Orthopraxy - II - Sitting In A Succah

Can one not believe in God and simultaneously keep all of halacha? (first post in the series here)

I am defining Orthopraxy as the keeping of halacha even as one has doubts or does not believe in the existence of God. The question: to what extent does halacha mandate belief in God in order to fulfill various positive and negative commandments.

In the previous post, I mentioned the first few the Rambam mentions, and highlighted specifically the following commandments: (1) belief in the existence of God; (2) loving God; (3) fearing God; (4) seeing oneself as though he left Egypt with his forefathers. Read that post for more details.

The next example is well summarized by R' Student at Hirhurim, in a post titled "Sukkah Intentions".

The Tur (Orah Hayim, 625; and later the Shulhan Arukh, ad loc.) introduces the laws of living in a sukkah by saying that the mitzvah is so that we remember that God had us live in sukkos in the desert after the exodus from Egypt. R. Yoel Sirkes, the Bah, asks why the Tur mentions this theological idea in his practical compendium. He answers that this idea has a practical application. The Torah tells us that we must live in a sukkah "in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt" (Lev. 23:43). Therefore, writes the Bah, when one sits in a sukkah one must consciously remember the historical origin of the sukkah in order to fulfill the commandment.

This innovation of the Bah is accepted by all major posekim, with the only debate centering around the case of someone who failed to remember this historical origin. Has this person ex post facto (be-di-avad) fulfilled the commandment or must he repeat it? Many (e.g. Bah, Bikkurei Ya'akov, Derekh Pekudekha) hold that he has not fulfilled the commandment while others (e.g. Peri Megadim, Mishnah Berurah) hold that he has and need not repeat the mitzvah act.

The post happens to continue with a question about the methodology - this appears to be a post-Talmudic textual derivation. In a post on parshablog (here) I gave a possible explanation of the gemara in the beginning of Succah such that perhaps one might read this into the gemara (namely, the reading of the pasuk to mean that one must be cognizant of the fact that he is living in the Succah can by extension be that he should be aware of this fact so that (and the pasuk continues) he can know that Hashem sat the Israelites in Succahs (or in Clouds of Glory) ).

According the Bach and others in his camp, one cannot fulfill sitting in a Succah if he does not know that the Israelites sat in Succot when they came out of Egypt.

Now, someone who does not believe in God does not believe that He took the Israelites out of Egypt. (And one who is unsure also does not know - limaan yede`u.) How can he know a fact that is not true? If so, the Orthoprax person will not have fulfilled his obligation.

It gets worse than that. How can the Orthoprax person make a blessing on sitting in the Succah? He cannot fulfill the mitzvah, and so this is a bracha levatala! Thus, another violation of halacha.

We do not have to rule like the Bach. The Orthoprax can rely on the Peri Megadim and the Mishnah Berurah that he has fulfilled the commandment bedieved. But bedieved means that he did not fulfill the commandment in the ideal way, in the way that Chazal/Torah intended.

{Update: Plus, if we assume that the fact that the Bach darshens it means that he reads this as a Biblical command to know, then perhaps even according to Peri Megadim where it is lechatchila, he still is not fulfilling this separate Biblical imperative.)

More to follow in the series, be'ezrat Hashem.