The first statement
There is no "do" or "do not" in it. It tells you who is talking to you.
אָנֹכִי, anochi, means "I." It is the first word of the Ten Commandments, and the Torah gives the same words again in Devarim 5:6. The Gemara says these first words came to the people in a special way. Rabbi Simlai teaches that 613 mitzvot were given to Moshe, and Rav Hamnuna finds the number in the verse "Moshe commanded us the Torah" (Devarim 33:4): the word Torah adds up to 611 in gematria (the number value of Hebrew letters). Where are the other two?
Moshe taught the rest, and these two the people heard straight from God. The word the Gemara uses for God here, HaGevurah, means "the Power."
Is this first statement itself one of the 613 mitzvot? The Rambam counts it, and his proof is this very Gemara (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandment 1). The Behag (Halachot Gedolot) leaves it out of his count. The Ramban explains why: for the Behag, believing in God is the root that all the mitzvot grow from, not one mitzvah among them. The argument is laid out on the Ten Commandments page.
To know that God is there
The Rambam opens his whole code of Jewish law with this sentence.
The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Spain and Egypt, 1100s) wrote the Mishneh Torah, a code of all of Jewish law in fourteen books. It opens with the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, and its very first words are these:
Look at the verb. Here, in his code, the Rambam does not write "to believe." He writes לֵידַע, "to know." Then he asks you to try two thought experiments.
Imagine He did not exist
וְאִם יַעֲלֶה עַל הַדַּעַת שֶׁהוּא אֵינוֹ מָצוּי אֵין דָּבָר אַחֵר יָכוֹל לְהִמָּצְאוֹת
"If you imagine that He does not exist, nothing else could exist."
Imagine nothing else existed
וְאִם יַעֲלֶה עַל הַדַּעַת שֶׁאֵין כָּל הַנִּמְצָאִים מִלְּבַדּוֹ מְצוּיִים הוּא לְבַדּוֹ יִהְיֶה מָצוּי. וְלֹא יִבָּטֵל הוּא לְבִטּוּלָם. שֶׁכָּל הַנִּמְצָאִים צְרִיכִין לוֹ וְהוּא בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֵינוֹ צָרִיךְ לָהֶם וְלֹא לְאֶחָד מֵהֶם
"If you imagine that nothing besides Him existed, He alone would still exist, and He would not end when they end. All things need Him, and He, blessed be He, does not need them, not any one of them."
The world depends on God, and God does not depend on the world. From this the Rambam draws a short line:
Next he uses the science of his own time. In the Rambam's day, people pictured the stars and planets set in great turning spheres, the galgal. Something keeps them turning without a stop, he says, and that is God:
And only then does he name the mitzvah, and tie it to the first two of the Ten Commandments:
A positive commandment (mitzvat aseh) tells you to do something; a negative commandment (lo ta'aseh) tells you not to. So in the Rambam's reading the first two statements are a pair: know that God is there, and do not let another god into your thoughts. The second half has its own page: No Other Gods.
Why Egypt, and not Creation?
Hashem made heaven and earth. So why does the first statement name the Exodus instead?
Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra (Spain, 1100s) wrote one of the classic commentaries on the Torah. In his comment on this verse he tells us that the question was put to him by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi (Spain, 1100s), the poet who wrote the Kuzari:
Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi gives his own answer in the Kuzari (1:25). What follows is Ibn Ezra's.
Ibn Ezra's answer begins with people, not with God. People do not all hold their faith the same way:
Our summary of Ibn Ezra's levels:
- 1
Because I was told. Most people believe what the people over them told them.
- 2
Because it is written. Others believe because they read it in the Torah. Neither group can answer a heretic.
- 3
Because I studied. The one who studies the world comes to know God through His works.
Ibn Ezra adds a point about Creation itself. Only Israel, he says, held that the world had a beginning. The wise of the nations agreed that God alone made heaven and earth, but they said He makes it always, with no beginning:
The Exodus was different. Nobody had to work it out. Everybody saw it:
Then Ibn Ezra reads the next word, "your God," as the reason you are obligated:
Ibn Ezra, too, says the goal is knowing: a person takes it to heart until it is clear to him through proofs. In his words, והדעת הוא בלב לא בהודעת הפה, "knowledge is in the heart, not in what the mouth says."
Sinai, not signs
Moshe split the sea and brought down the manna. The Rambam says that is not why Israel trusted him. Step through his argument, one claim at a time.
How do we know that Moshe's prophecy was true, and with it the Torah he brought? The Rambam answers in chapter 8 of the same Laws of the Foundations of the Torah. His answer is the standing at Mount Sinai, the same event at which the first statement was spoken.
Our own observation: notice what the Rambam does not say. He does not say Moshe's miracles were fake. He treats them as real, and says each one was done because it was needed. They were just never the foundation.
At the mountain
The Rambam's case rests on what happened at Sinai. Here it is in the Torah's own words, from arriving at the mountain to Moshe looking back nearly forty years later. Step through it.
Its partner on the other tablet
One view in the Mechilta, an early midrash, reads the two tablets side by side. In that view, across from "I am Hashem your God" stands "Do not murder."
The Mechilta (an early midrash on Shemot, from the time of the Mishnah) explains this view with a parable:
The proof is the verse God told Noach after the flood:
Our own observation, in plain words: the first statement says who God is. Every person is made in God's image, like a coin stamped with the king's face. Murder destroys one of those images, so it is an attack on the One the first statement names. The first tablet is about God and the second is about people, and this pair shows they cannot be pulled apart.
This is the view of Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel. The passage closes by naming him. Then the Sages give a second opinion:
Where it stops
What the first statement asks of you, and what it leaves to other mitzvot.
That God is one is the next mitzvah
Right after the first mitzvah, the Rambam explains that God is one, with a oneness unlike anything in the world:
And he counts that as a separate mitzvah, from a different verse:
So in the Rambam's count, the first statement is about knowing that God is there.
A wonder does not outrank Sinai
In the Rambam's case, a prophet who does great wonders in order to deny Moshe's prophecy is not listened to (Foundations of the Torah 8:3, the last step above). A later prophet who gives a sign is listened to because the Torah commands it, not because of the sign alone (8:2). No wonder can overturn what the whole people heard.
Questions, and where to bring them
Our note: the Rambam asks you to know, and Ibn Ezra ranks belief that cannot answer a heretic below belief that comes from study. In the Rambam's telling, Avraham reached God by wondering, day and night, who turns the heavens (Laws of Idolatry 1:3). The Rambam also warns that a person's mind is limited, so he should not chase every thought that could uproot a foundation of the Torah (Laws of Idolatry 2:3). Torah Tech's advice: if you have questions about God, bring them to a teacher or a rav you trust.
Common questions
Short answers, with sources.
What does "Anochi" mean?
"I." It is the first word of the Ten Commandments: "I am Hashem your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves" (Shemot 20:2; Devarim 5:6). In the Jewish count it is the first of the ten.
Is knowing God one of the 613 mitzvot?
The Rambam counts it as the first positive mitzvah (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandment 1; Foundations of the Torah 1:6). The Behag does not list it. As the Ramban explains him, belief in God is the root of all the mitzvot rather than one of them. See the Ten Commandments page.
Why does it say "who brought you out of Egypt" and not "who created the world"?
Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi asked Ibn Ezra exactly this. Ibn Ezra answered that "I am Hashem" speaks to the thinker, and "who brought you out" adds something everyone saw with their own eyes, so that the thinker and the one who is not a thinker would both understand. "Your God" then tells you why you are obligated: He took you out of slavery to serve Him (Ibn Ezra on Shemot 20:2).
Why does the Rambam say Israel trusted Moshe because of Sinai, not miracles?
The Rambam says Israel did not believe in Moshe because of his signs, since a sign can be done by trickery or sorcery. They believed because of Sinai, where the whole people saw and heard for themselves. So a prophet who does wonders to deny Moshe's prophecy is not listened to (Foundations of the Torah 8:1-3).
Did the people really hear the first commandment from God?
The Gemara says that "I am" and "You shall have no other gods" were heard "from the mouth of the Almighty," and the rest came through Moshe (Makkot 24a). The Torah describes the people asking Moshe to speak to them instead, out of fear (Shemot 20:16).
Which commandment is its partner in the Mechilta?
In Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel's view, with five statements on each tablet, "I am Hashem your God" stands across from "Do not murder," because whoever sheds blood is counted as if he made the image smaller (Mechilta d'Rabbi Yishmael, Bachodesh 8:16-17). The Sages there say all ten were written on each tablet (8:22).
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