Bible’s Every Word Reflects God’s Infinite Wisdom

Rabbi Israel Chait

Maimonides maintains that if a person says Moses wrote anything in Torah (Bible) on his own, he is a heretic. Rather, we must believe that every word, every letter was dictated by God. 

It would seem that Maimonides should have stopped there, saying very simply: “If a person believes Moses wrote a word—without God’s authority—then he’s a heretic.” But let's say one believes that every word was in fact dictated by God. Then he's fine. But Maimonides doesn't say that, that's not enough. He says even if a person would believe that, it still would not be enough because Maimonides goes on to say that this is considered a violation of “despising God’s word” (Num. 15:31). Maimonides says “every single Torah word has wisdom, knowledge and astounding things for one who understands them.” What does that have to do with it? Why didn’t Maimonides say simply, “If a person believes Moses added to Torah, that’s heresy.” But let's say he believes that the whole Torah is from God, but he believes that there are certain (simple or innocuous) “events” recorded for purely historical purposes. So what's so terrible? Nonetheless, Maimonides says he is still considered a heretic.

Most people understand Maimonides to mean that if a person should think that there are certain Torah statements that Moses wrote himself, that he’s a heretic. But that’s not what Maimonides says. It would appear clearly from Maimonides that even if a person would believe that every Torah word, every letter is from God, but nevertheless he would say that God told Moses to write them, and of course every word was formulated why God, and Moses wrote all the different events, what's the problem about that? But according to Maimonides he's still a heretic. Why? 

Because Maimonides is saying is that the heresy is “despising God’s word.” It means to say that he he's reducing the word, the meaning, even if the person would believe that God dictated these events, but these events are just historical facts, but they have no real relevance, there's no concepts, no ideas to be derived from them…this is “despising God’s word.”  And this is heresy, which means saying anything created by God is a mere historical fact, and doesn’t contain endless wisdom. If one believes God does things in such a way, that’s despising God’s words and he is a heretic. That was the heresy of Mennashe.

Maimonides extended the concept. It's not simply that you have to believe that every letter is from God, that's not enough. He means to say if you believe that God does something, He records events which are just historical facts, that’s the violation. Maimonides is saying that the violation is suggesting that God dictated to Moses certain things which have no real relevance for us; it’s not infinite wisdom. It means he's denying that Torah is the work of God. If it's the work of God, then it's infinite wisdom in every account, every event. That's Maimonides idea of the 8th fundamental, “Torah is from heaven.”