Worship of the Heart: A Study of Maimonides' Philosophy of Religion (review)

Book Reviews 147 Judaism with various non-theistic alternatives operating in contemporary Jewish life and in Western philosophy. He rightly emphasizes that ascribing Jewish ethical norms to a transcendent source distinguishes Jewish ethics but does not preclude its relying on intelligence, intuition, experience, and emotion in clarifying both the norms and their applications. But he is less convincing when he suggests that making one's life a work of art through one's choices has a special status in Jewish ethics. This formulation, at least, actually reflects a secular existentialist ideal, more akin to Nietzsche and the contemporary ethic of authenticity than to the teachings of earlier Jewish sages. Still, the essay is useful in sketching out key issues and in explaining how being created in God's image grounds moral obligations. The last three chapters, reflecting current interest in issues of gender and carnality in Judaism and other religious traditions, are concise, highly informative, and well crafted accounts based on classic rabbinic, philosophic , kabbalistic, hasidic, and modern secular sources. While they express a novel emphasis, there is nothing tendentious or arbitrary about them. Together with his copious and valuable notes, these essays clearly display Professor Sherwin's remarkable intellectual breadth and erudition at their best. In sum, Toward a Jewish 1beology offers a lively and learned illustration of how Jewish theological discourse not only illuminates classicalJewish sources but also revitalizes the genre in novel retellings of familiar stories, constructive critiques of competing ideologies, and the revisioning of neglected aspects of contemporary religious life in the mirror of tradition. These essays will be of interest to lay and professional readers alike, and deserve a wide readership. Barry S. Kogan Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati, Ohio Worship ofthe Heart: A Study ofMaimonides' Philosophy ofReligion, by Ehud Benor. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1995. 251 pp. $16.95. In this book on prayer in the thought of Maimonides, Ehud Benor undertakes to address the question, what reason is there for the contem· plative philosopher to engage in the ritual prayer of the community? The question arises because of Maimonides' philosophical understanding of 148 SHOFAR Winter 1997 Vol. 15, No.2 God and human perfection, on the one hand, and of his endorsement of Jewish practice regarding prayer, on the other. The problem is the more acute, the more standardized and public is the form of prayer. For if the ideal of human perfection is individual and intellectual-even if it is directed, as it is for Maimonides, towards a knowledge of God, then there would seem to be neither motive nor reason for the educated believer to engage in formalized and public prayer. Moreover, if the quest for knowledge of God is coupled with the tenets of negative theology regarding the incomprehensibility of God, then the only appropriate form of prayer would at best be a meditative silence. The problem serves to highlight disparate strands in the thought and writings of Maimonides: between his philosophical interests directed to a select audience in The Guide of the Perplexed and his halakhic interests directed to a general audience in the Mishneh Torah. But Benor extracts from Maimonides a consistent and unified theory of prayer that integrates, rather than juxtaposes, apparently contrasting elements. He does so by showing, on the one side, how Maimonides includes an ethical element in his contemplative ideal of human perfection and, on the other, how prayer, particularly standardized prayers of petition and thanksgiving, serves to move the individual toward the contemplative ideal. What forges the link between Maimonides' philosophic and halakhic interests on the question of prayer is his theory of attributes of action, whose full import, in Benor's interpretation, implies an ethics of imitatio Dei. As presented in the Guide, the ideal of human perfection consists in attaining a knowledge of God within the limitations imposed by the transcendent reality ofGod and human capabilities. Some interpreters see here a purely theoretical ideal that entirely eschews the practical realm; others read into Maimonides a practical turn away from the theoretical because his negative theology renders the theoretical ideal impossible to attain. Benor argues, on the contrary, that Maimonides proposes a contemplative ideal which is itself ethical...