The Return of MaimonideanismAuthor(s): Warren Zev HarveySource: Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3/4 (Summer - Autumn, 1980), pp. 249-268Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4467093Accessed: 06/07/2010 20:57

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The Return of Maimonideanism

by Warren Zev Harvey

Even as Maimonides (1135-1204) revolutionized normative Judaism with his Commentary on the Mishnah, with his legal responsa, and especially with his great Code of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah, so too he revolutionized Jew- ish philosophy1 with his Guide of the Perplexed. Not only did the Guide render all previous Jewish philosophy almost obsolete, but it is barely an exaggeration to call all subsequent medieval Jewish philosophy "Maimonidean."2 Even Has- dai Crescas (c. 1340-c. 1410), Maimonides' radical philosophic critic, called him "the Master," and while dismantling his philosophy from the inside, worked perforce within it. The waning of the Middle Ages, however, brought the waning of Maimonideanism. Spinoza (1632-1677), who never completely freed himself of the Maimonideanism on which he was reared, and whom

Harry Austryn Wolfson called "the last of the mediaevals and the first of the moderns,"3 is well seen as marking the end of a continuous Jewish philosophic tradition which spanned almost five centuries. Some scholars would go so far as to say that the end of this medieval Maimonidean tradition meant the end of all Jewish philosophy worthy of the name. Isaac Husik, for example, concluded his A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy with the flat statement: "There are Jews now and there are philosophers, but there are no Jewish philosophers and there is no Jewish philosophy."4

If Jewish philosophy did survive the Middle Ages, it was not Maimoni- dean. To be sure, Maimonides remained as the symbol of The Jewish Philoso-

pher, but his philosophy was no longer a living, commanding force. Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the father of whatever might be called "modern

Jewish philosophy," was a fine student of Maimonides' rabbinic works, and wrote an important Hebrew Commentary on his uncontroversial Treatise on

Logic, but he was too much the naive AuJkldrer, too much the aesthete, and too much the idyllic religionist to identify with the aristocratic intellectualism found in the Guide.5 Although the roguish Solomon Maimon (1754-1800) did

identify with it, publishing a Hebrew Commentary on Part One of the Guide, and even naming himself after the Master, his brilliant Transcendentalphilos- ophie is a contribution to Kantian theory, not Maimonideanism. Similarly, what is original in Nahman Krochmal's (1785-1840) prodigious Guide of the

249

250 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

Perplexed of Our Times is inspired more by Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling than

by Maimonides, its very title implying that Maimoides' Guide is anachronistic.

Unsurprisingly, when Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), founder of the neo-Kan- tian Marburg school, turned to Jewish philosophy and wrote his magnificent Religion of Reason out of the Sources ofJudaism, it was not a Maimonidean but a neo-Kantian work.

As for twentieth century Jewish philosophy, it has been largely under the existentialist spell of Martin Buber (1878-1965) and Franz Rosenzweig (1866-1929). While Krochmal and Cohen had reverently studied the Guide,6 and as Jewish philosophers had considered themselves to be modern-day Mai- monides, albeit not modern-day Maimonideans, Buber and Rosenzweig were sheer outsiders to Maimonideanism. Buber wrote dozens of volumes on an im-

pressively wide range of Jewish and philosophic topics, yet he rarely mentions even the name of Maimonides. Rosenzweig occasionally cites Maimonides in

passing, but the medieval Jew who most significantly influenced him was the Hebrew poet and anti-philosopher, Judah Halevi (c. 1080-c. 1140), whose "middle-sized reincarnation"7 he fancied himself to be. Not inappropriately, the present age has been caricatured by the French phenomenologist, Emman- uel Levinas (b. 1905), as one "in which Jews understand only hasidic tales."8 Levinas is in his own right one of the most profound contemporary philoso- phers of Judaism, and although his orientation is undeniably more Maimoni- dean than hasidic, he is a student of Husserl and only remotely of Maimonides. Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), whose thought is perhaps representa- tive of the dominant theological temper of the age, and who is certainly among the most exciting of the hasidic storytelling Jewish existentialist philosophers, had predictably little use for Maimonidean intellectualism, and wrote a beau- tiful essay, "The Last Days of Maimonides," in which he tried to prove that in the end Maimonides gave up "his earlier commitment to the superiority of in- tellectual pursuits."9 Yet tepidness toward Maimonidean philosophy is found even in places where one might have expected to find fervid enthusiasm. Thus,

Joseph B. Soloveitchik (b. 1903), who as an halakhist is probably the most trenchant living interpreter of Maimonides' rabbinic system, and who is possi- bly unique today among eminent rabbinic authorities in that, after the Maimonidean model, he is also an original philosopher, has- notwithstanding his mighty spiritual roots in Maimonides' rabbinism--constructed a philosophy of Judaism which is influenced less by the Guide than by neo-Kantianism, by Kierkegaardian existentialism, and maybe even by the Kabbalah. Again, there have been historians of Jewish philosophy, such as Simon Rawidowicz

(1897-1957) and Israel Efros (b. 1891), who have made the Guide the subject of meticulous study, and then have gone on to write their own Jewish philoso- phy oblivious of Maimonides.

Return of Maimonideanism 251

Moreover, Maimonideanism has suffered in modern times not only from the new phenomenon of disinterest, but also from the old phenomenon of hos-

tility. Anti-Maimonideans no longer conspire to have Maimonides' philosophic works burned in the streets as, for example, they did in France in the 1230s. Yet, the ferocious and often cogent argumentation of the medieval Maimoni- deans remarkably survived the demise of medieval Maimonideanism. Modern anti-Maimonideans, like their medieval predecessors, often combine damna- tion of Maimonides' philosophy with praise of his rabbinics. The distinction between Maimonides, the rabbinic hero, and Maimonides, the philosophic vil-

lain, seemed so clear to the distinguished talmudic scholar, Jacob Emden

(1697-1776), that he denounced the Guide as a forgery.'0 In his popular Nine- teen Letters, Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1865), leader of German neo-Or-

thodoxy, wrote that Maimonides "gave birth to all the good and the evil," for as a rabbinic decisor and codifier he preserved "practical Judaism," while as a

spiritual guide of the perplexed, he approached Judaism "from without," his

Geistesrichtung and his Lebensbegrzff being "Arabic-Greek."" The enlight- ened pietist, Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865), condemned Maimonides for

trying to introduce dogmatics into Judaism, and charged that he represented intolerant, intellectualist "Atticism," not tolerant, compassionate "Abraham- ism."'2 It is not only the religionists who have attacked Maimonideanism in modern times; one of the most informed indictments of Maimonidean intellec- tualism was that of the ethical nationalist, Ahad Ha'am (1856-1927), who, in his essay "The Supremacy of Reason,"'3 protested that Maimonides subjugated the traditional values of Judaism to the one value of intellectual excellence. More recently, Gershom Scholem (b. 1897), the grand historian of the Kabba- lah who himself often sees things kabbalistically, has insisted that Maimonides'

philosophical allegorism is far less true to the classical Jewish sources than is the

symbolism of the Kabbalists, and that furthermore Maimonides' "synthesis" of

Jewish law and philosophy is "sterile."14 Even those moderns who have cham-

pioned Maimonides against his attackers were themselves usually anything but Maimonideans. For example, the mystical Abraham Isaac Kuk (1865-1935), responding to a critique of Maimonidean philosophy by a well-known rabbi-

historian, justified the Guide primarily (although not exclusively) on the plur- alist grounds that different ideas lead different individuals to the true service of God.'5

1

In trying to understand the prevalent modem attitudes toward Maimoni-

deanism, the case of Harry Austryn Wolfson (1887-1974) is instructive. As a

youth in Lithuania, Wolfson studied at the Slabodka Yeshivah, center of the

252 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

Mussar (rabbinic moralism) movement. He had a patriotic love for Hebrew, and as a high school student in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and as an undergradu- ate at Harvard College he had already published poems and essays in Hebrew

journals. These two biographical facts explain why, when exposed to philoso- phy at Harvard, he violently rejected Maimonideanism, preferring the rab- binic moralism of the Kuzari, the dialogue by the patriotic Hebrew poet, Ju- dah Halevi.16 He soon published a rousing essay, "Maimonides and Halevi"

(1912)-originally an undergraduate paper for George Santayana-in which he assailed Maimonides as the "Hellenist" and cheered Halevi as the "Hebraist." He concluded that Maimonides' Guide is but "a scholastic apology of religion," of no value to modern man, while "contemporary thought, the whole pragmatic movement [the influence of William James (d. 1910) was in-

escapable at Harvard], may find its visions foreshadowed in Halevi's discus- sions."'7 His anti-Maimonideanism led him naturally to the heavyweight of all medieval anti-Maimonideans, Hasdai Crescas, whom he evidently saw as an- other Judah Halevi,'8 only more rigorous philosophically. He believed that Crescas, like Halevi, was of moment to contemporary philosophy, and that for

example his theory of time should interest students of Bergson.19 Meanwhile, he was writing essays concerning current Jewish issues, and appeared to be

seeking grounds for a new Jewish philosophy which would take its cue from the anti-Maimonidean "pragmatism" of Halevi and Crescas. Perhaps with an eye to this end, he wrote his doctoral dissertation at Harvard on Crescas (1915), and eventually published his monumental Crescas' Critique of Aristotle.20

Yet, immersion in historical and philological studies somehow caused Wolfson to change drastically his attitude toward Maimonides. He came to see Halevi, Maimonides, and Crescas as all belonging to one overarching philo- sophic tradition which began with Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 B.C.-c. 45 A.D.) and ended with Spinoza, included all Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philoso- phers in between, and featured Maimonides (!) prominently. According to this new view, Philo revolutionized Greek philosophy by interpreting it in the light of Hebrew Scripture, and thereby founded a philosophic tradition ("Scrip- tural" or "Philonic" philosophy) which reigned supreme in the West until Spin- oza dethroned it by rejecting the veracity of Scripture.2'

Wolfson did not think that Philonic philosophy, including Jewish philoso- phy, had ever been refuted by the moderns, but rather that it had perished simply because it was irrelevant in a world no longer committed to Scripture.22 In the modern world, as he now understood it, traditional religion had been

rejected and modern liberal religion had failed: without viable religion there could be no meaningful religious philosophy;23 without a viable Judaism, there could be no meaningful Jewish philosophy. While previously it had seemed to

Return of Maimonideanism 253

him that some Jewish philosophy was anachronistic (Maimonides) and some relevant today (Halevi, Crescas), it now seemed to him that all of it was anachronistic. If he had ever entertained the thought of creating a contempo- rary Jewish philosophy, the chilling implications of his new view sufficed to

prevent its recurrence. There was, however, a need to write the history of

Jewish philosophy in particular and of Philonic philosophy in general,24 and it was to satisfy this need that he produced his learned volumes on Spinoza (1934), Philo (1947), the Church Fathers (1956), the Kalam (1976), and scores of monographs.25

In sum, young Wolfson, like Luzzatto and Ahad Ha'am, had rejected Maimonideanism as subjugating Judaism to Reason, and like Rosenzweig he had thought that contemporary philosophic inspiration could be found in Ju- dah Halevi; however, the mature Wolfson was, like Husik, convinced that for all intents and purposes Jewish philosophy ended with the last of the medievals. Put another way: what the young Wolfson rejected as a modern philosophic option was Maimonideanism defined narrowly; what the mature Wolfson re-

jected was Maimonideanism defined broadly.

2

"Are there Maimonideans today?" a student some years ago asked Shlomo Pines (b. 1908), the encyclopedic authority on medieval Arabic and Hebrew

philosophy, and author of the now standard English translation of the Guide of the Perplexed. "There is Leo Strauss," he replied without hesitation.26

Pines' reply requires explanation. While as an historian, Leo Strauss

(1899-1973), like Wolfson and Pines himself, wrote some highly important es-

says about Maimonides, as an original political thinker he does not seem to be

specifically "Maimonidean." In his Natural Right and History (1950), for ex-

ample, he mentions Maimonides only in one expendable footnote. As professor of political philosophy at the University of Chicago (1949-1968), he raised a

generation of loyal Straussians who are propagating his theories in universities

throughout North America and also abroad, but no one thinks of calling them "Maimonideans."

Yet, in some respects, Strauss was undeniably Maimonidean. In the first

place, he read the Guide more like a medieval Maimonidean than like a modern historian. He knew how to approach the Guide as a puzzle, doggedly seeking to uncover its esoteric teaching, and even worried about the morality of

divulging it. In response to this moral problem, he affected a quasi-Maimoni- dean esoteric style in his essays on Maimonides: if the Guide, he insisted, is "an esoteric interpretation of an esoteric teaching," then its interpretation should

254 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

be "an esoteric interpretation of an esoteric interpretation of an esoteric teach-

ing."27 He was, therefore, a Maimonidean in both reading the Guide and

writing about it. Moreover, Strauss applied the method of esoteric reading he had learned

from his study of the Guide to the major philosophic works from antiquity until about the eighteenth century. In explanation of this extraordinary procedure, he argued that philosophy in its original sense required esotericism because it

sought to replace all opinion with truth, and thus necessarily subverted society, which is always based on opinion (myths, values, ideologies). To protect society (as well as to protect their own lives), therefore, philosophers had to write eso-

terically, that is, in such a manner as to reveal their philosophy to fellow phi- losophers, while concealing it from society at large. Yet with the rise of modern historicism and concommitant relativism, Strauss contended, philosophy gave up its quest for the truth, was itself reduced to opinion, and therefore is no

longer necessarily subversive to society; and so the modern philosopher has no need of esotericism, and the modern reader has no understanding of it.28 In his Persecution and the Art of Writing and elsewhere, Strauss attempted to redis- cover for moderns the lost art of how to read an esoteric text. What he wrote on this subject is essentially an elaboration of Maimonides' prefatory instructions on how to read the Guide.29

There is, however, a further sense in which Strauss was Maimonidean. As a Western man, aJew, and a philosopher, Strauss was perplexed over the prob- lem of "Jerusalem and Athens," and it was to Maimonides, more than to any- one else, that he looked for guidance. He held that Western culture is what it is

by virtue of the coming together of these two cities, yet he insisted dogmatically that they are incompatible.30 While Wolfson's Philonic Maimonides combined

Judaism and philosophy, Strauss' Maimonides knew no such harmony. Strauss refused to speak of "Jewish philosophy," the phrase seeming to him self-contra-

dictory.31 In his view, a given work of Maimonides' might be Jewish or philo- sophic, not both. The Mishneh Torah was Jewish; the Treatise on Logic, philo- sophic; but what about the Guide? Boxed in, he called it "a Jewish book."32 What about Maimonides the man? Was he really a Jew or a philosopher? Strauss' answer (if we may reveal his esoteric teaching) is that he was a citizen of Athens who wrote his Jewish books to maintain the "opinion" of a city in which he could not live.

Regardless of the value of Strauss' interpretation of Maimonides, one

thing is clear. He thought that Maimonideanism could not be a viable option today not only because religion is not what it was, but much more significantly because philosophy also is not what it was. Yet Strauss believed that if there is to be any hope for Western man, "we must understand Jerusalem and Athens."33 It was certainly in accordance with this belief that he set himself to

Return of Maimonideanism 255

the task of retrieving Jerusalem and (more especially) Athens, and clarifying the nature of their conflict. In thus assuming the posture of the historian,34 he was able to postpone his own decision between the cities. No doubt he wrote

esoterically about Maimonides' esoteric doctrine not only out of respect for the Master, but also because he loved Jerusalem and feared prejudicing the case

against her. For while he was convinced that Maimonides had chosen Athens, he was not, perhaps, altogether convinced that the choice was wise.35

Despite their clashing opinions on what Maimonideanism was, Wolfson and Strauss agreed that a living Maimonideanism is impossible today.36 Believ-

ing that it would be anachronistic to approach Maimonides as philosophers, both approached him as historians. They were saying, in effect, that in the modern world the task of the philosophically-minded Jew is that of the histor- ian. This sentiment, which is consistent with Husik's judgment that in the modern world "there are no Jewish philosophers and there is no Jewish philoso- phy," also might suggest that, from a strictly philosophic point of view, Wolf- son and Strauss are two of the most important Jewish writers of our century.

3

It has not been universally conceded, however, that a living Maimonide- anism is impossible today. There have, in fact, been contemporary attempts to read Maimonides philosophically. One such attempt was that of Leon Roth

(1896-1963), the first Ahad Ha'am professor of philosophy at the Hebrew Uni-

versity of Jerusalem. It would be wrong to say that Roth's Maimonideanism ever gained a wide following. Nonetheless, his Judaism: A Portrait37 is pres- ently being sold in American paperback bookstores right alongside the works of

Buber, Rosenzweig, and Heschel; and in Israel there recently appeared a new collection of his essays, Religion and Human Values.38

As opposed to Husik, Wolfson, and Strauss, Roth argued the immediate relevance of Maimonideanism in the modern world. Maimonideanism for Roth meant monotheism, and monotheism meant rationalism, universalism, and ethics. The unity of God, he thought, implies the unity and intelligibility of nature, and the unity and equality of man: in sum, it makes science and ethics possible. "The real miracle of the universe," he wrote, "lies in the fact that God made it a universe: one world, one truth, one law."39 His views on Maimonideanism and its "modernity" are summarized in the epilogue of his The Guide of the Perplexed: Moses Maimonides:

I have tried ... to give a general account of a great medieval figure, but I have tried to re-

veal not his medievalism but his greatness .... But it is a pity that sound doctrine should receive a date at all. That religion has an in-

256 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

tellectual content . ..; that social institutions have an educational reference; that living de- mands discipline and that virtue should ask for no reward-these and similar characteristic

teachings of Maimonides would seem to deserve attention even though they were enunci- ated . . . many centuries ago. We may reject (though why should we?) his vision of God as the centre towards which all creation yearns; but we should do well to ponder many other lessons . . . and perhaps learn from them for our own need: that Biblical texts in order to remain fruitful must be re-interpreted . . .; that the world is an ordered whole open to the mind of man . . .; that design and law do not conflict, and that law and not miracle is the

sign-manual of the deity . . .; that all knowledge is revelation and all thinking inspiration. ... All this is "modern" enough. . . . After all, life is much the same in every age ....

The ultimate question for us is not therefore what Maimonides actually said but what Maimonides would have said if he had lived in our day.40

All Roth's writings on Jewish subjects are at heart an attempt to say "what Maimonides would have said." Even his important researches on Spinoza are

essentially part of this attempt; for he thought that Spinoza, despite his aliena- tion from the synagogue, could help show how Maimonideanism might be

adapted to modern liberal society.41 Dissimilar to Spinoza, Wolfson, Strauss, and most modern Jews, Roth was

personally observant of Jewish law, the Halakhah. Whether or not such observ- ance is a necessary condition of any living Maimonideanism, Roth preferred not to dwell on the connection between Maimonideanism and Orthodoxy. He was interested primarily in Maimonides' ethics and religious rationalism, which he considered pertinent to all monotheists. Moreover, he saw Maimoni- deanism as leading to religious observance, not presupposing it.

Although Roth occasionally acknowledged the legitimacy of alternative

approaches to Judiasm, his ineluctable tendency was to identify Judaism with Maimonideanism. "Maimonides," he wrote in Judaism: A Portrait, "may be said to have erected the structure of what is known now as Judaism."42 Accord-

ing to Roth, Maimonides was "in outlook both Jew and Greek," and his philos- ophy was practical proof that the Hebraic and Greek views of life "are not in

principle incompatible." Even as the anti-Maimonideans have denounced Maimonides for Hellenizing Judaism, Roth applauded him for it. The "great achievement" of Maimonides' Judaism, he wrote, "is to have adapted Judaism to the Western mind," and "the Western mind is ultimately the Hellenic."43

Maimonidean rationalism, preached Roth, preserves us from the "inco- herences" and "phantasmagoria" of the Kabbalah,44 and from modern reli-

gious existentialism.45 Even when his enthusiasm for art and belles-lettres com-

pelled him to attack what seemed to him the excesses of this rationalism,

Roth-always the true-blue Maimonidean-commandeered his ammunition from the Master's own arsenal, and argued "with Maimonides against Maimo- nides" that the most excellent individual is not the philosopher but the proph- et, who is distinguished not only in intellect but also in imagination.46

Return of Maimonideanism 257

Roth's Maimonideanism was unswervingly humanistic and moral. His messianic vision was that of the universalistic prophecy with which Maimonides concluded his Mishneh Torah: "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).47 His humanistic, moral Mai- monideanism led Roth to demand that all halakhic decisions be made with ex-

plicit regard to ethics. In "Moralization and Demoralization in Jewish Ethics," he called for the thorough moralization of Jewish law: "the Law, the Torah, is a law of life and kindness and love and decency and pity. This being the

guiding principle, whatever appears contrary to it must be explained away."48 It was Roth's Maimonidean universalism which inspired his sharp criti-

cisms of what he saw as Jewish and (after 1948) Israeli parochialism. To Roth's

mind, Maimonideanism was a necessary condition not only of a viable modern

Jewish religion, but also of a viable modern Jewish state. No less zealous a lib- eral than was Spinoza or Mendelssohn, he unequivocally opposed any religious coercion by the state, but like Spinoza and Mendelssohn he could not imagine a viable state without true religion. In an essay on Spinoza's Theologico- Political Treatise, he spoke of a "political paradox": "even though the state cannot exist if the values of religion are coerced upon its citizens, still, without these values the state will not exist at all."49 Often and urgently he argued the

corollary: even though the Jewish state cannot exist if Judaism is coerced upon its citizens, still, without Judaism - that is, without Maimonidean Judaism - it will not exist at all.50

4

Another contemporary attempt to read Maimonides philosophically is that of Yeshayahu Liebowitz (b. 1903), formerly professor of biochemistry and

neurophysiology, and presently professor emeritus of the history and philoso- phy of science, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Judaism, Jewish People, and the State of Israel,51 a selection of his topical lectures and essays, appeared five years ago in Israel, and incited wide debate.52 Leibowitz' thought--al- though perceptibly influenced by Hobbes, Mendelssohn, Kant, Wittgenstein, and other moderns -is so thoroughly Maimonidean thatJudaism, Jewish Peo-

ple, and the State of Israel can be used profitably as a secondary work on Mai- monides.

The Maimonideanism taught by Leibowitz is the jarring antithesis of Roth's: it is anti-humanistic. Roth claimed that monotheism makes ethics pos- sible. Leibowitz declares that "ethics is an atheistic category" since it concerns man's status before man, not God.53 Roth claimed that monotheism makes sci- ence possible. Leibowitz quips that "the Divine Presence did not descend on Mount Sinai in order to fulfill the function of a physics professor!"54 Roth

258 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

claimed that the state cannot exist without religion. Leibowitz argues that to

judge religion by its utility to the state is fascism.55 Jewish humanists, among them Roth, have often contended that the biblical account of the creation of man "in the image of God" is the foundation of the doctrine of the worth of man. Leibowitz, on the contrary, finds that it teaches the worthlessness of

man, a mere image of God!56 Religion, as Leibowitz understands it, is the ser- vice of God for its own sake, not an instrument to satisfy human needs; it is

theocentric, not anthropocentric: man serving God, not God serving man.57 Leibowitz sees Maimonides as "the axis of any attempt at the systematiza-

tion of Jewish religious thought,"58 and his own attempt is in large measure

nothing but a rigid explication of what he takes to be Maimonides' implicit axi-

ology. According to this axiology, Judaism has one end, one ultimate value: the service of God out of love, as expressed in the Torah and the command- ments. This means that in Judaism, questions of ethics, politics, science, or his-

tory have no value whatsoever59 except insofar as they might be means to the service of God in accordance with the Torah and the commandments, that is, in accordance with the Halakhah.60

It is no less a mistake, according to Leibowitz, to call Maimonides a "ra- tionalist" than it is to call him a "moralist," since for Maimonides reason, like

morality, is never more than a means to the service of God. Consequently, Lei- bowitz insists that even though Maimonides was a consummate master of phi- losophy, he was not properly a "philosopher," since he was interested not in

knowledge but in the knowledge of God. "Maimonides," Liebowitz almost

spitefully proclaims, "was the greatest Jewish mystic."61 Being mystical, the Maimonidean service of God, according to Leibowitz, cannot be reduced to human needs or to humanist values: Abraham on Mount Moriah is its symbol. Leibowitz points to Maimonides' dictum in the resounding final chapter of his Book of Knowledge: "he who serves [God] out of love occupies himself with the Torah and the commandments . .. not on account of anything in the world"

(Teshuvah 10:2). Another text cited by him to illustrate Maimonides' mysti- cism is found in the Guide, III, 51: "all the commandments [whatever their

utility or inutility] have only the end of training you to occupy yourselves with His commandments rather than with matters pertaining to the world ... as if

you were occupied with Him!"62 Leibowitz is of course as aware as Roth of Maimonides' extensive analyses

of how the Torah leads to moral, social, and intellectual perfection. Yet, he in- sists that these analyses, while surely of philosophic and political interest, have "no religious significance whatsoever." Maimonides, Leibowitz explains, dis- cussed Judaism on two levels, the "mystical" (religious) and the "utilitarian"

(non-religious), and he blurred the distinction between them so that only the

probing student can detect it, because he believed that since most people,. ow-

Return of Maimonideanism 259

ing to ignorance, act only for utilitarian reasons (see Maimonides, Introduc- tion to Perek Helek), it would be pedagogically unwise to demand of everyone unconditionally the mystical non-utilitarian service of God out of love. Against Strauss, who thought that Maimonides' esotericism was intended to shield the

vulgar from true philosophy, Leibowitz thus avows that it is to shield them

from true religion!63 Leibowitz is convinced, however, that Maimonides' pedagogical approach

must be abandoned in our own modem secular society, because he believes that it is foolish to try to advance religion by pointing to its utility in satisfying human needs when these needs are in fact presently being satisfied quite well without religion. To teach religion today as a means, he therefore argues, is to teach that it is superfluous. What is urgent now, he advises, is to teach moder man what religion is, and to distinguish it from other phenomena.64 He conse-

quently insists that today Judaism must be taught unequivocally as the service of God out of love. Moreover, he is convinced not only that this is presently the

only sensible pedagogic option, but also that it should be a highly stimulating one because education to the service of God out of love is education to valor and rebellion. In every age, he explains, the true service of God entails rebel- lion against utilitarianism and anthropocentrism,65 but today it is additionally a rebellion against the reigning secularist values of society. "A person who takes upon himself today the yoke of the commandments is a revolutionary who is taking upon himself to create a new world!"66

Leibowitz' response to the modem world, therefore, is to teach Maimoni- des' esoteric doctrine stripped bare of its exoteric costume. The obvious prob- lem with this response is that even if the secularization of society has rendered the utilitarian approach to religious education theoretically counterproduc- tive, it has not transformed human nature: people remain utilitarian, and the service of God for its own sake remains difficult. It is therefore not surprising that while Leibowitz has won wide popular attention, his opinions have found favor only among the few. Typical of Leibowitz' refusal to compromise with folkloristic religion is his comment shortly after the Six Day War that the West- ern Wall had been turned into a center of mob idolatry, and therefore should be demolished even as King Hezekiah broke to pieces the brazen serpent made

by Moses when it became an object of fetishism (cf. II Kings 18:4). Since Maimonides, clothed in exoterica, was attacked by the anti-Maimo-

nideans, it was inevitable that the naked Leibowitz should be attacked by them. WhileJudaism, Jewish People, and the State of Israel has received some sober analysis, and some partisan support, it often has drawn frenetic opposi- tion, which has strikingly (and perhaps surprisingly) been more against Mai- monideanism in general than against Leibowitz' theses in particular; but since the esoteric disguise of Maimonides' philosophy is as effective today as ever,

260 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

Leibowitz' opponents generally believe that they are attacking a newfangled heresy and not the most venerable of Jewish philosophies.67

Leibowitz has been no less a critic of the intemperances of Israeli national- ism than was Roth, but while Roth's criticism derived from his Maimonidean universalism, Leibowitz' derives from his rigid Maimonidean axiology. Thus, Leibowitz criticizes his fellow citizens for elevating the army, the Land, the state, and the nation to values in themselves.68 He similarly insists that the reli-

gious significance of the State of Israel does not lie in its alleged messianic char- acter, but only in that it provides a framework in which Jews can better serve God in accordance with the Torah and the commandments.69 Since the cre- ation of the state, Leibowitz has fought for the total separation of synagogue and state-not, like Roth, for reasons of liberalism-but because he believes that the Torah is mocked when it is reduced to a function of the secular state, and that the cultural battle, which he relishes, to advance the cause of religion can be waged effectively only when religion is an independent force.70

Like Wolfson and Strauss, Leibowitz accepts the premise that Maimoni- dean Judaism is irrelevant to the values of the modern world, but unlike them he demands a comprehensive rebellion against those values in the name of Maimonidean Judaism. Roth sought to advance Maimonidean Judaism by ar-

guing its relevance to modern values: Leibowitz seeks to advance it by arguing its irrelevance to them.

5

A third contemporary attempt to read Maimonides philosophically is found in Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest71 by David Hartman (b. 1931). A onetime rabbi in Montreal and now a senior lecturer in Jewish philos- ophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hartman studied rabbinics under

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who has been his "paradigm of one who strives to inte-

grate the rigorous discipline of halakhic thought with the study of philosophy."72 Integration of Halakhah and philosophy is also an intrinsic feature of Hartman's Maimonideanism.

Hartman's interpretation of Maimonides crystallized in his sustained ef- fort to refute Strauss' interpretation. Knowing well Maimonides the rabbinic

scholar, he could not accept Strauss' verdict that Maimonides was a citizen of Athens whose Jewish writings had--in Hartman's paraphrase--"no relation-

ship to his personal, spiritual quest."73 Describing Maimonides as having chosen "the way of integration,"74 Hartman follows Isadore Twersky, whose careful studies have illumined philosophic emphases in Maimonides' rabbinic

works, and have indicated that the Maimonidean corpus is informed by "an in-

Return of Maimonideanism 261

tegrated community of interests."75 Hartman, however, is scarcely interested in historical or philosophical questions. His concern is to tap Maimonides' "philo- sophic religious sensibility" in order to join in his philosophic quest.

As Hartman sees it, Maimonides integrated philosophy and Judaism by showing how philosophy culminates in the passionate "intellectual love of

God,"76 thus enabling one to fulfill the commandment, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. 6:5), and by showing conversely that the Halakhah, with its dis-

cipline of the commandments and with its political concern for the commu-

nity, legislates "a life-form" which "continuously sets God before the philoso- pher" (cf. Psalms 16:8), and "enables him to live within the human world while

aspiring toward a passionate love of God."77 In other words, philosophy enables one to be a good Jew, while Judaism enables one to be a good philoso- pher. Maimonideanism, for Hartman, means the passionate, simultaneous love of the free quest for philosophic truth, and of the traditional way of life of the Jewish community.

Hartman's Maimonideanism preserves both the universalism of Roth's and the axiology of Leibowitz'. On the one hand, it stresses that the Torah of

Judaism must be understood as "the universal way of reason."78 On the other

hand, it stresses that philosophy--"which offers the individual a God who is

sought because of His perfection, and not only because He responds to man's

physical helplessness" -is an instrument to raise man to the service of God for

its own sake.79 What is perhaps most remarkable about Hartman's Maimonideanism is

that it challenges modern religious existentialism and mysticism on their own

grounds. Maimonideanism, Hartman suggests, is "more in harmony with mod- ern man's spiritual sensibilities" than is existentialism or mysticism, and thus is more relevant to "the modern Jew's struggle to find his way back to his tradi- tion." Hartman laments that the powerful religious spirituality of Maimonide- anism has not been appreciated by modern man. "Buber," for example, "does not appreciate the lived moment of immediacy in Maimonides' thought which

presupposes knowledge of God"; and Scholem could call Maimonides' integra- tion of philosophy and Halakhah "sterile" only because he does not appreciate the Maimonidean interrelationship of the philosophic study of nature and the

Jewish commandment to love God.80 One covert objective of Hartman's book is

to show modern man that he can find in Maimonideanism the very spirituality which he has been seeking in religious existentialism and mysticism.

Perhaps not by coincidence, Roth, Leibowitz, and Hartman all chose to live and to teach in Jerusalem.81 Zionism has presented Maimonideanism with an opportunity. "The political renaissance of the Jewish people," Hartman

262 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

writes at the outset of his book, "enjoins an intellectual understanding of the

significance of Judaism," and he hopes that his study of Maimonides "will en-

courage renewed discussion on the political implications of halakhic

thought."82 Like Leibowitz, Hartman is troubled by the gulf between religious and secular Jews in Israel, but while Leibowitz calls for an open cultural battle between the two groups, Hartman calls for a common quest based on shared

spiritual ground. Hartman's insistence that the love of God can be attained by means of philosophy, exclusive of Judaism (cf. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah 2:2), enables him to speak of such shared spirituality not

only between religious and secular Jews, but also between Jews and non-Jews.

Focusing on the capacity of the Halakhah to create a spiritually sensitive Jewish community, he has been unusually effective--both in the diaspora and in Is- rael-in advancing its cause among Jews of non-traditional backgrounds. At the same time, he has criticized the Orthodox establishment for insufficient

sensitivity to the spiritual dimensions of the Halakhah, and for often reflecting "an isolationist mentality" toward secularists and non-Jews.83

Hartman may not agree with Roth that modern man will find Maimoni- dean Judaism relevant to his values, but he is convinced that he ought to find it relevant to his aspirations. If Leibowitz' is a Maimonideanism of the few, Hart- man's is a Maimonideanism of the many.

6

The work of Roth, the ongoing work of Leibowitz, and the burgeoning work of Hartman suggest that it might be legitimate to speak of the return of Maimonideanism. That such a return could today be possible is perhaps at- tributable to three factors. First, the process of secularization begun with Spin- oza, while showing no signs of abating, had evidently stabilized, and it now seems that religion, though battered and crippled, is not doomed. Second, the

philosophic world, having apparently tired of grand domineering systems, is

currently in a self-critical, searching, eclectic mood, and as a consequence phi- losophers today are more likely than they have been at any time since the sev- enteenth century to approach earlier thinkers openly and without prejudice. The third factor has already been mentioned: modern Zionism has created a new situation which is conducive to (and perhaps demands) critical political thinking about Judaism, such as is found in Maimonideanism.

All this is not to say that Husik would consider Roth, Leibowitz, or Hart- man to be "Jewish philosophers," let alone "Maimonideans." The possibility of

any Jewish philosophy in the modern world is still moot. Yet today, for the first time since Spinoza, it seems that if Jewish philosophy is possible at all, Mai- monideanism is.

Return of Maimonideanism 263

NOTES

1. Without defining Judaism or philosophy, one could define Jewish philosophy as a mix- ture of the two.

2. As a philosopher, Maimonides belonged to the school founded by the Muslimfaylasif, Alfarabi (c. 870-950), which was characterized by a staunch Aristotelianism in logic, natural sci- ence, and ethics, a grim Platonism in politics, and a neo-Platonized Aristotelianism in meta-

physics. Maimonides taught that Judaism commands the study of philosophy, and that philoso- phy demonstrates the utility of Judaism. He wrote the Guide of the Perplexed in order to explain this to young, scientifically-minded Jews, perplexed because they were unable to reconcile their

disparate commitments to Judaism and to philosophy. Since, like Plato and Alfarabi, he was anxious about the potential of philosophy to corrupt or to derange those readers incapable of re-

placing lost belief with reasoned conviction, he contrived to conceal his own philosophic specula- tions from such readers by writing the Guide in a bizarre literary genre: the puzzle. To decipher the true teaching of the Guide, one must connect dispersed arguments by pursuing subtle logical implications, and one must ignore rhetorical red herrings, delectable to the imagination but in-

sipid to the intellect; in short, one must read it as only a philosopher can. Owing to this esoteri- cism, neither medievals nor moderns have been able to agree on a precise definition of Maimoni- deanism.

3. Cf. The Philosophy of Spinoza (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), I, vii; also Studies in the His-

tory of Philosophy and Religion (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), II, 605. 4. (New York, 1916), p. 432. 5. The Guide, nonetheless, was for Mendelssohn a fond symbol of enlightened Judaism.

Poring over the Guide as a youth, he would quip, left him with his hunchback, but was worth it! See Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (Philadelphia, Pa., 1973), p. 12. Long after Spinoza and Mendelssohn, traditionally-educated Jews of an inquisitive bent continued to be initiated into philosophy by way of the Guide, which often had to be studied

clandestinely (cf. Bialik's reference in "Ha-Matmid" to the lad expelled from the talmudic

academy after being caught "hiding away in the attic with the Guide of the Perplexed"). After this initiation, they would-if they persisted in philosophy - move on to Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, or other such contemporary fare, and leave the Guide behind as a happy schoolday memory, and a symbol.

6. See, for example, Simon Rawidowicz, ed., Kitvei Rabbi Nakhman Krokhmal [The Writings of Nachman Krochmal] (Waltham, Mass., 1961), pp. 432-43; and Hermann Cohen, "Charakteristik der Ethik Maimunis,"Jiidische Schriften (Berlin, 1924), III, 221-89.

7. Nahum N. Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York, 1953), p. 167.

8. Difficile liberty (Paris, 1963), p. 45, (1976), p. 49. 9. The Insecurity of Freedom (New York, 1967), p. 288. Cf. Maimonides, Eine Bio-

graphie (Berlin, 1935), pp. 272-79. Unlike most Jewish existentialists, Heschel was fascinated by Maimonides' spiritual life. Cf. also his "Ha-he'emin ha-Rambam she-Zakhah le-Nevu'ah?" [Did Maimonides Strive for Prophetic Inspiration?] Louis Ginzburg Jubilee Volume (New York, 1945), pp. 159-88. A similar fascination with Maimonides may be found in the writings of the French Jewish existentialist, Andre Neher.

10. Mitpahat Sefarim (Altona, 5528/1768), II, 8, p. 24b; cf. his Siddur, hallon VII. The claim of forgery may have been but a device to discredit Maimonides' philosophy without im-

pugning his rabbinics.

264 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

11. Neunzehn Briefe (Altona, 1836), XVIII, 89. (English trans., New York, 1899, 1960). 12. Luzzatto's Yesodei ha-Torah [Foundations of the Torah], a counterblast to Maimon-

ides' composition of the same name, argues that the foundations of the Torah are not in reason but in compassion. In the first Introduction to that work, Maimonides is cited as an example of "Atticism" (Mehkerei ha- Yahadut [Studies in Judaism] [Warsaw, 5673/1913], I, v-vi; English translation in Noah H. Rosenbloom, Luzzatto's Ethico-Psychological Interpretation ofJudaism [New York, 1965], p. 148). Luzzatto's sharpest attack on Maimonidean philosophy appeared in Kerem Hemed (1838), III, 66-71 (Mehkerei ha-Yahadut, I, 164-69), and drew the response from Krochmal (Kerem Hemed [1839], IV, 260-74) cited above in Note 6.

13. "Shilton ha-Sekhel," English translation in Ten Essays on Zionism andJudaism (Lon- don, 1922), pp. 162-222.

14. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1941), pp. 25-39. 15. "There is no doubt at all that there are people on whom certain ideas work to a good ef-

fect to bind their hearts to holiness and purity, to faith and service, to Torah and command-

ment, and there are other people on whom just other ideas are capable of bringing their hearts near to all those holy and sublime things; and if the ideas explicated in the Guide suited [the holy Maimonides] . . ., there is no doubt at all that there are very many in Israel on whom these ideas

might . . . work to a good effect" (Appendix to Ze'ev Jawitz, Toledot Yisrael, [History of Israel] [Tel-Aviv, 5695/1925], XII, 211-12).

16. For Wolfson's biography, see Leo Schwartz, Wolfson of Harvard (Philadelphia, Pa.,

1977) and his "A Bibliographical Essay," Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem,

1965), I, 1-46; Lewis S. Feuer, "Recollections of Harry Austryn Wolfson," AmericanJewish Ar-

chives, 28 (1976), 25-50; Isadore Twersky, "Harry Austryn Wolfson (1877-1974)," American

Jewish Year Book, 76 (1976), 99-111. 17. "Maimonides and Halevi: A Study in Typical Jewish Attitudes towards Greek Philoso-

phy in the Middle Ages," Studies, II, (cited above, Note 3), 120-60. 18. "With this [i.e., with Crescas' ideas!] Halevi's criticism of philosophy is completed"

(ibid., p. 159; see also pp. 158 n. 93 and 159 n. 94). Cf. "Studies in Crescas," ibid., pp. 475-76. 19. "Note on Crescas' Definition of Time,"Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., 10 (1919), 17;

and Crescas' Critique of Aristotle (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), p. 97. 20. Ibid. Cf. also his long monograph, "Crescas on the Problem of Divine Attributes"

(1916), Studies, II, pp. 247-337. 21. See Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

(Cambridge, Mass., 1947), pp. 459-60; Religious Philosophy: A Group of Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. v; Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), I, 70.

22. Religious Philosophy, pp. 25-26. 23. Modern religious philosophy, like modern religion, seemed to Wolfson a sham. In "The

Professed Atheist and the Verbal Atheist" (1955), he delicately but mordantly suggested that the

only difference between the modern religious philosopher and the fool of Psalm 14 who said "there is no God" is that the latter was "a downright honest and plain-spoken fellow," while the

former uses "polite but empty phrases" (ibid., pp. 270-71; cf. p. 26). 24. See "The Needs of Jewish Scholarship in America," The Menorah Journal, 7, no. 1

(1921), written more than a decade before Wolfson's theory of Philonic philosophy attained its

mature form. 25. Far from being a rejection of his original patriotic "Hebraism," Wolfson's thesis about

Philonic philosophy was a bold expression of it, for it presents Hebrew thought (primarily that of the Bible and secondarily that of the Jewish philosophers) as fundamental even to the philoso-

Return of Maimonideanism 265

phic tradition. See my "Hebraism and Western Philosophy in H. A. Wolfson's Theory of

History" (Hebrew), Daat, 4 (1980), 103-109. Nonetheless, this "Hebraic" thesis of his was

ironically responsible for turning him away from his yet unfinished researches into Crecas, and

causing him to apportion the lion's share of his subsequent scholarly work to Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts. See Leon Wieseltier, "Philosophy, Religion, & Harry Wolfson," Commentary, 61, no. 4 (April 1976), 57-64; and my Letter to the Editor, 62, no. 1 (July 1976), 10-12.

26. Cf. Pines, " 'Al Leo Strauss" [On Leo Strauss], Molad, 7, nos. 37-38 (1976), 455-57. In this article, Pines does not call Strauss a "Maimonidean," but does state that "he was perhaps the first one, after the medieval commentators, who read with attention Maimonides' book [the Guide]." He states also: "[Strauss] saw himself as a philosopher"; and "he was a philosopher."

27. Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, Ill., 1952), p. 56. 28. See, e.g., What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, Ill., 1959), pp. 221-32. 29. Cf. Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (Pines translation: Chicago, 1963), pp. 15-20.

Fundamentally a puzzle-solving activity, esoteric reading demands careful attention to detail. As a result of their Maimonidean reading style, Straussians are known for their scrupulous transla- tions of philosophic texts.

30. See, e.g., Jerusalem and Athens: Some Preliminary Reflections (New York, 1967). 31. See, e.g., Persecution, pp. 19, 43, 104-105; and "How to Begin to Study The Guide of

the Perplexed," in Pines' translation of the Guide, p. xiv. 32. Persecution, pp. 42-46; "How to Begin to Study the Guide," p. xiv. 33. Jerusalem and Athens, p. 3. 34. See Persecution, pp. 55-56. 35. With unabashed vicarious joy, Strauss speculates about Judah Halevi's triumph over

philosophy: "for some time, we prefer to think for a very short time, he was a philosopher. After that moment, a spiritual hell, he returned to the Jewish fold" (Persecution, p. 109). Cf. Strauss' comments on "our prophets" in What is Political Philosophy?, pp. 9-10. See also Strauss' autobi-

ographical remarks in "A Giving of Accounts: Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss," The College (a

publication of St. John's College, Annapolis, Md., April 1970), pp. 1-5. Cf. Ralph Lerner, "Leo Strauss (1899-1973)," American Jewish Year Book, 76 (1976), 91-97.

36. The impossibility of a living Maimonideanism today also would seem to be presupposed by Pines in his naming of Strauss as a modern "Maimonidean." However, Pines may be implying that Strauss as a philosopher was indeed a Maimonidean, and that, writing in an age of histori-

cism, he assumed the exoteric posture of the historian precisely as Maimonides, writing in an age of religion, had assumed the exoteric posture of the religionist. "Maimonideanism" in this odd sense would be devoid of any Jewish content. Pines' views on the relationship between Judaism and philosophy, it might be noted, are in some respects close to Strauss', but there is also a pro- vocative affinity between them and those of Micah Joseph Berdyczewski (1865-1921).

37. (New York, 1960, 1972). 38. Ha-Dat ve-'Erkhei ha-Adam [Religion and Human Values] (Jerusalem, 1973). More re-

cently, a Hebrew translation of Roth's Spinoza (London, 1929) appeared in Israel (Jerusalem,

1974). On Roth, see T. E. Jessop in Proceedings of the British Academy, 50 (1964), 317-29;

Raphael Loewe in Studies in Rationalism, Judaism, & Universalism in Memory of Leon Roth

(London, 1966), pp. ix-xiii, 1-11; and Zvi Adar and Moshe Sternberg in Ha-Dat, pp. vii-xxii. In the introductory Latin epitaph in Studies in Rationalism, Roth is aptly called "magistri sui

Maimonidis fidelis discipul[us]." 39. Judaism: A Portrait, p. 162. Cf. "Jewish Thought in the Modern World," in E. R.

Bevin and Charles Singer, eds., The Legacy of Israel (Oxford, 1927), pp. 433-72.

266 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

40. (London, 1948), pp. 133-34. 41. Roth's was a conspicuously Maimonidean Spinoza. In his first book, Spinoza, Des-

.cartes, & Maimonides (Oxford, 1924), Roth documented the Maimonidean nature of Spinoza's critique of Descartes, and concluded that "Maimonides and Spinoza speak throughout with one voice" (p. 144). Cf. Roth's contributions to Chronicon Spinozanum, 1 (1921), 278-82; 2 (1922), 54-66.

42. Judaism: A Portrait, p. 46; cf. p. 117. 43. Ibid., pp. 157, 215-16. 44. The Guide for the Perplexed: Maimonides, p. 130. 45. Cf., e.g., Ha-Dat, p. 39. Scholem's remarks on Rosenzweig's theology, referred to with

disfavor by Roth, appear now in Gershom Scholem, Devarim Bego [Explications and Implica- tions] (Tel-Aviv, 1975), p. 412.

46. Ha-Dat, pp. 114-16, 119. A similar attempt to mitigate Maimonidean rationalism by appeal to Maimonides' own theory of the imagination is found in Leone Ebreo (c. 1460-after

1523), with whom Roth has more than a name in common. 47. The Guide of the Perplexed: Maimonides, p. 129. 48. Judaism, II, no. 4 (1962), 298; Ha-Dat, pp. 100-101. 49. Ha-Dat, p. 201. 50. During his years in Jerusalem (1928-1951), Roth often addressed himself to the prob-

lems of state-building, and wrote and lectured in particular on democracy, liberalism, liberal education, and Jewish-Arab relations. His native England was his exemplar of democracy. Even while the British mandatory government was preventing immigration to Palestine from Nazi-oc-

cupied Europe, he was extolling the virtues of British democracy. In 1951, disaffected by the val- ues of the new State, he suddenly returned to England. Cf. Judaism: A Portrait, p. 221.

51. Yahadut, 'Am Yehudi, u-Medinat Yisrael (Tel-Aviv, 1975). An English translation is

forthcoming. Since the completion of this article, Leibowitz has published Sihot 'al Pirkei Avot ve-'al ha-Rambam [Talks on Pirkei Avot and on Maimonides] (Tel Aviv, 1979), and Emunato shel ha-Rambam [The Faith of Maimonides] (Tel Aviv, 1980).

52. See, e.g., Iyyun, 26, no. 4 (1975); and Sefer Yeshayahu Leibowitz [Yeshayahu Liebo- witz Book] (Tel Aviv, 1977).

53. Leibowitz, Yahadut, p. 16; cf. pp. 26-27, 74, 239, 294, 310-14. 54. Ibid., pp. 342, 383; cf. p. 26. 55. See, e.g., ibid., pp. 181-83, 298-99; cf. pp. 122-24. 56. Ibid., pp. 16, 74, 317. Cf. Roth, "Moralization and Demoralization," pp. 295-96; Ha-

Dat, pp. 95-97. 57. Leibowitz, Yahadut, pp. 26-32, 74, 295-96, 298-99, 312, 330, 338, 344. 58. Ibid., p. 319. 59. See, e.g., ibid., pp. 57, 65-66, 92, 98-100, 122-24, 307, 319-21, 337-46. Leibowitz

has written that the critical distance between Maimonidean religion and nihilism is, like that be- tween the Garden of Eden and Gehenna (see Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, 28), a mere handbreadth! See "Maimonides-The Abrahamic Man,"Judaism, 6, no. 2 (1957), 151. The Hebrew original of this essay appeared in Beterem, 5 (211), August 1955, pp. 20-22. Cf. Judaism, 7, no. 1

(1958), 74-75; and Beterem, 9 (215), November 1955, pp. 21-22. 60. For Leibowitz, Judaism is historically-empirically distinguished only by the Halakhah.

Here again his view contrasts with Roth's. 61. Quoted from a lecture of Leibowitz'. Cf. Yahadut, pp. 319-20, and note the reference

to Wittgenstein, pp. 342-43. Leibowitz' distinction between "knowledge" and "knowledge of God" is in effect a direct reply to Hirsch (see Nineteen Letters, XVIII).

Return of Maimonideanism 267

62. Cf. Yahadut, pp. 35, 307, 320. Leibowitz often cites Psalms 16:8, "I have set the Lord before me always," and interprets it: "I have not set man before me always, and I have not set the world before me always" (p. 339). Eliezer Schweid brands Leibowitz' Judaism "neo-neo-Or-

thodoxy." According to Schweid, Leibowitz' Judaism is "more consistent" than any previous "neo-Orthodoxy" in that it "freesJudaism of every tie ... to human culture" (Beyn Ortodoksiah le-Humanizm Dati [Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism] [Jerusalem, 1977], pp. 58-63). Leibo-

witz, for his part, considers his Judaism to be Maimonidean, and thus in the mainstream of the halakhic tradition. He remarks that "there is enormous- almost symbolic - significance" in that when Moses Isserles (1525 or 1530-1572) began his celebrated Notes on the Shulhan Arukh, the embodiment par excellence of halakhic Judaism, by quoting Psalms 16:8, he proceeded to inter-

pret this "mighty verse" by citing a text not from the Bible, nor from the Midrash, nor from the

Kabbalah, but from the Guide of the Perplexed (III, 53)! See "Maimonides-The Abrahamic

Man," pp. 150-51. 63. Yahadut, pp. 319-20. Cf. pp. 19-20, 34-35, 57, 100-101, 123. 64. Ibid., pp. 46, 65-67, 320-21. 65. Leibowitz makes capital of the opening sentence of the Shulhan Arukh: "One should be

valiant as the lion to rise up in the morning to the service of his Creator .. ." Cf. Yahadut, pp. 25, 130, 295, 299, 311, 315, 338, 380.

66. Ibid., p. 46. 67. In a paradigm of this unconscious anti-Maimonideanism, one opponent (writing in Ha-

Arets, 24 October 1975) argued that if according to the new heretical religion of "Leibowitzism"

prayer is not utilitarian but the service of God for its own sake, then instead of our present liturgy we might as well recite "bla-bla-bla" in the morning, "kish-kish-kish" in the afternoon, and

"zum-zum-zum" in the evening! The opponent apparently had no inkling that the position he

was ridiculing is Maimonidean. Maimonides teaches in the Guide that man can affirm nothing of God (the via negativa), that God (since He is pure actuality) can learn nothing from man, and

that therefore the way of true prayer is "silence is praise to Thee" (Psalms 65:2). According to

Maimonides, and Leibowitz, it was for heuristic reasons alone that the prophets and the rabbis

composed prayers in "the language of man" instead of prescribing nonsense syllables or silence.

See Guide, I, 59. 68. Leibowitz does not deny that they are necessary instruments. He was a platoon com-

mander in the Haganah, and no one has been more vocal than he in demanding that the Hala-

khah confront (not "adapt to"! [cf. p. 65]) the new conditions brought about byJewish indepen- dence. See, e.g., Yahadut, pp. 51-56, 88-147, 192-228.

69. Detesting messianic speculations, Leibowitz often (e.g., pp. 99, 123, 238, 384, 403,

417) invokes Maimonides' admonition (Mishneh Torah, Melakhim 12:2) that one should not

preoccupy himself with the rabbinic homilies concerning the messiah since they lead to neither

the fear nor the love of God. 70. See Yahadut, pp. 154-91. Leibowitz quotes David Ben-Gurion as having told him in

the early 1950s: "You demand the separation of religion and state so that religion will return to

be an independent factor with which the state government will have to struggle. I reject this sep- aration. I want the state to hold religion by the hand" (p. 173).

71. (Philadelphia, Pa., 1976). See my review in Journal of the History of Philosophy, 17

(1979), 86-88. 72. Hartman, Maimonides, p. vii.

73. Ibid., p. 26. 74. Ibid., p. 15-27. 75. "Some Non-Halakic Aspects of the Mishneh Torah," in Alexander Altmann, ed.,Jew-

268 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES

ish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 98. Twersky's long-antici-

pated Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (New Haven, Conn., 1979), should provide fur-

ther evidence of Maimonides' integration of philosophy and Jewish law. 76. Hartman provocatively uses this phrase made famous by Spinoza, but found also in

earlier Maimonidean literature, although not in Maimonides. 77. Hartman, Maimonides, pp. 191, 196, 208-209. 78. Ibid., pp. 52, 66, 127, 140, 142, 159, 206-207, 214.

79. Ibid., p. 76. 80. Ibid., p. 262 n. 44; p. 256 n. 5; pp. 142-43; cf. p. x. 81. Both Wolfson and Strauss were faithful Zionists with original ideas about Zionism, but

neither chose to live in the Land of Israel. Wolfson, who declined a professorship at the Hebrew

University in 1925, never visited the Land. Strauss was a visiting professor at the Hebrew Univer-

sity in 1954-1955. 82. Ibid., p. x. 83. See hisJoy and Responsibility (Jerusalem, 1978). See my review (Hebrew) in Daat, 2-3

(1978-79), 263-68. See also Leibowitz's review (Hebrew) in Petahim, 45-46 (1979), 82-88, and Hartman's (Hebrew) response in Petahim, 47-48 (1979), 78-83.