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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
In the introduction to his philosophical magnum opus, the Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides provides us with a rationale for the composition of this work as well as instructions for the targeted reader on how to decipher its elusive and enigmatic style. Such devices as contradiction, diffuse and seemingly discordant treatment of subject matter, and deliberate ruses are employed to accommodate both halakhic legal constraints on the overt teaching of physics and metaphysics and the wide intellectual disparity of his potential readers. The sensitive nature of the topics to be explored demands an unorthodox pedagogy that both illuminates and conceals, allowing entrance to the qualified few while excluding those who cannot cope with the intellectual rigors involved. Rabbinic stricture prohibits revealing anything more of the Account of the Chariot (metaphysics) than chapter headings, and therefore Maimonides cautions, “my purpose is that the truths be glimpsed and then again be concealed so as not to oppose that divine purpose which has concealed from the vulgar among the people those truths requisite for His apprehension.”
1. Dalalat al-ha′irin, trans, by Pines, Shlomo, The Guide ofthe Perplexed(Chicago, 1963), (introduction, p. 7. All references to this work will be cited hereafter as Guide.Google Scholar
2. Ibid, pp. 5–6.
3. Ibid, p. 9.
4. Ibid, see also Maimonides′ introduction to the tenth chapter of Tractate Sanhedrin {Perek Heleq)in his Commentary to the Mishnah, where he announces his intention to embark upon such a work, Mishnah im Perush Moshe ben Maimon, trans. Heb. Kafih, J. (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1964), vol. 4, p. 109Google Scholar
5. Guide, pp. 17–20.
6. Ibid, pp. 18–19.
7. Ibid, p. 9.
8. Midrash Rabbah Shir Hashirim, ed. Dunsk, S. (Jerusalem, 1980).Google Scholar
9. See the further interpretation of Eccles. 7:24 in Guide1:34.
10. For a most insightful theory that what many scholars have viewed as contradictions in the Guideare really “divergences” and not logical contradictions, see Fox, Marvin, “A New View of Maimonides′ Method of Contradictions,” Annual of Bar-Han University 22–23, Moshe Schwarcz Memorial Volume(1987)Google Scholar.
11. see guide,
12. see
13. Guide 1:35, p. 81.
14. The Aramaic translation-cum-commentary of Isaiah.
15. Guide, p. 64.
16. Ibid, p. 6.
17. For a well-argued thesis calling for the application of this analysis to the commandments as well as the narrative, see Stern, Josef, “Maimonides on the Covenant of Circumcision and the Unity of God,” in The Midrashic Imagination, ed. Fishbane, M. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 131–154Google Scholar, where Maimonides′ explanation of circumcision “exemplifies a mode of allegorical or parabolic interpretation that he employs not only for the narrative portions of Scripture but also the commandments” (p. 132; and see esp. the discussion at pp. 146–150).
18. Guide, p. 12.
19. For an important and controversial study on what can ultimately be known in the Maimonidean system, see Pines, S., “The Limitations of Human Knowledge According to Al-Farabi, ibn Baja and Maimonides,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Twersky, I. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 82–109.Google Scholar
20. Greenberg, Moshe, Ezekiel 1–20, Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983), p. 317.Google Scholar
21. For Maimonides′ opinion of those who view Scripture as poetry or history, see his scolding of the “learned man” who propounded a challenge to the logic of the Eden story; Guide1:2, p. 24.
22. Kimhi, Commentary on Ezekiel17:2.
23. See Pesikta Rabbati, trans. Braude, W. G. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 33:11.Google Scholar
24. See the commentaries of Rashi and Rabbi Joseph Kara to this verse.
25. For the precise intellectual machinations involved in the prophetic process, see Guide11:36–38, where the “true reality and quiddity of prophecy” is detailed, pp. 369–378.
26. See Boyarin, David, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 320, and especially the chapter on Song of Songs, pp. 105–116, where he discusses Shir Hashirim Rabbah1:8.Google Scholar
27. Ibid, p. 107.
28. Guide11:29, p. 347.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid. 1:64, pp. 156–157.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid, p. 19-“whether contradictions due to the seventh cause are to be found in the books of the prophets is a matter for speculative study and investigation.”
35. For a description of a worthy disciple, see Ibid, p. 3-the Epistle Dedicatory to Joseph.
36. See Gersonides′ comment on this verse, which symbolizes the intellectual faculty as “king,” and also Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 8:4, where “crowns on heads” are equated with “knowledge” in the imagery of the “world to come.”
37. Guide1:54, p. 124; see also p. 453.
38. See also Ibid. 11:30, pp. 353–354, where the expression “it was good”pronounced by God in the creation narrative has an association with external utilitarian meaning and inner hidden meaning.
39. Ibid, p. 102.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid, p. 103.
42. T.B., Yebamot 104a.
43. See Pines′s note 50 on this point.
44. See Rashi′s commentary on this expression, n. 40.
45. Guide, p. 15.
46. Ibid, p. 10.
47. Ibid, p. 56.
48. Ibid, p. 526.
49. Ibid, p. 527.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid, pp. 530–531.
52. B.T., Shabbath 87b.
53. See above, n. 49.
54. Guide, p. 603.
55. Ibid. 111:35.
56. Fox, “New View of Maimonides′ Method of Contradictions,” p. 76.
57. Guide, p. 573.
