Pemikiran Yahudi Ulangan 20:7: Akeidat Yitzchak & Guide for the Perplexed

When perusing our Parshah, we are confronted with a number of difficulties. 1) In order to convince someone to work on perfecting himself, one would expect the demands to be made on such a person to increase gradually, not to shock the student by listing all the demands that are made upon him all at once. That this is sound psychology, is attested to by the Torah itself, where we read (Deuteronomy 30, 11-14)) "for this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far away; it is not in Heaven so that you could say "who shall go up to the Heavens for us and bring it to us? For it is very close at hand, in your mouth and in your heart to perform." On the other hand, what can frighten someone off more than a command such as "be holy for I am holy?" 2) Why do the commandments in our Parshah that parallel the ten commandments appear in a different order? ("Honour your parents," is listed as the first instead of the fifth commandment; "keep the Sabbath," is listed as number two instead of as number four. "Do not worship idols," is listed in third position instead of in second place) 3) After the Torah has completed the list, and concluded by saying "sanctify yourselves," (20,7) why begin once more with such commandments as "not to curse parents, not to commit adultery etc?" 4) Why is the matter of attaining holiness mentioned three times?

My opinion is this: the cause of the error of all these schools is their belief that God’s knowledge is like ours; each school points to something withheld from our knowledge, and either assumes that the same must be the case in God’s knowledge, or at least finds some difficulty how to explain it. We must blame the philosophers in this respect more than any other persons, because they demonstrated that there is no plurality in God, and that He has no attribute that is not identical with His essence; His knowledge and His essence are one and the same thing; they likewise demonstrated, as we have shown, that our intellect and our knowledge are insufficient to comprehend the true idea of His essence. How then can they imagine that they comprehend His knowledge, which is identical with His essence; seeing that our incapacity to comprehend His essence prevents us from understanding the way how He knows objects? for His knowledge is not of the same kind as ours, but totally different from it and admitting of no analogy. And as there is an Essence of independent existence, which is, as the philosophers, call it, the Cause of the existence of all things, or, as we say, the Creator of everything that exists beside Him, so we also assume that this Essence knows everything, that nothing whatever of all that exists is hidden from it, and that the knowledge attributed to this essence has nothing in common with our knowledge, just as that essence is in no way like our essence. The homonymity of the term “knowledge” misled people; [they forgot that] only the words are the same, but the things designated by them are different: and therefore they came to the absurd conclusion that that which is required for our knowledge is also required for God’s knowledge.

Besides, I find it expressed in various passages of Scripture that the fact that God knows things while in a state of possibility, when their existence belongs to the future, does not change the nature of the possible in any way; that nature remains unchanged; and the knowledge of the realization of one of several possibilities does not yet effect that realization. This is likewise one of the fundamental principles of the Law of Moses, concerning which there is no doubt nor any dispute. Otherwise it would not have been said, “And thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof,” etc. (Deut. 22:8), or “Lest he die in the battle, and another man take her” (ibid. 20:7). The fact that laws were given to man, both affirmative and negative, supports the principle, that God’s knowledge of future [and possible] events does not change their character. The great doubt that presents itself to our mind is the result of the insufficiency of our intellect.