The Zohar’s Resolution of Whether Faith (Emunah) Is a Mitzvah, and Whether the Mitzvah Is Faith or Inquiry | Zohar, First Commandment (Pikuda 1), Chayei Sarah 5787 (Auto Translated)

Zohar Shiur, Erev Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah – The Mitzvah of Faith and Knowledge of God According to the Zohar: A New Name Every Day, and Knowledge in General and in Particular

The First Mitzvah and the Root of All the Mitzvos

This shiur, on Erev Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah, continues with the words of the Zohar on the first mitzvah. This mitzvah, as we have learned, is not only the first in the count of the mitzvos but also the root of all the mitzvos, and therefore one can never speak about it enough. For there is here a special positive commandment of faith in the existence of God, or of knowing it (as we explained in the previous shiur, that the Rambam and the Zohar introduced the idea that there is a special mitzvah in this, and this is not the place to elaborate).

Admittedly this is a novel idea, but our Sages already said something clear and agreed upon, which they count as an additional mitzvah: that one must mention the unity of God every day and speak of it, as the verse says: “And you shall speak of them when you sit in your house” (*ve-dibarta bam be-shivtecha be-veitecha*, Deuteronomy 6:7). From “and you shall speak of them” the Sages derived the obligation of reciting the Shema (Berachos 13b), but the plain meaning of the verse is that one must speak of them, and we fulfill this speaking through the daily recitation of the verses of unity in the Shema. Now, there is a dispute in the Gemara (Berachos 21a), and the Rishonim and Acharonim disagree about this, whether this mitzvah is of Torah origin (*de-oraisa*) or rabbinic (*de-rabbanan*). In any case, it is certain that long before the Rambam came and said that faith in the existence of God is a mitzvah, it was already a mitzvah, and one could call it a daily ritual: to mention and speak about the existence of God and His unity, morning and evening.

Therefore, even if one sometimes grows tired, one must learn it again and again. We have already spoken a great deal in our lifetimes about the mitzvah of the existence of God, and about all the discussions surrounding it — whether it is a mitzvah or not, and so on — and still it is not enough, for this is the mitzvah itself. For there is a real mitzvah to remember, to mention, and to speak about this every day, and therefore we will continue with this subject. Whoever finds the connection to Parshas Chayei Sarah may point it out, since I do not have a special dvar Torah on the parsha right now; rather, I am continuing with what we have been learning. And since in these days Shabbos comes in very early, during the winter weeks we will try to shorten the shiur by ten or fifteen minutes, because although it is fitting that it be on Friday, there is not that much time on Friday.

“And You Shall Speak of Them” – Speaking of God’s Unity in One’s Own Language

Let us return and continue; we will look into the Zohar and see where we stand. I will repeat the main points of what we said last week, for one must always return, reflect on things, and formulate them anew. “And you shall speak of them” — whoever has the strength and the feeling to formulate things anew and say them in our own language, his mitzvah is to say them at every moment, truly. Indeed, we say “Shema Yisrael,” the verses that Moshe Rabbeinu already said, but the essence of the mitzvah, according to the plain meaning of the verse, is “and you shall speak of them” — that one should speak of them. And to speak of them means to speak about them in your own language.

Indeed, the Shema may be recited in any language (Berachos 13a), and that is the halacha. Admittedly, the Rishonim explained that “in any language” means one must translate word for word, and there is a discussion of this in the Raavad and, much more so, in the Acharonim after him, that each thing must be translated precisely. But it is not clear to me that this is the meaning. It seems to me now that one can interpret “in any language” to mean that one must speak of God’s unity in one’s own language. One must express the concept of unity — and even the words themselves, “unity,” “existence,” all the words the Sages, the Rishonim, and the Gemara coined — for example, “the Kingdom of Heaven” (*malchus shamayim*), which is what the Sages call it, even though in the Torah there is almost no “kingdom of God” — each one found his own word for how to express the thing called the existence of God.

A New Name and a New Understanding Every Day

Therefore, the mitzvah is constant: to find every day a new word with which to speak. The Baal HaTurim (Numbers 11:16) states that the Holy One, blessed be He, has seventy names, and there is also a Muslim tradition that He has a hundred names. But certainly the Holy One, blessed be He, has infinite names, for “Everyone that is called by My name, for My glory I have created him” (Isaiah 43:7) — the entire world is names of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the entire Torah is names of the Holy One, blessed be He, as the Ramban says (Introduction to his Commentary on the Torah). It follows that the Holy One, blessed be He, has thousands and tens of thousands of names.

Every day that one mentions God’s name in a different way and in a different language, one must call the Holy One, blessed be He, by a name, as the verse says: “And you shall be called by a new name” (Isaiah 62:2). Regarding Jerusalem it says that she will be called by a new name, “She shall be called: The Lord is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:16), and so too we must give the Holy One, blessed be He, a new name. And there are teachings from the Arizal, in the order of the ascents of the holy Shabbos, in which the Arizal introduced many new names for the Holy One, blessed be He — though apparently built on earlier names, combinations (*tzerufim*) and expansions (*miluyim*) — and we must grasp the idea (as we discussed last year during Chanukah, when we studied the matters of *Shiur Komah*, and this is not the place to elaborate).

Indeed, one must give a new name. But by a new name I do not mean merely a new word. There, we spoke about giving truly new combinations of letters, which was the way of many Kabbalists. But my intention here is a new understanding, a new grasp, a new concept: What does “God” mean? What does it mean at all when we say the unity of God? For we believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, as He is in Himself, is exalted above all these conceptions. Even when we say that He is King, or that He is One — as the Zohar says, “You are One, but not in number” (*ant hu chad ve-lo be-chushban*, Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction 17a), which has a precise philosophical meaning — nevertheless, what we call “One” is also only, so to speak, the first garment, the first revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, that is called One, while the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is not even called “One.” At any rate, there are Kabbalists who say so.

And as is well known, the Vilna Gaon says that even the attribute “existent” — “existent” refers to *Keser* (Crown), for in *Keser* the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself as existent. But above that, when one says “Necessary Existence” (*mechuyav ha-metziyus*), in the language of the Rambam (Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, ch. 1), above that He is not even “existent.” That is to say, the concept “existent” that we have — and this is not a human concept but a divine concept, for all concepts are truly divine; man did not make them, rather the Holy One, blessed be He, makes the concepts, and the Holy One, blessed be He, created the concept — but the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is “not any of these attributes at all” (Tikkunei Zohar, ibid.): not existent, not singular, not King, and none of the rest.

Consequently, if one understands this, one also understands that there is an obligation and a mitzvah in every generation, every single day and every single hour, to give the Holy One, blessed be He, new names. And I say this with great depth and in complete seriousness.

The Secret of the Generation of Enosh: When the Name Becomes Profane

The Contradiction Between Peshat and Derash in “Then It Was Begun to Call in the Name of God”

For it is written regarding the generation of Enosh: “Then it was begun to call in the name of God” (*az huchal likro be-shem Hashem*, Genesis 4:26). In this verse there is a *peshat* (plain meaning) and a *derash* (homiletic interpretation) that seemingly contradict each other — a genuine head-on contradiction, one against the other. The simple *peshat* is that at that time they began to call in the name of God, as the commentators say, that they began to pray, to offer sacrifices, and all forms of divine service. For “to call in the name of God” is the language of the verse “And Avram called there in the name of God” (Genesis 13:4) — to call by the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, or by the Name *Havayah* (the Tetragrammaton), and that is the simple meaning.

And most of the commentators come, and the Midrash comes (Bereishis Rabbah 23:7), cited by Rashi: “*huchal*” — from the word *chullin*, profane; the name of God became profane, for at that time idolatry began. And as the Rambam elaborates (Laws of Idolatry 1:1), in the generation of Enosh the matter of idolatry began based on various lines of reasoning — “*huchal*” from the word *chullin* — and then the desecration of God’s name began.

What is the connection between the *derash* and the *peshat*? It is a wondrous thing. I am not saying this is the first *derash* that runs opposite to the *peshat*, but there is a principle that I repeat many times, and incidentally it is an accepted principle. For example, the *Divrei Yoel* in his homilies on the Torah repeats this principle many times, and one of his many questions on the Chumash is that there is a *derash* that does not fit with the *peshat*, for we hold as a rule that the *derash* must connect to the *peshat*, and on that basis he says his teaching. So this is not an innovation of those Jews of our time who engage in the plain meaning of Scripture; rather, it is accepted in the books of homiletics and in the works of the biblical commentators that the *derash* cannot be disconnected from the *peshat*.

And the explanation is simple: the moment one gives the Holy One, blessed be He, a name — “*huchal*.” For the name and its holiness, as the Tikkunei Zohar says, which we recite in *Pasach Eliyahu*: “And when You withdraw from them” — if You remove the Infinite (*Ein Sof*) from them — “all the names remain like bodies without souls” (Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction 17a). The names of God are only bodies, so to speak. Of course, relative to us the name is a great light, but relative to the light itself, relative to what is meant by God’s very essence, the name is only a body, only a garment and a vessel through which one grasps.

And the nature of vessels — as the Arizal calls it, the shattering of the vessels (*sheviras ha-keilim*) — is that the names fall: the sparks and the fragments of the names. The moment there is a name there is a word, and the moment there is a word, one can forget. That is the meaning of the generation of Enosh: because they gave the Holy One, blessed be He, a word. Before that — I do not know what Adam did, but the idea here is — before that, when people do not say words, when they restrain themselves, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exodus 20:7), they do not give the Holy One, blessed be He, a name, but only “To You, silence is praise” (Psalms 65:2); one does not say a word, one stands in awe before the Most High and says nothing — then there is no such concern. There are other concerns: that people will forget. And consequently, since people forget, one must say a word.

“My Name” Versus “A Name” – Between a Living Name and an Idol

The moment one says a word, the word can become profane, as it says, “Robbers came and profaned it” (Avodah Zarah 54b). If there is a Temple, the Temple can become profane; if there is a word, the word can become profane. And profane does not necessarily mean something ordinary; rather, this is precisely the sin of the generation of Enosh: one can actually confuse things, saying that the word has independent power. And this is the root of idolatry — believing that the concepts, and even the names, are *it*.

And as the Rambam elaborates (Guide for the Perplexed I:61–62; Laws of Idolatry 11:12), one must not believe that names have power. And here the Kabbalists seemingly disagree with him, but afterward the Kabbalists say that on this point the Rambam was right. The Rambam’s intent is regarding one who thinks that in amulets, when one writes a name, the name has power. What does that mean? The Holy One, blessed be He, has power; names have no power! The Holy One, blessed be He, has power. Certainly the Holy One, blessed be He, through His names has power, and perhaps on this there is some kind of dispute between the Rambam and the Kabbalists, and perhaps not. But this is certainly the truth: one may not think that a mezuzah or a name has power. A name has no power whatsoever; a name without the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is nothing.

It must be “*Shemi*,” *My* name — not “*shem*,” a name. “*Shem*” alone, without “*Shemi*,” without the *yud*, so to speak, is “And let us make for ourselves a name” (Genesis 11:4) — that is separation, and that is its meaning. This is how the Zohar (Zohar I:75b) explained the sin of the Generation of the Dispersion, and this is what I say about the generation of Enosh and all the root sins in the Book of Genesis: that they took the name, as it were “a name without a *yud*,” so that there would be a name without “*Shemi*.”

Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moshe Rabbeinu: “This is My name forever, and this is My remembrance for every generation” (*zeh shemi le-olam ve-zeh zichri le-dor dor*, Exodus 3:15) — to mention Him in each generation in a different way, as the Gemara expounded (Pesachim 50a). And seemingly there is a contradiction here: if it says “My remembrance for every generation,” doesn’t that mean forever? Rather, the Gemara says that “My name” is different from “My remembrance”: “Not as I am written am I pronounced” (Pesachim, ibid.).

And the explanation, according to the principle we stated, is that since one understands that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not *this* — if a person thinks, God forbid, that the Holy One, blessed be He, *is* the name, then it is better that he remain with the old names. But if one holds, and each person believes and understands — not only believes but also understands — that the existence of God itself is not one of the names and not one of the concepts, then consequently, if one insists on the old concepts, slowly they become stale, they become simply old, and one repeats what one thought yesterday. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4); “Twice daily, with love, they say Shema” (Shabbos Mussaf prayer) — this means that every day one says a new “Shema,” that is, that today one contemplated, today one saw something of the existence of God, in whatever way one sees it today.

If one repeats yesterday’s, one is worshiping yesterday. Yesterday is an idol; yesterday no longer exists, it has passed and is gone. Yesterday as God is an idol, and yesterday no longer exists. The name that was said yesterday has no power.

Of course, one can say the same words with new intention, with renewal and with new light. That is the service, as they say that one must pray every day; to pray every day according to Kabbalah and according to the *kavanos* (mystical intentions) means to make new names every day. And besides the fact that there is an inner dimension to this, it seems to me that it is also simple: all words grow old, all words begin to carry all kinds of connotations and associations that people have, and people carry wounds and difficult experiences with them. He says “God” and means something specific, and no one knows what he means.

Silence Before the Holy One, Blessed Be He: Wonder and “Whoever Adds, Detracts”

Looking at the Work of Creation Without Adding Superfluous Words

One must always give new names, and sometimes even when there is no name at all — that is good. It seems to me that this is the best, for this entire birth of new names begins from wonder, from amazement: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalms 139:6). We do not know; one rises in the morning and does not know. And one must say this explicitly, because we have grown very accustomed. For example, a Jew rises in the morning, looks at the world, and says, “Blessed is He who makes the work of creation” (*baruch oseh ma’aseh bereishis*, Berachos 54a). Why did he say so much? He has already said too much — he said “who makes the work of creation.” Can he not see the work of creation itself? Must he add words to it? Does he need words in the Holy Tongue and in Aramaic, in a language one does not understand and does not speak — I mean for someone who does not speak it?

Sometimes “whoever adds, detracts” (Sanhedrin 29a). One must be very careful about this, and I cannot state a practical halachic ruling, but there is a great deal of “whoever adds, detracts” in excessive speaking of God’s name, in excessive speaking “of a name,” as in “and let us make for ourselves a name.” With Yosef, the name of Heaven was fluent on his lips (Bereishis Rabbah 86:6), but one can also overdo it. Not everyone who constantly says “Baruch Hashem” and “im yirtzeh Hashem” and the like has a greater grasp of Godliness. There is one who does not say all these things because he knows that he stands in awe before the Most High God. He knows that what we call by the word “God” is not the word “God.” And who gives a person permission? Who allows a person to go and grab God with his coarse fingers? It is not so. We need a little reverence, a little awe of His exaltedness.

He tells you nothing; rather, he looks at the world, looks at reality, and says: this is it, this is reality. I told you that the world is Godliness, and you think… People think that if he says this, or does not say it, he is a heretic, an *apikores*. You said that… I said nothing! I said that the life-force — the *Me’or Einayim* learned from the Baal Shem Tov that a person should look at the life-force (*chayus*) in every thing and say that this is Godliness. And he thinks he must say “*chayus*.” Not so, for the word “*chayus*” is only… The Chassidim adopted a new word, “*chayus*.” Where is the word “*chayus*” written? True, in the Rambam and earlier authorities it is written that the Holy One, blessed be He, gives life, but they adopted the new word, and it merely emerges and is revealed. The life-force is something that *is* something, not something that one *says*.

“The Lord Is God” – Reality Itself Without Partitions

Let us return to what we began with. We said that one must speak every day about the mitzvah of the existence of God. I do not know what to call it, and to constantly say “in the name of God” — many times this stems from falsehood, as if whoever does not say so, it is heresy. Does that make the one who says it a greater believer? I do not understand. You understand that the existence of God is the fundamental reality — and if you want the word “reality,” the fundamental reality of everything — that is what we call God. That is what we mean by all the names and appellations: the life-force, the thing that brings into being, the thing behind everything. But even the word “behind” — you have already added! You have already said two things here: there is what is behind, and there is the thing itself. The very essence of all things is God. I do not want to say words; people say the word “Elokus” (Godliness), and no one knows what it means, except that they learned from Lubavitch to say this word.

And many times, when one adds, one detracts. And perhaps one should be a little silent, and say “Shema Yisrael.” Indeed, one says the verse written in the Torah, as explained in the Gemara (Berachos 33b), and the Rambam elaborates on this in the Guide (I:59) when he speaks about the negation of attributes: Rabbi Chanina said, had Moshe not written them in the Torah and had the Men of the Great Assembly not come and established them in prayer, we could not say them. What does this mean? One could elaborate on what his intent could be, but his intent for our purposes is that when we say “the great, mighty, and awesome God” (Deuteronomy 10:17), it is not because we came up with it, but simply because that is what is written in the siddur. What is written in the siddur one cannot argue with, and it does not mean that I am saying I have something good to add. I am saying the siddur; I am simply repeating what is written in the Chumash. But into this one must bring new life, something new.

This is the first homily I wanted to say, and I do not want to dress it up; I do not want to say that one can explain a certain verse with it as such-and-such a Chassidic book brings. Certainly all the books of Chassidus say this, and certainly it is written in the Zohar a thousand times, and it is written in all the *kavanos* of the Arizal, and everything is built on this — but one must remember it. And one cannot always say it this way — a person says: the books of Chassidus say that one looks at the world and sees Godliness. I do not know; too much has already been said. Reality is reality. As it says, “The Lord is God” (*Hashem hu ha-Elokim*, Deuteronomy 4:35) — reality is reality, and that is the meaning of “The Lord is God.” “I will be what I will be” (*Ehyeh asher Ehyeh*, Exodus 3:14) — what He is, is what He is. That is the meaning of “God.”

And if you want to add to it — “then it was begun to call in the name of God.” There is nothing wrong with that; just know that tomorrow it will grow old, and tomorrow you will have to start anew. One must “call in the name of God”; there is a mitzvah to call in the name of God, for otherwise it is not revealed and one cannot speak about it, as we speak about it many times. But you must always start anew. That is the mitzvah of unity, the mitzvah of “Shema Yisrael.”

The Intention of the Shema: Elevation to the Essence Above All Unifications

The mitzvah of unity is very important, and I have already said this (in the shiur dealing with the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, and this is not the place to elaborate), and I repeat it because this is the intention of the Shema: every day one must have a new intention in the Shema. The Ramak (Rabbi Moshe Cordovero) says that in the Shema one should not intend the unifications (*yichudim*) of *Chochmah* and *Binah*, *Tiferes* and *Malchus*; all these unifications are not intended in the Shema; rather, one intends the unity that is above this, which does not change.

And seemingly this is difficult, for in the siddur of the Rashash and in the *kavanos* of the Arizal it is written that one intends unifications. But the meaning — now I grasp it — is not that. The meaning is that from what one understands, as the Rambam says that the Holy One, blessed be He, “from the truth of His existence all existing things exist” (Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, ch. 1) — from what He is, which is not unifications (for unifications mean creation; they already contain a certain chain of descent (*hishtalshelus*), all things are already coming into being, names are already coming into being) — from what He is, He received His name. This is how one should understand the words of the Arizal that in the Shema one must make a unification: his intent is not primarily to make a unification, but primarily to elevate the entire unification to the essence, to the very essence of the *Ein Sof*, and from this new unifications are born. Certainly! And the main thing, as anyone who studies the writings of the Arizal knows, the main drawing-down of the *mochin* (mental states/intellects) occurs in the Shemoneh Esrei, not in the Shema; in the Shema there is only a preparation of *Imma* (the supernal Mother). But the main point of the Shema is elevation, and this is always taught in the books of Chabad as well. That is the intention of the Shema.

The Relationship Between the Mitzvah of Faith and All 613 Mitzvos

Faith as the Head and Heart of the 248 Limbs of the King

Let us now return to what I wanted to say regarding the mitzvah of the unity of God — and not the unity of God, for we are not yet even at unity — but rather the mitzvah of the existence of God, the knowledge of God. The Zohar says: “The first commandment, the beginning of all commandments, is to know the Holy One, blessed be He, in general” (*pikuda kadmaa, reishisa de-chol pikudin, le-minda leih le-Kudsha Brich Hu bi-chlala*, Zohar, Introduction 11b). I will repeat what we said last week (as we explained in the previous shiur), and we will understand it a bit better. It seems to me that this will be enough for today, and I hope it will be enough, and it must be enough, for it cannot be otherwise. “The Lord is One” — that suffices: “Once you have made Him King above and below and in the four directions of the heavens, you need no more” (Berachos 13b), and this “enough” (*dai*) is the meaning of the *dalet* of *echad*. That is enough, and there is no need to add.

We stated a great novel idea to resolve the question of Rabbi Chasdai [Crescas] (Or Hashem, Treatise 1, Principle 1), and perhaps also the question of the Ramban on the Rambam (Glosses on Sefer HaMitzvos, Mitzvah 1). And I must say that Reb Mottel always teaches — perhaps not in this formulation, I do not know — but the idea that the mitzvah of faith is indeed a different kind of mitzvah, I learned from him. But what we say, we say in the way of the Zohar and in the language of the Zohar, and we are permitted to speak in the language of the Zohar.

And the language of the Zohar works out as follows: the 613 mitzvos, 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments, are the limbs of the Shechinah, the limbs of *Zeir Anpin* and *Nukva*, the limbs of *Tiferes* and *Malchus* (Tikkunei Zohar, Tikkun 30). The 248 positive commandments are the 248 limbs. Whose limbs? “The 248 limbs of the King” (Zohar I:170a), the 248 limbs of the King Himself, the 248 limbs of what is called *Zeir Anpin*. And the 365 days are the Shechinah, or the 365 are above this — we will yet get to this and learn it, and we will understand that there is a certain perplexity in explaining the 365. In any case, the 248 are the main limbs, and the main study is in the positive commandments: the limbs of the Shechinah are the 248 positive commandments, or the limbs of the King are the 248 positive commandments.

And now, if we say that the first mitzvah is faith, one can ask: it has already been said, “All Your commandments are faith” (Psalms 119:86) — all the mitzvos are faith, all the mitzvos are limbs of the King, all the mitzvos are names of God. What then is the difference between the mitzvah of faith and all the mitzvos? It turns out there is no difference. The difference is only that the mitzvah of faith is “the beginning of all commandments,” the essence of all the mitzvos. Not because from our side, as human beings, we must first know that there is a God and so on, but rather just as among the 248 limbs there are limbs on which the soul depends and limbs on which the soul does not depend (Temurah 10b). The soul itself is not one of the limbs, but among the limbs themselves there is, for example, the brain or the heart, what are called the principal organs, on which everything depends. And indeed they too depend on the soul, and precisely here one must examine whether there is perhaps an aspect of the mitzvah of faith that is above the mitzvah — but the mitzvah of faith is the life-force of all the limbs, and we will call it the first limb. By first I do not mean first in time, but the most important, the root limb, like the head or the heart — as each person will learn it — the head or the heart of all the mitzvos, and that is the mitzvah of faith. That is the explanation according to the Zohar: a limb of whom? Of the revelation of God, of the King, of *Zeir Anpin*, of *Zeir Anpin* and *Nukva*.

The Root That Orders and Gives Meaning to All 248 Mitzvos

If so, we begin to understand that the Zohar introduces a great novel idea here, and it seems to me that the Zohar is working here to integrate all the views and all the sides. When one says there is a dispute — the Rambam, the Ramban, so-and-so — one always thinks: well, it is a dispute, and one can learn it this way or that way. But the Zohar, as is always its way, shows that each of the holders of the views grasped a particular point because of which one must learn differently. Some learned it this way and some learned it that way, and that is the first dispute: whether faith is counted among the mitzvos.

And there is another dispute, very important, which one must listen to carefully, and it seems to me that the Zohar is speaking about it here. But the first question is the connection and relationship of faith to all the mitzvos. And the answer in the Zohar is that faith is not another mitzvah preceding all the mitzvos, since all the mitzvos are the existence of God; rather, faith is the root of the existence of God that is in the mitzvos. Or one can say: the first vessel, the first place in which the limbs receive the existence of God, the place in which the existence of God — which is, so to speak, the body of the King — comes into being. That is the meaning of the mitzvah of faith.

And what does this mean? That it gives meaning to all the mitzvos, that is, it is the organizer, the order of all the mitzvos. And this is also the intention of the daily Shema: a person must do many things every day, and as is known, the Shema contains 248 words (Tanchuma, Kedoshim 6), to show that all the words are one. That is the intention: everything is “when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way” (Deuteronomy 6:7) — one extends the oneness of God over all modes. This is what we learn in the first paragraph from “when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way”; the second paragraph deals with reward and punishment, with the Land of Israel and the whole matter; and the paragraph of tzitzis reaches all the mitzvos, “And you shall see it and remember all the commandments of God” (Numbers 15:39), as the verse explicitly states.

The intention of the Shema, then, is: I have so many things to do, but in truth I have only one thing to do. There is only one thing, and there is only one thing. That is “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”

Faith and Inquiry: Knowledge in General and Knowledge in Particular

The Dispute of the Rishonim Between Simple Faith and Knowledge

And just as there is this perplexity, so too there is a great perplexity and a great dispute known as a dispute among the Rishonim. But one must understand that there is no wisdom in saying “a dispute among the Rishonim”; there is a real problem here. The dispute is only that each one, so to speak, leans more toward one side of reality, but there are two realities here. It is a kind of dispute between faith (*emunah*) and knowledge (*yediah*). As is known, there are those who say that one fulfills the mitzvah of faith by believing, and we will call this simple faith (*emunah peshutah*): this is what is written in the Torah, and that is enough for you.

And there are others who say not so, but rather knowledge — and as is known the Rambam elaborates on this (Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 1:1; Guide for the Perplexed I:50) — knowledge is most important. For if one merely says it, what point is there in saying it? One must know, contemplate that it is so, be convinced that it is so, and so on. That is the subject of the dispute called the one between faith and knowledge.

And now, the Zohar says: both. And it seems to me that it is entirely correct. It is clear that one needs both. First, if the way one ordinarily learns does not exist, if one does not teach children faith, nothing will ever begin; for if we go to teach every boy the entire existence of God and all the forces, that is not feasible.

Second, when one says “knowledge,” what truly is the real meaning of knowledge? Knowledge does not mean only that I have a proof that there is a God. That is simple, and it seems to me that even according to the Rambam and all who favor inquiry, the intent is not only a proof — that too, but the main goal is a clear grasp and clear knowledge of all of reality. That is, you do not only know that there is a God, that there must be a God, but you also know — as we said that the mitzvah of the Shema is to know — how God does everything, how He orders your 248 limbs; everything you must do this day is because of “the Lord is One.” Everything is organized and ordered by the oneness of God.

So knowledge means knowing the entire world, knowing the Work of Creation (*Ma’aseh Bereishis*) and the Work of the Chariot (*Ma’aseh Merkavah*) (Rambam, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, chs. 1–4) — everything. Everything there is to know must be known in the aspect of knowledge. That is the meaning of knowledge.

It follows that knowledge is a very long process, something that takes forty years at the very least (Avodah Zarah 5b), and even an entire lifetime, to perhaps begin to know something, to know all the works of God — for one speaks of God together with His works, and everything must be known. So knowledge by its very definition is something long, and by its very definition it is more connected, one might say, to the 248 limbs.

The Zohar’s Definition: General Knowledge at the Exodus and Particular Knowledge After Forty Years

And there emerges from this something very interesting regarding the mitzvah of faith, in its relationship to the two levels of faith. The Zohar calls it this way — I can tell you in other words: instead of saying “faith and inquiry,” I will give you another explanation: general knowledge and particular knowledge (Zohar, Introduction 11b–12a). (And we have already spoken several times in this shiur that this is a good definition of faith and inquiry.)

Simple faith is general knowledge: I know that there is; I know, as the Zohar says, that there is a God who created the entire world, who rules over the entire world, who created man and placed a soul within him (Zohar, ibid.). This is knowledge in general terms, knowledge in a general way, which every Jew knows, which he is told.

Afterward there is particular knowledge. Particular knowledge means: What does “God” mean? How did the Holy One, blessed be He, create? What does it mean that He created man? What does it mean that He rules over the world? How does He rule? What kind of rule is this? And so on and so forth — all of this is particular knowledge.

The Zohar says that in the knowledge of God there are two mitzvos (Zohar, ibid.), and one must understand technically whether it means to say that there are two mitzvos — a mitzvah of general knowledge and a mitzvah of particular knowledge — or that it is one mitzvah, and these are levels of the same mitzvah. But this is the Zohar’s definition: knowledge in general and knowledge in particular. First one must know in general terms, and afterward one knows in particular detail.

And on this the Zohar expounds (Zohar, ibid. 12a) that this is the difference between the verses we have already discussed in the portions of the Book of Deuteronomy: at the Exodus from Egypt, Moshe said, “And you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out” (Exodus 6:7), and this is knowledge in general. Afterward he said, “Know therefore this day and take it to your heart that the Lord is God” (*ve-yadata ha-yom va-hashevosa el levavecha ki Hashem hu ha-Elokim*, Deuteronomy 4:39), and this he said after forty years. This is knowledge in particular, an entirely different level of knowledge.

Fulfilling the Mitzvos as the Explanation and Revelation of Particular Knowledge

Now one grasps that this is connected in a wondrous way, for it is almost the same thing as the relationship between the mitzvah of the existence of God and all the mitzvos. Just as the relationship between knowledge and faith begins with general knowledge — for one cannot know that there is a mitzvah before knowing in a general way that there is a God; the father at least said it, and you know how to say in a general way — and I am not speaking only of this source — you know how to say in a general way that there is a God, but you do not know how to say anything about Him. That is general knowledge, and it comes first; in time it is certainly first, in time it precedes.

And afterward, as we said, there are another 248 mitzvos, or 247, that is, two hundred forty-seven other mitzvos, and they are the particular limbs of the King, all the other limbs that flow from this mitzvah. And not only do they flow from the fact that there is a God, but they are the very enclothement and revelation of the existence of God in all the particulars, so that it will take hold of all of life and be expressed in every possible way, in the form of a human being, which is the revelation in the world, to express the existence of God.

It follows that after one fulfills all the mitzvos, there is particular knowledge of God. There is not only the general knowledge, which is like the first limb, but there are all the limbs. And then one also understands “that the Lord is God” — that the general is the particular! There is no difference; what you knew is itself the true thing. For example, as we say, someone who learned in cheder that there is a God, and afterward learned all the details of what it means, ultimately comes out and says: this is what they taught me in cheder; this is not a different God! There are not two Gods, a God of inquiry and a God of faith. There are not two Gods, of the particular and of the general. He is One! But what he has attained is that he knows how to speak about Him, knows how to say all the details.

So particular knowledge is itself all the mitzvos; all the mitzvos are an explanation of the mitzvah of faith, that is, they express the detailed particulars of the mitzvah of faith. One can put it this way, and so the Zohar will say: whoever knows only that there is a God fulfills it in a general way. And perhaps there is even a further novel idea here: that one of the ways, at the very least, to attain particular knowledge is through fulfilling the mitzvos. That the mitzvos have such a special quality (*segulah*) — either that in each mitzvah lies hidden a secret from which one can learn a detail of the reality of the worlds, or that it is actually a special quality of drawing down light in a particular way — another way of understanding the mitzvos. As the Zohar says, a mitzvah makes an impression above, that is, it draws down the particular light, and this is what the mitzvos do, and this is the fulfillment of the particulars of faith. For this one must do all the mitzvos, one must live an entire life, do all 248 mitzvos as much as possible — and one must speak separately about how it is possible to do all the mitzvos. In any case, all the mitzvos a person has in his life, the inwardness we spoke about, is the particular knowledge of the positive commandments.

Summary and Connection to Parshas Chayei Sarah: “And God Blessed Avraham with Everything”

And from the plain meaning of the Zohar emerge the two novel ideas I said today. The first novel idea: that every day one must introduce a new interpretation. And our new interpretation now is that the mitzvah of God’s oneness is like the Crown (*Keser*), like the thing that organizes all 248 mitzvos. Consequently, both the perplexity and dispute over whether faith is a mitzvah or not is resolved, and the dispute over whether faith means knowledge, and whether general knowledge or particular knowledge, is also resolved: the intent is both, like the head together with all the limbs. After all the limbs it means the particular; before that it is only the general.

And let us explain the verse a little: “And Avraham was old, advanced in days, and God blessed Avraham with everything” (*ve-Avraham zaken ba ba-yamim va-Hashem berach es Avraham ba-kol*, Genesis 24:1). “And Avraham was old” — he grew old, and learned anew every day; “advanced in days” (literally, “came in days”) — every day he said “Shema Yisrael” anew with a new interpretation. And in the end, “God blessed Avraham with everything,” meaning that in the end he knew, so to speak, “Know therefore this day and take it to your heart that the Lord is God” — that God, everything, all the conceptions, became one “everything,” the One. That is the meaning of “Avraham had a daughter, and *Bakol* was her name” (Bava Basra 16b) — the attribute of *Malchus*, “the Lord is God”: the general emerged, and said that everything was the very same God, as was understood in all the other ways. That is our interpretation.

Shabbat Shalom!