We have combined these two mitsvot, because Rambam and Ramban debate as to whether they ought to be counted separately. Rambam lists them as two mitsvot, the first being to place oneself in the same social circle as talmidei hakhamim, Torah scholars. That mitsvah, which Ramban agrees is obligatory, comes from the words in the Torah u-vo tidbak, and you shall cleave to Him (variations thereof appear elsewhere in the Torah as well). Since it is impossible to cleave to God, tradition has it that cleaving to scholars will serve the verse’s ends.

The second mitsvah commands us to swear in God’s Name whenever we have occasion to strenuously verify the truth of a certain proposition. Rambam sees that as commanding us to swear in God’s Name, and, by implication, as prohibiting swearing by any other yardstick of truth. Reading Rambam’s words, I would have explained the mitsvah as seeking that we recognize, and show by our actions, that God is the only legitimate source of truth. The Sefer haHinukh, Mitsvah 435, assumes instead that swearing in God’s Name reminds the people taking the oath of the truth of God’s existence, a different expression of the issue.

Ramban does not view that second idea as a mitsvah; indeed, he thinks that at best the Torah permits us to swear in God’s Name, but does not command it. He explains those verses that seem to command us to swear in God’s Name as details of the more general commandment to cleave to Him. For him, in fact, only someone who has already developed a high level of attachment to God has the real right to swear in His name. Partially, Ramban’s view stems from his different text in a gemara in Temurah 3b, but he also seems to simply conceive of the value of swearing in God’s Name differently from Rambam. While, for Rambam, oaths in God’s Name demonstrate the person’s recognition of God as Ultimate Truth, for Ramban, such oaths simply express the person’s desire (and, perhaps, accomplishment) to achieve true closeness to God.

Both rabbis agree about the first mitsvah, to cleave to God, which the Talmud interprets as meaning cleaving to Torah scholars. In both the Sefer haMitsvot and the sixth chapter of Hilkhot De`ot, Rambam sees the mitsvah as helpful to the person who fulfills it. Since, as Rambam notes, our thoughts, opinions, character traits, and actions are all affected by those in our social circle, it behooves us to insure that talmidei hakhamim are members of that social circle. Close contact with such people on a regular basis will allow us to learn from the way they handle life, and apply those lessons to our own lives.

Rambam defines what we can learn from such scholars in two different ways. In the Sefer haMitsvot, he mentions ways of acting and ways of thinking about the world, implying that we will learn lessons about action, moral character, and theoretical truths. In Hilkhot De`ot, he mentions only de`ot,,character traits, and ma`asim, actions. I suspect that this is only because that is the topic of Hilkhot De`ot, not that he had changed his mind and limited what we can learn from a talmid hakham.

His belief that we will learn how to act from scholars becomes more remarkable when we note that the Sefer haHinukh, Mitsvah 434, only focuses on intellectual ideas. Even the purpose of the mitsvah according to the Hinukh, is to gain more knowledge of the ways of God. In this case, the Hinukh is more intellectually focused than the archrationalist Rambam, who focused on character and actions as well.

The Hinukh also treats women differently than Rambam, who does not distinguish between the two genders, implying that even he (who lived in a clearly segregated society) expected women, in whatever ways were appropriate, to seek the educational value in establishing contact with Torah scholars. The Hinukh, in contrast, says only that women should also make an effort to get to hear Torah scholars occasionally, so that they can learn as well; this is clearly a more limited expectation of exposure than on the men’s side.

Rambam gives two examples that are interesting because we might easily have seen them as expressing other values. He says that the obligation to cling to Torah scholars means that we should try to marry the daughter of a talmid hakham, and to try to marry our daughters to (or encourage our daughters to marry) such scholars. Without Rambam, we might easily have assumed that the Talmudic sayings that recommended such marriages were advice about how to insure a happy marriage, or to produce offspring who would be a source of pride and joy.

Similarly, Rambam encourages helping scholars financially, either by investing their money for them, or by going into business with them. This could have been only a way to provide for the scholar’s financial needs (especially since Rambam virulently objected to supporting such people from communal charity funds). In both cases, instead, Rambam focuses on the fact that either of these kinds of actions insures that we will spend significant amounts of time with that scholar, giving us the opportunities to learn from him. Both mitsvot, the mitsvah to cling to scholars and to swear in God’s Name, for Rambam, are further examples of how we achieve the essential purpose of the Torah—putting God and our continuing attempt to know Him more fully, at the center of all our endeavors. Shabbat Shalom.