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The Principles of Faith (2)

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The Second Principle

 

     Our belief in divine unity finds expression in the second principle of the Rambam's Thirteen Principles.  As we have seen, this principle has various meanings.  The Rambam stresses that unity does not mean only "uniqueness" (one as opposed to many); it also means "oneness" (unity as opposed to complexity).  If we carefully examine this principle, we will discover that God is the only "one" that exists.

 

     Let us set out on a journey in quest of oneness.  We will soon find our mission is fraught with difficulties.  True, many things in our world are called one.  For example, we speak of one humanity; however, humanity, of course, is composed of many individuals, of many people.  In other words, the unity of humanity is abstract and conceptual.  A person visiting a school enters a room and is told that he is observing one class.  The unity of the class is not in the children; it is in our mind.  We create unity by projecting our thoughts onto the world.  We could easily divide the class in half, according to reading levels, or according to those who wear glasses and those who don't, light-haired and dark-haired students, etc.  The reality would have remained the same; yet, the unity about which I spoke earlier would disappear.  This is the unity of species and types, which the Rambam refuses to classify as true unity.

 

     Until this point we have dealt with abstract ideas.  One might think that the situation would be different regarding objects which appear to be a single unit.  We see a single human being standing before us.  There is unity here, but is it complete?  This is doubtful, since the unity is composed of such immense complexity.  Is man indeed one?  No, because man has an anatomy.  We can speak about his limbs and organs, his cells, his molecules, etc.  However, the problem does not lie only with man's complexity.  Let us assume that a chemistry expert were to present us with one unified block of pure and totally homogenous chemical material.  This pure chemical body can also be divided.  All physical bodies have the capacity for division; it is the result of our presence in space.  Geometry allows for infinite divisions.

 

     In other words, whatever we observe can be magnified into larger and larger categories; yet, by the same token, these same components can be divided infinitely into smaller parts.  As early as Greek times, people spoke about the atom.  The world atom means that it cannot be divided [a-tom].  Science divided the atom, each time discovering more elemental particles, which are of a divisible character in three different ways: they are many particles, they have many characteristics, and they are themselves, perhaps, complex.  To what extent, who knows?  Are there particles which cannot be divided?  This is an interesting question.  However, even if they exist, those particles are not single units; they are complex.  They have a mass, an electrical charge, momentum, etc.  And if that were not enough, recent research has discovered other characteristics, comparable to our color and taste, which are beyond our comprehension.  There are particles which are identical in all their recognizable characteristics, and yet they behave differently.  These theories teach us that, apparently, additional characteristics exist which we cannot perceive.

 

     Thus, we see that in our world there is no unity.  We have the unity of the number one, but this unity is also abstract.  When we create one from many, we ourselves are combining disparate elements; we are placing all these parts in imaginary brackets in our mind, creating compartments and groups.  They exist only in an abstract sense.  We view them as units; however, there is no true unity in the world.  It is just one of the conceptual constructs that we create in our minds.

 

     The Rambam's conclusion is interesting.  Our recognition of God as One is enough to make Him completely different from any thing else that exists in the world.  The trait of unity is attributable to God, and to God alone.

 

     This idea is typical of the philosophical approach of Rabbeinu Bachye Ibn Pakuda, who develops this concept in his book "Duties of the Heart," in the section entitled, "The Gate of Uniqueness."  He distinguishes between "passing unity" (meaning the unit which is only apparently one), and true unity.  The Rambam accepts this idea; however, his approach extends further, and (as we have seen) he emphasizes the concept of God as a Being which must exist, as opposed to all other beings, which can, or may exist.  Thus, we can define the distinction between the two approaches as a difference of opinion regarding the most elemental divine attribute.  According to one approach, we essentially say that "God is one," meaning God equals one.  According to the second approach, which we discussed earlier, the basic attribute is that of existence: "I will be what I will be."  In other words, God must exist.

 

The Third Principle: Negation of Physicality

 

     The Rambam's third principle of faith negates the possibility of divine physicality.  However, this principle must be elaborated.  The Rambam teaches us that God is not a physical body, and not a physical force.  In this way, he seeks to warn us against approaches which can be termed pantheistic - in other words, approaches which that connect God with the world.  Some philosophers perceive God as the soul of the world.  Judaism is built on the assumption that God is absolutely outside of the world; He does not need the world and He is not connected with it.  We must not relate to God as a kind of magnetic field.  This is sometimes expressed in a very innocent way, by those who speak of God in terms of nature, a cosmic force, etc.  Thus, for example, in the movie "Star Wars," the hero saves the world, using the powers given him by a mysterious power that he calls "The Force."  Man must achieve a kind of state of harmony with it, and then he connects with the Force.  The assumption in the movie is that there exists in nature an additional force besides the electro-magnetic, a force that we can perceive.  This approach reflects a particular idolatrous tradition.

 

     Although we do find in the Kabbala and Chassidism descriptions of a God who is present in the entire cosmos, these positions are not identical.  Chassidism wishes to teach us that there is holiness in nature, but not that nature and holiness are identical.  Thus, for example, Chabad Chassidism teaches that God fills all the worlds, but He also surrounds all the worlds.  In other words, holiness finds expression in nature; however, there is holiness which is absolutely outside of nature.  This principle serves to deter us from following mistaken views.

 

(This lecture was translated by Gila Weinberg.)

 

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