신명기 10:20의 인용 해설

כי קדוש אני ה' אלוקיכם, “for I, the Lord your G’d am holy.” Naturally, G’d did not expect that we, the creatures, become like He, the Creator. But, He hopes and expects that we will try and emulate as many of His characteristics as it is possible for us to emulate, seeing we are only creatures. By doing this we can achieve דבקות, a measure of close attachment to the Divine, something the Torah encouraged us to do on several occasions (compare Deut. 10,20; 11,22; 30,20) In a way, this was the message of G’d revealing Himself to us in the first of the Ten Commandments.

A reward (pras) is what one calls a benefit that is granted to a person by someone who does not gain from him, but [rather] does it by way of kindness and grace. [It is] like when a man tells his servant or his young son or his wife, "Do such and such and I will give you a dinar or two." That is the difference between a reward and a wage (sachar), since a wage is that which is given by [way of an] obligation. And this pious one said that you should not serve God, may He be blessed, in order that He will do good to you and benefit you with kindness and that you should hope for the benefit and serve Him for its sake. Indeed, serve Him like servants that are not hoping for endowment or the giving of kindness. He meant with this that they should serve Him from love, as we said in Chapter Ten of Sanhedrin. And nonetheless, he did not exempt us from fear [of God]. And [so] he said, "Even as you serve from love, do not discard fear completely, 'and may the fear of Heaven be upon you.'" As the commandment of fear has already come in the Torah, and that is its stating (Deuteronomy 6:13), "Fear the Lord, your God." And the sages said (Yerushalmi Berakhot 9:7), "Serve from love, serve from fear," and they said that the one who loves will not forget a thing from that which he was commanded to do, and the one who fears will not do what he was warned from doing - as fear is a great pathway with the negative commandments, and all the more so, with the arational commandments. And this sage had two students - one whose name was Tsadok and one whose name was Beitos. And when they heard him say this statement, they went out from in front of him and one said to his fellow, "Behold, the teacher said explicitly that there is no benefit and punishment for a person and there is no hope at all" - as they did not understand his intention. And one strengthened the hand of his friend and they exited the group and left the Torah. One group connected itself to one and another group to his fellow. And the sages called them Sadducees and Boethusians. But when they could not gather congregations due to that which follows from this belief - as this evil belief disengages the united, all the more so will it not unite the disengaged - they leaned towards belief in the thing which they could not deny among the masses. As if they would put this out of their mouths, [the masses] would have killed them. I mean to say [that this thing is] the words of Torah. And [so] each one said to his party that he believes in the Torah, but disagrees with the transmission [of its oral explanation] - that it is not true. And this was to exempt themselves from the accepted commandments and ordinances and decrees. Since they could not push off everything - the written [Torah] and the received [explanation]. And also [this way], the way of interpretation was broadened for them. Since once the explanation was given to their choice, he was able to be lenient in what he wanted and to be strict in what he wanted. [This is] since he did not believe in the fundamentals at all, yet he sought things that would still be accepted by some people. And these evil groups came out from then. And they are called Karaites in these lands - I mean to say, Egypt. And their names among the sages are Sadducees and Boethusians. And they are the ones that began to question the transmission and to explain all of the verse according to what appears to them without listening to the sage at all, [which is] the opposite of what He, may He be blessed, stated (Deuteronomy 17:11), "You shall act in accordance with the instructions given you and the ruling handed down to you; you must not deviate from the verdict that they announce to you either to the right or to the left."

A Midrashic approach based on Tanchuma Mattot 1. On the words: איש כי ידור נדר לה' the Midrash quotes G’d as saying to the Israelites: ‘be careful before making a vow not to violate it, as if someone violates a vow he will eventually violate his oaths also.’ If that were to happen he is as if he had denied G’d and all aspects of the Jewish religion and there is no forgiveness for this as the Torah has told us in Exodus 20,7 that G’d will not completely exonerate anyone who has used His name in vain. We have another verse on this subject in Jeremiah 4,2: “and swear ‘as the Lord lives;’” G’d said to the people: “do not think that it is permissible to utter such a kind of oath as the prophet quotes.” There is a general prohibition of swearing an oath involving the name of G’d unless the people doing so possess the following characteristics: described in Deut. 10,20 as: “you shall revere the Lord your G’d to serve Him and to cling to Him--and to swear in His name.” Only when you have fulfilled the conditions set out in the first half of this verse are you allowed to swear an oath using the name of the Lord.