Q&A: Regarding Maimonides’ commandment to believe
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Regarding Maimonides’ commandment to believe
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding Maimonides’ commandment to believe, is it correct to explain that his intention was that someone who is in a state of doubt, or whose belief is unclear, has a commandment to clarify that doubt?
Best regards,
Answer
Possibly. It is a puzzling commandment, and many explanations are possible. In his wording, he does not define the commandment as being directed specifically at someone who is in doubt.
It may be that Maimonides’ intention is that belief is not merely the simple knowledge that there is a First Existent, but something more than that:
“Know, you who study this book of mine, that belief is not the notion that is stated, but the notion that is formed in the soul when one accepts as true that it is so, just as it has been formed.”
(Guide for the Perplexed I:50)
Belief is not only bare knowledge, but a way of life; and Maimonides’ intention is that there is a command upon one who has come to recognize that there is a First Existent to live his life accordingly. (Not necessarily in the sense of observing the commandments; rather, after knowledge there is an additional stage in which a person lives these things, as it is written, “so that you may know and believe”—Isaiah 43—and that is the taking to heart that comes after knowledge.)
And I like very much the Chazon Ish’s definition in Faith and Trust, that “faith is a subtle tendency among the soul’s tendencies.”