Therefore God's Truth is Not Like Our Truth

In Hilchot Yesodah HaTorah, 1:3 the Rambam compares God’s absolutism in existence to our contingency in existence. 1:1 established that we are contingent on God from the fact that our existence comes from God having created us in the past, and 1:2 established our continual contingency upon God by the fact that if ever God should not exist we would also not exist. But the Third Halacha of the perek, rather than expressing an idea about our contingency upon God, explains God’s absolutism—even if nothing else existed He still would, it tells us. This can be understood sequentially to be discussing the future—just as our relationship to God was one of contingency upon Him in the past and the present, we must know that the fact that we exist now does not give us any claim to existence in the future. The fact that we are is not any indication of the fact that we must be. This Halacha forces us to understand that though we often define God’s very uniqueness by the act of creation ex nihilo, had He never done this, He would still be God. He is contingent upon nothing, not even His own actions. 

The Rambam concludes from God’s lack of contingency that “the truth of God(’s existence) is not comparable to the truth (of the existence of) anything else (in creation).” In the fourth Halacha, Rambam continues this train of thought focusing on this issue of truth. In this Halacha two verses are interpreted to give support to Rambam’s claim (it is interesting to note how Rambam will bring verses as proofs to his ideas, but often he is interpreting the verse in a radically different way than the way tradition, or even the simple reading, would understand it. This leads to the famous question of whether or not Rambam defined the meaning of Torah to meet the needs of his rational-based philosophy.)

What does the Rambam mean by this term “Emet”? Our existence is marked by a lack of self-sufficiency, necessity, and permanence, but isn’t it true in that, even so, we still do exist? Perhaps, by emet, Rambam is referring to that which is necessary. In everyday language we use the word true to define that which we can continually rely upon. The statement one plus one equals two is true, because one plus one will always equal two, as far as we know. So too, God’s existence is true because He has, does and always will exist. As our existence is not equally secure, our existence itself is not true, even though it is true that at this moment we do exist.       

• See Tanya, part one, chapter 21.
• See Chullin 89a in which Moshe and Aaron are praised for calling themselves nothing, over Avraham who called himself dust. Dust, as lowly a comparison as it is, still is something. The Gemora presents this idea in a discussion about humility; as it is commonly known Moshe was the most humble of men. Rav Yaakov Weinberg, former Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel Baltimore, explained that Moshe’s humility was that he was more aware of his nothingness next to God than any other human being.
• Consider this in light of Yevamot 49b. It is said that other than Moshe the prophets saw God through a non-clear glass, while Moshe saw God through a clear glass.
• Look at Rashi, who explains this means Moshe saw clearly enough to know he wasn’t and couldn’t really see God at all.

The understanding of nothingness gained from the Gemoras above stem from our inability to comprehend God, or comprehend like God. It is a relative nothingness that emerges from even the slightest comparison made between God and us. Rambam in Halacha Daled, however, seems to be discussing not a relative nothingness, but a definitional one. We are not true—this is not a statement of humility emerging from a glimpse of God, but a physical reality. It is not a statement about a moment of personal revelation, but about the totality of our existence. The Rambam is careful to clarify that the word “Melavdo” is not describing an inequality with God’s truth, as the word could possibly mean, but an absolute schism, an absolute dissimilarity, between the truth of man and the truth of God.

We could say these two levels of nothingness are connected. If we were able to comprehend God and as He does, we would then be God and our truth would also be the truth of God. However, as long as our own existence lacks absolutism, it is impossible for us to grasp knowledge on an absolute level. We do not have the proper framework to understand the absolutism and truth of God because we are contingent and therefore objectively not true. But we are able, through this lack of understanding, to understand that we lack understanding and to then experience subjectively the sorrow of relative nothingness.