The role of miracles: Maimonidean minimalists and mystical maximalists

The post a few days ago on the extent to which the Ten Plagues in Egypt could and should be understood as having occurred through natural means generated an extensive and fascinating debate. One of the main issues which arose is the question of motivation: why would a religious person, who seeks to perceive and relate to God, seek to minimise His miraculous interactions with the physical world?

Judaism Reclaimed’s chapter on parashat Beshalach focuses firmly on the desirability of miracles, contrasting the theological approaches of Rambam and others to the phenomenon of miracles and the rules of nature. An interesting introduction to this topic relates to a passage of Rambam in the final chapter of Shemoneh Perakim, where he cites and rejects a certain philosophy which was popular among Islamic theologians (mutakallim) of his era:

“For I have heard them say that [God’s] Will in every matter is always repeated at each moment – and this is not our belief. Rather the Will during the six days of Creation was that all things would continue according to their nature…and for this reason the sages were required to say regarding all miraculous exceptions to nature which have been and which will occur in the future, that the Will for all of them was during these six days of Creation.”

It also significant that even Sa’adiah Gaon, whose theological approach tended to be close to the mutakallim, rejected their theories of continuous creation. Nevertheless, more recent trends in Jewish thought have popularised this approach. Ba’al Shem Tov and the Tanya on the Chassidic side, and Beit Halevi from the mitnagdim, all powerfully promote the notion that God is perpetually creating the world at every moment. A crucial repercussion of this difference of opinion is how these two groups view the laws of nature.

Rambam explains that a person's ultimate purpose is to develop the intellect in order to comprehend divine truths to the best of one’s ability, and thereby achieve a place in the World to Come. While dramatic miracles can create feelings of awe and wonder, these impressions are limited to the senses and emotion and do not represent an intellectual comprehension and understanding of God and His ways. Rambam teaches that this is to be achieved through quiet contemplation of God's works — His Torah and Creation — in order to recognise the wisdom lying behind them. For Rambam therefore, every miraculous abrogation of the perceived Godly order actually challenges the very bedrock of ‘knowing God’ – his first and most fundamental commandment in Mishneh Torah. Miracles by definition cannot be understood by people, and are therefore only useful for providing temporary inspiration rather than genuine understanding of the divine.

The alternate approach of perpetual creation, which views what we perceive as cause and effect based on the rules of nature to be an elaborate illusion results in a very different understanding, summarised by Ramban in his commentary at the end of parashat Bo:

“A person has no portion in the Torah of Moshe until he believes that all matters and occurrences are totally miraculous and that there is no nature or way of the world contained within them.”

While for Rambam, therefore, the Torah’s miracles were performed only out of particular necessity at very specific times, the mystical approach seeks to maximise the role and significance of miracles. Judaism Reclaimed proceeds to show how this basic theological split between the two camps influences their approach to several other areas of Jewish thought.

For example, the utopian messianic era of Rambam consists of the removal of all barriers to quiet contemplation and understanding of God’s wisdom. These barriers removed, biblical assurances that “your sons and daughters will prophesy” and “the world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed”, can be fulfilled. Meanwhile, the messianic era of Ramban and the mystics is one in which, on account of our worthiness, God’s miraculous wonders will no longer need to be concealed behind rules of nature leading to a supernatural and miraculous future era.

First posted on Facebook 9 January 2022, here.