Kaisipang Hudyo sa Job 7:17: Derashot HaRan & Sefer HaIkkarim

I should like to add something, however, along the lines I have mentioned, and that is that the first mitzvah, "I am the L-rd your G-d" is not to believe that there is a First Cause from whom all things derive, as the Rambam would have it. This is not at all connoted by the language (though the idea is implicit in it). The essence of the mitzvah, rather, as I understand it, is to believe in "Torah from Heaven" in general, that the words and exhortation of the Blessed One reach us. It is therefore stated "I am the L-rd your G-d," this exalted Name, the Tetragrammaton, designating the First Necessary Cause, and serving here not as the object of a command to believe but as the subject of a self-evident belief concerning which they entertained no doubt whatsoever — the existence of a necessary cause. What was being originated now and commanded as an article of belief was (as embodied in the statement): "I am that Necessary Cause, your Leader (this being the signification of Elokecha ["your G-d"], continuing "who took you out" — as one says to his friend: "Don't you recognize me? I am the one who did this and this for you"), stating along these lines "who took you out of the land of Egypt." The essence of this mitzvah, then, is to believe that from Him whom we already know to be the Necessary First Cause (knowing this as an indisputable dictate of the reason implanted in man) — from Him there reach us mitzvoth and exhortations — as opposed to that perverse view which would reason and believe this to constitute the ascription of failing and defect to the Blessed One. This is the first mitzvah — in essence, to believe that the Blessed One governs and exhorts us. The second mitzvah is "You shall not have any other gods before Me." That is, "Serve no other god in the world but Me. Serve Me alone, for I govern you." Now these two mitzvoth are not dictated by reason. Reason, to the contrary, would cause us to err and reach the opposite conclusion (if Torah had not enlightened us otherwise), that the L-rd is exalted above all our acts and affairs, and far be it from Him to give thought to commanding us and exhorting us — as per the philosophers' belief, a belief upon which they built their entire perverse edifice (may it speedily fall apart and be uprooted!). And even the prophets, though they knew the truth of the matter for what it was, wondered at it, saying (Psalms 8:5): "What is man that You are mindful of him…," and, similarly (Job 7:17-18): "What is man that You magnify him and that You set Your heart upon him? That You remember him every morning and try him every moment?" This being so, if the Torah had not enlightened us, our reason would cause us to think and to believe that the Blessed One was too exalted for His mitzvoth and exhortations to reach us and that it was inappropriate to serve Him at all, such service showing us to believe that He is affected by our deeds and that He is in some way dependent upon and bound to us, and it would be fitting, rather, for us to serve the stars, with which we did, indeed, have a bond. And we would consider all this to be the absolute truth and deem all those who thought likewise magnifiers and exalters of the Blessed One and all who thought otherwise ascribers of imperfection to Him. This is the intent of the statement of our sages: "We heard 'I am the L-rd your G-d' and 'You shall not have any other gods' from the All-Powerful Himself." This is stated by way of analogy, viz., if a certain man, though one of the chief officers of the king, and one of the most intimate of his entourage, were to command us in aught that might seem to be a detraction from and demeaning of "the crown of his kingdom," it would befit us to place no credence in his command and to respond that we would in no way abide by it unless we heard it from the king himself, face to face and mouth to mouth (though we would believe this officer in respect to everything else that he commanded us in the king's name). So it is with these two mitzvoth.

There is still another sect of men who erroneously incline to idolatrous worship for a deeper reason. They hold with some of the philosophers that “God hath forsaken the land.” Believing in the existence, unity and incorporeality of God, they hold that God has no care of the lower world at all, thinking it a sign of greatness in God that He pays no attention to the human species because man is inferior and despised by Him. They think it a virtue and a sign of nobility in God to refuse attention to that which is inferior, saying that in respect to inferior things ignorance is better than knowledge. Job inclined to this opinion when he said, “What is man that Thou shouldest magnify him, and that Thou shouldest set Thy heart upon him?” Therefore he thought that the lower world is controlled by the spheres. Referring to such persons David said, “Who exalt Thee with wicked thought.” That is to say, they exalt and lift Thee up, but this exaltation is with a wicked thought, in that they say that Thou dost not pay attention to particulars, because they think that it would be a defect in the nature of God if He took account of particulars, since this would necessitate His being favorably disposed at one time and angry at another, and so with other qualities which indicate change in us, and therefore would argue a defect in His nature also if He changed from favor to anger. Their opinion therefore is that the lower world is governed by the spheres and that God has no knowledge of it.