The Legacy of

Maimonides
Religion, Reason and Community

Edited by Yamin Levy and Shalom Carmy

Yashar Books, 2006

 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 127

Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community

Yamin Levy

Each individual possesses something unique, rare which is unknown

to others; each individual has a unique message to communicate,
a special color to add to the communal spectrum. Hence when
lonely man joins the community, he adds a new dimension to the
community awareness. He contributes something no one else
could have contributed.
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “The Community,”
Tradition 17:2 (1978): 10
…[W]e should never alienate or despise the Shabbat violators,
but, on the contrary, draw them near and inspire them to perform
mizvot. As our sages indicated: “A willful transgressor who enters
the synagogue to pray should not be disgraced but on the contrary
be received with courtesy.”
Maimonides, Iggeret ha-Shemad
Once I have recognized the thou and invited him to join the
community, I ipso facto assumed responsibility for the thou.
Recognition is identical with commitment.
Soloveitchik, ibid., page 18
R. Judah spoke: Hear, O Israel, this day thou art become a people
unto the Lord thy God. Now was it on that day that the Torah
was given? It is however to teach you that the Torah is as beloved
everyday to those who study it as on the day it was given at Sinai.
Berakhot 63b

Introduction

The Maimonides Heritage Center was founded on the premise that

the “Great Eagle” Maimonides is not only in harmony with modern man’s
128 The Legacy of Maimonides

spiritual sensibilities but is indeed the most relevant Jewish thinker in

modern man’s struggle back to tradition. Eight hundred years after his
death, the influence and impact of Maimonides’ writings, as well as what
we know about his personal life and his religious passion, affords us the
spirituality that many have sought in religious existentialism and mystical
texts.
Maimonides also speaks to some of the overriding political and
communal issues of the contemporary Jewish community today. R. Norman
Lamm formulated our generation’s greatest challenge as follows:
To concentrate solely on our physical survival with no thought
to our cultural and religious tradition or, conversely, to focus
our loyalties exclusively on our spiritual legacy even if it means
alienating vast numbers of Jews who may be indifferent to it—
this is the primal sin of our times. Jews without Judaism, Judaism
without Jews—either one is treason, because each of these is a
prescriptions for the end of the story of both Israel and Torah.1
The political implications of Maimonides’ Halakhic thought are
especially critical. A clear presentation of Maimonides’ religious and
Halakhic epistemology can be an avenue to bridge the gap between the
religious, the secular, and the indifferent. Maimonides affords the twenty-
first century Jewish community in the Diaspora and in Israel the spiritual
and political answers it seeks in order to ensure the Jewish people remain
a unified and pertinent entity.
The need to create a spiritually sensitive “community” is especially
urgent in Israel. Contrary to the predictions of the nineteenth and
twentieth century earlier thinkers who anticipated a melting pot where
minority cultures assimilate, the modern state of Israel has become an
arena where ethnic variety, individuality, and pluralism have found
expression within the national society. This in itself would not pose a
problem were it not for the tensions, animosity, and even outright hostility
among various ideologies both within and beyond the range of religious
groupings. This clearly poses a crucial and urgent challenge: How do we
as a people, with different ideologies, lifestyles and religious and cultural
backgrounds, come together to create a community?2 In the view of
Jonathan Woocher,
At the very heart of the mystery of Jewish survival throughout
the ages, in magnificent denial of the normal laws of history that
decree the death sentence on people that lose their homeland,
is the idea of community…. the sense of a profoundly shared
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 129

destiny, a shared purpose, a shared history and customs, a shared

responsibility.3
One of our strengths as a people has always been the ability to draw on
a shared past and the promise of a national destiny. Is there a place in
our theology for substantive dialogue among those who share a land but
not necessarily a common belief in a historical past, or commitment to a
shared destiny? In this essay I will propose that Maimonides’ exposition of
basic Jewish theological principles and mizvot can serve as a guide toward
reaching all members of our community and bringing the fragmented
parts together in unity of direction and responsibility.

Self Perception

The thesis I am about to present requires a short discussion on the

ways that Jews collectively perceive themselves in relation to God and,
consequently, in relation to the rest of the world. One element of that
collective perception is the concept of the election of Israel, on which
the late Talmud scholar Ephraim E. Urbach astutely noted two different
views in rabbinic literature. The first view, which he calls nizhit (eternal
or absolute), sees the chosesnness of Israel as conceived together with
the creation of the world. It assumes that the people of Israel are chosen
because they possess an intrinsic distinction and that their election is not
contingent on anything they do or fail to do. The second view he calls
yahasit (relative), according to which the election of Israel is linked to
certain stipulations and conditions. In this approach, the people are both
elected and electors, in the sense that they “chose” as well as have been
“chosen.”4
Urbach attributes the idea of behirah nitzhit, the eternal or absolute
election of Israel, to R. Akiva and his disciples. He hears the essence of
this message in R. Akiva’s well-known dictum: “Beloved are Israel who
are called God’s children… Beloved are Israel because the vessel through
which the world was created was given to them.”5 That is, both Israel and
Torah are primordial entities.6 It then follows that both Israel and Torah
are in truth eternal and not temporal. This belief was very attractive to a
range of later Jewish theologians and scholars, finding its fullest expression
in the works of Yehuda Halevi. By way of the Zohar and the schools of
mystics, it also spread widely through popular writings.
The second view, that Urbach calls behirah yahasit, is attributed to
130 The Legacy of Maimonides

the Tanna R. Eliezer Ben Azariah. R. Eliezer cited the verse “Thou hast
avouched the Lord this day… and the Lord has avouched thee this day”
(Deuteronomy 26:17-18) and expounded it:
The Holy One blessed be He, said to Israel: You have made Me
a unique object of your love in this world, so I shall make you
a unique object of My love in this world. You have made Me a
unique object of your love in this world as it is written “Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” and I shall make you
a unique object of My love as it is written “Who is like unto Thy
people Israel, a nation, one in the earth” (I Chronicles 17:21).7
That is, God was chosen by Israel before God chose the people of
Israel. An identical view can be attributed to R. Ishmael in his teaching:
“And ye shall be holy unto Me…when you are holy you are Mine.”8
On the election of the Jewish people, Maimonides chose this
second and less popular view.9 As Menachem Kellner asserts persuasively,
Maimonides does not assign any special ontological status to the Jewish
people.10 Maimonides does make reference to behira, election by God,
but only in regard to liturgical traditions and the preservation of certain
Talmudic formulations.11 He does not suggest that God chose the Jewish
people for qualities that distinguish them from the rest of humanity, nor
does he give any theological significance to that concept.
This stance has many and dramatic implications that Kellner, in
his study of Maimonides, examines. It seems clear that Maimonides
downplays any special character of the Jewish people and sees no
difference between Jew and gentile except in their theological choices.
He rejects the concept that Jews are beneficiaries of a special Divine
providence or prophecy.12 Rather, Jew and Gentile are equally capable
of achieving human perfection. This concept explains why Maimonides
was so welcoming to proselytes.13 Kellner’s thesis also places in context
Maimonides’ belief that in the End of Days the distinction between Jew
and gentile will dissolve.14
In the next section, I will apply Kellner’s research further and argue
that an appreciation for Maimonides’ position on the election of Israel
as a backdrop for the analysis of Maimonides’ religious epistemology
might afford us, the Jewish community of the twenty-first century, the
religious and theological outlook necessary to engage co-religionists who
might lack faith in God, a belief in traditional revelation, and in a shared
destiny.
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 131

Self Expression

Interestingly, there is a relationship between how one understands

the election of the Jewish people (behirah) and ta’amei ha-mizvot, applying
reasons to the commandments. Regarding ta’amei ha-mizvot, Maimonides
insists in numerous places that “every commandment and prohibition
in these laws is consequent upon wisdom and aims at some end.”15 All
the commandments are useful and even necessary for helping us achieve
human perfection16 and creating the ideal society. Based on this premise
Maimonides goes to great lengths in the Guide to expound the reasons
for the commandments. This is indeed consistent with his position on
behirah. For him, behirah of the Jewish people is a dynamic process initiated
by man seeking out his or her Creator. In presenting ta’amei ha-mizvot,
Maimonides actually presents a model that by its very nature encourages
dialogue and engages all members of the community in the religious
quest. Man chose God because His law and creations are perfect and wise,
and a relationship is forged from human intuition. Man then rationally
communicates that choice and the values of his religious experience to
others who may or may not be committed to the same kind of belief.
Maimonides uses as a proof-text a verse on rationally communicating to
the nations of the world the Divine wisdom of Torah: “Ki hi hokhmatkhem
u-vinatkhem le-einei ha-amim (For she is your wisdom and knowledge in
the eyes of the nations)” (Deut 4:6).
In contrast, those who insist that behirah of the Jewish people is
absolute and that God chose the Jew because he or she is intrinsically
special, regardless of human participation at all, will likely view the nature
of mizvot in absolutist and fundamentalist terms as well. The Jew observes
the mizvot because they are God’s commandments. The transcendental
nature of the relationship is not only its source but also the way it is
expressed. The process of uncovering the reason and purpose for the
commandments becomes irrelevant and even discouraged. One observes
mizvot because that is what God wills. Fulfilling God’s will for no reason or
purpose actually becomes the highest form of religious expression.
Maimonides rejected such a position not only as contrary to the
Torah’s intended political goals17 but also as a malady of the individual’s
soul:
There is a group of human beings who consider it a grievous
thing that causes should be given for any law; what would please
132 The Legacy of Maimonides

them most is that the intellect would not find a meaning for the
commandments and prohibitions. What compels them to feel thus
is a sickness that they find in their souls, a sickness to which they
are unable to give utterance and of which they cannot furnish
a satisfactory account. For they think that if those laws were
useful in this existence and had been given to us for this or that
reason, it would be as if they derived from the reflection and the
understanding of some intelligent being. If, however, there is a
thing for which the intellect could not find any meaning at all and
that does not lead to something useful, it undoubtedly derives from
God; for the reflection of man would not lead to such things.
It is as if, according to these people of weak intellects, man were
more perfect than his Maker; for man speaks and acts in a manner
that leads to some intended end, whereas the deity does not act
thus, but commands us to do things that are not useful to us and
forbids us to do things that are not harmful to us. But He [God] is
far exalted above this; the contrary is the case—the whole purpose
consisting in what is useful for us, as we have explained18 on the
basis of its dictum: for our good always, that He might preserve us
alive as it is at this day (Deut. 6:24). And it says: Which shall hear
all these statutes and say: Surely this great community is a wise and
understanding people (Deut. 4:6). Thus it states explicitly that even
all the statutes will show all the nations that they have been given
with wisdom and understanding.19
Explaining Jewish law exclusively in terms of faith can become a
way of escape for one who does not want to engage the outside world in
understanding his way of life. Those whom Maimonides diagnoses with
“sickness of soul” make use of mizvot to create a community of isolated
individuals whose common language is generally dogmatic and absolute.
The more they separate themselves from the non-believers, the more
deeply they experience the fullness of the mizvah. If non-comprehension
is indeed the highest expression of religious fervor, then actions that seem
the least comprehensible will also seem to be the supreme demonstration
of religious faith.
For Maimonides, the ultimate goal is the creation of an inclusive,
orderly, and just society that gives the individual the necessary
opportunity to achieve human perfection. True inclusion is possible only
if one is able to explain the nature of one’s actions and beliefs in terms
and concepts that can be understood to a diverse public.20 Maimonides’
polemic against those who do not subject the truth of Jewish thought and
philosophy to universal rational criteria makes sense in the context of an
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 133

ultimate goal that will otherwise not be achieved. That goal, of course, is
community.21
In the introduction to Perek Helek of Sanhedrin, Maimonides again
discredits those whose religious outlook is exclusive and communicated
in absolute literalist terms.
You must know that the words of the sages are differently
interpreted by three groups of people. The first group is the largest
one. I have observed them, read their books, and heard about
them. They accept the teachings of the sages in their simple literal
sense and do not think that these teachings contain any hidden
meaning at all. They believe that all sorts of impossible things must
be. They hold such opinions because they have not understood
science and are far from having acquired knowledge. They possess
no perfection which would rouse them to insight from within,
nor have they found anyone else to stimulate them to profounder
understanding. They, therefore, believe that the sages intended no
more in their carefully emphatic and straightforward utterances
than they themselves are able to understand with inadequate
knowledge. They understand the teachings of the sages only in
their literal sense, in spite of the fact that some of their teachings,
when taken literally, seem so fantastic and irrational that if one
were to repeat them literally, even to the uneducated, let alone
sophisticated scholars, their amazement would prompt them to
ask how anyone in the world could believe such things true, much
less edifying.
The members of this group are poor in knowledge. One can only
regret their folly. Their very effort to honor and to exalt the sages
in accordance with their own meager understanding actually
humiliates them. As God lives, this group destroys the glory of
the Torah of God, say the opposite of what it intended. For He
said in His perfect Torah, “The nation is a wise and understanding
people” (Deut. 4:6). But this group expounds the laws and the
teachings of our sages in such a way that when the other peoples
hear them they say that this little people is foolish and ignoble.
The worst offenders are preachers who preach and expound to
the masses what they themselves do not understand. Would that
they keep silent about what they do not know, as it is written: “If
only they would be utterly silent, it would be accounted to them
as wisdom” (Job 13:5). Or they might at least say, “We do not
understand what our sages intended in this statement, and we do
not know how to explain it.” But they believe they do understand,
and they vigorously expound to the people what they think rather
than what the sages really said. They, therefore, give lectures to
134 The Legacy of Maimonides

the people on the tractate Berakhot and on this present chapter,

and other texts, expounding them word-for-word according to
their literal meaning.22
There is, indeed, a psychological and spiritual security in living only
with others who think and behave the same way and share a common
spiritual language. It can be unsettling to recognize the theological
implications of Maimonides’ ideal, in which one must constantly move
between the inclusive and the particular, always trying to find a way of
integrating disparate needs into one’s life. This raises the critical need of
finding a shared language between those who observe halakhah because
they believe in revelation and those who do not believe in revelation but
want to understand the value of halakhah as a way of life.
Shared practice and customs are essential ingredients needed to
create an inclusive community, and so Maimonides would have the
educated Jew go forth into the world and impart his religious experience
and spiritual life to others in commonly intelligible terms. It is a cornerstone
of Maimonidean thought that the Jew has a mandate to communicate the
wisdom of the Divine message in words that can be understood by all.
Maimonides’ endeavor of giving reason for the mizvot had less to do with
how the law was practiced and more to do with knowing God through
Torah and nature. Yeshayahu Leibowitz formulated this point by stating
that ta’amei ha-mizvot is not a pursuit of knowledge as much as it is a
pursuit for knowledge of God.23

Recognition

Maimonides offers a model for building bridges through

communication. The edifice of Jewish law takes on greater significance
when the observant individual is capable of sharing his inner spiritual life
with others for the sake of building community. The Jew should be capable
of elucidating the nature of his observance without having to validate the
significance of his actions solely in terms of faith. Halakhah and Jewish
philosophy need not isolate the practitioner from full participation in a
universal culture of mankind. Indeed, cognitive isolation would be too
great a price to pay for a commitment to a particular way of life.
Some of the most fundamental mizvot, love of God, for example, can
be ideally observed only with recognition of the need to move beyond
traditional disciplines toward understanding of the universal. Thus,
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 135

to fulfill the mizvah of love of God one must master the natural world,
including knowledge of mathematics and physics.
And what is the way that will lead to the love of Him and the
fear of Him? When a person contemplates His great and wondrous
works and creatures and from them obtains a glimpse of His
wisdom which is incomparable and infinite, he will straightway
love Him, praise Him, glorify Him, and long with an exceeding
longing to know His great Name; even as David said, “My soul
thirsts for God, for the living God” (Ps. 43:3).
And when he ponders these matters, he will recoil frightened, and
realize that he is a small creature, lowly and obscure, endowed
with slight and slender intelligence, standing in the presence of
Him who is perfect in knowledge. And so David said “When I
consider Your heaven the work of Your fingers—what is man that
You are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:4-5).
In harmony with these sentiments, I shall explain some large,
general aspects of the works of the Sovereign of the universe, that
they may serve the intelligent individual as a door to the love of
God, even as our sages have remarked in connection with the
theme of the love of God, “Observe the universe and hence you
will realize Him who spoke and the world was.”24
It is known and certain that the love of God does not become
closely knit in a man’s heart until he is continuously and thoroughly
possessed by it and gives up everything else in the world for it; as
God commanded us, “with all your heart and with all your soul”
(Deut. 6:5).
One only loves God with the knowledge with which one knows
Him. According to the knowledge will be the love. If the former
be little or much, so will the latter be little or much. A person
ought therefore to devote himself to the understanding and
comprehension of those sciences and studies which will inform
him concerning his Master, as far as it lies in human faculties to
understand and comprehend…25
The greatest scholars of Judaism, including those of the twentieth
century, use insights from disciplines beyond the range of the specifically
Jewish. Maimonides’ own intellect was shaped not only by the work of
his rabbinic predecessors but also by the ideas of gentile philosophers and
scholars. In a letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon, who was translating Guide
of the Perplexed, Maimonides refers to Aristotle, whom he describes as
“the roots and foundations of all works in the sciences.” He also makes
reference to Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, and to the Muslim
136 The Legacy of Maimonides

philosophers Averroes and al-Farabi, with the comment on the latter that
his “writings are faultlessly excellent—one ought to study and understand
them.” Truth reigns supreme based on its content and not on the appeal
or authority of its author.26
A student of Maimonides learns to appreciate and value of the culture
of others, in a context that seeks integration rather than polemics.27 This
is in itself a novel attitude, for as Jacob Katz strongly argues in his seminal
work Exclusiveness and Tolerance,28 the traditional Jewish position was one
of separatism and of intolerance of the non-Halakhic and the secular.

Actualization

Maimonides was heir to a tradition and culture absolutely committed

to halakhah, yet he could appreciate the possibilities of dialogue with
those of different ideas and cultures.29 This illustrates how an inclusive
attitude can indeed be rooted in a profound passion for one particular
belief and way of life. In his philosophy, shared values can be achieved by
a variety of means. If this is so, then the Halakhic and the non-Halakhic
Jew and even the gentile can share a common teleology, even with their
disparate ways of seeking its fulfillment. Maimonides even asserts that the
aim of Halakhah is to shape a healthy soul, and that is also the aim of the
Aristotelian system. This would give halakhah and Aristotelian ethics a
common goal and approach to the nature of virtue.30
Maimonides begins Chapter Four of the Shemonah Perakim with a
discussion of virtue based upon moderation:
Good deeds are such as are equi-balanced, maintaining the mean
between two equally bad extremes, the too much and the too little.
Virtues are psychic conditions and dispositions which are midway
between two reprehensible extremes, one of which is characterized
by an exaggeration, the order by deficiency. Good deeds are the
product of these dispositions. To illustrate, abstemiousness is a
disposition which adopts a mid-course between inordinate passion
and total insensibility to pleasure. Abstemiousness, then, is a proper
rule of conduct, and the psychic disposition which gives rise to it
is an ethical quality; but inordinate passion, the extreme of excess,
and total insensibility to enjoyment, the extreme of deficiency, are
both absolutely pernicious. The psychic dispositions, from which
these two extremes, inordinate passion and insensibility, result—
the one being an exaggeration, the other a deficiency—are alike
classed among moral imperfections.
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 137

The perfect Law which leads us to perfection—as one who knew it

well testifies by the words “the Law of the Lord is perfect restoring
the soul; the testimonies of the Lord are faithful making wise the
simple” (Ps. 19:9)—recommends none of these things (such as
self-torture, flight from society, and so forth). On the contrary,
it aims at man’s following the path of moderation in accordance
with the dictates of nature, eating, drinking, enjoying legitimate
sexual intercourse, all in moderation, and living among people in
honesty and uprightness, but not dwelling in the wilderness or in
the mountains, or clothing oneself in garments of hair and wool,
or afflicting the body.
The Law even warns us against these practices if we interpret it
according to what tradition tells us in the meaning of the passage
concerning the Nazirite, “And he [the priest] shall make an
atonement for he has sinned against the soul” (Num. 6:11). The
rabbis ask, “Against what soul has he sinned? Against his own
soul, because he has deprived himself of wine. Is this not then a
conclusion a minori ad majus? If one who derives himself merely of
wine must bring an atonement, how much more incumbent is it
upon who denies himself every enjoyment.”
Maimonides explains how habitual actions form character:
Know, moreover, that these moral excellences or defects cannot be
acquired, or implanted in the soul except by means of the frequent
repetition of acts resulting from these qualities, which, practiced
during a long period of time, accustoms us to them. If these acts
performed are good ones, then we shall have gained a virtue; but
if they are bad, we shall have acquired a vice. Since, however, no
man is born with an innate virtue or vice, as we shall explain in
Chapter VIII, and, as everyone’s conduct from childhood up is
undoubtedly influenced by the manner of living of his relatives
and countrymen, his conduct may be in accord with the rules of
moderation; but, then again, it is possible that his acts may incline
toward either extreme, as we have demonstrated, in which case,
his soul becomes diseased. In such a contingency, it is proper for
him to resort to a cure exactly as he would were his body suffering
from an illness.
Halakhah is presented as a system designed to reach these goals:
The Law did not lay down its prohibitions or enjoin its
commandments except for just this purpose, namely, that by
its disciplinary effects we may persistently maintain the proper
distance from either extreme. For the restrictions regarding all
the forbidden foods, the prohibitions of illicit intercourse, the
forewarning against prostitution, the duty of performing the legal
138 The Legacy of Maimonides

marriage rites—which, nevertheless, does not permit intercourse

at all times, as, for instance, during the period of menstruation and
after childbirth, besides its being otherwise restricted by our sages
and entirely interdicted during the daytime, as we have explained
in the tractate Sanhedrin—all of these God commanded in order
that we should keep entirely distant from the extreme of the
inordinate indulgence of the passions, and, even departing from
the exact medium, should incline somewhat toward self-denial,
so that there may be firmly rooted in our souls the disposition for
moderation.
Likewise, all that is contained in the Law concerning the giving
of the tithes, the gleaning of the harvest, the forgotten sheaves,
the single grapes, and the small bunches in the vineyards for the
poor, the law of the Sabbatical year and of the Jubilee, the giving
of charity according to the wants of the needy one, all these
approach the extreme of lavishness to be practiced in order that
we may depart far from its opposite, stinginess, and thus, nearing
the extreme of excessive prodigality, there may become instilled in
us the quality of generosity.
If you should test most of the commandments from this point
of view, you would find that they are all for the discipline and
guidance of the faculties of the soul. Thus, the Law forbids revenge,
the bearing of a grudge, and blood-revenge by saying, “You shall
not avenge nor bear any grudge” (Lev. 19:18); “you shall surely
unload with him [the ass of him who hates you]” (Ex. 23:5); “you
shall surely help him to lift them up again [your brother’s ass or ox
which has fallen by the way]” (Deut. 22:4). These commandments
are intended to weaken the force of wrath or anger. Likewise, the
command, “You shall surely bring them back [your brother’s ox or
lamb which has gone astray]” (Deut. 22:1), is meant to remove the
disposition of avarice.31
Maimonides also presents his theory on the nature of ethics in
the Mishneh Torah. Here, too, as in the Shemonah Perakim, he begins by
establishing a concept of virtue based upon moderation. For this principle
his source is not the Talmud or rabbinic authority, but one outside of the
tradition.
To cultivate either extreme in any class of disposition is not the
right course, nor is it proper for any person to follow or learn
it. If a man finds that his nature tends or is disposed to one of
these extremes or if one has acquired and become habituated to
it, he should turn back and improve, so as to walk in the way of
good people, which is the right way. The right way is the mean
in each group of dispositions common to humanity; namely, that
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 139

disposition which is equally distant from the two extremes in its

class, not being nearer to the one than to the other.32
In Hilkhot De’ot, Maimonides identifies God’s attributes, such as mercy
and graciousness, with the virtuous actions of a healthy soul:
We are bidden to walk in the middle paths which are the right and
proper ways, as it is said, “and thou shalt walk in His ways” (Deut.
28:9). In explanation of the text just quoted, the sages taught,
“Even as God is called gracious, so be thou gracious; Even as He is
called merciful so be thou merciful; Even as He is called Holy, so
be thou holy.” Thus too the prophets described the Almighty by all
the various attributes “long-suffering and abounding in kindness,
righteous and upright, perfect, mighty and powerful,” and so forth,
to teach us, that these qualities are good and right and that a
human being should cultivate them, and thus imitate God, as far
as he can…. And as the Creator is called by these attributes, which
constitute the middle path in which we are to walk, this path is
called the Way of God and this is what the patriarch Abraham
taught his children.33
Maimonides here presents his students with a remarkably progressive
notion that the goals of Jewish law are in certain ways similar to those of
other universal systems. According to him, the very goal of perfection
of the soul achieved through halakhah and imitation of God’s moral
attributes becomes intelligible in terms that are not based on revelation
or commitment to mizvot. This suggests that the goals of Halakhah can
be achieved by those outside the covenant34 through a means other than
Halakhah. This premise permits the observant individual a meaningful
interaction with those of different beliefs, assumptions, and way of life.
This approach makes it possible for students of Jewish law who subscribe
to certain principles of faith to cooperate, aspire and create with those
outside their own religious and belief milieu in a language independent
of Halakhah.

Responsibility

It has been observed and documented that Maimonides had a unique

approach to the nature of halakhah in a conceptual sense. He understood
Jewish Law in political terms,35 as a means toward creating a society
and building a community. He distinguishes between the prophet and
the legislator; the patriarchs were limited to prophecy as master teachers
of monotheism, who knew God and inspired others in that knowledge
140 The Legacy of Maimonides

through rational inquiry and deliberations,36 whereas Moses was both

prophet and legislator, bringing the Law to the community and engaging
it in a Covenant with God that is henceforth the way for the people to
bind with one another through their relationship with God. This theme
is often reiterated in the writings of Maimonides.37
You need to know the following: everything that we are warned
against or observe today we are obligated to observe because God
commanded Moses [at Sinai] and not because God commanded
the prophets that preceded Moses. For example we do not eat ever
min ha-hai [meat that was ripped off a live animal] because God
prohibited the descendants of Noach, but rather because Moses
legislated this law according to the word of God at Sinai. Similarly
we do not perform circumcision because God commanded
Abraham to circumcise himself and his household but rather
because God commanded us through Moses to circumcise our
male children like Abraham did. Similarly we must observe the
prohibition of eating the sciatic nerve (of an animal) not because
it was commanded to Jacob our forefather but rather because it
was among the 613 commandments given to Moses at Sinai.38
Halakhah became authoritative only after the acceptance of
the Covenant at Mount Sinai.39 To be effective in the formation of a
community or a nation, the people must collectively and willingly accept
the law as proposed by God, presented by Moses and legislated by future
Jewish courts of law. The Covenant is then the guide to a just society
for a people living in their own land, and halakhah gives the individual a
meaningful place within that society.
For Maimonides, halakhah is best fulfilled through observance
within the context of an organized community. The individual should
not pursue private contemplation outside of the community, but rather
find personal realization through participation in building a community
while erecting it upon the Covenant and halakhah. Through the Torah
and its law, God presents Man with a guide or road map for perfecting
himself. While God could, of course, do this instantaneously through a
miraculous transformation of the human being, the method of choice
was the long and patient process where man will exercise his free will
and transform himself. Maimonides presents a model for a Halakhic
community developed through stages of education and a process that
leads to transformation.
As for your question: What was there to prevent God from
giving us a Law in accordance with His first intention and from
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 141

procuring us the capacity to accept this?—you lay yourself open

to an inference from this second question. For one may say to you:
What was there to prevent God from making them march “by
the way of the land of the Philistines” and procuring them the
capacity to engage in wars so that there should be no need for this
roundabout way with “the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of
fire by night?” (Ex.13:22).
Also you lay yourself open to a third question as an inference,
a question regarding the reason for the detailing of promises
and threats with regard to the whole Law. One may say to you:
Inasmuch as God’s first intention and His will are that we should
believe in this Law and that we should perform the actions
prescribed by it, why did He not procure us the capacity always
to accept this intention and to act in accordance with it, instead
of using a ruse with regard to us, declaring that He will procure us
benefits if we obey Him and will take vengeance o us if we disobey
Him and performing in deed all these acts of benefiting all these
acts of vengeance? For this too is a ruse used by Him with regard
to us in order to achieve His first intention with respect to us.
What was there to prevent Him from causing the inclination to
accomplish the acts of obedience willed by Him and to avoid the
acts of disobedience abhorred by Him, to be natural disposition
fixed in us?….
There is one and the same general answer to all these three
questions and to all the others that belong to the same class:
Though all miracles change the nature of some individual being,
God does not change at all the nature of human individuals by
means of miracles. Because of this great principle it says: “O that
they had such an heart as this” (Deut. 5:26), and so on. It is
because of this that there are commandments and prohibitions,
rewards and punishments.
We have already explained this fundamental principle by giving
its proofs in a number of passages in our compilations. We do not
say this because we believe that the changing of the nature of any
human individual is difficult for Him, may He be exalted. Rather,
is it possible and fully within the capacity of God. But according to
the foundations of the Law, of the Torah, He has never willed to
do it, nor shall He ever will it. For if it were His will that the nature
of any human individual should be changed because of what He,
may He be exalted, wills from that individual, sending of prophets
and all giving of a Law would have been useless.40
Maimonides presents God as a Teacher, constructing a Halakhic
community with the people of Israel as the students. The classroom is
142 The Legacy of Maimonides

Mount Sinai, at the historical moment of the revelation of the Law. The
purpose of the lesson is to transform the student into a “mentsch.”
Many things in our Law are due to something similar to this very
governance on the part of Him who governs, may He be glorified
and exalted. For a sudden transition from one opposite to another
is impossible. And therefore man, according to his nature, is not
capable of abandoning suddenly all to which he was accustomed.
As therefore God sent Moses our Teacher to make out of us “a
kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6)—through the
knowledge of Him, may He be exalted, accordingly to what He
has explained, saying: “To you it was shown that you might know”
(Deut. 4:35), and so on; “Know this day, and lay it to your heart”
(Deut. 4:39), and so on—so that we should devote ourselves to
His worship according to what He said: “
And to serve Him with all your heart” (Deut. 11:13), and: “and
you shall serve the Lord your God” (Ex. 23:25), and: “And Him
shall you serve” (Deut. 13:5); and as at that time the way of life
generally accepted and customary in the whole world and the
universal service upon which we were brought up consisted in
offering various species of living beings in the temples in which
images were set up, in worshiping the latter, and in burning incense
before them – the pious ones and the ascetics being at that time, as
we have explained, the people who were devoted to the service of
the temples consecrated to the stars:
His wisdom, may He be exalted, and His gracious ruse, which is
manifest in regard to all His creatures, did not require that He give
us a Law prescribing the rejection, abandonment, and abolition of
all these kinds of worship. For one could not then conceive the
acceptance of (such a Law), considering the nature of man, which
always likes that to which it is accustomed. At that time this would
have been similar to the appearance of a prophet in these times
who, calling upon the people to worship God, would say: “God has
given you a Law forbidding you to pray to Him, to fast, to call upon
Him for help in misfortune. Your worship should consist solely in
meditation without any works at all.” Therefore He, may He be
exalted, suffered the above-mentioned kinds of worship to remain,
but transferred them from created or imaginary and unreal things
to His own name, may He be exalted, commanding us to practice
them with regard to Him, may He be exalted.
Thus He commanded us to build a Temple for Him: “And let
them make Me a Sanctuary” (Ex. 25:8); to have an altar for His
name: “An altar of earth you shall make to Me” (Ex. 20:24); to
have the sacrifice offered up to Him: “When any man of you
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 143

brings an offering to the Lord” (Lev. 1:2); to bow down in worship

before Him; and to burn incense before Him. And He forbade
the performance of any of these actions with a view to someone
else: “He that sacrifices to the gods shall be utterly destroyed” (Ex.
22:19), and so on; “For you shall bow down to no other god” (ibid,
34:14). And He singled out priests for the service of the Sanctuary
saying “That they may minister to Me in the priest’s office” (Ex.
28:14).
And because of their employment in the Temple and the sacrifices
in it, it was necessary to fix for them dues that would be sufficient
for them; namely, the dues of the Levites and the priests. Through
this Divine ruse it came about that the memory of idolatry was
effaced and that the grandest and true foundation of our belief
– namely, the existence and oneness of the Deity – was firmly
established, while at the same time the souls had no feeling of
repugnance and were not repelled because of the abolition of
modes of worship to which they were accustomed and than which
no other mode of worship was known at that time41.
Here, Maimonides shows the Divine Teacher who with loving
patience places the students at the center of His task, with halakhah as the
curriculum. He takes His students along a spiritual journey, whose starting
point is where the students at that moment stand in their development.
He accepts their regulations, and that the progress will take time. He
addresses them in a language they can grasp: Dibra Torah bi-leshon benei
adam.
To build community through halakhah, there must be mutual
acceptance among the various groups within that community. To that end,
one who has absorbed the Halakhic way of life and acquired knowledge of
the Torah should imitate the love and patience exemplified by the Divine
Teacher of Maimonides’ exposition.

Unity

Maimonides chose the road that is less traveled and that presents
the most dangers. To introduce impressionable minds to ideas and
practices outside of halakhah and to encourage intellectual openness is to
put commitment to our tradition in jeopardy.42 It takes a special strength
to withstand the challenges and temptations of the outside world. In the
introduction to his Guide, he warns the reader of the risks of exposure to
a range of intellectual disciplines. The encounter with the world outside
144 The Legacy of Maimonides

transforms the student’s world, and even his relationship with the familiar
texts of Jewish tradition will take on a new dimension.
The human intellect having drawn him on and led him to dwell
within his province, he must have felt distressed by the externals
of the law and by the meanings of the above-mentioned equivocal
derivative or amphiboles terms, as he continued to understand
them by himself or was made to understand them by others.
Hence he would remain in a state of perplexity and confusion as
to whether he should follow his intellect, renounce what he knew
concerning the terms in question and consequently consider that
he had renounced the foundations of the law. Or he should hold
fast to his understanding of these terms and not let himself be
drawn on together with his intellect, rather turning his back on it
and moving away from it, while at the same time perceiving that
he had brought loss to himself and harm to his religion.43
In an ideal world made up of intellectually sophisticated people,
Maimonides would have us not only confront differing traditions, ways of
life, and outlooks but also welcome them. The nature of such an outlook
would force us to rethink our own beliefs and practices, which entails
tension between continuity and change, between relegating some things
to the past and adopting others. We do not live in an ideal world, and for
most such activity is remote at best. Yet in the epistemology of Talmudic
thought, while there is an implicit high regard for past and precedent, it is
presented along with exploration of new insights in the light of emerging
ideas. For this, the student/teacher is one who struggles and agonizes over
religious issues and, having experienced the pangs of doubt, can go on to
inspire others.44 This is undoubtedly a process that involves continuous
self-scrutiny and humility. The more love we show others, the greater,
more intense and passionate our own fear of heaven must grow. Indeed
the risks are worth the cause.

1
Norman Lamm, Seventy Faces: Articles of Faith, Volume 1 (Hoboken, N.J., 2002), 125
2
I use the term community both in its colloquial sense and in a figurative sense suggesting
a combination of religious, cultural, political and geographical purpose.
3
Jonathan Woocher, Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews (Bloomington,
I.N., 1986), 67-71.
4
Urbach Ephraim, Sages, 528-529. See also, Solomon Schechter, Some Aspects of Rabbinic
Theology (New York, 1936), 59-60. Two other important compilation of essays on the
subject include Ra’ayon ha-Behirah ed. Shemuel Almog and Michal Had (Jerusalem)
especially Gerald Blidstein’s article, as well as Michal Had’s article. See also A People
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 145

Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought, ed. Daniel H. Frank, (New
York, 1993) especially the articles by David Novak and Menachem Kellner.
5
Avot 3:14.
6
Urbach notes the Hellenistic precedent to this idea in Hazal, p. 469, citing Ezra 6:56-59.
See also, H.A. Wolfson, Philo, 2 Vols. (Cambridge, M.A., 1947) I:18; Louis Ginzberg, The
Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1938) 6:30, note 177.
7
Hagigah 3a and Berakhot 6a.
8
Mekhilta de-R. Ishmael, Mishpatim 20; also Sifre Deut. 26.
9
One should note that the absolutist attitude toward Behirah has elicited comments like
Arnold Toynbee’s suggestion that Behirah is an example of Jewish arrogance: “The most
notorious historical example of idolization of an ephemeral self is the error of the Jews …
they persuaded themselves that Israel’s discovery of one true God had revealed Israel itself
to be God’s chosen people.” Study of History, Volume 4 (1961), 262.
10
Menachem Kellner, Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People (Albany, N.Y., 1991).
11
See for example Mishneh Torah Tefillah, 7:10, 12:5; Shabbat 29:2.
12
In a number of places Maimonides defines human perfection in terms of intellectual
perfection. See for example Hilkhot De’ot 3:2, Teffilin 6:13, Guide 1:2 1:30, 3:8, 3:27, 28,
51, 54. See also Kellner’s book Maimonides on Human Perfection as well as David Shatz’s
article published in this volume. See also Ya’acov Levinger, “Human Among The Gentiles
According To Maimonides,” Hagut II: Bein Yisrael li-Amim (Jerusalem, 1978): 27-36. On
Providence and prophecy see Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 7:1, which opens with a statement
that God causes Man, in the generic sense, to prophesize. See also Guide 2:32-38; 3:17, 18.
An important work on Maimonides’ view on Providence is Zvi Diesendruck, “Samuel and
Moses Inb Tibbon on Maimonides’ Theory of Providence,” HUCA 11 (1936): 341-366;
and Avraham Nuriel, “Providence and Guidance in the Guide of the Perplexed,” Tarbiz 49
(1980): 346-355. See also Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Ish ha-Halakhah and especially
Shalom Carmy’s “Tell Them I’ve Had A Good Enough Life,” in Jewish Perspectives on the
Experience of Suffering, ed. Shalom Carmy, (New York, 1999).
13
See Maimonides’ letters to Obadia the Proselyte found in Y. Shilat, Iggerot ha-Rambam,
Volume 1, 231-241. It is also found in Blau’s edition of Teshuvot ha-Rambam (Jerusalem,
1958) nos. 293, 436, and 448. English translations may be found in Franz Kobler, Letters
Through The Ages 1 (London, 1952): 194-197. Also Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader
(New York, 1972) 475-476. Other texts include Hilkhot De’ot 6:4; Shabbat 20:14; Isurei
Bi’ah 13:1-4; Bikkurim 4:3; Melakhim 8:10.
14
Maimonides’ position on converts is dramatically opposed to that of Yehuda Halevi
and the Zohar. For Maimonides position of the ultimate conversion of the gentiles in the
messianic era, see Hilkhot Melakhim 11:1.
15
Guide 3:26 also 3:28, 31, 49. For an excellent study on Maimonides’ approach to ta’amei
ha-mizvot see Isadore Twersky’s Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah)
(New Haven, 1980), 374-430.
16
Guide 3:27.
17
See note 35.
146 The Legacy of Maimonides
18
Guide 3:27.
19
Guide 3:31. All translation of the Guide are from Shlomo Pines edition and translation
(Chicago, 1963).
20
The noted scholar Gershom Scholem, in his seminal work, Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism, 28-29, draws a completely different conclusion. He wonders how Maimonides
expected anyone to remain religious and observant of the law if he demanded that the
law to be philosophically scrutinized. Maimonides viewed Jewish law in the highest regard
and proved that it can and should be scrutinized by all disciplines. Indeed, Jewish Law
according to Maimonides is most fully exercised in a context of disciplines that go beyond
the scope of halakhah.
21
For Maimonides, being a part of the covenantal-community is essential to the spiritual
life of the believing Jew. A Jew’s daily relationship with God is structured by communal
participation. Heresy is not only a denial of God but a denial of the historical and political
realities of ones community. The holidays are all based on a relationship between God and
a particular people. A convert to Israel must identify himself with the national destiny of
the Jewish people. Hilkhot Issurei Bi’ah 14:1-5. See also Hilkhot Teshuvah 2:8 and Iggeret
Teiman on his being prepared to endanger one’s own well-being for the welfare of the
community.
22
Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (New York, 1972), 407.
23
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, The Faith of Maimonides, trans. John Glucker (1989), 15 –25.
See Maimonides Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Me’ilah 8:8 and Twersky’s essay on this law in
Introduction to the Mishneh Torah, 407-408.
24
Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 2:1; see also Guide 1:26, 33, 46.
25
Hilkhot Teshuvah 10:6; see also Norman Lamm in this issue.
26
See Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh 18:25 and Guide 1:71; 2:11. Maimonides argues that
there was always a philosophic tradition that was transmitted orally. See also Maimonides
commentary on Avot 5:7 and his understanding of Elisha Ben Abuya’s apostasy in Guide
1:32. This is a theme that David Hartman develops extensively in his book, Maimonides:
Torah and Philosophic Quest (1976).
27
For Maimonides, truth was the ultimate criteria. Loyalty was to reason, not to authority.
See Pines, “The Philosophic Sources,” 57-59.
28
Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (New York, 1962). For a more recent discussion
on the issue, see Aviezer Ravitsky in Hazon Nahum, ed. Jeffrey Gurok and Yaakov Elman,
(New York,, 1997), 359-391.
29
See Jose Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity
(Albany,1992), especially introduction. This essay is not about patrimonial descent or the
validity of a certain marriage or divorce documents. I am interested in the opportunities
presented for dialogue in the way Maimonides formulates his Halakhic and theological
philosophy.
30
For a discussion on the differences between Aristotelian and Maimonidean ethics,
see Eliezer Schweid, Iyunnim be-Shemonah Perakim (Jerusalem, 1969), 63. See also Leo
Strauss, “Notes on the book of Knowledge,” in Studies in Mysticism and Religion (Jerusalem,
 Maimonides on Creating an Inclusive Community 147

1967), 277-278.
31
Twersky, Reader, 367-376.
32
Hilkhot De’ot 1:3-4.
33
Ibid. 2:5-7.
34
I emphasize that this point only applies to a non-Jew because a Jew is bound by a bi-
lateral covenant entered into by God and the Jewish people at Sinai and Arvot Moab.
35
See Guide 1:54; 11:36-40; 3:34, 41. Also the introductory comments of Shlomo Pines
to his translation of the Guide, lxxxvii-xcii; Leo Strauss, Persecutions and the Art of Writing,
7-21; Julius Guttman, Philosophies of Judaism, trans. David Silverman (New York, 1966),
203-205; Guttman “Philosophia Shel ha-Da’at o Philosophia Shel ha-Hok,” Proceedings of the
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Vol. 5:9 (1975): 188-207; Twersky, Introduction
to Mishneh Torah, 455, n. 239.
36
Hilkhot Avodah Zarah, Chapter 1.
37
See Hilkhot Avodah Zara 1:1, De’ot 1:7, Guide I:63; 2:39.
38
Commentary on Mishnah, Hullin 7:6.
39
Leibowitz, ibid, also Faur, “Understanding the Covenant,” Tradition 9 (1968).
40
Guide 3:23.
41
Ibid.
42
The fact that Maimonides did not believe that one must first master the entire Torah
before engaging in other disciplines is a subject that is beyond the scope of this essay.
Relevant passages include Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 4:13, the comments of the Kessef
Mishneh, and Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:12.
43
Guide, Introduction, pages 5-6.
44
Works like the Guide, the Mishneh Torah, and countless letters of significant theological
import were clearly written by an individual who was spiritually sensitive and understood
the nature of religious and theological struggles. We have been jaded by the countless
“Gadol Hagiographies” published by popular Jewish presses intended on inspiring their
readers with “cookie cutter stories” that describe the lives of gedolim in perfect and shining
terms and do not reveal their human side. For an excellent short editorial on this see
Emanuel Feldman’s piece in Jewish Action (Summer 2002): 72-73.