Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider (review)

This study builds upon the novel hermeneutical approach to Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed first developed by the author in a previous work, Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment (SUNY, 2002). That study made two principal contributions. First, it displaced the common view of Maimonides as imposing philosophical categories onto biblical and rabbinic texts that are themselves intrinsically unphilosophical. Rather, as Diamond showed, what is often regarded as an allegorical abstraction from text to concept is, on closer scrutiny, a midrashic displacement of one text by another that yields a philosophical interpretation of the primary text. The result is still philosophical Judaism, not because Maimonides imposes "external" (e.g., Aristotelian) concepts onto Jewish texts, but because of how he reads those texts in relation to each other. Second, since philosophical interpretations risk undermining the faith of simple believers, Maimonides resorts to revealing his radical views by weaving an Ariadne's thread of exegeses that lead the alert reader to the inner chambers of Judaism, wherein resides its philosophical truth.

In this book, Diamond applies this methodology to a range of fascinating issues in the Maimonidean corpus that are frequently marginalized or altogether neglected. Each chapter takes a concept from the biblical and rabbinic tradition and shows how Maimonides radically transforms the meaning of this concept through a method of philosophical exegesis that is expertly laid bare. The book is particularly interesting for its selection of liminal concepts that traditionally mark firm boundaries between Jews and non-Jews, such as converts and heretics, or hierarchies within the Jewish polity, such as lepers, kings, and sages. The convert, for example, is interpreted as the ideal Jew because his faith is not merely derived from biological or tribal lineage, but involves a repetition, according to Maimonides, of Abraham's prizing of speculative inquiry over the unreliable evidence of custom and tradition. For his part, the leper, who appears in the Bible with an inexplicable spiritual malaise, is understood by Maimonides as a victim of moral depravity resulting from deep intellectual failings. The important point in both cases is not simply the profound transformation of a traditional identity-marker, but the way this transformation is effected by means of reading the text. For the Maimonidean revolution in Jewish thought is often taken for granted, as if Jews always rejected anthropomorphism, whereas today we know that quite the contrary was the case. The transformation of Judaism into a rational religion (or one compatible with reason) took place, step by step, through painstaking philosophical exegesis. Accordingly, exegesis, as much as "historical influence," is the key to understanding how Judaism refashioned anthropomorphism into metaphysics. This book makes a significant contribution to this task. Diamond shows how Maimonides takes crucial identity-markers that would seem, on the literal reading, to divide insider from outsider and elite from pariah, and exegetically refigures them into a vision of Jewish sociality organized entirely around the cardinal value of metaphysical wisdom. This book will be of lasting value for those interested in the concrete means by which text-centered religions, in this case Judaism, incorporate philosophical claims and thereby transform themselves.

A particularly interesting chapter is devoted to the striking idea of "imperial humility" as it emerges in Maimonides' account of kingship. This is a notable insight that deserves widespread attention, but it needs to be reconciled with the fact that Maimonides also invests this humble king with the power to execute felons at a whim, according to his unregulated conception of the public good. Diamond's portrait of Maimonides' king looks a bit too much like Gandhi, whereas he probably resembles Ahmadinejad: humble, but ruthless. But Diamond's overarching thesis is compelling. Maimonides' revisionary hermeneutic "deontologizes" the social and theological hierarchies of Judaism according to which people, like God, have given positions in the order of things. Maimonides, for whom the intellect was the highest accolade, displaces these givens by means of philosophical exegesis; kings are majestically humble, converts are...