Yisro: Rambam – On Miracles as a Foundation of Belief
I was asked by several people to clarify the Rambam's view on the different roles played by the pre-Sinai miracles and the Revelation at Sinai. This article reflects my current understanding.
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Note: This article presupposes that there are rational grounds for accepting the historicity of the Revelation at Sinai and considers this as a sufficient basis for our belief in the Divine authorship of the Torah. In my 2016 article, Vaeschanan: The Place of the Proof of Torah mi’Sinai, I explored the limitations and challenges of this argument. (For those interested or unfamiliar, links to my three favorite presentations of this argument are provided in that article.) I am not interested in rehashing the debate about the validity of the Torah mi’Sinai argument at the present time. This article focuses on examining a specific aspect of Rambam’s view, and everyone agrees that he accepted the Revelation at Sinai as a historical fact.
Yisro: Rambam – On Miracles as a Foundation of Belief
The Rambam begins Chapter 8 of Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah by explaining why our conviction in Mosaic prophecy is based on the Revelation at Sinai rather than on the other miracles performed by Moshe Rabbeinu. He writes:
Israel did not believe in Moshe Rabbeinu because of the miraculous signs he performed, for one whose belief is based on miraculous signs will have doubt in his heart, since it is possible that he did them using illusions and trickery. Rather, all of the miraculous signs he did in the Wilderness, he did out of necessity – not to bring a proof for the prophecy. The Egyptians needed to be drowned – he split the sea and drowned them in it; we needed sustenance – he brought down the mahn; they were thirsty – he split the stone for them; the assembly of Korach denied his [authority] – the earth swallowed them; and the same for all the other miraculous signs.
On what basis did they believe him? Because of Maamad Har Sinai (the Assembly at Mount Sinai). Our eyes saw, not those of a stranger; our ears heard, not those of another – the fire, the sounds, and the flames. He went into the obscure cloud and the voice spoke to him, and we heard: “Moshe, Moshe – go and tell them such-and-such.” Likewise, he says: “Hashem spoke with you, face to face” (Devarim 5:4), and it is stated, “Hashem didn’t seal His covenant with your forefathers, [but with all of you, here, today – all of you who are living]” (ibid. 5:3).
How do we know that only Maamad Har Sinai served as a proof for the truth of his prophecy which contained no doubt? – as it is stated, “Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear Me speak with you, and they will also believe in you forever” (Shemos 19:9). This implies that before this, they did not believe in him with a conviction that will last forever, but with a conviction followed by afterthought and suspicion.
It would seem from the Rambam’s words that miracles cannot serve as an adequate basis for belief due to their dubious character. He explicitly states that “one whose belief is based on miraculous signs will have doubt in his heart, since it is possible that the miracles were done with illusions and trickery.” Only Sinai left the people with “a conviction that will last forever” rather than “a conviction followed by afterthought and suspicion.”
Parashas Beshalach poses a major problem for the Rambam’s view. If the Rambam is correct in asserting that miracles are not a reliable basis for establishing belief in Moshe’s prophecy, then what does the Torah mean when it tells us that after Hashem split the sea and drowned the Egyptians, “Israel saw the great hand that Hashem had wrought against Egypt, and the people feared Hashem and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe, His servant” (Shemos 14:31)? Onkelos, the authoritative Aramaic translation of the Torah, clarifies the intent of this pasuk to mean: “and they believed in the Word of Hashem and in the prophecy of Moshe His servant.” Even if Rambam disagrees with Onkelos, he still needs to address the clear implication of the pasuk that the Israelites’ belief in Moshe was bolstered by the miraculous splitting of the sea, even though such a miracle is subject to doubt.
Moreover, the Rambam’s view of miracles as an unreliable source of sustainable conviction seems to contradict the reasons stated in the pesukim for the many miracles of the Exodus. For example:
“Hashem said to Moshe: ‘Come to Paroh, for I have made his heart and the hearts of his servants heavy, so that I may place these miraculous signs in his midst, and so that you shall recount to your son and your son's son how I toyed with Egypt, and the miraculous signs that I set among them, and you shall know that I am Hashem” (ibid. 10:1-2)
This implies that the miracles in Egypt were intended to serve as a foundation for our knowledge of Hashem. This reading of the pesukim is supported by the other statements of purpose that accompanied the plagues, such as: “in order that you should know that I am Hashem in the midst of the earth” (ibid. 8:18); “in order that you should know that there is none like Me in all the earth” (ibid. 9:14); “in order that you should know that the earth belongs to Hashem” (ibid. 9:29). It seems clear that the plagues were intended to instill belief in these fundamentals of Torah, as the Ramban (ibid. 13:16) spells out in his famous comment at the end of Parashas Bo:
Now I will explain to you a fundamental principle in the reasons behind many mitzvos. From the time that avodah zara (idolatry) arose in the days of Enosh, people became confused about the true ideas of God. Some denied God and maintained that the universe is eternal: “They denied Hashem and said, ‘He does not exist’” (Yirmiyahu 5:12). Others denied His knowledge of particulars: “And they say, ‘How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?’” (Tehilim 73:11). Others admitted to His knowledge of particulars but denied His providence: “You have made man like the fish of the sea” (Chavakuk 1:14), over whom God does not extend His particular providence and who are not subject to reward and punishment: “For they say … ‘Hashem has forsaken the earth’” (Yechezkel 8:12).
But when God favors a congregation or an individual and He performs a miracle which deviates from the way of the world and its nature, the refutation of all these beliefs is clear to all. Such a wondrous miracle indicates that the universe has a God Who brought it into existence, Who knows [the particulars], Who has providence, and Who is Omnipotent; and when this miracle is declared beforehand by a prophet, the reality of prophecy is also proven, namely, that God speaks with man and reveals His secrets to His servants, the prophets. Through this the entire Torah becomes firmly established.
Therefore the pasuk says about the miracles: “in order that you shall know that I am Hashem, in the midst of the land” to instruct about providence, that He did not abandon [the earth] to chance occurrences, as they thought; and He said: “in order that you should know that the earth is Hashem’s” to instruct about creation, that they belong to Him, for He created them from nothing; and He said: “in order that you should know that there is none like Me in all the earth” to instruct about omnipotence, that He rules everything, and that there is nothing to obstruct His hand – for all these things the Egyptians denied or doubted. Thus, the great miraculous signs and wonders are trustworthy witnesses to the belief in the Creator and His entire Torah.
If, according to the Rambam, miracles cannot serve as a valid foundation for our belief because they are always accompanied by doubt, then how can they be relied upon to instill knowledge of these fundamental ideas about God, as these pesukim explicitly state? And if they can be relied upon to establish lasting conviction in these principles, why does the Rambam deem them inadequate to serve as the basis for our belief in Moshe’s prophecy?
I believe these two questions – regarding the impact of the splitting of the sea and the reliability of the pre-Sinai miracles – stem from a misunderstanding of Rambam’s words. I once thought that the Rambam would consider it irrational to base any fundamental beliefs on the pre-Sinai miracles. My perspective on this has since changed.
Let us begin by understanding what the Rambam means when he writes: “one whose belief is based on miraculous signs will have doubt in his heart, since it is possible that he did them using illusions and trickery.” The first few miraculous signs – transforming Aharon’s staff into a snake, turning the water of the Nile into blood, and summoning frogs from the waters – were replicated by the Egyptian sorcerers through their trickery. But what about the subsequent miracles? These, too, might have been brought about through a different kind of trickery.
Moshe claimed he was sent on a divine mission from Hashem to take the Jews out of Egypt, and that these miraculous signs were given to him to accomplish his mission. But what if this was a fabrication? What if these were natural phenomena that Moshe somehow knew about in advance, and he simply crafted a narrative around them to establish his authority? I call this “the Columbus trick,” based on a tactic used by Christopher Columbus to deceive the indigenous tribes. Timothy Ferris describes this in Coming of Age in the Milky Way (p.22):
Political power presumably played a role in early efforts to identify periodic motions in the sky, inasmuch as what a man can predict he can control. Command of the calendar gave priests an edge in the hardball politics of the Mayans, and Christopher Columbus managed to cow the Indians of Hispaniola into providing food for his hungry crew by warning that the moon otherwise would "rise angry and inflamed to indicate the evil that God would inflict on them." Writes Columbus's son Ferdinand, in his journal entry for the night of February 29, 1504:
“At the rising of the moon the eclipse began, and the higher the moon rose the more the eclipse increased. The Indians observed it, and were so frightened that with cries and lamentations they ran from every side to the ships, carrying provisions, and begged the Admiral by all means to intercede for them with God that he might not make them feel the effects of his wrath, and promised for the future, diligently to bring all he had need of ... From that time forward they always took care to provide us with all that was necessary, ever praising the God of the Christians.”
This, I believe, is what the Rambam meant when he wrote that even large-scale miracles can be “done” through trickery – not like a stage magician who performs illusions that manipulate the audience’s perceptions, but like Columbus, who had advance knowledge of a natural phenomenon which he spun to his advantage.
The Rambam is correct: a single miraculous sign performed by Moshe would not be a reliable basis for believing his claims. However, multiple miraculous signs are a different story. Columbus might be able to get away with blotting out the sun on one occasion, but the likelihood of him successfully orchestrating multiple supernatural feats like this is virtually nonexistent. In contrast, Moshe performed numerous wonders, involving diverse natural phenomena – over land, sea, and air – and it is this multiplicity that lends credulity to his claims. Perhaps this was the intent in Hashem’s statement to Moshe: “Paroh will not listen to you, so that I can multiply my wonders in the land of Egypt” (Shemos 11:9). R’ Avraham ben ha’Rambam, who presumably agreed with his father, comments on “the people feared Hashem and they believed in Hashem and in Moshe, His servant”:
and they believed – the intent [in this statement] is that their belief increased and their trust was strengthened. And do not object [saying] that they already believed, as it is written: “the people believed” (ibid. 4:31). Rather, its meaning is that multiple miracles bring about an increase in belief.
And it was not just the multiplicity of these miracles that was significant, but also their intentionality, design, and the fact that they were forecast in advance. By “intentionality,” I mean that these were not random natural events without any discernible aim; rather, they were clearly coordinated to liberate Israel from their Egyptian servitude. By “design,” I refer to the fact that these miracles systematically refuted the entire theology of Egypt, as has been discussed by medieval and modern commentators alike. Additionally, not only did Moshe announce the majority of these miracles in advance, but the Israelites were aware of Hashem’s promise to Avraham Avinu that his offspring would be enslaved and eventually redeemed. This was clearly the fulfillment of that promise.
Based on all of this, I maintain that if we were in Egypt and we saw Moshe perform not just one or two, but many such miracles, they would serve as a valid basis for believing his claims. It would be rational to follow him out of Egypt and accept the truths about God’s Existence, omniscience, providence, omnipotence, and the reality of prophecy – despite any lingering doubts we might have had. And I believe the Rambam would agree. This level of conviction in Hashem and Moshe reached its apex when Hashem drowned the Egyptians in the sea.
So, according to the Rambam, what was lacking in these miracles which made them an unreliable basis for accepting Moshe’s authority? Why was Sinai “a proof for the truth of his prophecy which contained no doubt”? My understanding is that there were two main deficiencies in the pre-Sinai miracles which were remedied by Maamad Har Sinai. The Rambam clearly spells these out in the remainder of the chapter cited above:
Consequently, those to whom he was sent served as witnesses that his prophecy was true, and he didn’t need to perform a miraculous sign for them, for they and he were one in the matter – like two witnesses who saw the same thing together: each one of them is a witness to the truth of his friend’s words, and neither one of them needs to bring a proof [to verify the words of] his friend. So was Moshe Rabbeinu: all of Israel were witnesses to him after the Revelation at Sinai, and he didn’t need to do another miraculous sign for them.
This is what Ha’Kadosh Baruch Hu said to him at the beginning of his prophecy when he gave to him the miraculous signs to perform in Egypt; He said to him, “and they will heed your voice” (ibid. 3:18). Moshe Rabbeinu knew that a person who bases his belief on miraculous signs will have doubt in his heart, and will have suspicion and afterthought; for this reason, he was resistant to go, saying, “but they will not believe me” (ibid. 4:1) – until Ha’Kadosh Baruch Hu made known to him that these miraculous signs would only [serve as the basis for belief] until they leave Egypt; but after they leave Egypt and stand at the foot of this mountain, any subsequent suspicions would be removed from you, for I will give you a sign through which they will know that I sent you in truth, from the beginning, and no suspicion will remain in their heart. This is what the verse states: “And this is your sign that I have sent you: When you take the people out of Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain” (ibid. 3:12).
The first reason Mamad Har Sinai was qualitatively superior to earlier miracles is that it instilled a conviction in Moshe’s prophecy beyond any shadow of a doubt. In the case of these other miracles, it could only be inferred that Hashem spoke to Moshe, but the possibility remained that Moshe was employing “the Columbus trick,” and his prophetic claim was a fabrication. At Sinai, however, the entire nation directly witnessed Hashem communicate to Moshe, cementing his role as Hashem’s trustworthy messenger. Rambam continues:
Thus, we can say regarding any prophet who arises after Moshe Rabbeinu that we do not believe in him because of a miraculous sign alone, such that we could say, “If he will perform a miraculous sign, we will obey him in whatever he says,” but rather, [we believe him] because of the commandment that Moshe commanded us in his Torah. He stated that if [the would-be prophet] gives us a miraculous sign, “you shall obey him” (Devarim 18:15). Just as we are commanded to render a decision in court on the testimony of two witnesses even though we do not know whether they are testifying truthfully or falsely, so too, it is a mitzvah to obey this prophet even though we don’t know whether the miraculous sign is real or whether it was done through illusions and trickery.
Thus, if a prophet arises and performs miraculous signs and great wonders but seeks to undermine the prophecy of Moshe Rabbeinu – we do not obey him, and we know for sure that those signs were done with illusions and trickery; for the prophecy of Moshe was not established based on miraculous signs, such that we could compare the miraculous signs of this one to that one; rather, we saw with our eyes and we heard with our ears, just as he heard.
To what may this be compared? To witnesses who testified to a man that something he saw with his own eyes was not as he saw – he would not listen to them, but he would know with certainty that they are false witnesses.
Therefore, the Torah says that if a person comes to us with a miraculous sign and a wonder, “do not listen to the words of that prophet” (ibid. 13:4), for he has come to you with a sign and wonder to undermine what you saw with your own eyes. And since we don’t believe [in prophetic claims] on the basis of a miracle, but only because of the commandment that Moshe commanded us, how can we accept a miraculous sign from this person who comes to undermine Moshe’s prophecy, which we saw and heard?
The second reason Sinai surpasses previous miracles is that it elevated Moshe’s prophecy to the standard by which all future prophetic claims could be tested. We have never accepted, nor will we ever accept, a prophet based solely on miracles. Sinai became the only way to determine the absolutely legitimacy of a prophetic claim.
There remain many unanswered questions and difficulties surrounding the topics discussed in this article, particularly concerning the nature of the Revelation at Sinai and its implications. As the Rambam (Moreh ha’Nevuchim 2:33) writes: “it is impossible to expound on the Assembly at Mount Sinai to a greater extent than [the Sages] spoke about it, for it is one of the mysteries of the Torah.” The best we can do is to address a few questions at a time, taking small steps towards understanding, with the Rishonim as our guide.
What do you think of my reading of the Rambam? In your opinion, does this adequately answer the questions I raised about the role and limitations of the pre-Sinai miracles in the Rambam’s theology? I personally have other questions on this, which I didn’t raise in this article. I’d be curious to know if you have questions as well.
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