Two Models of Jewish Spirituality

Vol. 10, No.3 Spring 1992 lWO MODELS OF JEWISH SPIRITUALIlY by Jose Faur Jose Faur is a Research Professor at the Sephardic Heritage Foundation in New York City. He is the author ofLa Espiritualidadjulia; 'Iyyunim wu-Me!;Jqarim be-Mishne Tora le-Harambam, vol. 1; RabbiMoshe Yisrael lfa=an: The Man and His Times; and Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition. His most recent books include In the Shadow ofHistory: jews and COfwersos at the Dawn of Modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). Religion as madness is a madness springingfrom irreligiousness.' - 1 . 5 Iberian Jewry gave birth to two parallel, and in a profound sense mutually exclusive, spiritual traditions: one "rationalistic" and the other "mystical." These traditions originated in two different geographical areas, reflecting different semantic and cultural environments: the rationalistic tradition was developed in Moorish Spain, whereas the mystical tradition was born in Gerona and Catalonia, under the Christians. Both these traditions transcended their geographic and historical boundaries and have continued to dominate Jewish intellectual and spiritual life till the present. Jewish rationalism in Spain was developed by elitist circles in Andalusia, particularly those connected with the Jewish Academy at Lucena. Its best exponent was Maimonides (1135-1204). Hence it will be referred to here as "the Maimonidean" tradition. Its most outstanding feature was that it had an urban, intellectual elite. This was essential to 'Ludwig Willgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980), p. l3e. ' 6 SHOFAR the strategy of Jewish survival under Islam. What set apart the Jewish communities in the Near East from the Copts in Egypt or the Maronites and Nestorians in Syria and Iraq was the fact that they alone had a thriving, intellectual urban elite. It is a remarkable fact that out of the diverse minorities inhabiting the Islamic world, only theJews were able to develop an urban elite. It has been noted that, as a consequence of the Abbasides policy of "openness" and "cultural pluralism," all other minorities, Christians included, lost their intellectual elite to Islam: The remaining Christian elite of the cities succumbed to Hagarene monotheism primarily via the Hellenising pluralism which the 'Abbasid caliphs engendered, the phenomenon which in effect spelt doom to all the non-Muslim urban elites except the ]ews.2 In Sicily, but more particularly in Spain, the Christian intellectual elite defected to Islam. Christianity was preserved mainly in non-urban centers, among the ordinary population and semi-educated folk. For centuries, all ofJewish Spain was dominated by the life-style and traditions of their coreligionists in Andalusia. The philosophy, literary masterpieces, and legal works and institutions constituting the "Golden Age" of Spain were all the product of Andalusian Jewry. Things began to change in the twelfth century. With the destruction of the Jewish communities in Andalusia by Moslem fanatics from North Africa (the Almoravides and Almohades), the Jewish intelligentsia left the Iberian Peninsula. The resulting vacuum was filled by the Jewish communities in Castile. The great Talmudic Academy of Lucena, the most glorious of the Golden Age of Sepharad, had been transplanted to Toledo. Toledo became the cultural center for both Jewish and Christian humanists and scientists.3 This tradition was soon challenged by Northern Spain, mainly Gerona and Catalonia. Previously these communities had depended on their brethren in the South for instruction and direction. In their quest for spiritual guidance, Gerona and Catalonia looked up to their coreligionists in France and Germany. The appeal of these elements rested in the fact that they were the product of a Christian environment, akin to that of the Jews in Northern Spain. In the past, the tradition and values developed in Moorish 2Patricia Crone and Michael Cook,' Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 84. 3See my In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity (Albany: SUNY, 1992), pp. 9-10. Vol. 10, No.3 Spring 1992 7 Spain had insulated the Jew, both intellectually and emotionally, from the Christian society. By contrast, the newly introduced values "made sense," i.e., they were semantically compatible with the Christian environment. Since this tradition was developed...