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Speaker 1: of Jewish Ideas, we are currently running a multi part
Speaker 1: series on the thorny and intriguing issue of Judaism and universalism.
Speaker 1: In pursuit of enlightenment and insight on this topic, we
Speaker 1: will be journeying through the full sweep of Jewish intellectual history,
Speaker 1: from the Bible down to our own day, inviting our
Speaker 1: ergudiguests to reflect on the many questions and proposed solutions
Speaker 1: that are brought to the four in the discussion of
Speaker 1: these issues. On today's episode, we'll be exploring the world
Speaker 1: of medieval Jewish philosophy and examining the extent to which
Speaker 1: the dichotomy of universalism and particularism may be used to
Speaker 1: categorize the ideas and writings of some of the most
Speaker 1: important thinkers of that age. Our guest today is my
Speaker 1: old teacher and mentor, doctor Manahem Kellner, who is the
Speaker 1: Wolfson Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa.
Speaker 1: And was the founding chair of the Department of Jewish
Speaker 1: Philosophy and Thought at Shalem College, Jerusalem. Professor Kellner is
Speaker 1: the author of numerous books and articles precisely on our
Speaker 1: subject today, including his recent work My Monety is the
Speaker 1: Universalist The Ethical Horizons of the Mischtah, published by Lidmann
Speaker 1: Library of Judicivilization in twenty twenty. It is a pleasure
Speaker 1: to welcome Professor Kellner to the Podcast of Jewish Ideas today.
Speaker 2: Professor welcome, Thank you very much, and masaltove on your
Speaker 2: recent accomplishment. I'm talking to doctor JJ Kimkey.
Speaker 1: That's very kind to your professor. And of course we'll see.
Speaker 1: We'll see how the rest of this conversation goes. We'll
Speaker 1: see if we're still on what such good terms by
Speaker 1: the end, because I intend to dig into some serious,
Speaker 1: serious topics here, So let's jump in before we go
Speaker 1: to the whole discussion of the Rambam and other figures.
Speaker 1: I've not defined terms a little bit. I'm used the
Speaker 1: term universalism very often in writing band the Rabam and
Speaker 1: others in Jewish dupal philosophy. Could you perhaps give us
Speaker 1: something of a definition or at least explain the parameters
Speaker 1: of the time as you understand it, then as it
Speaker 1: applies to medieval jewishilosophy.
Speaker 2: Let me start with two introductory comments, and you'll stop
Speaker 2: me if I get off the track too much. First,
Speaker 2: and this is I think very important to note, universalism
Speaker 2: is not a word in Hebrew, and there is no
Speaker 2: way of translating it into Hebrew except for saying universaliute
Speaker 2: or something like that. That has to be addressed. Secondly,
Speaker 2: it is my opinion, my correct opinion, that the Jewish
Speaker 2: tradition itself is neither universalist nor particularist, but rather it
Speaker 2: has elements of universalism and elements of particularism, and certain
Speaker 2: figures emphasize one kind of element, other figures emphasize the
Speaker 2: other kind of argument. So that's the first two introductory
Speaker 2: comments I wanted to make as to what I take
Speaker 2: universalism to mean within the Middle Medieval context, I e.
Speaker 2: What my monety's thought. Of course, what my mon's thought
Speaker 2: is always a vexed issue, since there as many monities
Speaker 2: as there are people read him. But luckily for you
Speaker 2: and me, I've got the right mamanity, so we're okay
Speaker 2: in any of it. I would start with three basic claims,
Speaker 2: and then if you want, I'd be happy to expand
Speaker 2: on them. The first basic claim of my monity and
Speaker 2: universalism is universalism is that all human beings are created
Speaker 2: in the image of God. No ifs, no butts, no,
Speaker 2: wherefores no restrictions. Can I call him Rambam. It's easier
Speaker 2: for me. Rambam takes the opening verses of Genesis seriously,
Speaker 2: where it says that God created all human beings in
Speaker 2: the divine image, whatever that means. So I think Rama
Speaker 2: takes that very, very seriously. A second point is the
Speaker 2: notion of chosenness is very important in Judaism, notion of
Speaker 2: covenant between God and the Jewish people. But there are
Speaker 2: many ways of understanding what it means to be a
Speaker 2: chosen people, and certainly in the view of Rambam, it
Speaker 2: carries with it no sense of an inherent superiority. In general,
Speaker 2: expanding that point, Rombab's God does not endow people with gifts.
Speaker 2: Rombam's God challenges people to do things, and so Faraba
Speaker 2: on the idea of the chosen people is a challenge
Speaker 2: to behave in a certain fashion. It's not a gift
Speaker 2: that God has given to the Jewish people, the exclusion
Speaker 2: of all others. And finally, a third general point is
Speaker 2: and connected to all this is there is a debate
Speaker 2: in the rabbinic panetic literature, the literature of the messenaics ages,
Speaker 2: over to whom was the Torah actually addressed. So one
Speaker 2: side of the debate says that Torab was given to Israel,
Speaker 2: to the Jewish people. The other side of the debate
Speaker 2: says that ultimately the Torah is addressed to call by
Speaker 2: a olum all human beings. So certainly the point that
Speaker 2: David Gillison I made in our book about my monitoring
Speaker 2: is that Ramman thought that the terro was ultimately addressed
Speaker 2: to all human beings. Those like three basic points of
Speaker 2: the where I understand universalism. Since I made a professor
Speaker 2: a very long time, I feel like I'll expand on that.
Speaker 1: Or I will I will ask that in a moment,
Speaker 1: but I want to. I want to made a couple
Speaker 1: of sort of preliminary questions beforehand, and one of them
Speaker 1: is a little bit that it seems to me at
Speaker 1: least and Kramn fam wrong, that there's something about philosophy
Speaker 1: as such that could or perhaps necessarily does push on
Speaker 1: towards universalism. In other words, that because of course, the
Speaker 1: medieval period that we're discussing is the time that Jewish
Speaker 1: thinkers like my one of these, like Zid you're going,
Speaker 1: like bas turned towards philosophy, turn towards discipline of philosophy,
Speaker 1: and of course those days that included science and physicsca.
Speaker 1: And in order to engage in that, you have to
Speaker 1: have a basic understanding that those of other traditions have
Speaker 1: wise things to say and and have some sort of
Speaker 1: access to truth, and have some sort of ability to
Speaker 1: to formulate truth and to discover truth in some sort
Speaker 1: of way. And that seems to me ready to lead
Speaker 1: or to open the door somewhat to a kind of
Speaker 1: universalistic outlook. Is that how do you characterize that that claim?
Speaker 1: In other words, does philosophy necessitate this? Can philosophy lead
Speaker 1: to it? Is there a much more tenuous connection? What
Speaker 1: do you say is the connection there?
Speaker 2: I would characterize that claim is one hundred percent correct?
Speaker 1: Fair enough? Okay, that's very kind of you. And then
Speaker 1: then let me ask, but isn't it the case? There
Speaker 1: were some who were involved in philosophy who who then
Speaker 1: went down a very much a non universalistic roots. In
Speaker 1: other words, how could it be the one engaged in
Speaker 1: philosophy but then sort of interest towards particularism or runs
Speaker 1: towards it.
Speaker 2: Well, you're aiming at you, Huda lav Okay, let's let's
Speaker 2: dive into that that's trying to get to. Let me
Speaker 2: first say a few words about the other side. Why
Speaker 2: philosophy leads to universalism. All the people we call medieval
Speaker 2: Jewish philosophers live Phileo out of the question because he
Speaker 2: had no impact on subsequent Jewish life. But starting with
Speaker 2: Sadia go on and moving up until say, the the
Speaker 2: Gerus Farad the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in
Speaker 2: fourteen ninety two, you have a long list of people
Speaker 2: who took philosophy seriously, which meant that they read philosophers.
Speaker 2: Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages is a product of
Speaker 2: exposure to non Jewish sources. If it's Soagia with the
Speaker 2: klam if it's you mentioned him in Pancudo, with Neoplatonism,
Speaker 2: certainly Rombaum and neoplatonized aris Ittillianism, et cetera, all the
Speaker 2: way through. So I guess the best way to make
Speaker 2: this point briefly is that if you were not open
Speaker 2: to being influenced by outside sources, you didn't do philosophy.
Speaker 2: My friend and colleague Evesrabisky once pointed out before his
Speaker 2: accident that there were two kinds of miemonodeans in the
Speaker 2: Middle Ages. There were the Tawmudic mimonodeans and the philosophical mimonodeans.
Speaker 2: The Tawmudiic mimonodeans read primarily the Missionatara. That's the rob
Speaker 2: bomb of the Yeshiva world today, or I should say
Speaker 2: the non Zionis Yeshiva world today, and they had no
Speaker 2: interest in Romam's philosophical writings. Let me illustrate that the
Speaker 2: mimonodes Ramum's Missionatora, his alot of work, begins with four
Speaker 2: chapters summarizing the structure of the universe has understood in
Speaker 2: contemporary philosophy and science. The rest of the book is
Speaker 2: all you might call straightforward dry, not dry, but straightforward
Speaker 2: helaja Jewish law. Now, if you examined, say the database
Speaker 2: that Barilin University put out looking for hyperlinks on my
Speaker 2: monodes Missionatora, so the first four chapters have almost no
Speaker 2: hyperlinks to rabbinic literature, and after that the thousands or
Speaker 2: If you look at a traditional picture of the missionatora,
Speaker 2: a page of the Missionatura looks like a page of Talmud,
Speaker 2: a small amount of Rambamb in the middle, surrounded by many,
Speaker 2: many commentaries. The first four chapters are a lot of
Speaker 2: Rambam and the one major commentary there is so unimportant
Speaker 2: that nobody knows who it is. It's called the commentary.
Speaker 2: So this is an example of the way in which
Speaker 2: the rabbinic or tom Mudich Mamanodaeans took Rambamb very seriously,
Speaker 2: but did We're not interested in his philosophical work and
Speaker 2: largely not aware of it. And then you have the
Speaker 2: philosophical Maimonideans, who, because they were traditionally observant Jews, knew
Speaker 2: about the Halakha, but it didn't didn't move them. That
Speaker 2: wasn't where their heads were at. They were interested in living.
Speaker 2: So they studied the Guide of the Perplexed Bokim, and
Speaker 2: they were commentaries on it in respet, sponsors to it,
Speaker 2: and translated it without paying a lot of attention to
Speaker 2: his alohic work. So the fact that we focus on
Speaker 2: people who wrote Jewish philosophy means by definition, we're focusing
Speaker 2: on people who were open to the cultural world around them.
Speaker 2: It's important to point out these people were not assimilated,
Speaker 2: but they were definitely acculturated. The very fact that Saja
Speaker 2: wrote in Arabic and Rambam wrote in Arabic, and Huda
Speaker 2: Halevi of all people wrote in ra you don't liive me.
Speaker 2: The great, great Hebrew poet wrote his Kuzari in Arabic,
Speaker 2: which means languages carry with them a whole world of ideas.
Speaker 2: As you know, you know better than me because you
Speaker 2: write so well in English. But you can't just write
Speaker 2: a book in Arabic and not know something about the
Speaker 2: Arabic world. Rama for example, will often sort of like
Speaker 2: make references to passages from the Qur'an, not because he's
Speaker 2: a quote, you know, a closet Muslim, because it's part
Speaker 2: of the culture in which he grew up. In fact,
Speaker 2: his his Hebrew, as scholars who know more about this
Speaker 2: than I do have pointed out, has lots of Arabisms.
Speaker 2: You know, he was. I love to say that to
Speaker 2: my students. Rambam and I are alike. I think in
Speaker 2: English and teaching Hebrew. He thought in Arabic and wrote
Speaker 2: a Hebrew so Yeah, it's no doubt that you're right.
Speaker 2: Once you're interested in the in these issues, in philosophical issues,
Speaker 2: you are basically part of a world, part of a culture,
Speaker 2: part of a universe of discourse which includes the sciences
Speaker 2: and philosophy, especially in the Middle Ages where science was
Speaker 2: part of philosophy.
Speaker 1: So with that introduction, now let's move before we dive
Speaker 1: different into the Rumbam, into who you have portrayed as
Speaker 1: the rumbums Nemesis on this particular aspect, which is Rabbi
Speaker 1: Hudan Levy, a poet, philosopher of the eleventh and twelfth
Speaker 1: century and great work to Kuzaris, He's major philosophical work.
Speaker 1: And so let me ask you, I mean, could you
Speaker 1: explain what you mean by particularism in that context? Can
Speaker 1: you offer your conception of a Hallevi and his and
Speaker 1: why is he the sort of archetype of medieval Jewish particularism.
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, he is not the archetype. He's
Speaker 2: a moderate particularist. When you get to the Zohar you
Speaker 2: get to really heavy duty particularism. But Halev is a
Speaker 2: particularist in the following sense. His Book of Genesis is
Speaker 2: not the one with which you're familiar. In his Book
Speaker 2: of Genesis, the Jewish people were chosen from the moment
Speaker 2: of creation. In other words, Adam and Eve had children,
Speaker 2: two boys who fought and one killed the other. Why
Speaker 2: because the murderer kane Kayne was jealous of Heavil. Because
Speaker 2: Heavel had inherited from his parents, answer from his father
Speaker 2: for all Avi's purposes, a particular we could call a
Speaker 2: genetic compliment, which made him unlike his brother. And in
Speaker 2: Alevi's view, in each generation, one person inherited this special
Speaker 2: genetic component, shall we call it, until he got to Jacob,
Speaker 2: all of whose children inherited it, and therefore they became
Speaker 2: the children of Issuel, the children of Jacob, and they
Speaker 2: were they were suddenly not just individuals but people. Now,
Speaker 2: why does he have this view? And that's his view, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's his picture, is his rendition of the book of
Speaker 2: Book of Genesis, which shows that the Torah was designed
Speaker 2: from the very beginning of creation to be given to
Speaker 2: a particular kind of person. Now that particular kind of
Speaker 2: person carries I have to say with him, I'm sure
Speaker 2: a Lev doesn't mind having women in the picture, but
Speaker 2: that wasn't his stick that particular genetic component enables that
Speaker 2: person to achieve prophecy in principle, nothing more than that. Now,
Speaker 2: Allavi will emphasize that human beings are human beings, Gentiles
Speaker 2: can be saintly, he has no problem with it, but
Speaker 2: he does have a problem with the idea that gentiles
Speaker 2: could prophesy. Prophecy is something a gift. For rambamb prophecy
Speaker 2: is something you earn, you create basically if you work
Speaker 2: hard enough. But for a levy, it's a gift, and
Speaker 2: it's a gift that's only given to people who have
Speaker 2: this special gene of using genetic languages, even though it's
Speaker 2: inappropriate to enable them to receive the gift, and that
Speaker 2: would be the Jewish people. Does he just jump out
Speaker 2: of the full blown with this kind of stuff. No,
Speaker 2: Like I said, there are particular elements in Judaism and
Speaker 2: universalistic elements. You can find in rabbinic texts, things which
Speaker 2: emphasized the particular side. Don't ask me which ones, and
Speaker 2: you can find elements. Certainly the text which emphasized the
Speaker 2: universalist elements. Now it's not fair to psychoanalyze Haleevi, but
Speaker 2: I'll do it. Anyway, Alevi lived in a world in
Speaker 2: which his colleagues were Christians and Muslims. In Spain, the
Speaker 2: Christians hated the Jews and the Muslims. The Muslims hated
Speaker 2: the Christians and the Jews. You know the subtidy. They
Speaker 2: were friendly people. There are also, but by and large
Speaker 2: they shouldn't say hated, disdained, looked down upon. In fact,
Speaker 2: in Muslim Spain, where Alevi was born and raised before
Speaker 2: he moved to the Christian side of the peninsula, there
Speaker 2: were different kinds of Muslims, because Muslims of Arabic descent
Speaker 2: saw themselves as adherently superior to Muslims of North African descent.
Speaker 2: To it, Johnny cum Lately's I remember once I was
Speaker 2: teaching a college William and Mary in Virginia. I had
Speaker 2: a student who told me that whereas he came from
Speaker 2: the southern side of the James River, where he was
Speaker 2: raised as a child, for his whole life on the
Speaker 2: northern side of the James River, people still called him
Speaker 2: a come here.
Speaker 1: So, as you say this, this kind of mild chauvinism
Speaker 1: is hardly unique.
Speaker 2: That's right. So the Arabs of Spain, the Arabs of
Speaker 2: Spain as opposed to the Muslims of Spain looked down
Speaker 2: on Muslims who were not you might say, come over
Speaker 2: on the Mayflower. So my reading is that Levy was
Speaker 2: insulted by all this. He knew that he was a
Speaker 2: great poet, he knew that he was a learned man
Speaker 2: and accomplished in all the sciences, and yet his colleagues there,
Speaker 2: the people with whom he had dealings, looked down on
Speaker 2: him because he was a Jew. Now what's going on here?
Speaker 2: You have to understand I'm being very unfair. I am
Speaker 2: assuming that if a Leave had not been insulted, he
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been a universalist. But that's not fair. You know,
Speaker 2: Let's just me doing my thing. Viasably poor you and
Speaker 2: al av. But that's an attempt for me on my
Speaker 2: part to understand why he he presents Judaism in that light. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to emphasize, because of things that happened later,
Speaker 2: he was not a racist, and nobody in the Middle
Speaker 2: Ages were racists in the modern sense of the term.
Speaker 2: There were no racist and Halabi did not deny that
Speaker 2: gentiles could convert. Look, the whole book is I had
Speaker 2: a conversation between a Jewish Jewish rabbi a Jew. My father,
Speaker 2: who was a Jewish rabbi, was always amused by that
Speaker 2: expression of Jewish rabbis if there are other kinds of
Speaker 2: rabbis in any of it. Halabi's book is about a
Speaker 2: gentile king getting prophetic inspiration, talking to a Jewish stage
Speaker 2: and ultimately converted, so conversion was not a problem for him. However,
Speaker 2: he was enough of a particularist to think that when
Speaker 2: person converted to Judaism, that doesn't mean they can have prophecy.
Speaker 2: They remain in effect, you might say, second class Jews,
Speaker 2: with only with respect to the issue of prophecy and
Speaker 2: their descendants. He doesn't specify after how many generations, two three, whatever,
Speaker 2: their children they're grandual release the great grandchildren can become
Speaker 2: if they've merged with the Jewish people. They they sort
Speaker 2: of speak that they could say, the tate or the
Speaker 2: genetic disability of the original convert doesn't go follow through.
Speaker 2: So he is much less of a of a particulars
Speaker 2: and people came after him, like some of the authors
Speaker 2: of the zoar Is. Certainly the morale of Prague, certainly
Speaker 2: most conceded. Most Jews today, it's important to point.
Speaker 1: That to your much he is let's say, the first
Speaker 1: theorist perhaps of a kind of particularism, which states that
Speaker 1: there is something inherently different about Jews, that they possess
Speaker 1: some sort of all this transcends Hebrews in yoh, right,
Speaker 1: this sort of divine entity and uh, and that's essentially
Speaker 1: passed on through the genes, although or you know, parents
Speaker 1: a child. Unclear exactly why and how a spiritual quality
Speaker 1: like that would be necessarily passed down. But but and
Speaker 1: that's what that in his mind is what marks a
Speaker 1: Jew essentially correct that exactly.
Speaker 2: But and I'm doing my best to present all Levi
Speaker 2: in the but to my mind are the best possible terms.
Speaker 2: A Rabbi friend of mine once said, yes, haw Leave's
Speaker 2: view is that Jews have this unique quality or characteristic. However,
Speaker 2: before the coming of the Messiah, that's just theoretical, because
Speaker 2: nobody else is going to become a prophet in principle, Therefore,
Speaker 2: how Leave should be as welcome him to converse as
Speaker 2: was Rambam, who was very welcoming. And I have no
Speaker 2: idea what he thought about that. He obviously didn't have
Speaker 2: a problem with converting the King of the Kasars and
Speaker 2: all of his And the book says that the king
Speaker 2: and all of his nation converted to Judaism, which Alb's
Speaker 2: eyes was obviously a good idea. Whether or not he
Speaker 2: believed it, I don't know, but that was the story
Speaker 2: he told. So I've done, I've done my best just
Speaker 2: now to present the most my monety in Alevia could find,
Speaker 2: which is the opposite of what usually happens in most
Speaker 2: Jewish circles. Rambam is converted to alv.
Speaker 1: Right and uh and and well that's because they in
Speaker 1: many Jewish circles, they hold Alevi's view up to be
Speaker 1: a prototype of you know, or something to be, and
Speaker 1: therefore Rama must be. So shoehorns into that. So let's
Speaker 1: so let's cross the divide. I'd go back to Rama
Speaker 1: for a moment. And okay, So for Alevi that something inherents,
Speaker 1: something irreducible, something genetic, and in the soul that marks
Speaker 1: a Jew. And your claim is that param is not
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: Exactly where did the Jews come from?
Speaker 1: There was a guy who.
Speaker 2: Lived in ancient Mesopotamia named Abraham, who, although he grew
Speaker 2: grew up in a world full of idolators was smart
Speaker 2: enough to realize that idolatry was nonsense, and for the
Speaker 2: first forty years of his life he worried about this
Speaker 2: subject and thought about it and investigated it, and then
Speaker 2: had a moment of illumination when he realized that there
Speaker 2: had to be a cause behind everything we see. And
Speaker 2: so he discovered that there existed a one, unique God,
Speaker 2: and in response to that, God made this Abraham, the
Speaker 2: founder of God's people. But the important point you realize
Speaker 2: is the way in which the Ramba presents this picture
Speaker 2: in his work called a Loss concerning Idolatry or Pagan
Speaker 2: worship Dza. It didn't have to be Abraham. Most of
Speaker 2: my colleagues were secretary of hearing me say this. If
Speaker 2: it had been a shaman in Nevada today, a Navajo
Speaker 2: who was the first human being after the corruption of
Speaker 2: humanity after the flood to rediscover God, then the Torah
Speaker 2: would have been given in the Navajo language. The narratives
Speaker 2: of the Torah would reflect the history of the Navajou people,
Speaker 2: the holokhauv of the Torah, which would in its essence
Speaker 2: be the same as the terra as we have it.
Speaker 2: But it's outward clothing would reflect Navajo culture. Now Raba
Speaker 2: doesn't say that. Okay, he never read Tony Hillermann, so
Speaker 2: he doesn't know about the Navajos, But that is the
Speaker 2: upshot of what he says there. God did not choose Abraham.
Speaker 2: Abraham chose God, and Abraham's children had a hard time
Speaker 2: with that, so much so that when they were in
Speaker 2: Egypt they became idolaters. God had to in effect take
Speaker 2: them out of Egypt and retrain them. All this Rambam
Speaker 2: says was by way of it was recompensed to Abraham.
Speaker 2: Because of Abraham's discovery of God. God promised him, and
Speaker 2: promised Abraham that he would become the progenitor of a
Speaker 2: nation especial nations, not specially in any hardware terms, but
Speaker 2: especially in the sense that they were the nation meant
Speaker 2: to teach God's Torah. Let me put to you like this,
Speaker 2: Judaism was meant at first to be Abrahamic. What is
Speaker 2: Abrahamic Judaism is the Judaism monotheism and Menschluchkite good behavior
Speaker 2: and ram I'm basically in the thirty second chapter of
Speaker 2: the third part of the Guide, he tells this story
Speaker 2: how God gave Abraham no commandments, but you know, he
Speaker 2: had certain marks like circumcision and all, but there was
Speaker 2: no there were no commandments for Abraham to obey, but
Speaker 2: he was meant to be a progenitor of a holy nation.
Speaker 2: If holiness is obviously reflects not inherent qualities, but the
Speaker 2: way you behave I say, obviously that would be rob
Speaker 2: BAM's view and mine as well for that matter. And
Speaker 2: so the Jews went down to Egypt and reverted to idolatry.
Speaker 2: So God stept them out of Egypt and brought them
Speaker 2: to a place called Mara, where there was bitter water,
Speaker 2: and they had to throw a log into the water
Speaker 2: to sweeten it. And there the Book of Exodus says
Speaker 2: that God gave the Jews to shabbat the Sabbath which
Speaker 2: teaches creation in cooring Rambam, and gave them a series
Speaker 2: of commandments to obey about interpersonal behavior. Do you need fine?
Speaker 2: So that's the second kind of Judaism that God was
Speaker 2: aiming at my understanding of Rambam. Then we get to
Speaker 2: Mount Sinai and the Jews and Moses failed to synchronize
Speaker 2: their watches. So Moses go up for forty days to
Speaker 2: Mount Sine. It disappears. The Jews keep looking at their
Speaker 2: what and where's Moses, Where's Moses? It doesn't show up,
Speaker 2: so they build the Golden Calf. That's when God says, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is not going to work. I'm going to give
Speaker 2: them everything you need to replace Idolatrist worship, only it's
Speaker 2: going to be for a monotheistic God. And so you
Speaker 2: have the creation of the Tabernacle and the priests and
Speaker 2: the Levites and the whole apply of Jewish law to
Speaker 2: keep the Jews separate so they will remain remain loyal
Speaker 2: to the notion of mantheistic notion. That's the picture Ramba
Speaker 2: presents in Guide three point thirty two, connecting it to
Speaker 2: the first chapter of Laws of Idolatry. Now that means
Speaker 2: there's it could have been different, just like the laws
Speaker 2: of Juraism could have been different if they have been
Speaker 2: given in a different period.
Speaker 1: And so okay, so that is that.
Speaker 2: This is yeah, I've shocked you.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sorry, list, I've you took an entire course.
Speaker 1: I wassusing the entire course on this subject. This is uh,
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is good stuff. But then okay,
Speaker 1: so with the Rambam heat so Judaism was given, aspects
Speaker 1: of Jewism were given, you know, in stages. I suppose
Speaker 1: as a response to the weeks of the people is
Speaker 1: fair enough, in which case I mean so. So then
Speaker 1: then let me ask what the RUMs is left for
Speaker 1: gentiles to do? And what is what is what is
Speaker 1: their role? Because in even levies, because sorry, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be very much for them to do. But
Speaker 1: you'd expect if if indeed my mom is universalistic as
Speaker 1: as you as you claim to them, surely as as
Speaker 1: you have claims, if you've written about and you've you've proven.
Speaker 1: That's a very strong word, especially in intellectual history. We
Speaker 1: don't use words like proven. But given you substantiated, let's say, okay,
Speaker 1: so what is the role what is the difference in
Speaker 1: the role of gentiles between as in these two thinkers.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a really very good question.
Speaker 1: It is the question that is begged by this particular difference.
Speaker 2: Right. Let me start by telling you a story. A
Speaker 2: friend of mine, a rabbi in America who is very
Speaker 2: my mind, and told me that he once asked three
Speaker 2: of his teachers at you Shiv University of all places.
Speaker 2: Does God listen to the prayers of gentiles? So one said,
Speaker 2: of course. Second rabbi said, of course not. The third
Speaker 2: rabbi says, I have no idea, and I don't care.
Speaker 2: Rab I'm agreed with the the yu rabbi who said,
Speaker 2: of course, God listens to the prayers of other people.
Speaker 2: Why why are there so many? Goam? The famous entomologist
Speaker 2: from Harvard your school, I forget his name, said God
Speaker 2: must be in orderly a love of beatles, because there
Speaker 2: are so many varieties.
Speaker 1: Of them, A shoal proof, a proof of that particular proposition.
Speaker 2: That's right. So I ROBM doesn't actually address the question
Speaker 2: of why are so many gentiles? Uh, it's a fact,
Speaker 2: that's the way that I mean. He didn't even know
Speaker 2: about the Chinese, right, You know that India existed. You
Speaker 2: know they were billion of them. I guess at the
Speaker 2: time that there weren't a billion, but there are quite
Speaker 2: a few. Certainly, He had no no knowledge of the Americas,
Speaker 2: or of Africa or whatever. I mean. He knew that
Speaker 2: Africa existed because he lived in Egypt, right, But that's
Speaker 2: about it. I think it's a fact. That's the way
Speaker 2: the world. You know, after the after the flood and
Speaker 2: after the Tower of Babel, people split up. According to
Speaker 2: the biblical story, I don't think they have a role
Speaker 2: in Rambam's view, Well, that's not fair either. In his
Speaker 2: discussion of the Messiah at the end of the Missionatah,
Speaker 2: he makes the following surprising claim, which was by the
Speaker 2: way censored for most traditional texts because people couldn't handle it.
Speaker 2: He says that the job of the Christians is to
Speaker 2: teach the world very notions of in his eyes, quasi monotheism,
Speaker 2: but the idea that there are commandments and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: The job of the Muslims is to teach the world monotheism,
Speaker 2: to make it possible for a Messianic process to take place.
Speaker 2: In other words, in his view, even though he thought
Speaker 2: that Christianity was a form of tritheism and of idolatry,
Speaker 2: but he thought that Christianity and Islam had a messianic role,
Speaker 2: and that role was to in effect monotheia is the
Speaker 2: world so that the Messiah could come. Like I said
Speaker 2: at the beginning of our discussion, Rambom doesn't believe in
Speaker 2: God giving out gifts or toys. The Messiah will come
Speaker 2: when the world is ready for the Messiah to come.
Speaker 2: God doesn't send the Messiah. We have to earn the
Speaker 2: coming of the Messiah. We have to create a world
Speaker 2: in which the Messiah can function. So, in effect, if
Speaker 2: I'm right about that, and I am, but I am
Speaker 2: right about that, you can't He says, you need the
Speaker 2: Christians and the Muslims to make your world a place
Speaker 2: in which the Messiah can function, because the Messiah is
Speaker 2: also a job for Ramba is to teach the whole
Speaker 2: world Judaism. So I guess that's the best I can
Speaker 2: do in answering your very challenging question, why are there
Speaker 2: so many beetles, I mean so many gentiles?
Speaker 1: Right? Well? In which case that that leads to another question,
Speaker 1: which I you know, which is the flip side of this,
Speaker 1: which is then, well, what is the role of the Jews?
Speaker 1: In other words, or put it put it most extinctly,
Speaker 1: what is special about the Jews in this world view? Again,
Speaker 1: in the Halavii world you it's easy to see what'special
Speaker 1: about the Jews. They have something inherent, a part of
Speaker 1: the soul or something like that, which is which is
Speaker 1: capable of some kind of ultimate connection to the devine
Speaker 1: therefore Jews alone can have prophecy, ett et cetera. There's
Speaker 1: it's easy in that world view to see what is
Speaker 1: special about the Jews and why. But if again, my
Speaker 1: money is a universalist, then what is then? I suppose
Speaker 1: the Jews are what I possessive possession of special doctrines
Speaker 1: or special practices that are supposed to be told you,
Speaker 1: what do they have that is different?
Speaker 2: First of all, there's nothing special about the Jews. Let's
Speaker 2: be rare, okay. Jews are human beings. Gentiles are human beings.
Speaker 2: They share that one hundred percent. What's special about Judaism
Speaker 2: is that teaches the truth, whereas Islam teaches close to
Speaker 2: the truth. Christianity teaches a little bit further away from
Speaker 2: the truth, but they don't teach the full truth of monotheism,
Speaker 2: of fulfillment to the commandments that make a community a
Speaker 2: community holy by virtue of its being just. The Jews
Speaker 2: are not wholly in any kind of inherent sense. People
Speaker 2: who behave correctly, who behave in fulfillment to the commandments
Speaker 2: which create a holy humunity, become a holy community which
Speaker 2: is expressed by its behavior, not by its essence. My friend,
Speaker 2: Professor Danny Lasker likes to point out that the old days,
Speaker 2: before you were born, we used to talk about IBM
Speaker 2: personal computers and clones of IBM personal computers. You may
Speaker 2: have heard about that.
Speaker 1: I think we study a history of science or something like.
Speaker 2: That, right, And the difference between them was that the
Speaker 2: IBM computer's hardware was considered to be better because both
Speaker 2: the IBM computer and the other and the clones worked
Speaker 2: on the same same programs, but the hardware was considered
Speaker 2: to be better. So if you could afford, you bought
Speaker 2: an IBM PC. According to Judah Levian people like him,
Speaker 2: the difference between dw and Gentiles and the hardware. According
Speaker 2: to Ram, the difference Drew and Gentiles and the software.
Speaker 2: Like Danny says, in the in the programs they run,
Speaker 2: so to speak, and programs can be changed. That's why
Speaker 2: for rambamb conversion, he's serious about it. Obviously, he's serious
Speaker 2: about everything. Is not a talent, not an issue. He
Speaker 2: has a very famous letter to a man named Ovaja
Speaker 2: who became a convert in the Muslim world and was
Speaker 2: offended by things that his rabbi told him. So he
Speaker 2: asked rambab Rama, first of all, said nasty things about
Speaker 2: the rabbi and then said, look, the bottom line is
Speaker 2: you have to understand we born Jews are descended or connected.
Speaker 2: Our yukis, our connection is to Abraia Mazagan Jacob, your yukis,
Speaker 2: your connection is to God Almighty. You know you're more
Speaker 2: of a jewo than we are. Also, we're Jewish. This
Speaker 2: arma doesn't say I'm adding it. We're Jewish because we
Speaker 2: were born Jews. You chose it. Nowadays the expression is
Speaker 2: Jews by choice. Clearly, from this it turns out that
Speaker 2: Rama had a great deal admiration for Jews, but whereas
Speaker 2: al Aby would accept them. But there was always this asterisk.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So we before you went down the path
Speaker 1: of my monetizing hallev and now I want to ask
Speaker 1: about the possibility of halleviizing my monodies in the sense,
Speaker 1: now if my monodies does have this this basic theory
Speaker 1: of a universal general knowledge and truth, and that the
Speaker 1: Jews specialness is derivative of the fact that they have
Speaker 1: this truth and they know this truth in this but
Speaker 1: to teach this truth, et cetera. So well, firstly, are
Speaker 1: there limits to my monodes universalism? In other words, are
Speaker 1: there elements of his thought that don't quite fit with this,
Speaker 1: or or let's say, inconvenience to your overall reading of him,
Speaker 1: let's start with that.
Speaker 2: Well, one of them is very unfortunate. He was an
Speaker 2: unbelievably harsh intellectual elitist. So my moldy is as a
Speaker 2: universalist in the sense that everybody is in the club
Speaker 2: as long as they have a Harvard PhDe. But if
Speaker 2: they don't have that, they haven't achieved that level of
Speaker 2: intellectual success, then they're simply not in the club. They're
Speaker 2: barely Humian. This is you know, this is not a
Speaker 2: Jewish position. Brom Bomb is here, he's basically talking Aristotle
Speaker 2: or Aristotle as he understood him. Look, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Aristotle defines human beings as rational animals. Right, if you're
Speaker 2: not rational, you're just an animal. So that's brom Baum's view,
Speaker 2: and that's, you know, not not the view of the
Speaker 2: traditions of Judaism. But that's one way in which his
Speaker 2: universalism is. Uh is always say unfortunate, how you would
Speaker 2: not be guilty of that? Since all the Jews have
Speaker 2: this inner in jan Luis Elahi attempt his quality and
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how smart or and how educated you are. Now.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I have proven to my total
Speaker 2: satisfaction that ram Bump thought that women were also human
Speaker 2: beings and the Middle Ages, that was a striking claim.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say that that's not quite
Speaker 1: as common as it sounds.
Speaker 2: No, right, it's very much not as common as it sounds.
Speaker 2: So there's like that's a kind of universalism. Also, he
Speaker 2: wasn't a feminist in our terms. He was, like might say,
Speaker 2: a philosophical feminist, not a sociological feminist. But in his
Speaker 2: day and age it was very unusual. He and Varois
Speaker 2: had been rushed were basically the only two people in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages. I'm exaggerating, but there were very few
Speaker 2: people actually agreed with this view that women are created
Speaker 2: in the needs of God fully my friend ral Bog,
Speaker 2: I mean even been gershow in twelve eight to thirteen
Speaker 2: forty four it says explicitly that women are like monkeys.
Speaker 2: They look like human beings, but they don't have the
Speaker 2: intellectual abilities. That's this is a more standard view. So
Speaker 2: that's another version of what I would call my monitors
Speaker 2: and universalism. Can I continue on this riff?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Please? Another way of looking at it is the laws
Speaker 2: of Judaism for my monodes halaka Jewish law is not
Speaker 2: a is not a divine need meets Gomar says, God
Speaker 2: needs these commandments, no, their challenges to behave in a
Speaker 2: particular fashion, and if you do that, you're so to speak,
Speaker 2: in the in the Jewish club. But there are also
Speaker 2: seven laws for gentiles to obey, and then you're a
Speaker 2: very good gentile. It's not as if there's nothing gentiles
Speaker 2: can do to achieve a share of the world to come.
Speaker 2: That's an important point. The world to come is restricted
Speaker 2: for Rambam, is restricted to people who've gotten into the club,
Speaker 2: which means JJ, after one hundred and twenty years, you
Speaker 2: and I are going to be very lonely there.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we could, you know, we'll just have
Speaker 1: a never ending us on this particular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be fine, you know, it's not. There are
Speaker 2: all kinds of jokes about that. The sky dies and
Speaker 2: it's being shown around heaven and they go past a
Speaker 2: big corridor and I'm not hope I don't offend anybody.
Speaker 2: And as Saint Peter so To speaks, walking down the road,
Speaker 2: they passed the door and say, Peter says, should be
Speaker 2: quiet here, and the guy says, why do you have
Speaker 2: to be quiet? He says, this is the Mormon heaven.
Speaker 2: They think they're alone here.
Speaker 1: You could substitute Mormon there. For for many faith traditions,
Speaker 1: it's not a moment specific joke.
Speaker 2: This is the philosophers. They think they're all in here, right.
Speaker 1: So, So this is interesting because when one says the
Speaker 1: word universalism, one brings to mind a more tolerant, expansive,
Speaker 1: inclusive form, a worldview in which you know, everyone has
Speaker 1: a place, everyone has a roll, et cetera. Whereas one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things about my Monestine system is as
Speaker 1: you've presented it is that while it is more open
Speaker 1: and expansive towards non Jews who have correct philosophical opinions,
Speaker 1: it is distinctly unfriendly for Jews who have incorrect philosophical opinions,
Speaker 1: even if they are simply mistaken.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's another point that is where Ramam is simply wrong.
Speaker 2: Jewish law allows for making mistakes. You know, you, I
Speaker 2: don't know whether you turn out a light on the
Speaker 2: Sabbath or you either cheezburger by accident, whatever you do,
Speaker 2: Oh grase, you made a mistake, so there are ways
Speaker 2: to fix it. You repent, but if you have a
Speaker 2: mistake about the nature of God, it's unfixable unless you retrain.
Speaker 2: In other words, there's no inadvertence in theology. For Ramam
Speaker 2: there is anadvertence in Jewish Lawkaga Hebrew. There is no
Speaker 2: room for that in theology. That's not a Jewish view
Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned. So this is another place
Speaker 2: where philosophy is I think sort of taken has influenced
Speaker 2: him too much, But he's being consistent. You know that
Speaker 2: heaven is for rational animals. If you're not rational, which
Speaker 2: left his animal now you should be.
Speaker 1: It's not just rationalism, that's the most interesting thing about.
Speaker 1: It's merely that you exercised your irrational faculties and came
Speaker 1: to some sort of inclusion. For him, the conclusions he
Speaker 1: comes to are in his mind so inescapable that if
Speaker 1: you have not come to them, so those very specific conclusions,
Speaker 1: then you have.
Speaker 2: Not used your mind properly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it is impossible to be a good philosopher
Speaker 1: and comes to different conclusions than him.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. Rambaum would not admit that Heydergirl was
Speaker 2: a good philosopher.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I had to go return the favor.
Speaker 2: Fine, But but Heidger couldn't say to Rombaum that he
Speaker 2: was a lot, So there's no I mean, ram he
Speaker 2: was not alone in this. You know, Perfection is not
Speaker 2: a salami you can slice all into various parts. A
Speaker 2: perfect human being is perfect morally, and that's very important
Speaker 2: for Ramam. You can't become a philosopher if you're immral,
Speaker 2: and in his eyes, the best way to be moral
Speaker 2: is to fulfill the Jewish law. It's not the only way,
Speaker 2: but it's the best way. And for Jews it's an
Speaker 2: obli obligatory thing. A question which he never addresses and
Speaker 2: for which I have no idea how he would handle it. Is,
Speaker 2: what do you do about a person born in a
Speaker 2: Jewish Jew, born Jew who becomes a saintly perfected philosopher
Speaker 2: but doesn't fulfill the commandments? Rambaum, the rabbi would not
Speaker 2: want to admit this guy to heaven. Rambam the philosopher
Speaker 2: has no way to keep him out.
Speaker 1: Well, the rumbum could simply reject the possibility, at least
Speaker 1: the theory to reject the possibility that someone could become
Speaker 1: a puffet philosopher without keeping the commandments, at least for
Speaker 1: a Jew. But the problem is.
Speaker 2: That how is that possible? How do you you know? Aristotle,
Speaker 2: he says, reached the level of perfection just before prophecy.
Speaker 2: He says that explicitly in his own language and a
Speaker 2: letter to his translator Samuel Libinjimmin. So he clearly thought
Speaker 2: they were gentiles who could achieve. I mean, he knew them,
Speaker 2: He had friends there. He had a wide circle of
Speaker 2: Muslim friends with whom he corresponded and who helped him out,
Speaker 2: who protected him. And he didn't live like a He
Speaker 2: didn't live in the world where only people spoke yidish.
Speaker 2: Far from it.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Now, let me ask another question, which is
Speaker 1: wasn't Rumbum entirely system throughout his life and suddenly within
Speaker 1: his own the boundaries that he himself set out? In
Speaker 1: other words, did agree with himself?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Or put another way? Could my money, sorry, could rum
Speaker 1: up gains my money just heaven or vices? I can't
Speaker 1: remember tell you how you titled it.
Speaker 2: I read an article with that title once.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what I've referred to it. I just kind
Speaker 1: of which way around it was. But did the rum
Speaker 1: of himself stand up to his own very stringent categories.
Speaker 2: I would like to think so, but like everybody else,
Speaker 2: Rama was a complicated person. Now, if he took his
Speaker 2: own views about intellectual sophistication seriously, he would have been
Speaker 2: a miserable human being to the unsophisticated, to the irrational. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we have lots of evidence that he took his job
Speaker 2: as a kumul rabbi as a judge seriously. And for example,
Speaker 2: he first comes to our notice in letters that he
Speaker 2: wrote this is so appropriate nowadays. It's so sad, trying
Speaker 2: to raise money to free hostages. That's our first evidence
Speaker 2: of Rombaum's public behavior. We have letters in the kiro
Speaker 2: Genese of some guy writing home that he went to
Speaker 2: visit the Rombam to ask what we would call in
Speaker 2: the innershek klutz contra a stupid question. I don't remember
Speaker 2: what the question was. We asked a really dumb question.
Speaker 2: And he went there with his little boy. So he writes,
Speaker 2: I was taking into see the great rabby Moses, and
Speaker 2: I told him my question. He said, wait before I
Speaker 2: answer your question, how was the little boy? He gave
Speaker 2: him some lemon cookies, and then he answered my question
Speaker 2: with great deal of respect and sent me on my
Speaker 2: happy way. So I mean that guy obviously an idiot.
Speaker 2: But Rambaum certainly acted according to the quality criteria of
Speaker 2: noblesse obliges. He knew that he was of the nobility,
Speaker 2: but that obligated him in certain forms of behavior, so
Speaker 2: he also he was If he was consistent, he would
Speaker 2: not have been a communal rabbi. He would not have
Speaker 2: been a judge. He would not have led the Jewish community.
Speaker 2: He would have just spent his life in the uh
Speaker 2: in the Cairo Palace there with the what's his name,
Speaker 2: Saladin's nephew was running things and basically spent his time
Speaker 2: in their version of Widener Library. But no, he was
Speaker 2: deeply involved in the community, and he writes in the
Speaker 2: famous letter to samely been Jimming what his daily life
Speaker 2: was like and how much energy invested in running things
Speaker 2: in the community. As my wife likes to say, if
Speaker 2: she reminds me before I teach a course or a
Speaker 2: class in rama, she always says, remember to remind them
Speaker 2: that Rabbam was also a rabbi, and.
Speaker 1: He was the perpetual temptation of philosophy professors to forget
Speaker 1: that convenient, that important fact exactly.
Speaker 2: My colleagues very often forget that he was also a rabbi.
Speaker 2: So so that's the sense in which he was not
Speaker 2: really consistent with his own theories. And remember when he
Speaker 2: committed time to the Jewish community, he was harming himself
Speaker 2: because his understanding of the world to come and you
Speaker 2: earned what you earned there is what you learned here.
Speaker 2: So if he spent one minute less on his philosophical meditation,
Speaker 2: he was harming his eternal life right the set in
Speaker 2: the theory. So so he's a complicated He was also, Look,
Speaker 2: he was very proud of his son Abraham, a very
Speaker 2: proud father, and we have letters to that effect as well.
Speaker 2: This way, he was a proud father. But he never
Speaker 2: mentioned his wife.
Speaker 1: You must have had a wife, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think it was the style in those days, tom among.
Speaker 2: You know, and we know who his fall in law was.
Speaker 2: We have no idea who his wife was.
Speaker 1: I'd like to move a little bit too to maybe
Speaker 1: other parts of the medieval Jewish philosophical world and simply
Speaker 1: ask whether those who out did Halevi on the particular
Speaker 1: side or out did my monoties on the universalist side,
Speaker 1: and one of you set up these two major thinkers
Speaker 1: as of good I don't know archetypes is the right word,
Speaker 1: but but things who exemplify these two strains of thought.
Speaker 1: But you know neither of them.
Speaker 2: It's well, I our mutual friend Marty Miller, who by
Speaker 2: the way, just got an article accepted to HTR.
Speaker 1: The ultimate achievement, I should think absolutely uh.
Speaker 2: He has written a lot about the picture of gentiles
Speaker 2: and capitalistic in Zohar literature, and it is a complicated book.
Speaker 2: You can't you can't still to speak, says, But there
Speaker 2: are passages in the Zor which say that gentiles are
Speaker 2: born with defective souls and there's nothing that can be
Speaker 2: fixed about that. That's the that's that's the nature of
Speaker 2: being a gentile. Is your soul comes from the realms
Speaker 2: of impurity. And that's way beyond anything Hale ever had
Speaker 2: nightmares about. So and there's many such passages in UH
Speaker 2: in cabalistic literature. Not only there are also other aspects
Speaker 2: of cowbola that make it sound almost my monody in
Speaker 2: but the the part that got accepted by the Jewish
Speaker 2: people is largely that aspect of it. As to your
Speaker 2: other question, where there are more more my monornity and
Speaker 2: than my moderity.
Speaker 1: Is my mind us within h Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know. In other words, there are people like
Speaker 2: motion our Boni, who uh was a I don't know
Speaker 2: what he thought about universalism. He was he thought that
Speaker 2: rob Bum held the world was uncreated, for example, which
Speaker 2: made his Drama was not also a rabbi, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: So there were certainly people who Look, why was this
Speaker 2: such a huge debate about philosophy in general and Ramam
Speaker 2: in particular after his death. Look, he died in twelve
Speaker 2: oh four, and soon thereafter the Jewish world, at least
Speaker 2: first of all the jew the world in the Middle
Speaker 2: East was torn over the question did he believe in resurrection?
Speaker 2: But then the world of Europe was torn over the
Speaker 2: questions can you study him at all? Remember his books
Speaker 2: were burned, the whole question about who did it and why?
Speaker 2: But it happened. There were people who were very sensitive
Speaker 2: to the aspects of my monody and thought, which made
Speaker 2: it uncomfortable for them. One example, which I think would
Speaker 2: be helpful. Whereas Rama never says this explicitly, he clearly held,
Speaker 2: I'm convinced of this that in order to be a
Speaker 2: good Jew, you had to be a scientist. In his
Speaker 2: terms of science, the secrets of the Torah were physics
Speaker 2: and metaphysics. And in order to love God, he says
Speaker 2: that this He says explicitly in the first two paragraphs
Speaker 2: of the second chapter of Mission of Torah the Laws
Speaker 2: Foundations of the Torah, Chapter two, that in order to
Speaker 2: love God, you have to study God's works. Now, Bob
Speaker 2: makes the point very helpfully. In Exodus thirty two, God
Speaker 2: says to Moses, I'm sick and tired of these Jewish people.
Speaker 2: Let's wipe them out and start the whole story over
Speaker 2: again from you. Your descendants will be the new Jewish people,
Speaker 2: which is sort of funny because moses descendants are never mentioned,
Speaker 2: but leave that aside. And so Moses says, no, if
Speaker 2: you're going to destroy the Jewish people, Mia, wipe me
Speaker 2: erased me from the book that you wrote. So Bob says, well,
Speaker 2: what book could write. Most see that and think it
Speaker 2: means that Torah. No, Robot says, it means kill me,
Speaker 2: remove me from the world that you made. The world
Speaker 2: that you made is the is the book that God wrote.
Speaker 2: This became a motif later on in the just before
Speaker 2: the Enlightenment, a lot of people talked about God as
Speaker 2: the author of the universe. So here we see robot
Speaker 2: basically adopting a mind and in view, to be a
Speaker 2: good Jew, you have to keep the commandments, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and study the book that God wrote. There are two
Speaker 2: bad God wrote two books. I think rob Bam held
Speaker 2: us clearly, Torah and science. Now there are a lot
Speaker 2: of Jews then and today who would tell me you
Speaker 2: can't possibly believe that, And that's why some of them said,
Speaker 2: don't study Rambam. I mean to this very day. I
Speaker 2: used to visit Lakewood quite often. I have a lot
Speaker 2: of family the Liquid New Jersey. It's a you're it's
Speaker 2: just scheduled from Europe. That stills somehow managed to get
Speaker 2: to the to the.
Speaker 1: East, pointed chet Settle.
Speaker 2: These days, yeah, now it's really yes, they it used
Speaker 2: to be a lot less nicely appointed. But in any event,
Speaker 2: I went into the very big Jewish bookstore they're looking
Speaker 2: for asked where they have the guide copies of the
Speaker 2: Guide of the perplex They sent me to it like
Speaker 2: a side aspect, aside whatever, And they're in a section
Speaker 2: called Kabbala Jewish bitsticism. That was the only copy of
Speaker 2: the Guide in the perplex and now Kabala in the
Speaker 2: Shiva world is not something you study. The Ashkenazi chival world,
Speaker 2: the smartishchival world. It is certainly much more widely studied.
Speaker 2: So clearly they thought that it wears on the other
Speaker 2: side of the room. There were like twenty five different
Speaker 2: editions of the mission Torah. Do you go into any
Speaker 2: standard you shiver in the world today, any standard Ashkenazi,
Speaker 2: non Zionist y Shiva, and there'll be the bit be
Speaker 2: drash will be full of copies of the Mission of
Speaker 2: Toura and the commentaries on it, and the commentaries on
Speaker 2: the commentaries on the commentaries on it. You will never
Speaker 2: find the Guide of the perplexed. Whereas you go into
Speaker 2: a Zionist y Shiva here in Israel and extent in
Speaker 2: the United States, you'll find lots of copies of Alavi
Speaker 2: the Kuzari, and also a few rumbums, a few guys
Speaker 2: of the perplexed. So, yeah, how did I get onto that?
Speaker 1: Well, it was it was going down various lines of
Speaker 1: you know, are there more mimonode than my Monotheans? And
Speaker 1: and and why it was the truth is that Rambam's
Speaker 1: reception is an important is important part of this part
Speaker 1: of the story, because, of course, in many ways the
Speaker 1: Rumbam does win out in the sense that his works,
Speaker 1: especially the Missister, are eventually given private place on the
Speaker 1: Jewish bookshelf. But do you think, let me ask you,
Speaker 1: are there any aspects of my monody and universalism that
Speaker 1: get adopted in later generations? Because you seem to be
Speaker 1: You've implied several times your opinion is that essentially the
Speaker 1: Haleve view one out. And I want to ask him,
Speaker 1: is that is that the case? Is that was the
Speaker 1: victory total and comprehensive? Or are there aspects of run
Speaker 1: mother's universalism which which sort of ends it into the mainstream.
Speaker 2: I would be happier if I could say, yes, Look,
Speaker 2: there are obviously people who agree with me. There may
Speaker 2: be only ten of the whole world, but there are
Speaker 2: those ten ominion more. But uh by and large, No,
Speaker 2: I mean there are people like say Hermine Cohen, who
Speaker 2: certainly appreciated my monorites, but was not Sabbath observant. True
Speaker 2: his my minorities. He was very Jewish Harmon gohn Ah,
Speaker 2: but he grew up in an observant tone, but he
Speaker 2: didn't keep it, so he was not. He was certainly
Speaker 2: of my monor d and universalists, but not the kind
Speaker 2: of universalists my Monotyes himself, would have preferred. Uh I
Speaker 2: met a loss to think of. Look, his influence was vast.
Speaker 2: I'm right now writing an article about why while there
Speaker 2: are many my Monoradeans today, there are no Gersonadeans.
Speaker 1: What would characterize a gus D in this sense.
Speaker 2: Well, anyone who takes them seriously beyond you know, every people. Look,
Speaker 2: I just a new book came out. I think it's
Speaker 2: called The Rootlets Companion to Jewish Philosophy. I don't know exactly.
Speaker 2: I have an article there where try with our friend
Speaker 2: Marty Miller, So I sort of skimmed the whole book.
Speaker 2: Rama was mentioned, I know, let's say it, almost every
Speaker 2: other article. There are thirty or forty articles there. So
Speaker 2: in that sense, his impact, his philosophical impact remains huge.
Speaker 2: Or thirty forty years ago, Arthur A. Cohen and Paul
Speaker 2: Mendis Floor put out a book of essays on Jewish theology.
Speaker 2: I forget what it was called, And actually I read
Speaker 2: the whole book. You know, one of the few people
Speaker 2: in the world who did it my sympathy and there
Speaker 2: you know, each the articles on all kinds of subjects, death, life, love, purity, whatever,
Speaker 2: almost every single article says my monety says. That's how
Speaker 2: they start. And one of the reasons is is very important.
Speaker 2: Another reason is that he had seems to say about
Speaker 2: every topic, but I would say, here, I think I'm
Speaker 2: on firm ground. Rambam is one of those few people
Speaker 2: who if he held a position, that position thereby becomes
Speaker 2: jewishly legitimate. Interesting, you cannot take a sentence a position
Speaker 2: held by Rambam and say that it is jewishly illegitimate,
Speaker 2: which is why so many people have to interpret him
Speaker 2: to say things he didn't say. May I tell you
Speaker 2: one story along those lines, please please?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Many years ago I was teaching at the University of Kaife,
Speaker 2: of course on Rambam. We were reading the chapters in
Speaker 2: the Guide of the Rebels to deal with Providence, and
Speaker 2: in my class was a woman who was one of
Speaker 2: the first people who became a calal employer in the
Speaker 2: rabbinic courts. It was very unusual at the time. And
Speaker 2: to end it, Rabanite and her husband was a Diana
Speaker 2: reminted court judge. So I met him once at some
Speaker 2: kind of event in the city. I don't remember what
Speaker 2: it was, and he says in typical Rabbinic language, he says, hey,
Speaker 2: meaning me, because third person taught the Rabbani to my
Speaker 2: wife that according to Rambam, divine providence doesn't extend to everybody.
Speaker 2: And I said, that's true. And that's what he says
Speaker 2: in the seventeenth chapter of the third part of the
Speaker 2: Guy that the perplex and this guy, this guy, this
Speaker 2: rabbi says, well, there are three possibilities here. One is,
Speaker 2: we all know that the Raman wrote his book in Arabic,
Speaker 2: and maybe this translation that you're using is simply wrong.
Speaker 2: The second possibility is perhaps people who were produced the
Speaker 2: text garbled it. And a third possibility he says, of course,
Speaker 2: then he asks, He says, of course, I don't think
Speaker 2: this is possible, but just fill up the picture. Maybe
Speaker 2: his honor naming me is wrong. Doesn't understand the text.
Speaker 2: He couldn't handle what Rambam wrote black on white, right.
Speaker 1: He couldn't. He didn't want to add in the rather
Speaker 1: obvious fourth possiblity, which is that he himself was wrong.
Speaker 2: Exactly that couldn't be. Or briefly, a very good friend
Speaker 2: of mine was teaching in a synagogue in a town
Speaker 2: in New Jersey called dot Teck. He gave a hold
Speaker 2: of me on the Sabbath. Here he gave a long
Speaker 2: talk about my monitory and universalism. And after the Sabbath,
Speaker 2: the young man took him aside, and we say, in
Speaker 2: the nick language hawk Demagini for an hour how the
Speaker 2: Rambamb could not possibly have held the views that this
Speaker 2: guy attributed to him. And so my friend ripped out
Speaker 2: all kinds of relevant texts to show them in The
Speaker 2: man was himself the son of a of a Russian
Speaker 2: ship at Yu himself will learned a Jew. So he
Speaker 2: finally had to admit, yes, that's what Rambam said. But
Speaker 2: then he said, but so what we accept talvi not rombum.
Speaker 2: At least he was willing to admit that's what Rambam said,
Speaker 2: but made a difference to him.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. But the very fact that he
Speaker 1: questioned about the Rumbam, and trying so hard to fight
Speaker 1: that the Rumbam said what he thought he said daily
Speaker 1: belies that idea that, oh, we don't hold the rubb no. Obviously,
Speaker 1: my monodese is significant enough that they continue to be
Speaker 1: arguments to this day, debates on which you have participated in.
Speaker 1: What exactly my monodese said meant?
Speaker 2: Like I said, he is so important that he can't
Speaker 2: be ignored. He has to be I love this. The
Speaker 2: story is told that when Shakespeare was first translated into Yiddish,
Speaker 2: the title page says that you know, all the plays
Speaker 2: William Shakespeare are tuched when far Bessert translated and improved
Speaker 2: by the name of the translator. I must try to
Speaker 2: find out if that was actually true or simply an
Speaker 2: urban myth. And I got all kinds of answers from
Speaker 2: friends on the internet, so I'm saying, yes, we saw
Speaker 2: the book. I'm saying it's an urban myth. In any
Speaker 2: of ate. Rambam has been for thousand as well, since
Speaker 2: twelve o four, subjected to translated and improved over and
Speaker 2: over and over again. His text the Bistrata, has been rewritten.
Speaker 2: Various passages have been excised or simply changed a little bit.
Speaker 2: Doesn't take a lot of work to change them to
Speaker 2: make them sound from more religious, which is why it's
Speaker 2: important to use a correct text, because very often his
Speaker 2: text has been subjected to for Titians for our bessert
Speaker 2: translated and improved.
Speaker 1: And see see the upshots of your answer seems to
Speaker 1: have been of the questions I asked how many minutes
Speaker 1: ago that indeed HALEEVI has won and the Rambamb you know,
Speaker 1: difficulty to amount or that he hasn't really enswered so
Speaker 1: much to the mainstream. Is that is that still the
Speaker 1: case today? Can you there shall we say Jewish thinkers
Speaker 1: or streams of judas and today that you think accurately
Speaker 1: represent the Rombam's blend of universalism coupled with very strict
Speaker 1: adherence to the law, coupled with a philosophically minded pursuit
Speaker 1: of closest with God. Something like these various components that
Speaker 1: you've pointed out on my monety's position, do they simply
Speaker 1: don't exist anymore?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, look, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs was not a
Speaker 2: specialist in Rambamb, but a very smart man, and he
Speaker 2: was without constantly citing Rambam. He was very my manager.
Speaker 2: He was a rabbi, He was a chief rabbi, very
Speaker 2: concerned to divert himself to the needs of the Jewish
Speaker 2: community and deeply acculturated. That's so without relying upon Rambam explicitly,
Speaker 2: I don't think Rambam shows up all that often in
Speaker 2: his writings, but he was. That's an example of a
Speaker 2: very Mimoitian figure. Another example could be a rabbi solo
Speaker 2: Agic who does quote Ra momb A lot, but he's
Speaker 2: rama of the mission tour is, he's all over the place,
Speaker 2: but he himself was a communal leader. He was a
Speaker 2: rabbi and very very acculturated. So that being my monody
Speaker 2: in the sense that we've described him here this afternoon
Speaker 2: or by in your case, by this morning, he was
Speaker 2: also my monity in that sense, the sense of being
Speaker 2: a Jewish leader who was swam comfortably in the currents
Speaker 2: of the philosophy around him, who held his own in
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So they're many such less well
Speaker 2: known individuals whom I think we could call them, you know,
Speaker 2: modern Mimnodians in that sense, But in terms of universalism
Speaker 2: that's a harder sell. Resolvation was very open, but he
Speaker 2: certainly was more hall Avian than Rambambian. And the questions
Speaker 2: of the Jewish people, I do my senses that are
Speaker 2: by sex was more more of my wand and than
Speaker 2: hall Avian in that question.
Speaker 1: But and you never had the opportunity to ask him.
Speaker 2: Well, I've met him on several occasions and we talked
Speaker 2: to a lot of things, but I don't remember that
Speaker 2: this particular question came up. But he he he liked
Speaker 2: b bumb.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, We'll have to do the final question
Speaker 1: I like to pose, which is a question I like
Speaker 1: to post to many of my audiences that if you
Speaker 1: had to sit down for dinner with the stund to
Speaker 1: dinner with the subject of your study, namely in this
Speaker 1: case thrombam Uh, what would you be asking him? What
Speaker 1: would you want to approach? Firstly, what do you think
Speaker 1: the experience would be like? Would you enjoy it? And
Speaker 1: more than that, what what would you what would you
Speaker 1: want from him?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's an embarrassing question.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I often say I wouldn't want to meet the Rambum
Speaker 2: because he would expect me to be thinner than I am.
Speaker 1: Yes, he would. Then all of us I would have
Speaker 1: to be much more disciplined and and what's the word
Speaker 1: like sparing in our physical lives than we are.
Speaker 2: Secondly, I would have a hard time speaking to him in Arabic.
Speaker 2: We could we could converse in Hebrew. That's the amazing
Speaker 2: thing about the mission of Dora. I translated one of
Speaker 2: the fourteen volumes. Say for Ah, the Book of Love,
Speaker 2: it's all about prayer. But he writes so clearly, Unlike
Speaker 2: my friend Roald bog who's who loved ambiguous santecedents. Rarely
Speaker 2: do you have a question about what Arama was saying.
Speaker 2: Because Hebrew is so pellucid, and I use that word
Speaker 2: crystal clear. So we could correspond in Hebrew him in me.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't know all the slang I know, but we
Speaker 2: really could. It's amazing how as good as Hebrew was.
Speaker 2: But to answer your question, what would I ask the rahmbum?
Speaker 2: I mean, I would want to convince him that you
Speaker 2: don't have to be a philosopher to be a good person.
Speaker 2: I would want to convince him that the Jewish tradition
Speaker 2: is right, and that you can be a saintly fool.
Speaker 1: And and you can be a foolish philosopher as well
Speaker 1: or a scoundrel on the philosopher.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely right, you could. You'd also be a scount
Speaker 2: you could be I mean, I don't know. I've read
Speaker 2: little bits of Heider. Girl. You don't understand a word.
Speaker 2: I don't see why people find them so important. But yes,
Speaker 2: there are plenty of foolish philosophers good philosophers. There's a
Speaker 2: famous story told about an expert on Jewish ethics who
Speaker 2: beat his wife at the university many years ago. So
Speaker 2: when he has called out her and he says, look,
Speaker 2: mathematicians are are not expected to become triangles.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've heard that story many guys, in many forms,
Speaker 1: so the version of sory, but essentially, and okay, let
Speaker 1: me ask you think the Rambum would be possibly receptive
Speaker 1: to your to overtures.
Speaker 2: I can't look it. Them died in twelve o four.
Speaker 2: A few things have happened since then. One of the
Speaker 2: many reasons I try not is if people ask me
Speaker 2: what I'm say about X, Y or Z, I usually
Speaker 2: say I don't know. I can tell you what he
Speaker 2: actually said about similar subjects, but what he would say
Speaker 2: today in our reality, that's not a fair question. It's
Speaker 2: not fair to ask him either. First we have to
Speaker 2: give him eight hundred years worth of updating. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a guy me, a guy who revers rombum right.
Speaker 2: That should have been clear from their conversation.
Speaker 1: But even though you spend a fair amount of the
Speaker 1: conversation saying how you don't think the rama is rights
Speaker 1: about this, So do you think he's right about that?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not on my Ownerdan right. I hope to
Speaker 2: be Rambaum was. I think like my teacher Stephen Schwarzschild
Speaker 2: was not looking for cosidium. So he would have taken
Speaker 2: criticism in stride because he will He wanted people to
Speaker 2: use their brains. He himself is always like he's constantly
Speaker 2: correcting what he wrote and asking people send him corrections
Speaker 2: if they found mistakes, and that's an important aspect of
Speaker 2: his personality, one of many reasons to admire him.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think at this point we shall have to
Speaker 1: draw the cutting down. Professor Monachal Kelna, thank you so
Speaker 1: very much. But Johnny yesterday on the podcast Jewish Ideas,
Speaker 1: this has been a splendid conversation and I recommend the
Speaker 1: readers to peruse many of the excellent books that written
Speaker 1: in particularly the subject, and we look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: your future output on these issues.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for Johnny, Thank you and good
Speaker 2: luck with your job.
Speaker 1: This has been the podcast of Jewish ideas by Tora
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Speaker 1: and mixed by Alisha Kelman. You can stay up to
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