Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People (review)

150 SHOFAR Fall 1992 Vol. 11, No. 1 understand this material. Other scholars, we should note, have made the same mistake. Over-reliance upon the great legal codes is a criticism that has been raised against Asher Gulak's survey of the principles ofJewish law (Yesodey hamishpat ha'ivrl, Berlin, 1922), and Gulak was an accomplished Talmudist. It would be churlish to fault Selden for doing the best he could do, even though it must be stressed that the real significance of his book is as a document of seventeenth-century intellectual history rather than as a guide to Jewish marriage law. Ziskind's copious notes are evidence of his obvious scholarship in a variety of fields. One minor criticism: the claim that extensive citation of theJerusalem Talmud is a "distinctively Maimonidean" trait is exaggerated. Critical comparison of the two Talmuds is a feature common to all rlshonim, the Ashkenazic Tosafists in particular. True, in matters of legal decision they follow the Babylonian Talmud, but this too is universal, as Maimonides himself makes explicit in his introduction to the Mishneh Torah. This note should not detract from the overall evaluation. Ziskind's work, no less than Selden's, is an impressive accomplishment, for which we are clearly in his debt. Mark Washofsky Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati, Ohio Maimonides onJudaism and the Jewish People, by Menachem Kellner. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. 168 pp. $44.50 (c); $12.95 (P). This book, by Professor Menachem Kellner of the University of Haifa, can be seen as a sequel to his larger work, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). In the earlier work Kellner analyzed the positions of the major philosophical theologians in medieval Jewry on the question of how essential the acceptance of a structured set of faith assertions is to one's identity as a Jew. There he showed that Maimonides was the thinker who most emphasized the centrality of dogma to Jewish identity. This work is basically an elaboration of the Maimonides section of the earlier work, but one written for ultimately polemical purposes. It looks to Maimonides as an authority in the context of a current debate among Jews, especially among Israeli Jews. That debate centers around the Book Reviews 151 question of whether the difference between Jews and gentiles is one of degree or one of kind; or, to put it more philosophically, whether the difference is ethical or ontological. If the difference is ethical, i.e., Judaism requires Jews to maintain certain distinct practices and beliefs, then one can see basic ontological commonalities betweenJews and gentiles and argue thereafter for Judaism as the best, the most rationally satisfying, way of life for human beings. As Kellner puts it (with typical lucidity), "Maimonides's basic view [is] that in the first instance all human beings are essentially alike. What distinguishes them are qualities that are acquired and that can be changed" (p. 22). The privileged position of the Jewish people in this view is only a historical contingency, one that will be overcome when all humanity accepts true monotheism in the ideal messianic future. But even here and now there is enough commonality betweenJews and at least monotheistic gentiles for there to be much positive interaction. This is the position of Maimonides which Kellner shows by one citation and commentary after another. It is the position with which Kellner identifies. But if the difference between Jews and gentiles is ontological (as Kellner traces the view back to Judah Halevi and the Zohar), then Jews and gentiles are in essence members of different species. As such, there can be no real commonality between them, whether actual or even potential. It follows from this that there can be little or no positive interaction between Jews and gentiles. In the context of current Israeli life it is not hard to see who has been influenced by this theology. Kellner is clearly taking sides in a current debate (Kulturkampf might be a more accurate description) within the Jewish religious community itself. It is a struggle between religious nationalists on one side and religious humanists on the other side. (This distinction is important...