I am HaShem your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery Exodus 20: 1
COMMANDMENT OR PREAMBLE?
The first commandment is presented to us in a somewhat ambiguous way. Understanding what this command says is not easy. Why? Because unlike the other nine commandments, it is not enunciated in the imperative mode as an order or a precept. It seems more like God introducing Himself to His people. The text says: “I am HaShem your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery “. This commandment is not indicating, apparently ,something we have to do or not do, as in the case of “Honor your parents”, “You shall not steal”, “You shall not kill”. It does not transmit a direct order.
That is why the rabbis have long debated the nature of this commandment. For some, like Nahmanides or Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, the first commandment does not express a specific precept but asserts the existence of God “I am HaShem your God”. Seen in this way, the first commandment is the implicit prerequisite for the acceptance of all other commandments. It is a preamble to the commandments that follow. It is not a commandment in itself.
Maimonides, on the other hand, maintains that the first commandment indicates a specific precept in spite of not being formulated in the imperative mode. We will try to understand, then, what this famous Sephardic rabbi explained.
HOW MANY COMMANDMENTS ARE THERE?
The Talmud, in the tractate Makot, explains that there are 613 precepts of the Tora. 611 of them were transmitted through Moshe (Moses), while the remaining two were transmitted “directly” by HaShem (God) to the Jewish people. And those two precepts are: the first and the second commandment (אנכי ולא יהיה לך). Let’s briefly analyze this affirmation of the Talmud.
1. What reveals that these two commandments were conveyed directly by God is that they are the only ones formulated in the first person of the singular: “I am HaShem your God”, “There will be no other gods before Me”. From the third commandment it is Moshe, not God who addresses the people of Israel, and the reference to God is in the third person. The text of the third commandment says: “You shall not pronounce the Name of God in vain” and it does not say “You shall not pronounce My name in vain”.2. According to this Talmudic text, the first commandment must clearly be considered as a precept, one of the 613 Biblical laws, and not as an introduction or preamble. In his famous book Sefer haMitsvot, the book that presents the 613 precepts of the Tora, Maimonides mentions the first commandment as the very First Law (Mitsva) of the Tora.Following now with Maimonides opinion our next question will be: What is the specific order that this commandment is expressing when it says “I am HaShem your God”?
THE EVOLUTION OF FAITH (emuna)
Traditionally it is assumed that the first commandment, when seen as a precept, expresses our duty to “believe in the existence” of God. Not everyone agrees. Belief in the existence of God must be seen, rather, as the implicit foundational hypothesis of the Ten Commandments, especially in their original historical context. When revealing the 10 Commandments God is speaking to the people of Israel, in the first person! Should it be necessary, then, that while God is speaking to His people, He would be ordering them to believe in His existence?
There is something more.The most specific biblical reference about the beginning of the faith of the Jewish people is found in the text that relates the crossing of the Red Sea. Before God revealed the 10 Commandments.“And God saved Israel in that day from the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. And [when the people of] Israel perceived the great power that God had done against the Egyptians, the people feared God, and [then the people] believed in God and in Moses His servant “EXODUS 14: 30-31.
When the Children of Israel crossed the sea and saw that God closed the sea on top of the Egyptian army, the Tora states for the first time that the children of Israel believed in God (and in Moshe). Seeing the lifeless bodies of their powerful oppressors on the seashore, the people were able to free themselves from the psychological intimidation exercised by those who until then had the power to decide, as if they were gods, who lives and who dies. The Jews had the possibility of fearing God and believing in Him once they understood that the Egyptians were mere mortals.
All this confirms that the “belief” in God was already part of the mental patrimony of the Jews before receiving the Commandments.
And if this is so, what is the first commandment teaching us then?
To be continued
