Let’s say that Reuven believes in a God who has a body.
And in Reuven’s view, that same God demands of him that he believe that He has no body—that is, by way of example, to take a pill that will make him believe that He has no body.

So let’s say Maimonides says: “The God who was revealed to us, and in whom I and you believe, demands of anyone who believes that He has a body to take a pill that will make him believe that He has no body.”

I suggest sparing us these empty casuistic hairsplittings. We are required to believe, not to take hallucination pills. You cannot demand that someone believe something he does not believe.

From my perspective, these aren’t hairsplittings, not nonsense and not a game, but a real question that bothers me. But apparently I won’t manage to explain myself any better than I already have, and I guess we’ve exhausted it.

If someone believes that the Holy One, blessed be He, wants him to believe something, then together with the reasonable assumption that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want a person to believe false things, it follows that he already believes that very thing.

Why? Maybe He doesn’t want us to believe true things if they harm us or something else important. And again, this is only the initial assumption—that is, maybe the story goes like this:

1. The truth is that God has no body.
2. Reuven thinks He does have a body.
3. But God demands that Reuven believe that He has no body (because that is the truth).
4. Reuven thinks: if God asked me to believe something that seems false to me, then apparently there is some reason to convince myself of it even by force (and that is his initial assumption).

Option A
5. He “takes a pill” (that is, convinces himself through one kind of brainwashing or another).
6. In the end he believes that He has no body.
7. He fulfilled His commandment (and along the way also understood the whole story, but that isn’t the point).

Option B
5. He stands his ground.
6. One could come to him with the complaint: “Why didn’t you take a pill? After all, you do believe that one must obey Him.”

I think that even after the brainwashing he would know that he believes it only because of the brainwashing, and I’m not at all sure that a person can brainwash himself. Theoretically, you could demand of a person—who is acting very irrationally by not believing what God says is true and instead believing that God demands that he believe something false—that he find a way to undergo brainwashing that will cause him to believe something and also forget that he underwent brainwashing in order to believe it. To me that sounds like empty hairsplitting.

I think not only is it plausible, but in practice many people do this, in the world of religions and in the world of ideologies. They call it “working on themselves” or “subduing their impulse” (that is, they use one legitimate term or another to describe self-brainwashing).

It seems to me that they already believe it is true and only want to live it out. Like someone who believes that prayers help but in practice lacks proper intention in prayer, and is trying not only to understand that prayers help but also to feel it. And even if there are people who make a deliberate effort to believe a falsehood, they’re strange. Try to think of a belief you are certain is true, and then a prophet tells you that it is false. What would you do? Either you would believe him or you would not believe him, but it doesn’t seem to me that you would look for a method of brainwashing yourself that would also make you forget that you believe only because of the brainwashing, in order to believe the prophet. That would be a very strange demand on the part of the Holy One, blessed be He, and I don’t think it is even technically possible. If I have three options—either to believe, or not to believe, or to undergo brainwashing—I would choose one of the first two options.