INTRODUCTION1

Expansion of My Knowledge and Development of My Character. On Both of Which the Writings of the Famous Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon Had the Greatest Influence. Precise Account of These Writings

THE FIRST PART OF THIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY showed me striving to develop my humble capacities and my character. While the obstacles chance put in my way did slow this process, it did not block it altogether. And as every action must have an equal and opposite reaction,² it seems in my case that these obstacles were an intentional device on the part of wise providence, which actually helped me in some ways to reach my goal. Lacking [2] enlightened teachers and suitable readings, I had to learn to reflect for myself. The scarcity of helpful texts taught me to value all the more those that I could find. I felt compelled to give them my full attention, correct their mistakes, fill in their gaps, and try to bring light and order to their dark, confused chaos. Gradually I began to see that all the strokes of misfortune, which, as I recounted in the first part, befell my family and me, were not caused by an inescapable necessity. Nor were they punishments for imagined sins—a platitude stemming from ignorance and indolence—but largely consequences of just such ignorance and indolence. The concept of mediate causes gradually displaced the concept of a first cause that exceeded their limitations, returning the latter to its proper function: the idea of searching endlessly for these mediate causes. Melancholic and ecstatic religion was slowly [3] transformed into a religion of reason.³ The free cultivation of the capacity for knowledge and morality took the place of the slavish religious service. And I recognized perfection as being the precondition for true blessedness.

The writings of the famous Maimonides (Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon) were most influential in bringing about this happy transformation. My admiration for this great teacher reached the point where I regarded him as the ideal of a perfect human being and his doctrines as having been dictated by divine wisdom itself. Because I was beginning to feel new desires and passions, and because I was worried that they might lead me to actions this teacher would have abhorred, I went so far as to use the following oath as a preventative measure: I swear, by my reverence for and indebtedness to my great teacher Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, not to commit this or that deed. [4] As far as I can recall, this oath was always powerful enough to hold me back.

But to enable the reader to assess the influence this great man’s writings had on me, I must first familiarize the reader, at least to some extent, with the spirit of these writings. Readers looking for mere incidents or a novelistic story can skim these pages, which will not, however, be unimportant for intelligent readers.

Spanish by birth, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon came from a family of rabbis and lived in the twelfth century, when the Moors were still thriving in Spain. Back then, the relationship of Spain to France was the opposite of what it is today. The arts and sciences were flourishing in Spain. Political progress and enlightenment had reached a high level. In France (as in other Christian countries), on the other hand, there was political desolation, ignorance, and crude manners. Spain had the most [5] famous academies and universities, with learning of all kinds fostered and encouraged in every possible way. The government had not only granted Jews protection and civil freedom, but also raised them into high offices and positions of honor: the Jews were full participants in this general well-being and enlightenment. They took up all sorts of occupations and applied themselves to the arts and sciences with great success.

For their co-religionists in France and Christian lands, the situation was, by contrast, bleak. There the Jews’ ignorance and religious prejudices maintained the upper hand over healthy human reason, and they not only despised the arts and sciences but also condemned them as inimical to religion. Their scholars focused mainly on Talmudic study, and it was in so doing that they displayed their great gifts. This led, naturally, to misunderstandings and feuds between the French and Spanish scholars. The latter regarded the former as pettifogging [6] pedants who, lacking foundational language skills, rational exegesis, and proper methods of thought, squandered their intelligence on pointless exercises. The French, meanwhile, accused the Spanish of straying from the religion of their fathers and damned all profane knowledge as heretical, with necessarily harmful effects on Judaism.

Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon enjoyed a good education, including not only the study of the Talmud but also that of languages and science. In all these pursuits he went far. Because (in accordance with the Talmudists’ dictum4) he thought it impermissible to support himself with theological scholarship,⁵ he turned to the study of medicine, with great success. While still in his twenty-second year,⁶ he produced a commentary on the Mishna. This was an extraordinarily important effort that required more than linguistic skill and a deep understanding of the spirit of that great [7] work. It also took into account the Talmudists’ diverse interpretations and even the multifarious laws they had derived from the Mishna using their own logic, so that they could be made consistent with one another, as well as with the Mishna itself. This work, written in Arabic, has been translated into Hebrew multiple times, in various eras.

Maimonides’ second major Talmudic undertaking was his book of ritual laws, entitled Jad Hachasakah and written in Hebrew.⁷ It contains all the Jewish laws and customs that are either explicitly in the Holy Scripture or derived from scripture through the Talmudists’ particular mode of exegesis and methods. It also contains those laws and customs added in accord with the needs of the times by the Talmudists themselves or their successors.

Maimonides shows himself here as a man of rare learning, extreme perspicacity, and systematic intelligence. Especially notable is that in both of [8] these works, he focused on improving knowledge and refining customs, never missing an opportunity to restore the harmony between religion and reason where it had been lost due to misunderstandings, even if doing so meant departing from his main topic.

In a passage of his commentary on the Mishna, where he enters into an excursion of this kind, he himself writes: “I have strayed from to topic at hand, to be sure. However, this was by design, for correcting an article of faith is more important to me than anything else that I have undertaken to do here.”⁸ Right at the beginning of the second work, for instance, one finds types of laws that one wouldn’t ordinarily look for in a book of laws, because if these concepts hadn’t been linked to the actual so-called laws and the methods particular to the laws, they would never have been taken into the nation. [9]

The first part, Hylchoth Jessodei Hathora (the laws of a rational theology), contains a system of natural theology that has been reconciled with revealed theology. The second part, Hylchoth Deoth (ethical laws), similarly contains a system of rational morality that has been reconciled with the moral codes we find in the Holy Scripture and the Talmud. Here there is even a chapter in which dietary laws are treated in accord with the principles of medicine.

In the section Hylcoth Kidosch Hachodesch (the laws of the festival of the new moon), the author seizes the opportunity to address astronomy in its entirety. He proves incontrovertibly that during the time of the Second Temple, the supreme council in Jerusalem (Synedrium)9 did not use a special calendar (as is done today) to specify the date of the festival of the new moon and the various holidays that depend on that date; rather, it used the visibility of the new moon [10] itself.¹⁰ All the provinces sent messengers to Jerusalem, where they testified before the high council as to the new moon’s period of visibility. However, their testimony was declared valid only after its plausibility had been confirmed a priori, that is, using astronomical reasoning. To this end, the high council had to undertake difficult astronomical calculations, bringing into account such things as the geographical length and width of a given area, the centerpoint and true location of the sun and moon in the eclipse, the parallax and distance of the moon from the earth, and so on.¹¹ Maimonides precisely and comprehensively illustrates how this method was most likely used to perform these calculations effectively. His concern was less to explain an arbitrary law than to expand our understanding of necessary natural laws. [11]

Several parts of this work were heavily criticized. There was, for example, a rabbi named Rabbi Abraham Ben David whose level of intelligence and religious learning were not much lower than Maimonides’, but who, as a fervent Talmudist through and through, lagged far behind him in scientific knowledge and scholarly skill.¹² Ben David wrote an especially severe critique.¹³ I would like to mention several notable passages from it to provide a vivid illustration of how an orthodox theologian reacted to a heterodox one.

Maimonides sought to develop a rational interpretation of the Talmudic fable of the great feast for the pious that God will make from Leviathan in the life to come.14 Specifically, he wrote that the pious will be honored according to the degree of perfection they have achieved in this life in seeing the divinity as the ideal of the highest perfection. The [12] fable adds, to be sure, that God will give the cup (over which, according to Jewish custom, one prays after a meal) to each of the pious, one after the other, but that they will all refuse this honor because of their manifest imperfections, until finally King David himself accepts it.¹⁵ Since our Maimonides could derive no rational message from this addendum, he passed over it in silence. With holy fervor, Rabbi Abraham comments: “Is this the great feast of which the Talmudists speak? The passing of the kiddush cup doesn’t occur! It would have been better if the author had said nothing at all about the feast!”¹⁶

As another example, the Talmudists had decreed that when New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday, it should be postponed to the following day.¹⁷ In Hylchoth Kidosch Hachodesch, Maimonides explained that they made this law so [13] that the provisional calculation (according to which the New Year’s festival occurs on one of these days) would come out closer to the true calculation (according to which the festival should occur later). He omitted to mention the childish reason that the Talmudists themselves adduced.¹⁸ Rabbi Abraham criticizes him with these words: “The author boasts about his knowledge of this science (astronomy), and he claims to have mastered it down to its foundations. Because I am not part of his guild, whose members busy themselves with profane science, I will refrain from commenting on this entire section. But this one passage pushes my patience past the breaking point. According to the author’s own reasoning, why shouldn’t the New Year’s festival be postponed a day when it falls on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday as well? Why should Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday have some special privilege? I believe that the author is playing a trick on his readers here.”¹⁹ [14]

Any sensible reader will easily see that this objection is mere chicanery. Maimonides’ explanation is an attempt to bring the rational reason he himself adduced into line with the reason provided by the Talmudists. According to him, there must be some days that require a postponement of the New Year’s festival, but that these days designated for the festival are Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday follows from the reason given by the Talmudists.

In another passage, the esteemed Rabbi Abraham arrogantly dismisses Maimonides’ position, saying that the Holy Spirit itself has come down against Maimonides’ view, and so that’s that.20

All these criticisms notwithstanding, Maimonides’ work was very well received, especially by Jews living in Islamic lands. Even today, many Jews see it as the foundation of all Jewish jurisprudence. [15]

¹ The front matter of volume two of the original edition lists the chapters of the second book and their headings. We have moved these pages to the table of contents at the beginning of the book.

² This paraphrases Newton’s third law of motion.

³ Apparently, this note refers to Maimon’s transition from traditional Rabbinic-Lithuanian culture (melancholic religion), through Hasidism (ecstatic religion), to the (Spinozist?) religion of reason.

⁴ Mishna, Avot, 4:5.

⁵ See Maimonides’ commentary on Avot, 4:5, and Mishne Torah, Laws of the Study of Torah, 3:10.

⁶ At the very end of his commentary on the Mishna, Maimonides notes that he began writing it at the age of twenty-three and completed the commentary by the age of thirty.

⁷ A colloquial Hebrew title meaning “The Great Hand,” and alluding numerologically to the fourteen volumes of Maimonides’ rabbinic code, whose formal name is the Mishneh Torah.

⁸ The excerpt is from Maimonides’ preface to Pereq Heleq (ch. 11 of Tractate Sanhedrin). See Maimonides, Haqdamot le-Perush ha-Mishna, p. 149.

⁹ Namely, the Sanhedrin.

¹⁰ Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, ch. 5.

¹¹ See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, chs. 11–19.

¹² Rabbi Abraham ben David (1120–98), on whom see Isadore Twersky, Rabad of Posquières: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961).

¹³ Thus, in response to Maimonides’ claim that anyone who believe that God has corporeal properties is a heretic, Rabad writes: “there were many who were greater and better than Maimonides who followed this path” (commentary on Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 3:7), i.e., while not supporting anthropomorphic views, Rabad rejected Maimonides’ attempt to regiment Jewish dogma.

¹⁴ Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentence, 8:2–4.

¹⁵ Leviticus Rabbah, 13.

¹⁶ See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 8:2 and the commentary of Rabbi Abraham ben David ad. loc. and, with regard to David at the banquet of the righteous, 8:4, alluding to Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 119b.

¹⁷ Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Rosh ha-Shana, 20a.

¹⁸ Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, 7:1–7.

¹⁹ Rabad’s commmetary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, 7:7.

²⁰ Rabad’s commmetary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Lulav, 8:5.