Ben Jungreis
Unit 7: Understanding Laws (cont.)
Chapter 27 of Part III of The Guide of the Perplexed establishes an overall rationale for the commandments. It opens with a declaration by Maimonides: “The Law as a whole aims at two things: the welfare of the soul and the welfare of the body” (Twersky 314). These two parts, the body and the soul, are the two parts which man must seek to perfect. Maimonides holds perfection of the soul as more important, calling it the “ultimate perfection”. First, Maimonides explains what it means for each part to be healthy. Bodily health is gained through improving the way people live and interact with each other, it is really societal health. A healthy soul is gained through “the multitude’s acquiring correct opinions” as far as they are capable (Twersky 314). Galston points out that there is only a small resemblance between the states of health and perfection for the two parts. Maimonides explains that the first perfection (the body) must be achieved before perfection of the soul can be because the needs of the body must be met so one can pursue the learning needed for the ultimate perfection. This first perfection is gained through fulfilling the basic human needs, such as food, shelter, and cleanliness. However, Maimonides caveats: “this cannot be achieved in any way by one isolated individual” (Twersky 315). Maimonides believed that this goal could only be achieved by those in society, or as Maimonides puts it “a political association” (Twersky 315). Galston interprets the text as indicating that the society necessary for bodily perfection allows more freedom and independence between individuals than the society which creates bodily health, so the two states (health and perfection) may not be able to coexist. As for the soul, its health can be obtained by acquiring “correct opinions”, whereas its perfection is obtained by becoming rational through knowing as much about all beings as one can. The two states are connected, unlike for the body. In the beginning of chapter 28 Maimonides asserts that the correct opinions that stem from health are necessary before achieving the ultimate perfection. Chapter 27 ends with Maimonides asserting the power of “the Law of Moses” to bring about both perfections.
Chapter 28 begins by outlining what correct opinions are, which is everything associated with believing in God. Maimonides gives examples: “His unity, His knowledge, His power, His will, and His eternity” (Twersky 316). The examples listed are explained to be end goal, which one can only reach by first having many other opinions. The commandments only describe which opinions should be your end goals, not the others that allow you to get there. According to Maimonides the opinions one must gather first must be of “the numerous kinds of all the theoretical sciences” (Twersky 317). Since opinions seems to mean knowledge of something, this means that one must understand the sciences before one can gain an understanding of God, an idea that Maimonides has presented before. Maimonides then continues by describing beliefs that the commandments prescribe in order to promote “political welfare.” Maimonides uses the example of fear: you must have the belief that God is angry with those that disobey his commandments so that you fear His wrath and do not disobey.
Maimonides draws from these rules about beliefs and opinions three purposes for commandements: abolishing wrongdoing, promoting good relationships by improving people’s’ “moral quality”, or teaching someone an opinion that leads to either of those. If it has one of these purposes then it has clear utility. You do not have to wonder why it exists, like the commandment which forbids murder. Maimonides says the commandments which have controversy over their purpose are those that do not meet one of those three criteria for clear utility, such as the prohibition on mixing meat and milk. He says that these commandments to do not appear to be related to the “welfare of the soul.” However, Maimonides assures the readers that even these seemingly purposeless commandments do have a purpose, and they fulfill one of his three purposes, and that he will explain how in a later chapter. Galston points out that chapter 28 takes the reader from the belief that all commandments must be believed for their own sake, to understanding that some commandments have a utility that improves life, to the realization that all commandments have this utility in some way. Don Seeman points out that understanding the utility of God’s Laws is necessary to love Him, a love that is achieved only through deep understanding.
Chapter 32 of The Guide of the Perplexed begins with Maimonides explaining how God shaped the human body, giving each part utility, likening it to how He also put purpose into every commandment. Maimonides shows how various commandments mandated and prohibited different kinds of worship with the purpose of ending idolatrous practices. This achieves what Maimonides calls God’s first intention: the understanding of God and not worshipping another god besides Him. He then comes to the question of why we have free will, why did God not simply makes us naturally inclined to be obedient to Him instead of creating a system of rewards and punishments? Maimonides says that God could make us naturally follow His commandments, but He clearly does not want to do that or the “sending of prophets and all giving of a Law would have been useless” (Twersky 332). In this chapter Maimonides lays out how God’s restrictions on idolatrous practices, such as restricting sacrifices to the Temple, were done to achieve what he calls God’s first intention. Maimonides rationally explains the purpose of commandments which seem to have no purpose, fulfilling his promise of an explanation from chapter 28.
Don Seeman’s article on The Guide of the Perplexed argues that Maimonides’ reasons for the commandments are Aristotelian in nature, and that his “pleasure-inducing contemplation of both nature and divine commandments should be considered analogous to Aristotle’s pleasure-inducing contemplation of both kosmos and human virtue” (Seeman 305). Maimonides breaks with many of his predecessors by arguing that all commandments are rational, and argues that saying some commandments have no rationality implies God is not perfect. Seeman writes: “Maimonides insists that any conception which is premised on the idea of a God who acts without purpose would impugn divine perfection” (Seeman 302). Seeman explains that Maimonides never substitutes faith for rational explanation when it comes to the purpose of the commandments. Seeman says that the purpose of the The Guide of the Perplexed is to show the reader how God’s Laws all have a rational purpose so that people can understand them (therefore understand God) so that they can truly love God.
I found chapter 29 to be noteworthy: Maimonides begins chapter 29 of book III of the Guide with the story of Abraham’s subversion against the Sabians and their pagan religion. He justifies the telling of this story by claiming that “the meaning of many of the laws became clear to [Maimonides] through [his] study of doctrines, opinions, practices, and cult of the Sabians” (Maimonides, p. 322). This passage indicates that in order to understand the “commandments which are considered to be without cause” one must study the society of the Sabians which these commandments are meant to amend (Maimonides, 322). He also makes a distinction between the Sabians’ fallacious literal understanding of the story of the Garden of Eden and his metaphorical understanding of the story. Only metaphorical interpretation would yield truth. It seems that Maimonides is justifying his Halakhic interpretation with historical analysis and scientific rationale in this chapter.
Nice summary, Sam.
I found the retelling of Abraham’s ‘declaration of God in chapter 29 to demonstrate the ‘true’ meaning or utility of parables. While the focus of this parable surrounds the ‘story’ of Abraham’s discovery of God, it also contains several ‘hidden’ elements. Maimonides mentions how false argumentation and reasoning led the Sabians astray from truth, and God. Then Abraham slowly convinced some people of the truth by “feeble preaching, conciliating people and drawing them to obedience by means of benefits” (321). Maimonides then says that Moses “perfected the purpose in that he commanded killing these people, wiping out their traces, and tearing out their roots.” (321). Here, we see that the ‘fathers of our religion’ conceived of, and then perfected the religion through reason and prophecy. What I find most interesting with this notion, is that the purpose of Abraham achieves perfection by killing and erasing entire peoples. Some will (wrongly) interpret this as one of these options:
1. a command for us to kill other people,
2. a parable who’s ‘significance’ is to show ultimate devotion to God.
3. Or ignore the parable completely.
However, I believe that the ‘concealed’ parts of this story lie within 2 of its aspects. The first is, that the ‘purpose’ is perfected by eliminating all traces of idolatrous people, shows how the purpose is not to create a ‘good’ world by killing these people, but instead it shows that false beliefs are essentially inevitable so long as people have the option to choose them. This commandment also shows perfection because of its truth: If we were to successfully eliminate all traces of idolatrous people, the purpose of Abraham’s religion would indeed be accomplished (not the perfection of the world, because even people that believe the ‘right’ things are going to misunderstand the truth). The second interesting thing is that both Abraham and Moses were successful, and neither were sophists. Abraham employed ‘feeble preaching,’ and it is known that Moses had a lisp… This reinforces the notion that speaking is not useful in conveying truth.
Lastly, Maimonides explains that Abraham’s call established the “existence of the deity and the creation of the world in time by that deity”. However, if we are constantly being given hints that language is severely flawed, I’m curious how this should be interpreted. Maimonides compares Abraham’s wording “in the Name of the Lord” to the “existence of the deity.” But, if God is one than the Lord can’t have a “Name.” Here, if we take the same language ‘mistakes’ and ‘correct them,’ we would have to eliminate the relativity between Lord and Name, and Existence and Deity. This led me to the next assertion, the creation of the world in time. The use of ‘in time’ would seem to defy Unity, but I think then, that Maimonides has concealed something here. I think that perhaps creation only exists as a concept for Man because of time. Time ‘enables’ creation because the validity of the notion of creation requires a preceding state of ‘non-existence.’ Here, because Maimonides intentionally conveys an incorrect assertion of God (incorrect because of the flaws of language) and then re-asserts the same idea in his own words, it is almost like Maimonides is hinting that the reader should question the contradictions in his statement to find a greater truth through the contemplation of them.
I liked how you weaved Miriam Galston’s and Dr. Seeman’s interpretations in your summaries of the Guide of the Perplexed, such as in your summary on chapter 28 of Guide of the Perplexed, since it made it easier to compare the three sources. I found it interesting that Maimonides thought that all commandments have a rational purpose for the sake of enabling humans to understand God better. But if only a few people have the cognitive ability to understand these rationalities, why is it necessary to have rationalities? Is the goal not to elevate all human souls through their understanding of God, but only the “elite”? Even though the commandments have rationalities, according to Maimonides, most Jews have to substitute faith for rationality, since they are unable to comprehend the rationalities. Maimonides has stated that attempting to understand the reasons for commandments could cause those who are not capable of achieving that level of understanding to sin. However, being led to believe that there are no clear rational explanations for some commandments could also cause people to doubt God’s divine perfection.
One part of the reading that I found particularly interesting is something that is relevant to last week’s class discussion. In chapter 27, Maimonides does an excellent job of explaining the purpose of law and the reason that one should follow them. Just as we saw in previous readings, Maimonides tends to use a spiritual logic that uses the awe of God and religion as a means to accumulating followers of the law. He does so yet again in this chapter when he says, “The letter of the Torah speaks of both perfections and informs us that the end of this Law in its entirety is the achievement of those two perfections” (Twersky 316). My takeaway from this is that in order to achieve complete perfection, once must follow the law, as that is what the Torah says to do. I also found chapter 29 to be very eventful and in some ways dramatic, specifically when Maimonides speaks of Abraham and his refuting of the current religious teachings of the Sabians. The chapter changes directions drastically as Moses is introduced. The tone becomes much more negative as we see Moses instructing the followers to kill the Sabians and wipe out any trace. Furthermore, we learn that, “the first intention of the Law as a whole is to put an end to idolatry” (Twersky 321). I have a hard time believing that the Law instructs its followers to end idolatry by killing. This can be done in different ways, such as simply converting the group through introductory teachings or discussion; however, the process of wiping out an entire group to achieve this law seems a bit radical.
Thank you for providing such a well-crafted post, Ben. The readings and your analysis provoked my thinking on how Maimonides might understand the law in the modern context. Broadly, every contemporary issue should be answered at least in principle by the Laws of Moses. Given Dr. Mark Cohen’s discussion last night, I am curious about how Maimonides would interpret and comment on the halakha differently if given a modern perspective. Would he think that a completely reissues Mishneh Torah was necessary or advocate for edits? I am also profoundly curious about how modern scientific knowledge can supplement our understanding of the rationality of the commandments. For example, the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids found in pork is incredibly unhealthy, so maybe the point still stands that prohibitions breed disciple, but it is quite possible that the subject of the prohibition is not arbitrary as someone without that knowledge might be inclined to think.
Great job summarizing the readings for this week. I found your point that the opinions of an individual don’t matter, is only the end opinion that they reach that is important very interesting. I would argue that some of the intermediary opinions do matter, fi they go against the grain so much so that they could drastically alter the path one ends up on. However, I agree that in the end, the thing that matters most is the conclusion that one reaches. Additionally, I wonder whether the order in which Maimonides gives for the three purposes to following the commandments (abolishing wrongdoing, promoting good relationships by improving people’s moral quality, or teaching someone an opinion that leads to either of those). Is it important that these are listed in this specific order, or is this arbitrary and the importance lies solely in what is being said, rather than its order?
Ben, you did a really good job of summarizing and expanding on these pieces! I thought you were able to weave the different pieces together nicely to clarify some rather complicated texts of Maimonides. While it is clear from both the chapters and your post that God’s Laws all have a rational purpose (we have also discussed this in most every, if not every, class this semester) I want to posit a question that builds off of many class discussions: in a society that is not initially ‘ready’ (intellectually, societally, etc.) for any ‘explanation’ of these laws (found in The Guide, for instance), when will it be able to go beyond its rudimentary understanding of these Laws as simply the commandments of God? Maimonides writes in much of his work that this level of cognition is only achievable after years of studying, however does Maimonides expect entire societies to develop these kinds of cognitive abilities on their own after years of rudimentary teachings of God’s Laws?