Above is the commandment:
I am G-d, your G-d, who has taken
you out of the land of Egypt,
from the house of slaves (Exodus 20:2).
This, the first of the Ten Commandments, is the mitzvah to believe that there is a G-d. But notice how its very phrasing implies belief in G-d–not passively, as an abstract concept, but actively, as a redeemer; one is to be constantly aware that there is a Power who takes him out of all states of bondage and confinements. (In Hebrew, the word Mitzraim, "Egypt," also means metzarim, "confinements.") This gives one an infinite feeling of trust (bitachon) in G-d.
This is why it is "above": one is never to feel confined or trapped by his present state of being. Through belief in G-d, one can at any time break through his ontological confines and rise to live at a higher level of reality. Belief in and connection to G-d is the rope one uses to climb upward.
