Addressed to: maimonides@onelist.com
               Roger D. Masters <Roger.D.Masters@...>

About a month ago I submitted to the list the question "Why
does Judah consort with a prostitute? (Gen. 38).  It goes to
several interesting issues in Maimonides, and so I was
surprised that only Kalev Pehme wrote a response.  (I also
received an excellent response privately from Prof. Rogers
Masters, if I can find it, which is a problem, I will post
it.) Kalev's response is very good, and if you want to
reread it you may find it, through the wonder of modern
technology at:

http://www.onelist.com/viewarchive.cgi?listname=maimonides&a
rchive=5.gz

I would like to approach the problem from a different angle,
Maimonides' angle.  He asks what prostitution is? what is
wrong with it? and what does it represent?

The problem is centrally addressed in the Mishneh Torah,
Nashim, H. Ishut 1:1 and 1:4.

Yehuda and Tamar live in a world before the giving of the
Torah.  The legal rules for Jews in the pre-Torah world is
controverted in the tradition.  It is not yet clear who
these people are. The very idea of Jew is derived from
Yehuda's name.  In a large sense, what he does is basic to
who the Jews are.

Maimonides addresses pre-Torah prostitution at the outset of
his organization of the laws of marriage, 1:1 (my trans.):

    "Before the giving of the Torah a man (adam) would meet a
    woman in the marketplace.  If he and she wanted to marry,
    he brought her into his house.  They had intercourse
    (boala beino l'bein atzmo) with each other, and she
    became his wife.  Since the giving of the Torah, Israel
    has been commanded that if a man wants to marry a woman
    he first acquires (yikneh) her before witnesses, and
    afterword she will be his wife, as it says, 'A man will
    take a wife and come to her' (Deut. 22:13)."

Maimonides assumes you are aware that this verse is
traditionally understood to read as though it were written:
If a man wants to take himself a wife, he will acquire her
first in a sexual encounter ("and come to her").  The sexual
encounter, "Beeah", remains throughout as a means of
formalizing the relationship.  It remains one of the three
means mentioned by Maimonides in 1:2, "kesef", "shtar" and
"beeah", that is, money, deed and sexual encounter.  All
three are employed in the modern marriage so as to touch all
bases, but any one of the three is significant enough to
create a problem requiring rabbinic intervention, as the
giving of a gift by a minor to a little girl may reach the
level of "kesef".  The difference imposed by the Torah is
that the first part of the verse is separated from the last,
and Maimonides teaches that when it says "A man will take a
wife" a stage requiring witnesses is called for.

We are close to what might be called the original condition
of the human race here, and the same act might be called by
a number of different appellations.  In 1:4 Maimonides
addresses this concern, in parallel language:

    "Before the giving of the Torah a man (adam) would meet a
    woman in the marketplace.  If he and she wanted--he gave
    her wages and had intercourse with her at the crossroads
    and left.  She was called a K'desha.  From the giving of
    the Torah--the K'desha was forbidden, as it says, 'There
    will be no K'desha among the daughters of Israel' (Deut.
    23:18).  Therefore, all who have intercourse with a woman
    in the name of prostitution without marriage
    (kiddushin)--are flogged according to Torah law, since he
    had intercourse (Sh'Baal) with a K'desha."

I have purposely left untranslated the term K'desha.  It
means prostitute, but it implies or mocks the temple
prostitutes of the world the Jews had left behind.  The word
is derived from the triliteral KDSh which always implies
some sense of separation for the divine.  The temple
prostitutes were separated from normal social routines for
their religious and ritualistic employment.  The term is a
mildly humorous euphemism for whore, since we come to see
her as being holy or devoted to nothing but her trade.
Rashi translates K'desha in Genesis 38: "Separated and
intended for harlotry" using these same terms, "mkudeshet
u'mezumenet l'znut". Note that the word for intercourse is
some variant on the Canaanitic deity Baal, which is the
hebrew for a panoply of terms generally denoting mastery.
On the other hand, Maimonides purposely uses the term
kiddushin, marriage, in the same sentence, from the same
KDSh root, contrasting a woman who is separated, devoted, or
holy to her husband.  Another feature of the text is his
phrase, "If he and she wanted--he gave her wages and had
intercourse with her at the crossroads and left" which
closely tracks language and action of the incident with
Tamar in Genesis 38:16.

The point is that before the giving of Torah and the
institutionalization of formal marriage it was difficult to
discern the distinction between prostitution/K'desha and
marriage/Kiddushin.  In the former case wages (skhara) are
given and the man leaves sooner rather than later.

Rabbi Shmuel Tanhum Rubenstein discusses what Maimonides has
done in 1:4.  Following the RAAVAD he notes that the
prohibition of harlotry here refers to a woman who has made
herself the common property of any man (hefker), but a woman
who had united herself to a particular man, even without the
formalization of marriage was not thereby condemned.  The
loophole in this language allows the legal existence of the
concubine (pilegesh).  Thus
BT Sanhedrin 21a: "Concubines are those without marriage or
marriage contract".  R. Rubenstein allows that Maimonides
understands that there is no prohibition but for a woman who
is PREPARED for harlotry.  He quotes Maimonides at MT,
Nashim, H. Naarah Btulah 2:17:

    "I say--that what Torah states: 'Don't desecrate your
    daughter for harlotry' (Lev. 11:29)....That since the
    Torah renders guilty the one who sexually overpowers or
    seduces a woman with money but without flogging,  in the
    occurrence of such an incident (davar mkra) that she did
    not plan for... but if he sets her up and prepares her
    for all who come upon her...she is a k'desha and she and
    the man she has intercourse are both flogged because
    'There will be no K'desha among the daughters of Israel'
    (Deut. 23:18)."

R. Rubinstein comments that Maimonides in Ishut 1:4 is
supporting himself upon his words in this halacha.  He
compares Maimonides' words in laws of kings, MT H. Malachim
4:4;

    "And thus the king may take wives and concubines.  Wives
    with a marriage contract and formal ceremony (kiddushin);
    concubines without a marriage contract and formal
    ceremony, but only with sex (yihud) alone with her and
    she is then permitted to him.  However,  for anyone who
    is not a king concubinage is forbidden except with a
    hebrew maiden after betrothal (yiud)."

The reason for the prohibition of prostitution is given in
Guide 3:49, that it prevents the increase in sexual
obsession. Maimonides' theory is that the bodily alternation
in the pursuit of different prostitutes is the engine for
the production of desire.

    "For lust is increased through the change of the
    individuals that are harlots, for man is not stirred in
    the same way by an individual to whom he has been
    continuously accustomed as by individuals who are
    constantly renewed and who differ in shapes and manners
    [hilookei hatsoorot v'ha-inyanim]" (Pines, 602).

Moreover, the prohibition prevents other evils.

    "A number of men might happen to betake themselves at one
    and the same time to one woman; they would inevitably
    quarrel and in most cases they would kill one another or
    kill the woman, this being--as is well known--a thing
    that constantly happens: 'And they assemble themseleves
    in troops at a prostitute's house' (Jer. 5:7)" (Ibid).

But the principle problem is that unchecked prostitution
leads to the confusion of bloodlines, family relations and
inheritance:

    "For a child born of them is a stranger to the people: no
    one knows to what family group he belongs and no one in
    his family group knows him; and this is the worst of
    conditions for him and for his father" (Ibid).

This constitutes rather an extensive rationale for the
criminalization of prostitution, an obvious principle and
whose derivation from the Torah statements "There will be no
K'desha among the daughters of Israel" (Deut. 23:18) and
"Don't desecrate your daughter for harlotry" (Lev. 11:29)
would appear to require no further statement.  The problem
is that the Oral Torah tradition did not apply these
passages to the institution of professional prostitution.
In general, the Torah itself did not criminalize the
professional prostitute (for this insight I thank R. Yosef
Korngold of the Skokie Kollel).  This is comparable to the
fact that Torah did not criminalize rape of the unbetrothed.
The Deuteronomy statement might be limited to the actual
institution of the K'desha, which is a part of the Canaanite
religion criminalized by the Torah.  On the other hand, the
Leviticus statement may be meant to stop a potential and
horrible occurrence, the "preparation" of a daughter for
prostitution.  What this meant was since the deflowering of
a daughter out of wedlock resulted in a civil monetary
obligation by the perpetrator to the father, the father
could waive it, and essentially traffic in "(his) daughter
for harlotry."

While Maimonides is not alone (see Rashi to Deut. 23:18), he
is in a minority among commentators who hold the Torah
itself creates a criminal liability for the practice of
professional prostitution.

As Maimonides sees it, the individual is no longer free but
is caught in the grip of his desire, his evil inclination,
which, for Maimonides, means that he is caught up in matter.
Freedom is only spiritual, matter always follows the
predetermined path stamped upon it (teva) by nature's law.
He is quite clear that Yehuda has lost his free will because
of his lust (Guide 2:6, Pines 264).  He has been deprived of
that free will because G-d wants to prepare the progeny of
Yehuda, which will be the progeny of monarchy, with Tamar,
the daughter of Shem.  But, he has made his path himself, as
it says at the beginning of the account, Genesis 38:1,
Yehuda "descended and turned away," that is, the result of
his role in the sale of Yosef is Yehuda's deposition from
leadership by his brothers, and his turn away from the
Jewish people to go into a business partnership with the
Canaanites.  He has failed to allow the critically important
spiritual act of levirate marriage to take place between his
son and Tamar thus interfering in the divine plan.  The
incident with Tamar occurs in the course of his Canaanite
animal husbandry partnership, specifically on the way to a
sheep-shearing, and sheep-shearings in the Bible come to no
good end.  Yehuda has allowed his spiritual persona to
atrophy, and is like the schoolboys in Proverbs chapter
seven (as explained in the Introduction to the Guide, Pines
p. 13,  who have allowed themselves to be attracted by the
destructive figure of the "married harlot".

While Yehuda has broken no law by consorting with a
prostitute, he has proven false to his own law and destiny.
His salvation only lies in the good sense and prophetic
insight of Tamar.




Copywrite, 1999, Scott Michael Alexander, copying expressly permitted for
educational
and discussion purposes only.

Please unsubscribe me.


===

Sheldon Richmond
srichmond@...

The Smikha Controversy

                           I.

Maimonides understood that the arrangements of the present
were not to last forever.  His interest in the past was to
preserve those institutions that would remain in the
Messianic future, but that future was itself unknowable.
His central concern was with certain elements of the
present, growing out of the past, that were transitional to
this future.  These transitional elements not only transcend
time, but also nature.  We have had occasion on this list to
discuss several such transitional matters, such as prophecy,
sacrifice, and miracles.  One of these elements that
obtained his attention was the institution of traditional
rabbinic ordination, which was called Smikha.

Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Shoftim, H. Sanhedrin 4:11, my
trans., brackets are interpolations from R. Shmuel Tanhum
Rubenstein in Rambam L'am (my trans.):

    "Behold, if there did not exist in the land of Israel but
    one who had received ordination,"

By ordination he is referring to the institution of Smikha,
rabbinic/judicial ordination in the direct tradition from
Moses:

    "That one sat in session with two by his side [since the
    ordination of judges required three]"

The other two did not have to have ordination:

    "And ordained seventy at one time one after the other,
    subsequently he convened that seventy as a Great Supreme
    Court (i.e., a Sanhedrin), and they ordained other
    (smaller) courts."

He has in this first sentence of this halakha indicated the
procedure used by Moses to set up the first Sanhedrin (H.
Sanhedrin 4:1: "and thus seventy elders were ordained by
Moses and the Shekhinah--the presence of G-d--rested upon
them.).  Ordination in the direct line from Moses is Smikha.
Smikha is ordination in which the Shekhinah rests upon the
ordained.  It is thus an institution that contains elements
that transcend time and nature.  The ordained were therefore
an integral link to Sinaitic revelation.  Only they could
administer fines, and corporal punishments as well as
perform other judicial tasks.  Smikha could only be granted
by those who had Smikha in the land of Israel and none could
be ordained outside the land as the sanctity of the land was
involved in the sanctity of ordination.  The problem is that
the tradition had been broken.  The ordination given
modernly is not the traditional Smikha.  The link was broken
in Roman times by the enaction of statutes prohibiting
ordination.  Thus the judicial authority had been broken.

Maimonides now takes an important step.

He never gives the sources for his laws in Mishneh Torah,
This made him a great literary stylist and legal codifier,
but it was a terrible public relations error.  In 120
places in the Mishneh Torah he does give a source: himself.
When he does this he precedes by stating "Neeri(m) li," which
means: "it appears to me."  He says:

    "It appears to me that if all the Torah scholars in the
    land of Israel agree to appoint judges and to ordain
    (l'smokh) them, by virtue of this act they would be duly
    ordained and they could judge cases in which fines are
    imposed, and they could ordain others."

Arguing that if all rabbis in Israel agreed, they could
reinstate the Smikha.  The audacity of this is qualified by
what follows:

    "If so, why were the scholars troubled (mtstarin)
    regarding ordination that there should not be a
    nullification of the jurisdiction to impose fines in
    Israel?"

Rabbi Rubinstein writes explaining (my trans.), "As we find
in BT. Sanhedrin 14a,  R. Yehudah Ben Baba (circa 135 c.e.)
endangered his life in order to ordain five elders. When
the enemy recognized what he was doing and had him killed
for transgression of the Hadrianic edict against
ordination, why did he endanger himself, since it was always
possible to renew the institution of ordination?"

Maimonides continues:

    "Since the Jews were spread [throughout the land] it was
    impossible to ordain all of them [which required the
    sitting in session of two others, as fines could not be
    imposed but by three ordained judges].  When ordination
    still existed they did not need the agreement of all the
    scholars in Israel to impose fines, since ordination
    could be had at any duly constituted court of three.  But
    this matter still requires careful consideration
    (v'hadavar tsarikh heihreia)."

R. Rubinstein follows with a rather long and involved
comment that I will attempt to reproduce, because it leads
to an understanding of the historical 16th century Smikha
controversy (Rambam L'am, Zeraim, P. 24, my trans.):

    "Maimonides emphasizes here that the matter of the
    renewal of Smikha in judicial appointment through
    agreement of all scholars in Israel remains
    doubtful to him.  In his youth Maimonides wrote his
    arabic Commentary On The Mishnah, where, on Sanhedrin
    1:3, he concluded: 'If you would not think that what I
    have said is so, it is impossible that you would ever
    again have a Sanhedrin, since it is necessary that each
    member be ordained.  The Holy One Blessed Be He testifies
    that it will be reinstated, as it says, I will return
    your judges as before.  This will no doubt occur when the
    Creator will prepare the hearts of men...and enlarge
    their wisdom before the coming of the Messiah.'  In this
    youthful work he introduces this innovation as a settled
    conviction and conclusion.  Now he is concerned that the
    rationale he brought in the Commentary On The Mishnah can
    be criticized (yesh l'dkhuta).  It is known that the
    prophet Elijah will come before the Messiah (Malachi
    3:23).  Elijah was ordained by Ahijah the Shilonite (a
    prophet in the Davidic Era) and Elijah will ordain others
    prior to the messianic era.  This is not sufficient to
    refute the rationale of Maimonides in the Commentary On
    The Mishnah, since in BT. Eruvin 43b it says that Elijah
    will come to a Sanhedrin, and, therefore, a Sanhedrin is
    in place in the land some time before the return of
    Elijah.  This forces us to recognize that ordination
    through agreement of the scholars of Israel must occur,
    as Maimonides said.  It is appropriate to note that the
    Arabic edition of the Commentary On The Mishnah
    actually reads: 'And perhaps you will say, that the
    Messiah will come even without the reinstitution of
    ordination, but this is refuted, as we have already
    explained in the Introduction to this Commentary that the
    Messiah will neither increase nor decrease what has been
    legislated by the written and oral Torah; I therefore
    reason that the Sanhedrin will be reinstituted before the
    appearance of the Messiah, and this from the sign that
    G-d gave when it was written: I will return your judges
    as before.'"

                         II.

Nothing was done about the renovation of Smikha for a
considerable length of time, because there was no
need to force the issue.  Not everyone
agreed with or even followed the reasoning given above, and
most were inclined to wait for the unknowable future.  Even
Maimonides remains cautious concerning attempts to force
history in these matters, as he makes clear in the Epistle
to Yemen and in other places.  In the Introduction to the
Mishneh Torah he indicates that great national scholars in
the different localities are now independent of the chief
rabbinate in Babylonia in regard to their rulings on
controversial matters not otherwise sufficiently previously
resolved, which indicates that he was in no particular rush
to obtain the ordination of a new central Sanhedrin in Israel.
The lack of punishments that could be meted out by
such courts was not a great problem, since general
criminal and tax jurisdiction flowed to the Gentile courts
in the Diaspora, and in any event, there was never any real
problem presented by the very few Jewish rapists and felons.

(Sources for the following are Graetz, supplemented by
Margolis and Marx and Encyclopedia Judaica.)

After the Spanish Expulsion in 1492 there remained a considerable
number of Conversos in the Iberian peninsula, Jews who converted
to Catholicism to save their skins.  The Inquisition made life
difficult for them as well, and since they could not find a home
anywhere in Europe under the Inquisition, they made their way to
Turkey and some eventually went to Israel.

A center for the refugees was Safed, and a leader in that
community was the interesting figure Rabbi Jacob Berab.  He
arrived in Safed about 1534 after much wandering.  He was
wealthy, learned, energetic, but of advanced years.  He was
one who had been impressed by the curious figure Solomon
Molkho, a convert from Christianity to Kabalism whose
original name was Diego Pires. Molkho had predicted the
coming of the Messiah for the year 1540, and for various
historical reasons had deep and wide influence.
Preparations had to be made for such an event, and R. Berab
prepared to revive the institution of traditional ordination.
As we saw, there is some reason to think that Maimonides was an
authority for the proposition that the Sanhedrin would be
reinstituted prior to the Messianic redemption.  There could
be no Sanhedrin without ordination.  R. Berab relied on the
Maimonidean statements in Mishneh Torah and Commentary On
The Mishnah apparently authorizing the reinstitution of
ordination on unanimous consent of the Israeli scholars.  In
a "Letter Concerning Ordination" (Iggeret Ha-Smikha) he
argued the legality of the proposal and refuted objections.
Certainly, the proposal would be a great step toward the
unification of the Jewish people and the revival of a
national project.

R. Berab in 1538 obtained the agreement of the twenty-five
rabbis of Safed, of whom he was the leader, to his own
ordination.  He then ordained four others, among whom was a
young rabbi named Joseph Karo (1488-1575), another influenced
by Molkho.

Still, the other rabbis of Israel had to be brought into the
project.  A letter was drafted asserting that since the
rabbinate of Safed constituted the majority of Israeli rabbis
the rest should consent to the act, which they were inclined
to do.  However, R. Berab recognized that he could not proceed
without the consent of Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem, R. Levi Ben
Jacob Habib, the son of the author of the Ein Yaacov, the famou
s talmudic aggadic treasury.  To mollify R. Habib, R. Berab
informed him that he had ordained him. The proper thing
would have been to have consulted R. Habib first, and it was taken
by R. Habib as a slight.

R. Habib criticized the act.  He advanced that the
rebuilding of the temple at the order of Messiah or prophet
would precede the reinstitution of ordination.  He also considered
there was no pressing need for ordained judges.  R. Berab had made
an impressive point in this regard.  Converso refugees the world
over required absolution having forsworn themselves to Christianity,
and atonement was thought to require the biblical flogging of
thirty-nine stripes, which could only be authorized by a
court of three ordained judges.  Thus R. Berab could say that the
terrible results of the Spanish Inquisition and Expulsion required
the reinstitution of Smikha.  R. Habib responded that the absolution
of the Conversos returning to Judaism could be accomplished with
confession and flogging was unnecessary.

The discussion degenerated.  R. Habib had remarked that
ordination could not be instituted but by one who was not
only a scholar but pious.  In response, R. Berab scanted R.
Habib's own forced conversion and return.  R. Berab wrote,
provocatively: "I have never changed my name, and have ever, in want
and in despair, walked in the ways of G-d"  That was going too far.
R. Habib responded that he had been a Christian less than a
year, was not able to give his life instead, had thoroughly repented,
and went on to write violently against R. Berab.  With R. Berab's
death in 1541 the project came to an end with but one significant
exception.

R. Joseph Caro was one of those ordained, and he clung to
his ordination as well as to the rationale behind it.

In a less provocative way, he achieved what R. Habib and
even Maimonides had not.  He had committed the entire Mishna
to memory.  He was a man who received dreams and visions
from the Mishna personified, which prompted his daily
activity and inspired his completion of a grand project.  He
wrote vast commentaries on the Mishneh Torah and on Jacob
Asher's Arba Turim, known, respectively, as the Kesef Mishna
and the Bet Yosef.  These works prepared his own
codification, the Shulkhan Arukh.  The Shulkhan Arukh
resolved the legal debates over the Mishneh Torah, gave
sources for rulings, and established a code of Jewish law
that for the first time gained universal acceptance and
remains the codified source of Jewish law to this day,
completely superseding all prior attempts.







Copywrite, 1999, Scott Michael Alexander

Roy Pinchot writes in reply to Scott Alexander:

[snip]

> I just do not think that Maimonides regarded the sinaitic
> revelation as being metaphorical on any level, or as being a
> prophetic dream that required elucidation.

I agree. It happened. Now I am going to say something shocking. So
prepare yourselves. All that we read in the Bible and in the
various mythologies of the world happened, whether it is Arjuna
visiting heaven and his father Indra or Zeus streaming down in
gold. Anything that is true to the metaphysical reality happens.
"History" as we are used to it does not exist, for history is the
world of becoming. It is an illusion, and the sinaitic revelation
does not happen in the world of opinion, guesses, ephmeral images,
empty allegories, and so on. The revelation must be the emanation
of what is real and true, and thus exists outside of becoming in
the world of being. When Moses confronts god his prophetic insight
is that there is an identification of subject and object, a
meeting in pure thought; it is not a bodily or material event as
god is not anything material. Such an occurrence is something that
is absolute, certain, and eternal. This revelation, then, is part
of all divine possibilities, and hence it happened.

> > On a second point, the idea that we may "develop another
> philosopher who
> > has no material requirements and that this person will be able
to
> > participate in the noetic world" I believe is against
> Maimonides idea
> > about the uniqueness of Moses.  >
>
> If the problem is that it sounds like it will never happen, that
is
> certainly not my view.  I may not see it and you may not see it,
> but I think the jewish project would likely be a waste of time
if
> it were not the telos of it.  this is Maimonides' real view.
Man
> is to evolve himself out of materiality.  this is the meaning of
> his explanation of the book of proverbs and particularly the
> parable of the married prostitute in chapter 7 of it and
contrasted
> with the parable of the Woman of Valour at the end. Man should
not
> chase after changeable matter but should cleave to the eternal,
> abandon the married prostitute and like the woman of valour,
cleave
> to the divine.

To cleave to the divine is to separate from all materiality, not
to evolve out of it. One cannot evolve out of materiality. One can
only leave it behind. (I am quibbling with this modern notion of
evolving, that's all.)

[snip]

> > There cannot be another prophet at the level of Moses
according to
> > Maimonides because that prophet would be the intellectual
> clone of Moses
> > -- as his knowledge would be identical -- there being at the
highest
> > level only one set of first principles or Truths.  And as
> he points out,
> > nature is not redundant, there will never be another Moses,
> because the
> > second would only be identical to Moses.
>
> and that is exactly what will happen.  Not being subject to
> materiality means not being subject to division either.  it
means
> being unified in the noetic with the intellectus.  That is by no
> means a redundancy.

I believe the notion may be better formulated in the following
way. The unity with pure thought admits no division or
individuality. There is no copy, because there is no image or any
other differentiation. For that matter, there is no "intellectual
clone" of Plato or Aristotle either. Moses in truth is not unique
in the sense that he is an original with the possibility of other
copies or images of him. If he were original in that way, he would
be an individual, differentiated, rather than possessing the
revelation which is pure unity and pure unity is always unique and
uncopyable.

[snip]

> > What is "knowledge of the upper world" (G-d and the angels)
> that brings
> > the overflow of light to men?  Maimonides believes that no
> man can ever
> > know perfectly the secrets of the heavenly bodies and the
> physics of the
> > heavens.  This light is therefore not any knowledge of the
physical.
> > Nor is it a knowledge of the mystical or spiritual world --
> as I believe
> > he thought that entire concept was a product of imaginative
thinking
> > without any truth or foundation.  The knowledge of G-d and
> the angels is
> > only a phrase that represents the highest knowledge possible
for any
> > human (including Moses): the merging of the human intellect
with the
> > Active Intellect.
>
> That merger cannot take place if the divine familia does not
exist.
> Remember the most significant thing is the truth of his
existence
> (MT, Mada, YT 1:1).

One cannot know angels and other divine states because they are
alien to us in the same way that we don't know the nature of rocks
or seaweed or even a dog. The hierarchy of divinity and what is
higher and lower than man is a vast cosmos of heterogenous
elements, of which only a part will be realizeable to us, most
notably what is our nature and our being and its relationship to
the Active Intellect. What is important is that the Active
Intellect is what enables all things to be. It is a part of
everything, including those things that cannot realize the Active
Intellect. The divine familia as Mr. Pinchot calls it is all that
is manifested by the Active Intellect, everything around us, below
and above us, all of which contribute to our understanding and our
ascent to knowledge.

[snip]


Best regards,

Kalev Pehme

** Reply to note from Pinchot, Roy <RPinchot@...> 01/07/99  7:07pm
-0500

I think that, at bottom, that true maimonidean, Roy Pinchot, and I
disagree less than might otherwise be apparent.


> From: "Pinchot, Roy" <RPinchot@...>
>
> In Scott Alexander's reply to Scot Zentner, he stated that Moses had his
> "prophetic moment after a 40 day bread and water unbroken fast without
> sleep."  Now this could be factual and represent a mortification of the
> flesh that would allow our minds to escape the bonds of the material
> human needs which separate us from the world of the eternal ideas, or I
> would like to suggest, it is a parable that describes Moses' ability to
> concentrate and focus so totally on his intellect that it was as if he
> had done these things.  This would be in keeping with Maimonides view
> that the Torah is written on multiple levels and that the multitude
> would not be able to conceive of receiving or contacting the "Beyond"
> without the rituals described -- much as angels are said to have wings
> to explain their rapid movement, rather than try to explain that they
> are only representations of ideas or forces and therefore are not
> material and subject to motion/time.
>

I just do not think that Maimonides regarded the sinaitic
revelation as being metaphorical on any level, or as being a
prophetic dream that required elucidation.


> On a second point, the idea that we may "develop another philosopher who
> has no material requirements and that this person will be able to
> participate in the noetic world" I believe is against Maimonides idea
> about the uniqueness of Moses.  >

If the problem is that it sounds like it will never happen, that is
certainly not my view.  I may not see it and you may not see it,
but I think the jewish project would likely be a waste of time if
it were not the telos of it.  this is Maimonides' real view.  Man
is to evolve himself out of materiality.  this is the meaning of
his explanation of the book of proverbs and particularly the
parable of the married prostitute in chapter 7 of it and contrasted
with the parable of the Woman of Valour at the end. Man should not
chase after changeable matter but should cleave to the eternal,
abandon the married prostitute and like the woman of valour, cleave
to the divine.

(Yes, all philosophers and prophets
> participate at some level in the noetic world, but never totally as did
> Moses)  He believes Moses will always be unique in this ability to merge
> with the noetic world because, as he explains, this merging is the human
> reaching his or her perfection.  Every species seeks to reach the
> perfection of its form, and the intellect in actu is the perfection of
> the human form.  Conceptually this can be visualized as a pyramid where
> at the bottom people live via their imagination, therefore have great
> variation, and are subsequently far away from perfection.  As one
> ascends the pyramid toward a being governed by intellect in actu, the
> range of possible human actions and thoughts becomes constrained
> because, in the world of medieval thought, the highest Truths via the
> active intellect would be the same for all men of philosophy (in
> theory).  Therefore he believed, Aristotle and  Moses were not far apart
> in their concept of how men should behave ethically as shown in his
> wholesale adoption of Aristotle's Ethics - with some critical
> differences via the prophets.

Yes, but that is on the sublunary subject of ethics.  they are
quite dissimilar with respect to their respective positions on the
timeless things, as Strauss has particularly shown.


> There cannot be another prophet at the level of Moses according to
> Maimonides because that prophet would be the intellectual clone of Moses
> -- as his knowledge would be identical -- there being at the highest
> level only one set of first principles or Truths.  And as he points out,
> nature is not redundant, there will never be another Moses, because the
> second would only be identical to Moses.

and that is exactly what will happen.  Not being subject to
materiality means not being subject to division either.  it means
being unified in the noetic with the intellectus.  That is by no
means a redundancy.


>
> This is also why Moses' prophesy is without imagination.  As per chapter
> 2 book I, the return of Man's intellect to the knowledge of the Active
> Intellect is a life in the world of True and False and not one mixed
> with imagination.  Imagination becomes only the handmaid that coats
> these Truths/ideas and makes them sweet and palatable for the many.

Yes, but that is not all there is too it.  The imagination is the
yetser hara, which is the evil inclination, or rather the evil
creativity (yetser--yetsira), evil because it seeks to displace
divine creativity. as he shows at 2:12.  It is also one of the
things we share with the divine, creativity.  through study of
divine creation we bring ourselves into unity with the divine.
That is why the imagination is a transitional element in the
relationship between the human and the divine.

>
> The difference between Moses and the Philosophers, according to
> Maimonides, is that the Philosophers seek knowledge for themselves while
> the prophets, and especially Moses, convert their knowledge into Laws
> (Moses) and exhortation to follow the Laws (the others) which will bring
> the masses toward the highest perfection they can reach both
> individually and as a society (which makes the perfection of the
> individual possible).

Yes,

   This is the calling that Maimonides considers far
> higher than the pursuit of knowledge for the individual.

Where did you see this?  I would like to see it, but I think the
situation is rather as you said above, the community provides the
opportunity for true individuality which is required before the
mosaic self abnegation for divine unity can take place.

  This is why he
> considers Abraham and Moses as fulfilling the mission that was to have
> been Adam's: to bring the world of men to reach the perfection of their
> forms -- knowledge of the first principles and governance by their
> light.
>
> What is "knowledge of the upper world" (G-d and the angels) that brings
> the overflow of light to men?  Maimonides believes that no man can ever
> know perfectly the secrets of the heavenly bodies and the physics of the
> heavens.  This light is therefore not any knowledge of the physical.
> Nor is it a knowledge of the mystical or spiritual world -- as I believe
> he thought that entire concept was a product of imaginative thinking
> without any truth or foundation.  The knowledge of G-d and the angels is
> only a phrase that represents the highest knowledge possible for any
> human (including Moses): the merging of the human intellect with the
> Active Intellect.

That merger cannot take place if the divine familia does not exist.
Remember the most significant thing is the truth of his existence
(MT, Mada, YT 1:1).

   This is the source of eternal life for the individual
> (and the bringing of one's human form into perfection) and the source of
> guidance for mankind.  But this guidance had to be reconfigure into Laws
> and habits (rituals, etc.) that would inspire, educate, illuminate,
> direct and constrain the ordinary man (all the while indicating to the
> few the faint direction of a path toward individual perfection).
>
> Roy Pinchot
>


Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Addressed to: Pinchot, Roy <RPinchot@...>
               maimonides@onelist.com

** Reply to note from Pinchot, Roy <RPinchot@...> 01/07/99  5:43pm
-0500


> Scott, what is PAL as the reference to all the strauss quotations
> concerning the revelation question?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Roy Pinchot

Don't feel bad.  its Leo-Strauss list jargon for his first book, Philosophy and
Law,
which is about Maimonides and has as its main theme the idea that Maimonides was
part
of the fight to legitimize philosophy among the believers.  It may or may not be
well
written, I do not know, since it is in German, there are two translations, one
of which
I read, and I have heard animadversions against both translations.  It contains
a long
chapter, which you might like, on RALBAG (Gersonides).  Yaacov Abrahamson told
me a
story that Strauss was due a doctoral paper to his professor Karl Jaspers, but
gave him
a paper tearing up Jasper's existentialism.  He had to submit something else
instead,
and had this lying around and submitted it instead.

Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

In Scott Alexander's reply to Scot Zentner, he stated that Moses had his
"prophetic moment after a 40 day bread and water unbroken fast without
sleep."  Now this could be factual and represent a mortification of the
flesh that would allow our minds to escape the bonds of the material
human needs which separate us from the world of the eternal ideas, or I
would like to suggest, it is a parable that describes Moses' ability to
concentrate and focus so totally on his intellect that it was as if he
had done these things.  This would be in keeping with Maimonides view
that the Torah is written on multiple levels and that the multitude
would not be able to conceive of receiving or contacting the "Beyond"
without the rituals described -- much as angels are said to have wings
to explain their rapid movement, rather than try to explain that they
are only representations of ideas or forces and therefore are not
material and subject to motion/time.

On a second point, the idea that we may "develop another philosopher who
has no material requirements and that this person will be able to
participate in the noetic world" I believe is against Maimonides idea
about the uniqueness of Moses.  (Yes, all philosophers and prophets
participate at some level in the noetic world, but never totally as did
Moses)  He believes Moses will always be unique in this ability to merge
with the noetic world because, as he explains, this merging is the human
reaching his or her perfection.  Every species seeks to reach the
perfection of its form, and the intellect in actu is the perfection of
the human form.  Conceptually this can be visualized as a pyramid where
at the bottom people live via their imagination, therefore have great
variation, and are subsequently far away from perfection.  As one
ascends the pyramid toward a being governed by intellect in actu, the
range of possible human actions and thoughts becomes constrained
because, in the world of medieval thought, the highest Truths via the
active intellect would be the same for all men of philosophy (in
theory).  Therefore he believed, Aristotle and  Moses were not far apart
in their concept of how men should behave ethically as shown in his
wholesale adoption of Aristotle's Ethics - with some critical
differences via the prophets.

There cannot be another prophet at the level of Moses according to
Maimonides because that prophet would be the intellectual clone of Moses
-- as his knowledge would be identical -- there being at the highest
level only one set of first principles or Truths.  And as he points out,
nature is not redundant, there will never be another Moses, because the
second would only be identical to Moses.

This is also why Moses' prophesy is without imagination.  As per chapter
2 book I, the return of Man's intellect to the knowledge of the Active
Intellect is a life in the world of True and False and not one mixed
with imagination.  Imagination becomes only the handmaid that coats
these Truths/ideas and makes them sweet and palatable for the many.

The difference between Moses and the Philosophers, according to
Maimonides, is that the Philosophers seek knowledge for themselves while
the prophets, and especially Moses, convert their knowledge into Laws
(Moses) and exhortation to follow the Laws (the others) which will bring
the masses toward the highest perfection they can reach both
individually and as a society (which makes the perfection of the
individual possible).  This is the calling that Maimonides considers far
higher than the pursuit of knowledge for the individual.  This is why he
considers Abraham and Moses as fulfilling the mission that was to have
been Adam's: to bring the world of men to reach the perfection of their
forms -- knowledge of the first principles and governance by their
light.

What is "knowledge of the upper world" (G-d and the angels) that brings
the overflow of light to men?  Maimonides believes that no man can ever
know perfectly the secrets of the heavenly bodies and the physics of the
heavens.  This light is therefore not any knowledge of the physical.
Nor is it a knowledge of the mystical or spiritual world -- as I believe
he thought that entire concept was a product of imaginative thinking
without any truth or foundation.  The knowledge of G-d and the angels is
only a phrase that represents the highest knowledge possible for any
human (including Moses): the merging of the human intellect with the
Active Intellect.  This is the source of eternal life for the individual
(and the bringing of one's human form into perfection) and the source of
guidance for mankind.  But this guidance had to be reconfigure into Laws
and habits (rituals, etc.) that would inspire, educate, illuminate,
direct and constrain the ordinary man (all the while indicating to the
few the faint direction of a path toward individual perfection).

Roy Pinchot

Addressed to: maimonides@onelist.com
               leo-strauss@onelist.com


Mr. Zentner wrote the following, my comments follow:

      "This is a nice, clear statement, though I do not
      think it counters what I  said, but actually supports
      it.  Perhaps according to Maimonides the  significance
      of Moses's prophecy is tied to his special character.
      You  undoubtedly know more about this than I, but the
      similarity between the  philosopher and the highest
      prophet has not gone unnoticed by me.  This is  why I
      made special mention in my last reply to Mr. Pehme
      that I do not  think that the philosophers are fools.
      Quite the contrary: there appears  to be a very close
      connection between the philosopher and the highest
      prophet.  Indeed, I wrote that the philosopher may
      appear to be an entirely  different kind of being.
      Moreover, there is a similarity between the
      philosophers and the prophets of all ranks, as well as
      a difference.  As  Strauss notes:

              "But this much follows in any case: the
         ordinary prophets' knowledge stands  between Moses's
         knowledge, which is free of the collaboration of the
          imaginative faculty, and the philosophers'
         knowledge, which is likewise  free of the
         collaboration of the imaginative faculty; hence the
         difference  between the greatest prophet and the
         philosophers can be ascertained  without any
         consideration of the imaginative faculty; this
         difference  includes both the difference between
         Moses and the ordinary prophets and  the difference
         between the ordinary prophets and the philosophers;
         thus the  difference between the ordinary prophets
         and the philosophers, and  therewith the initially
         paradoxical possibility that the collaboration of
         the imaginative faculty is the basis of the
         prophets' superiority over the  philosophers,
         becomes intelligible from the deeper difference.  We
         must  therefore ask how, according to Maimonides'
         teaching, Moses's knowledge  differs from the
         knowledge of the philosophers"  (PAL, Adler ed., pp.
         107-108).

          "Strauss then provides his analysis of the
      lightning imagery, in which the  distinction between
      the philosophers and the prophets of all ranks rests
      upon the fact that the latter see by the intermittent
      lightning flashes  while the former's darkness is
      illumined "only by polished bodies of the  kind of
      certain stones that shine at night; and even this
      small light does  not shine on us (!) continuously,
      but appears and vanishes again  immediately."  Unlike
      the prophet, the philosopher does not have direct
      light.  Unlike the multitude, he has some light.
      "Hence it is by the  indirectness of their knowledge
      of the upper world," Strauss concludes,  with
      reference to the Guide, "that the philosophers differ
      from the  prophets, who have at their disposal a
      direct knowledge, greater or lesser,  of the upper
      world" (p. 109).  At the risk of mischaracterizing
      what  Strauss intends to say about Maimonides, there
      appears to be a difference  in degree and in kind
      between prophecy and philosophy, with the difference
      in degree--an "infinite superiority" (p.
      110)--apparently flowing from the  difference in kind,
      that the prophets have direct access to knowledge of
      the "upper world."

            "But there is an important preface to all of
      this.  Note that Strauss opens  this discussion of the
      difference between Mosaic prophecy and philosophy,
      according to Maimonides, with reference to the
      limitations of Aristotle:

             "The natural representative of the philosophers
         is _the_ Philosopher,  Aristotle.  Now of Aristotle
         it is the case that everything he says about  the
         world below the lunar sphere is undoubtedly true,
         while his views about  the upper world, especially
         about the separate intelligences, are in part  only
         probable, and in part actually false.  What is true
         of Aristotle is  all the more true of all other
         non-prophetic men: man can know only the  world
         below the lunar sphere, the world that surrounds
         him, lies before his  eyes and is familiar to him,
         the world to which he belongs, _his_ world;  only
         this lower world is directly accessible to him; his
         knowledge of the  upper world necessarily remains
         fragmentary and doubtful" (p. 108).

            "He then goes on to distinguish the difference
      between the upper and lower  worlds as a difference of
      "rank," not merely a "spatial" difference.  That  is,
      the upper world is the world of "God and the angels."
      The lower world  is the world of "becoming and passing
      away," ultimately the world of  "matter."  It appears
      that because the philosophers are limited to the
      world below the lunar sphere they are limited by
      matter or, in your words,  "material existence."  This
      implies both a great difference and a great
      similarity between the philosopher and the prophet.
      The difference is the  unequal access each has to the
      upper world.  The similarity seems to be  that
      knowledge of the upper world is the object of each,
      that the ultimate  source of knowledge for each is the
      same.  Perhaps the real issue centers  upon the
      relationship between the upper and lower worlds and
      the amount of  access to knowledge of each that is
      provided to men.  (In this light,  consider Psalms
      36:10.)

            "But as I have said repeatedly in my posts to
      Mr. Pehme, I am open to any  number of possibilities
      here.  In fact, in relationship to the preceding  two
      paragraphs, I have noticed his thoughts on cosmology
      or the lack of it  in Strauss's writings.  But I
      understand Strauss on the question very  differently.
      At the risk of error, I suggest that the limitation of
      the  Philosopher may not be the limitation of
      philosophy altogether.  This is a  possibility if one
      takes seriously what Strauss writes in the final two
      sections of the final chapter of PAL.  I read these in
      conjunction with  other scattered statements in his
      writings, many of which I have noted here  from time
      to time.        Scot J. Zentner  CSU, San Bernardino"
**********************************************************
Mr. Zentner's reference to Psalms 36:10, "For with you is
the source of life, in your light we shall see light" is
quite good in this context.  Maimonides talks about this
passage in two places, in the second part of the Guide, and
one in the last part, in quite different but complementary
terms, that are also well understood by Strauss.  I assume
Mr. Zentner's familiarity with these passages but quote them
to force myself to look more closely at them.  The first is
in 2:12, at page 280 in the Pines translation:

    "Similarly the dictum, for with thee is the fountain of
    life, signifies the overflow of being.  In the same way
    the remaining portion of this verse, In thy light do we
    see light, has the selfsame meaning--namely, that through
    the overflow of the intellect that has overflowed from
    Thee, we intellectually cognize, and consequently we
    receive correct guidance, we draw inferences, and we
    apprehend the intellect.  Understand this."

The problem, which Mr. Zentner indicates, is our materiality
and the intervention of the imagination.  A few sentences
before the above Maimonides writes:

    "All this follows imagination, which is in true reality
    the evil impulse (yetzer Hara).  For every deficiency of
    reason or character is due to the action of the
    imagination or consequent upon its action."

The latter reference to the Psalm is at 3:52, page 629, a
discussion of the necessity for fear of G-d what that fear
is and what it entails, he writes:

    "Just as we apprehend Him by means of that light which He
    caused to overflow toward us-as it says, In Thy light do
    we see light-so does He by means of this selfsame light
    examine us; and because of it, He, May He Be Exalted, is
    constantly with us, examining from on high: Can any hide
    himself in secrt places that I shall not see him? (Jer.
    23:24).  Understand this well.  Know that when perfect
    men understand this, they achieve such himility, such awe
    and fear of G-d, such reverence and such shame before
    Him, MHBE-and this in ways that pertain to true reality,
    not to imagination, that their secret conduct with their
    wives and in latrines is like their conduct with other
    people. "

That is they become like Moses and they become like Adam.
They become like Moses because he was the most humble of all
men, which means he negated all his possessions, which
includes his body, for another, which is G-d.  They become
like Adam because, as Maimonides explains in 1:2, they
respond to the truth content of reality and not its good/bad
aspect.  But neither Moses nor Adam were human as we are, as
I showed with respect to Moses in my last post.  The rest of
us are material beings.  Our imagination, which is also our
yetzer hara, our evil, creative, inclination, that is the
one other thing we have in common with G-d, the desire and
will to create like him, in his stead.  What is bad about it
is the fact that we cannot regard creation in its truth
aspect but only in its moral aspect; what is good about it
is that in truth we can learn of divine creativity from
divine creations, one of which is human creativity.  When we
do this, in all humility, only seeking the truth, we are
seeing light for the first time, in the power and the source
of light, which is concealed in the darkness of his own, to
us, undifferentiated or black light.  It is then that the
Indwelling, the Schechinah,  is actually with us, "He by
means of this selfsame light examine(s) us; and because of
it, He, May He Be Exalted, is constantly with us, examining
from on high"



Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Addressed to: Scot Zentner <leo-strauss@onelist.com>
               maimonides@onelist.com

** Reply to note from Scot Zentner <zentner@...
Dear Mr. Zentner:

Thank you for your considerable response, which I am considering.
I have forwarded it to the Maimonides List as well.

> From: Scot Zentner <zentner@...>
>
> A note to Mr. Alexander.  I wrote:
>
> >> Following Strauss, I do not think there is a major difference between
> Farabi and
> >> Maimonides here. But in order to make the point again, let me quote Strauss
> >> again. Referring to Maimonides, he denies that the imaginative faculty
> has any
> >> role in the highest prophecy:
> >>
> >> "[The] 'non-imaginative' character of Moses's prophecy is defined as
> follows: he
> >> heard the word of God in the waking state, not in a dream or a vision;
> he saw
> >> the things themselves without enigma and image; he was not terrified and
> >> bewildered. What this means is that he was simply _not under the
> influence_ of
> >> the imaginative faculty when he was in the condition of prophetic
> comprehension;
> >> he was not bewildered like the other prophets by direct contemplation of
> the
> >> upper world" (p. 151, PAL, Adler ed.).
>
> You responded:
>
> >Without getting myself too deeply entangled in this dispute, I think I am
> weighing
> >in on Kalev's side on this point.  My understanding of what is happening
> here from
> >Maimonides' pov is that while the prophecy of Moses is unlike that of any
> other
> >prophet, Moses himself is unlike any other human.  Maimonides understands
> Moses
> >the way the Jewish tradition and the Torah does, that he obtains his central
> >prophetic moment after a 40 day bread and water unbroken fast without
> sleep.  I
> >assume Strauss knows this as well.  Thus prophecy for all prophets who are
> not
> >Moses requires the imaginative faculty as receptor or filter.  When we
> develop
> >another philosopher who has no material requirements, he will be able to
> dispense
> >with the imagination and participate totally in the noetic world as well.
>
> This is a nice, clear statement, though I do not think it counters what I
> said, but actually supports it.  Perhaps according to Maimonides the
> significance of Moses's prophecy is tied to his special character.  You
> undoubtedly know more about this than I, but the similarity between the
> philosopher and the highest prophet has not gone unnoticed by me.  This is
> why I made special mention in my last reply to Mr. Pehme that I do not
> think that the philosophers are fools.  Quite the contrary: there appears
> to be a very close connection between the philosopher and the highest
> prophet.  Indeed, I wrote that the philosopher may appear to be an entirely
> different kind of being.  Moreover, there is a similarity between the
> philosophers and the prophets of all ranks, as well as a difference.  As
> Strauss notes:
>
> "But this much follows in any case: the ordinary prophets' knowledge stands
> between Moses's knowledge, which is free of the collaboration of the
> imaginative faculty, and the philosophers' knowledge, which is likewise
> free of the collaboration of the imaginative faculty; hence the difference
> between the greatest prophet and the philosophers can be ascertained
> without any consideration of the imaginative faculty; this difference
> includes both the difference between Moses and the ordinary prophets and
> the difference between the ordinary prophets and the philosophers; thus the
> difference between the ordinary prophets and the philosophers, and
> therewith the initially paradoxical possibility that the collaboration of
> the imaginative faculty is the basis of the prophets' superiority over the
> philosophers, becomes intelligible from the deeper difference.  We must
> therefore ask how, according to Maimonides' teaching, Moses's knowledge
> differs from the knowledge of the philosophers"  (PAL, Adler ed., pp.
> 107-108).
>
> Strauss then provides his analysis of the lightning imagery, in which the
> distinction between the philosophers and the prophets of all ranks rests
> upon the fact that the latter see by the intermittent lightning flashes
> while the former's darkness is illumined "only by polished bodies of the
> kind of certain stones that shine at night; and even this small light does
> not shine on us (!) continuously, but appears and vanishes again
> immediately."  Unlike the prophet, the philosopher does not have direct
> light.  Unlike the multitude, he has some light.  "Hence it is by the
> indirectness of their knowledge of the upper world," Strauss concludes,
> with reference to the Guide, "that the philosophers differ from the
> prophets, who have at their disposal a direct knowledge, greater or lesser,
> of the upper world" (p. 109).  At the risk of mischaracterizing what
> Strauss intends to say about Maimonides, there appears to be a difference
> in degree and in kind between prophecy and philosophy, with the difference
> in degree--an "infinite superiority" (p. 110)--apparently flowing from the
> difference in kind, that the prophets have direct access to knowledge of
> the "upper world."
>
> But there is an important preface to all of this.  Note that Strauss opens
> this discussion of the difference between Mosaic prophecy and philosophy,
> according to Maimonides, with reference to the limitations of Aristotle:
>
> "The natural representative of the philosophers is _the_ Philosopher,
> Aristotle.  Now of Aristotle it is the case that everything he says about
> the world below the lunar sphere is undoubtedly true, while his views about
> the upper world, especially about the separate intelligences, are in part
> only probable, and in part actually false.  What is true of Aristotle is
> all the more true of all other non-prophetic men: man can know only the
> world below the lunar sphere, the world that surrounds him, lies before his
> eyes and is familiar to him, the world to which he belongs, _his_ world;
> only this lower world is directly accessible to him; his knowledge of the
> upper world necessarily remains fragmentary and doubtful" (p. 108).
>
> He then goes on to distinguish the difference between the upper and lower
> worlds as a difference of "rank," not merely a "spatial" difference.  That
> is, the upper world is the world of "God and the angels."  The lower world
> is the world of "becoming and passing away," ultimately the world of
> "matter."  It appears that because the philosophers are limited to the
> world below the lunar sphere they are limited by matter or, in your words,
> "material existence."  This implies both a great difference and a great
> similarity between the philosopher and the prophet.  The difference is the
> unequal access each has to the upper world.  The similarity seems to be
> that knowledge of the upper world is the object of each, that the ultimate
> source of knowledge for each is the same.  Perhaps the real issue centers
> upon the relationship between the upper and lower worlds and the amount of
> access to knowledge of each that is provided to men.  (In this light,
> consider Psalms 36:10.)
>
> But as I have said repeatedly in my posts to Mr. Pehme, I am open to any
> number of possibilities here.  In fact, in relationship to the preceding
> two paragraphs, I have noticed his thoughts on cosmology or the lack of it
> in Strauss's writings.  But I understand Strauss on the question very
> differently.  At the risk of error, I suggest that the limitation of the
> Philosopher may not be the limitation of philosophy altogether.  This is a
> possibility if one takes seriously what Strauss writes in the final two
> sections of the final chapter of PAL.  I read these in conjunction with
> other scattered statements in his writings, many of which I have noted here
> from time to time.
>
>
> Scot J. Zentner
> CSU, San Bernardino
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> 01/05/99  5:14pm -0800

Addressed to: leo-strauss@onelist.com
               maimonides@onelist.com

** Reply to note from Scot Zentner <zentner@...> Sun, 03 Jan 1999
18:41:22 -0800



irst, very quickly, as I noted, the question is not the imaginative faculty.
> Following Strauss, I do not think there is a major difference between Farabi
and
> Maimonides here. But in order to make the point again, let me quote Strauss
> again. Referring to Maimonides, he denies that the imaginative faculty has any
> role in the highest prophecy:
>
> "[The] 'non-imaginative' character of Moses's prophecy is defined as follows:
he
> heard the word of God in the waking state, not in a dream or a vision; he saw
> the things themselves without enigma and image; he was not terrified and
> bewildered. What this means is that he was simply _not under the influence_ of
> the imaginative faculty when he was in the condition of prophetic
comprehension;
> he was not bewildered like the other prophets by direct contemplation of the
> upper world" (p. 151, PAL, Adler ed.).
>

Without getting myself too deeply entangled in this dispute, I think I am
weighing
in on Kalev's side on this point.  My understanding of what is happening here
from
Maimonides' pov is that while the prophecy of Moses is unlike that of any other
prophet, Moses himself is unlike any other human.  Maimonides understands Moses
the way the Jewish tradition and the Torah does, that he obtains his central
prophetic moment after a 40 day bread and water unbroken fast without sleep.  I
assume Strauss knows this as well.  Thus prophecy for all prophets who are not
Moses requires the imaginative faculty as receptor or filter.  When we develop
another philosopher who has no material requirements, he will be able to
dispense
with the imagination and participate totally in the noetic world as well.

Shalom u'Bracha,

Scott Alexander

I found these remarks from Kalev pertinent to our list and so have taken the
liberty of bringing them over from the Leo-Strauss list.

Shalom u'bracha,

Scott Alexander

Forwarding note from: Kalev Pehme <pehme@...> 12/29/98  2:06pm
-0500

From: "Kalev Pehme" <pehme@...>

Yaakov Abrahamson writes:

> Shalom
>   Yes indeed!  Nihilism has trumped morality once again.

Mr. Abrahamson is referring to our recent victory in releasing
Socrates.

Of course, I don't agree that the life of philosophy is
nihilistic, although some modern philosophers have found nihilism
to the condition of life.

In truth, I believe living by morality alone is, if not equal to
nihilism, pretty close, as it denies any access to the
metaphysical truth of things. However, as we all know, Mr.
Abrahamson is not telling us to live by morality alone, but by the
Torah, a divinely revealed set of laws and the supporting stories.
As we all know, the Torah also provides us some information to
which only god is witness. Mr. Abrahamson opposes the divinely
revealed to philosophy and rejects philosophy in favor of the
divinely revealed and says that all things that are not in
accordance to the divinely revealed is nihilism, nothing. All that
is a part of philosophy is nothing. Logic, metaphysical
investigation of what is and what is other, even the philosophical
defense of the law, is nothing. We must reject Maimonides, for
example, to the extent that he applies philosophy to the Torah for
understanding or defense of the Torah. We would reject Yehuda
Halevi's stirring defense of Judiasm, as it is a philosophical
defense. We would have to reject Strauss's reflection on the
Torah.

Of course, Mr. Abrahamson can only say this after a rather long
and vigorous mental life and study of a lot of philosophy. This
rejection of philosophy seems not based on the Torah, but on
philosophical grounds. For as I remember, there is no mention of
nihilism in the Torah. Nihilism is a philosophical understanding
of things. A life without the Torah may be a dreary and bleak
prospect, but it is not nihilism, either to live as a philosopher
or outside of the Torah. Not all life outside of the Torah is
despairing. The Torah does not say that all human beings must live
by the Torah or that to live without it is nihilism. However, to
be a Jew requires the Torah, I will agree. It may be that to be a
Jew who abides by the Torah is to live a happy life, to fill one's
life with the god makes one happy, while others who do not eat of
this fruit may have a diminished life. Yet that diminished life is
not a nihilistic life.

The nihilist is not a man who lives without morality, which is
simple amorality or immorality. He is a man for whom the
metaphysical realm has died or is no more, thus, also in the
process eliminating the possibility of philosophy as well. This
death is not for just one, but for all or else it is not nihilism,
only personal despair of life. All morality and law is predicated
upon a metaphysical underpining, not the other way around. Divine
revelation may be manifested in law, but law on its own cannot
manifest the divine without proper understanding of the divine and
what it is. Nihilism is when there is nothing but law. It is the
Torah or a Talmud without god, without the angels, and without
Adam Cadmon, a universal man. In nihilism, what makes a human
being what he is, Adam Cadmon, that part of him upon which his
existence is predicated, disappears along with the rest of the
metaphysical realm. There is nothing in the Torah that points to
this possibility, because the Torah is a divine book. It does not
mention nihilism, because to do so would be to negate is its own
possibility. Thus, I believe that Mr. Abrahamson's formulation of
his defense against the philosophers is not from the Torah, from
the divine revealed, but from certain philosophers and others.

I don't say that Mr. Abrahamson's formulation is frivolous. I take
it very seriously. But I believe that he contradicts himself by
taking the position of a philosopher who rejects philosophy.

Best regards,

Kalev Pehme


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Scott Alexander writes:

> I want to wish all my coreligionists on the Maimonides list a
happy
> Khanuka, and to all my friends on the list a happy season,
> joyous new
> year; and to Kalev a splendid saturnalia.  May all trash
> their TV's and
> spend the next year reading the ancients and sending in more
> wonderful
> contributions to the list.

I, too, would like to extend to the monotheists on this list a
wish for a joyous holy day celebrations. And if there are any
pagans lurking about, may your feasting, orgies, sacrifices, and,
of course, the hilarious satires for this season invigorate this
Solstice! Sadly, there are so few pagans about.

[snip]

> Before I go, and since we are reading about Joseph and his
Brothers
> now, I have a question for you to consider:
>
> Why does Judah consort with a prostitute?  (Genesis 38)

The meaning of Yehuda himself, I leave to the Jewish
traditionalists to explain. However, I would like to speculate a
bit on the issue of prostitution and harlotry in general as well
as it relates specifically to Judah. Before I do, I want to make
the point that because Mr. Alexander asks this question he
demonstrates his virtue and the sanctity of his own marriage, not
because he finds satisfaction in any vice.

Prostitution in all its forms involves a substitution, usually for
what is legally regulated in marriage or, for that matter, even
what we consider to something we ascribe to unmarried "lovers",
i.e., people who indulge in sex because they love each other. The
sex that is involved in prostitution often is the kind of sex one
does not ask one's wife or lover to perform. Moreover, this
substitution involves an exchange, usually material, money or, for
that matter, position and power oftentimes. The man who pays the
prostitute believes he can get the genuine pleasure or something
that is denied to him by law or habit. (After all, to get a woman
to provide a man with the happy sex and love he wants requires the
help of the divine to overcome so many obstacles in the first
place!)

On an allegorical level, however, let us consider what it is that
a man seeks from the postitute. There is something that passes
from one individual to another. There is always something violent
or even criminal in the way it passes. In Genesis 38 we find a
very dismal tale of sexual passions and masturbation and so on.
God kills people here for their wickdness as well and so on.

It appears that in the passing of that special substance from one
person to another, the special sexual passions involve not just
the desire, but a matter of consciousness, a heightened awareness
of things. Onan is aware of something horrible, and cannot bring
himself to impregnate his brother's wife. He instead decides to
masturbate himself and spill his seed instead. To do so involves
powerful images, substitutes for the real thing, in his head. The
semen flows into the world prompted by images. Onan has crossed
the line. It is a critical moment, and he is killed. Death is a
powerful destroyer of all illusions, including the masturbatory
kind.

As for the prostitute or harlot, she provides an allegorical
circulation between the body and the world outside, an exchange.
Substitution and substance, the actual sex and the pleasure
involved, the awareness of this pleasure means, converge, and
although one gives up one's guilt for breaking the rules in doing
so, another guilt is imposed, the cheapening or even the
destruction of the actual sanctity in which the sex is to be
experienced. If sex and procreation can be had for money, then
everything can be for sale. Not only that, but one doesn't need
the real thing, marriage, love, etc., one can enjoy the
substitute, the image.

Yehuda initially does not realize who Tamar is, and he assumes
that he is a harlot (her face is veiled, incognito). He does not
see her as his daughter in law (if he did, he probably would not
sleep with her, but he doesn't do the obvious and look behind the
veil). As soon as he makes an overture to her, Tamar immediately
asks for something in exchange. It is all ambiguous. It is not
clear whether what she wants is material or spiritual, i.e.,
legal. Finally, she asks for jewels, special jewels, and his sign
of authority, his staff. Yehuda gives it to her. He also offers a
kid, an animal of sacrifice. Judah cannot resist, and trades his
spiritual requirements for an image. It is an image that he sees
in his mind, a copy, a substitute, and he doesn't even realize
that the substitutes he has in his mind. We like to call these
things fantasies in our world.

He has been played the fool by Tamar. He is seduced by an image.

Finally we discover that Tamar not only played the harlot with
Yehuda, but it turns out that in three-months time she herself has
turned to whoredom in the minds of her neighbors. Pompous Yehuda
wants to burn the very woman he impregnated when alerted that
Tamar is illegally pregnant. Well, the jig is up. Yehuda can't
burn the substitute, because now she is the real thing, an object
of his reckless disregard of what he is supposed to do.

Yehuda must face up to his desire that began with an image.

Moreover, to emphasize this problem of substitution and copy,
Tamar is pregnant with twins! And what are twins, whether they be
the Discouri or the Ashvins or Zaran and Pharez? When you look at
twins, you form a triangle, where there are two perfect points
seen by your eyes. The visible world becomes a double mirror.
Right and left become perfect inversions of each other. Can this
world, this place of disorder, be nothing more than a projection
of this kind? What awareness strikes you when you look at twins?
Is there is an original and a copy? Are they both originals? Are
they both copies? (How did god create this world? Did he image it
first in his divine mine and then make it the way he imagined it?
Or are these very words that we speak and read images of the same
kind?)

In the Bible, living without god or outside of his laws, makes men
live with substitutes, and what is a substitute, but an idol?
Yehuda wants to burn the harlot, because she is a substitute for
what is right. Harlotry and idolatry go together in the Bible.
Consider one of my favorite prophets, Hosea. He must marry a
whore, because land became a great whoredom. The entire book of
Hosea is a pean to this equation of idolatry and harlotry (not to
mention adultery, etc.), that man must not live by images and
substitutes for the real thing. The real thing cannot be bought
and sold, and no crime can achieve what is real. (And yet, men are
constantly committing crimes with the view to getting what they
thinks is real or pleasurable or ecstasy and so on.)

What is supposed to pass between men is the spiritual demands of
the god, and this exchange is not to be prostituted, because there
is not substitute for it. You cannot merge substance and
substitute and get spirit as one can get sexual pleasure from a
prostitute.

Genesis 38 is a book whose theme is the power of the image to
delude and provoke desire, particularly the wrong desires. But it
makes us aware of that power, and how much we must abide by the
god's laws so as to avoid being lost or mired the profusion of
images that arise out of prostitution, idolatry, and, for that
matter, twins, who are born of whoredom, because copies come out
of copies and so on.

One must always be careful about how one writes and creates images
as well.

Best regards,

Kalev Pehme

Scott Michael Alexander wrote:

>   I checked out the old web site for freelance
> academy, but it is unchanged,

This is true at present, but after I complete the rather laborious task of
moving my lists to the new server I plan to
update my website, supplying clickable buttons that will enable people to
subscribe or unsubscribe from my website.

Lance

Addressed to: maimonides@onelist.com
               Bob Appleson <Appleson@...>

Ed Remler wrote questioning certain responses I made
regarding Roy Pinchot's paper on sacrifice, the
Maimonides/Nachmanides controversy.  I cannot quote it out
because I am at a different computer and it does not seem to
be archived anywhere, probably due to the transition to the
new list.

He asked why I used the term "reductionist" in regard to
Nachmanides understanding of the Maimonidean position.  By
that term I meant that he fails to take in the full force
and subtlety of that position, reducing it to a slogan or
clich‚ or partial reflection.  I think that was also the
point of Mr. Pinchot's paper, and in the latter part of that
paper he was seeking to locate reasons for that failure and
indicating his view of what it was.

More significant was Mr. Remler's question: "Is the wish to
reconstruct the Temple yours, Maimonides, or both?"  My view
is irrelevant.  But I think it worthwhile to hear
Maimonides' view.

In Mishneh Torah, Avodah, H. Bet HaBekhira 2:1-2 [Twerski
Trans]:

    "1. The site of the altar was defined very specifically
    and was never to be changed.  For it is said:  'this is
    the altar of burnt-offering for Israel' (Chron 1:22:1).
    It was on the site of the temple that the patriarch Isaac
    was bound.  for it is said: 'and get you into the land of
    Moriah' (Gen. 22:2); and in the Book of Chronicles it is
    said: 'Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord
    at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the L-rd appeared to
    David his father, for which provision had been made in
    the Place of David, in the threshing floor of Ornan the
    Jebusite.' (Chron. 2:3:1).

    "2. Now there was a tradition known to all that the place
    where David and Solomon built the altar in the threshing
    floor of Arvanah was the same place where Abraham built
    the altar upon which he bound Isaac.  This, too, was the
    place where Noah built an altar when he came out of the
    Ark.  It was also the place of the altar upon which Cain
    and Abel offered sacrifice.  There it was that Adam
    offered a sacrifice after he was created.  Indeed, Adam
    was created from that very ground; as the sages have
    taught: Adam was created from the place where he made
    atonement.

    "15. [My translation] Therefore we are bringing all of
    the sacrifices, despite that there is no building there
    [R. Mendelson comments: but an altar is necessary], and
    we are eating the holy of holies in the whole of the area
    [azarah], despite that it is destroyed and no longer
    surrounded by a wall [sh'hee khareva v'aino mookefet
    bimkhitza], and we are eating less consecrated sacrifices
    and second tithe in all Jerusalem, despite that there is
    no longer a wall, since the first sanctification [kedusha
    rishona. By Solomon.] is a sanctification for its time
    [l'shata] and a sanctification for the time to come
    [l'atid lavo].

    "16. [Twerski Trans.] Now, why is it my contention that
    as far as the Sanctuary and Jerusalem were concerned the
    first sanctification hallowed them for all time to come,
    whereas the sactification of the rest of the Land of
    Israel, which involved the laws of the Sabbatical Year
    and tithes and like matters, did not hallow the land for
    all time to come?  Because the santity of the Sanctuary
    and of Jerusalem derives from the Divine Presence, which
    could not be banished.  Does it not say 'and I will bring
    your sanctuaries to desolation' (Lev. 26:31), wherefrom
    the sages have averred: even though they are desolate,
    the sanctuaries retain their pristine holiness.  By
    contrast, the obligations arising out of the land as far
    as the Sabbatical year and the tithes are concerned had
    derived from the conquest of the land by the people of
    Israel, and as soon as the land was wrested from them the
    conquest was nullified.  Consequently, the land was
    exempted by the Law from tithes and from the restrictions
    of the Sabbatical year, for it was no longer deemed the
    land of Israel.  When Ezra, however, came up and hallowed
    the land, he hallowed it not by conquest but merely by
    the act of taking possession.  Therefore, every place
    that was possessed by those who had come up from
    Babylonia and hallowed by the second sanctification of
    Ezra is holy today, even thought the land was later
    wrested from them; and the laws of the Sabbatical year
    and the tithes appertain thereto in the manner we have
    described in Laws Concerning Heave Offering."

MT, Avodah, H. M'ila 8:8 (Twerski Trans.):

    "....All the laws concerning offerings are in the
    category of statutes.  The sages have said that the world
    stands because of the service of the offerings; for
    through the performance of the statutes and the
    ordinances the righteous merit life in the world to come.
    Indeed, the Torah puts the commandment concerning the
    statutes first; as it is said: "You shall therefore keep
    My statutes, and Mine ordinances which if a man do, he
    shall live by them. (Lev. 18.5)"

MT, Shofetim, H. Melachim 11:1 (TT):

    "1. King Messiah will arise and restore the kingdom of
    David to its former state and original sovereignty.  He
    will rebuild the sanctuary and gather the dispersed of
    Israel.  All the ancient laws will be reinstituted in his
    days; sacrifices will again be offered;  the Sabbatical
    and Jubilee years will again be observed in accordance
    with the commandments set forth in the Law.  He who does
    not believe in a restoration or does not look forward [O
    mi sh'aino MKHAKEH l'viato, really means, "or who does
    not HOPE for his coming] to the coming of the Messiah
    denies not only the teachings of the prophets but also
    those of the Law and Moses our Teacher, for Scripture
    affirms the rehabilitation of Israel, as it is said:
    'Then the L-rd your G-d will turn your captivity, and
    have compassion upon you, and will return and gather
    you...if any of yours that are dispersed be in the
    uttermost parts of heaven...and the L-rd your G-d will
    bring you into the land which your fathers possessed'
    (Deut 30:3-5).  These words stated in Scripture include
    all that the prophets said on the subject...

    "4.  If there arise a king from the House of David who
    meditates on the Torah, occupies himself with the
    commandments, as did his ancestor David, observes the
    precepts prescribed in the written and the Oral Law,
    prevails upon Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and
    repair its breaches, and fights the battles of the L-rd,
    it may be assumed that he is the Messiah.  If he does
    these things and succeeds, rebuilds the sanctuary on its
    site, and gathers the dispersed of Israel, he is beyond
    doubt the Messiah...

More well known is the 12th fundamental principle of the
famous 13 principles at the end of the essay on Khelek,
without quoting it out, we are to believe in the coming of
the Messiah, wait for him, and whoever "doubts this or
minimizes it denies the Torah which testifies to it
explicitly."  Twerski's summary comments on the issue in The
Maimonides Reader, 140, are judicious:

    "The historical period during which part of the law was
    in abeyance was, in Maimonides' opinion, an anomaly, a
    fleeting moment in the pattern of eternity.  The real
    historical dimensions were those in which the Torah and
    its precepts were fully realized, that is, the time after
    the restoration of the Davidic dynasty when 'all the
    ancient laws will be reinstituted...sacrifices will again
    be offered, the Sabbatical and Jubilee years will again
    be observed...' (MT, H. Melachim 11:1 prev quoted).
    Consequently, the Mishneh Torah attends to such
    'antiquated' subjects as laws pertaining to the Temple
    and sacrifices [prob. 10% to 20% of the text--SMA].  One
    is impressed with the meticulousness and the
    exhaustiveness which characterize Maimonides' treatment
    of the Temple, its sanctity, its architecture, its
    vessels, the duties of the priests and Levites attending
    to it, the detailed regulations concerning communal and
    individual offerings."

What is more, no other post temple Jewish Code, including
the Rif before him, or the Shulchan Aruch after him, etc.,
deals with any of this material.  His code was a protest
against these deficiencies, according to Isidore Twersky's
exhaustive analysis in his monumental Introduction to the
Mishneh Torah.



Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Addressed to: maimonides@onelist.com
               Bob Appleson <Appleson@...>

Responding to Steve Alberg on the issue of the meaning of
Metaphysics in the Guide (and thanks for your note):

My appreciation to Noor Dhanani for his assistance with the
Arabic in the Guide.  I look forward eagerly to more
contributions from Noor.

First use in the Guide is in the Introduction, P. 6 and 7 in
Pines, where Ibn Tibon translates the phrase as Hochmat
HaE-lohut, usually given as Divine Science, but since it is
in construct state would probably be Science of the Divine,
which you may or may not consider a distinction without a
difference.  More critical is what he says before and after
it, please read the whole paragraph, in which he struggles
with the problem of revealing kabalah to the ignoramuses,
which would, in any case, be illegal, because of the second
perek of BT Hagigah.  Nonetheless he explicitly refers you
to what "we have already explained in our legal
compilations" by which he means all of chapter 2 of Mishneh
Torah, Mada, H. Ysodei Hatorah, which is very parallel to
the Guide Introduction, and you should also see, if possible
in the original without the accretions of translation, where
he explains the subject in both instances is: the love and
fear of G-d; his self-knowledge; his creations, including
the angelic host with specific attention to its ten
gradations, really, sefirot; prophecy; spheres; souls; and
the halachic reasons why our discussion of these things is
restricted.  Also see, in the same section, Ch. 4, 8-13 for
more significant amplification.  In his own interesting
definitional section at the end of his trans., Ibn Tibon
writes (my trans.): "Hochmat HaE-lohut: wisdom spoken of in
which there is no natural element, only intelligences
separate from matter,  like angels and other subjects, the
active intellect, and the ideas of the mind(miyediot
ha-sekhel-- noetic realm?) without any sensory action."



Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Address to: Distribution list (see below)

I want to wish all my coreligionists on the Maimonides list a happy
Khanuka, and to all my friends on the list a happy season, joyous new
year; and to Kalev a splendid saturnalia.  May all trash their TV's and
spend the next year reading the ancients and sending in more wonderful
contributions to the list.

I will be taking off a few weeks until next year and will not be doing
any writing in the hopes of studying more Maimonides that I have not
read yet.

Before I go, and since we are reading about Joseph and his Brothers
now, I have a question for you to consider:

Why does Judah consort with a prostitute?  (Genesis 38)

Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Distribution list: maimonides@onelist.com
                    Roger D. Masters <Roger.D.Masters@...>
                    Bob Appleson <Appleson@...>
                    Richard Wolcott <Richwolc@...>

Addressed to: maimonides@onelist.com
               Roger D. Masters <Roger.D.Masters@...>
               Bob Appleson <Appleson@...>

Dear list members and other friends:

Imagine my chagrin at having, on 12/7, told everyone a new address for
the list, only to learn a day or so later that this was not correct,
and there is now an entirely new address!*!

I trust I have not caused any more confusion than is absolutely
necessary.  I also hope everyone is now happily subscribed to the list
at the address given above and has all the new directions from our list
owner, lance Fletcher.  I checked out the old web site for freelance
academy, but it is unchanged, so direct your attention in future to the
website at http://www.onelist.com, and just search on the word
Maimonides to get you to the right list, its archive, and perhaps an
alternative way to subscribe.   It does seem now that the easiest way
to subscribe is to send a message to Maimonides-subscribe@onelist.com.
It does not matter what you write in the message because the address is
the command.  I consider this an improvement, since I have spent untold
amounts of time in the past getting people to subscribe to the old
address in the correct way.  While the archive has not really had time
to get going, it will probably be more efficient than previous methods,
which left a lot to be desired.  I still keep hardcopies of the last 18
months of postings since the list inception if anyone really needs
anything, but believe me it is hard to find anything in the five large
ringbound binders I have of material.

Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Addressed to: maimonides@onelist.com
               Bob Appleson <Appleson@...>

I am happy to report that a new edition of the wonderful 20 volume
series called Rambam L'am has just been printed by Mossad HaRov Kook.
It has been impossible to get it for some time.  It is out with a new
and more slightly more attractive maroon cover, but otherwise every
expense has been spared.  Everything else remains the same. There is
still no general index (at least none I can find -- what do you expect
from a jewish publishing house).

It includes the Mishneh Torah in a good uncensored edition complete.
It also has separate volumes for the Avot Commentary, and for Sefer
Ha-Mitzvot.  There is are two separate volumes of occasional shorter
letters and treatises such as Khelek, Shemonah Prakim, Epistle to
Yemen, Iggeret Ha-Shmad, Treatise on Resurrection, and Introduction to
the Mishna Commentary.  All volumes carry a generous commentary, mostly
by Rabbi Rubinstein (of whom I know nothing) in modern non-rabbinic
hebrew (similar to Kahati on Mishna for those of you who are familiar
with that work). It is definitely in jewish bookstores in new york,
from where mine was just shipped (Shekhekianu!) but you may still find
it a little difficult to locate, and prices are all over the place from
$135 to $175, but get it whatever you must do at whatever price.

Shalom u'bracha

Scott Alexander

Permit me to send you an excerpt from "The Faith of Maimonides" by
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (MOD, Tel Aviv, 1989) which I recently reread. It
deals indirectly with a number of topics we have been discussing and
directly with the question of the akedah. I have included prefatory
material which defines some of the concepts Leibowitz uses.



Sages had already realized that not every man is capable of Torah
for-its-own-sake, whose origin is in a knowledge of God qua God,  rather
than through functions ascribed to Him in relation to the 3 world and
the believer himself. Man was therefore permitted "to  worship God and
fulfill the commandments for the hope of reward and to abstain from
prohibitions for fear of punishment." But this is not the purpose of the
Torah. The true significance of faith is to know the truth because it is
truth. Maimonides saying in the introduction to Helek, 'The purpose of
truth is none other than to know the truth," appears at first sight as a
general principle of axiology (the theory of value), with no particular
religious signifi cance. Many non-religious thinkers and moralists would
agree with Maimonides that one should know the truth because it is truth
  that is, not because it is useful; not because it gives us additional
power and strength and potentialities, but because it is the truth. But
if we put together this saying in the introduction to Helek with the
first four halachot of Mishneh Torah, we shall understand this saying in
a completely different sense. lt is then turned from an axiological and
moral principle to a principle of religious faith;

if 'the Lord God is truth," and Only He is truth, and no other has truth
like His truth," and there is no true being beside Him which is like
Him" - then knowledge of truth is nothing but knowledge of God, and
knowledge of truth because it is truth is nothing but the belief in God
because of His divinity and not for any consequences of this belief.
This belief involves the recognition of our duty to worship God: "...
and the Torah is true, and the purpose of its knowledge is to do it."


In this context, Maimonides presents, as an archetype of faith, the
Patriarch Abraham. "Take now your son..." (Genesis 22:2 ff.) is a
command which no man could possibly fulfill if he conceived of God in
human categories and values (the judge of all earth, the rewarder and
punisher, a God of justice, mercy, and the like). The fulfillment of
this command requires a repudiation of all human values, and even of all
human goals (God's covenant with Abraham, which involves Isaac) before
one's duty to God.

There is no reward which can be given for fulfilling such a command,
unless the man who fulfills it regards it - that is, the unconditional
worship of God - as the reward itself. This is the worship of God
for-its-own-sake, which is called love ("And you shall love the Lord...
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might"),
and it was Abraham who had the privilege to be called "the one who loved
God" (Isaiah 41:8, in the Hebrew original).

Best Regards,
Ed Remler

lance@... (Lance Fletcher) wrote:

> Dave, I think this may supply us with an example of what some modern analytic
philosophers call the distinction between
> use and mention.

Perhaps.  But since I did never subscribe to the list, I do not have
that information.  Perhaps analytic philosophers would refer to that as
an annoyance or a hijacking.

I would appreciate it if you took me off this list.

Thank you

Kalev Pehme wrote:
>
....
>
> As for sacrifice, I was tying to find a classical view that is
> neat, precise, and terse which would show how a classical
> philosopher would approach it (De Absentiae is a little long and
> very complex.) I found it in Sallustios, who was a rather
> intelligent man who was a friend of the Emperor Julian in the
> latter part of the Fourth Century CE.
>
> In "On the Gods and the World," he writes:
>
> XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
>
> This solves the question about sacrifices and other rites
> performed to the Gods. The divine itself is without needs, and the
> worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods
> reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its
> reception. All congruity comes about by representation and
> likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation
> of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why
> they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of
> though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces,
> the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the
> irrational life in us.
>
> >From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there
> be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them.
>
> XVI. Concerning sacrifices and other worships, that we benefit man
> by them, but not the Gods.
>
> I think it well to add some remarks about sacrifices. In the first
> place, since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is
> right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a
> tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of
> (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices. Then secondly,
> prayers without sacrifices are only words, with sacrifices they
> are live words; the word gives meaning to the life, while the life
> animates the word. Thirdly, the happiness of every object is its
> own perfection; and perfection for each is communion with its own
> cause. For this reason we pray for communion with the Gods. Since,
> therefore, the first life is the life of the Gods, but human life
> is also life of a kind, and human life wishes for communion with
> divine life, a mean term is needed. For things very far apart
> cannot have communion without a mean term, and the mean term must
> be like the things joined; therefore the mean term between life
> and life must be life. That is why men sacrifice animals; only the
> rich do so now, but in old days everybody did, and that not
> indiscriminately, but giving the suitable offerings to each god
> together with a great deal of other worship. Enough of this
> subject.
> ---------------------


This is interesting. But  it is a rather late philosophical apologia. I
do not believe it represents the intellectual or emotional thoughts of
the sacrificer, Jew or Gentile, during the heyday of the practice.


>
> > My interpretation of Judaism is that it keeps that impassible
> gulf
> > absolutely and clearly impassible. I  believe that Maimonides
> > maintains
> > that whatever approach to God occurs can only occur in the
> > mind of Man.
> > It is done by Man for Man's benefit. There is no thing or
> > soul stuff or
> > whatever actually being led to or approaching God (thing on
> stuff or
> > anything conceivable cannot 'approach' or be 'led to' not-thing
> , the
> > ineffable, etc.). I also believe that Maimonides only gets this
> from
> > Judaism--not from Aristotle or his fellow philosophers. As I
> noted, it
> > is in complete opposition to Greek philosophy's deification
> > of Mind. It
> > is in agreement with the many statements in Torah about 'not
> seeing'
> > God, not representing God and so on. That is the purpose of such
> > statements. And so when statements in Judaism are made which
> appear
> > othjerwise, they are correctly interpreted (in analogy to 'the
> hand of
> > God', etc.) only metaphorically. This is consistent with
> everything
> > Maimonides says.
>
> I don't believe that one can equate god with mind simply. In the
> Guide, god is absolute perfection without any contradiction. Mind
> is full of contradictory elements.

I think we are talking past each other, possiblt because of different
assumptions.
I understand that Mind/Nous is the ultimate One for Plato, from which
all, the many, derives (with the help of Chaos). Thus when one talks
about God for Plato, it is Mind one talks about. I certainly do not
equate God with Mind but Plato does.
>

Ed Remler writes:

> This gets me to my main concern here which is what exactly is
meant by
> 'approach' and 'lead to' in reference to God. I am not sure of
Kalev's
> meaning. Plato believed (and Socrates believed if we are to
believe
> Plato) that contemplation on the part of the philosopher,
possibly
> before death but certainly after, allowed the philosopher's
> soul (mind)
> to actually approach Mind. This means that Man can actually
bridge the
> gulf to God. Thus I do not agree with the comment above that
"The
> philosopher denies that any act, including the sacrifice, can
lead to
> god." .

Mind to mind. There is no difference in mind in Plato. Moreover,
with Aristotle, it is rather clear that when a man is engaged in
thought thinking itself, he melds with the indeterminate theos
that is pure thought thinking itself. In Medieval times, Jews and
Arabs often referred to this intimacy as union with the Active
Intellect.

As for sacrifice, I was tying to find a classical view that is
neat, precise, and terse which would show how a classical
philosopher would approach it (De Absentiae is a little long and
very complex.) I found it in Sallustios, who was a rather
intelligent man who was a friend of the Emperor Julian in the
latter part of the Fourth Century CE.

In "On the Gods and the World," he writes:

XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.

This solves the question about sacrifices and other rites
performed to the Gods. The divine itself is without needs, and the
worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods
reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its
reception. All congruity comes about by representation and
likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation
of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why
they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of
though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces,
the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the
irrational life in us.

From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there
be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them.

XVI. Concerning sacrifices and other worships, that we benefit man
by them, but not the Gods.

I think it well to add some remarks about sacrifices. In the first
place, since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is
right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a
tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of
(hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices. Then secondly,
prayers without sacrifices are only words, with sacrifices they
are live words; the word gives meaning to the life, while the life
animates the word. Thirdly, the happiness of every object is its
own perfection; and perfection for each is communion with its own
cause. For this reason we pray for communion with the Gods. Since,
therefore, the first life is the life of the Gods, but human life
is also life of a kind, and human life wishes for communion with
divine life, a mean term is needed. For things very far apart
cannot have communion without a mean term, and the mean term must
be like the things joined; therefore the mean term between life
and life must be life. That is why men sacrifice animals; only the
rich do so now, but in old days everybody did, and that not
indiscriminately, but giving the suitable offerings to each god
together with a great deal of other worship. Enough of this
subject.
---------------------

This rather political statement is self-explanatory. Sacrifice is
ritual action, and the philosophers took a rather disdaining view
of it, except as a sop to the many. Sallustios's statement here, I
believe, is typical.

> My interpretation of Judaism is that it keeps that impassible
gulf
> absolutely and clearly impassible. I  believe that Maimonides
> maintains
> that whatever approach to God occurs can only occur in the
> mind of Man.
> It is done by Man for Man's benefit. There is no thing or
> soul stuff or
> whatever actually being led to or approaching God (thing on
stuff or
> anything conceivable cannot 'approach' or be 'led to' not-thing
, the
> ineffable, etc.). I also believe that Maimonides only gets this
from
> Judaism--not from Aristotle or his fellow philosophers. As I
noted, it
> is in complete opposition to Greek philosophy's deification
> of Mind. It
> is in agreement with the many statements in Torah about 'not
seeing'
> God, not representing God and so on. That is the purpose of such
> statements. And so when statements in Judaism are made which
appear
> othjerwise, they are correctly interpreted (in analogy to 'the
hand of
> God', etc.) only metaphorically. This is consistent with
everything
> Maimonides says.

I don't believe that one can equate god with mind simply. In the
Guide, god is absolute perfection without any contradiction. Mind
is full of contradictory elements.

Best regards,

Kalev Pehme

In honor of David Bakan, who continues to maintain that Musaeus
was Moses, I am posting Taylor's translation of this Orphic hymn.
{Orphism existed in the sixth and seventh centuries BCE, and the
hymns allegedly sprang out of that religious movement and time.
Musaeus, of course, was an Orphic poet, which is a bone of
contention betweem Mr. Bakan and me.) Sadly, Taylor tended to use
the Roman or Latin names of the gods in his translations, rather
than the Greek. He also has some strange English vocabulary
choices. But it isn't so bad. Consider what this hymn would mean
if Musaeus were Moses! (Note also the sacrifical context.) It is a
rather lovely hymn if one takes a bit of time to put together its
allegory.


---------------------
Hymn To Musaeus

Translated by Thomas Taylor.



Attend Musaeus to my sacred song,
And learn what rites to sacrifice belong.
Jove I invoke, the earth, and solar light,
The moon's pure splendor, and the Stars of Night;
Thee Neptune, ruler of the sea profound,
dark-haired, whose waves begirt the solid ground;
Ceres abundant, and of lovely mien,
And Proserpine, infernal Pluto's queen;
The huntress Dian, and bright Phoebus rays,
Far-darting God, the theme of Delphic praise;
And Bacchus, honoured by the heavenly choir,
And raging Mars, and Vulcan god of fire;
The mighty power who rose from foam to light,
and Pluto potent in the realms of night;
With Hebe young, and Hercules the strong,
And you to whom the cares of births belong:
Justice and Piety august I call,
and much-famed nymphs, and Pan the god of all.
To Juno sacred, and to Memory fair,
And the chaste Muses I address my prayer;
The various year, the Graces, and the Hours,
Fair-haired Latona, and Dione's powers;
Armed Curetes, household Gods I call,
With those who spring from Jove the king of all:
The Idaean Gods, the angel of the skies,
And righteous Themis, with sagacious eyes;
With ancient night, and day-light I implore,
And Faith, and Justice dealing right adore;
Saturn and Rhea, and great Thetis too,
Hid in a veil of bright celestial blue:
I call great Ocean, and the beauteous train
Of nymphs, who dwell in chambers of the main;
Atlas the strong, and ever in its prime,
Vigorous Eternity, and endless Time;
The Stygian pool, and placid Gods beside,
And various Genii, that over men preside;
Illustrious Providence, the noble train
Of daemon forms, who fill the aetherial plain:
Or live in air, in water, earth or fire,
Or deep beneath the solid ground retire.
Bacchus and Semele the friends of all,
And white Leucothea of the sea I call;
Palaemon bounteous, and Adrastria great,
And sweet-tongued Victory, with success elate;
Great Aesculapius, skilled to cure disease,
And dread Minera, whom fierce battles please;
Thunders and winds mighty columns pent,
With dreadful roaring struggling hard for vent;
Attis, the mother of the powers on high,
And fair Adonis, never doomed to die,
End and beginning he is all to all,
These with propitious aid I gently call;
And to my holy sacrifice invite,
The power who reigns in deepest hell and night;
I call Einodian Hecate, lovely dame,
Of earthly, watery, and celestial frame,
Sepulchral, in a saffron veil arrayed,
Pleased with dark ghosts that wander thro' the shade;
Persian, unconquerable huntress hail!
The world's key-bearer never doomed to fail;
On the rough rock to wander thee delights,
Leader and nurse be present to our rites;
Propitious grant our just desires success,
Accept our homage, and the incense bless.

------------------------------

Best regards,

Kalev Pehme

In the Pines translation Maimonides is said to have written

...the Account of the Beginning is identical with natural science, and the
Account of the Chariot with divine science.  [GP Introduction to the First
Part, 6]

In terms of the Steve Alberg's query, it is quite evident from this that
Maimonides is using the classical designations of the book by Aristotle
called Physics, as natural science, and the book by Aristotle called
Metaphysics, as divine science.

But I have another query about this.  Does Maimonides mean that the sciences
are IDENTICAL, as Pines intends, or that they are INCLUDED, as is suggested
in a footnote in the footnoted edition of Friedlaender's translation [The
Guide of the Perplexed, translated and annotated by M. Friedlaender, New
York:  Hebrew Publishing Company, no date, but preface is dated 1881]?.

I have to differ with Kalev Pehme on two points.

1.  Kalev Pehme  writes that for Maimonides "God can only be approached
noetically."

This is a bit misleading..  If Pehme were to have stated "God can only be
approached noetically for a philosopher who is not a prophet" it would be
correct.  For Maimonides every prophet is a philosopher first and then can
become a prophet.  Thus, it is true that he approaches God noetically,  as a
philosopher, using. the rational faculty.

.For the prophet Maimonides says there is an overflow into the imaginative
faculty from the rational faculty.  The prophet can then approach God
imaginatively. .Philosophers approach God noetically, but prophets reach
toward  God both noetically and imaginatively.



2.  Kalev Pehme writes"...the philosopher's claim is that he is the true
prophet, because only he has access to divine science."

This does not represent Maimonides' view at all. Maimonides distinguishes
philosophy from prophecy, holding prophecy to be a stage above philosophy.
Divine science means that which is to be found in Aristotle's Metaphysics.
But while it is included in prophecy, it is not prophecy by itself.

David Bakan









At 08:23 10/12/98 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Kalev Pehme" <pehme@...>
>
>Steve Alberg writes:
>
>> Reply and appreciation and further query to responses to query
>on
>> metaphysics from Scott Alexander and Alnoor Dhanani and also
>> to earlier
>> posts re Kalev Pehme on metaphysics('the divine') as
>> 'separated' from 'the
>> human element':   Alas I do not have a specific page
>> reference in mind, but
>> I am more thinking of the way Kalev has recently been using
>> metaphysics to
>> refer somehow to a sort of "being" and divinity that is
>> absolutely 'walled
>> off' if I am reading him rather absolutely--"across the board
>even of
>> 'psychology and soul'", so to speak,  from the human--as if
>> there could be
>> no "clinging" to the Holy One, Blessed Be He.
>
>Actually, this is not a fair characterization of what I said. Let
>me attempt to make myself clearer.
>
>The god in the Guide is a god who is utterly perfect with no
>contradictory elements whatsoever. This god can only be approached
>noetically.
>
>The metaphysical world in general is a world that can only be
>approached noetically as well. This noetic world includes such
>things as the one and the many, mathematicals, and what the Greeks
>call the eide and the genera of all things. All these things,
>including the highest things such as being, motion, rest, and so
>forth, are all part of the metaphysical world. We find discussions
>of these things in Aristotle's Metaphysics and in the dialogues of
>Plato.
>
>The philosopher's view is that there is no way to access the
>metaphysical through any action, and it is action that is the
>world of the human, as opposed to the divine. The human is what we
>make and do.
>
>As for the soul, the philosopher's soul is not the soul one finds
>in a monotheistic religion. The soul is primarily noetic, and
>known noetically.
>
>I ought to point out also that the metaphysical world is eminently
>knowable. It exists for us because it is knowable. Hence, it is
>first philosophy par excellence to investigate and to come to know
>the metaphysical world.
>
>However, we have a problem here. Only a very few people are truly
>capable of accessing the metaphysical world with their minds, and
>the philosophers claim that only the philosophers can. Moreover,
>as only the philosophers can know what is divine science and what
>its content is, then the philosophers lay claim to rule. In truth,
>the philosopher's claim is that he is the true prophet, because
>only he has access to divine science. As such, the philosopher
>lays claim to lawgiving (in the broadest sense that includes all
>habits, customs, etc.). In this sense, wisdom is put into action,
>as political philosophy. Religion must serve philosophy and not
>vice versa.
>
>Having said this, I would point out as well, as I did in my
>comments on Ramban, that this view is opposed to the view of all
>religions, where correct action as well as correct thought leads
>you to god. Ramban upholds sacrifice, while the philosopher
>Maimonides depises it, for example. The philosopher denies that
>any act, including the sacrifice, can lead to god. If the prophet,
>for example, can be any man god chooses, then the philosopher's
>claim to divine science and the right to rule is not only
>disputed, but refuted. That is the view of traditional revelation.
>
>That is what creates the chasm in the philosopher's view.
>
>But within the very world of religious action itself, there is a
>division between the divine and the human where human actions and
>thought are separated from god and the metaphysical world. It is
>not clear, for example, that if one sacrifices to god that one's
>act will be acknowledged. Cain and Abel may be demons, but we have
>the same demonic problem when it comes to sacrifice. Thus, even
>the most unphilosophical approach to the problems of god and the
>roots of the law presuppose a radical division between man and
>god. It is one that we must cross, but we are perplexed as to how.
>
>How you solve that perplexity is what the Guide claims it does.
>But there are rivals to Maimonides.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Kalev Pehme
>
>
>
>Mr. Alberg continues:
>
>> 	 If the glossary at the back of Pines is any indication the
>word
>> used by Maimonides for metaphysical is related to divine
>> science, as I had
>> earlier indicated--Noor can you further translate these
>> terms, particularly
>> 'al-ilim al-ilahi' and also 'al-falsafa al-ula' into their
>> smaller "roots"?
>>  What I am endeavoring to "get at" is this.  If we use the word
>> "metaphsyics" as a (false) 'compartment' which by definition
>> 'walls off'
>> --like a box car -- the divine from the 'adhering' human soul
>> [as in the
>> Hebrew root DVK --attached with the sense I have been told of
>"glued"]
>> rather than using the word metaphysics as a "door"  that
>> brings us closer
>> to "our Father's  Mansion" are we not exaggerating--or sort
>> of putting a
>> kind of 'double wall' up with regard to the human/divine
>distance by
>> "getting into the box car, going off then on the 'wrong track'
>whose
>> 'engine' is pulling the train created by the very definition
>> of metaphysics
>> in the first place?
>>
>>   I am trying to describe here a sort of communicative
>> "tangle" in which we
>> work at "cross-purposes" to any efforts we can be making to
>"keep Him
>> before us at all times" , for example, by our insistence on
>> using the word
>> metaphysics as a sort of "false infinity"  (a word I
>> understand used by
>> C.S. Lewis) created by our investiture of the CONCEPT,
>> metaphysics,  with a
>> sort of "magic-infinite", 'divisive quality'  ---the
>> division, then, is an
>> ADDED separation between the infinity of the Divine and the
>> human,  and
>> hences serves to hinder our consideration of what Ed Pols,
>> for example,
>> describes so beautifully in "Mind Regained" as the "union
>between the
>> infinite and the finite".
>>  We are trapped if we ride this box car pulled by this engine of
>> definition of "metaphysics  in a kind of "intellectual word
>> fence" which as
>> I see it has also a lot to do with fostering the so-called
>"mind-body"
>> problem. As Pols so beautifully points out with a somewhat
>different
>> reference--re the "scientific-philosophic consensus which he
>> so beautifully
>> demonstrates as mistaken.
>>  Re "first philosophy"  as translated by Alnoor ---
>> would it not be
>> important in considering "first philosophy" to consider the
>> "seminal" work
>> of Emmanuel Levinas who demonstrates convincingly for so many
>> that "ethics"
>> and NOT ontology is "first philosophy"? I rather think that
>Maimonides
>> would heartily approve of Levinas "thrust" here!
>>  [If I do not answer any posts for some time it will be because
>I
>> will be "down country" as the 'old-timers'  sometimes say in
>Maine for
>> approximately a week.]
>>
>> With warm regards,
>> 	 Steve Alberg,  Bowdoinham, ME     12/9/98
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >** Reply to note from maimonides@... Tue,
>> 08 Dec 1998
>> >15:29:26 -0500
>> >
>> >I would like to help, but I need a page reference or the Ibn
>> Tibon Hebrew
>> >term.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>  Can anyone on the list comment on what Maimonides means when
>he
>> >>speaks of
>> >what
>> >> we have taken to calling "metaphysics"? The "glossary in
>> Pines suggests
>> that
>> >he
>> >> speaks rather of the metaphysical and that this is closely
>> related to
>> >"divine
>> >> science". At the least they do not mention "metaphsyics"
>> in the glossary.
>> >Does
>> >> anyone know the Arabic?
>> >>
>> >>  To share something which came to me the other day.
>> Words can be like
>> >doors--for
>> >> example they can open the way to our Father's Mansion.
>> They can also be
>> like
>> >> boxcars. You can get in them, close the door, and perhaps
>> go off in the
>> >wrong
>> >> track and also on the wrong train of associations.
>> >>
>> >> With Best Regards, Steve Alberg Bowdoinham, ME
>> >>Steve:
>> ------------------------
>> >"Metaphysics" usually translates the arabic "ma ba'd
>> al-tabi'a" (which
>> >>as "al-'ilm al-ilahi" (which literally means divine
>> science). The arabic
>> >term "al-falsafa al-ula" is also used, this literally means
>> first philosophy.
>>
>> >These three uses indicate
>>
>> >1. the place of metaphysics in the Aristotelean canon, i.e.
>> after physics.
>> >2. the discussion of higher beings (God, celestial
>> intellects, celestial
>> >souls) which belonged to "metaphysics". This is found in
>al-Farabi,
>> >Avicenna, Averroes and others.
>> >3. the subject in which crucial philosophical terms such as
>> "being", "one",
>> >"accident", "substance" etc. are discussed.
>>
>> Noor Dhanani
>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >-------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------------
>> >> Internet: sydsteve@... (Syd And Steve Alberg) Via: The
>> Free Lance
>> >Academy -
>> >> http://www.freelance-academy.org For info/help: send blank
>> message to:
>> >> info@...  To unsub from a list send mail
>to:
>> >> listserv@... and in the body write:
>> "unsub" followed by
>> >list
>> >> name (no quote marks) Report problems or requests to:
>> >> lance.fletcher@...
>> >>
>> >-------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------------
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >Your friend,
>> >
>> >Scott Alexander
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >-------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------------
>> >Internet: smalexa@... (Scott Michael Alexander)
>> >Via: The Free Lance Academy - http://www.freelance-academy.org
>> >For info/help: send blank message to:
>info@...
>> >To unsub from a list send mail to:
>listserv@...
>> >and in the body write: "unsub" followed by list name (no quote
>marks)
>> >Report problems or requests to:
>lance.fletcher@...
>> >-------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------------
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Kalev Pehme wrote:


>
> The god in the Guide is a god who is utterly perfect with no
> contradictory elements whatsoever. This god can only be approached
> noetically.
>
> The metaphysical world in general is a world that can only be
> approached noetically as well. This noetic world includes such
> things as the one and the many, mathematicals, and what the Greeks
> call the eide and the genera of all things. All these things,
> including the highest things such as being, motion, rest, and so
> forth, are all part of the metaphysical world. We find discussions
> of these things in Aristotle's Metaphysics and in the dialogues of
> Plato.

I believe that a simple definition of a metaphysical belief is a basic
belief which cannot be proven. Proof means put to the
test--demonstrated. Demonstration is through actions and observations.
The modifier basic is to distinguish conclusions logically drawn from
metaphysical beliefs from the basic beliefs themselves. Metaphysics then
is the explication of metaphysical beliefs.

....
>
> As for the soul, the philosopher's soul is not the soul one finds
> in a monotheistic religion. The soul is primarily noetic, and
> known noetically.

I belief that the soul was originally equivalent to the mind.

...
>
> Having said this, I would point out as well, as I did in my
> comments on Ramban, that this view is opposed to the view of all
> religions, where correct action as well as correct thought leads
> you to god. Ramban upholds sacrifice, while the philosopher
> Maimonides depises it, for example. The philosopher denies that
> any act, including the sacrifice, can lead to god. If the prophet,
> for example, can be any man god chooses, then the philosopher's
> claim to divine science and the right to rule is not only
> disputed, but refuted. That is the view of traditional revelation.

This gets me to my main concern here which is what exactly is meant by
'approach' and 'lead to' in reference to God. I am not sure of Kalev's
meaning. Plato believed (and Socrates believed if we are to believe
Plato) that contemplation on the part of the philosopher, possibly
before death but certainly after, allowed the philosopher's soul (mind)
to actually approach Mind. This means that Man can actually bridge the
gulf to God. Thus I do not agree with the comment above that "The
philosopher denies that any act, including the sacrifice, can lead to
god." .

My interpretation of Judaism is that it keeps that impassible gulf
absolutely and clearly impassible. I  believe that Maimonides maintains
that whatever approach to God occurs can only occur in the mind of Man.
It is done by Man for Man's benefit. There is no thing or soul stuff or
whatever actually being led to or approaching God (thing on stuff or
anything conceivable cannot 'approach' or be 'led to' not-thing , the
ineffable, etc.). I also believe that Maimonides only gets this from
Judaism--not from Aristotle or his fellow philosophers. As I noted, it
is in complete opposition to Greek philosophy's deification of Mind. It
is in agreement with the many statements in Torah about 'not seeing'
God, not representing God and so on. That is the purpose of such
statements. And so when statements in Judaism are made which appear
othjerwise, they are correctly interpreted (in analogy to 'the hand of
God', etc.) only metaphorically. This is consistent with everything
Maimonides says.

Best Regards

Ed Remler

Steve Alberg writes:

> Reply and appreciation and further query to responses to query
on
> metaphysics from Scott Alexander and Alnoor Dhanani and also
> to earlier
> posts re Kalev Pehme on metaphysics('the divine') as
> 'separated' from 'the
> human element':   Alas I do not have a specific page
> reference in mind, but
> I am more thinking of the way Kalev has recently been using
> metaphysics to
> refer somehow to a sort of "being" and divinity that is
> absolutely 'walled
> off' if I am reading him rather absolutely--"across the board
even of
> 'psychology and soul'", so to speak,  from the human--as if
> there could be
> no "clinging" to the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

Actually, this is not a fair characterization of what I said. Let
me attempt to make myself clearer.

The god in the Guide is a god who is utterly perfect with no
contradictory elements whatsoever. This god can only be approached
noetically.

The metaphysical world in general is a world that can only be
approached noetically as well. This noetic world includes such
things as the one and the many, mathematicals, and what the Greeks
call the eide and the genera of all things. All these things,
including the highest things such as being, motion, rest, and so
forth, are all part of the metaphysical world. We find discussions
of these things in Aristotle's Metaphysics and in the dialogues of
Plato.

The philosopher's view is that there is no way to access the
metaphysical through any action, and it is action that is the
world of the human, as opposed to the divine. The human is what we
make and do.

As for the soul, the philosopher's soul is not the soul one finds
in a monotheistic religion. The soul is primarily noetic, and
known noetically.

I ought to point out also that the metaphysical world is eminently
knowable. It exists for us because it is knowable. Hence, it is
first philosophy par excellence to investigate and to come to know
the metaphysical world.

However, we have a problem here. Only a very few people are truly
capable of accessing the metaphysical world with their minds, and
the philosophers claim that only the philosophers can. Moreover,
as only the philosophers can know what is divine science and what
its content is, then the philosophers lay claim to rule. In truth,
the philosopher's claim is that he is the true prophet, because
only he has access to divine science. As such, the philosopher
lays claim to lawgiving (in the broadest sense that includes all
habits, customs, etc.). In this sense, wisdom is put into action,
as political philosophy. Religion must serve philosophy and not
vice versa.

Having said this, I would point out as well, as I did in my
comments on Ramban, that this view is opposed to the view of all
religions, where correct action as well as correct thought leads
you to god. Ramban upholds sacrifice, while the philosopher
Maimonides depises it, for example. The philosopher denies that
any act, including the sacrifice, can lead to god. If the prophet,
for example, can be any man god chooses, then the philosopher's
claim to divine science and the right to rule is not only
disputed, but refuted. That is the view of traditional revelation.

That is what creates the chasm in the philosopher's view.

But within the very world of religious action itself, there is a
division between the divine and the human where human actions and
thought are separated from god and the metaphysical world. It is
not clear, for example, that if one sacrifices to god that one's
act will be acknowledged. Cain and Abel may be demons, but we have
the same demonic problem when it comes to sacrifice. Thus, even
the most unphilosophical approach to the problems of god and the
roots of the law presuppose a radical division between man and
god. It is one that we must cross, but we are perplexed as to how.

How you solve that perplexity is what the Guide claims it does.
But there are rivals to Maimonides.

Best regards,

Kalev Pehme



Mr. Alberg continues:

> 	 If the glossary at the back of Pines is any indication the
word
> used by Maimonides for metaphysical is related to divine
> science, as I had
> earlier indicated--Noor can you further translate these
> terms, particularly
> 'al-ilim al-ilahi' and also 'al-falsafa al-ula' into their
> smaller "roots"?
>  What I am endeavoring to "get at" is this.  If we use the word
> "metaphsyics" as a (false) 'compartment' which by definition
> 'walls off'
> --like a box car -- the divine from the 'adhering' human soul
> [as in the
> Hebrew root DVK --attached with the sense I have been told of
"glued"]
> rather than using the word metaphysics as a "door"  that
> brings us closer
> to "our Father's  Mansion" are we not exaggerating--or sort
> of putting a
> kind of 'double wall' up with regard to the human/divine
distance by
> "getting into the box car, going off then on the 'wrong track'
whose
> 'engine' is pulling the train created by the very definition
> of metaphysics
> in the first place?
>
>   I am trying to describe here a sort of communicative
> "tangle" in which we
> work at "cross-purposes" to any efforts we can be making to
"keep Him
> before us at all times" , for example, by our insistence on
> using the word
> metaphysics as a sort of "false infinity"  (a word I
> understand used by
> C.S. Lewis) created by our investiture of the CONCEPT,
> metaphysics,  with a
> sort of "magic-infinite", 'divisive quality'  ---the
> division, then, is an
> ADDED separation between the infinity of the Divine and the
> human,  and
> hences serves to hinder our consideration of what Ed Pols,
> for example,
> describes so beautifully in "Mind Regained" as the "union
between the
> infinite and the finite".
>  We are trapped if we ride this box car pulled by this engine of
> definition of "metaphysics  in a kind of "intellectual word
> fence" which as
> I see it has also a lot to do with fostering the so-called
"mind-body"
> problem. As Pols so beautifully points out with a somewhat
different
> reference--re the "scientific-philosophic consensus which he
> so beautifully
> demonstrates as mistaken.
>  Re "first philosophy"  as translated by Alnoor ---
> would it not be
> important in considering "first philosophy" to consider the
> "seminal" work
> of Emmanuel Levinas who demonstrates convincingly for so many
> that "ethics"
> and NOT ontology is "first philosophy"? I rather think that
Maimonides
> would heartily approve of Levinas "thrust" here!
>  [If I do not answer any posts for some time it will be because
I
> will be "down country" as the 'old-timers'  sometimes say in
Maine for
> approximately a week.]
>
> With warm regards,
> 	 Steve Alberg,  Bowdoinham, ME     12/9/98
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >** Reply to note from maimonides@... Tue,
> 08 Dec 1998
> >15:29:26 -0500
> >
> >I would like to help, but I need a page reference or the Ibn
> Tibon Hebrew
> >term.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>  Can anyone on the list comment on what Maimonides means when
he
> >>speaks of
> >what
> >> we have taken to calling "metaphysics"? The "glossary in
> Pines suggests
> that
> >he
> >> speaks rather of the metaphysical and that this is closely
> related to
> >"divine
> >> science". At the least they do not mention "metaphsyics"
> in the glossary.
> >Does
> >> anyone know the Arabic?
> >>
> >>  To share something which came to me the other day.
> Words can be like
> >doors--for
> >> example they can open the way to our Father's Mansion.
> They can also be
> like
> >> boxcars. You can get in them, close the door, and perhaps
> go off in the
> >wrong
> >> track and also on the wrong train of associations.
> >>
> >> With Best Regards, Steve Alberg Bowdoinham, ME
> >>Steve:
> ------------------------
> >"Metaphysics" usually translates the arabic "ma ba'd
> al-tabi'a" (which
> >>as "al-'ilm al-ilahi" (which literally means divine
> science). The arabic
> >term "al-falsafa al-ula" is also used, this literally means
> first philosophy.
>
> >These three uses indicate
>
> >1. the place of metaphysics in the Aristotelean canon, i.e.
> after physics.
> >2. the discussion of higher beings (God, celestial
> intellects, celestial
> >souls) which belonged to "metaphysics". This is found in
al-Farabi,
> >Avicenna, Averroes and others.
> >3. the subject in which crucial philosophical terms such as
> "being", "one",
> >"accident", "substance" etc. are discussed.
>
> Noor Dhanani
>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> >Your friend,
> >
> >Scott Alexander
> >
> >
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------------
> >Internet: smalexa@... (Scott Michael Alexander)
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info@...
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>
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> Internet: sydsteve@... (Syd And Steve Alberg)
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Dave Schwartz wrote:

> From: Dave Schwartz <dave@...>
>
> maimonides-unsubscribe@onelist.com
>
>

Dave, I think this may supply us with an example of what some modern analytic
philosophers call the distinction between
use and mention.

In order to unsubscribe from this list by e-mail, it is not enough to merely
mention the unsubscribe address in a message
to a different address.  You actually have to _use_ the address by sending a
message to it.

--
Lance Fletcher, President
The Free Lance Academy Foundation
for information send message to info@...
http://www.freelance-academy.org
lance@...

In connection with Steve's query:

Metaphysics or Metaphysica is a book by Aristotle.  Chapter XII is
particularly important because it is the primary source for Aristotle's
argument for the existence of an eternal mover, whose essence is
actuality[XII.6]; and how God thinks Himself [XII.9].  All of this is also
called Divine Science.  It is the main source for Maimonides' discussion of
Aristotle and the proof for the existence and unity of God in The Guide of
the Perplexed.

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