we are not circumcised 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 likewise the sciatic nerve: we do not follow in this the prohibition of our father Jacob, but the command of Moses our Rabbi. And do you not see that they said: 613 commandments were said to Moses at Sinai, and all these are included among the commandments.” Yes, on this he returns also in the first root, where he says six hundred—613 commandments were said at Sinai, but the sciatic nerve was not said at Sinai, it was said to our father Jacob. So what do we see? We see that that isn’t true: all 613 were said at Sinai, only this one was written in the section of our father Jacob. That is what Maimonides claims. But here too he returns to the same principle we saw in the Laws of Kings: that the command—and here he is already speaking about Jews, not non-Jews—that fulfillment of a commandment is solely because of the command at Sinai. If you fulfill the commandment not because of the command at Sinai, it is not a commandment. By the way, in passing, there is a certain difference between these two sources in Maimonides. In the Laws of Kings Maimonides speaks about—no, let’s put it this way: in the Commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides speaks about the theory of Jewish law. Ask yourself why am I obligated? The answer is: because of the command at Sinai. The command at Sinai is what obligates me; nothing else obligates me. In the Laws of Kings Maimonides speaks about the manner of actual performance. That is, when I perform a commandment I need to have in my awareness that I am doing it because of the command I received at Sinai. That is not the same statement. I’ll give you an example. If I ask a person why do you stop at a red light? He’ll say because the law requires stopping at a red light. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that when he stopped at the red light he said in his head, “For the sake of the unification of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Presence, to fulfill the words of the Knesset not to pass through a red light.” He doesn’t need to have that motivation in his awareness—the law of the Knesset. But if you ask him theoretically, what is really the reason that you stop, he will point to the law of the Knesset. This exists in general law and also in Jewish law. Ask me on the principled level why I keep commandments: because there was a command at Sinai. But that is in the Commentary on the Mishnah. Therefore in the Commentary on the Mishnah something is said that is true of every legal system, not only of Jewish law. In the Laws of Kings this is a statement that belongs only in Jewish law. Because in secular law, if you ask the person—let’s say a person stopped at a red light not because the law requires it but because reason independently compels it; it seemed sensible to him. Would anyone sue him for that in court? The legislator doesn’t care why you obey the law, so long as you obey it. Commandments do not require intention—and not even belief. The legislator doesn’t care whether you are obligated to the law and therefore obey it or don’t violate it. What matters to him is the actual deed. If you obey the law and don’t violate it, you are a good citizen, everything is fine. Ask the person why he obeys the law—he’ll tell you because it’s a law of the Knesset—but that is the theory of law adopted by the private individual. I do not require him to do anything with that; I require from him the bottom line: don’t violate the law, obey the law. Jewish law demands from the person also the motivation. When you obey the law you have to do it because of the command at Sinai consciously. Meaning, you need, as it were, to say “for the sake of the unification,” yes, I now intend to fulfill a commandment, because without that it is not a commandment. Meaning, it is not enough to have the basic theory that I keep commandments because of the command at Sinai; it has to be an intention that accompanies the actual performance. And that does not exist in other legal systems. Now of course I do not mean to say that in practice every time we perform a commandment we need to say “for the sake of the unification” about standing at Mount Sinai. But we don’t need that because of the assumption—what is called in the Talmud “anonymous intent is for its proper sake”—that it is clear to all of us that if a person believes in standing at Sinai and he goes to the synagogue to put on tefillin, then apparently he is doing it because there is a commandment to put on tefillin. So he doesn’t need to say that to us explicitly because it is quite obvious; the context testifies that this is really the reason he is doing it. Therefore in such a situation it does not have to pass through your mind in an explicit form, because all in all it is clear that this is why you did it. So in principle, yes, you need that intention; it’s just that in practice you don’t need it because it exists, because I have other indications that it exists. For the legislator, I don’t need to think that I stop at a red light because of the law—not because it is obvious to the legislator that this is why I do it, but because the legislator doesn’t care why I do it. What difference does it make to him? The main thing is that I obey the law. He doesn’t care why I obey the law. Okay? So that is a certain difference between the two sources, but that’s just in parentheses. But for our purposes, I now return to the line of argument: we see that the status of command in Jewish law, as in every legal system in this sense, is an essential status. Meaning, the command constitutes the halakhah, not the internal logic of those laws. The benefit or spiritual harm do not turn it into—what turns this into a prohibition or a commandment is the command. Without that there are no commandments without command, even if I somehow knew in some other way what the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted me to do, I would not be doing a commandment here, because He did not command. The word commandment comes from command: responding to a command. Okay, so command has a very basic and deep status in the service of God. In essence one can say that the essence of religious service is obligation to commands. And therefore Maimonides says that to do the commandments because the Holy One, blessed be He—I need to do the commandments because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, not because there is a Holy One, blessed be He; rather, the command is essential. Without it, it is not a commandment. The same thing we see in Maimonides in the Laws of Idolatry. Maimonides speaks about the dispute of Abaye and Rava in Sanhedrin: one who worships idolatry out of love or fear. So Rava says exempt, Abaye says liable. And Maimonides rules like Rava, because the law follows Rava except for six cases, so Maimonides rules like Rava, that he is exempt. And most of the medieval authorities understand that one who worships idolatry out of love or fear means out of love or fear of a person. Because if I love or fear some person, then in order to satisfy him I worship his idol. Okay, why do they explain it that way? After all, that is not the plain meaning of the Talmud. They explain it this way because the plain meaning of the Talmud is very difficult. If I worship idolatry out of love or fear of the idol, then that is idolatry of the finest sort—why am I exempt? What more has to be present for me to be considered an idol worshiper? Someone who worships idolatry out of love or fear of the idol is worshiping idolatry in the highest form. Therefore they shift it—Rashi says, and the Rivash and the Raavad and nearly all the medieval authorities who address this, basically explain the Talmud not according to its plain meaning. But in Maimonides, when you read Maimonides, Laws of Idolatry chapter 3 law 6, Maimonides reads it according to its plain meaning: one who worships idolatry out of love or fear of the idol is exempt. Good, so here arises the question over which the medieval authorities struggled: then when is he liable? What does a person have to do in order to be considered an idol worshiper of the highest degree? And the answer is—I spoke about this before, so I’m doing it briefly—the answer is that Maimonides writes there that he needs to accept it upon himself as a god. What does that mean? He needs to recognize this idol as a factor whose commands obligate me by virtue of the fact that it commanded. That is called a god. Therefore, by the way, in the Torah judges are called gods. “And the master of the house shall approach the judges.” Therefore the Talmud in Sanhedrin derives three judges from the three times the word “judges” appears in the section. “Gods” means judges. Why? Because a judge is someone whose ruling I have to follow not because he is right but because he is a judge. By virtue of his status as a judge, what he says is binding. A judge, yes? A god—that is the definition of god also in the religious sense. It is an authority whose word must be obeyed, period—not because he is right, not because it benefits me, not because I love him and not because I fear him, but because he said so. Yes, like Thomas Mallory—when they asked him why he climbs Everest, he answered: because it’s there. Because Everest is there. I have no explanation. I see Everest; obviously one must climb it. I’m not making rationalizations and explanations and things like that for myself. They ask why keep God’s commands? Whoever asks that doesn’t understand the concept of God. God is an authority such that when He commands, one must obey. The moment I look for explanations of why I obey God’s command, that means He is not God. I also obey the command of a policeman because I’m afraid he’ll give me a fine. Why is that not idolatry? Because I obey his commands not because he is a policeman. I obey his commands because of an external consideration, not because of the inherent authority he has as a policeman, but because I think it’s proper to obey the law, because I’m afraid of the fine, because I think it will bring order to the world—doesn’t matter right now, everyone with his own reasons. But there has to be a reason. God is someone whose command there is an obligation to obey not because of a reason, but because He is God, because He is there. That’s all. Without that, you are not worshiping God, even if you worship Him out of love or fear of Him. If you worship the Holy One, blessed be He, or the idol out of love or fear toward them, you are not worshiping them in a religious way. Not the idol and not the Holy One, blessed be He. Of course, in order to stumble into idolatry—and in the case of the Holy One, blessed be He, because that is what is commanded—in order for this to count as religious service, you need to worship Him because He is God. And whatever God says, one must do. And if you worship for other reasons, even love and fear, which are proper reasons, you are not serving God. There is of course a commandment to love God and fear God. But these are not the motivations because of which I serve God, because if those were the motivations, then there could not be commandments of love and fear of God. Why would I perform those commandments themselves? Because I am keeping the commandment of love and fear of God? I’m now looking for the reason to keep the commandments of love and fear of God. Therefore it is obvious that this is a commandment in itself; it is not connected to the point. The motivation for why I perform commandments is because He commanded. Besides that, some of the commandments are also to love and fear Him, true. But that is not the reason I serve. If that is the reason I serve, then I am not serving God.

[Speaker E] So then why do I do what He says? Why do I obey Him, really? I don’t love Him and I don’t fear Him and I don’t recognize anything in Him and I perceive nothing in Him, and I obey Him only because He’s called God?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You do love Him and fear Him, just not because of that do you act. It’s not that you don’t love Him and don’t fear Him.

[Speaker E] You love and fear, just not because of that. No, I mean not necessarily. Suppose—let’s say—I haven’t fulfilled those two commandments; that doesn’t impair the fact that I still have to obey the Holy One, blessed be He, and I do obey. The question is why do I obey?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do I decide to see—

[Speaker E] —in Him the supreme value to which I will respond? Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You understand that such an authority, when it commands, the command obligates. That’s all. Why? Because that’s how it is. If I explain to you why, I’ll answer you: because of X. Then you’ll ask me: and why X?

[Speaker E] No, but I mean emotionally too, rationally too, there is no logic in this. And still the Rabbi says: I define Him as God, and therefore I’ve solved the problem of why I obey Him, because that’s the definition of God. But in the end that’s escaping the question of why one decides to respond to the divine command as a supreme value.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll answer. What I’m saying is that when you give rational explanations of why, those explanations at some stage will stop with “because that’s how it is.” For every explanation you’ll ask again why, and about that explanation you’ll ask again why—turtles all the way down. Where will you stop? You’ll stop at the very place that is self-evident, that doesn’t need an explanation, and then the answer will be: because that’s how it is. But the “because that’s how it is” that will be found there at the bottom of the chain is not the “because that’s how it is” you described before, as a definition, some arbitrary matter. No. It’s because that is self-evident, not because it is arbitrary; because it doesn’t need an explanation, not because it has no explanation. Because it is obvious. Because if God, who created me and the world, commands, then His words must be obeyed. Whoever doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand what God is. And I have no other explanations, because about all the other explanations you’ll also ask why. And in the end, in the end, we will stop at that same place that has to be understood from within itself. And my claim is that belief in God is that place. It is the place that understands that God is an authority whose command must be obeyed. This is not an arbitrary definition. It’s not that because I decided He is God, therefore one must obey—an arbitrary definition establishes no norm. Rather, it is because I really understand that He is God; it’s not a definition just because I feel like it. God is something with obligating force. If someone asks you why obey the command of morality, what will you answer him? Because it’s moral? Thank you very much, that’s a circular answer. No, you’ll answer him: because it is self-evident that if it is moral, one should obey it. If that is not self-evident to him, then your claims are finished; you won’t be able to answer him. Fine, but that is the correct answer. So he is blind; he doesn’t see it. The same thing, in my eyes, the atheist is a kind of blindness. If he doesn’t—not the atheist, rather someone who is unwilling to commit, maybe he believes in God but is unwilling to commit. That is a kind of blindness. He doesn’t really believe in God because he doesn’t understand what God is. God is someone such that when He commands, one must obey. That is the meaning of God. And if you don’t see that, you are—

[Speaker C] blind. So how is it his fault?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A person who keeps—

[Speaker C] all the commandments, but can’t manage to believe—what should he do? What should he do?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say it’s his fault. Who said it’s his fault? It’s not his fault; he is completely coerced.

[Speaker C] So then why will he get hit afterward?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He won’t get hit. Who said he’ll get hit?

[Speaker C] What, if he keeps them without belief then he did nothing, so he’s just—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, he did nothing, but he won’t get punished for it because it’s not his fault. He has no commandment, but he won’t receive punishment. What… okay, I’ve gotten here now, this took me too much time. I want for a moment to go back. I said this is also relevant to the season, so at least I’ll summarize that. My goal here was basically to show how fundamental the command is in the service of God. Of course this connects to what I said earlier about why there must be revelation. There must be revelation not only in order to tell me what is imposed on me. I said earlier that if it’s not morality then it’s something else—how will I know? There has to be revelation that tells me. Now there is an additional shade here. It’s not only to tell me what is imposed on me, but to command me. Because without command, even if I somehow understood what is imposed on me, it would not be a commandment and not a transgression. Therefore revelation is a necessity, because without it there is no standing in which we were commanded. There would be no command. So revelation is necessary. That is only the addition to what I said at the beginning. I just want to tie this to the season, and with this we’ll end the lesson. On Rosh Hashanah it is customary to say that we crown—yes, sovereignty, remembrance, and shofarot. Why does this happen on Rosh Hashanah, and how is it connected to the Ten Days of Repentance? Yes, after all it opens the Ten Days of Repentance. And then Yom Kippur comes, atonement and forgiveness and so on. What is the meaning of this structure? It seems to me that this structure is basically built on the idea we talked about today. In order to keep commandments, or to return to keeping commandments, to repent, the basic thing you need to internalize is that there is command. That God’s commands—God is someone such that when He commands, you must obey. And maybe every sin, in a certain sense, begins at this point: okay, I understand that this is the halakhah, but who says it has to be kept? The moment you doubt that point, you sin. Therefore the way to repent is first of all to return to the starting point. And the starting point is the command. What does the command mean? Recognition that this is God, and God is someone such that when He commands, you obey. Now, what is the tangible expression of such a factor? A king, right? The Sages often liken the Holy One, blessed be He, to a king. Scripture likens Him to a king. Okay, why? Because a king is the closest model in our world to someone whose word I obey. Today we live in a democratic world; we don’t really grasp the concept of a king as people once did. Now the Queen of England died—passed away, died, I don’t know what to call it—but that’s not a real king, that’s a toy queen. Meaning, we are talking about a real king. Now one has to understand: a real king was not fear, or not only fear. There was fear too, of course. It’s not fear; it’s awe of exaltedness. You see such a thing, and it doesn’t even occur to you not to obey his commands. Fear is in the background, but it’s already much more than fear. He is a kind of authority—and not for nothing was the king always linked to divine appointment. Kings were always perceived as emissaries of God; He appointed the king to be such, an entitlement conferred from birth. Why? Because the king was really perceived as some kind of divine representative who has this status, that whatever he says must be done. Of course this was backed by punishments for those who did not do it—killing anyone who rebels against the kingdom and so on—but those are the results, not the reasons. People think that because of fear they listened to the king. I think that is a great mistake. Because they listened to the king, fear was created. They listened to the king because it was clear that he was the kind of authority whose word I obey. In our democratic world we don’t know such a phenomenon. Maybe the law is the closest thing to it, and even there of course that really doesn’t help. But it’s the closest. When you ask a person why do this? Because that’s what the law said. They don’t tell you because life will be more orderly, because you need to show gratitude to society and fulfill your agreements with it. They say: because that’s what the law said. That is a sufficient reason to tell you that you need to do this or that you are forbidden to do that. This is the closest thing I can bring to the concept of a king from the old days. When the Sages wanted to convey to me what it means to accept Him as God over me, they say: that is to crown Him over us. To make Him king. To return to the point where whatever He says, I do. That is the meaning of Rosh Hashanah. Therefore on Rosh Hashanah one does not repent. There is no point in repenting before you internalize this point. Repent—to where? Where do you want to return? You have to return to the point where it is clear to you, where the obligation is clear to you, that if God commanded, you obey. If you have not established that point within yourself, not internalized it within yourself, then you have nowhere to return to. You need to start there. That is the coronation of Rosh Hashanah, and then you can begin to repent, and in the end there will also be atonement on Yom Kippur. That is the point that begins the Ten Days of Repentance, and not by chance. It doesn’t only begin the Ten Days of Repentance; it begins all our service of God. And here this connects to what I spoke about here. The point of revelation at Sinai has a constitutive status, and therefore it had to be. Even if there were no tradition reaching me, I would think it had to be so. Because without it there is no service of God, no standing, no commandments, no transgressions. It’s not only that I wouldn’t know what is right and wrong to do, or how to strive toward the purpose for which the world was created. It’s not only a question of knowledge. Knowledge is solved by informative verses. The verses reveal, give me the relevant knowledge. Commanding verses not only give relevant knowledge but also command; they turn the matter into commandment and transgression. And the essence of serving God is fulfilling commandments and avoiding transgressions. Not religious experiences and belief in some abstract sense or another. What in the wider world is called religiosity. I once said that Kant did not understand why Judaism is a religion. In his eyes it was some kind of social-political code, some sort of legal code, that’s it. His concepts of religiosity were that religiosity is a religious experience and moral conduct. Yes, even for Kant it is moral conduct, despite all the atheists who hang their morality on him. That is not true. Those are the two characteristics of religiosity, really, in the Christian world. In the Christian world the concept of religiosity is tied mainly to those two things: religiosity—yes, the concept of religiosity is a religious experience and elevated human conduct, moral human conduct. It is not a collection of technical commandments of do and don’t do. Therefore he didn’t understand why Judaism is a religion at all; Judaism is a code. And his Jewish friends and students tried to defend his “mistake,” in quotation marks: he didn’t know it, he didn’t understand, really there is lots of religiosity here, it is a religion in every respect. And in my opinion he understood far better than they did. Because again, whether it is a religion or not a religion is a semantic question. In Christian terms it really is not a religion. In Jewish terms this is what is called religion, and “the law was given in Shushan the capital.” What is “the law”? The law. The law was accepted in Shushan the capital. Meaning, religion in the Jewish sense—to be religious means to obey the law. That is what being religious means. And what in Christian eyes may be called a code and not religiosity—fine. In their terms Kant is right. And precisely his Jewish students and Jewish friends were mistaken. Because those who try to turn Judaism into some sort of religion in the Christian, religio-experiential sense—yes, like all the existential matters that have become so popular in recent years—these are people looking for detours around obligation to command. No, no, I’ll do it when I connect to it, because it brings me to a higher spiritual place, it gives me connection to the Holy One, blessed be He, religious experiences of one kind or another. All these people are fooling themselves. It has no value whatsoever as service of God. None. On the contrary, usually it is harmful, because it replaces service out of obligation. After obligation there can of course come experiences and connection to the Holy One, blessed be He, I don’t know, let there be whatever there may be, I understand nothing of this, but fine, all that is certainly legitimate and maybe it is helpful, all good—after obligation, not in place of it. Yes, like with a married couple. For a married couple, under the wedding canopy they read the marriage contract. From where they’ll collect the money when they separate. “From the cloak upon his shoulders.” What about all the romance around it—is that what should be read there in the middle? The answer is yes. Because a married couple is first of all a contract. Afterwards all the romance and the butterflies and the emotions and all the things around it. First of all it is a contract. And this is exactly the same thing, right? “On the day of his wedding and on the day of…” how does it go there, yes, standing at Sinai is our wedding canopy with the Holy One, blessed be He. And at that wedding canopy first of all we signed a contract. The experiences and the emotions and the romance we can leave to King Solomon in the Song of Songs. And even there, in my opinion, that is not what is written. But at Sinai first of all there was acceptance of the authority of a commanding factor, of God. And that—that is also the coronation on Rosh Hashanah. Good, I’ll stop here. May it be a good year, may you be inscribed and sealed for good, Sabbath peace.

[Speaker B] A good year, may you be inscribed and sealed for good.

[Speaker F] Sabbath peace. Are there questions, Rabbi? Only by messages—Rabbi, can we ask questions? Yes, yes. I have two questions please. First of all, thank you very much for the lesson. And what the Rabbi just said, the explanation for Rosh Hashanah—I, Rabbi, could you please explain what the beginning of the cycle is, really? Meaning, we have—you’re talking about a person who has the basic obligation but rebelled against it, and on Rosh Hashanah he recommits to it; is that the intention?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. And what does “recommits” mean? He newly internalizes that there is such an obligation here, tries to absorb “and you shall know this day and bring it back to your heart.” I assume he already knows it beforehand; otherwise he is coerced. That is not a sin. Sin is always when you know something and do not act accordingly. A person is a complex creature; that is the issue of weakness of will. I wrote about this too in two columns on the site and in various places. There is weakness of will; there are things we know are right but we don’t do them. The way to return is to go back and internalize within ourselves what we already know. What is called today a penitent is not the penitent of the Sages. What is called today a penitent is someone who becomes religious, from secular to religious. That is not a penitent. That is someone who goes out into repentance. A penitent is someone who returns. What does that mean? It is someone who knew his Master, did not keep His commandments, and now is a penitent—he returns to keeping them. He was a transgressor, and now he returns to the normal state, to the proper state. The penitent as we call him today is someone who changed his worldview; he isn’t returning anywhere. That is really just not the penitent of repentance in the language of the Sages. Not at all the penitents we speak about today. Repentance in the language of the Sages speaks about religious people. Everyone then was such. These are people who know what is right and what is not right, but they fail. They don’t do it. So they need to repent; they need to return and make sure we do what is right to do.

[Speaker F] And that’s not Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is the even more prior foundation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that is Rosh Hashanah, because what happened there is that we did not fully internalize that the Holy One, blessed be He, is king. We may know it, but we did not fully internalize that point. It is not a point that is stamped into us, and therefore the obligation did not take hold in us and we fell.

[Speaker F] So it’s more similar to what today really means “how do I become a penitent,” in the sense that he accepts upon himself the yoke of kingship.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s both, and maybe even more the first. Because you are not supposed to become newly religious on Sunday—to become a penitent on Rosh Hashanah, sorry. Becoming a penitent is not an initiated act. Becoming a penitent is: if he reached the conclusion that he was wrong, then he repents. The repentance they speak about on Rosh Hashanah is repentance aimed at certain appointed times. It is something initiated. I sit on a certain date and decide that now I repent. Meaning that I already know I am not in order, and now I need to erase that or fix it. So I can, in an initiated way—there is an appointed time intended for those who are not in order to repent. A penitent, one who becomes a penitent in the sense we use today, you can’t tell him: on the tenth of Shevat we become penitents. At some point he became convinced, he became convinced; right now he doesn’t think at all that he is not in order. What do you want from him? Yes,

[Speaker F] So that’s what I mean: that really the one who becomes a penitent in the sense used today, meaning a person who accepts upon himself the yoke of commandments, the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven—I’m trying to understand whether that is what the Rabbi means, that that is what happens on Rosh Hashanah for us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Again, no, that’s not what I mean. The person who becomes a penitent in today’s terms is a person who reaches the conclusion that the Holy One, blessed be He, is God, that one must keep His commandments. And from then onward he can indeed be a servant of God. The penitent we are talking about in the Ten Days of Repentance, and that the Sages generally call a penitent, is not that. Rather, it is someone who knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, is king and that His commandments are binding. He just did not internalize it properly, and therefore he sins. And on Rosh Hashanah he needs to internalize it. For the one becoming a penitent, on Rosh Hashanah he comes to that insight. Or it doesn’t have to be on Rosh Hashanah; rather, he comes to that insight. The penitent already has that insight; he is only at “and you shall know this day,” not at “and bring it back to your heart.” On Rosh Hashanah he has to bring it back to his heart.

[Speaker F] That’s what I meant. Rabbi, may I ask one more, a bit general? This week I heard your conversation in that circus with Professor Aeyal Gross. Yesterday was the second part.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The first. Ah, the first was already a week ago. Okay.

[Speaker F] Ah, but it was uploaded to the WhatsApp group this week. Okay. In any event, Rabbi, in that series you described many of your conversations with atheists, and you described that they don’t advance very much. I wanted maybe to hear from the Rabbi now, since we were present at such a conversation, how you analyze it. What I identified was really a lot of arrogance in him, and I don’t know, I really felt that he dismissed a lot of things and didn’t address them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s leave character traits aside. We’re not dealing with a person’s character traits; let’s deal with the argument.

[Speaker F] So I would like, if the Rabbi can, for those who were exposed to that conversation, to hear how you really analyze what happened there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It wasn’t really a conversation. I think there wasn’t much attentiveness there. There wasn’t attentiveness, and it also wasn’t possible to complete the argument. It was a bit hard to speak, but it seems to me that quite clearly there was no real counterargument there. It wasn’t really a conversation between two positions. Now why is that? I have all kinds of my own hypotheses. I don’t think it was arrogance, in my opinion; it was more fear. But that doesn’t matter, that’s a different discussion. That’s a discussion about the person himself, and that interests me less.

[Speaker F] The same things the Rabbi described in this series—are these conversations of that kind? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] People dig themselves into some position—you can’t penetrate the armor with substantive arguments. Anyone can be impressed by that; I’m not.

[Speaker F] No, I just want to share, because for an outside observer there’s something a little unsettling, kind of destabilizing, when you see someone who is really presenting an absolute position, and I felt again this kind of complete certainty, while the other side is trying to explain and justify itself, so it sort of gives the zealot a psychological advantage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but those are questions of rhetoric, technical questions. We need to discuss the arguments, not what it does to the psyche. You have to examine the arguments—who is sure of himself and who speaks this way, and who speaks differently—fine, who cares? As far as each of us is concerned, we need to hear the arguments and decide who persuades me, whose position I adopt, and whose I don’t.

[Speaker F] Okay, thank you very much, Rabbi. Happy New Year.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Happy New Year, goodbye.