Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider

Chapter 8: Sabbath: The Temporal Outsider

191 C H A P T E R 8 Sabbath The Temporal Outsider I n the previous chapters of this book, I have focused on types of outsiders, both human and divine. Each was shaped by Maimonides to transcend its own particularity, pointing to some universal philosophical offense or virtue, as the case may be. In this chapter, I turn to a different outsider, the Sabbath, which interrupts the natural rhythm of time and normatively addresses only one people to the juridical exclusion of all others.1 However, its message is a universal one—namely, belief in the creation of the world in time.2 The Jewish obligation to refrain from work on the seventh day publicizes a common worldwide truth: “For this reason we are ordered by the law to exalt this day, in order that the principle of the creation of the world in time be established and universally known in the world through the fact that all people refrain from working on one and the same day” (GP II:31, 359).3 Strict observance of the laws of Sabbath generates, by its strangeness, curiosity among people to determine the reason for such seemingly peculiar behavior. Investigation will ensue to determine why an entire people would weekly cease and desist from productive labor for one full day. Discussion will ultimately lead 192 ■ Converts, Heretics, and Lepers to the discovery of its textual source in the Bible, thereby inculcating a belief in creation: “If it is asked: What is the cause of this, the answer is For in six days the Lord made [Exod 20:11]” (GP III:31, 359). The Torah must be explicit about the Sabbath’s rationale, in contrast to most other commandments , because it is instructive for all of humanity. Abstention from work signals a temporary, but necessary, move from reason to the text, from objectivity to encounter and faith. Creation is also an issue in which intellectual discovery is supplemented by scriptural authority, since the former on its own cannot reach a definitive conclusion. According to Maimonides, there is no philosophical proof that persuasively demonstrates the eternality of the world, nor, for that matter, is there any that does for creation. Such being the case, the question “of the eternity of the world or its creation in time becomes an open question . . . it should, in my opinion, be accepted without proof because of prophecy, which explains things to which it is not in the power of speculation to accede” (GP II:16, 294). There is “openness” to a fundamental principle of Jewish belief, indeed “the most important fundamental of the Torah of Moses our Master,”4 which renders the entire religious enterprise tentative. On this issue, Maimonides obliged his readers to bow to religious authority, a source of knowledge he normally considered vastly inferior to reason and reserved for those who are incapable of philosophical inquiry and must rely on tradition for their beliefs (see GP I:33, 72; I:50, 111).5 All discussion about creation will eventually end in deference to the founders of theoretical (Abraham) and normative (Moses) Judaism:6 “Be therefore always suspicious in your mind as to this point and accept the authority of the two prophets who are pillars of the well-being of the human species with regard to its beliefs and its associations. Do not turn away from the opinion according to which the world is new, except because of a demonstration. Now such a demonstration does not exist in nature ” (GP II:23, 322). The space reserved for the Sabbath, which interrupts the temporal continuum, also signals an interruption in the human intellectual continuum, where tradition trumps philosophical inquiry by having the final say. The Sabbath draws attention to the prophetic text as authoritative. Maimonides did in fact offer “speculative proofs” for preferring creation over eternality, but they do not measure up to the certainty of demonstration. Rather, they amount to showing that no matter what the problems are with creation in time “an even greater disgrace attaches to the belief in eternity” (GP II:16, 294). While reason endorses the superiority of creation in time over eternity, it also emphasizes, by way of its inadequacy, reason’s own shortcomings on this issue. No matter how far one has penetrated the precincts of the imperial palace of knowledge in Maimonides’ parable concerning the palace, the Sabbath marks the perpetual retreat from the...