20th Century Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs

Authority

Authority Stephen Wald T he question of religious authority divides into two parts: first, Who possesses religious authority? and second, What is the source of its power to obligate? Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, answers unambiguously that the rabbinic High Court in the Temple in Jerusalem possesses the ultimate religious authority in Judaism: The High Court in Jerusalem is the root of the Oral Law and the pillars of instruction and from them law and judgment go out to all Israel, and in them the Torah trusted saying: "According to the Torah which they will instruct you"-this is a positive commandment; and everyone who accepts Moses our Master and his Torah is obligated to determine religious acts in accordance with them and to rely upon them. (MT Mamrim 1:2). This authority derives from the Torah itself. The authority of Moses and the revelation at Sinai stand behind rabbinic authority. But on this point Maimonides is ambiguous: everyone who accepts (or believes in) the Torah is 30 AUTHORITY obligated to accept rabbinic authority. Only if this first acceptance is itself obligatory will the consequent acceptance of rabbinic authority be, strictly speaking, obligatory. For if the initial acceptance of Moses' Torah is a matter of choice, then so is the rabbinic authority that depends upon it. But precisely on this crucial point Maimonides is silent. How does one come to accept Moses and his Torah? Is it a free act of will? Is it somehow necessary and binding? On this point rests the entire question of the obligatory character of Jewish law as it has been transmitted through the generations. We will concentrate on this point and examine it from the differing perspectives of three medieval interpreters of rabbinic thought, Maimonides, Nal)manides , and the Zohar. The rabbis of the Mishnah asked why the Ten Commandments began with the words, "I am the Lord your God." As a simple statement of fact, indeed an obvious one to anyone who had experienced the Exodus from Egypt, it seems superfluous. Why did not the Ten Commandments simply commence with the first "command," that is, the prohibition of idol worship ? The rabbis responded with a parable: It is comparable to a king of flesh and blood who entered a city. His servants said to him: Impose decrees upon them. He said to them: No! When they accept my kingship, I will impose decrees upon them, for if they will not accept my kingship, how should they accept my decrees? (Mekh. Yitro 6). First the fact must be established that there is a king. Only afterward will his decrees be binding. This recognition of God's authority to impose decrees on his subjects is called by the rabbis accepting the kingdom of heaven. This acceptance is the necessary prerequisite for any authoritative command. This fact is reflected in the order of the paragraphs in the recitation of Shema. The tanna Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korl)a justified the order by claiming that "one should accept upon himself the kingdom of heaven first, and only afterwards accept upon himself the yoke of the commandments " (BT Ber. 2:2). We have identified this concept in its classic rabbinic formulation. But, as this formula-accepting the kingdom of heaven-is e~pressed in terms of the parable quoted above, we must still ask: What reality is represented by the parable? How does one in fact come to recognize God's authority to command? What is the nature of this recognition, and what are its implications vis-a-vis the nature of religiOUS authority? When Maimonides comes to justify the order of the paragraphs of the AUTHORITY 31 Shema, he substitutes for the rabbinic phrase "accepting the kingdom of heaven" a phrase of his own that illuminates his interpretation of the rabbinic phrase: One recites the paragraph of Shema first because it has in it the unity of God and the love of him and his study which is the great principle upon which all is dependent. (MT Shema 1:2). This defines the content of "accepting the kingdom of heaven" as knowledge of God and his unity and the love of God, which Maimonides holds to be necessarily consequent upon true knowledge (MT Yesodei Torah 1:12 :2). The love of God and the burning desire to be close to him provide the only adequate motivation for the fulfillment of his will (MT Teshuvah 10), and...