[Avodah] RSRH's Commentary on Shemos 20:2

[Professor L. Levine]

Shemos 20:2


I, HaShem, shall be your God, I, Who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.


Below is some RSRH's commentary on this pasuk.


If this verse is not to be taken as a declaration but as a mitzva, a
commandment, it does not mean "I, HaShem, am your God," but "I, HaShem, shall
be your God." Thus it lays the basis for our entire relationship to God,
constituting the duty that our Sages call kabalas ol malchus shamayim, "accepting
the yoke of God's kingship."

What the philosophers, ancient and modern, call "the belief in the
existence of God" is as remote as can be from the meaning of this verse
regarding the foundations of Jewish thought and Jewish life. The fundamental
truth of Jewish life is not belief in God's existence, nor that
God is one and only one. It is, rather, that the one and only God, the
God of truth, is my God: He created and formed me, gave me my
standing, informed me of my duty, and He continues to create me and
to form me, to keep me, to guide me and to lead me. My belief is not
that my connection to Him is through an endless chain of events as a
chance product of a universe of which He was the first cause aeons ago.
Rather, my belief is that every breath that I take and every moment of
my existence is a direct gift of His power and love, and that my duty
is to devote every moment of my life to His service alone.


In other words, the essential thing is not the knowledge of God's
existence, but the awareness and the acknowledgment that He is my God,
that my fate is in His hands alone, and that He alone establishes the
work of my hands. Corresponding to the command anochi HaShem Elokecha there
is but one response: Atah Elokai!


<Snip>


Hence, more than any other nation, we owe to God whatever we possess
- head, heart and hand. All that the Egyptians had denied us was
restored to us by God Himself: our personal individuality, the right to
acquire possessions, and the possessions themselves. Consequently, He
alone has dominion over our lives and our property, and we belong exclusively
to Him. To His service we dedicate our lives, capabilities and possessions,
and we acknowledge Him alone as the Guide of all our actions.
Only our total subservience to God freed us from servitude to man.
Only on this condition were we liberated and granted our independence.
Whereas all people of all other nations are indebted to God for their
creation and existence, we are indebted to Him for our historical and
social existence also.


YL


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