Notes
Notes Introduction 1. On esoteric writing and how “secrets” are communicated, I have been strongly influenced by the numerous studies of Elliot Wolfson who, while focusing on the Jewish mystical tradition, has found that the figure of Maimonides, notwithstanding his “rationalism,” looms large in Jewish mystics’ formulations of their own esoteric enterprise . For but one recent example, see his “Beneath the Wings of the Great Eagle,” where he demonstrates the strong influence of Maimonides ’ hermeneutical rhetoric regarding secrets and parables on kabbalistic esotericism. 2. Fackenheim, Metaphysics, 4–5, nicely captures the predicament of Maimonides’ “perplexed” audience who may cling to traditional beliefs, despite their rational untenability, as a life of “pragmatic makebelieve .” Though addressing what Fackenheim sees as a modern phenomenon , it is just as applicable to the medieval bad faith choice envisioned by Maimonides. Fackenheim’s diagnosis of the current faith malaise is that “man, caught in skepticism, seeks escape from its paralyzing consequences. Unable to believe and yet seeking a purpose, he falls to pretending to believe, hoping that a pretended might do the work of an actual faith.” He then continues with a dismal prognosis of failure: “For a pretended faith is no faith at all. Pragmatic make-believe collapses in self-contradiction.” 227 3. Maimonides relied on the opinion in the Talmud (b. Hagigah 13a) that the teaching of the Account of the Chariot is to be restricted to the communication of only chapter headings and is to be revealed only to a chief justice (av bet din) who is troubled (libo do’eg be-qirbo). In GP I:34, 77–78, this expression is also synonymous with a contrite spirit, signifying “obedience, submission and great piety joined to knowledge.” There is no magic to the position of a head of court; rather, it indicates a high level of scholarly proficiency that must be accompanied by a humbling distress and perplexity. For the expression libo do’eg (his heart is troubled) in a halakhic context, see MT Laws of Holiday Repose 6:24, where it is identified as a state of mind that is an impediment to joy (simhah). 4. Knowledge, for Maimonides, is determinative for ritual honors and privileges, and he considered the widespread perception that priests (kohanim) enjoy privileges because of their intrinsically superior status to be a pervasive “malaise” that has “absolutely no basis whatsoever in the Torah, and is not mentioned at all in the Talmud . . . and I have no idea where this defective custom originated.” See PM Gittin 5:8 and also MT Laws of Prayer 12:18. 5. See Kugel, The God of Old, 16, who argues that Old Testament theology does not perceive a clear distinction between two domains, one of heavenly, spiritual beings and the other earthly and human, but rather that the former “is perfectly capable of intruding into everyday reality.” Much of Maimonides’ efforts can be said to have combated this “primitive” theology and constructed an impenetrable barrier between the two domains. My only disagreement with Kugel is his description of our modern age as “one in which God is axiomatically remote” (45). It seems to me that Maimonides’ project to accomplish just this state of affairs largely failed to withstand the onslaught of mysticism, fundamentalism , and new age movements that have restored precisely this biblical view of the permeable division between the two domains. 6. See Goitein, “Moses Maimonides, Man of Action,” and the bibliography listed in S. Harvey, Maimonides in the Sultan’s Palace,” 47 n. 3. 7. This is referring to the incident related in b. Hagigah 14b of the “four who entered the garden (pardes)”: Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Elisha ben Abuyah, and R. Akivah. Only the last returned successfully. 8. This is the obscure term in the Massoretic text, but the Septuagint, Vulgate, Peshitta, and numerous Hebrew manuscripts all have “garden” here. The only other biblical appearances of pardes are Eccl 2:5 and Neh 2:8. The latter also presents pardes as a private reserve of the king, access to which would be severely restricted. 9. See Harris, How Do W e Know This, 33–43, for a discussion of the axiom’s phrase “language of the sons of man.” Maimonides transformed this phrase, originally a rabbinic rule governing exegetical expansiveness, into an Aristotelian formulation that views biblical language as mythological. See Aristotle, Metaphysics XII (Barnes, 1698), where Aristotle makes the following observation regarding the anthropomorphist views of the ancients: “Our forefathers, in the most remote...
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