“The Eternity of the Almighty, His Incorporeality, and Serving Him Alone”
We continue our way through the thirteen principles of the Rambam. We have already looked at the principle concerning the existence of the Almighty, and last time we spoke about the principle of His Oneness.
There is a well-known saying: “Torah tziva lanu Moshe, morasha kehillat Yaakov” — “Moses commanded us the Torah, the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.” The gematria, the numerical value, of the word “Torah” is six hundred and eleven. This hints that we heard six hundred and eleven commandments through Moses, while two commandments we heard directly from the Almighty at Mount Sinai: “I am the Lord your God” and “You shall have no other gods besides Me.”
What does this tell us beyond the plain meaning? There is a deeper allegory here as well. By his own reason a person can arrive at two things, and he does not necessarily need revelation for them. The first is the existence of the Almighty. It is enough to look at the world and reflect on it. The second is the Oneness of the Almighty. A person can reach this by reason too.
We discussed this last time. If there are boundaries, then there is someone who set those boundaries. The one who imposed the limits must himself stand above them. If there were many gods, or even two deities, each of them would have some boundary. But if there is a boundary, there is someone who established it, and he is already outside that boundary. In this way we arrive logically at the concept of Oneness.
But for everything else revelation is needed. We can conclude that God exists and that God is One, but beyond that, without revelation, we know nothing. What does He want from us? Does He communicate with us? Does He reveal Himself to us? How did He create this world? Perhaps He created it as an experiment, set it spinning like a top and left it to turn on its own? We do not know. To understand the will of the Almighty, revelation is necessary.
Now let us move on to the third principle — the principle of the eternity, or pre-eternity, of the Almighty. In a certain sense all the remaining principles can be derived logically from the first basic ones. If we were to say, as Aristotle held, for example, that there is God and there is eternal matter, a serious problem would arise. Aristotle believed that matter is eternal and that God merely shapes it and sets it in motion, like some kind of mechanic or prime mover.
But from the standpoint of Judaism this is impossible. If matter is eternal, then it exists independently of the Almighty. Then it turns out that there are two first principles: the Almighty and matter. And if there is something eternal apart from Him, the Almighty is already limited by something else. This contradicts the principle of His absolute Oneness and limitlessness.
According to one explanation, the sin of the first man is also rooted in this. The serpent told Adam that the Almighty had supposedly eaten from this tree and created the world, and that if people ate from it they would become like God. The point of this temptation is that the tree seemingly preceded creation — that is, that some eternal matter or eternal force existed apart from the Almighty.
From the standpoint of Judaism this is false. Moreover, it is already a mistaken belief, because it limits the Almighty. The Almighty says: “I am the first and I am the last.” What exactly “the last” means — whether the world will be eternal or not — is a separate theological topic. But that once there was nothing except Him is a principle of faith. There was neither matter, nor space, nor time.
Time and space were created. In modern language one can say that time is bound up with space, because events take place in space, and apart from events the very concept of time loses its meaning. “Bereshit” — “in the beginning” — means that in the beginning the Almighty created time and space themselves. Before that the Almighty was outside time and outside space. The categories of “before” and “after” do not apply to Him. Time began at the moment the world was created.
This is the third principle of faith: the Almighty is pre-eternal, He is first, and nothing preceded Him.
Now let us move on to the fourth principle — the incorporeality of the Almighty. This is a very important principle. There is a dispute between the Rambam and the Raavad. The Raavad also agrees that the Almighty has no body and no image, but he says that a person who mistakenly thinks the Almighty has some form is not necessarily to be called a heretic. However, we have accepted the thirteen principles of the Rambam, and according to the Rambam the incorporeality of the Almighty is precisely a principle of faith.
What does “principle” mean? We have already said: a principle is a correct view of the world. It is not even simply a commandment. A commandment is always connected with an action in time and space. A principle is something one must know, something that shapes a correct worldview according to Judaism.
The Almighty has no body whatsoever, no image and no form. Why? Because any body is a limitation. If there is a form, there is a boundary. And if there is a boundary, there is someone who imposed it. Therefore the Almighty cannot be corporeal.
One might ask: is the Almighty material or spiritual? The answer: neither. Materiality and spirituality are relative concepts. We can speak of coarser matter and subtler forms of existence. For example, light, photons, radio waves — are they material or not? On the one hand, we cannot touch them; on the other, they exist within our world and possess definite properties.
Angels are a different level. They cannot be called physical in the usual sense, but they too have a certain form of existence, a certain boundary. Jewish thought distinguishes between the concepts of “chomri” and “gashmi.” “Gashmi” is the physical, that which belongs to our tangible world. “Chomri” is a broader notion of materiality — the presence of form, boundaries, definiteness.
Angels, spiritual worlds, the various levels of creation — all of these are created as well. Everything has its level, its boundary, its place in the system of worlds. But the Almighty is beyond all of this. He creates both materiality and spirituality. He is outside these categories.
According to Kabbalah, there are several levels of worlds. The lowest is the world of Asiyah, the world of action. Even within it there are different levels. We are at the very lowest level — Malchut de-Malchut of the world of Asiyah. This is the level of the physical world, of what can be perceived by the senses.
But even in the world of Asiyah there are spiritual levels. For instance, the influence of the stars, astrological influences — Judaism acknowledges that such influences exist but assigns them to the lower spiritual levels of the world of Asiyah. Above it is the world of Yetzirah — the world of formation, the world of the lower angels who influence the stars. Above that is the world of Beriah, the world of the higher angels, the level of the upper Gan Eden. Higher still is the world of Atzilut, the world of the divine sefirot, where Godliness is revealed to such an extent that ordinary separate existence can no longer exist there.
The general principle is this: the higher the revelation of Godliness, the more bittul is required — self-nullification, the annulment of one’s own “I.” The more physical and separate a being is, the less able it is to withstand the revelation of Godliness.
If an angel appeared to us now, that alone would be a shock. In the Tanakh, Samson’s parents, on seeing an angel, were afraid and said: “We shall surely die, for we have seen an angel.” The commentators point out the difference between generations. Hagar, Abraham’s handmaid, spoke calmly with angels. Yet a few generations later people could no longer withstand such a revelation.
It is said of King David that at the end of his life he was cold and nothing could warm him. One explanation says that he once saw the angel of destruction standing over Jerusalem, and from that the blood ran cold in his veins. That state remained with him to the end of his life.
If this happens when one meets an angel, what can be said of the revelation of the Almighty Himself? Therefore only beings that possess immense bittul can abide in the higher worlds: the higher angels, the souls of the righteous, souls on the level of Moshe Rabbeinu and above.
Yet even all these levels are created. They may be spiritual, very lofty, but they still have boundaries. The Almighty, however, is beyond all materiality and beyond all spirituality. He creates both the one and the other.
The question of anthropomorphism belongs to this principle. Anthropomorphism is when the Almighty is described in human categories: “the eyes of God,” “the hand of God,” “the Almighty laughs,” “the Almighty is angry,” and so on. Such expressions occur in the Torah. It is also said that at Sinai He revealed Himself as an elder with a white beard, and at the splitting of the sea as a young warrior.
But all of these are images. The Torah speaks in a language people can understand. These expressions must under no circumstances be taken literally. The Torah itself stresses: “You saw no form; there was only a voice.” All these descriptions are not bodily characteristics but ways of expressing spiritual ideas in human language.
For example, when we say that one writer is close to another, we do not mean that they are physically sitting next to each other. We mean closeness in style, in spirit, in outlook. The expressions of the Torah are to be understood in the same way. “The eye of God” can mean Divine watchfulness and providence. “The hand of God” means action, a manifestation of power, intervention in the world. But it is not a hand in the physical sense.
That is why it is forbidden to depict the Almighty. This is not only a serious prohibition but simply absurd. How can one depict the One who has no image and no form? Depicting the Almighty contradicts the very foundation of Jewish faith.
The same applies to depictions of spiritual beings. In different eras various forms of depiction appeared, but on the whole it is not customary in Judaism to depict either the Almighty or angels. Even when the prophet Ezekiel describes angels, the chariot, wings and other images, these are not to be understood literally.
For example, Hasidism explains that the wings of angels can symbolize different levels of love and awe of the Almighty. Some wings correspond to natural love and fear, others to intellectual love and fear born of contemplation, and others to emotional ones. In other words, we are speaking not of physical wings but of spiritual forces and levels.
This is precisely why the study of Kabbalah was restricted for a long time. One of the reasons was that an unprepared person might begin to understand spiritual images literally and fall into materializing them. Kabbalah contains many diagrams, charts, descriptions of “above” and “below,” but in the spiritual worlds there is no space in our sense. There is no physical up and down. These are linguistic designations for spiritual levels.
So the fourth principle is the incorporeality of the Almighty. He has no body, no image, He does not become incarnate in a human being, and for Judaism this is absolutely fundamental.
It is very important to hold these thirteen principles as an unshakable foundation. All further reflection, philosophy, ideology and discussion make sense only when a person has a clear basis. It is like Ariadne’s thread in the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Theseus entered the labyrinth, but tied a thread at the entrance, thanks to which he was later able to find his way out. So too the thirteen principles are a thread that holds a person when he enters complex philosophical reasoning. Without this thread one can get lost.
Now let us move on to the fifth principle: one may serve only the Almighty.
This principle already belongs to the things given to us through revelation. The first two principles — the existence and the Oneness of the Almighty — a person can grasp by reason. But how exactly to serve the Almighty, what He wants from a person, what the forms of proper service are — this already requires revelation.
Suppose we ask: which came first, monotheism or idolatry? People usually think that paganism came first and that humanity gradually arrived at monotheism. But from the Torah’s point of view it is the other way around. Monotheism came first.
Adam was a monotheist. He knew the Almighty and passed this on to his children. Cain, too, was a prophet. This knowledge was then handed down further. Later humanity degenerated spiritually, and the knowledge of the One God began to be distorted. But Noah, too, was a prophet and a monotheist.
Idolatry arose not as the first form of religion but as a distortion of the original knowledge of the Almighty. People knew that there is One Creator, but began to think that since He governs the world through forces, angels, stars and various spiritual channels, one could turn to these intermediaries. At first this may have looked like “honoring the King’s servants,” but gradually it turned into independent worship of the forces of nature, the stars, angels and idols.
The fifth principle states: one may serve, pray to, bow down to, and turn to as a source of power only the Almighty. Not angels, not stars, not spiritual forces, not the righteous, not any intermediaries. All the forces in the world are merely instruments through which the Almighty governs creation. But the source of everything is He alone.
Therefore, even if we acknowledge that various spiritual forces and levels of influence exist in the world, service is directed exclusively to the Almighty. This is the fundamental difference between Jewish faith and every form of idolatry.
How did paganism arise?
The Rambam writes that people began to think: the Almighty is too great to concern Himself with small things. And at first glance this may seem logical. I have heard such reasoning many times. People who do not want to trouble themselves too much with thinking say: “Do you really think it matters to the Almighty whether you turn on a light on Shabbat? Does He really care exactly how you eat, how you speak, how you behave at home? Isn’t that pettiness?”
Judaism really can seem very “petty.” On the one hand, it contains lofty ideas: Kabbalah, worlds, sefirot, the unity of the Creator, the meaning of creation. On the other hand, when it comes to practice, it turns out there are laws about how to eat properly, how to speak, how to behave on Shabbat, whether one may move a needle from one place to another, whether one may turn on a light, how to conduct family life, how to use the toilet, and so on.
A person may ask: does the Almighty really care about such details?
Where is the logical error here?
A human being cannot deal with every small matter. The higher a person stands in a hierarchy, the larger the questions he deals with. A prime minister or head of state deals with questions of war and peace, the broad economy, the opening of large enterprises, serious decisions at the national level. Smaller matters are handled by ministers, mayors, deputies, district managers and so on. Every organization has a hierarchy, from the head down to the lowest level.
Why is that? Because a human being is limited. He cannot deal with everything at once.
If a manager cannot delegate, he destroys both himself and the system. I have seen organizations where the head could not let go of anything: even the purchase of toilet paper went through him. Such a person walks around with bags under his eyes, exhausted and overloaded, because he tries to control everything. But large organizations do not work that way. They have structure and a division of responsibilities.
But all of this applies to human beings, because a human being is limited.
The Creator, however, is infinite. For Him there is no difference between a big question and a small one. If a person says, “God deals only with great things and does not concern Himself with trifles,” he is, without noticing it, limiting the Almighty.
And this is not just an abstract mistake. It is a very common inner feeling. Even if a person does not put it into words, such a thought may sit inside him: “If I face a fateful decision — whether to move or not, whether to change jobs or not — then I will turn to the Almighty. But if my heel has broken and I need to go to the repair shop, what does the Almighty have to do with that?”
From the standpoint of Judaism — He has everything to do with it.
There is nothing in the world that is not connected with the Almighty. If you say, “He doesn’t deal with this,” you are thereby saying that He is not present here. And that is already the root of pagan thinking.
Of course, one should not go to extremes and lose normal human balance. But as an idea this must be understood: there is no place where the Almighty is absent. Our sages said that a person should turn to Him always. You want to drive in a nail — turn to the Almighty. You are going to the doctor — all the more so turn to the Almighty. This does not mean one should not go to the doctor. One must go to the doctor, take medicine, act in the material world. But one must understand: healing comes from the Almighty.
This is the whole idea of Judaism: to bring the awareness of God down to the smallest details.
Not only at the great moments of life, not only in prayer, not only in the synagogue, not only in elevated spiritual states. But in food, speech, work, family, daily life, health, money, relationships, decisions, small things. Everywhere.
All the forces in the world are only instruments in the hands of the Creator.
I have already given the example of a pen. It would never occur to anyone to praise a pen for writing beautifully. We understand that it is the person who writes, and the pen is only an instrument. In the same way angels, stars, ministers, prime ministers, pills, doctors, money, connections, nails and hammers are all instruments. Things happen through them, but they have no power of their own.
A person must act in the material world. One must take a pill if the doctor prescribed it. One must go to work if one needs to earn money. One must use natural channels. But at the same time it is important to remember: the result comes from the Almighty.
As soon as a person attributes independent power to anything, he draws near to the root of idolatry.
Why, then, did people begin to make such mistakes at all? One could say: they simply erred. But the Torah teaches us that in the spiritual sense there are no “simple mistakes.” Behind an error in worldview there almost always stands an inner trait of the person.
Why are there so many different opinions, religions, ideologies and systems in the world? Some are Buddhists, others Hindus, others Christians, Muslims, Jews, socialists, communists, liberals, conservatives and so on. Of course, a person receives much from his environment, from his parents, from his culture, from the people into which he was born. But when a person truly chooses, why does one reach one conclusion and another a different one?
The Torah teaches: a person accepts the idea for which he is inwardly prepared by his character traits, his desires, his feelings, his honesty or dishonesty with himself.
There is a well-known midrash about how Abraham came to faith in the Almighty. The midrash says that Abraham looked at the world and said: “Such a world cannot be without a master. Who governs all this?” At first he thought: perhaps it is the sun? After all, the sun gives life. But the sun set and the moon came out. Then he thought: perhaps it is the moon? But the moon set and the sun rose again. And Abraham understood: neither the sun nor the moon is the source. There must be One who governs both the sun and the moon and the whole world.
That is how Abraham came to the One God.
But a question arises: was Abraham a genius? Did he have some incredible IQ? Are these questions no one else had ever asked? Of course people ask themselves such questions. Many think: “Who created the world? What is the meaning of life? Where does all this come from?” But an ordinary person thinks about it — and goes to work. Forgets. Gets on with his affairs.
Abraham was different. Our forefathers are called “yesharim” — the upright. “Yashar” means straightness. This is a character trait: a person thinks about something and follows it through to the end. He does not run away from a conclusion if the conclusion is inconvenient. He does not muffle a question if the question demands an answer. He seeks the truth uncompromisingly.
It is from such a character trait that correct ideas are born.
If a person truly seeks the truth, is ready to follow it to the end, is ready to change his life for its sake, then the Almighty reveals Himself to him. Not because he simply has a high intellect, but because he has inner uprightness.
Now let us return to the question: why did people begin to err and say that the Almighty deals only with great matters and does not concern Himself with small ones?
Here the midrash says something very interesting. It compares two expressions. In one place it says: “And behold, God stood over Jacob.” In another place it says: “And behold, Pharaoh stood over [the river].” The midrash says: with the righteous, God stands over them, while the wicked stand over their gods.
What does this mean?
In paganism the human being is in charge. Man stands over his gods. Why? Because pagan gods are limited. Yes, they have more strength and more abilities than a human being, but they are still like a human being: one can make deals with them, appease them, bring them offerings, “grease their palms” in order to get money, power, health, a harvest, success, pleasure.
In such a system the human being remains the one in charge. He does not truly serve. He uses the “gods” for his own sake.
In Judaism it is the other way around. The Almighty is the one in charge. He is infinite, He is the Creator of all, He is the source of all. This is where bittul begins — self-nullification, the annulment of one’s own “I.” It is a blow to our pride. It is not I who am at the center of the picture, but the Almighty.
People did not want this. They did not want Him to be the one in charge. And so from wrong character traits a wrong ideology was born.
A person often invents an ideology that serves his desires. The less bittul he has, the less search for truth, the less inner purity, the more inclined he is to build a worldview that will justify what he wants.
Our sages say something very powerful: the Jews served idols in order to permit themselves immorality. That is, they were not necessarily so foolish as to really believe that a wooden or stone idol was an absolute power. But they wanted to live as they pleased. And God does not permit it. What to do? One has to adjust the ideology. One has to create a system in which this becomes permissible.
So a person first justifies his desire, and then begins to believe in the justification he has invented.
Ideology depends on character.
That is how paganism gradually arose. People began by acknowledging the Almighty, but did not want to live in complete submission to Him. They wanted to remain in charge. They wanted not to serve Him but to obtain from the higher powers what they needed. And it is easier to strike a deal with a “minister” than with the King. With some angel, star or force of nature — it is simpler. And so everything descended lower and lower until the Almighty was forgotten altogether.
Now we can move to the next level of understanding.
Even if we are not pagans, very often we behave like pagans. For example, when a person treats the Almighty like an ATM. He has health, money, happiness, success, the health of loved ones, a good life. So one must behave well in order to receive what one wants.
This, of course, is not real paganism. And behaving well for the sake of a reward is not a complete zero either; it is a certain level. But it is a low level. Because at the center it is still I. I want to receive. I want things to go well for me. I do a commandment so that I will be given. I pray so that I will be given. I serve in order to receive.
Imagine a person comes to a major businessman, the owner of a huge company where he works, and says: “Please give me fifty thousand dollars.” The owner will ask: “What for?” If the person answers, “I just need it,” that is not convincing. If he says, “I want to start a business,” he may be told: “Go to the bank, take out a loan, draw up a business plan.” But if he says, “I want to open a branch that will benefit your company. I will invest this in your business and expand your enterprise,” that is a different conversation.
In the same way a person comes to the Almighty and says: “Give me health. Give me thirty more years of life.” And what for? To walk the earth for another thirty years and eat a certain number of tomatoes and cucumbers? To put in new tiles? To take a trip to the Maldives? What will that contribute to the service of the Almighty?
Of course a person may, and should, ask for health, a livelihood, happiness, family, children, help. That is normal. But the question is what inner point stands at the center. If a person perceives the Almighty only as a source of receiving, then in the end whom is he serving? Himself.
And this is the subtle root of the pagan approach.
Judaism says otherwise: we exist for Him, not He for us.
Of course a person also receives good from this. Later, when we speak about the purpose of creation, we will need to explain separately why everything was created and what benefit a person receives. But the correct starting point is this: I was not created in order to use the Almighty for my desires. I was created to serve Him.
And this applies not only to material requests. Materiality is not only money. It is health, success, comfort, the happiness of loved ones, peace of mind, security. But even if a person serves the Almighty for the sake of a spiritual reward — for instance, for Gan Eden, for paradise, for delight in the World to Come — that too is still service of oneself. Subtler, more elevated, but still of oneself.
Even if a person studies Torah because it is intellectually interesting to him, because he likes philosophy, worlds, angels, Kabbalah, deep ideas — that too can be service of oneself. It is pleasant for him, interesting for him, he gets intellectual enjoyment.
This is not bad as an initial level. But it is not yet the ideal.
The ideal of service is when a person understands: the main thing is not I but the Almighty. Not what I will receive, but what I live for. Not how to use spirituality for my own sake, but how to make myself an instrument of the Creator’s will.
There is a parable about a sage who traveled the world with one question: “What for?”
He would ask a man:
— Where are you going?
— To work.
— What for?
— To earn money.
— What for?
— To support my family.
— What for?
— To live.
— What for?
And at some point the chain comes to an end. The person no longer knows what to answer.
This question — “what for?” — a person should ask himself constantly. What do I work for? What do I want health for? What do I want money for? What do I want a family for? What do I study for? What do I pray for? What do I keep the commandments for?
If at the end of the whole chain stands “I,” then the entire system revolves around me. If at the end stands the Almighty, then life becomes service.
This is exactly what the fifth principle means: one may serve only the Almighty. Not forces, not intermediaries, not angels, not stars, not people, not one’s own desires, and not even one’s own spiritual gain. Him alone.
