ADMONITION1

I HAVE ALREADY SHOWN that the reason we received from God makes up the tie between Him and us. It is of course up to Him whether this tie should become gradually closer or increasingly slacken. The only way to make tie the between God and us stronger is for us direct our reason exclusively toward knowledge of God. The tie becomes weaker when we direct it elsewhere. Even if you are the greatest metaphysician, the tie between you and God is necessarily severed as soon as you eat or perform some other unavoidable bodily function. For what happens then is that the required relationship between you and Him ceases to be.²

The whole intention of so-called religious worship, for example, reading the Holy Scripture, praying, and so on, is nothing other than abstracting one’s thoughts from other things: directing them toward God alone. But if you pray only with your tongue, and you are thinking about your worldly affairs; if while reading the Holy scripture, [146] you have the construction of your home in your heart, and you aren’t thinking about what you’re reading; or if you carry out a commandment without thinking about its true meaning and purpose, as when someone digs a ditch or chops wood, you are like one of those about whom it is said: “Your mouth is near, but inwardly you are far away.”³

The person, however, who develops himself so successfully in this that he can take care of daily affairs while thinking about God, as is expressed in the allegorical idea, “I sleep but my heart remains awake,”⁴ this person, I say, has reached the level that was characteristic of the greatest of all prophets (Moses), about whom we read: “Moses alone may approach God.”⁵

I have already noted that divine providence is proportional to the degree of reason one has cultivated.⁶ Thus, the perfect person, who never stops thinking about God, will be constantly guided by divine providence. Another person, whose thoughts sometimes turn away from God, won’t be [147] a full beneficiary of divine providence, but won’t be completely deserted by it either. He invites comparison with a skilled writer during the times when he isn’t writing. His intellect isn’t at this moment actualized, but it has the capacity to come close to actuality. The person who has no idea about God is like someone who lives in perpetual darkness, never seeing light. The person who achieves true knowledge of God and thinks about him constantly is in a state like that of being constantly in the light. Whoever achieves this knowledge but directs his thoughts elsewhere is at such times as if under cloudy skies. Thus, I believe that all the evil the prophets and the pious ones encountered they could only have encountered during times of forgetting, and the degree of the evil must correspond to that of the forgetfulness. This clears away the doubt that some philosophers have raised about divine providence because of the misfortune good people sometimes suffer. For as I have shown, misfortunes of that kind [148] can only happen during a time of turning away from God (with thoughts directed toward other things). Righteous men as well as evil ones are then subject to the whims of chance. (Divine providence is for Maimonides nothing other than the guidance of reason, and it occurs only when reason is being exercised properly.)7 What follows is the adducing of many moments in the Holy Scripture that, according to his exegesis, cohere with these thoughts.⁸

In the fifty-second section,⁹ we read: “The behavior of a man when he is alone with his family is very different from his behavior when he is in the presence of a great king. Whoever strives for perfection should know that the greatest of all kings, namely, the reason that God has given him, resides within him.”

The conclusion of this work states that humans can achieve four kinds of perfection.¹⁰

1 The lowest form, which the majority of people strive after, is the perfection of property, i.e., the things one has in one’s possession. This perfection doesn’t stand [149] in a natural relation to people, but rather in a merely imagined one. The relation can cease without necessitating a change in one of the correlatives.

2 Perfection of beauty, the body, strength, and such things. This perfection, too, isn’t a chief goal of man, insofar as he is man, but rather, insofar as he is an animal. However strong a man may be, an elephant will be stronger.

3 Perfection of morality. This kind isn’t the chief goal either, but rather a propaedeutic for it. Morality is only useful in society, for other people. Outside of society it has no use.

4 Perfection of knowledge. This kind is true perfection and the ultimate end of humanity. It is characteristic of humans alone, for it is only through this perfection that they maintain their essence as humans. They (the teachings of wisdom) will belong to you alone and to no one who is a stranger [150] to you.11 Strive then, human, after that which is your very self, and don’t work for others, as it is expressed in the allegorical formulation: The children of my mother resented me and made me into the keeper of the vineyard of strangers, not my own vineyard.¹² The highest end of humanity is knowledge of the truth. God fulfills His promise to us. The people that walked in the darkness have seen a great light.¹³ [151]

¹ Guide 3:51 | Pines 2:621.

² The question of whether one could remain in communion with God (devequt) during the everyday activities of life was a hotly debated topic between contemporary Hasidim and their opponents. On this question, see Idel, Hasidism, passim.

³ Jer. 12:2.

⁴ Song of Sol. 5:2.

⁵ Gen. 24:2.

⁶ Guide 3:17–23.

⁷ Maimon’s brief judgment on Maimonides’ understanding of providence is correct, if one conceives reason as not merely instrumental (i.e., finding the best means for a given end), but also allows reason to distinguish between the true and the false highest goods.

⁸ Guide 3:51 | Pines 2:626–27.

⁹ Guide 3:52| Pines 2:629–30.

¹⁰ Guide 3:54| Pines 2:634–35.

¹¹ Prov. 5:17.

¹² Song of Sol. 1:6.

¹³ Isa. 9:1.