Q&A: Faith Is a Commandment
Faith Is a Commandment
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I have for some time been living with the understanding that faith in God and all of our connection to Judaism begins with a commandment: “I am the Lord your God.” Whether this is one of the 613 positive commandments according to most halakhic decisors, or whether it is the root and foundation of everything and beyond being a commandment according to some of them. And like any commandment, we do it because that is what God commanded. “We will do and we will hear.” Without reason or understanding. And this also has to come with a prohibition: “Do not stray after your hearts” — this is heresy in the simple sense. A prohibition even against doubting whether this is the truth. (I know that you disagree with this.) And perhaps that is why it is included every day in the commandment of God’s unity in the Shema, together with the prohibition of idolatry. Proofs for this:
1. If there is no command, why do we even think about God and the Torah at all? “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
2. Can you convey your books, or any other proofs, to uneducated people? The Torah was given to a nation of wise people and fools, righteous people and wicked people. It cannot be that the connection to Judaism is so complicated.
3. Maimonides, Rabbeinu Bahya, and others bring the main proof that one must know God and investigate faith from verses in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Meaning that faith in Torah from Heaven and the prohibition against heresy are obligations that precede inquiry.
4. In our times, is it even possible to prove anything? Everything is in doubt. Even if you are stable in your faith that it is the most reasonable of all views and beliefs, you see that you are almost alone in that. It bothers me and many others that there are atheists and scientists who have proofs and difficulties against us. Maimonides too was convinced by Aristotle’s proofs. According to what I am arguing, a person can be doubtful intellectually and nevertheless submit himself to God. That seems to me to be freedom. Am I a slave to intellect? I can choose to believe. And that is the essence of the commandment. Some explain this way the prohibition against listening to a false prophet who brings a definite sign or wonder: “for the Lord your God is testing you”..
5. There is a commandment of education in the Torah, there is an obligation to circumcise an eight-day-old child, the commandment “and you shall teach them diligently to your children”; the Torah wants habit and learning before reaching the age of commandments so that a person will be connected. It does not want a person to be an objective blank page and think whether he believes or not. And have we ever heard of Torah guidance telling someone to leave the Torah and search for what is true?
The idea of faith without reason or understanding appears a lot in Hasidism and in the book Shomer Emunim. He says that this is the traditional faith of Israel. Maybe among non-Jews this is similar to the idea of a leap of faith.
I am not against understanding and investigating faith, but only after accepting the principles of faith without reason or understanding. A life axiom that must not be shaken, and one who loses it has no share in the World to Come, and has left the community, as the Mishnah and Maimonides say. And this is how Jews lived throughout the generations.
Rabbi Kook writes: “Faith must be so complete as though there were no possibility at all of inquiry, and alongside this the power of wisdom must be so elevated and energetic as though there were no power of faith at all in the soul. ‘Man and beast’ — clever in knowledge, yet making themselves as beasts.”
It is clear to me that you do not think as I do, but I would be happy to hear your response..
Answer
You began by saying that this is a commandment, added that it could also be a meta-commandment principle, and then came back and said that one should do it because of the command. There is no such thing as a command to believe. I have explained more than once that this is logically impossible. That is where the discussion begins and ends. How exactly you arrive at that factual conclusion that there is a God is a personal matter. There is no necessity at all to do so by means of philosophy.
Most of those who enumerate the commandments counted the commandment of faith as the first commandment in the Torah. I am not talking about a logical conclusion, but about an obligation that came to me from the Jewish people. From the Torah. From God Himself. Like the rest of the 613 commandments. And according to those who say that it is a meta-commandment — the obligating foundation of the commandments.
Why can’t one say that being Jewish means being bound to principles of faith and to Torah in the same way that the human level differs from animals? That this is a life reality that I have the choice whether to act in accordance with or not. Just as I accept basic human moral principles and am not obligated to investigate whether it is true that murder is forbidden, and so on.
I have free choice whether to take this upon myself, just like the free choice involved in all the commandments. Why can’t one choose to be a servant? Out of self-sacrifice? “And the servant of God alone is free.” This also answers how one can command faith, because it is a choice despite the doubts moving about in the world. Just as the Jewish people were commanded to slaughter the lamb in Egypt despite their fears about it. “These and those were idol worshipers,” etc.
And after accepting the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven, there is a commandment to investigate and understand.
As I wrote, I do not see that the Torah or Jewish law gives permission to say: mentally, I am stepping out of Judaism and looking for which religion is true.
The Torah does not speak about such a situation. He is outside the community. He is not a Jew. Of course, if this is done deliberately.
Did the great Jewish thinkers in philosophy do this throughout the generations — “step out of Judaism” and investigate whether it is true or not? Did they document this?
And would you expect every person to be able to deal with all the arguments of heresy, the atheist line, and so on? Because if he has not heard all the arguments, he cannot be certain in his faith. Entire lifetimes would not be enough for that. Can a holy nation be sustained like that? Is that God’s will? As Maimonides writes regarding the prohibition “Do not stray”: “Let not each of you be drawn after his limited understanding and imagine that his thought grasps the truth.”