An early chapter of Judaism Reclaimed explores a fundamental dichotomy in Rambam’s thought. On the one hand, he idealises intellectual comprehension of rational divine truths as the ultimate religious achievement but at the same time he openly recognises that the human mind is not naturally conditioned for such comprehension. This recognition of the realities of the human condition forms the basis of Rambam’s explanation of the role of Torah and mitzvot as preparatory tools for enabling the intellect to comprehend divine truths. The existence of worldly barriers to intellectual achievement also prompts Rambam to advise that the majority of people must, at least initially, be made aware of God through received tradition rather than rational speculation.
Commenting upon a cryptic passage from this week’s parashah, Rambam (Shemoneh Perakim) takes this idea further. In the aftermath of the Golden Calf, Moshe asks: “Give me a true understanding of Your essence”, to which God responds: “No man can see Me and live.” Rambam explains that even Moshe, who had perfected his intellect and traits to the ‘ultimate’ level in order to perceive objective divine truths, still had one significant barrier preventing him from truly perceiving God: “that the human intellect is not separated [from the body] … his aspiration [objective knowledge of God] was unattainable because he was a physical being”. This principle, that the human intellect is inhibited by its connection to the physical body, appears again in Mishneh Torah where Rambam writes that the soul in the World to Come is able to comprehend God and divine truths to an extent that had previously been impossible when attached to its physical body.
Intoxication can thus serve to remind fervent Maimonideans, who worship at the altar of rational theorising, to be mindful of the outer limits of the human intellect and not place more confidence in the fruit of their rational deliberations than Rambam himself was prepared to. To quote Maimonidean scholar, Prof Marvin Fox: “The widespread failure to recognise Maimonides’ rigorous awareness of the limits of reason continues to be one of the mysteries of the history of Jewish philosophy”.
On a separate note, there is an additional Purim teaching in which Rambam summons his students to cast their glances beyond the walls of their study halls and embrace the needs of the wider community:
It is preferable for a person to be more liberal with his donations to the poor than to be lavish in his preparation of the Purim feast or in sending portions to his friends. For there is no greater and more splendid happiness than to gladden the hearts of the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the converts. One who brings happiness to the hearts of these unfortunate individuals resembles the Divine Presence, which Isaiah describes as having the tendency "to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive those with broken hearts."
As Rambam powerfully affirms in his conclusion to the Moreh, the sort of refined intellectual connection to God which his Judaism so greatly emphasises is one which goes hand-in-hand with personal refinement and empathy for the feelings of others. At the peak of his religious philosophy, Rambam appears to view these areas of endeavour as representing complementary rather than contradictory approaches towards achieving a connection to God.
This post combines ideas from various chapters of Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah.
First posted to Facebook on 8 March 2020, here.
