A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.

“I am Ad’nai, your God, who took you out of Egypt” (Exodus 20:2).

One of the most difficult subjects to write about is God. There are seven different names for God in the Torah, and some people like to cite this as evidence that the early Israelites worshiped several gods. But it is just as possible to explain this by saying that God is multifaceted, and that we can relate to God, or God can engage with us, on a personal, national, or universal level.

As the great scholar Umberto Cassuto said, God has a generic name and a person-specific one. But whenever you ask people to explain what they mean by God, you will find that no two people can come up with the same description of what they believe. Belief is such a very hard term to define.

Thanks to Maimonides, the idea of “believing in God” has become deeply embedded in Jewish religious life. But what do we mean by belief?

The Hebrew word emuna means to agree; be certain about something; or to trust. A nurse is an a’omenet –someone you trust to look after your children. When Moses’ hands got tired during the battle of Amalek, Aron and Chur held them up. As we learned last week, the Torah says that his hands were emuna, strong until the sunset when the battle was won. It is a conviction. It is not a rational, theological proposition, but a question of faith.

This makes sense. You can command somebody to do something, to keep the Shabbat, honor your parents. But how do you command somebody to believe in God?

Belief is not an action. It is a thought process, and we know how difficult it is sometimes to control our thoughts.

Significantly, the first of the Ten Principles (העשרת הדיברות) does not say “You must, or you are commanded to believe in God.” The Hebrew words that are used are simply, “I am the Lord your God.” This is a statement of the fundamental principle of the Torah.

But then how do you engage with this idea? We humans are very different. Some of us engage through feeling and emotion, and some of us through rationality and logic. Some of us have sophisticated brains and others are less complicated. Some of us are attracted to music and art, others to practical things. But in every case, the Divine dimension is fundamental to Judaism.  This spiritual dimension complements and adds to the physical.

The value of the Torah is precisely that it is more than just rational. There may be a rationale to a lot of the laws, but there are a lot of laws without rationale. All human moral systems so far have been shown in one way or another to come up short, partly because we humans have this capacity to convince ourselves of anything. A religion based in pure belief is different.

The challenge is for each one of us to find that relationship with God, whether it is rational or mystical, that suits our personalities and mindsets. Such a relationship is a very personal one. For some, it is inspirational, for others it is comfort. The idea of God, or an experience of God, is a quest. This is the true journey of religion. It can be taught. But it cannot be forced.

The author is a rabbi and writer, currently based in New York.