Q&A: Thirteen Principles
Thirteen Principles
Question
Hello Rabbi, in one of your talks you said that Jewish law cannot obligate people to believe anything, because belief is a factual matter. Could it be that the idea of principles of faith is not a halakhic obligation, but simply a definition of who is considered a believing Jew?
Answer
Anything is possible, so long as there is no demand or obligation here.
Discussion on Answer
According to Maimonides, there is an obligation to hate and destroy someone who does not believe in them, so maybe there is no practical obligation on the person himself, but it still has practical ramifications.
No, there is no such treatment. You do not lower into a pit a person who is not at fault, even if conceptually he is defined as an unbeliever. Of course you also do not hate him. That is exactly what I am talking about.
By the way, all this is correct according to almost all halakhic decisors, quite apart from me. They just hide it behind various vague concepts (like a child taken captive, etc.).
So what did Maimonides mean when he wrote that? If this command exists and you say that in principle it cannot exist, then what does it help that we hide it and qualify it with other concepts?
You'd have to ask him. I want to believe that he wrote this only about those who follow their inclination and do not really believe it. See my columns on split-mindedness. But if I am mistaken and he also meant people who were coerced into it, which is very unlikely, then I disagree with him.
But there is discussion of how such a person should be treated (lowering him into a pit, and so on).