New Notes for BRGS Revel Comprehensive Exams in JPH

2009-08-24
Compiled by Amitai Blickstein

Frank, Daniel H. (1997). “What is Jewish philosophy?” in History of Jewish Philosophy,

Frank and Leaman, eds. Routledge. 1-11.

 “What is Jewish Philosophy?” is not an old (perennial) question. Rather, it stems

from the creation of an academic discipline (the history of JPH), and is likewise
defined from the top on down.
 IOW, it is a question-begging construct, so as to associate certain thinkers and
exclude others from academic courses and books.
 Certainly the Medieval, and probably also the Modern (but not Contemporary)
JPHs did not think of themselves as JPHs.
 JPH, as a discipline, apes the regnant models.
 The historical prompting for the creation of JPH is a response, like Orthodoxy to
Reform, to traditional biblical exegesis.
 IOW, not only Contemporary JPH, but all “JPH” is a response to contemporary
issues and concerns: Reason v. Tradition, Autonomy v. Community, the
historicization of tradition.
o History, note, only bothers moderns. History and science supported the
claims of Tradition up until the modern period, where we feel its power to
undermine those claims.

Carmy, Shalom and David Shatz (1997). “The Bible as a source for philosophical
reflection.” in History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman.
London: Routledge.

 Though the Bible addresses many a concern of JPH (the nature of God,
interactions with Man, good and evil, etc.), it cannot be said to be a philosophical
work:
 No propositions, declarative statements, etc. It contains law, poetry, and
narratives.
 Contradicts later philosophical sophistication with primitive principles
(personification, miracles…).
 Nevertheless, differences in terminology should not blind us moderns to the
sophistication and insight contained or suggested in earlier material.
 This holds true even for non-philosophical books like the Bible.
o Michael Wyschogrod’s conception of the Fall of Man, plus extras.
o Because the Bible’s “problem of evil” is situated within a set of
theological presuppositions and a fund of experience, it diverges from
articulations of the problem that are promulgated by philosophers.
o Not all books and narratives of the Bible may have the same outlook on
God’s providence, control of history, etc. The people involved may have
different understandings of God’s place in their lives as well.

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Abrams, Daniel (2009). “Phenomenology of Jewish Mysticism—Moshe Idel’s
Methodology in Perspective.” Kabbalah 20. 7-146.

 There is a discrepancy between Idel’s descriptions and typologies of the

phenomena of Jewish mysticism, and an actual philosophical phenomenology (a
project which Idel does not undertake).
 But don’t hold this against him completely, since his actual project – shifting our
emphasis from Scholem’s doctrines to Idel’s experience (as a corrective) – afford
those reluctant to practice mysticism themselves, but all the same doubtful of
scholarship’s attention to these matters with a “safe substitute” of understanding
in lieu of actual experience.
 Abrams detects an ahistorical penchant of Idel’s, and says that Idel uses the word
“history” in a way that differs from most social historians and historians of ideas.

When we use language (the fine arts?) to communicate, we reaffirm [the illusion of]
stability. Words are meaningless signs that point to a referent that is the vessel of a
concept’s significance. If referents kept shifting and changing, then words would be
meaningless, and thus, valueless. Language-use thus reinforces order, and glorifies
eternity.

Stability is nevertheless illusory, as languages change over time – much as the continents
drift across the Earth’s surface – adding, borrowing, and redefining words as they go.

When we use direct experiences (the performing arts?) to communicate, we reaffirm [the
illusion of] independence and freedom. Acts have direct, unmediated meaning to those in
a relationship with the actors. If every act had a single meaning, then communication
would be pointless, or rather, life would be limited to primitive interactions and societies,
lacking the richness and sophistication that serve as the foundation for humankind’s
greatest achievements – the abstract qualities such as ethics, morality, goodness,
kindness, justice, loyalty, etc.

Independence and freedom are nevertheless illusory, as all acts, in order to have
meaning, must have a previously prepared audience – Cain-like innocence does not see
the guilt in murder, or the meaning of his act until he is taught. True chaos would also
have no meaning. Thus, the actor is limited if not outright bound by the society he finds
himself within and its conventions (if he is aware of them at all). Of course, many actors
quickly become aware of this tension (or conversely, are led to pursue art as a
complement to this tension they perceive), and thus are motivated to push the boundaries
of society’s conventions.

Novak, David (1997). “The Talmud as a source for philosophical reflection.” in History
of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge,
1997. 62-80.

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  Philosophers reflect upon Nature, and prioritize that which is eternal and
unchangeable, and thus, ideas, or the metaphysics behind Nature. Logic and
Nature complement each other by dint of their eternally unchanging nature.
o We humans respect that. Or more precisely, we mortals respect that.
Lacking the discipline to refrain from abuse of the Tree of Knowledge, our
only recourse is banishment from the Tree of Life, for otherwise we would
never know God.
 What about Jews who attempt to reflect upon The Word of God, rather than
Nature? This works only by dint of the ‫( חכמה‬unchangeable, logical, rational)
which the Revelation (pure Will, i.e., unpredictable, capricious, chaotic)
nevertheless posits of by God and man. [i.e., there are ‫]טעמי המצות‬.
 Further, the Torah claims its wisdom founds the world – thus philosophy can be
the love of wisdom, be it Sophia or ‫חכמה‬.
 However, Bible is one thing. The Talmud, relatively untouched by the Greek
philosophers, is not a single body of immutable truth, but an anthology of a
cacophony of arguing, contrary voices. Can we philosophize (reflect) upon such
an object?
 The beginnings of a purely Rabbinic philosophy are rather in the realm of
practical reason (the good, knowledge for the sake of action), as opposed to
theoretical reason (the truth, knowledge for its own sake).
 Rabbi Akiva’s School is associated with using the wider range of the human
intellect, e.g., Rabbi Simon’s reading that (18 && pure) wives. Acc. to Rabbi
Ishmael, the Torah speaks in the language of man, i.e., its speak is conventional, it
is a subjective, changing object, and thus inappropriate for philosophical study.
Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, thinks the Torah speaks in sublime,
omnisignificant language, and thus, it is a proper object for study.
 Since the reasons for the commandments are not given, the Torah = data
rather than = dicta.
 Earlier Rabbinic sources treat the hermeneutical principles as logically
compelling, while later sources find them logically weak and unsatisfactory,
leaving them room, however, for more teleologically motivated operations
<ahem>.
 ‫תקנות‬, and ‫תיקון עולם‬, etc. reveal a philosophical valuing of the telos of the
Torah. (e.g., ‫תקנת השבים‬, or ‫)שלא תנעול דלת לפני לווים‬.

 All this teleological thinking (made possible by designating a large corpus of laws
rabbinic; this also helped Maimonides) provided Jewish thinkers who
encountered Greek philosophy to assimilate and judge it, rather than be
overwhelmed by it – they were already acquainted with abstract, principle-
driven logic.

Broadie, Alexander (1997). “The nature of medieval Jewish philosophy.” History of

Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 83-
92.

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  First of all, Medieval = Dark Ages but only for Christian Europe. Rather, call it
Golden Age of Jewish Philosophy or something. Don’t bound, judge, or
preconceive the philosophy done by irrelevant Christians.
 Posits a categorization of “Jewish” philosophy in positivist(?) terms: what would
make us categorize a MS as JPH? Why, if it quoted ‫ תנ"ך‬and ‫ חז"ל‬as authorities,
thus making it accessible to Jewish communities.
o But what of ‫ מקור חיים‬by Ibn Gabirol, known as Fons Vitae?
 It would probably also have to address itself to issues concerning the Jewish
community (though granted, those may overlap with other faith communities).
 “sustained, rational reflections” = philosophy (if in dialogue with acknowledged
PHI works, it seems).

Wasserstrom, Steven M. (1997). “The Islamic social and cultural context.” in History of
Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 93-
114.
 With few exceptions (like Ibn Gabirol and Isaac Israeli), most “Jewish
philosophy” in the Medieval period was in truth apologetics and defenses of
the Jewish faith in popular idiom.
o This peculiar cultivation of philosophy elbowed out “pure philosophy.”
 That doesn’t mean JPH is purely reactive, rather, it is appropriative.
o “…religious leaders sometimes condoned if not encouraged the cultivation
of philosophy, and were often sensitive to its usefulness—for their
purposes.”
 “Jewish-Muslim symbiosis” –S.D. Goitein.
o Spirit of tolerance and mutual esteem.
o Monotheists unite against the pagans.
o Mercantilism produced rich Jewish finaceers  shtadlanim who
interacted positively with Muslim elites.
o Both supported an MD/PHI class that interacted professionally (friends).
 To the extent that many Islamic philosophers are only known through their
Hebrew transmissions/translations.
 “In short, Jews and Muslims were speaking a common language, at once
linguistic, exegetical, theological, and comparativist.”
 “The Islamicate society which gave rise to JPH under Islam was urban and
multicultural, and more than occasionally allowed a certain freedom of interfaith
contact and cooperation.”
 “Both formal and informal friendships between Muslim and Jew are well known
from a variety of sources.”
 These contacts fraught with danger; high incidence of conversion; Jewish thinkers
converted in pursuit of PHI (though the data are insufficient).1
 Suhrawardī (d.1192), ibn Tufayl (d.1185), and ibn Sab’īn (d.1270) explicitly were
beholden to the still mysterious hikma al-mashriqīya of Avicenna. J-I because:
1. Their “curriculum” was cultivated over centuries in J-I circles.
1
Stroumsa, S. (1991) “On Apostate Jewish Intellectuals in the Early Middle Ages under the Rule of Islam”
[Hebrew], Pe’amim 42. 61-76.

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 2. The IPHs met with JPHs and even taught Jewish students.
3. These IPHs sometimes learned and even taught JPH works.
4. A number of the IPH works were popular among JPHs for centuries.
 The so-called “Golden Age” of Jewish Spain did not produce much new JPH!
o Might say that the Andalusian contribution was distinctively theological
and mystical, and not distinctively philosophical.
o BUT, it did sustain a rich PHI/JPH sub-culture (i.e., audience, not artists).

Ben-Shammai, Haggai (1997). “Kalām in medieval Jewish philosophy.” in History of

Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 115-
148.
 “Kalām is the common name of medieval Islamic, mostly rationalist, sometimes
apologetic (or polemic), religious philosophy.”2
o Mid-8th ct., it came to mean deciding religious matters by Reason, rather
than Tradition (supported by political or military force).
 For mutakallimūn, knowledge was a means of religious service (‫)??חובת הלב‬.
 They must be distinguished from the falāsifa: thinkers (Muslim as well as
Christian) who considered themselves committed to the legacy of Greek
philosophy, mainly a Neoplatonic interpretation of Aristotelianism.
o The falāsifa of all faiths held knowledge-‫לשמה = שלימות‬.
 Kalām developed characteristic sets of logic, philosophical concepts, and
terminology distinct from falāsifa.
o Greek thinkers are very rarely mentioned in kalām works.

 Mu’tazila is the most relevant kalām system to the history of JPH:

1. Unity of God.
2. Divine Justice.
3. Reward and Punishment.
4. Classification of all human actions, according to ethico-religious criteria,
as belief and disbelief, good and evil, praise and blame.
5. Enjoining good, and preventing evil.
Unity
 Human language incorrectly implies multiplicity because of its shortcomings.
 Scripture is interpreted on the assumption that it and Reason cannot contradict.
 God is invisible, but OTOH, the best “true” knowledge is thru the 5 senses!
o ‫אין הכי נמי‬, developed the theory of how the visible “proves” the invisible.
 ‫רוב‬: Mod-Atomism: no causality, “Nature” = constant miracles, 100% ‫השגחה‬
‫פרטית‬.
Justice
 Absolute self-sufficiency, benevolence, and freedom of God.
 Free will and Reason mean humans are responsible for their actions.
o Is human free will durable, or constantly created?
o Deontological or Consequentialist ethics?
2
The polemical/apologetic aspect has always been emphasized by both supporters and opponents (mainly
the falāsifa) of the system. Is this what makes Saadiah a mutakallimūn, not a falāsifa?

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 Revelation exists…:
o Despite Reason’s theoretical sufficiency.
o …to inform humans of positive legislation.
o …as a shortcut for weaker, non-philosophical minds.
o …to increase ‫שכר‬, b/c ‫גדול המצווה ועושה‬.
 Miracles are a breach of God’s customary running of “Nature.”
 Important distinction: “self-evident” truths, needing no demonstrations, versus
revealed knowledge and laws. Self-evident includes:
o Truth and falsehood.
o Good and evil.
 These are objective concepts binding to both Man and God(!).
 While there is a difference between the “chosen” learned elites and the masses,
most early mutakallimūn, unlike the falāsifa, seem to have believed that initially
all human individuals of sound mind and body were equally capable of
comprehending all true knowledge.
o A priori – truth of physical objects, math axioms, and obvious ethics.
 The dominant style of most kalām works during the first centuries is the
conventional dialogue between the author (“we”) and his adversaries.
 Although in theory acceptable to general principles of rational religion with
prophets and miracles, it is Qur’an-centric, dogmatically, asserting that the
miracles in the Qur’an attest to its immediate sensory truth.
Ash’arites
 Generally, more “orthodox” rationalists than Muta’zilla, and over time became
rather dominant in many isolated Islamic states. Differences from Muta’zilla:
 Reason is important, but Tradition (revelation, general consensus) are ↑important.
o Thus, there is no a priori ‫ חיוב‬to know/verify God through Reason.
 God is not bound by objective (accessible to Reason) ethical values, since they do
not exist! Good and evil correspond to God’s commands and prohibitions.
 God controls everything, narrowly squeeze in free will/responsibility, but
certainly not Consequentialist, since God controls all effects of actions.

Jewish Kalām
 Grew from the acculturated, urban Jewish pop – began with involvement in
Biblical exegesis (e.g., Saadiah’s commentary and tafsir).
 Jewish Muta’zilites, but not Asha’rites.

 Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammis (early 9th ct.) is the 1st. Jew  Christian 
Jew. Not stuck to 1 school of kalām, and freely relies on Aristotelianism.
o yes Substance vs. Accident, not Matter v. Form.
o Standard “proof of kalām”: The world is not eternal, and thus created, and
thus all traces back to creation, and a single Creator.
o Openly polemicizes against Christianity (no Unity of God).

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 o Jewish Muta’zilite in believing: good and evil are absolutes that bind God
also, God’s benevolence3, freedom, reward and punishment, the central
role of prophecy; the revelation in Jewish Scripture.
 All Jewish mutakallimūn distinguish between essential attributes and attributes of
action.

Saadiah
 He established the rationalist trend in the interpretation of Scripture.
 In light of his public standing, the scope of his philosophical oeuvre, and the
influence it had on subsequent generations, he can be considered Father of MJPH.
 Structure of Emunot v’Deot is typical kalām:
o Vindication of rationalist theology and theory of epistemology.
o Creation and Creator.
o God’s unity and attributes.
o Divine Justice, free will; good and evil actions, reward and punishment.
o Other discussions of law, prophecy, Israel, redemption, resurrection.
o Practical ethics (may be Saadiah’s view of the 5th Mutaz. principle,
enjoining good, and avoiding evil [‫)]?סור מרע ועשה טוב‬
 Has a list of 10 Articles of Faith:
1. God is eternal.
2. He comprehends all things; they exist by/in Him.
3. He creates everything and brings it forth.
4. He is the believer’s God, who has imposed religion on him.
5. Reliance on God and contentment with His decrees.
6. Duty to listen to the prophets of God.
7. God will redeem his nation in the messianic age.
8. He will defend them from the nations of the world.
9. Eternal reward for the righteous in the world to come.
10. Harsh punishment for those who don’t believe in him & who disobey him.
 Logical methodology, philosophical terminology, and conceptual vocabulary are
also, for the most part, typical kalām. Epistemology…:
o (1) Sense perception = most immediate, and best “true” knowledge.
o (2) Immediate rational knowledge also true knowledge.
o  Those two together support (3) “inferential knowledge,” (like the
existence of the soul as inferred from the animation of living beings).
 The “indicator” is a basic concept of Saadiah’s kalām system.
o Introduced into JPH the Muta’zilite distinction between epistemologically
rational laws [accessible to reason], and revealed legislation [no rational
basis], with all its epistemological and ethical implications.
 God follows reason.
 Prophets cannot contradict reason, miracles or not.
 Rational laws: gratitude to God, refrain from insulting Him, and
prevention of inter-creature harming.

3
Proof is that He gave us ‫מצות‬. Hmmm, Eliezer Berkovits’ encounter?

7
  Non-rationally accessible commandments also make sense: God
wishes to employ a poor man with “make-work” to give him
reward.
 Passive reception of prophetic knowledge will suffice if you aren’t able to
philosophize on your own. [this may parallel the Mutazilite distinction, too]
o Emunot are the lower level, of beliefs, while post-philosophizing, they
become establish opinions, Deot.
 Like Muqammis, distinguishes between Substance and Accident, rejecting
Aristotle’s distinction between Matter and Form. Go Kalām!
o But he rejects kalām’s atomism (as did all rabbinite JPHs).
o E/t has an essential nature – not made up of identical atoms.
 Creation ex nihilo. The world is created – proof:
1. “finitude” Since this world is finite, their power and duration must be
finite, and they must have a beginning and an end.
2. “composition” all things are composite, and thus generated by an artisan.
3. “accidents” bodies cannot be void of accidents (properties,
characteristics, events, etc.), which change in time, and thus, must be
generated in time. The cause & effect goes back until a First Cause.4
4. “time” an eternal world would take an infinite amount of time to reach the
present. Thus, time is finite, the world is created. [Zeno’s Paradox?]
 Saadiah's halakhic books are thus distinguished by their systematic structure
and logical order and by a lengthy detailed introduction which he prefaced to
each book of halakhic decisions. (EJ = Encyclopedia Judaica)
 God has life, power, wisdom (but not a plurality, it’s just human language!).
 Man is body + soul (of fine, celestial material), and has appetitive, spirit
(emotions), and rational faculties, which can only act within the body.
 Commandments  happiness [Golden Mean!], need free will to truly earn it.
 Theodicy is corrected in ‫עולם הבא‬.

 Samuel b. Hofni: Does implicitly accept the Muta’zilite atomistic conception.

 his son-in-law Hai Gaon: also thoroughly kalām in style, terminology, argumentation.

 If, in the West, kalām was largely known through karaite sources, that may
explain some of its negative reception by Judah Halevi5 and Maimonides.

[Jewish] Neoplatonism
Kraemer, Joel. “Neoplatonism.” Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and
Fred Skolnik. Vol. 15. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. p84-86.

 It’s a system elaborated by Plotinus and his pupil Porphyry on the basis of
antecedent Middle Platonic and neo-Pythagorean developments (9th century).
o The system was modified by their many successors (incl. al-Farabi, Avicenna).

4
This is the “standard proof of kalām.”
5
Halevi has immediate experience as #1, though kalām does occupy the bottom rung of knowledge.

8
  Says there’s a process of emanation of a hierarchically ordered series of spheres
of being, leading from an ineffable and unqualified first principle (the One) to the
material world (thus, it’s a monism).
o The One transcends all being, becoming, knowledge, and description.
 As philosophers, JNPs never overcome the complete inability to
say anything about God – they break this rule all the time.
o The One first projects into The One as Subject & as Object  Pure INT.
o The "descent" is associated with increasing determination and multiplicity
(imperfection).
o Although matter (“hypostases”) at the lowest rank in the scale of being is
the principle of evil, the material world, as a reflection of the intelligible,
possesses goodness and beauty (cf. *Gnosticism ),
o and by contemplation of it the human soul ascends to the spiritual
world, through stages, the highest stage, a kind of unio mystica and
apotheosis, being the sole means by which the One is apprehended.
o Individuation and investiture of the soul with a body is devalorized;
release from the fetters of the body in ecstasy or in death is equivalent to
salvation, this philosophical soteriology tending toward combination with
a doctrine of metempsychosis.
 Neoplatonism is thus seen to be a religious movement and a doctrine of
salvation as well as a philosophical system.
o Thus, it’s potentially an antagonist or an ally of the monotheistic faiths.
 The fundamental postulates of Neoplatonism conflict with those of the
monotheistic faiths:
o an impersonal first principle (“God”),
o rejection of creation and revelation,
o the conception of man as essentially soul,
o and the attendant soteriology-eschatology (including metempsychosis)
involving submergence of the individual soul in the universal soul.
 Nevertheless, for monotheistic philosophers the contradictions were not
insurmountable.
o The ladder of Jacob's dream was thus interpreted as a symbol of the
soul's ascent (e.g., by Ibn Gabirol)
o Creation became a metaphor for eternal procession.
o Revelation and prophecy were discussed in terms reminiscent of the unio
mystica.
o Assimilation to the divine, the goal of philosophy according to the
neoplatonic introductions to Aristotle of the Alexandria school, resonated
with similar ideals of the monotheistic traditions.
 The deep spirituality of Neoplatonism promoted the kind of
synthesis with religious feeling that finds moving expression in
Ibn Gabirol's poem, Keter Malkhut.

The soul! God   Material world.

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 Historically, Neoplatonism, as it was transmitted to the medieval world of
Judaism and Islam, was closely bound with alchemy, magic, and theurgy.
 Important works: Theology of Aristotle, Proclus’ Elements of Theology
 Neoplatonism was not simply an amplification of Plato. Plotinus added aspects of
Aristotelianism (also Pythagoreanism and Stoicism ), et al.
 NP generally harmonized the views of Plato and Aristotle (“properly
understood”). (cf. al-*Fārābī 's On the Harmony of the Opinions of the Two
Sages, the Divine Plato and Aristotle).

 I-NP and J-NP went from PHIs  mystics too! (e.g. al-Ghazáli, Jewish
kabbalistic circles in Spain and Provence, ‫)חסידי אשכנז‬.

 It provided philosophical context for JPHs of the 11th and 12th centuries.
 Serious Jewish thinkers had to deal with JNP if only b/c they saw nicely
compatible epistemological and metaphysical notions in it, regarding God’s
nature and His relations with humans. (deals with the whole One God thing).

 Isaac Israeli (c. 855-c.955) is the fountainhead of Jewish Neoplatonism.

o Famous physician, his works circulated widely in Latin, Arabic, &Heb.
o He defines philosophy, following the neoplatonic introductions to
Aristotle, as assimilation to God according to human capacity.
 The ultimate stage depicted as becoming angelic or divine, an
experience to which he applies the term devekut.
o The NP doctrine concerning the unknowability of the first principle is
expressed in Israeli's thesis that only God's existence quoddity is knowable,
and not his essence quiddity a distinction perpetuated by Bahya ibn Paquda,
Joseph ben Zaddik, Judah Halevi , and Abraham Ibn Daud.
 Cosmology:
o “power” and “will” are ‘aspects’ of God, not emanations (contra ibn
Gabirol or Halevi).
o Ex nihilo for the 1st three hypostases (1st Matter + 1st Form = Intellect),
holding of Plotinian emanation for the rest (i.e., logical and necessary).
[Plotinus had Intellect directly emanating, with no room for free will.]
o There is no ambiguity over the status of matter: dark demonic shells!
 Soul’s Ascent:
1. Purification: remove dark shells via abandoning passions (Bhuddism?).
2. Illumination: the soul acquires true knowledge of external things.
3. Union: soul becomes spiritual & intellectual, is raised to lvl of Intellect.
 This union is with wisdom not God!
 Union = heaven = ecstatic experience.
o Prophets ~= philosophers: guiding humanity with allegory and the
imaginative faculty towards the ascent of the soul. (contra Maim.)

Ibn Gabirol

10
  brought NP to Spain/Andalusia via his Mekor Ḥayyim (remember, it’s fons
vitae, can’t even tell it was written by a Jew!).
 Characteristically, the goal of existence is to conjunct the soul with the supernal
world through knowledge and action, i.e., intellectual and ethical purification.
 Philosophy gets you there (liberation from death and the conjunction bit also).
 Typically, knowledge of the First Essence is precluded because it transcends
everything and is incommensurable with the intellect.
 Unclear if matter and form are opposites with distinct characteristics, or both
aspects of simple substance that we cannot perceive.
 It’s clear that “divine will” is interposed to explain multiplicity from The One.
o Like al-Ghazālī, against al-Fārābī and ibn-Sīnā.

 Mekor Ḥayyim impacted Christian scholastic philosophy more than the Jewish
philosophical tradition, though it did exert some influence in Jewish circles.
o Obsessed with the search for wisdom.
o Mystical undertones akin to Sufi poetry and early Kabbalah.
o Keter Malkhut is used for YK.
o Connects the microcosm and macrocosm, the moral and psychological:
thus, humans must also use body and senses in order to reach perfection.
 Basic themes of MH:
o Science or knowledge is the ultimate aim of human life.
o Knowledge of oneself (microcosm) contains the knowledge of everything
else (the macrocosm).
o The world is created and dependent upon the divine will.
o Seek “knowledge of being”: comprised of matter and form, God, and will.

Ibn Gabirol's successors do not evince his depth or originality, though Guttman says that
Israeli is himself but an “eclectic compiler.”
 Bahya ibn Paquda combines commonplace NP themes (e.g., God's absolute unity
as distinct from the relative unity of this world) with his mystical pietism.
o Duties of the heart are all rational, invisible and are judged by God alone.
o Must know God  must prove His existence (uses kalām proof from the
composite nature of things, requiring a first cause [Saadiah influence?]).
o Only Unity, Being, and Eternity are essential to God (can’t know
anything else).
o Modified asceticism (but isn’t that typical NP?)
o The soul is sustained by religious law and reason (‫)הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה‬.

o First definitively Jewish Sufi book. Replaces Qur’an quotes with Bible,
quotes the “Sage” [Muhammud], etc.
o A guide meant to bring the reader from fear, to love, to eventual union
with God’s “supernal light.” Internal/External contemplation, etc.
 The anonymous Pseudo-Bahya Kitāb Maʿānī al-Nafs treats its main theme of
psychology in a neoplatonic manner.

11
 o The soul is a spiritual substance whose home is the supernal world.
o In descent it assimilates impressions from the celestial spheres and the
zones of the elements (a gnostic-Hermetic notion), and it re-ascends by
means of ethical and intellectual purification, whereas evil souls may
be confined to the region beneath the heavens.
 There are also NP elements in Abraham b. Ḥiyya's writings (his theory of
emanation and doctrine of metempsychosis), and Joseph ibn Ẓaddik.
 Über-committed NP: Abraham ibn Ezra, even as regards such sensitive subjects
as creation and prophecy.
 Also to be considered is Judah Halevi, whose notion of "the divine influence"
may be of neoplatonic origin and whose idea of the God of Abraham is said to
have been "conceived metaphysically in terms of the neoplatonic idea of God".

 Mid-12th century: Aristotelianism begins to displace NP as the regnant system.

o But, Neoplatonism did not entirely lose its appeal for Jewish thinkers.
o Aristotelianism itself was thoroughly suffused with NP themes.
 Maimonides was touched by NP influence:
1. Words for emanation occur approx. 90 times in the first 2parts of Guide.
2. His description of knowledge in terms of light and lightning metaphors.
3. His insistence upon denying positive attributes of God.
4. His placing limitations upon human knowledge.
5. Perhaps his idea of assimilation to the divine (Guide [3:54]).

Judah Halevi: The Kuzari

 Judah Halevi was one of medieval Jewry's most influential thinkers, and his
arguments for the truth of Judaism and the essential superiority of the Jewish
People are invoked to this day in traditionalist circles.
 Although Halevi rejected Islamic Aristotelianism, which was beginning to be
adopted by his fellow Jews and would soon be considered by most Jewish
philosophers (such as Maimonides) as scientifically authoritative, he maintained
that Judaism could be defended rationally by emphasizing its empirical
basis. Hence, his rejection of the leading philosophy of the day (inspired in part
by al-Ghazālī) did not mean that he was an anti-rationalist.
 The Khazars were between the Byzantine Christians to the West, and the Muslims
to the South and the East. They would unite to crush Khazar pagans, so something
had to be done – but the Khazars did not want to unbalance their equipoise
position in either direction; Judaism was a monotheistic faith that would betray
them to neither side (geopolitical↑ reasons for picking Judaism).
 Halevi used the Bible as the basic text for his reconstruction of Jewish history,
paying only scant attention to rabbinic interpretations of the biblical narrative.
 The Jewish mystical tradition, esp. ‫ מרכבה‬speculation, impacted Halevi's ideas
 The Kuzari benefited greatly from an assortment of non-Jewish sources.
 He drew from the kalāmic sources used by Saadiah Gaon and Baḥya ibn Paquda,
considered Kalām useful only to the extent that one is searching for a rationalistic
defense of Jewish theology.

12
METHOD
 Halevi rejected the two regnant models of his day: Kalam and
Aristotelianism.
 He felt that both relied on theoretical constructs rather than hard, empirical truth.
o Kalam arrived at the correct conclusions, but it was useful mainly for
apologetics. Got no soul, boy!
o Aristotelianism, in contrast, taught many incorrect doctrines, since
Aristotle lacked reliable tradition when he set out to understand the
world by use of his syllogistic reasoning (qiyâs) alone.
o And it is deficient compared with immediate, unmediated experience
(dhawq, literally "taste") of God through prophecy (Kuzari 4:15–17).

 The Jewish tradition provided true knowledge based on the experience of the
Jewish people. The reliability of the tradition is guaranteed by Aish HaTorah.
 With the veracity of Judaism established, he employed reason to explain its truths.
o Nothing in Scripture or tradition, he claimed, contradicted reason.
o Thus, one may look for ‫( טעמי המצות ודעות‬though acceptance of fiat is ↑):
 Israel is perfect for prophecy because of its climate, the center of
the world.
 Adam genetically bequeathed prophetic capacity.
 Halevi accepted Saadiah's distinction between rational and revelational
commandments (RC), but contra Saadiah, he stressed the value of the RCs as
distinguishing Judaism from other religions. Historical Empiricism again!

 Philosopher: Neoplatonic Aristotelian. (and Bahya ibn Paquda!)

o The philosopher presented a theory of a wholly impersonal God who does
not care which actions humans choose.
o Impressive arguments, refuted experientially by the Khazar.
o The philosopher accepts all monotheists as truth-seekers – philosophy is
just the truth, which true seeker of able minds will eventually reach.
o Halevi thus indicts passion, and devotion to God as the sole determinant
of right and wrong. All these God-seekers are murderers!
o Moreover, this philosopher provides ammunition for Fundamentalists!
o IOW, the philosopher’s account does not suffice to explain experience – it
is condemned on grounds of unacceptable (a) elitism, and (b) apathy.
o Knowledge/spirituality alone (Plato/Socrates!) does not lead to action!
It cannot make decisions within the realm of history. Which religion, eh?
o If philosophy is the cure for bloodshed, but only 1% of the world can be
philosophers, then what good is it? The practical shortcoming betrays
its untruth. [Obedience, not zeal, is God’s desire]
o What manner of throne is it, if God reigns but does not rule?
 Christian. (and Saadiah!) [rejected as illogical]
o You, OTOH, are illogical, and a little philosophy wouldn’t hurt you.
o Only cognitive dissonance or sensory experience could override illogic.

13
 o Firsthand experience can win existential commitment, and then faith.
o But logic alone cannot guide your choice – it is synthetic, that is, it works
in the presence of a commitment! (bias of poseqim, anybody?)
 Muslim: [rejected as unsubstantiated]
o Appeals to no miracle…save that of the Qur’an, which is obvious, right?
 Since both the Muslim and Christian appeal to their Jewish roots, the Khazar must
summon a Jew after all:
o Halevi will make an argument unabashedly historical and
particularistic, not cosmological or universal.
 Rabbi.
o God of Abraham (history), not Creation (cosmology).
o Only Israel has a true and continuous tradition.
o Judaism was Judaism from t0 unlike Christianity or Islam, which claim
hundreds of years of ecclesiastical(?) evolution were necessary.
o Prophecy is God’s special gift to Israel – i.e., it is not the specious reward
of a sensuous afterlife, or even a spiritual afterlife, which no one really
wants, but the abiding presence of the divine with them in this life.
o Righteous, OTOH, is the duty of all peoples, rewarded by God fairly.
 The Khazar
o After deciding that Judaism was correct experientially, learning much
Torah, winning over countrymen, did he then [convert and] ask the Rabbi
about speculative theology: ‫דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה‬.
o Theology needs the guidance of culture, tradition, and commitment—the
existential commitment is prior to the speculative. (like GRA, not
‫)חב"ד‬.
 ‫רמב"ם‬: the moral perfections are prerequisite to the intellectual.
 Godtalk:6
o Negative attributes (e.g., “the living God” = “the not dead/false god.”)
o Relative attributes (e.g., “blessed” in human terms, relative to other things)
o Creative attributes (e.g., natural agency “makes poor or rich”). ‫הוה‬-‫י‬.
 God’s will is the motive force behind all natural and superNatural events.
o ‫ אוויר דישראל מחכים‬is taken literally, by some supernatural force.
 Exile is not about ‫קרבנות‬, but loss of intimacy with God.
o ‫ קרבנות‬are the pomp and ceremony, the dignity, by which the nation orbits
a center or locus–it’s functional, serving to prepare them for God’s word.
 “Platonists like al-Fārābī make the PHI the natural recipient of prophecy—since
philosophers have the mind and the access to the active intellect that will convey
the conceptual content of revelation. They need only the gift of imagination to
clothe the relevant concepts in the concretely apprehensible garb of poetry, ritual,
and institutions.” Ditto Halevi – the pious of Israel.
o Same apology that Plato has for the PHIs: Israel is the heart of the nations;
at once the most vital, and the most vulnerable to corruption.
 “The divine law cannot be fulfilled unless the civil & rational laws are perfected.”
6
Seems to agree with Negative, Relative, and Attributes of Action.

14
 o PROTO-ZIONISM. It’s not a call for a metaphoric Redemption, nor a
spiritual Eden in Israel. It’s a call for a reconstituted self-government
by Jews, in Israel, under its laws – political, moral, ethical, economic,
military, intellectual, etc. A reaction to political suffering by a statesman.
o Need sciences (which are authentically Jewish genius) and language.
o Human goodness is political! ‫ ִמּלֹוֵכד ִעיר‬,‫של ְּברּוחֹו‬
ֵׁ ‫ ִמִּגּבֹור; ּומֹו‬,‫טֹוב ֶאֶרְך ַאַּפִים‬.
o The Good Man refreshes his soul with Bible[’s] stories!
 Civilly, socially, and politically, human rationality regulates the good man’s life.
But God adds further requirements, rendering specific [‘en-specifying’] the
generic obligations of reason.
 Karaitic rejection of Tradition leads to factionalism (look at all those Protestants).
It is proven false by political induction (Ex. 12:49 ‫)!משפט אחד יהיה לכם‬.
 ‫הוה‬-‫ י‬is also defined experientially – that is, historically.

Halevi’s metaphysics
 God acts directly – no emanation! (anti-NP).
o Anti-EM b/c Emanation denies God’s freedom, personal involvement.
 Reductio ad absurdum: EM does not solve the problem, but begs the question!
o Emanation is diversity, violating the oneness of The One!
o Why did EM cease at 10 or whatever spheres?
o Why is this or that EM “the intellect” or whatnot? Arbitrary conjecture!
o Note: He is rejecting EM, not PHIs or PHI. But true PHI proof should not
seem ridiculous to outsiders (as does the Rabbi with the Khazar). Thus,
Halevi is not a support for modern anti-PHI crusades.
 Halevi does have a sort of EM, like ibn Gabirol – volitional emanation. (VEM)
o Direct governance and VEM have precedent in Saadiah’s “created glory”.
o Immanence!: Halevi’s Divine Will, vs. the NP’s Archetypal Logos:
 Maimonides’ theory of angels as forms and forces.
 Kabbalah a la Nachmanides.
 Spinoza’s idea of the conatus.
 Bergson’s élan vital.
 Whitehead’s conception of creativity. Et al….
 God acts in the world as the soul acts in the body: unseen, but experienced.
 Halevi says the proof of “soul” is the animation of living things. Now that
Biology is a modern science, does that push back the boundaries of the soul? Is
the soul defined by its mystery? Or is biology now divine?? IOW, does biology
argue against the ‘substantial soul theory’?
 Problems:
o Why does Halevi switch from passionate ex nihilo to formatio mundi?
o Why accept the independent, substantial soul, when ‫ חז"ל‬locate the moral
personality only in the conjoint soul + body?
o Why accept the immutability of species when that implies Eternity?
o Why accept Plato’s anti-matter theme, when Halevi is all about
localizing ‫ קדושה‬and ‫ שכינה‬in ‫עולם הזה‬, and through material Israel??

15
  Immediate experience shows that we have free will. So does God.

HALEVI’S JEWISH EMPIRICISM:

1. National testimony to the truth of the Bible.
2. Jewish survival against the odds as testimony.
3. Kalām is good for apologetics, but not as a basis of faith, which needs tradition.
4. Aristotelianism gets stuff wrong because they do not have tradition, just reason.
5. Bloody warfare disproves Christianity and Islam.
6. Prophecy leads to traditions is the basis for religions.
7. Karaite legal/halakhic anarchy disproves their anti-Traditional approach.

Samuelson, Norbert Max (1997). “Medieval Jewish Aristotelianism: an introduction.” in

History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London:
Routledge. 228-244.

Medieval Aristotelianism (Arst)

 Three major branches of GreekMedieval thought:
o Atomism  kalām [8th-12th century Islam]. “The old science.” [East]
o Platonism (PLT)  Neoplatonism.
 Platonists is not just the works of Plato, as if he wrote with Grace.
 Rather, they’re independent truth-seekers that are ‫לומדים מכל אדם‬.
o Aristotelianism: “The new science.” [West], ty to 9th ct. trans. to Arabic.
 He’s also not infallible gospel to his “-ians”.
 + Arst. is empirical, does not posit an invisible world of forms or atoms.
 - Arst. cannot be as technically precise as PLT or ATM’s math.
 - Arst. clashes with revealed religions! Oiy. (Creation, Miracles)

Medieval Jewish Aristotelianism (MJA or J-Arst): 2 periods

 Early Muslim period from Rabad (d. 1180) to Maimonides (d. 1204).
 S. Spain, Provence, Italy incl. Gersonides (d.1344) and Crescas (d.1411).

 For MJAs, there is no “religious truth” and “scientific truth.” There is just truth.
o Unlike Kalām, who use Reason to support religious Tradition.
 No account of Torah that does not include science is not “Torah true.”

J-Arst is the most important development in MJPH, absorbing all older systems of
thought, midrash, commentary, and develops what are until this day the most
comprehensive, sophisticated, and authoritative statements of traditional J belief.
Wow. J-Arst is the ‘Talmud’ of Jewish belief.

Abraham ibn Daud (Rabad I): Exalted Faith

 No J-Arst is as comprehensive as Rabad, though he is a rough pioneer.
 First published reconciliation of J with Arst. B4, they all compartmentalized.
 6 Principles (condensed):

16
 o God exists, and is necessarily One. Apophatic theology (all literal, positive
statements are relational, i.e., God through the mediation of angels).
o The Torah is the word of God to Moses, epistemologically
unimpeachable, and rabbinic tradition reliably bears its interpretation
authentically (‫ מחלוקת‬stems from erosion).
o Everything is determined by God through his ordering of the universe, but
this ordering allows for free will and morally responsibility, ‫שכר ועונש‬.
Rabad on Determinism and Choice
 Both extreme determinism and extreme choice are rejected.
o Determinism makes moral accountability problematic, and yet, the Torah
holds us accountable for our actions.
 Note the textual/religious argument, not a PHI or logical one.
o But if humans have free will, then Arst. says that foreknowledge is
impossible; but how could God be imperfect in his foreknowledge? And if
so, why follow His commands?
 Maybe ‫אין הכי נמי‬: Pharaoh was just so manipulated and punished.
 OTOH, what about ‫ובחרת בחיים‬, etc.? We make choices!
 To solve the problems, Rabad parallels the theologian to the scientist:
o raw_ data empirical_ observation  int
erpretatio
 n → physical− knowledge
raw _ data
o Torah int
erpretatio
 n → religious − knowledge
 Of course, the theologian must cohere with science too.
o Where literal readings make Scripture false, interpret non-literally.
 Not for science’s sake, but b/c we know Torah is true!
 Why doesn’t God just say what he means, instead of using all this non-literal
language?
o Because ‫דברה תורה כלשון בנ"א‬, the Torah is a multi-layered document
available to all regardless of their INT. ↑INT↑ people will see thru it.

Kreisel, Howard Theodore (1997). “Moses Maimonides.” in History of Jewish

Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 245-280.

 1135 is the consensus, but Goitein makes a strong case for 1138.
 Politics, in its ideal manifestation, is the rule by one who has attained INT
perfection, and whose aim is to mold a well-ordered society devoted to the
pursuit of perfection. It represents the highest human vocation.
 Well-being of the body (a Torah-goal) is attained through social harmony (laws).
 Society is also necessary for well-being of the soul. Thus, Man cannot live alone.
 Moses is M’s Platonic philosopher-king, whom al-Fārābī transformed into the
supreme prophet-legislator. Acc. to M, however, Moses is the only one like this,
ever.
o Thus, tradition is preserved, while adaptation exists to respond to changes.
 ‫ חז"ל‬and the prophets are philosopher-rulers, al-Fārābī’s “princes” of the law.
They do not make new laws, but are masters of the existing law, enough to adapt
the law to their own times.

17
 In MT, ‫הל' יסודי התורה‬, M treats theoretical knowledge of God as the ultimate
halakhic obligation!
 M depicts God as Aristotle’s first cause and self-intellecting intellect, devoid of
all corporeal traits, or any positive attribute in addition to God’s essence.

 M wants to contribute towards creating that perfect society. The MT attempts

to guide the masses towards that end through legal obligations (Moses). The GP
attempts the same, but through rational discourse (Abraham).
 The Guide of the Perplexed:
o Part I: the majority discusses Biblical terms implying corporeality.
o Also God’s attributes, names, essence, epistemology, and kalām.
o Part II: Aristotle’s proofs for God’s existence, unity, and incorporeality.
o God’s governance of the world, “angels”, creation, prophecy, theodicy,
‫מעשה מרכבה‬, the ‫טעמי המצות‬, and human perfection.
 If the PHIs got stuff wrong, it’s because they jumped to conclusions without
demonstrative proofs (i.e., bad PHI). Contra Judah Halevi, where the PHIs
got stuff wrong because they were not privy to authentic [Jewish] tradition.
 Two general approaches mark both medieval and modern GP interpreters:
1. M is an Aristotelian in Jewish garb (Moses Narboni, Leo Strauss):
 God is impersonal, necessary, etc., did not dictate the Torah.
 No miracles. World is eternal.
 ‫ מצות‬have nothing to do with ‘felicity.’
 At most, the afterlife = conjunction with the Agent Intellect.
2. M is not an Arst., but a modified, J-Arst. (‫)רוב ראשונים ואחרונים‬:
 God is severely limited outside the natural order, but does Will.
 World was created ex nihilo, and thus knowledge of particulars,
interaction with humans, and miracles are possible.

 Maimonides on God: [spot the contradictions]

1. Apophatic theology (it’s a Neoplatonic idea!).
2. Nevertheless, God is the final, formal, and efficient cause of the world.
3. God is related to the world as the intellect to the human organism.
 Er, except that God is completely separate from the world!
4. Only God’s existence is an essential attribute; all other existents
existence is an attribute superadded to their composition (it’s an
Avicennan idea!).
 This seems to contradict – all terms regarding God are equivocal, yet here M is,
describing God! Either (a) there is some esoteric idea here, or (b) he’s doing his
best to reconcile the independently valid conceptions he has collected.
Exoteric: How to prove God’s existence?
 Islamic theologians prove God from creation. But they haven’t proved creation!
 PHIs prove God from the eternity of the world. But they haven’t proved eternity!
 M puts them together: it’s either created or eternal, either way God is proved.
o Holds of the conclusions common to both PHIs and THLs.

18
Divine Governance: [spot the contradictions]
 How God runs the world is on M’s list of esoteric topics; yet he explicitly agrees
with Aristotle! Hmmm…
 Aristotelian explanation for the nature of the spheres, and the reason for their
fixed, uninterrupted circular motion.
 Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation as developed by al-Fārābī.
o God emanates intellects in linear order, and each INT has a sphere.
o Each sphere moves out of love of its antecedent, which it imitates.
o Each separate INT serves as the immediate efficient cause of its sphere,
and immediate final cause of its motion.
o The last INT is called the “Active Intellect,” and it is the cause of all the
“forms,” including human intellect.
o Activity in the supralunar world has no change. Activity and change in the
sub-lunar world is enabled by the motion of the supralunar spheres.

H ow can God be both the Aristotelian Prime Mover, and an al-Fārābī-an unity
distinct from the emanated spheres? If God causes the motion (motion is not
emanated), then He has a relation with his Creation!
 How can Maimonides both hold of EM, then criticize EM with his next breath?
 God’s power and wisdom are expressed precisely by the natural order He created.
 Incorrect views “follow the imagination, which is also in true reality the evil
impulse (‫)?יצר הרע‬. For every deficiency of reason or character is due to the action of
the imagination or consequent upon its action” (2.12: 280). Wow.

Creation or Eternity?
 No mention of creation in MT (‫ יסודי התורה‬or ‫)תשובה‬, nor in CM:‫פרק חלק‬. Only
later does he revise the list of ‫עקרי אמונה‬.
 In GP, when M says that belief in creation is necessary, does he mean Necessary-
and-true, or [Politically]-Necessary-yet-false?
1. World was created, including the accident of motion, and thus, time.
2. World was created formatio mundi, and will pass into matter.
3. Eternity of the world.
 The PHIs have disproved the Epicurean position: (the world exists by chance).
 #1 and #2 are alike in positing something eternally co-existing with God.
o Dismisses Arst-proofs from Nature by arguing that Nature, too, is a
creation, and so inferences as to its eternity are illogical.
 Hmm; that means God created the world with dinosaur bones
here, meant to fool us? Is this a ‫ חרדי‬position?
o Dismisses Arst-proofs from God’s quiddity since only corporeal beings
move from potentiality to actuality when they act. God can act without
changing, since He is incorporeal.
o Also, God’s eternal wisdom is beyond human limits, so we cannot use it
as a basis for the eternity of the world either.
o He concludes that Aristotle’s proofs are not demonstrative, but he does
not claim to prove Creation either.

19
 o He offers a dialectical proof for creation, a philosophically rigorous
version of the kalām argument from particularization: The universe is
ordered, not random, thus only creation and a creator explain its current
state. (Sounds like argument by design to me).
 This is also a big question in modern cosmology: assuming a Big
Bang, why would there be concentrations of matter sufficient to
coalesce into stars, etc.?
 Briefly: M holds of Aristotle 100%-sublunar, but disagrees supra-lunar.
 “Eternal Creation” (‫ )מחדש טובו בכל יום תמיד‬is semantic gymnastics that still is
Aristotle’s point of view.
o Did he really hold of Plato (since he explicitly mitigates this view later
on, attributing it to R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus)?
o Did he really hold of Arst.? His disproof of Arist. is weak: since M holds
that God and his essence and existence are one, and both are
unchangeable, then how could God will after not willing, if not through
some change in essence? [I think that can be easily answered, btw.]
Prophecy
1. Aristotle: a physical fact, attained through human perfection of the mind, etc.
2. Traditionalists and idiots: bestowed by God’s graceful choice.
3. Like #1, but God has the ability to withhold prophecy, should He so choose.
 Moses and Sinai are different, however – he is not a prophet, but a “prophet.”
 Two possible naturalistic types of prophecy, from al-Fārābī:
o Human INT “conjuncts” with the Active INT, which permanently changes
the human’s INT, providing metaphysical knowledge beyond
discursive reasoning. (M: Moses only)
o An emanation directly onto the imaginative faculty, resulting in a
figurative presentation of theoretical knowledge, or knowledge of the
future. (M: All other prophets) [Dreams or waking Visions]
 Before prophecy, there is ‫( רוח הקודש‬inspiration to noble deeds or ↑↑speech).
 Prophecies are all IMG in your head – the senses are not involved at all.
 Three (3) types of knowledge that flow from Active Intellect  Prophet:
o Metaphysics
o Governance
o Divination
 Moses’ status and esoteric hints
o M says that Moses prophesied w/o angelic mediation. Since “angel” =
EM, this either means that Moses was a charlatan (unlikely) or that Moses
received EM direct from God (which means Moses = angel!).
 Kalman Bland says M’s Moses is indeed ½-angel.
o Does EM here mean that God dictated content, or that God remotely
caused Moses’ perfection…and that the Torah is “divine” by dint of its
laws’ perfection?
 Perfect Law = social and intellectual well-being.
 Also, ‫?למאי נ"מ‬
 If so, the Law is not miraculous, and he was an über-esotericist.

20
 Distinguishes between “public” and “private” prophecy.
o Publicity (i.e., leadership) is integral to perfection.
o Thus, Moses’ perfection includes transmitting God’s Law = Perfect
Governance to human beings.
 CLUE: Though M says God can withhold prophecy, he doesn’t provide any
watertight examples of worthies who nevertheless didn’t prophesy.
o M concludes the section: God is the remote efficient cause, not proximate

PROBLEM OF EVIL AND DIVINE PROVIDENCE

1. God is not the agent of evil
2. Readers! Let’s define “good” and “evil”!
 Matter gets corrupted, and evil is its consequence. Form is perfect, and good is its
consequence.
o The INT is granted the power to subjugate matter.
 Natural evils are rare, compared to the evils men do to each other (for ‫)!גוף‬.
 Various evils are really privations (e.g., blindness, ignorance, death [= ~form]).
o God produces being, but evil has no being.
 Nu?! Isn’t that just semantics and formalism?
o Sublunar matter is essentially good, even if its nature allows for privations
and/or evil. Plenitude: the more Creation, the more Perfect and Good it is.
 Humans are not ‘better’ than angels, since we’re ½-matter…
o …that being said, M still treats humans as exceptional.
 PHIs deny Providence b/c of apparent injustice (and ignorance of particulars).
o Thus, lists 5 views on Providence:
 Epicurus: No Providence whatsoever.
 Aristotle: Celestials have ‫השגחה פרטית‬, sublunars have ‫השגחה‬
‫כללית‬, but all individuals experience the same “‫השגחה‬.”
 M: he was driven to this by empirical considerations.
 Ash’ariyya: Yes, all individuals have the same ‫ – השגחה‬but it’s
über-determinism-‫!השגחה‬
 Muta’zilites: Like #3, but people still have some Free Will; if sh*t
happens, you deserved it! Infants and the rare innocent will get
compensated in ‫עולם הבא‬.
o #5-The Torah: God does not increase suffering so as to reward people
(contra some ‫חז"ל‬, and #4), nor does he reward animals.
 Like #2, except for humans: b/c they have Intellect, they can
receive overflow and Providence like Celestials, to the extent that
they have perfected the INT.
 God’s Knowledge/Providence:
o If God isn’t like the PHI God, and He knows particulars (which change!)
or even cease to exist (impossible as an object of knowledge!), then how
can God know of these without ‘changing’ Himself??
o A: God’s “knowledge” and “wisdom” are wholly different from ours.
Only the word is the same.

21
 o God can know particulars without changing. Poof! [contra Ralbag]
o His knowledge of everything does not derive from objects, but from God’s
essence. This does not change.
 …Exegesis of M on Job touches these matters:
o Is God the personal one of history, or the impersonal one + a little ‫?השגחה‬
o Apparently the former, but, once again, many esoteric hints.
o The 5 positions in Job do not match up to the 5 outlined above:
Epicurus is gone, and Elihu outlines the Latter position (M’s own).
 Job is moral, but not wise – only wisdom gets Providence!
 Only his corporeal being suffered, not his form/Job himself!
o I.e., the smarter you are, the better you are at flowing through this
world anticipating the corporeal evils and avoiding them.

‫טעמי המצות‬
 ‫ מצות‬all have a rationale, even if we cannot fathom them.
 ‫ מצות‬do nothing for God, they are all for our benefit.
o M adopts Arst’s view, the Man is a social animal, and needs society in
order to survive/thrive.
 Idolatry is the main obstacle to obtaining true knowledge of God.
o If a ‫ מצוה‬seems obscure, it’s because the Torah succeeded in erasing it!

Human Perfection
 The Parable of the King.
o Even Rabbis don’t enter the palace.
o Know physics (the antechamber), and metaphysics (the inner chamber).
o Super application to perfection  privy to the king’s councils.
 Recommends isolation, disparages touch, and the closer to perfection you are,
the more you must/may deviate from the Golden Mean.
 Cultivate a “separate intellect” that constantly contemplates God, even as you
go about your daily activities. The ‫ מצות‬train you to do this.
 Can induce, through perfection, intellectual-ecstatic death, which preserves the
soul (‫)חשק‬, this is God’s “kiss”.
o Ethical perfection is thus a means to INT ‫שלימות‬, not an end.
o Once perfection is attained, be perfectly ethical and loving-kindness, etc.
o Er, did M just flip-flop? Is ethics the means or the ends or what??
o A1: post-perfection ethics is the end!
o A2: “public” is part of perfection; helping others is perfection.

Broadie, Alexander (1997). “Maimonides and Aquinas.” in History of Jewish

Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 281-93.
EXCURSUS: Maimonides and Aquinas
 They are the equivalents within their respective faith communities.
o Both faced bitter opposition within those communities.
 There are many similarities between the two. Let’s focus on that now:

22
 o Both agree that terms predicated of God are sometimes metaphorical.
o Aquinas rejects M’s via negativa, in favor of ‘via analogical’. Er, right.
 We understand God imperfectly, but truly to at least that extent.
 In M’s agenda, there is not only philosophy, but pastoral care involved (I.26).
o Only for that reason to we call God “alive” instead of “dead”, because in
truth, all attributes are negative.
 Both describe the Oneness of God in very similar terms.
o I.e., all perfections are him, rather than predicated of him (i.e., he is
goodness, wisdom, etc., not that he has these qualities).
 For both, ex nihilo = its existence depends upon God’s will (i.e., nothing).
o Thus, it can be both (a) Eternal, and (b) ex nihilo.
 M: God cannot be the creator and not know his world, though his knowledge is
surely different from ours.
 DREAM of The Endless’s library of books-never-written is pas nischt
according to M, but fair game according to Aquinas.
 Contingent nature of events = knowledge is not the cause of the event (God
merely ‘observes’ it, so the change brought about by time is unrelated to Him).

Saperstein, Marc (1997). “The social and cultural context: thirteenth to fifteenth
centuries.” in History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman.
London: Routledge. 294-330.
 The Great Man history, perhaps defensible by the elitists of the 9th-12th centuries,
does not fit at all with the popularizing of PHI and JPH in the 13th-15th ct.
Economic bases
 Christian PHIs were supported monks, but JPHs had families, and needed to
work, or support themselves with their JPH.
 Christians had the works available. Jews had no access, and needed private
libraries.
o Translation, acquisition, etc. were needed early on.
o Desire for “new learning” by reputation alone led to furious copying.
 We don’t know who subsidized this enormous effort – many inspired individuals?
 10 PHI works in a month! (Immanuel’s Machberot) [Did he dodge a fee?]
 Ralbag and Kimchi, as well as other pashut Jewish intellectuals were ‫תורה ומדע‬:
o “These libraries belie any facile generalization that a commitment to PHI
study in the 14th and 15th cts. Indicated a weakening attachment to J-Trad.”
 Teachers were also needed with the books: Christians were cheaper.
 Pulpit PHI was the cheapest: “by the 15th ct., there is abundant evidence of PHI
material as an integral part of the sermons delivered in Spain.”
o This changed both content and form of Jewish homiletics [logic, etc.]
Institutional Structures
 Christians had universities and standards, with social rewards. Not Jews!
 In the J-community, there is little evidence of institutions. PHI knowledge seems
to have been transmitted via private instruction.
 The Rashba’s ban (and others) make(s) no mention of formal schools.

23
  There is one tantalizing attestation to a yeshiva that taught PHI in Spain, but…
o Also, HA Wolfson thought that classroom lectures had a big role, but…
Social Status
 Do the available data substantiate the thesis that PHI was mainly upper class?
o “In order to understand the social dimensions of JPH, it is necessary to
include the less original figures, the translators, popularizers, and
purveyors of PHI, alongside the intellectual giants.”
 Counter-examples:
o Ralbag had court-access, but was a middle-class money lender, and whose
Jewish commitments are beyond reproach.
o Ibn Tibbon family was similarly middle-class merchants.
o Jacob Anatoli, a preacher with a base of supporters, but was stifled –
certainly not powerful.

o Abravanel was a courtier, and rich, who was anti-PHI.

o Chasdai Crescas was also one of the most influential Jews with court
access to Aragon, the great anti-Aristotelian critic.
 Don’t trust the polemicists:
o They take things out of context. Rhetoric could easily support tradition…
o Extreme PHIs are always an anonymous, shadowy Other. Straw Men!
o PHI gets blamed for laxness/apostasy – what about gentile oppression?!
o PHI can rationalize faithfulness just as well as abandonment.PHI’s neutral.
 Bottom Line: little evidence that extreme PHI (rationalism) hurt Jewish loyalties,
of the upper or other classes. More evidence points to moderate PHI buttressing
Jewish life. Arguably, by giving it respectability in the eyes of both Jews and
gentiles, it pushed off the eventual Fall.

Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit (1997). “The Maimonidean controversy.” in History of Jewish

Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 331-349.
 Ironically, many precise details of the MC are unknown, and many of the early
anti-Ms lacked direct knowledge of M’s actual works (and pro-M’s too!).
o What were the two sides arguing about then, if not the actual content of
M’s works? Hmmm…
History
 30 years post-M, sometime bet. 1232-35, M’s works were banned and burned.
o Radak says it was in Montpellier, Hillel of Verona says Paris (unreliable).
 Meir Abulafia of Toledo and Rabad of Posquières accused M of denying ‫תחיית‬
1190 .‫המתים‬s, tried to ban MT:1, did not succeed (the GP hadn’t gotten there yet).
 Rashba (of Montpellier) and his two students, David b. Saul and Yonah
Gerondi, sought to ban MT:1 and GP for M’s honor – they deferred to his auth.!
o This ‘½-banning’ only raised its status. RY actually got a pro-M counter-
ban from Provence.
 “Of the burning itself, little is known except that it occurred.”
 Rashba gets the indirect blame for the burning, which also pioneered Talmud
burning also.

24
 Nachmanides tried to arrange a compromise in the study and teaching of the GP
and MT:1, but even so, the controversy continued for centuries.
 3 different issues/conflicts: internal Jewish authority, relationship to the Christian
powers, and the relationship of Torah and logos.
 Stage 1:
 M accuses his interlocutors of:
o Inability to distinguish between Appearance and Reality
o Imagination and understanding
o Compelled Action vs. Free Action
o of Reducing the true human good to a corporeal one.
o [Idolatry?!]
 M is accused of:
o Usurping all halakhic auth. for himself.
o Elitism  ‫פורש מן הציבור‬.
 A few cases are of power-grabbing, or turf-warring, but for the most part, it’s
apparent that the anti-Ms are sincere, if sometimes ill-informed/incompetent.
o I.e., true understanding of M’s views would’ve satisfied the accusers.
 Resurrection:
o M distinguishes between “the messianic age,” “The End of Days,” and
“The world to come.”
o …and between natural and rational possibility.
o It cannot be rationally inferred, nor has it happened in the past (we have
no traditions or testimonies to this effect), so we cannot infer it from
nature/experience.
 Thus, acceptance or denial of this phrase is really an litmus test of
‫אמונת חכמים‬. Cognizing this is not possible. “I believe in ‫תחית‬
‫המתים‬.” = “I trust rabbis/‫& חז"ל‬/or prophetic utterances.”
 W/o external verification (past events, or something coming to
pass), we must rely on the cognitive and moral status of the
speaker.
 In a word, “unknowable” != “unbelievable.”
 M: Naturally possible miracles [arouse wonder] include:
o Normal things that are prophetically predicted.
o Normal things that are uncharacteristically major (Locusts!!).
o Normal things that are uncharacteristically persistent (blessings).
 M: Naturally impossible ones [are unknowable] can’t endure or be discussed.
o Thus, they can only be believed and affirmed.
 Ironically, man’s natural perfection – the intellectual – was manifest in the
Mosaic prophecy, and on that basis we are bound to believe in ‫תחית המתים‬.
 Samuel ibn Tibbon (associated with the scholars of Lunel) contributed to the MC
with his translations and PHI-lexicons.
o Claims that most M-PHIs would balk upon learning M’s ‘true’ thought.
o [Contra M’s ‫ ]פשט‬SiT denies any “trickle-down” effect of the elite’s
knowledge of the JPH-truth. The masses would despise it, he says.

25
  Rashba explicitly targets SiB in the ban. Why?
o SiB does not believe in the vulgar masses! He isn’t a popularizer!
o SiB does say that PHI is the key to felicity—this is what is ‘banned.’
 The point is that SiB is an example of a radical-PHI appropriation of M.
 Joseph ibn Kaspi is more radical than SiB:
o Criticizes Maimonides.
o Minimalist biblical interpretation – against homiletics, save for educating
the vulgar.
o Despised the vulgar, is an über-elitist.
o SiB read the Bible allegorically, fine—JiK says it’s merely history of
nation(!), completely particular (that’s not a good thing).
 Feels no need to make ‫ שלמה‬,‫משה‬, or ‫ חז"ל‬into PHI giants, or to
defend or extract PHI from whatever they say.
 Rejects/denies M’s defense of [naturally impossible] miracles!
 Miracles for the ignorant is science to the enlightened. (sci-fi?!)

Manekin, Charles H. (1997). “Hebrew philosophy in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries: an overview.” in History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and
Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 350-378.
 “Philosophical Judaism” is explaining existing Judaism in a foreign philosophical
key or idiom. Natural “Hebrew philosophy” only arose in the 13th-15th cts.
Because of a sustained indigenous culture of PHI amongst Jews.
 The preferred mode of PHI was the commentary.
 European JPHs gradually become aware of Christian PHIs thru LatinHeb. trans.
 Arabic-Hebrew PHI tradition (Jewish Averroist read of Aristotle) OTOH:
o Moses Narboni
o Joseph ibn Kaspi
o Isaac Pollegar (who is he?)
 Spanish JPH tradition on the other (conservative; battling Christian crisis):
o Crescas
o Isaac Arama
o J. Albo
o I. Abravanel
 Italian JPHs defy categorization, mixing all sorts of stuff. They even have
“orthodox Averroists,” who hold of his readings, but not his radical doctrines.

‫ – אמונה‬Belief or Faith?
 Biblical & Rabbinic: “trust,” “reliance,” “acceptance.”
 12th ct. Hebrew trans.: philosophical Arabic cognitive “conviction” or “belief.”
o Recall above, Saadiah’s ‫ אמונות‬were inferior, un-PHI opinions.
 Late 14th ct., under Scholastic influence: “faith.” (fides, as opposed to (?)logos).

 M: “the notion conceived in the soul when it has been affirmed of it…”
o mental conception of x + affirmation of the correspondence to reality of x.

26
 o ‫ = אמונות‬truth-bearers; can be true or false, dubious or certain, rational or
traditional. [Certain belief only comes from rational demonstration.]
o Thus, non-PHIs may possess true, yet uncertain beliefs about God.
o This suffices (barely) for immortality.
 In Provence, under Averroes influence, M’s idea was tossed in favor of
Aristotle’s distinction between “knowledge” and “true opinion.”
o IOW, M’s “uncertain knowledge” was downgraded to “opinion.”
o Uh-oh! Now all the masses have mere opinions; no immortality!
o Uh-oh! Now all prophecies [non-rationally-demonstrated], ergo, opinions!
 Three responses to this linguistic development, and the treatment of Faith:
1. Non-volitional, less than rational knowledge.
2. Non-volitional, greater than rational knowledge.
3. Volitional, of immense religious significance.
 Non-Volitional (NV) Emunah:
o classic Crescas versus Maimonides [commanded to believe]
 One cannot “will to believe” two contradictory positions.
 With compelling evidence, “will to believe” is supercilious.
 In an underdetermined case, “will” adds no truth value anyway.
o Crescas still sees some beliefs as obligatory, since he’s still a cognitive-
Emunah guy. The obligation is instruction in the dogmas.
 True belief is not its own reward. Erg!
 Forced to argue that will has a place in one’s affect (joy and
pleasure) that one takes in his beliefs, and diligence in t-seeking.
Strange – objects to volitional cognition, so accepts volitional emotions.
 Non-Volitional Emunah #2: Emunah as Faith
o Emunah previously meant all beliefs, but now it means ‫ דוקא‬faith.
o E.g., Albo: “A firm belief, even if unable to prove.” [E.g., Sinai]
 This collapses M’s distinction between “true” and “certain”
beliefs. All emunot are ipso facto certain, and certainty can be
attained without rational proof!
o Simeon Duran: emunot are accepted via miracles or tradition, which
lodges them firmly in the soul.
o Abravanel: emunot, while true + certain, are distinct from knowledge or
opinion.
o Isaac Arama: Emunah is ‫ דוקא‬against Reason (sometimes)!7
 Abraham first knew God qua PHI, then ascended to the level of
Faith with the ‫( עקידה‬anticipates Kierkegaard?).
o In short: Arst/PHI is inadequate to understand Biblical ‫אמונה‬.
 Emunah as Volitional
o Bibago: either PHI proof, or faith – get there, don’t matter how.
 Faith is superior, because Moses is undebate-able, whereas PHIs
debate their doctrines endlessly.
 Saves time! (this and the next: like Saadiah and kalām)
7
Anticipating Søren Kierkegaard?

27
  Accessible to the vulgar. (ironic – that’s exactly why…!)
 Even better: PHI can only teach you “seen things,” but only faith
can teach you “unseen things,” i.e., metaphysics. Wow!
 Mnemonic: Bibago is the Bizzaro-Maimonides.
o Faith rocks because it is volitional! PHI evidence compels assent, but
faith is pure human willpower.

Divine Attributes
 M’s limitations are usually linguistic (human language cannot be predicated of
God without destroying his Unity and Uniqueness), but sometimes imply
epistemological limitations (it is beyond speaking and even knowing).
o This was first pointed out by Ralbag. (kalām also blamed language)
o E.g., how can we via negative things like “God is not corporeal,” when we
don’t know what the equivocal God-version of 'corporeal' is that we deny?
o Ralbag did not seriously consider that M felt human knowledge was
limited (like Pines and Altmann and Fox!) – he just felt M goofed in
trying to reconcile Aristotle’s PHI and the Bible’s claims.
o Ralbag has a solution that I didn’t understand, but hopefully will be
covered in the next section.
 Crescas:
o Via negative gets you ever closer to NOWHERE, buddy.
o Denying an imperfection implies you know the corresponding perfection.
o {no longer a logical issue in the 15th ct., but epistemological}
o M denies relations bet. creatures-God, but maintains God is the cause!
 Crescas ignores that M is speaking logic, not epistemology.
o Distinguishes between essence and essential attributes.
 The attributes, as objects, are thus not God’s essence, but they are
essential, and also positively predicated. (e.g.,existing, knowing…)
 Got canned by ‫ אברהם שלום‬and Isaac Abravanel for incoherence.
o Crescas was getting at a theory that admits of theology—the bible gives
us certain knowledge of God, right? So it must be possible!
[epistemologically]
 Albo (and others) will come to improve M, allowing via negativa to grant
positive knowledge of God, in a limited, logically permissible way…sorta.

Creation versus Eternity

 M recourses to empirical anomalies to prove God from creation. (retrogrades)
o M’s ex nihilo influenced Albo, Arama, Abravanel, et al.
o …but not Albalag or Narboni (Averroists– ‫ מחדש בכל יום‬as First Cause).
 Gersonides’ major argument for the creation of the world is teleological:
o Everything in this world patently has a purpose, thus a Creator.
 Gersonides dislikes M’s ex nihilo and Plato’s ex chaotica – he has a middle
course, of God imprinting two forms on pre-existent matter, and Nature follows.
o Knocks out Aristotle more or less like M did.

28
 Crescas holds of ‫ מחדש בטובו בכל יום‬via volitional EM – that is, intellect=will,
thus God is always lovingly thinking the world into existence.

Choice, Will, and Moral Responsibility

 Until the 14th ct., JPHs were uninterested/unaware of this un-Arist. question:
o It presupposes a faculty of “will” distinct from the “intellect.”
o It implies that human action under “free will” has no cause (weird).
o ‫“( בחירה‬choice”) and ‫“( אפשר‬contingency”) are used, not ‫“( רצון‬will”) or
‫“( חפשי‬free”).
 E.g., M insists that our choices are contingent, but of course
caused. The threat, for him, is fate or predestination.
 IOW, the necessary condition for moral responsibility is real
choice and voluntary action, rather than freedom of will. HUGE!
 Abner of Burgos: Everything is predestined (our “will” is connected in a causal
chain back to the movement of the spheres), but our efforts are not in vain (they
are in fact part of the causal chain). [‫הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה‬, anyone?]
o [contra Aristotle: our actions are not predestined].
o ABB: Sounds a bit like Spinoza.
 Pollegar: only Prime Matter has eternal possibility. Lumps of wax are caused!
o Free choice is experienced, and there is no need to defend it.

Divine Omniscience and Contingency

 How can an Aristotelian God know particulars, and remain unchanged?
 M, recall, attacked the question: Divine “knowledge” is radically different!
 Albalag and Narboni: God doesn’t know particulars directly, but through his
Self-knowledge, the world exists, and he knows everything remotely. (Averroist).
 NOTE: Arst himself would disparage ‘knowledge’ of [changing, temporal]
particulars; a God that knows particulars is an inferior type of being. JPHs don’t...
 Gersonides: God knows particulars as instantiated universals.
o To “know” = understand how something ticks.
o To “know” != “being acquainted with” something via sensory data.
o Non-essential rules (e.g., losing a basketball game) seem problematic, but
since they are explicable (by any good astrologer), ‫ קו"ח‬by God, they are
known to Him.
 Summary: Albalag, Narboni, and Gersonides all denied that God knows
particulars qua particulars. Thus got panned by Crescas, Arama, Abravanel.
 Crescas’ defended causal determinism, (like Abner of Burgos), but humans are
necessarily ignorant of the causes that determine their actions [keep this a secret!].
o Abner, however, would say that coerced action nevertheless produces
voluntary actions (M on recalcitrant husbands, anyone?).
o Crescas is deontological (?) – the inner state of the sinner and saint
determines the quality of the voluntary action.
o So Crescas also got panned by Arama and Abravanel.

GERSONIDES (RALBAG) [1288-1344]

29
 Wrote Bible commentary, PHI, JPH, etc. except ‫הלכה‬. Wars of the Lord
 Well connected and respected Jewishly, politically, papally.
 Aristotle, Averroes, and M were his sole PHI primary sources!!
o Lived on Hebrew translations, and quotes a range of opinions 2nd-hand
through Averroes commentaries on Aristotle. Wow!
 Context: Two Problems:
o Anti-PHI/anti-M reaction setting-in at the end of 13th ct. (2nd stage)
o Averroes’ writings forced a JPH rethinking of PHI and M.
 Wars of the Lord (WL) is a defense/appreciation of M and Averroes.
 To G, Avr. = Arst.’s tradition, and M is the defender of the faith from PHI.
o IOW, G ironically positions M as Jewish kalām, and Avr. As falāsifa!!

Creation (merge with earlier discussion?)

 Almost 40% of WL deals with creation.
o Like M and others, saw Creation as the PHI-keystone to other dogmas…
o Felt Avr. And M’s handling of the issue to be incorrect:
 Avr = Arst. = Eternity is proven.
 Mexoteric = Nothing is proven, but we accept ex nihilo.
 G = Both wrong! Formatio mundi can be proven.
 Strategy:
1. Prove the Universe is created, Eternity is absurd.
2. Prove ex nihilo false, and that Plato (revised) is correct.
3. Argue against ‘Created Eternity’ (Endlessness?).
 Categories of Proofs:
1. Inference from teleological facts about the universe.
 Teleology: Arst. himself says the Heavens are teleological + no
“chance” exists in the supra-lunar realm. So they have a purpose,
and the agent of that purpose = God.
2. Inference from contingent facts about the world.
 M already noted Arst’s failed attempt to explain anomalies like
retrogrades, etc., but felt it to be inductive proof; G considers
these to be deductive proofs for Creation.
3. Counterproof - Eternity implies the infinite (absurd).
 Arst. holds that there are no infinites, except for time, motion, and
divisibility, which are all “equal.” G says that if Arst. is right about
infinity, then he’s wrong about eternity. Obsolete via modern math.
 The past deposits real artifacts into the present; an infinite past is
thus a real infinity (not like “unreal” time, etc.) – physically
impossible in Arst’s own physics!
 Ex nihilo is false:
o Relies on Aristotelian Physics: Vacuum, Infinite Bodies…
o How does an incorporeal being create corporeal matter?
o The vacuum must have preceded the world, which somehow implies that
the world should be infinite. I don’t get the logic.

30
 The world was created out of Prime Matter of sorts, which sounds liquidy. The
Earth and Heavens were formed out of this, and some remains to grease the gears.
 All Biblical instances of miracles are formatio mundi (lice dust, axe-wood...).
 G’s World Without End: God’s Creation is perfect, why destroy it?

Divine Nature and Human Freedom

 G doesn’t feel the need to prove God’s existence – a created universe is proof
enough.
 G rejects M’s via negativa: it is unnecessary, since any predicate could be
asserted of God, as long as we’re clear we’re speaking equivocally (“Of course I
didn’t mean that God has a corporeal Outstretched Arm!” etc., etc.)
 Further, via negativa is still a via – it implies positive knowledge of the equivocal
term. M’s approach is logically defective. [like Crescas]
 God is predicated “prior” and creations “posterior,” but there is some connection
(e.g., both God and Moses “know” that 144 =12 ). Also, God knows in an
unchanging way, while Moses would have to calculate that equation.
 Accepting Aristotle’s incompatibility between foreknowledge and free choice,
God does not have foreknowledge. God’s omniscient in that He knows
everything possible to know (including statistics, presumably).

Divine Providence and Immortality

 Mexo’s God knows particulars, and so Providence can govern ‫צדיקים‬.
o But G’s God does not know particulars, so how can God reward?
 G cannot accept the straight-up Aristotelianist absence of Providence…:
o Agrees with M: Providence is only for humans (b/c of INT).
o Agrees with M: Providence is only for JPHs (b/c of INT).
o Agrees with M: Only spiritual goods are real. Privations are not true
evils. (ah, that’s why Rabbi Akiva’s martyrdom was not punishment)
o Disagrees with M: cosmology – God created from “utmost imperfection”,
the formless matter. God’s creation is as perfect as matter can be, but
matter entails necessary evils (earthquakes and the like; sounds NP,
no?). God cannot square the circle, nor remove 100% of evil. (sorry,
tortured babies).
 Immortality:
o Aristotle’s Active Intellect was the muse that stimulated human thought.
o Avicenna (et al) buffed the AI: it now proffered theological and secular
prophecy, as well as the efficient cause of natural generation.
 Many theories of immortality posit ‘conjunction’ with the AI.
 G disagrees with conjunction/unification in virtually all its forms.
o Intellect has no substance – it’s a biological capacity [like Alexander of
Aphrodisias; contra Avicenna].
o A cognitively perfected human intellect becomes the “acquired intellect.”
 This [merely?] participates in the AI’s everlastingness.
 Cannot say union, since that entails loss of individuation.

31
 o Our immortality then is identified with our intellectual capital.
o Theoretical knowledge is sufficient for felicity!
 In sum: defends the traditional individual immortality (for the sake of Justice),
but in the terms of the Aristotelian theory of the intellect.

Prophecy
 G is open and honest: his PHI doctrines are found in his Bible commentaries.
o No “double-truth” Averroisms in Gersonides, no sir!
o Intellectually elitist, but seems to have a higher opinion of his audience
than M (or perhaps G is just more desperate on behalf of the vulgar?).
OTOH, M put this all into his MT....
 G in WL is largely Universal. ‫ רלב"ג על התורה‬is much more “Jewish.”
 G was less obsessed with Moses’ status than M.

Gersonides
Prophecy is casually distinguished
from divination
Not primarily cognitive, esp. for
truths beyond human reason
Primarily predictive, and
(for Moses) legislative
Maimonides
Prophecy has absolutely nothing to do with
divination/idolatry, ‫!!להבדיל‬
Entirely cognitive
Indirectly legislative or predictive
(overflow from the INT)

Miracles
 Both M & G agree God cannot do logically impossible miracles (like change
the past, or turn corporeal), nor can he be the direct agent of possible miracles.
o M does say that God can do rationally possible but naturally impossible
miracles (e.g., locusts would never naturally eat all of Egypt, but they
were miraculously gathered for plague purposes).
 In general, both M & G tend to “naturalize” miracles.
 G goes further:
o Miracles, like prophecy, have rules: the law of miracles.
o Miracles, like prophecy, are caused by the Agent Intellect (the boss of the
terrestrial realm).
o Miracles, like prophecy, are allowed for by a human with a perfected,
“acquired intellect.”
o Miracles, like prophecy, are “impersonal,” not requiring God to know of
particulars – the law of miracles is general, and happens to all worthies.
 Miracles are very much like prophecy.
o Miracles are lawful, and thus natural, but they are also contingent, and
thus volitional.
o No miracles in the celestial sphere.

Torah and Commandments

 Both M & G agree The Torah is a Platonic ideal of Law for human eudemon.
 G: Torah draws adherents through love, unlike mortal regimes of fear. [like
Mendelssohn]

32
 Though G did not publish ‫הלכה‬, his prowess is evident from his ‫על התורה‬.
 The purpose of the Torah is to emancipate us from materiality, lead us toward
‫קדושה‬, which is perfection of the intellect. [like M, et al…]

 In sum, G was a sincere Defender of the Faith, who identified philosophy with the
Torah (properly understood).
o It is not Aristotle’s teachings, nor unavailable through human reason (M).
o To be human = our intellects. God created us, and the Torah to guide us
to reach Him, so it must be possible, though not easy.

CHASDAI CRESCAS
 Not just a traditional reactionary – follows and produces a philosophical system
alternative to the Aristotelian (on its own terms).
 ‫ תלמיד‬of the ‫ר"ן‬.
 Contradictions in his oeuvre noticed by both medievals and moderns.
 Refutation of the Christian Principles:
o Original Sin; redemption from it
o Trinity; incarnation; virgin birth
o Transubstantiation; baptism; messiah; new Torah; demons
o Lays out the premises underlying these beliefs, then distinguishes
which are acceptable to both Christians and Jews, then knocks holes in
the premises which are only acceptable to Christians.
 Contradicts ‫ אור אדני‬by using via negativa to refute the Trinity.
 Contradicts ‫ אור אדני‬by using G’s arguments against eternal creation to refute the
eternal creation of the Son by the Father. But he holds of ex nihilo = eternal
creation. Oops.

‫אור אדני‬
 Was it purely intellectual disagreement with M? Or was there a social aspect to it,
that Cr. felt PHI Jews were susceptible to apostasy?
 Rejects the ‫י"ג עיקרים‬, both in content and in structure:
o M chose his Principles deductively, and flattening them all.
o Cr. chose his Principles inductively—which will serve to preserve and
sustain Judaism?—and thus had a hierarchy:
1. ‫התחלות‬/‫ – שרשים‬prerequisite to revelation-concept
2. ‫ – פינות‬prerequisite to belief in revelation-actual
3. ‫ – דעות\אמונות אמיתות‬doctrines taught by the Torah
4. ‫ – דעות וסברות‬doctrines not taught by the Torah
 Roots (‫)שרשים‬:
o Revelation presupposes (a) God, (b) his Unity, and (c) his incorporeality.
 Thus, these beliefs are necessary to religion.
o Rejects Aristotelian physics:
 E.g., says vacuums are possible! Actual infinite is possible [like an
infinite causal chain—no need to assume one of those links is a
first cause]!

33
 o Thus, knocks out M’s proofs of (a) (b) and (c). But then goes on to
prove the same things, and end by final appeal to Revelation to know the
Unity of God (‫)ה' אחד‬.
 ‫לכאורה‬, this does not make sense-unity presupposed?
o Famously attacks M’s via negativa – instead, distinguishes between
essence and essential attributes. EAs positively describe God, without
affecting his unity, and without truly describing his essence.
o For some reason, Cr. thinks this doesn’t smack of Trinitarianism.
o Directly influenced by KBL and Sefirot.
 Corner-Stones:
1. Knowledge of particulars (so as to Reveal himself to a particular people.)
2. Providence (so as to give a Torah to that people).
3. Omnipotence (to back up his promises in the Torah).
4. Prophecy (the capacity of humans to receive Revelation).
5. Free Will (necessary for the moral responsibility expected of the Torah).
6. Purposefullness of Revelation (the content is meaningful).
 Test Q: What are the corresponding Aristotelian/J-Arst positions?
1. God has no knowledge of changing particulars, since God doesn’t change.
2. W/o such knowledge, He cannot Provide for individuals (except the elite).
3. God cannot do logically impossible things.
4. Prophecy is a natural phenomenon.
5. Free Will is possible…at the cost of God’s foreknowledge.
6. The purpose is to reach felicity through the intellect, and the
commandments are utilitarian – they facilitate intellectual contemplation.
 Details of Corner-Stones
o God created the world, thus knows all its particulars. [like Mexo]
o God is not INTELLECT, but LOVE/GOODNESS.(?)
o God can do the impossible, and Biblical miracles are literal.
o God has foreknowledge, and there is a strange kind of causal
determinism, which bears a shallow resemblance to parts of Calvinism,
and maybe Spinoza.
o Felicity through ‫ מצות‬and ‫'אהבת ה‬, not through pure INT perfection!
 After all, God is ineffable and unknowable!
 True Beliefs:
o Without these beliefs there would still be a Torah, but it would be a
different Torah.
1. ex nihilo
 Interesting: argues that Revelation is believable even with Eternity
(contra M); It’s the eternal EM of the world! [contra G, pro
Aquinas]
2. immortality
 After refuting Arst-physics, argues that immortality is a function of
God’s love expressed through ‫מצות‬. Not INT.
3. ‫שכר ועונש‬
4. ‫תחית המתים‬

34
 5. Eternity of the Torah (wazzat mean?)
6. ‫לא קם כמשה עוד‬
7. The ‫( אורים ותומים‬that’s odd)
8. Messiah!

Note: Cr.’s Summum Bonum: states that grace and clemency (‫ חנינה‬,‫ חסד‬,‫ )חן‬are the
goal of ‫מצות‬, not perfection (‫)שלימות‬.

Sufism: Influence
 Influenced the Maimonides Family, Jews studied under Sufis, Karaites as well, etc.
 Early Kabbalah: Meditation in dark places, visualization of letters (originally Jewish)
 Lurianic Kabbalah: Safed had a Sufi convent may have influenced grave-visiting,
saint-worship, and ‫( התבודדות‬which was not evident for a century until now) – big
with ‫רמ"ק‬.
o Ritual purity; Breath control; fasting, ‫מיעוט שינה ואוכל‬
 In sum: interrelationship between Jewish and Muslim mysticism, especially Sufi
ishraq (pool?) stuff, Maimonidean Dynasty, Safed, and ecstatic stuff.

Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (2003). “Philosophy and kabbalah, 1200-1600.” in The

Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and
Oliver Leaman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 218-257.

Overview
12th century:
 Earlier esoteric and mystical traditions became self-conscious interpretations of
Rabbinic Judaism in the 12th century to counter M intellectualism.
Late 13th century:
 Theosophical Kabbalah mythologized PHI categories while articulating a
comprehensive alternative to rationalist PHI.
 Prophetic (or Ecstatic) Kabbalah developed a full-fledged intellectual mysticism
based on M’s theory of knowledge, giving kabbalistic texts a philosophical reading.
th
14 century:
 A few JPHs (esp. fans of astral magic and astrology) viewed KBL and PHI as
compatible systems expressing the same truth.
15th & 16th centuries:
 Italy: Jews (and some Xian Hebraists) viewed KBL as esoteric [general] PHI
knowledge necessary for INT perfection.
 Spain and its Diaspora: mythical aspects dominate.
o Majority of Iberian KBLs view PHI positively: PHI is Physics, and KBL is
Metaphysics, and went on to recast Arst. in a KBL light.
th
17 century:
 Absorption of KBL into PHI + ↓↓Aristotelianism = KBL↑↑ as THE JPH.

The Rise and Spread of Kabbalah

35
 10th ct. Rabbinic theism was PHI-ized, and purged of intellectual “embarrassments.”
We just reviewed the whole thing.
 The acme was M. He didn’t just PHI-ize e/t, he Aristotelianized e/t and he said that
this is the “hidden teaching” of Scripture.
o M could not be dismissed because of his MT, wildly popular, which also had
PHI in the ‫ספר המדע‬.
o KBL emerged to curb the intellectualization of M.
 Provence – no coincidence: Andalusian refugees of 1148 settled in Provence,
introducing Judaeo-Arabic PHI, catalyzing this great aggadic, halakhic center.
o Rabad reacted – a mystic, part of a circle that had visitations from Elijah,
regarding the secrets of God, prayer, Torah, etc., all the way back to Sinai.
o Hasidei Ashkenaz were a big source–‫ היכלות‬and ‫ ספר הבהיר‬,‫ מרכבה‬mysticism.
 This multi-layered theosophy had deep sexual overtones, elaborating
the Shiur Qomah as a dynamic, bipolar sexual God, affected by Israel.
 M had IDs ‫ מעשה בראשית & מרכבה‬with PHY and MPHY – ergo, Revelation was
accessible to Human Reason (not only Jews).
 KBLs say that Revelation is God’s choice, and PHI has nothing to do with it. And the
revealed Torah is only in the Hebrew language, buddy, which is not conventional!
o Heb is divinely ‘scientific’, with omnisignificance all its own. Not Man, but
God chose Heb to be the medium of Creation. [ ‫] ספר יצירה‬
o HA made a big deal about this: Tetragrammaton and its endless
permutations are the revealed Torah, and can magically control Nature.
 Back to Spain: circles (‫ )חבורות‬arose all over in Castille and Catalona, etc. Each
group presented their thoughts as “the Kabbalah,” though each differed according to
their geopolitical context, exposure to PHI, and particular interests:
o NP influences, questions of theodicy, Gnostic or Sufi influences, linguistics…
o Method: Biblical Exegesis, in order to rebut PHI such as M’s.
 The KBLs tended to side with the Anti-M, even though they respected him↑↑.
Theosophical Ecstatic
Psychological processes of the
Focuses on the Inner Life of God.
human soul, and its INT perfection.
(Theocentric)*
(anthropocentric)
Insists on Human Ability to Affect God Mystical Union of human INT with unchanging God
(magical) (anti-magical)
Emphasizes mythic, anthropomorphic,
more open to conversation with non-Jewish modes
ethnocentric dimensions.
of thought, incl. PHI exposition (universalistic)
(particularistic)
self-image as replacement for Based on Maimonides, claims to fulfill his ideals.
Maimonides. Anti-M Pro-M
*Note, however, the macrocosm-microcosm relation [like Ibn Gabirol?]

Theosophic KBL as a Response to Maimonides

 Zohar: it’s novelty lies not in its content (which is drawn from other works), but in its
presentation as The KBL par excellence, a midrash in Aramaic from Rashbi ‫על התורה‬.
 The Concealed and Revealed God:

36
 o ThKBL disagrees with M: some positive knowledge of God is possible. How?
Well, the ‫ אין סוף‬remains ineffable, but while M’s 10 EMs were “angels”,
KBL’s 10 EMs are parts of God.
o The 10 EMs, or sefirot, originally come from the ‫ספר יצירה‬, a ‘scientific’
treatise about Heb letter combinations as building blocks of the universe. All
the medievals understood it mathematically. KBL’s reading is new!
o KBL’s sefirot are divine light or God’s character traits. They comprise the
Revealed God, as the ‫ אין סוף‬is the Hidden God.
o Big ‫ 'מח‬amongst KBLs whether the ‫ ספירות‬are the ‫ עצמות‬or ‫ כלים‬of God.
o (A) ‫ עצמות‬dominated, represented by the Zohar. They are dynamic,
interacting, and real hypostases with distinct characteristics; they can be
manipulated by human action.
 Sefirot became the organic “structure” of Jewish life – represented by
a Tree of Life, or ‫אדם קדמון‬. Each ‫ מצוה‬is linked to its own sefirah.
This countered PHI ‫טעמי המצות‬.
o (B) The more PHI-oriented KBLs held they were just ‫ – כלים‬they didn’t like
the pantheistic implications.
 Menachem Recanati: They are God’s attributes of action. (smart!)
 Abraham Abulafia: They are the Separate Intellects.
 This instrumentalist reading of the sefirot made it PHI-friendly.
 The ThKBLs’ confidence stemmed from the parallel between Revelation-in-History
(Sinai/The Torah) and Revelation-in-the-Present (God’s inner life and the surface
workings of human and worldly nature): both are God’s self-disclosure.
o IOW, the ThKBLs felt KBL conformed and satisfactorily explained their
own experiences in their [daily] lives.
o They also felt superior to M, which merely described the PHY and MPHY of
the created world, while they described God Himself!

From the One to the Many: The Great Chain of Being

 ThKBL-ic cosmology blended medieval NP-ized Aristotelianism with the language
and imagery of hekhalot and merkavah literature. By the 14th ct.:
o Sefirot (‫)אצילות‬
o Separate Intellects (‫[ )בריאה‬personified acc. to angelology]
 And the Active Intellect…was it #2 ‫חכמה‬, or #10 ‫?מלכות‬
o Celestial Bodies (‫[ )יצירה‬not just astrology, but also rabbinic sources]
o Sub-lunar Earth (‫)עשייה‬
 A range of opinions: which of the 4 elements (Fire, Earth, Air, Water),
and which beings (mineral, vegetative, animal, human).
 The point is that the heavens and the earth are arranged hierarchically, as is
(guess) the sefirot and God, who subdued chaos to create the world.
o Clearly, we’re trying to make sense of the world – not through empirical
observation, but “top-down” through decoding sefirotic symbolism.
o

37
 Evil is its own realm, the ‫סיתרה אחרא‬. Dualism? No! ‫חו"ש‬. Rather, Evil lives off the
negative energy of our sins. Unlike M, who says that evil does not have MPHY
existence (they are caused by humans, or are mere deprivations), here we have
human-powered evils.

From the Many to the One: Israel and the Holy Life
 “Soul” is ambiguous in KBL:
o Soul vs. Body
o Highest functions of the soul (that part of it which connects to God); sorta like
the function that the INT played for the Ms.
o KBL: Souls EM from Separate INT. but Jewish souls EM from the sefirot,
thanks to the reproductive efforts of the Godhead.
o M: “soul” is the form of the body. KBL/Zohar: “Soul” is a substance
 Nefesh (nutritive), Ruah (appetitive), and Neshamah (rational) – each with its sefirah.
 Bodies tend towards Evil, souls towards the Good. The goal of life is for the Soul to
control the Body via the commandments – and thus perfect the Soul itself.
 ‫טעמי המצות‬: M says they are all rational, and for the betterment of body and soul (and
society). KBL vehemently disagree. They are all mysterious, and can only be known
through Tradition; their purpose is to restore the balance in the Godhead.
 M cannot describe the saved state of Man, only the way to get there. He calls it (after
‫ חז"ל( העולם הבא‬for this very reason (?). The KBL, OTOH, (Zohar) is replete with
descriptions of the ecstatic state of the felicitous man enjoying ecstatic experiences.

PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES TO KABBALAH

 Abraham Abulafia’s (AA) “PrKBL” was a creative blend of,
o ancient Jewish esotericism
o German Pietism
o ThKBL
o M rationalism
 Both PrKBL and ThKBL want to bring about Redemption (via messing with the
Godhead).
 AA has the Kabbalah of the Names and the Kabbalah of the Sefirot.
 AA: The sefirot are not hypostatic potencies that ‘magically’ do not compromise
God’s unity. They are internal psychological states of human experiences.
o AA agrees with M’s conception of divine simplicity. The above is heresy!
o sefirot = Separate Intellects (i.e., EM from God, not part of Him)
 This later became the basis for 14th ct. coordination of PHI&KBL.
o All the sefirot are contained within the Active Intellect. (this is key to his
anthropocentric KBL, and his INT mysticism).
o Knowledge of the Sefirot  self-knowledge, b/c the microcosm ≈
macrocosm.
 AA describes linguistic techniques for achieving mystical union (“prophecy”), based
on HA and SY’s theory of language. Letter combination, Letter visualization.
Controlled breathing. Postures. Seclusion. Mantras of Divine Names.

38
 o This was a practical system for ecstatic union, as he interprets M.

 Coordinating PHI with KBL:

o Averroes explained that each SI cognizes God, and that by thinking himself,
God knows everything in the most perfect and noblest way.
o Supercommentaries on Ibn Ezra’s ‫( פירוש על התורה‬over 30 of them!), as his
naturalism and interest in astrology made him attractive for both.
o Example of coordination, Ibn Waqar: Astrology pertains to the sublunar
world, PHI pertains to the celestial world and Separate Intellects, and KBL
pertains to the gnosis about God that cannot be known without divine
assistance.
o Narboni: like AA, Separate Intellects = Sefirot. They are different names and
systems for the same spiritual entities.
 Interpreting the biblical past in light of astrology and magic was just another
expression of the rationalist assumption that the Torah is a scientific text (like M
& AA). Since both science and the Torah are true, they must inter-correlate.
o IOW, astrology = science in the ancient worldview.
o Astrology frees one from Astral control/causality, as does ‫שמירת המצות‬.
 Summary: by the 15th ct., philosopher-scientists proposed a strictly naturalistic
interpretation for the Torah on the basis of astral determinism. Given this theology,
it is easy to understand how PHI-SCI could also be interested in KBL not only as a
speculative system, but also as a praxis that included the use of talismans, amulets,
incantations, and divinations.

 Yohanan Alemanno of Italy

o PHI-KBL was 15th ct. Italy!
o YA fused halakha, exegesis, PHI, SCI, KBL, & magic into a coherent system.
o Xian humanists had deep respect for KBL, regarded as ancient true learning.
o KBL seen as speculative lore at this time in Italy (that is, universalist truth
open to autodidacts).
 No wonder Xians valued it.
o Xians were impressed by YA, but not Jews, like Elijah del Medigo.

KABBALAH AS AUTHORITATIVE JEWISH THEOLOGY: SPAIN

 Pogroms of 1391 and massive apostasy were laid at the feet of the regnant Judeo-
Hispanic culture – JPH.
o ‫ שם טוב אבן שם טוב‬and Crescas arise with their critiques.
 The Iberian INT elite made no sharp dichotomy bet. PHIs and KBLs. The same J-
Arst. scholars believed in both KBL and the Zohar. So they coordinated them:
 Under the influence of Scholasticism, Jewish thinkers adopted the distinction between
PHI and THL of Aquinas:
o They differ in Origin, Scope, and Aim.
Philosophy ‫דרך החקירה וחיפוש‬ Kabbalah (Theology) ‫דרך האמונה והקבלה‬
Origin Truths of Natural Reason Truths beyond mortal ken

39
 Inductive (empirical, observes Deductive (revealed KBL about Celestial
Nature to learn Truths) realm are the axiomatic data)
Scope - Prone to human error - perfect, complete, certain
Cognitive activity of the INT - cannot Assent of the will through Faith
Aims guarantee felicity (at best ‫)עולם הזה‬ - saving power of KBL doctrines
 Abravanel, Arama, Babago, etc.: Israel is both natural and supernatural, both a
nation and a God-protected other-worldly agent in this world. PHI/science/astrology
only goes so far.
 The star of KBL rose with the veneration of the Zohar (remember, it uniquely
portrayed itself as an ancient midrash) – its ‘age’ was proof of its authenticity.
 Especially after Expulsion from Spain, these PHI-KBLs prioritized KBL over PHI.
 To what extent was the proximal historical cause of The Expulsion responsible
for the rise of KBL?
o Scholem, the historian, traces the line directly.
o Idel, the phenomenologist of religion, argues that it need nothing to do with
one another. Instead, the encounter of Spanish KBLs with German KBLs
and with Italian KBLs has much more to do with it.
o Maybe it’s both, @least for the summa KBL consolidations, like Ramak.
 Zohar became authoritative in Safed under Luria, and codified by in the SH”A.

 16th-17th ct. PHIs viewed the Torah as the manifestation of God’s wisdom=essence.
Influenced by KBL, they now asserted that the Torah was the name of God.
 Ironic: since KBL is hidden, and PHI revealed, this ends PHI esotericism –
everyone is now familiar with PHI vocabulary, as a means to reading texts.
o This also means PHIs are limited in their quest to interpreting sacred texts.

CONCLUSION
 Although KBL emerged to counter M’s PHI, KBL and PHI have much in
common:
o Theoretical inquiries about God, origin and structure of the universe, mortals.
o Shared conceptual framework of Neoplatonized Aristotelianism.
o Metaphysicians, dealing with the paradox of multiplicity from the One.
 Ontologically and cosmologically, or psychologically and
epistemologically.
o As incorporealists, both are very aware of the limitations of human
knowledge and language, metaphor and the need to connect and explain
Revelation.
o As J-THLs, took the divinity of the Torah as given, and saw their task as
hermeneutical: to penetrate the mystery, and find the inner esoteric meaning
o Both elitists with complex spiritual and intellectual preparations.

Wolfson, Elliot. (1997). “JEWISH MYSTICISM: A PHILOSOPHICAL OVERVIEW.” in History of

Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 450-
498.

40
 “Mysticism” has not been satisfactorily defined by historians of religion, so it’s
tough to work with.
o Still, we can note two approaches: historical and phenomenological.
 Historical: how mystics impacted Jewish [social, intellectual, religious] history.
 Phenomenological: uncover the structure of religious experiences.
o Must put the two together: Phen. must take historical context into account.
 Wolfson’s approach is like [his teacher] Idel’s: there is an irreducible aspect of
religious experience. Thus, it can be illuminated from any and every discipline:
o Anthropology, psychology, sociology, political science, economics, feminist
studies, literary criticism, history of music, art, performance, etc. etc.
o But that does not reduce it to the total of those studies.
o E.g., Angelfication is found scattered in many periods of Jewish mysticism,
but it seems to be minor – the historians would discount it, since it does not
define any streams of Jewish mysticism. But the phenomenologist would point
out that it is a critical part of all these mysticism, and that it thus is an
important part of the experience of Jmyst.
 Besides history, one must ascertain how the Jewish mystic[ism] plays itself out: the
mystical phenomenon is a Biblical orientation that always seeks to comprehend
itself from a starting position in the “then-Revealed Bible” and to legitimize itself
exegetically – but has become (to the mystic) the “now-Revealed” object of
contemplation.
 Two distinct concerns run through all Jmyst Lit.: claim of esoteric knowledge
beyond exegesis, study, or regular worship; intense religious experience, including
heavenly ascent, viewing the divine form, angelification, and mystical union.
 There is a strong resemblance to magic at times, though one may accept the stated
goals of a given source to distinguish between them (e.g., they’re not trying to fly).

Hekhalot Literature
 “The essential difference between the prophetic theophany and mysticism is evident.”
 Talmudically, ‫ מעשה מרכבה‬was understood to be subject of exegesis; but likely also
the center of ecstatic concerns or paranormal states of consciousness (e.g., studying it
properly would surround you with flames, burn birds overhead, etc.).
 “A clear thematic connection links the Sinai revelation with Ezekiel’s chariot
theophany in rabbinic homiletic literature.” They want to re-experience Sinai! (456)
 Still, even recorded mystical events do not amount to a praxis (there’s no guidelines
or instructions on how to ascend to the chariot itself).
 ‫ 'מח‬academics: Can we say ‫ חז"ל‬did passive homiletics, while hekhalot were mystics?
Or is that too simplistic, and is it better to say that each intruded on each other’s
concerns (exegetical and experiential)? (Dan says the former, Wolfson the latter).
 ‫ ספר & מסכת היכלות‬,‫ & זוטרתי‬,‫היכלות רבתי‬, et. al. starring ‫ נחוניה בן הקנא‬,‫ ישמעאל‬,‫עקיבא‬.
 We can say they were redacted between 7th and 12th centuries (after the Talmud,
before the ‫)ראשונים‬.
o Rav Hai b. Sherira Gaon (939-1038) actually describes myst. techniques.
o Islamic/Sufi influences?

41
 Comparison of the MSS shows that there are substantial differences, i.e., no ur-text.
 Instead, there are Schäfer’s macroforms: recurring literary units, themes, tropes.
o Within these are the microforms that may indeed be autonomous traditions.
o Perhaps the ‫ חסידי אשכנז‬helped shape these texts?
 Two Central Elements: mystical ascent to view heaven, and magical adjuration of
angels (through using the divine name).
o Cannot separate the magical and mystical elements in practice: magical
techniques are used for mystical ascent, and mystical journeys often have
magical purposes (make the plague go away, etc.).
o I.e. the authors did not distinguish between them; it’s all academia!
 E.g., Idel’s new category of “magical”.
 Scholem: centrality of the visionary experience. Wolfson: entirely defensible: “…
seeing of the divine is upheld in several macroforms as the distinctive quality of the
mystical adept. (?)
 TENSION: they view the ‫כבוד‬, but God himself cannot be viewed!
o Wolfson’s ‫חידוש‬: if the throne = bride, and the ‫ = כבוד‬groom, then the
enthronement of the ‫ כבוד‬into/onto the throne is heiros gamos (erotic).
 What does ‫ יורדי מרכבה‬mean, at the 7th heaven?
 Enthronement is not union, but it is quasi-apotheosis, like Enoch – an angelification.
 ‫ – שיעור קומה‬The Shi’ur Qomah should be considered distinct textual units grafted
onto the ‫ היכלות‬macroforms somewhere along the way.
o Historically, they are related, but primarily because of the ‫חסידי אשכנז‬.
o Phenomenologically and conceptually, they are isolated and distinct!
o Metatron as demiurge (‫)יוצר בראשית‬, the ‫הוה הקטן‬-‫י‬. The older Jewish
traditions ascribe the ShQ to him, as ‫אדם קדמון‬. KBLs instead apply it to the
sefirot.
o What the heck is 236,000 parasangs? Reduction ad absurdum? Or perhaps,
(Wolfson) it is expressing the tension of the visible/invisible God.
 Sum: One of the characteristics of Jmyst throughout the ages is letter symbolism and
anthropomosphism – ShQ, also encorporealizing God through Hebrew ‘letter-limbs.’

Sefer Yetzirah
 Hard to pin down: 3rd-9th century?! This is due to complicated redaction issues.
 Wolfson: some material is early, but the final redaction was likely 9th ct. Islamacate.
o Saadia attests to the fluid nature of the book in 931 CE!
 Not about Heavenly Ascent etc., but rather cosmology and cosmogony: ‫מעשה בראשית‬.
 All ver. have: Divine Creativity through 32 paths (10 sefirot + 22 letters).
 Sefirot literally = “numbers”, but are treated in the book as way more than that:
o First unit treats them theosophically, as attributes of the divine.
o Elsewhere, they bow down to the throne (like the beasts of the chariot).
 Are they hyperbole? Actual dynamic potencies?
o Still elsewhere, they are the “10 depths,” including spatial, temporal, and
moral extremes (good, evil, 6 dimensions, beginning, end).

42
 o Crucial to emphasize that there is no uniform explanation of the sefirot
within the Sefer Yetzirah.
 As for the letters, they are not merely the tools of divine creativity (which is a later
normative rabbinic opinion). Rather, they are the ‫ עצמות‬of reality itself!
o The ‫ שרש‬impacts its space (‫)עולם‬, time (‫)שנה‬, and microcosm (‫)נפש‬.

German Pietists
 Rhineland from 12th-13th ct. Judah b. Samuel b. Kalonymous of Regensburg (d.
1217), and his student Eleazar b. Judah b. Kalonymous of Worms (d. 1240).
 They preserved Merkavah texts, and combined Hekhalot magic and mysticism,
Saadia’s JPH, Jewish NP, and Shabbetai Donnelo and Judah b. Barzilai, Ibn Ezra.
 Their big thing is The Kavod (‫ כבוד‬or glory).
o Their discussions are practical: how do we pray to an incorporeal being!?
o 3 directions: The ‫ כבוד‬is a created light extrinsic to God (Saadia).
o It is emanated from God, and thus attached to the deity (Donnolo & Ibn Ezra).
o The image is only w/in the mind of the prophet or mystic (Hai Gaon via ‫)ר"ח‬.
o Wolfson: They reject the 1st, and waver between 2nd and 3rd.
 They divide the ‫ כבוד‬into an Upper and Lower Glory.
 God is simultaneously invisible, yet present within the image.
o The image, justified by the prophets, is the icon necessary for prayer.
Appropriates SY (I:8).
 Eleazar of Worms (‫ )?ספר רוקח‬reinterprets the Shiur Qomah as referring to the
image (i.e., in the imagination) not to the actual corporealization of God.
o He appropriates the anthropomorphism of the Shiur Qomah.
 YHVH is the ‫ !מלאך הכבוד‬Permutations, purification.
o Reciting angelic names to achieve ecstatic state akin to ‫נבואה‬.
 KBLs see sexual imagery as key. And ‫ ?חסידי אשכנז‬Dan says that they added sexual
images (e.g., the secret/garden of the nuts, from ‫)שיר השירים‬, but Farber argues that
they received this material, and tried to minimize the sexual part exoterically, but
transmitted that sort of material esoterically.
 The image of Jacob on the throne represents the union of the two Glories. -‫הוה א‬-‫י‬
613 = ‫לוהי ישראל‬, and doing all the ‫ מצות‬thus unites the 2 names. This is proto-KBL!

Theosophic KBL
 That was Germany. ThKBL took root in Provence and northern Spain.
 Origins? The Talmuds have fragments which were interpreted such. Also, there may
have been more primitive oral traditions.
 Gnosticism? This syncretistic religious movement flourished in the 1st centuries CE.
Did it contribute? Are the similarities purely phenomenological, or historical also?
 Whatever. 12th ct., a Theosophical conception of God crystallized:
o Male-female polarity.
o Thurgical understanding of ‫( מצות‬normative religious practice).
o Practice strengthens the divine structure, violations weaken it.
st
 1 book on this: ‫ ספר הבהיר‬Sefer Ha-Bahir.

43
 o Takes rabbinic material, with it presents a theosophy structured as midrash.
o Again, we must account for layers of redaction. But 1 section is of 10 ‫מאמרות‬.
o So they are called ‫מאמרות‬, trees, gardens, crowns, etc., and also sefirot.Hmm...
o The sefirot are herein pictorially represented as (a) a tree, (b) anthropos.
 The anthropos represents the connection between the microcosm and macrocosm.
o I.e., man’s limbs do ‫ מצות‬which correspond to the sefirotic structure and ShQ.
o Oiy vey! The above theurgy is predicated upon the [quasi?-]
anthropomorphic conception of God – at least a morphological
resemblance.
 The Torah is the shape or image of God(!), the supernal Adam-ic form.
o Joseph of Hamadan: “The Torah is the shadow of ‫הקב"ה‬.”
o M. Recanati: ‘The ‫ מצות‬are one entity, depend upon the ‫מרכבה‬, thus God is
not extrinsic to the Torah, nor vice versa, thus the KBLs: God is the Torah.’
 Joseph Gikatilla expresses the rejection of the corporealistic implications of their
own ideas, saying that our limbs correspond to spiritual “limbs” in our souls, and
those “limbs” correspond to God’s.
o Like Scholem: “an expressible representation of something which lies
beyond the sphere of expression and communication.”
o Wolfson: the awareness of this tension springs extrinsically from the historical
time of its flourishing (14th ct., Maimonidean controversy time), not from its
“originary” doctrinal hesitations.
o I.e., underlying this is a comfort w/mythological anthropomorphism
[ShQ].
 Epistemologically, the mythical representation of God is linked to the imaginative
faculty, and in the KBL lit., it allows the rendering of the incorporeal.
o Wolfson quotes a text (p.476) which prioritizes the INT over the IMG, but
admits that the IMG paves the way for the INT to achieve.

 ThKBL spans much time and phenomena, but the 10 sefirot are distinctive of all of it.
 One distinctive feature of the Zoharic literature is that it combines the mythic and
more philosophical approaches.
“The Ein-sof and the sefirot represent two aspects of the one God: the former is the
nameless, boundless ground of being that assumes personality in the dynamic sefirotic
structure. Though multiple, the sefirot form one organic unity and are said to be
connected to the Infinite “like the flame bound to the coal”,” [the simile is from SY].
 Expansion OTOH (like light from the sun), but Contraction OTOH (‫)צמצום‬, a
concept fleshed out by 1522-70) ‫ )רמ"ק‬and 1534-72) ‫)אר"י‬.
o Debate: ‫( עצמות‬essence) v. ‫( כלים‬instrumentalist).
o ‫ רמ"ק‬resolved this by saying BOTH!
 Also, note ThKBL’s emphasis on the ‫( סתרא אחרא‬Zohar ‫)לשון‬, parallel evil-structure.
o Zohar itself is of two minds: dualistic (light v. dark battle!) but also
monistic.
 Dualism, destroying the evil, influenced Luria: ‫ צמצום‬ ‫ שבירת הכלים‬ formed the
‫ קליפות‬ fall of ‫ ניצוצות‬ ‫תיקון‬.

44
 Alongside all the ThKBL, there is a definite experiential aspect – meditative
techniques etc. means to attain mystical union, religious ecstasy.
o Since God = Torah, learning Torah shapes the mind to the form of God.8
o Also colors, shapes, rolling closed eyes, postures, breathing techniques.
Real colors would be ‫ע"ז‬, but these imagined colors were really the ‫ חשמל‬and
‫ לבוש‬of a sefirah, so it’s ok.

Ecstatic KBL
 Abraham Abulafia is the main exponent of the emerging Other Kind of KBL.
‘Whereas the ThKBLs focused on the hypostatic potencies (e.g., sefirot) constituting the
divine realm, Abulafia concentrated on building a mystical system that would lead to
unio mystica, aka [‫ ]לשיטתו‬prophecy.’ Thus, aka ‫ – קבלה נבואית‬prophetic KBL
o ‫ קבלה הספירות‬and ‫( קבלה השמות‬AA).
o Attacks ThKBLs: The sefirot are not divine potencies, but the separate INTs!
o Contemplate them, ‫ שפע‬from AI  comprehend the divine ‫שם‬.
 AA thus also calls the sefirot internal psychological states/stations.
 This corresponds with (not “to”) the macrocosm.
 AA adopts M’s definition of prophecy, but used non-INT techniques to arrive.
 AA gives primacy to the auditory over the visual (of course, the ThKBLs are wrong!).
o E.g., the Zohar replaces “‫ ”תא שמע‬with “‫ ;”תא חזי‬AA would not.
 Letter-combination forms names; moreover, it’s not just the means, but the ends(!);
o The ‫ מרכבה‬vision is really a Revelation of Letters (think how The Matrix ends).
Wolfson: “The corporealization of the letters of the Name as an anthropos represents…
one of the cornerstones of KBL thought, which has its roots in ancient J-esotericism.”
o Wolfson disputes Scholem’s distinction between J-myst and X-myst:
o Scholem says that Xians have concrete objects to contemplate, while ‫ השם‬and
its permutations are abstract. Not so, says Wolfson. They are corporealized!
 AA influenced Palestinian KBL, including ‫רמ"ק‬, his teacher Solomon Alkabez,
and ‫חיים ויטל‬. Also evident in early 18th ct. ‫חסידות‬.

[END]
---
‫ – מהר"ל‬from random notes
 Works from ‫חז"ל‬, whereas ‫ רמב"ם‬and the medievals worked from ‫תנ"ך‬.
 This reflects a shift from external/universal concerns (truth, epistemology) to
particularly Jewish concerns (redemption, Mashiach, Torah learning…).
 ‫ מהר"ל‬has his own terminology – the words of the medieval JPHs, but with different
meanings. The data he analyzes is midrashic, not PHI or rational.
 Brill: Nature and miracles: starts with Ralbag/Gersonides, attacks it with KBL and
later med. PHI critiques, then decides that God does not follow Aristotelian logic, He
can do a thing and its opposite.

8
In 18th ct. Hasidism, this developed into a meditative technique of cleaving one’s thoughts to the infinite
light contained in the letters of the Torah as well as the traditional prayers. [See below, how that caused
tension with the traditionalists who objected to learning this way, absorbing no content.]

45
Brill, Alan (2008). “Maharal as an early modern thinker.” Kabbalah 17. 49-73.
 Thesis: Maharal uses Renaissance language (RL), and early modern ideas of unity,
hierarchy, and analogy.
 RL derives terms from medieval Aristotelianism, but with new meanings.
 Ren. thinkers are modern: rational, orderly, universal; at the same time, they also
have magical, mythic, intuitive, and non-rational elements as well. TRANSITIONAL.
o Draws from both PHI and KBL roots, freely mixes old and new, and has
incorporated critiques of J-Arst from Crescas and Albo.

 Ren. thought rejected medieval PHI and cosmology, framing this as a rejection of
their sense-data, not their actual reason (i.e., “If Aristotle were here today, and knew
what I know, he’d revise his conclusions to accord with me.”). ‫ מהר"ל‬does this too.
o “‫ & רמב"ם‬co. rely on sense-data; but the Torah stands on ‘‫< ’שכל‬oooh>.”
o Goyim use sense-data, but Jews access special Torah-logic, ‫שכל‬. [prophets
who “see” God with the senses are inferior to sages, who have internalized
‫ שכל התורה‬that continuously shapes their thought.]
 An important element in early modern thought is the use of PHI language in
loose, non-literal ways:
o E.g., ‘a melancholy day,’ which the 13th and 20th ct. MDs won’t allow.
o Or take ‘matter’: Instead of “matter” and “form,” 16th ct. Europe now says
“What’s the matter?” [i.e., anything important or central].
o ‫ חומר‬:‫ מהר"ל‬and ‫ צורה‬were technical terms for the material and arrangement of
objects. But Maharal uses them as a binary to simply designate the
inferior and superior partner. [humans need Torah, women need men, non-
Jews need Jews, the vulgar need the rabbinate, etc.]
 Analogy. Ren. writers would first re-read ideas as adjectival qualities, and then
predicate them of inanimate objects, giving them metaphysical properties.
o E.g., ‫ מהר"ל‬takes ‫’חז"ל‬s bon mot “‫ ”נכנס יין יצא סוד‬to be a metaphysical
property of wine: How does wine affect the soul? It has a quality of ‫סוד‬, and
thus, has nothing to do with inebriation – even a sip is sufficient.9
o E.g. #2, the Torah affects the soul. Because this is now a metaphysical quality
of the inanimate object (Torah), even a sentence or word of learning will have
a positive effect, even without cognition. [like some ‫חסידות‬, later on]
o Lots of numerical correlations. (True, KBL etc. had them also, but Ren.
thinkers concatenate entire strings of analogies <see below>).
 Heirarchies. Ren. thinkers loved them – bigger is better, culture is better (than
nature), men are better (than women), longer is better, etc. 7 planets (Saturn is best), 7
oceans (Atlantic is greatest), 7 days (Xian Sunday is best).
o These hierarchies are not logically necessary or predictive.
o E.g., What is God’s strength? (KBL would refer to sefirot, a PHI would
speak of the attribute of action, but…) Maharal ‫ מיד‬asks “What is the opposite
of God’s strength?” ‫ מצרים‬,‫ טבע‬,‫הסתר פנים‬, which means that ‫ נסים‬,‫תורה‬, etc. are
God’s ‫גבורה‬. This is typical of Ren., since he sets up a binary-heirarchy,

9
Compare to RJBS, who reads these ontologically as well; e.g., “‫”טב למיתב תן דו מלמיתב ארמלו‬.

46
 then equates all the terms on each side (analogy); God’s strength is Moses,
is the Torah, is miracle(s), is Revelation…
 Torah is the world order, not the Book of God, nor the key to the sefirotic realm, etc
 Medieval: Logic of Syllogism, vs. Early Modern: Logic of UNITY. Things are
related to their opposites, and learned out from them, rather than proven true or false
independently of each other.
o E.g., ‫ רמב"ם‬presumes that the greater you are, the more virtue you possess,
then the weaker your Evil Inclination (you have subdued it). ‫ מהר"ל‬assumes
that since everything is connected to its opposite, the greater one’s virtue, the
greater one’s Evil Inclination.
 Maharal was heavily influenced by M. Ficini (d.1499), as A. Brill shows.
 True Love is part of the world order, cannot be contingent.
 Necessity. Everything true is necessary, and contingent things are meaningless. 
oops! Free will ‫!?מה יהיה‬
 ‫ = מהר"ל‬Jean Calvin – God saves by His choice and Grace.
 Sources:
o He says outright that he is reading Xian/gentile THL, and responding to them.

 Summary: ‫ מהר"ל‬is an early modern thinker, who uses many Ren. tropes and
techniques for his particularistic purposes, like his Xian contemporaries.

---

Lurianic ‫( קבלה‬from Carmy’s notes)

 The sefirot, essentially put complexity in the Deity.
 ‫שבירת הכלים‬.

---

Levy, Ze’ev (1997). “The nature of modern Jewish Philosophy.” in History of Jewish
Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 577-88.
 Again, this very discussion [define JPH] is a result of Modern JPH.
 Isaac Husik famously: “There are Jews and PHIs, but there are no JPHs and no JPH.”
  ‘A JPH can be called a PHI if he contributes to PHI.’ Philo, Saadia, M, ibn
Gabirol, Spinoza, H. Cohen, Mendelssohn, Buber.

Defining/Characterizing Modern JPH in contrast to Medieval JPH

 The 250-year transition from Medieval to Modern had the Jews in ghettos. There was
no fruitful cross-cultural pollination like in Medieval JPH. This made eventual
emancipation an incredibly traumatic event, due to the cultural lag. (Mendelssohn
and Spinoza were exceptions).
o 100 years of German JPH coped w/remaining a Jew in all this cultural wealth.
o Only in the 20th ct., and ‫ קו"ח‬after WWII, did JPH develop outside Germany.
 Furthermore, Jewishness had previously been a Given, & now had to be justified.

47
 Modern Thought is very often pluralistic and even universalistic, while Medieval,
even while influenced by many extrinsic forces like Arst., NP, kalām, etc., was
‘orthodox’, and certainly particularistic.
 To rephrase: In Medieval JPH, PHI was couched exegetically, and the hermeneutical
task was to bridge the gap between prophetic Revelation and rational PHI.
o Aristotle and the Bible/‫ חז"ל‬were unquestioned starting points. PHI is used as
a tool, or as the method of understanding the axiomatic data of the Bible.
o Modern JPH approaches Judaism from without, from general PHI, and their
PHI does not “belong” exclusively to Jews.
 Most modern JPHs look upon Judaism as a spiritual creation of human thought
which has evolved in history.
o Criticizing the Bible (Spinoza’s ‫ )חידוש‬is a commonplace, not heresy anymore.
o The split between PHI and THL defines the Modern period – thus JPH is no
longer the handmaiden of the Torah.
 There are no ‘Schools’ as there were in the Medieval period (e.g., NP or Arst.), rather
there are independent thinkers, even as we trace the influence of PHIs such as Kant.
 Change-Detectors: concepts with shifted meanings. E.g., “Revelation”:
o Med.: Revelation is an objective event, defined by prophecy and miracles.
o Mod.: Rationalist criticism blew that out of the water, and so Revelation is
now a subjective event, no longer a PHI question, but a THL one.
“Modern JPH continues to explore most of the subjects investigated by Medieval JPH,
such as God’s reality, his essence and attributes, the reasons for the commandments, the
relationship between reason and revelation, etc. But in addition it turns now to several
new topics of PHI interest – PHI of history, political PHI, ethics.”
 Almost all the JPHs interpreted Jewish existence on the basis of historical factors.
o Spinoza: Jews live under the same dictates as the nations.
o Krochmal & Rosenzweig: those poli-sci dictates do not apply to the Jews.
 JPHs spent much time and effort reconciling particularism with universalist PHI.
o So they seek and define an “essence” or “spirit” or other key to Judaism…
o Also, b/c they no longer identify Judaism with “law” (as did Mendelssohn).
 “Ethical monotheism” becomes the key concept of liberal Judaism–the ‘essence.’
 Not only new concepts, but traditional concepts acquired new meanings (as stated):
o Chosenness.
o Revelation.
o Messiah. <examples of all three below:>
 Leo Baeck says that Israel is Chosen by dint of Revelation. Revelation and
particularism, however, is not the judgment of history, but an article of faith in the
world. Thus, Revelation is really a sense of mission, to serve humanity and
accomplish its tasks. So, in a way, collapses Chosen = Mission = Revelation.
 Geiger and Kaplan were more Hegelian: Chosenness had its day, but now we are
modern and universalist.
o Kaplan: Chosenness is an anachronism, and even “mission” is ‘religious
imperialism’.
 Particular messiah  universal messianism, esp. amongst the non-Orthodox.

48
 o Exception: Steven Schwarzschild, refuting modern ‘pseudo-messianism’.
Don’t idolize Socialism or some other “-ism”, it ain’t utopia!
 Modern JPH and Ethics: has split denominationally, no longer is there a “Jewish”
position. That being so, halakha, as the representative of Tradition, cannot be
ignored by any Jewish ethicist. And, is there an ethics outside halakha?

Carlebach, Elisheva (1997). “The social and cultural context: seventeenth-century

Europe.” in History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman.
London: Routledge. 589-99.
 New political and cultural forms:
o Catholic Church lost its monopoly to Protestantism (16th ct.).
o Politics separated from THL (e.g., Jean Bodin and Hugo Grotius).
o Xian Hebraists sought Jewish teachers ‫דוקא‬.
o Raison d’état! [ mercantilism, which generally helped Jews, since they had
international connections; states would override anti-S for the sake of
economic self-interest.]
 Resettlement (1590s-1600s+):
o States, esp. England and The Netherlands (sea-powers) invited Jews back.
 Mennaseh b. Israel  Oliver Cromwell unofficially allowed Jews into
UK (1655), since they were expelled in the late 1200s.
o Bohemia, Germany, Austria, France, Italian cities too.
 Patterns of Governance:
o Medieval: autonomous corporate entities (think of The Pale).
o Modern: centralized bureaucracies, absolute government (hey, no states
within states now, y’hear?!), “citizens!”, the rise of statistics.
 ‫בסופו של דבר‬, gentile gov’ts allowed Jews to retain autonomy (kept
them at a distance) unless o/wise noted. And they did: ‫ קהילה‬model!:
 Wealthy parnassim ruled, not [just] the rabbi anymore.
o Immigrants, all! Medieval towns had one kehillah – modern cities have many
– at least an Ashkenazi, a Sepharadi, and perhaps one for each city of origin.
 Exception: Amsterdam’s Portuguese united (1639), & London’s 1703.
o Older communities (Venice) provided a model of guidance to younger
(Amsterdam, London, Hamburg).
o Encounter between exiles sparked unprecedented clashes over customs,
liturgy, and educational ideals.
o 1648: Cossack rebellion fallout led tons of Ashkenazi refugees with Yiddish,
erudition, and poverty to the European communities, save the court Jews.
o Taxes, haskamah and Herem were potent powers retained into modernity.
o Kehillah was paralleled by the hevrot, voluntary associations for learning,
charity, dowering, and caring for people – alternative social ID and power.
 Spiritual and Intellectual Currents
o The cataclysmic upheavals created a “crisis of authority” in the 17th ct.
o Some idealized the tradition, others gravitated towards the external culture.
 Marranism

49
 o Conversos escaped and reverted to Judaism through the 18th ct.
o Some became total Judaism fans (reacting to their negative Xian experiences).
o Others’ conception of Judaism was fragmentary and corrupted, and could not
live up to the reality, like Uriel da Costa.
o The established Jewish communities supported them with schools & teachers.
o They included PHIs, MDs, KBLs, rabbis, merchants, bankers, and diplomats.
 Kabbalah
o Zohar had been an elitist book, but thanks to ‫אר"י‬, it was published & spread.
o KBL ‫ לשונות‬popped up in sermons and popular ethical literature. Especially
the cycle: ‫ שבירת הכלים‬ ‫ קליפות‬ ‫ ניצוצות‬ ‫תיקון‬.
 Sabbatian Messianic Movement (apogee in 1665-6).
o Lurianic KBL was messianic, but not messiah-ic, if you get my drift.
 ‫סמיכה‬-revival attempts, ‫גאולה‬-oriented study, and calculating the ‫קץ‬.
o SZ had impact for a number of reasons:
 Spanish Inquisition persecuting conversos in Iberia.
 Cossack Uprising, of 1648-57, in Poland.
 Xian Millenarianism.
 This time, SZ’s THL – Nathan of Gaza – translated all the activities
in the language of the Lurianic KBL!
o 1666 ‫ מומר‬to Islam, but SZ-ism remained as a heretical sect for centuries:
 1683: Donmeh converted to Islam (still in Turkey today!)
 1753: Frankists converted to Catholicism.
 But less extreme SZs just studied SZian KBL.
o Despondency, skepticism, heresy-hunting: Jacob Sasportas, later ‫חכם צבי‬,
and later Jacob Emden, all were zealous against SZ-ism; ‫ רמח"ל‬and
Jonothan Eybeshuetz were hounded by accusations/suspicions.
o The young, tenuous kehillot suppressed anything that might damage their
fragile communities, and the new quasi-tolerance of Xian society.
 Irony: those lay leaders were refugees from Inquisition, and now
persecuted these other minorities, deviants, sectarians and heretics.
 Rabbinic Culture: a mammoth production of responsa considering all the great
questions of the day: theology, heresy, rabbinic/lay authority, all those disputed
customs that were leading to fisticuffs in the streets, etc., along with primers.
 New Science had great impact, from astronomy to zoology, medicine, etc.

Feldman, Seymour (1997). “SPINOZA.” in History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H.

Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge. 612-35.
 Excommunicated in 1656 at the age of 24. Why is he a Jewish PHI?:
(a) ‫אין הכי נמי‬, Julius Guttman, Arthur Hyman does not consider him a JPH.
(b) H.A. Wolfson, however, says he is a non-orthodox JPH: he lived his first 24
years as a Jew, received and taught a Jewish education, and seemed to be
reacting to, debating with, the Jewish tradition that preceded him.
(c) Or, look to his influence on JPHs: Mendelssohn and Buber, liberal Jewish
and non-Orthodox thinkers considered Spinoza some to agree or argue with.

50
  [Same way that M’s is an “Aristotelian”]
 Scholars think Spinoza’s story could illuminate the nature of J-Amsterdam society:
o Was he influenced by Juan de Prado, or the story of Uriel de Costa? Unlikely.
o Was it Latin? No, Latin isn’t unOrthodox (e.g., Menasseh b. Israel or Saul
Levi Morteira). But maybe Franciscus van den Enden, the Cartesian PHI?
o Was it an association with heterodox Xians?
o Maybe Isaac La Peytère’s 1656 critique of Mosaic authorship of the Torah?
 Sp. used Xian idioms for literary purposes (indeed, he ridiculed Xian dogmas).

 Sp. post-‫ חרם‬was involved with Quakers and other Xian “colleges” = havurot.
o Thus, he had a circle of friends, who probably supported him.

SPINOZA’S THOUGHT
 Claims extension is an attribute of God (contra all PHIs from Plato to Descartes!!)
 Feels that the geometric method is the best for ‘doing’ PHI (Cartesian of him).
 Early on (1661), Sp. already denied 3 fundamentals of Cartesian and Xian PHI:
1. That God is a wholly spiritual and/or intellectual being.
2. That the human soul or mind is a separable substance (ergo, immortal).
3. That human beings have free will.
 A year later, he “does not separate God from nature,” his ‘atheistic’ equation.
o Thusly he rejects the dualistic cosmology of Plato, Aristotle, all the
Medievals, and Descartes with a monistic metaphysics that has
naturalized the divine and divinized nature.
 If he had these ideas in 1661, then maybe he had them in 1656 and got exCom’ed.

 He delayed the publication of his Ethics (ready in 1675) because his TPT (1670)
received such a backlash. When it was published posthumously, he was right.
 Spinoza’s mature PHI is in the Ethics, whose style is like Euclid or Newton.
o Perhaps to emphasize that he is doing PHI not THL! [Prof. Susan James].

Spinoza On God
 Begins with On God – wow, it’s a priori, not a posteriori like Arst. or DeCartes.
 After all, if we are an effect of God, why reason “backwards” from empirics?
o Start with God, for we do possess and adequate conception of Him.
o This is actually how modern mathematicians & theoretical physicists work.
 Monism – existence is ONE SUBSTANCE, which = God, who is thus the
deterministic, immanent cause (not just the remote transcendent cause).
 The question of Creation has no point, since the Eternal = God = Nature.
 Reality is maximally full (God has infinite attributes) – everything possible exists,
thus God is free.
o Only God is “free” since only he acts according to the laws of his own
nature.  omnipotence = freedom = divine causation!! Strict determinism.
o This determinism precludes miracles.

51
 o If “freedom” means that one could have done something other than what one
has in fact done, then no, nobody has free will.
 Spinoza is persistent in disabusing us of our notion of free will.
 Everything is within God/Nature, which is Eternal, and thus,
everything has a cause, including our volitions, proclivities, and/or
appetites.
 Had associations with Quietists and Quakers (“God is everywhere, and within us”).

Spinoza on Ethics and Psychology

 Ethics only makes sense after understanding human nature (like Aristotle said).
 Human nature includes passion, thus true morality cannot suppress it.
 Spinoza rejects:
o Dualism
o Strict materialism
o Strict mentalism/idealism
 Spinoza is an attribute-pluralist, but a substance-monist. (Hmm, sounds like a
Kabbalist!)10
 There are two modes (extension & thinking). Human beings have both modes, but
since he isn’t a dualist, that’s no problem.
o Solves Descartes’ problem: “mind and body are one thing, conceived now
under the attribute of Extension, now under the attribute of Thought.”
 Hmmm, Isralight anyone?
o Feldman: Hints, however, of a “latent materialism.”
o The mind cannot conceive of ideas without starting from the body. Thus,
Psychology = natural science (biology/neurology) not moralistic. Also, the
soul/mind is not immortal at all.
 Spinoza is a psychological and moral hedonist, a bit like Freud, but that the
pleasures are best pursued in a context of rationality – that is, a political and social
structure that promotes harmony and cooperation. [Also, Life of Reason rules!]
 The “Free Person” is one who understands him or herself, and thus can/will apply
his search for pleasure in the most intelligent, good, and wise fashion. [contra Stoics,
“freedom from passions,” not Sp’s “freedom with passions.”]
o Furthermore, knowledge will make us feel better about our determined
behavior. [I.e., it’s a “kind of cognitive therapy.”]
 Knowing “God” leads to the INT Love of God (sounds like M, but Sp’s version is
actually quite secular), which is basically the knowledgeable contentment with it all.
 McKeon: “The fact that we can think is a sign for Descartes that God is good and
that consequently what we know is true; for Spinoza it can mean only that we are
rational creatures placed in an intelligible world.”

Spinoza on Politics and Religion (Theologico-Political Treatise)

 Separation of (a) Church and State, and (b) Church and University(!).11
10
‫אין הכי נמי‬, S. Maimon, Leibniz, and academic R. Popkin also think so.
11
But acc. to Carmy’s notes, clearly favors “Church by State.” That gives the state power and
responsibility.

52
 o Moreover, Chs. 1-19 is a stinging critique of religion.
o Sp. lived in a time of Religious Wars and such12 – he could not succeed if he
rejected the Bible outright. He had to undermine the Bible on its own terms:
Biblcial hermeneutics and exegesis.
o Says the Bible cannot be a political guide in the modern world, quotes Bible.
o Sp. attacks M as a prime example of EISEGESIS! Thus, he attacks the whole
harmonization project altogether.
 Prophecy: is utterly non-cognitive, rather than purely moral.
 Chosenness: any sovereign nation is ‘chosen’ by “God.”
 Law: God = Nature, so ritual laws are man-made conventions.
 Miracles: are impossible, and even denies God, since He = nature.
 Mosaic Authorship: Moses could not have written the Bible.
 Pristine Text: does not exist. Proto-Criticism.
 PHI and THL?: Bible is not a PHI book, thus it has nothing to say on
the matter!
• Ironically, he transforms Jesus and Solomon into PHIs.
o Religion’s place is to teach morals and piety, not politics.
o Spinoza is uncharacteristically anti-Judaism and anti-Jews in the TPT!

 Reactions:
o Mendelssohn, see below.
o Beloved of ‫משכילים‬, since he wrote a Hebrew Grammar, and liberals, since he
advocated a Judaism sublime religiousity without halakha.
o Zionists, since Sp. said “if they cling to their law, God may elect them again.”
 Within a wider perspective, Spinoza’s “deviations” are often not
much more radical than those of ibn Gabirol, Maimonides,
Gersonides, or Crescas, or even some of the KBLs.
 Especially in light of liberal Judaism, Sp. was merely ahead of his
time, and now Israel has embraced him (it’s all in Hebrew!).
o

 Summary: Spinoza is a pivotal figure, bridging the Medieval and Enlightenment,

who belongs in the corpus of JPH. He may have been influenced+ by deviant Xians
and against the powerful, conformist Amsterdam lay leaders. His scientific
epistemology allowed for intuition, like moderns. True Knowledge through the
senses and man’s reason, but not through “reliable tradition.” Spinoza did not just
shrug off the bonds of Jewish authority, but Authority/Canon altogether.

---

Moses Mendelssohn (EJ, and includes remarks from Carmy’s notes)

 The first Jewish + serious response to Spinoza. Ambivalent:

12
Reacting to the same abhorrent stimuli as Judah Halevi, it seems, but without an experiential foundation
for God’s existence.

53
 o Sp. inspired Leibnez, whose metaphysics is MM’s point of departure.
 MM tries to purify Sp’s PHI of its “errors” by harmonizing it with Leibniz.
o Sp’s eternity is ok, and his determinism can be harmonized, but admits that
Sp’s monistic naturalism doesn’t sit with Jewish supernatural dualism.
o Jerusalem: agrees w/Sp. on separation of Church and State.
o Get rid of ‫חרם‬, cultural assimilation and religious adamancy.
 No such thing as “dogmas” in Judaism, since everything can be rationally
apprehended. God, immortality of the soul, ethics, rewards and punishment – all
Jewish metaphysical positions can be proven.
 Natural religion (reason) is God’s gift to all humanity, and it will provide the basis
of ethics and morality (social contract theory, after Hobbes). Israel, OTOH, has
divinely revealed legislation, thanks to its history (Kuzari argument). ‫ הלכה‬conforms
to reason, though it is not identical with any purported Laws of Reason.
o This would promote emancipation, since you can trust Jews (even though they
speak in Yiddish, and are Other) because they are still human, and that is the
basis of ethics and societal trust.
o IOW, we are all ‘Natural co-Religionists’, Brothers of Reason.
 Anti-‫ – חרם‬this spiritually sick individual needs religion more than ever.

Seeskin, Kenneth (1997). “Jewish Neo-Kantiansim: Hermann Cohen.” in History of

Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge.
786-98.
 Immanuel Kant changed the orientation of PHI from the Thing-in-Itself to our
experience of Things (“manifold of experience”). JPH has been in dialogue (love or
hate) with Kant for 200 yrs.
 If we cannot KNOW objective truths, then out goes all the medieval metaphysics
about certainties about God, the soul, the origin of the universe, etc.: irrelevant!
o All these metaphysical categories relate to how we organize the world’s raw
data, but not the actual world itself.
 Why, then, is God? He is the necessary presumption for moral conduct – thus all
THL is moral theology; you need a leap of faith (i.e., commitment to morality).
 Kant described an idealized Church, and said ‘don’t judge Xianity by its institutions
or historical reality.’ Xianity, however, and the truth-claims it makes, contain and
fumble towards/along a genuine moral thread.
o Kant did not want to be ‫ מוציא לעז על ראשונים‬by introducing a “new” moral idea
o Only an infinite striving towards moral destiny works…
o Morality can’t change for different people, thus it must be universal morality
 Duty exists (categorical imperative). Religion allows one to see those duties as ‫מצוה‬.
o Deontology: moral acts need moral ‫כוונה‬. [Very akin to ‫לשמה‬.]

Meanwhile, back in the Ghetto…

 Kant’s implication that the Real World already embodied the Ideal is a tad
implausible to Jews in the ghetto, and the messiah has not come.

54
 Hermann Cohen took (a) infinite moral task and (b) the gap between ideal and
reality…
o HC tried to do for Judaism what Kant did for Xianity.
 Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism:
o Isn’t exclusive. Kant constructed it out of Xianity, since everything is human-
subjective anyway. HC wants to show how to construct Kant’s religion of
reason out of Jewish sources, but you can use Islam or anything else, since
all those religions are fumbling towards the moral truth.
o It isn’t the religion of reason, but Kant was wrong to think it is not a r.o.r.
 HC emphasizes the universal in Judaism, and duty (like Kant’s Xianity).
o ‫ חסידי העומות‬have a share in ‫עולם הבא‬, “love the stranger,” etc.
 Rationalizes Judaism: e.g., Revelation was not a theophany, but was the realization
that moral reason is the highest human faculty, verily, it is divine.
o Who cares how God spoke, the point is the moral content engraved on our
hearts.
 Social contract: is not some historically binding association of Moses and desert
tribes! Rather, it is a rational idea that has present living force, not just historical.
 HC: ceremonial laws, festivals, etc., are all necessary prerequisites to following the
rational commands/duties – it is rational that people need reminders and symbols.
 HC is ahistorical! Discovery of moral reason is worthy of a theophany, not that God
actually shouted them from a mountain top. [We cannot know that Thing-in-itself.]
o Kant said: “I am subject only to those laws of which I can regard myself as
author.” (like the Med. PHIs, man’s reason = best source of true knowledge).
o E.g., I did not write the Bill of Rights, but I can appropriate it as my own law.
 HC: God’s law and the laws of moral reason simply cannot conflict: both treat
humanity as an end in itself.
o “We can view it either as a law worthy of a perfect being, or as something we
could write ourselves, as God’s attempt to educate us about our highest calling
or our attempt to discover how God is to be served. In the end, the issue is
not who wrote the law but its moral necessity.”
 Kantian autonomy basically means a sort of Ongoing [moral] Revelation.
 Which “Jewish sources”?
o ‫( היום‬e.g., ‫ – אתם הדבקים בה' חיים כלכם היום‬God makes covenants with you.)
o The focus on learning, on personal acquisition of knowledge.
 Both Kant and HC see idealization as a hermeneutical exercise (“I’m just interpreting
what is already there!”)
o He is neo-Kantian in that he does not discuss Things-in-Themselves (like
God, or his own personality – rather, it is our idea of a perfect being, or our
conceptions of finite moral agents, and –tada- the relationship between the
two!).
o Cohen’s argument is thus that The Torah already begins the process of
demystifying the moral law. (‫)לא בשמים היא‬
 Believes everything comes from thought (extreme idealism).
 Judaism, via the prophets, made a great leap towards the moral.

55
 o While at Marburg, he thought religion was popularized ethics, but when he
moved to Berlin at age 70, he felt it bordered on metaphysics, ethics,
aesthetics and psychology.
o Religion focuses on the individual like ethical systems cannot.
 Rosenzweig thinks HC turned existentialist in the end (makes sense,
he was one himself), but Arthur Hyman disagrees. HC just extended
neo-Kantian thought to include religion as rationally necessary for
human beings to deal with the world, sin, and suffering. Religion is
part of our manifold of experience, a hard-wired human trait.
o Ethics makes me treat my neighbor well;
Religion teaches me he is human, leading me to love.
[END]
---

Hegel
 Historicized the ‘Absolute.’ Takes the HIS of PHI into account, but maintains that
HIS is not contingent, but necessary, and developing towards a greater goal.
 Hegel is more socially-oriented, rather than Kant’s individualism.

 Hegel is about fulfillment, not transcendence (experientialism like Schleiermacher),

or the ability to rule your inclinations (Kant).

Note: Hegel was a reaction to Kant, but in the Jewish world, Kant got there first.

---

EJ – Franz Rosensweig
 Turned down a job as an historian, called it “dead science,” just “mere cognition,” so
that he could enter the flow of life, where Qs get answers (like that fateful ‫)יו"כ‬.
 In the Lehraus, rabbis didn’t teach. Rather, ‫ עמי הארץ‬would bring their enthusiasm,
and returning ‫ משכילים‬would build their Judaism and identity among other Jews.
 Lernen is not just interactive (a big enough ‫ חידוש‬in that Germany), it is a
hermeneutical appropriation whereby we Build Communities (like Alfie Kahn?).
 Star of Redemption: You cannot reduce God, Man, and World into a single category
– rejects materialists and idealists.
o Rejects idealist ways of adding God into history. God and Israel are above
history, transcends time.
 He’s all about Revelation;

Kohanski, Alexander (????). “Martin Buber’s Philosophy of Judaism.” Judaism X.

69-82.
 Translation of Buber’s “decisive experiences into human thought-values.”
 Three phases in this ‘translation’, correlating to
 I-you or I-it, but no Cartesian “I”.

56
 o Causality reigns in the I-it realm.
o Response leads to responsibility in the I-you realm – you discover yourself.
‘When I experiences, utilizes, thinks, or imagines the other, the relation is I-it. When I
relates with his whole being, in immediacy, the relation is I-you.’
o I-you with human beings is an encounter, and cannot be sustained – but for
that moment of reciprocal openness.
o I-you with God, the Eternal Thou – God cannot be an it, so he can never be
the object of speculation, thoughts, etc.
o God is spoken to, not spoken about.
 [[Rosensweig attacks his friend Buber:
o Buber emphasizes the I-you too much, but God clearly created this world of
objects, so I-it must have good in it also.
o The contrast with I-you should be He-you, not I-it.(?)
o What about the we-it relation?]]
 Distinguishes between “belief in” (‫אמונה‬, Jewish) and “belief that” (pistis, Xian).
o 3 stages: Common intellectual assent (“Belief that” #1) creates a community
of like-minded people (#2). That community creates/fosters “Belief in.” (#3)
 Anti-magic, anti-Gnosis: both are immature manipulations of God, rather than
openness. Need humanism! To be truly human is to be able to meet other existent
beings. Against Kierkegaard’s “suspension of the ethical,” and his only-man-and-
God-have-a-relationship idea.
o Also antinomian: Judaism comes before the Law.
 Pro-mysticism, but anti-unio mystica – real life is the dialogic, ethical encounter.

---

EJ – Joseph B. Soloveitchik
 Brisker scion [incisive analysis, precise categorization, critical independence, M’s
MT], grew up with ‫ חב"ד‬influence.
 All discussions of ethical and social values are essentially “religious.” Can’t read
ethics in the bathroom?
 Halakhic Man is the Brisker Man  both homo religiosis and scientist. After
Cohen’s neo-Kantianism’s extreme idealism, only recognizes halakhic objects as
worthy of cognition, and only those emotions connected to it.
 Halakhic Mind differs from the above work: phenomenology of the religious mind.
o That allows him to use contradictory sources, since they all participate in the
construction of the religious person. Cognitive pluralism.
o Subjective (theory), Practical (praxis), and Normative (method) parts of
religious consciousness. The subjective-theory part should be reconstructed
from the other two parts, incl./esp. halakha.
o ABB: Do you mean we can know the Thing-in-Itself, since it projects halakha
through the veil of our manifold of experience? Hmmm…nope, can’t be!
 Contra Halakhic Man, who would not recognize non-halakhic
cognitions, nor care about the Subjective parts – true legalism.

57
 Finally, U-Vikashtem mi-Sham, a three stage dialectic + resolution:
1. Empowering scientific accomplishments versus humbling divine revelation.
2. Love of God versus Fear of God.
3. Both tensions disappear in ‫דבקות‬, after M’s Aristotelian “conjunction”, since
the ‫ מושכל‬,‫ משכיל‬,‫ שכל‬are one…like Hermann Cohen’s cognitive idealism.
o RJBS reconstructed this phenomenology from the halakha.
 All that was 1944. In 1956, he goes from phenomenological cognitive idealism to
overt existentialism in ‫( קול דודי דופק‬this style continued in Lonely Man of Faith).
o Suffering: In his phenomenological works (phen.), suffering is one of the
dialectical poles, but in his existential works (exist.), it is the central point!
 In his phen., resolution dissolves the suffering (without solving the
“problem” suffering poses to God’s nature). But in his exist., the
suffering remains even after resolution, but now rather has
meaning, granted to it by the halakha.
o Metaphysics: In his phen., this is important, since it affects what can be part of
religious cognition [we’re cognitive idealists here], but in his exist., well, who
cares?
o Problematizing the Other: first arises in his exist., esp. Lonely Man
o In short, the phen. is an intellectual exercise, while the exist. is cathartic.
 Lonely Man of Faith describes how the uniqueness of each individual should
preclude true communication – but finally is allowed through divine intervention.

Leaman, Oliver (1997). “Jewish existentialism: Rosenzweig, Buber, and

Soloveitchik.” in History of Jewish Philosophy. Ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver
Leaman. London: Routledge. 799-819.
 Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929): (let’s contrast it to the PHIs FR once entertained…)
o Hegelianism: improperly reifies concepts like “humanity,” [and “the state”?]
and winds up ignoring the individual.
o Hermann Cohen: improperly identifies Judaism with “mere cognition,” a
representative of entirely general universal truths.
 Both promote assimilation (unwittingly?) by eroding Judaism’s
timeless relevance and/or uniqueness.
o This existential thinking is a big ‫ חידוש‬for JPH (though it’s old news for
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche).
“It is based on the principle that being is prior to thought, in the sense that the place
to start philosophically is with the experiences of the individual, and then to expand
from these experiences to more complex and abstract concepts.”
o In short: FR’s principle of irreduction. Judaism cannot be reduced to some
other principle (God, Man, and World cannot be reduced to one another).
o Reality is composed of God, Man (humans), and World, and the crucial
point here is the interaction of these elements.
 The dynamics create a world of meaning for the Jew = i.e., revelation.

58
 God is not distant, but interacts with His world and creatures constantly. This is
constant revelation [if low-level], for it is a Revealed Truth that God loves us, and
living according to that dictate is living acc. to revelation. (Sinai was more of this).
 Creation – past; Revelation – present; Redemption – future. We need ‫גאולה‬.
o The events of JHI are not merely in the past, but we are participating today
in them, and we have to bring them to life. THEY ARE TO HAVE AN EXPERIENTIAL
IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE. [You feel Eternity, etc…]

 Martin Buber (1878-1965):

o Likes Nietzsche also, but also likes Zionism and Hasidism.
o Buber romanticized H far from reality. But who cares? For Buber, H
represented Jewish freshness and creativity.
 Everything in Life is Holy, and imitatio dei means loving fellow
man.
 H presented a model community that unselfconsciously celebrated
its natural links to God.
o I and thou:
 I-Thou is a direct and reciprocal relationship with another person, and
through it the ‘I’ is created.
 This is tough: – you cannot treat the person as an object, but neither
can you treat the person as a subject – both are misrepresentations.
You must constantly balance the two, and create both yourself without
objectifying the other.
 Don’t need to have an I-Thou with everyone (e.g., the paperboy).
 Warning! I-Thou can over time slip into I-it. Don’t try to force
someone to change.
o Dialogue with people leads/is dialogue w/God, we just need to be willing.
o FR had to learn about a ‫ מצוה‬and make it existentially meaningful and
impactful in order to “be obligated” to follow the command.
 Buber, instead, would have to enter into dialogue with the Giver in
order to accept a Law’s command.

Joseph Soloveitchik
 Like Buber and FR, he concentrates on constructing a picture of human beings
which emphasizes the concept of the self.
o We feel alone, and from that distance from the world, we distinguish our
selves  make us into subjects, rather than objects.
o Approaching God frees us, is self-realization – this is done through the
halakha.
o Halakha is not a restricting set of rules, but a liberating generator of
meaning, assisting in the creation of a spiritual self before God.
o Halakha is both spiritual and practical.
o Like Buber and FR, one cannot follow halakha blindly – you need ‫כוונה‬.
o The efforts expended on the minutiae of halakha follow from the importance
God sees in every part of life.

59
 o ABB: What are the axioms, the raw data, the apposite grist for the
existential mill? RJBS: halakha. Buber: other people FR: God, Man, World.
o Nothing is secular, and halakha permeates this sanctity, reminds us of it.
 The Torah is divine by dint our human ability to regard them as divine. Mt. Sinai,
where God approached us, is no longer holy once He leaves. But Mt. Moriah, where
Avraham approached God [to offer up Isaac] in faith and trust, that is holy for us
forever.
 We constantly strive to transcend the duality of our lives, and this dialectic produces
nuance, creativity, etc.
 In a sense, RJBS is anti-Fundamentalist – God hides things even from believers; to
overcome that, one must participate in the act of revelation itself, by throwing one’s
self into the creative halakhic process.
 Duality: love God [as best you can] like a mystic, know God [as best you can] like a
PHI. [remind anyone of ‫חסידי אשכנז‬, hmm?]
 Like Buber and FR, his concern is “what constitutes an authentic relationship?”
[The relationship with God is but one of those; in order to “get it right” with God, you
first need to “perfect” your relationship to other people of your daily experiences].

Compare and Contrast:

 All emphasize love, and explore the nature of relationships, what is a subject or an
object in said relationships.
 All seek to modernize Judaism; in a sense, they were driven to existentialism by
acknowledging that the alternative prospect was the pure irrelevance of
Judaism.
 One of the problems of existentialism is that it can end up being a bit arbitrary. I
need freedom, self-realization, and I need to make and invest my life with meaning.
Why can’t halakha work that way, whether it’s Redemption, I-Thou, or Revelation?
 If Buber and Rosenzweig are simply arguing about their personal tastes, then this
exposes the whole discussion as boring and irrelevant – indeed, existentialism would
be quite subjective and arbitrary. Psychology and sociology might be helpful in
determining which existential arguments are true to human nature and condition.

Hasidism
Intellectual Respectability
 Buber made H literarily respectable in an age of rationalism, the “science of
Judaism,” where figures like Zunz, Krochmal, and Graetz13 disparaged the irrational
traditions of their pious, insular, snuff-snorting rabble brethren from the East.
o But Buber was a storyteller, a poet.
 Gershom Scholem made H historically respectable through his meticulous reading
of texts, showing that deep thought, systems, and structures underlie Hasidism, not
just magic and amulets.
 Moshe Idel has made it phenomenologically respectable, by countering Scholem,
re-emphasizing the magical and ecstatic parts of Hasidism.
13
If anyone else is using these notes, you’ll need to cover “Science of Judaism” elsewhere.

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Green, Arthur (1996). “Early Hasidism : some old/new questions.” in Hasidism
Reappraised. 441-446.
 Two great questions: H’s Origins and Its Success.
o Contemporary scholarship has negated all the previously “clear” answers.
 It is not a reaction to persecution of the Chmielniki massacre. It is not a necessary
reaction to Sabbateanism (rather than, perhaps “an inner-shift” in that kind of
thinking).
 It was not an outcome of poverty or oppression, class differences, nor a rebellion
of the unlettered (R’ J.J. of Poloyne and R’ Schneur Zalman!).
 It was successful because it was/was not messianic!
 4 of the Remaining Questions:
1. How and Why did Hasidism spread?
2. What was the secret of its [quick and widespread] success?
3. What, if anything, is novel about Hasidism?
4. How to define it: what or who is a Hasid?
 HOW AND WHY DID HASIDISM SPREAD?
o Ditching historical explanations, we are fruitfully left with phenomenological
ones: what type of mystics were they? What were their inner experiences?
o Those experiences (‫ דעת‬,‫ ביטול‬,‫דבקות‬, or ‫ )נקודה פנימית‬are primary.
o Phenomenology.: Hasidism is the outbreak of radical immanentist mysticism.
Instead of political or social causes, or religious-literary historical ones,
what about the psychology of mysticism?
 Lurianism revered, and quietly ignored.
o Denounced PHI, but mined it for terminology.
 WHAT WAS THE SECRET OF ITS [QUICK AND WIDESPREAD] SUCCESS?
o It is a religious charismatic revival movement, sharing characteristics with
the Great Awakening, post-Reconstruction revivalism, etc.
o The ability to convey novel ideas in a comfortable, familiar language.
o All the Hebrew H lit. is interpretive.
 WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS NOVEL ABOUT HASIDISM?
o After we detect traces from earlier sources, why were those sources used?
o E.g., Zaddiq. ‫ חז"ל‬clearly grant him powers, he sustains the cosmos, etc. So
what’s nu? The centrality accorded this doctrine is new!
 Values are reordered, and the zaddiq is primary.
 The zaddiq is identified – institutionalization.
 Simple prayer devotion is seen as the core which other Jewish
elements orbit.
• Hence, the importance of ‫מחשבות זרות‬.
 HOW TO DEFINE IT: WHAT OR WHO IS A HASID?
o Do you need a rebbe? Does a zaddiq need Hasidim?
o AG: “A traditional Jewish pietism bound by the authority of both
halakhah and aggadah that traces its spiritual lineage to the Baal Shem
Tov.”

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Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism “Devekut.”
 It (‫ )דבקות‬is not new to Judaism. Hasidut did something new with it.
 KBLs use it as the highest ideal of the mystical life.
1. It is a value/state without eschatological connotations (it’s about ‫עולם הזה‬, not
focused on ‫ ;עולם הבא‬it’s about YOU, not the ‫)כלל‬.
2. Paradoxical: though focused on ‫עולם הזה‬, only attainable through
abnegation of ‫!עולם הזה‬
3. Paradoxical: though only attainable through abnegation of ‫עולם הזה‬,
can/must be realized through social interaction in ‫עולם הזה‬.
 Esp. see ‫ רמב"ן‬on “‫”ולדבקה בו‬.
 Success: transforms the profane into the sacred, it is all one – the perfect example is
holy eating! (Lurianic, also ‫)רמח"ל‬
 Early H read ‫ספר חרדים‬, who ‫אדרבה‬, advocate ‫ פרישות‬from this world.
 Ok, ok, SO WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BET THE H VIEW AND THE KBLS’?
o (Why could ARI talk about ‫ דבקות‬with impunity, but the H get attacked?)
o Because it is no longer an extreme ideal, but the first step in piety.
 Ergo, Besht: “Faith = communion of the soul with God.”
o To be ‘out of ‫( !דבקות’ = עבודה זרה‬sorta) “‫”וסרתם ועבדתם אלוהים אחרים‬
o This would appeal to the common man – ‫ דבקות‬is both the Ultimate, and
Democratic.
 Another point: just like ‫מצוה גוררת מצוה‬, say ‫ דבקות גוררת דבקות‬ it is a path as well
as a state-of-being.
 Letters, everything is composed of the Divine Name, which contains light of the
actual ‫ – תורה לשמה‬.‫ שכינה‬now means studying for the sake of ‫'שם ה‬.
o ‫ דבקות‬means binding oneself to the ‫ פנימיות‬of the letters.
o Keeping ‫ מצות‬without ‫ = דבקות‬Satanism! (er, separates the ‫)ניצוצות‬.
 Besht mentions that ‫ דבקות‬turns the ‫ אני‬ ‫אין‬. The Maggid goes nuts on this.

 Inevitable clash with the Talmudists: if you concentrate on the divine light, how can
you actually learn the words with its mundane meaning??
 …and all that time praying is taken from Torah study! (Besht  RJJoP “no time on
‫ שבת‬to study at all”). [Later, they said you could learn in ‫דבקות‬, but not yet…]
o The ‫ עם הארץ‬now had a whole new vista to explore: ‫דבקות‬.
o The ‫ תלמיד חכם‬now had to balance his responsibilities!
 The Maggid (Dov Ber of Mezeritsch):
o ‫תיקון‬, so crucial to Luria, is bumped off completely in early H by ‫דבקות‬.
 ‫ תיקון‬is uselessly Messianic, while Besht is focused on YOU.
 The Maggid transforms ThKBL into Mystical Anthropology.
1. ‫ – פרישות‬retreat from association with other people.
2. ‫ – מכתב‬writing down KBL mysteries on the Torah.
3. ‫ – ייחודים‬in the sense of special meditations.
o ‫ דבקות‬is not [yet] a social value.
 Insistence on mind and intellectual effort “cannot be accidental”.

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 o GS: By the “act” of meditative thinking [on the ineffable light], ‘thought’
becomes ‘emotion.’ It is ‫ כביכול‬de-intellectualized. (the effort not content)
o The insight won by ‫ דבקות‬has no rational and intellectual content and,
being of a most intimate and emotional character, cannot be translated
into rational terms.
o Meshullem Feibusch Heller: You cannot just study the Zohar without
experience.
 What about the inevitable disappointment?
o Besht: s/t admits the necessity of interrupting ‫דבקות‬. The soul must rest and
recharge. The ‫ יום יומי‬thus becomes preparation for more ‫דבקות‬, yay!
 ‫ ירידה‬is necessary for ‫עלייה‬.
 Still, if non-‫דבקות = עבודה זרה‬, this is not good enough:
o Thus, THE DOCTRINE OF ‫ קטנות‬AND ‫גדלות‬. [appropriated Lurianic terms]
 Applies to all created things (not just Man).
 Phases of Life,

Maggid of Mezerischt
 ‫ חצצוצרות‬ ‫צורות‬-‫חצי‬. Also ‫ א = אדם‬+ ‫דם‬. You need the “Falafelim of the World.”

Immanuel Etkes. “The Zaddik: The Interrelationship between Religious Doctrine

and Social Organization”
 How was Leadership and the new communal structure related?
 Similarities to Early Hasidim (Ashkenaz?):
o Mystical elite can forge a link to the spiritual world.
o Takes responsibility for greater society(?)
 Earlier KBL Hasidim withdrew from society v. Besht engaged in society:
o Big on supervising ‫שוחטים‬.
o Warns communities of blood libels.
o Intervenes on High on order to nullify evil decrees.
 Besht can improve society without resort to sermons.
o ‫דבקות‬.
 ‫ קטנות‬and ‫ גדלות‬to take breaks.
o Raising ‫מחשבות זרות‬.
o ‫ – עבודה בגשמיות‬eating.
o Adopted or neutralized the Messianic element.
o Simple prayer and devotion.
o Leader must save his flock.

 Maggid added:
o Hasidic court.
o Power of the Zaddiq – ‫חצוצרות‬.
o Seeks the learned elite. [see above, insistence on mind and INT is on purpose]
o Mystical leadership (‫ )בש"ט‬+ sermonizing preacher = New Type of Leadership
 Leader must save his flock.

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 R’ JJ of Ployne:
o Flock (n.) must flock (v.) to the leader for salvation.
o Critiqued the extant leadership (‘demons in human skin’ or something)

 R’ Elimelekh of Lesansk
o Fully developed theory of Zaddiqism:
 Hasidim are the ‫המון עם‬. Zaddiq is a good word for this figure, because
of the potent KBL references (Scholem).
 Mutual obligations of Hasid   Zaddiq.
 Seeks the unlettered masses.
 Retrospective theoretical legitimization in terms of KBL symbols 
necessary in the face of withering criticism of GRA etc.

Miles Krazzen. “Sources of Devequt in Early Hasidism” in Uniter of Heaven and Earth.
43-80.
 Feels that the occurrences of pre-H devequt are far more common than Scholem
thought.
 Two trends in the rabbinic literature on devequt: mystical and non-mystical.
o RJJoP is non-mystical since acc. to him, “cleaving” = ‫תלמידי חכמים‬.
o Rabbi Akiva is mystical (Pardes).
 Abulafia, who espoused unio mystica, affected the writings of ‫ רמ"ק‬and Vital.
 THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION here is that ‫ ואורייתא חד הוא‬,‫ היהודי‬,'‫ה‬, so ‘the path of
devequt with G-d through the Torah is essentially one of SELF-KNOWLEDGE.’

Joseph Weiss. “The Saddik – Altering the Divine Will.”

 The most innovative aspect of the Maggid’s “Saddikology” was his emphasis on
the Saddik’s MAGICAL POWERS
 How it is that a human being can alter the Will of God?
o A decree does not reflect God’s true innermost will. Rather, God provokes the
intervention of the Saddik.
o Thus ‫“ חז"ל‬The Holy, One blessed be He, craves the prayers of the righteous.”
 Also, ‫לא בשמים היא & נצחוני בניי‬.
o Also, determinist – God makes the Zaddiq pray!
 The parable of a child who rides a wooden stick, pretending that it is a horse.
o I.e., the Zaddiq has autonomy, God does not judge the merits of any request.
 “The children are taught of the Lord”—the children, in a way, teach the Lord.
o Again, persuasion by dint of the personal [physical] relationship, not by logic
or by the merits of the arguments or requests.
 But how can Man persuade God while yet be dependent on Him? Answer: ‫!חצוצרות‬

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