Maimonides, Spinoza and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism (review)

When Yeshiva University granted an honorary doctorate to Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz, he gave a public lecture on "Torah and Science" (Torah u-Madda being the motto of YU). He began by remarking that when people find conflicts between Torah and science, the problems are usually the result of "popular Torah" or "popular science" (or both). The more serious and broad-minded a scholar is, said Rabbi Steinzaltz, the less he will find substance in many such apparent contradictions. Nevertheless, there still remain some deeper and more nuanced problems that are far more difficult to deal with, and may never have satisfactory solutions.

Rabbi Marc Angel's new book on Maimonides, Spinoza and Us takes the reader on an intellectual journey in Rabbi Steinzaltz's direction, by promoting balanced models of faith and reason that can co-exist and mutually enrich each other. Maimonides (or Rambam) is Rabbi Angel's role-model for how to seek a careful, nuanced, and rational understand of what the Torah says and demands, while Spinoza is the ultimate representative of the challenge that reason and science pose to traditional religious views. Rabbi Angel eloquently argues that both Torah and science would each be enriched by respectfully engaging with the other: On the one hand a Jew learns to understand the Torah more deeply by confronting Spinoza's challenge, and on the other hand human reason itself benefits from this process by learning its own limitations, and by abandoning its more extravagant claims about what it is capable of accomplishing or proving.

None of these ideas are new, but they are certainly refreshing in today's Jewish world. Indeed, the most surprising thing about this wonderful little book is that it was written at all. In this day and age, for the rabbi of an Orthodox community to unabashedly choose Maimonides as his religious role model is uncommon enough. But for that same rabbi to devote his weekly Sunday community study sessions to a sympathetic comparison of Maimonides and Spinoza is virtually unheard of. This book was the outgrowth of exactly such study by a rabbi with his congregants.

Rabbi Angel begins by calling his book "an attempt to reclaim the narrow path of Torah," which lies between the two dangerous extremes of "fire and ice": This path eschews "religious zeal that has lost control of itself " on the one hand, and "scepticism, rationalism run amok" on the other. And it is here that the two heroes of the book are presented: While Maimonides "lays the foundation for an intellectually sound Judaism" by challenging each Jew to probe the Torah with his mind, Spinoza's honest and direct criticism of Maimonides' approach is a healthy challenge to modern Jews to once again re-think the tension between faith, tradition, and reason.

The narrow middle path, however, lies between the extremes on two sides. If Spinoza is the "ice" challenge to Maimonides, then it is "anti-Maimonidean" Judaism that wages war on his approach as "fire." This religious world lacks a clear persona in the book, and no specific name is attached to it (at least not until Judah Halevi makes his appearance in Chapter Seven on "Israel and Humanity"). But it is very important for balance within the book, especially in the chapter on "Religion and Superstition" and in the various sections that discuss religious authoritarianism: "Judaism does not—and according to Rambam cannot—demand that we turn off our brains" at the behest of Torah scholars "whose very worldview precludes an open intellectually sound approach to the attainment of knowledge" (p. 165). Since this is such a passionate book, written from the heart in a personal way about two very human heroes, in the future Rabbi Angel or others might want take this Maimonides/Spinoza approach a step further and strengthen it by adding a personal and sympathetic face to the "fire" side as well to the "ice."

The book begins with two chapters on faith...