By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
The first proclamation of the Ten Commandments, “ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,” (Exod. 20:2) has puzzled Jewish scholars and philosophers for well over 2,000 years. Maimonides deduced from this passage the biblical precept to “believe in God’s existence” in his classification of the precepts in his Sefer HaMitzvoth.
But the Sages expressed in BT Berachoth 16a, “One should first accept upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and then take upon himself the yoke of the mitzvoth.” Another Mishnah expressed later in the same chapter (ibid. 16a) R. Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410) takes aim at Maimonides and asserts, “Anyone who includes the belief in God in the list of positive commandants has made a common mistake. “A commandment by its definition presupposes free choice and is something volitional in nature. However, faith in God is not something governed by free will and choice; hence, this statement of the Decalogue cannot be construed as a precept.[1]
Put in simpler terms, to accept the commandment “I am the Lord…” requires a person must first accept the premise there is a God who is commanding you to believe in God’s existence. However, suppose you have already accepted God’s existence. In that case, you do not have to be commanded to believe in God’s existence, since you already believe in God because you have already accepted His precepts! Belief is not voluntary — and certainly not after the certainty of the proposition in question has been established, as the Israelites experienced when they experienced the exodus. Conversely, if you reject the belief in God as a Supreme Being, it follows that no commandment can compel you to do so, since you have already rejected the premise of God as a commanding agent! Therefore, according to Crescas, the commandment to believe in God’s existence is an oxymoron. Rather, Crescas reasoned it is far more accurate to say the wording, “I am the Lord” is only a preamble. Abarbanel concurred with Crescas, and he noted, “The phrase ‘I am the Lord your God’ does not constitute a commandment, either in a dogmatic or applied sense. It merely functions as a preface to the subsequent precepts and sanctions; these words constitute a preamble informing the Israelites about the responsible party Who was speaking to them.”
Philo of Alexandria offers, in my opinion, a staunch defense of Maimonides’ position, for he too regarded Exodus 20:2 as the “first” commandment since the statement requires that the Israelites accept God’s authority as the sole supreme King. One could say Philo’s exposition adds a theological flourish to Maimonides’ view regarding the first commandment: “The first law is the fountain of all those concerning the government of one supreme Ruler, and they show there is one First Cause of the world, one Ruler and King, Who guides and governs the universe in such a way as conduces to its preservation, having banished from the pure essence of heaven all oligarchy and aristocracy, those treacherous forms of government which arise among wicked men, as the offspring of disorder and covetousness.”[2]
What Does Belief in God Entail?
The essential foundation and the pillar of wisdom are for you to know a Primary Being has brought into being all existence. All beings — whether heavenly, terrestrial, and everything existing in between — came into existence only because of God’s actual being. If you were to imagine God did not exist, then no other being could exist either. And if you were to imagine further of no other entity existing apart from God, then God alone would still continue to exist [God’s existence is not contingent upon creation]. All other entities require Him for their existence, but the Blessed Creator’s ontology is entirely self-derivative.
Therefore, God’s reality does not resemble the reality of any of other created being. The prophet’s statement implies this theological concept — יְיָ אֱלֹהִים אֱמֶת הוּא־אֱלֹהִים חַיִּים וּמֶלֶךְ עוֹלָם מִקִּצְפּוֹ תִּרְעַשׁ הָאָרֶץ וְלֹא־יָכִלוּ גוֹיִם זַעְמוֹ, “But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the true King” (Jer. 10:10). This verse signifies that God alone is true, and no other entity possesses truth that compares to His truth. Other scriptural verses allude to this point as well — אַתָּה הָרְאֵתָ לָדַעַת כִּי יְיָ הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים אֵין עוֹד מִלְבַדּוֹ, “You were shown all this so that you would know that God is, well, God; there is no other being other than Him (Deut. 4:35).[3] Some scholars think Maimonides alludes to the Tetragrammaton in the opening words of the first chapter, thus signifying how the ontology of all Creation derives from God: יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות.
Knowing God vs. Belief in God
The personal knowledge of God constitutes the positive commandment, behind the imperative, אָנֹכִי יְיָ אֱלֹהֶיךָ [“I am the Lord your God…”] (Exod. 20:2). Anyone presuming there is another god is guilty of violating a negative commandment, which states: לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנַי (“You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exod. 20:3). This is because such a person denies the most indispensable principle of all faith; this is the great principle of faith upon which everything depends.[4]
Maimonides uses the word לֵידַע “to know”[5] toward the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, and not לְהַאֲמִין “to believe,” a tern he used at the beginning of his Sefer HaMitzvot. “Knowing” implies something experiential; “believing” means something one can only ascertain with the eyes of faith. Maimonides emphasized the first biblical precept of the Decalogue teaches us the importance of knowing that there is a Supreme Cause, Who is the Creator of everything that exists.[6] Could it be that Maimonides spoke only in developmental terms? For the novice, the spiritual journey begins with a faith positing there is a Creator. However, at this nascent stage, faith is only a stepping-stone; faith must lead to a knowledge that God truly exists, the individual has developed a more conscious awareness of God. Hence, this heartfelt knowledge can lead to the love and a mystical experience of the Divine. At the beginning of his second chapter of the Yesodei HaTorah, Maimonides spells this out more clearly:
- What is the pathway leading to the love and awe of God? Whenever contemplating God’s great, wondrous deeds and creations, you will discover His boundless and infinite wisdom. Through this meditation, you will eventually come to love and praise everything associated with God’s great Name. That is what King David meant when he said, כְּאַיָּל תַּעֲרֹג עַל־אֲפִיקֵי־מָיִם כֵּן נַפְשִׁי תַעֲרֹג אֵלֶיךָ אֱלֹהִים: צָמְאָה נַפְשִׁי לֵאלֹהִים לְאֵל חָי מָתַי אָבוֹא וְאֵרָאֶה פְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God; my soul aches with a thirst for the living God!” (Psa. 42:2-3). Whenever contemplating these things, you will experience awe and humility. You will realize that you are but an infinitesimal creature, lowly and unenlightened. You stand with your puny little intellect as you attempt to understand the workings of the Divine Mind. This is why King David said, כִּי־אֶרְאֶה שָׁמֶיךָ מַעֲשֵׂי אֶצְבְּעֹתֶיךָ יָרֵחַ וְכוֹכָבִים אֲשֶׁר כּוֹנָנְתָּה: מָה־אֱנוֹשׁ כִּי־תִזְכְּרֶנּוּ וּבֶן־אָדָם כִּי תִפְקְדֶנּוּ, “When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what is man that you should consider him?’ (Psa. 8:3-5)”[7]
It is unfortunate Crescas chose to examine Maimonides’ exposition of faith solely based on his Sefer HaMitzvoth but neglected to see the finer nuances of Maimonides’ classification as intimated in the beginning chapter of Maimonides’ Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah. Other Judaic thinkers refine this discussion further. R. Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (1789-1866) observed a man does not require a precept to believe that God exists, for this ought to be self-evident; by examining the immensity and complexity of Creation and by examining one’s own soul, it is obvious there is a God who created the world. God’s immanence is readily apparent, much as a person is aware of his/her own psychic life by being aware that one has a soul. From this perspective, the microcosm (i.e., man) reflects the macrocosm of God and the cosmos. Truth faith, however, comes with the realization that God is beyond anything a human being can conceive or imagine; therefore, the knowledge of God must inevitably be, from an epistemic perspective, an impossibility. The most a person can hope to creaturely ascertain is merely knowing that God exists. It is better to live with the awareness that God is always with him wherever he goes and with whatever he does.
Let us also add that from a Judaic perspective, “be-living in God” is more important than “believing in God.” Faith in God must make us into better people toward each other. Faith must never become a theological platitude for those invested in virtue-signaling.
And the rest is commentary.
This article was written in memory of my son, Mendy Samuel, of blessed memory.
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[1] Hasdai Crescas, Introduction to Or HaShem.
[2] Philo on “The Decalogue” 153-155.
[3] MT Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:1.
[4] MT Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:6.
[5] לֵידַע שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁם מָצוּי רִאשׁוֹן (lĕhaʾămîn boʾĕlōhût) = “To know that there is a First Being”
[6] לְהַאֲמִין בָּאֱלֹהוּת Sefer HaMitzvoth, (lĕhaʾămîn boʾĕlōhût = “to believe in God”) Positive Precept 1.
[7] MT Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 2:2. The eleventh century Spanish Judean philosopher, Bahya ibn Pakuda, explains that one of the ways an average person can come to discover God’s Presence in the world is by a thoughtful meditation of creation and refers to this meditational pathway as the gate of “self-reckoning.” The first principle we must realize is the unity of God is visible in the multiplicity of creation. By observing the active workings of the Divine in creation, a person will come to understand the divine design that is manifest in all of nature (Duties of the Heart, Part 2).
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista. He is the author of Rediscovering Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides’ Hidden Torah Commentary, and The Forgotten English Torah Commentator (2022). He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com