Hashem your G-d shall you fear; it is He whom you shall worship; and to Him shall you cling; and in His Name shall you swear.
Why are these four commandments grouped together in one verse? With the following explanation, it will become apparent that they are of one theme and are so fundamental that they parallel the four letters of the Tetragrammaton. As such, they encompass all of the other mitzvos. We will also gain an insight into the talmudic teaching* that Chabakuk summed up the totality of the commandments in but one – faith in G-d; and that this is not contradictory to the earlier statements in that passage that sum up the Torah in other amounts.
Now, in order to crack the code of these four mitzvos, let us begin by pointing out specific difficulties which they present.
The Halachos Gedolos (or, Behag) included in his formulation of the 613 mitzvos that of revering Torah scholars**. For as the known talmudic passage reports,*** the Sages expounded the superfluous word את in את ה' אלקיך תירא to apply the fear, or reverence, in question to talmidei chachamim. The Rambam, in the preface to his Sefer ha-Mitzvos, **** rejects this inclusion, for, to his mind, the 613 mitzvos do not include anything derived from the hermeneutical principles; they are limited to those apparent in the biblical text.*****
We find a similar difference of opinion regarding the second mitzvah in our verse. The Rambam lists prayer as a biblical injunction.****** The Ramban rejects this, pointing to the numerous talmudic passages that assume it to be of a rabbinic nature. As far as the sources that seem to support the Rambam, the Ramban dismisses them as either asmachtos (loose associations of rabbinic laws with biblical phrases), or as referring to prayer in times of distress. Late commentators, such as the Kesef Mishneh,******* propose a compromise: the basic institution of prayer – once daily, in any format – is indeed biblical; its familiar structure is of rabbinic development.
The fourth mitzvah at hand received a similar reception. The Rambam ruled that it is an imperative to swear in Hashem’s Name when appropriate as an act of reverence, just as swearing gratuitously transgresses a prohibition.******** Others disagree: the Ra’avad sees in this phrase merely an implied warning not to swear in the name of another god;********* for the Ramban it is an authorization to swear if so desired.**********
I would like to propose that that the dispute between the Behag and the Rambam regarding reverence for scholars hinges on another dispute between them – regarding the mitzvah to believe in Hashem. Before we get to that, though, let us analyze the words את ה' אלקיך תירא. Why is it necessary to mention both Names? Should it not have said, את ה' אלקיך ירא, as found elsewhere, instead***********? And what does the aforementioned dispute revolve around?
The answer, I would suggest, lies in another source in Rambam’s oeuvre. At the opening of Hilchos Ishus,************ he codifies that a woman can be married through one of three methods: Kesef, the giving of something of value; Shtar, the presentation of a contract; or Bi’ah, intercourse. The latter two are “mi-de-Oraisa, of biblical provenance,” while the first is “mi-divrei Sofrim,” which is typically rendered as “rabbinic.” This comment has greatly exercised Rambam’s critics and commentators over the centuries, as it is apparent in the Talmud that Kesef is also a biblical form of marriage. In fact, Rambam’s contemporaries put this question to him. He responded by referring them to his aforementioned principle in the Sefer ha-Mitzvos that anything derived hermeneutically is to be reckoned as Divrei Sofrim.************* That is, a mitzvah can be mi-de-Oraisa, with all that that implies, yet it would still be classified as Divrei Sofrim vis-à-vis the 613 mitzvos if it is not in the apparent meaning of the text.**************
This demands an explanation: Why should mitzvos communicated to Moshe at Sinai not be included in the 613 mitzvos and classified as de-Oraisa?
This, it seems to me, is where the dispute about the nature of אנכי ה' אלקיך comes in. The Rambam reckons it as a mitzvah. He may have held that the entirety of the Torah was communicated to Moshe with that one statement, leaving Moshe to formulate each individual mitzvah and explicate it to the People. As such, it was Moshe who determined what goes into the 613 mitzvos and what does not. Thus, anything not explicit in the text, such as the mitzvah of revering scholars, was excluded. The Behag, on the other hand, held that אנכי ה' אלקיך is not included in the 613 mitzvos, while לא יהיה לך is. It follows that the above formulation would not work for him (as it is inelegant to posit that the entirety of the Torah was encompassed in a prohibition). Rather, Hashem must have dictated each mitzvah and law separately – allowing for the inclusion of those derived from exegesis, such as revering scholars.
In truth, careful examination of the Behag’s language demonstrates that he is in agreement with the Rambam.
As the Talmud says,*************** two of the mitzvos were communicated directly to the nation by Hashem, while the other 611 were through the medium of Moshe. The two are contained in the phrase אנכי ה' אלקיך: the Name הוי"ה is its positive dimension, while אלקיך is its negative one (alluding to the ensuing prohibition of לא יהיה לך). The remaining תרי"א, 611, mitzvos can be referenced by the word תיר"א. What emerges is that the verse את ה' אלקיך תירא can be parsed to mean: את ה' – the positive mitzvah of אנכי; אלקיך – the prohibition of לא יהיה לך; תירא – the other 611 mitzvos explicated by Moshe, including laws of rabbinic derivation. Thus, when the Behag lists this verse as a mitzvah, to revere sages, it is not because of the superfluous את; rather the very testament to the oversized role that the Sages play in virtually all of the mitzvos ought to inspire reverence for them. With this understanding, the evidence against Behag’s position from stepparents is moot.****************
Furthermore, I would maintain that, in principle, the Rambam agrees that מורא חכמים is a mitzvah; how could it not? He parts ways from the Behag, though, in that it doesn’t require its own listing: it suffices to be a subsection of reverence for Hashem. With such an approach we can resolve another question. The Sages take the words ובו תדבק to refer to clinging to scholars. Why ignore its straightforward meaning of clinging to Hashem? Furthermore, if this is a legitimate way to interpret, why not do so with ואהבת את ה' אלקיך?***************** The answer is that one cannot really separate the scholars from Hashem. Just as the former’s due reverence is part and parcel of the latter’s, so too the love due them both.
This is undergirded by an idea which I have picked up both orally and in writing. Love and fear are two fundamental concepts which permeate all of existence – on every level. The mouse fears the cat; the cat fears the dog; the citizen fears the monarch; and so on, all the way up to Hashem. This is the meaning behind Moshe’s bizarre minimization of Fear of Heaven: מה ה' אלקיך שואל מעמך כי אם ליראה את ה' אלקיך, What does Hashem your G-d ask of you other than to fear Hashem your G-d? ****************** The intention is that one should limit his fear to one object, namely Hashem. At times, one is gripped by a mundane fear, such as from bandits or the government or the like. What is incumbent on him is to see beyond the immediate source of his emotion, perceiving its ultimate Source. This is why the fear comes in the first place, to shake him out of his reverie and revitalize his fear of Heaven. By following through, one connects the lower forms of fear with their source, rectifying them and obviating their need to appear.
This is the profundity of את ה' אלקיך תירא. The את alludes to all lower forms of fear which the creations can generate; that is why the word consists of an aleph and a tav, covering the gamut of the aleph bet from whence all of Creation sprang forth. Included in this spectrum are the talmidei chachamim, whose reverence is also a catalyst for Fear of Heaven.
The same is true of love. The world is full of manifold objects of love – love of food, love of women, et al. The ultimate love, though, is love of Hashem.
Now, the nature of a person is to cling to that which he loves. (As the aphorism goes, if you want to know a man’s nature, see whom he gravitates to.) Therefore, if one finds himself drawn to something mundane, he should elevate it by attempting to cling to Hashem, the ultimate Source of desire. As I heard from my mentor, the Besht, if one is beset by lewd thoughts, he should focus his mind on the concept of Chesed. It was in this vein that the Sages interpreted ובו תדבק as referring to scholars. It’s all one big deveikus, clinging – by clinging to the scholars, one clings to Hashem, and vice versa.
Hence, as far as the Rambam is concerned, just as with love of scholars, it is subsumed within that of Hashem and no distinct mitzvah is needed, the same is true of their reverence.
To return to the Behag’s approach, there are two takeaways from it. One is that the 611 mitzvos are described as תיר"א to indicate the importance of performing every mitzvah with a sense of Fear of Heaven, as the Zohar prescribes in many places. ******************* Another is that relating to talmidei chachamim with love and reverence is a critical stepping stone for relating to Hashem with those feelings. In fact, for the average Jew, it would be almost impossible to imagine reaching such levels without it.
What emerges is that the approaches of the Behag and the Rambam complement one another. The former provided a practical path to achieving love and fear of Heaven; the latter, their conceptual framework.
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1 Makkos 24a. 2 Aseh 154. 3 Pesachim 22b. 4 Shoresh 2. 5 As he argues, the Behag ought to have included other laws derived from similar inclusions, such as the mitzvah to honor one’s stepparent. The Ramban, in his critique to Sefer ha-Mitzvos, defends the Behag, while the commentary Megillas Esther sides with the Rambam. 6 Aseh 5.7Hilchos Tefillah 1:1. 8Sefer ha-Mitzvos, Aseh 7. 9 Ibid., abridged list, Aseh 7. 10 See as well Mizrachi, Devarim 6:13, for an opposing view. 11 Koheles 12:13. 12 1:2. 13 See Ramban, Sefer ha-Mitzvos, ed. Frankel, p. 54. יכנא 14 [The Rambam’s position, and his explanation in this letter, is typically taken to mean that Kesef is indeed rabbinic. For an exposition of the matter that posits our author’s assumption, see Igros ha-Rambam, ed. Sheilat, p. 451.]15 Makkos 23b. 16 This can also be seen in the language of the relevant gemara, םימכח ידימלת תוברל . Being that the letters gimel (3) and lamed (30) are interchangeable, the new word would read תוברג, which has the same value as א"ירת. 17 Indeed, the Shelah (Sha’ar ha-Osios, 2) independently derives from here a mitzvah to love scholars. But that only heightens the mystery as to why the Sages did not preempt him.18 Devarim 10:12. This is noted by the Talmud, yet its answer – that from Moshe’s perspective, it is indeed so – has long raised eyebrows, as Moshe is addressing the nation. 19 E.g., Bereishis, 24a.