The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon: The Complete Translation 9781400890446, 9780691163857

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The Autobiography of

SOLOMON

MAIMON

THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

SOLOMON

MAIMON THE COMPLETE TRANSLATION EditEd by

YITZHAK Y. MELAMED & ABRAHAM P. SOCHER TRANSLATED BY PAUL REITTER WITH AN AFTERWORD BY GIDEON FREUDENTHAL

PrincEton UnivErsity PrEss PrincEton and oxford

Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956052 ISBN 978-0-691-16385-7 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Editorial: Fred Appel and Thalia Leaf Production Editorial: Karen Carter Text Design: Lorraine Betz Doneker Jacket/Cover Design: Lorraine Betz Doneker Jacket/Cover Credit: Portrait of Solomon Maimon. Engraving by Wilhelm Arndt. Production: Jacquie Poirier This book has been composed in Sabon and Trajan for display Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Contents

Acknowledgments

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Translator’s Note xi Maimon’s Autobiography: A Guide for the Perplexed Original Editor’s Preface, by Karl Philipp Moritz

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Introduction 1 Chapter 1: My Grandfather’s Household 4 Chapter 2: Earliest Childhood Memories 11 Chapter 3: Private Education and Independent Study 13 Chapter 4: Jewish Schools. The Joy of Being Delivered from Them Results in a Stiff Foot 19 Chapter 5: My Family Is Driven into Poverty, and an Old Servant’s Great Loyalty Costs Him a Christian Burial 22 Chapter 6: New Residence, New Misery. The Talmudist 24 Chapter 7: Happiness Turns Out to Be Short-Lived 28 Chapter 8: The Student Knows More Than the Teacher. A Theft à la Rousseau Is Discovered. The Pious Man Wears What the Godless Man Procures 31 Chapter 9: Love Affairs. Marriage Proposals. The Song of Solomon Can Be Used as a Matchmaking Device. Smallpox 34 Chapter 10: People Fight over Me. I Suddenly Go from Having No Wives to Having Two. In the End, I Wind Up Being Kidnapped 37 Chapter 11: Marrying as an Eleven Year Old Makes Me into My Wife’s Slave and Results in Beatings at the Hands of My Mother-in-Law. A Spirit of Flesh and Blood 41 Chapter 12: Marital Secrets. Prince R., or the Things One Isn’t Allowed to Do in Poland 44 Chapter 13: Striving for Intellectual Growth amidst the Eternal Struggle against All Kinds of Misery 49 Chapter 14: I Study the Kabbalah, and Finally Become a Doctor 52 Chapter 15: Brief Account of the Jewish Religion, from Its Origins to the Present 62 Chapter 16: Jewish Piety and Exercises in Penance 75 Chapter 17: Friendship and Rapture 78 Chapter 18: Life as a Tutor 82

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Chapter 19: Another Secret Society and Therefore a Long Chapter 86 Chapter 20: Continuation of the Story, as well as Some Thoughts on Religious Mysteries 101 Chapter 21: Trips to Königsberg, Stettin, and Berlin, to Further My Understanding of Humanity 108 Chapter 22: My Misery Reaches Its Nadir. Rescue 113

Preface to the Second Book 121 Introduction: Expansion of My Knowledge and Development of My Character. On Both of Which the Writings of the Famous Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon Had the Greatest Influence. Precise Account of These Writings 127 Chapter 1: More Newochim: Its Plan, Goal, and Method. Theologica Politica 133 Chapter 2: Continuation. Interpretation of Expressions with Multiple Meanings. Language in the Hands of Theologians, like Clay in the Hands of the Potters. Anti-Rousseauean Refutation of an Objection. Cautionary Rule for Aspiring Metaphysicians: One Must First Learn to Swim before Plunging into the Great Oceans of the World 140 Chapter 3: Continuation. The Crow Is Robbed of the Feathers Stolen from Other Birds, or the Denial of God’s Positive Characteristics 147 Chapter 4: Continuation. Explanation of the Manifold Names of God as Names for His Actions. Destiny of Metaphysics. It Becomes the Slave of Theology. Its Degeneration into Dialectics 152 Chapter 5: Continuation. The Concept of Angels. Some Remain at Their Stations as Ambassadors, Others Have Been Ordered Back. Genesis and Influence of the Uniform Beings. Aristotelians’ Reasons for the Eternity of the World 161 Chapter 6: Continuation. Counter-Reasons. A Psychological Explanation of Prophesy That Doesn’t Undermine the Dignity of Prophesy 167 Chapter 7: Continuation. Relation of All Natural Events to God. A Very Comfortable and Pious Method. Divine Equipage, a Cosmological Idea That the Prophet Ezekiel Wouldn’t Have Dreamed of. Excellent Morals, but Not in Line with Today’s Taste. Origins of Evil. Prophesy. Final Causes 172 Chapter 8: Continuation. Overcoming Doubts about God’s Omniscience. The Book of Job as the Vehicle for a Metaphysical Treatise on Providence 177 Chapter 9: Mosaic Jurisprudence. The Silly Paganism of the Sabians, an Impetus to Many Otherwise Inexplicable Laws, of Which the Beard Still Remains 181

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Chapter 10: Conclusion of the More Newochim. Excellent Morals. Definition of the True Worship of God, Which Makes Priests Unnecessary 186 Admonition 189 Chapter 11: My Arrival in Berlin. Acquaintances. Mendelssohn. Doubting Metaphysical Systems. Teaching Locke and Adelung 192 Chapter 12: Mendelssohn. A Chapter Dedicated to the Memory of a Great Friend 198 Chapter 13: My Initial Aversion to Belle Lettres and My Ensuing Conversion. Departure from Berlin. A Stay in Hamburg. I Get Drunk the Way a Bad Actor Shoots Himself. A Foolish Old Woman Falls in Love with Me—and Is Rejected 205 Chapter 14: I Return to Hamburg. A Lutheran Pastor Calls Me a Mangy Sheep and Claims That I Am Unworthy of Being Taken into the Christian Flock. I Become a Gymnasium Student and Make the Chief Rabbi as Mad as a Ram 215 Chapter 15: Third Journey to Berlin. Failed Plan to Become a Hebrew Author. Journey to Breslau. Divorce 222 Chapter 16: Fourth Trip to Berlin. Atrocious Conditions and Help. Study of Kant’s Writings. A Depiction of My Own Works 230 Concluding Chapter: The Merry Masquerade Ball 240 Afterword: Maimon’s Philosophical Itinerary, by Gideon Freudenthal 245 Abbreviations 263 Bibliography Index 275

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the many friends of ours and of Solomon Maimon’s who have insisted that a complete annotated translation of his great autobiography should exist and have helped us to bring it into existence. Among them, we should particularly like to acknowledge the members of a wonderful seminar on a draft of this text at the Skeptical Atelier of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Hamburg: Leora Batnitzky, Daniel Dragicevic, Florian Ehrensperger, Warren Zev Harvey, Moshe Idel, who also delivered a remarkable public address on Maimon’s relationship to Kabbala, Patrick Koch, Ada Rapaport-Albert, Oded Schechter, Shaul Stampfer, Josef Stern, Mate Veres, Dirk Westerkamp, and Professor Stephan Schmid, co-director of the Institute. We are also grateful to Giusepe Veltri for graciously hosting us at the remarkable institution he has done so much to build. Damion Searls, a remarkably skilled translator, read the manuscript and offered many incisive suggestions for improvement. This galaxy of linguistic, philosophical, and historical talent notwithstanding, this book would not exist without the patient support of our editor Fred Appel and the rest of the editorial team at Princeton University Press, especially Karen Carter and Thalia Leaf. The same can be said of our editorial assistant Jason Yonover, who is already a significant scholar of German Idealism in his own right. We are also very grateful to Brittany Micka-Foos, who gave us much good counsel in copyediting the manuscript and was a pleasure to work with. We are delighted to acknowledge the generous support of the Stulman Jewish Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. A number of scholars generously responded to our queries and requests for advice, and we want to thank them, too: Frederick Beiser, Moishi Chechik, Jonathan Garb, Matt Goldish, Gershon Hundert, Elhanan Reiner, Moshe Rosman, Abraham Abish Shor, Scott Spector, and Liliane Weissberg. Finally, we are especially grateful to Gideon Freudenthal for contributing a concise, brilliant afterword on Maimon’s philosophical oeuvre. Our debts to our spouses, who have had to live with this project for so long, is incalculable. The autobiography of a wayward husband may not be an entirely appropriate gift, nonetheless we dedicate this book to Maria, Neta, and Shoshana. Paul Reitter Yitzhak Y. Melamed Abraham Socher

Translator’s Note

Friedrich Schleiermacher, a great theorist of translation, once claimed that the experience of reading a translation should be like that of reading in a language in which you are fluent, but of which you are not a native speaker. In other words, a translation should seem a little foreign. How, then, to translate a text that already seems a little foreign in the original language? Should you accentuate its foreignness so that readers of the translation, who might expect some foreignness from a translation, will understand that in this case, there is a foreignness even in the original? But when the foreignness we are talking about isn’t, say, some kind of dialect, marked as such by context, are readers likely to keep the original’s foreignness in mind from line to line? Might not the translation wind up coming across as ponderous, rather than as purposively non-colloquial? Furthermore, non-dialect foreignness is a broad category. How to produce echoes of the particular foreignness in question? I thought a lot about these issues as I rendered Maimon’s autobiography into English. For while Maimon’s German prose is grammatical, and often elevated in its selection of words and expressions, it isn’t quite colloquial. Its proficiency is due in part to the editorial efforts of Maimon’s friend Karl Phillip Moritz: As has often been noted, the autobiographical fragments that Maimon published in the Magazine of Empirical Psychology (Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde) are much rougher—much more clearly marked by the syntax of his native language: “a grammatically deficient mix of Hebrew, Yiddish-German, Polish, and Russian,” as he describes it in his autobiography (109). But in the fragments Maimon was going for a different effect—that of an authentic case study as opposed to the perspective of the autobiography, which is that of a man who has overcome the intellectual and material privation of his youth to develop into an accomplished, if erratic, person of letters. It’s unclear how much he relied on Moritz in his attempt to create a style consistent with the latter aim. In truth, Maimon was a linguistic shape-shifter whose level of German proficiency changed according to the occasion and who was very aware of the sort of scrutiny to which his German was subjected, especially from German Jews. Indeed, one of the most famous scenes in the Autobiography involves Maimon recounting how, upon reaching Berlin for the first time, his broken speech, unpolished manners, and wild gesticulations resulted in his cutting a bizarre figure, like a “starling” that “has learned

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to say a few words.” What breathes out of Maimon’s evocation of the scene isn’t so much resentment as an air of superiority and passiveaggressive delight. Having slyly alluded to Aristotle’s definition of man (i.e., the “talking animal”), Maimon tells of how he, the underdog, bested Markus Herz, his cultivated and thoroughly stunned Jewish partner in debate. For Maimon himself, though, the outcome should not have been surprising. While his outsider status caused him no small measure of hardship, and while the Autobiography frequently ridicules the Eastern European Jewish culture into which its author was born, Maimon was also critical of the Jewish acculturation he encountered in Berlin, seeing it as intellectually limiting. It may be in part for this reason that there can be something mocking in Maimon’s use of German colloquialisms and formal expressions. Language was the key vehicle of acculturation, and Maimon’s, as Hannah Arendt suggested, was a pariah’s acculturation. One could even say that it has elements of what other theorists would call colonial mimicry. In the translation, I have tried to convey this. I have also tried to avoid the great temptation that attends retranslation. Or more specifically, I have tried to avoid the temptation that attends retranslation when, as is the case here, a key text has been translated into English just once and without as much accuracy as one might reasonably hope for: to write in reaction to the existing translation. Whether I have succeeded, or to what degree, is of course for readers to judge.

Maimon’s Autobiography: A Guide for the Perplexed

Midway through George Eliot’s last novel, Daniel Deronda (1876), the title character, a Jewish orphan raised as an English aristocrat, wanders into a secondhand bookshop in East London and finds “something that he wanted—namely that wonderful piece of autobiography, the life of the Polish Jew Solomon Maimon.” Eliot, who had translated those more famous Jewish heretics, Benedict Spinoza (who Maimon had read closely) and Heinrich Heine (who had read Maimon closely), left an annotated copy of Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte in her library.1 She was far from alone as an appreciative reader of Maimon’s autobiography, which is, as the late, eminent literary historian Alan Mintz remarked, “one of those rare works that legitimately deserves to be called seminal.”2 Contemporary readers of Maimon’s autobiography included Goethe, Hegel, and Schiller, but it made the greatest impression on nineteenthcentury Eastern European Jewish readers who had suffered a similar crisis of faith and were struggling to modernize Jewish culture or find their feet outside of it. Thus, Mordechai Aaron Ginzburg (1795–1846) and Moshe Leib Lilienblum (1843–1910) both saw Maimon as their great predecessor, the archetype of the modern Jewish heretic, or apikores, who had described the pathologies of traditional Jewish society and made a successful—or almost successful—break with it. Both of them patterned their own influential Hebrew autobiographies after Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte, as did the Yiddish philologist Alexander Harkavi (1863–1939) a generation later. When the soon-to-be radical Nietzschean Zionist Micha Yosef Berdichevsky (1865–1921) left the great Yeshivah of Volozhin in the 1880s, one of the first books he turned to was Maimon’s autobiography.3

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (Hertfordshire, 1996), p. 320, and Israel Abrahams, “George Eliot and Solomon Maimon,” in Abrahams, The Book of Delights and Other Papers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1911), pp. 242–46. 2 Alan Mintz, Banished from Their Father’s Table: Loss of Faith and Hebrew Autobiography (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press), p. 10, and see Marcus Mosely, Being for Myself Alone: Origins of Jewish Autobiography (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2005), especially pp. 56–65. 3 For Berdichevksy’s appreciation for Maimon, see Kitvei Micha Yosef bin Gurion: Ma’amrim (Tel-Aviv, 1960), pp. 201–15. 1

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Prominent German-Jewish readers included the novelist Berthold Auerbach, who based a character upon him; the pioneering historian of Hasidism Aharon Marcus (Verus); and the twentieth-century thinkers Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Strauss, all of whom had their first serious exposure to Maimonidean philosophy in the pages of Maimon’s autobiography.4 Arendt went on to list Maimon as the first modern Jewish intellectual to adopt the role of the “conscious pariah,” a role she saw as later having been taken up by Heine and Franz Kafka, among others.5 As an editor at Schocken, Arendt also helped bring Maimon to English readers by publishing an abridgement of an alreadyabridged nineteenth-century English translation of Maimon’s autobiography. When the Jewish loss-of-faith genre was Americanized by Chaim Potok in The Chosen (1967), he explicitly modeled his brilliant, troubled Hasidic protagonist on Maimon.6 Potok had read the Schocken edition as a young man and then gone on to write a dissertation on Maimon as a philosopher7 before turning to fiction.8 Historically speaking, Solomon Maimon stood at the cusp of Jewish modernity and passed through virtually all of the spiritual and intellectual options open to European Jews at the end of the eighteenth century. Literarily speaking, he is the first to have dramatized this position and attempted to understand it, and thus himself. His autobiography is not only the first modern Jewish work of its kind, it also combines an Conversely, the great twentieth-century rabbinic thinkers, Rabbi Yosef Rosen (the Rogatchover Gaon) and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik both had their first serious exposure to modern philosophy in Maimon’s commentary to Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, Giv’at ha-Moreh (1791). Maimon’s Giv’at ha-Moreh was, in fact, required reading in Soloveitchik’s 1950–51 lectures on Maimonidian philosophy at Yeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. See Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Maimonides: Between Philosophy and Halakha (New York: Ktav, 2016), edited with an introduction by Lawrence J. Kaplan, pp. 40–41, 65–68. 5 Hannah Arendt, “The Jew as Conscious Pariah: A Hidden Tradition,” Jewish Social Studies 6 (1944), pp. 98–117. 6 The Jewish loss-of-faith, or “off the derech,” memoir has had an extraordinary resurgence in the last few years. Among the most accomplished of these works are Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox: My Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012), and Shulem Deen’s All Who Go Do Not Return (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2015). 7 Herman Potok, The Rationalism and Skepticism of Salomon Maimon. University of Pennsylvania, PhD thesis, 1965. His work was supervised by the distinguished Hebrew University philosophers Hugo Bermann and Nathan Rotenstreich. 8 This litany is meant to be suggestive of how important Maimon’s autobiography was for modern Jewish literature and thought, not exhaustive. A full account of the book’s reception history remains a desideratum. For a brief suggestive discussion, see Abraham P. Socher, The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy and Philosophy (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006), ch. 5. 4

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astonishingly deep knowledge of almost every branch of Jewish literature with an acute and highly original analysis of Judaism, its social and political dimensions, and its intellectual horizons. He was born in 1753 in Sukowiborg (Zukowy Borek), a small town on the tributary of the Niemen River, near the city of Mirz, in what was then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.9 Since Jews of that time and place did not commonly take surnames, his given name was simply Shelomo ben Yehoshua (Solomon son of Joshua). Indeed, he did not take the name of the great twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) until he was close to thirty years old and studying at the liberal Gymnasium Christianeum in Altona, and then only in more or less formal German contexts, although one such context was the present autobiography, with which he fully introduced himself to the literary world.10 The Autobiography, simply titled Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte, was published in Berlin in two volumes in 1792 and 1793.11 It was edited by his friend Karl Philipp Moritz (1756–93), with whom he collaborated in editing a unique journal of psychology, parapsychology, and what we would call the social sciences more generally, whose full title was Gnothi Sauton, oder Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde als ein Lesebuch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte (roughly: “Know Thyself, or the Magazine for Empirical Psychology as a Reader for the Learned and the Unlearned”). Indeed, Maimon’s autobiography began as a contribution to the journal as a case study of a Polish Jew named “Salomon ben Josua,” focusing on the social and economic arrangements under which he grew up as the grandchild of a Jewish leaseholder of the leading Polish-Lithuanian aristocrat, Prince Karol Stanislaw Radziwill (1734–90).12 It was only after writing these

The question of the year of Maimon’s birth has been the subject of some dispute. We follow Sabbattia Wolff’s early memoir, Maimoniana oder Rhapsodien zur Characteristik Salomon Maimons (Berlin, 1813), p. 10. C.f. the discussion of P. Lahover in his introduction to the Hebrew translation of Y. L. Baruch, Hayyei Shelomo Maimon (Tel-Aviv, 1941), p. 9 n1. 10 An undated twentieth-century brochure published by the Gymnasium contains the text of two educational certificates for Maimon, the first of which is dated November 1783, and describes Maimon as “a young man of the Jewish nation, named Solomon from Lithuania.” The second, dated February 1785, refers to him as “Salomon Maimon, born in Lithuania,” cited in Samuel Hugo Bergman, The Philosophy of Salomon Maimon, trans. Noah Jacobs (Jerusalem, 1967), p. 2 n2. 11 Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte. Von ihm selbst geschrieben und herausgegeben von K. P. Moritz. In zwei Theilen. (Berlin: bei Friedrich Vieweg dem ältern, 1792–93). 12 “Fragmente aus Ben Josua’s Lebensgeschichte. Herausgegeben von K. P. Moritz,” Gnothi sauton oder Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde als ein Lesebuch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte, Bd. 9/1 (1792), pp. 24–69. 9

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third-person “fragments” of his life that Maimon found himself composing a more personal account of how, in “striving for intellectual growth . . . amidst all kinds of misery,” he had become an influential, if idiosyncratic, contributor to the philosophical literature of the German and Jewish enlightenments.13 As its many readers over the last two centuries will attest, Maimon’s autobiography really is, as Eliot (and Deronda) had said, “wonderful”—by turns a brilliantly vivid, informative, searing and witty, even hilarious account of his life as a Talmudic prodigy from—as he put it in a letter to Immanuel Kant—“the woods of Lithuania,” a literally preadolescent husband, an aspiring kabbalist-magician, an earnest young philosopher, a bedraggled beggar, an urbane Berlin pleasure-seeker, and, eventually, the philosopher of whom Kant would write “none of my critics understood me and the main questions so well as Herr Maimon.” In fact, some of the incidents and encounters Maimon narrates are so entertaining and incredible that one is tempted to read his book as a picaresque novel, a Jewish Tom Jones. Yet in virtually every instance in which it is possible to verify an incident, source a quotation, or identify a figure to whom he has coyly referred only with an initial—the drunken Polish Prince R., the charismatic “New Hasidic” preacher B. of M., the supercilious Jewish intellectual H., the censorious Chief Rabbi of Hamburg, as well as far less famous individuals—Maimon’s account checks out. In our notes to Paul Reitter’s translation, we have tried to document this without being too obtrusive, or needlessly cluttering the text. The only previous English translation of Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte appeared in 1888. The translator, a professor of Moral Psychology at McGill University named J. Clark Murray, elided a few difficult passages in the first volume of the Autobiography and cut the preface and ten chapters on the philosophy of Moses Maimonides with which Maimon had begun the second volume. He also cut the comical, puzzling allegory with which Maimon concluded the second part of his autobiography. These chapters were, Murray wrote in his preface, not “biographical” and “excite just the faintest suspicion of ‘padding’ ”14 Although Murray’s translation has been reprinted, pared down, excerpted, and anthologized for well over a century now, Reitter’s translation is, astonishingly, the first complete, accurate English translation of Maimon’s autobiography

The quote is taken from Maimon’s heading for bk. 1, ch. 13, below p. 49. J. Clark Murray, “Translator’s Preface,” to Solomon Maimon, Autobiography (London, 1888), p. xxxvi. 13 14

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into English.15 In fact, both of the (complete) twentieth-century German editions, as well as the excellent Hebrew translation, consign Maimon’s philosophical, theoretical, and historical chapters to appendices.16 Consequently, although Maimon’s autobiography has been widely read and cited as one of the most important and interesting first-person accounts of both Jewish life and European thought at the cusp of modernity, few have read it as Maimon intended—despite the fact that it is his deeply self-conscious account of his own life and thought.17 Of course it is easy to understand why nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century readers would find it odd for a writer to place even a philosophically incisive ten-chapter outline of Moses Maimonides’ medieval classic The Guide of the Perplexed at the center of his autobiography, and understandable that they would prefer Maimon’s rollicking, bumptious, and bitterly sardonic accounts of his escape from his traditional upbringing (bizarre local superstitions, debauched noblemen, corrupt clerics, secret societies, and so on) to philosophical exposition. But here, as elsewhere, it is the odd detail of a text that is the key to its interpretation. After all, Maimon did take the great twelfthcentury philosopher’s name as his own in an extraordinary act of literary homage (and chutzpa). Moreover, it turns out that his understanding of Maimonides’ Guide is both philosophically astute and a key to understanding his book, both as an autobiography and as a critique of contemporary Judaism.

Murray’s translation of the Autobiography was further truncated by the distinguished classicist Moses Hadas for the publisher Schocken in 1947, reprinted in paperback in 1967. (Hadas was, incidentally, described by his student Norman Podhoretz as a “lapsed rabbi” in his autobiography, which was probably indebted to Maimon in its depiction of his journey from parochial Brooklyn to cosmopolitan Manhattan, see Making It (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 44.) Michael Shapiro republished and introduced a full version of the Murray translation for Illinois University Press in 2001, and the standard sourcebook for English-language courses in modern Jewish history, Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), reproduces excerpts from Murray’s translation, as does Lucy Davidowicz, The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, reprint ed., 1996). 16 Jakob Fromer, ed., Salomon Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte (Munich, 1911); Zwi Batscha, ed., Salomon Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte (Frankfurt: Insel Verlag, 1984), and see P. Lahover, ed., Hayyei Shelomo Maimon, trans. Y. L. Baruch (Tel-Aviv, 1941). 17 For Paul Reitter’s reflections on the challenges of translating Maimon, see, in addition to the Translator’s Note above, pp. xi–xii his “The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon and the Task of the Retranslator,” in his Bambi’s Jewish Roots and Other Essays on GermanJewish Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 15

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As he writes in preface to these chapters: The first part of this autobiography showed me striving to develop my humble capacities and my character. While the obstacles chance put in my way did slow this process, it did not block it altogether. And as every action must have an equal and opposite reaction, it seems in my case that these obstacles were an intentional device on the part of wise providence, which actually helped me in some ways to reach my goal. Lacking enlightened teachers and suitable readings, I had to learn to reflect for myself. The rarity of helpful texts taught me to value all the more those that I could get hold of. I felt compelled to give them my full attention, correct their mistakes, fill in their gaps, and try to bring light and order to their dark, confused chaos. . . . Melancholic and ecstatic religion was slowly transformed into a religion of reason. The free cultivation of the capacity for knowledge and morality took the place of the slavish religious service. And I recognized perfection as being the precondition for true blessedness. The writings of the famous Maimonides (Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon) were most influential in bringing about this happy transformation. My admiration for this great teacher reached the point that I regarded him as the ideal of a perfect human being and his doctrines as having been dictated by divine wisdom itself.18

This passage is couched in the intellectual language of the Enlightenment, with its allusion to Newton’s third law of motion, insistence upon thinking for oneself as the key to moral development, and disdain for melancholic and ecstatic (schwärmerisch) religion. But even here one can see both hints of Maimon’s unique philosophical position and clues to the deep narrative structure that underlies the picaresque adventures he recounts. These can both be summed up in his idea of perfection (Vollkommenheit), which is not simply a vague ideal but a precise medieval Aristotelian doctrine he took from Maimonides, wrestled with all of his life, and employed in his influential attempt to revise Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy. This doctrine is, for present purposes, that true knowledge of an object consists in contemplation of its essence or form. In such an act of cognition, not only is the knowledge identical to its object (since the object of knowledge is abstracted from its matter), but insofar as the knower is identified with this thought he (or she) too is a part of this identity. In this ideal sense, only God, or, more precisely, what Aristotelians call the Active Intellect, can be said to truly know something. In the act of knowing, says Maimonides in a passage Maimon will patiently explicate several

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See below introduction to bk. 2, pp. 127–28.

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times over his career, the “representing subject, His representations, and the objects He represents,” are identical.19 Humans can only occasionally and fitfully approximate such epistemic perfection, but when they do and grasp (or are grasped by) a universal truth, they take part in the divine thought and receive at least a taste of immortality. This is the sort of perfection that Maimon says is “the precondition for true blessedness,” a term that he takes from another great heretic who was deeply influenced by Maimonides’ Guide on these matters, Benedict de Spinoza.20 Thus when Maimon says that he brought his earliest Hebrew philosophical manuscript in which he worked through this and related philosophical and kabbalistic doctrines, “as a monument of the human mind’s striving for perfection, regardless of all the obstacles placed in its way,” he means it both autobiographically and philosophically.21 Much of his earliest thinking was on the plausibility and ramifications of this ideal of perfection, and his autobiographical story is not just a string of adventures in which he bests establishment figures, fools, and frauds of all sorts, but the story of his attempt to attain this ideal.—Though, as we shall see, he will eventually conclude that it is a kind of regulative ideal, or necessary fiction, rather than a real human possibility.22 Maimon was well aware of how far this all was from the intellectual worlds of his peers in the overlapping Jewish and German Enlightenments (known, respectively as the Haskala and Aufklärung). One can see See below, bk. 2, ch. 4, pp. 153–54 explicating the famous “knower, knowing, and the known” passage in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, 1:68. Cf. Maimon, Giva’t haMoreh, ch. 68, and Hesheq Shelomo, pp. 125–26. 20 We are aware that we are compressing a universe of metaphysics, epistemology, and theology into a teacup-sized paragraph for present expository purposes. This tradition begins with Aristotle’s famously cryptic passage in De Anima 3:5 about cognitive activity (and passivity). For a classic discussion of its reception in medieval philosophy and Maimonides in particular, see Shlomo Pines, “Translator’s Introduction,” to his translation of the Guide of the Perplexed (Chicago, 1963). 21 Although it was lost after the dissolution of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums by the Nazis, Maimon’s manuscript, which he gave the biblical title Hesheq Shelomo (The Desire of Solomon), resurfaced in 1984 when it was revealed that the Hochschule rabbinics professor Alexander Guttman had smuggled a valuable cache of rare books and manuscripts with him to America in 1939 and was attempting to sell them in a Sotheby’s auction. On the subsequent controversy over the disposition of the manuscripts, see H. C. Zafren, “From Hochschule to Judaica Conservancy Foundation: The Guttman Affair,” Jewish Book Annual 47 (1989), pp. 6–26. Hesheq Shelomo is now held in the manuscript collection of the National Library of Israel, MS 806426. 22 On the ideal of perfection in Maimon, see the editor’s introduction to Gideon Freudenthal, ed., Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003), p. 15. For an interpretation that makes it central, see Abraham P. Socher, The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy and Philosophy (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006), which this introduction draws upon and revises. 19

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this in another passage in his preface to the second part of the Autobiography, which also highlights his inimitable voice: I am not, to be sure, a great man, a philosopher for the world, or a buffoon. Nor have I ever suffocated mice, tortured frogs, or made a little man dance by shocking him with electricity. But what does that matter? I love the truth, and where the truth is at stake, I don’t go around asking about the devil and his grandmother. From the mere fact I left my people, my homeland, and my family to seek the truth, the reader will surely recognize that no petty motivations can have shaped my account of the truth.23

This is, in fact, both a deliberately buffoonish riff and a principled theoretical rejection of the worldly philosophy of fellow Enlightenment thinkers (and their fashionable epigones) who are obsessed with the mastery of merely empirical phenomena (vacuum chambers, electrical currents) in favor of a classical, or, more precisely, Maimonidean contemplative ideal. The combination of idiomatic good humor, philosophical high seriousness, and literary allusiveness with which Maimon expresses himself is uniquely his own and, in Reitter’s felicitous translation, occasionally reminds the modern English reader of no one as much as Saul Bellow, another bumptious Jewish outsider. In the final sentence quoted above, Maimon writes that “I left my people, my homeland, and my family to seek the truth.” As he expected at least a certain kind of reader to recognize, this translates God’s call to Abraham—“Go forth from your land, and your birth place and the house of your father” (Genesis 12:1)—from the second person to the first, and so from a command to an act of human autonomy. The allusion, however, is not merely biblical, for Maimon is also drawing upon Maimonides’ famous account of Abraham as the first philosopher, whose alienation from his native pagan culture was a prerequisite for true philosophy.24 The self-conscious irony, even blasphemy, of the allusion is that Maimon’s story was also one of movement in the other direction, away from the faith of Abraham, although it was never really that simple, and Maimon was profoundly aware of this. In Karl Philipp Moritz’s brief editorial introduction to Maimon’s autobiography, he wrote that Maimon’s story showed how “even in the most oppressive conditions, the capacity to think can develop into a mature human intellect.” What gave the book added value, he wrote was

See below preface to bk. 2, p. 123. See Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, 3:29, especially pp. 516–17, and cf. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Idolatry 1:2. 23 24

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Its balanced, broad-minded account of Jewry and Judaism, which is in fact the first of its kind. At a time like now, when the educational formation and enlightenment of the Jewish people has become a special topic of reflection, it is a work that warrants close attention.25

As we shall see, Maimon’s sense of what constituted true educational formation and enlightenment (Bildung und Aufklärung) of the Jewish people or anyone else was substantially different than those of Moritz or Maimon’s erstwhile colleagues and benefactors in the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala). For Maimon, genuine enlightenment consisted entirely in the study of mathematics, the sciences, and serious philosophy. However, the interpretation of Maimon’s autobiography as an exemplary tale bearing a cultural moral Maimon himself would not have endorsed was repeated with increasing crudity over the years. Thus, Heinrich Graetz, the leading nineteenth-century historian of Judaism wrote that Maimon was a “striking example” of the Jewish capacity for culture: He rose from the thickest cloud of Polish ignorance to pure philosophical knowledge, attaining this height by his unaided efforts, but owing to his skepticism, he fell prey to shocking errors.26

This is, of course, nonsense, both as literary interpretation and as intellectual history. Maimon was the son of a recognized rabbinic scholar and himself a Talmudic prodigy in a time and place in which such learning held both cultural prestige and tangible rewards. Moreover, when, as an adolescent and young adult, he rejected the Talmudism to which he was heir (and which he regarded as, among other things, a noble form of religious “Stoicism”), Maimon turned to alternative medieval conceptions of Judaism in Kabbalah and Maimonidean rationalism, which were no less rigorous and scholastically complex. Even the Hasidic court of the Maggid of Mezritsh, which he visited as a young man around 1770, was, enthusiastic practices notwithstanding, made up of a cadre of spiritual elitists devoted to a complex and highly original theosophical tradition. Moreover, the Maimonidean philosophy that was to remain Maimon’s polestar throughout his peripatetic life afforded a vision of pure rationalism that was only available to traditional readers of medieval rabbinic texts such as himself. Indeed, as Maimon well knew, even his radicalization of Maimonides had precedents among the medieval Jewish interpreters of his Guide of the Perplexed such as the fourteenth-century Averroist Moses Narboni, whom he quotes in his autobiography and whose commentary Moritz, editor’s preface, p. xxxvii. Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1956), trans. Bella Löwy and Philipp Bloch, vol. 5, p. 407. 25 26

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was published alongside Maimon’s own commentary, Giv’at ha-Moreh (1791), which was the first substantial work of modern philosophy written and published in Hebrew. A feature of Maimonides’ philosophy that deeply influenced Maimon is its deep respect for reason. Thus, in summarizing the climactic conclusion of the Guide, Maimon translates and quotes a subtly astonishing passage:27 The behavior of a man when he is alone with his family is very different from his behavior when he is in the presence of a great king. Whoever strives for perfection should know that the greatest of all kings, namely, the reason that God has given him, resides within him.28

Maimonides would seem to be employing the standard rabbinic admonition that one should regard his stand before God with as much, or more, awe as one would before a flesh-and-blood king.29 But, as Maimon noticed, his master had actually given the tradition a radical twist: “the greatest of all kings” here, is not God, but rather, “the reason that God has given man.”30 Maimon’s loyalty to this monarch is almost boundless. Thus, he accepts a strong version of the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” (that is, the claim that everything must be rationally explicable, or alternatively, that there are no brute facts).31 In the middle of his explication of Maimonides’ Guide, he writes The world may be, in terms of time, finite or infinite; still, everything in it (as consequences of the highest wisdom) must be explainable through the principle of sufficient reason. How far we can actually get in achieving this is beside the point. Those things that Maimonides, working with the astronomy of his day, regarded as inexplicable, new discoveries (particularly Newton’s system) equip us to explain quite well. The highest order in the arrangement of the world’s structure is for us a necessary idea of reason, which, through the use of reason with regard to objects of experience, we can approach but never reach.32

For Maimon, the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” should govern philosophical inquiry. We clearly do not know the reason for many facts we

Guide 3:52| Pines 2:629. Maimon, Autobiography, 2:10, p. 190. 29 See, for example, Mishnah, Avot 3:1. 30 In the Theological Political Treatise, Spinoza employs similar imagery when speaking of “the majesty of reason” (ch. 15| Geb. 3/188). 31 On the Principle of Sufficient Reason, see Melamed, Yitzhak Y. and Martin Lin, “Principle of Sufficient Reason,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/sufficient-reason/. 32 P. 170. Italics added. 27 28

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encounter in experience, but we should never stop requiring explanation for facts that appear to be contingent or brute. In the Autobiography, we find Maimon time and again inquiring about the “Grund” (ground or reason) of this or that phenomena, regardless of the field in which it is located. Let us take Maimon at his word, then, and regard his exposition of Maimonides not as “padding” or an absurdly long learned digression, but rather as the rationalist key with which to interpret several of the most famous and striking episodes of his account of his strivings toward an ideal of enlightenment, or intellectual perfection, for which Maimon left his people, his homeland, and his family. Although Maimon first left his family in late adolescence, the family in question was already that of his wife and children, the oldest of whom, a boy named David, was a young child. As he recounts to great comic effect, Maimon’s recently widowed father had married him off at the age of eleven, as a desirable young Talmudic prodigy.33 A few years later, Maimon was working as a family tutor in a nearby village when he heard about an exciting new religious sect known as “Hasidim,” who practiced a new form of piety. Shortly before he was to return home with his wages, he met a young Hasid, whose account of the new movement was so tantalizing to Maimon that instead of walking the two miles home to his family after he had received his wages he left for the Hasidic court of Rabbi Dov Ber, “the Maggid,” in Mezritsh, which took several weeks. Maimon’s chapter on this “secret society,” which he described along the lines of the Bavarian Illuminati and Freemasons as the attempt to create a new way of life based upon a genuine “system of perfection,” remains one of the most historically valuable and apparently accurate first-person accounts of the early Hasidic movement.34 It was also a provocation directed at his contemporary enlightened Jewish readers, who, to say the least, would not have regarded the new movement as having a philosophical basis. Indeed, although Maimon’s account is highly For an account that shows how the pattern of Maimon’s early life persisted into the nineteenth century, see Imannuel Etkes, “Marriage and Torah Study among Lomdim in Lithuania in the Nineteenth Century,” in David Kraemer, ed., The Jewish Family (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 153–78. 34 Maimon’s account remains a key primary text in the study of early Hasidism. See, for instance, David Assaf, “The Teachings of Dov Ber of Mezrich in Solomon Maimon’s Autobiography,” Zion 71 [Hebrew], Ariel Mayse, “Beyond the Letters: The Question of Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritch,” (Harvard Dissertation, 2015), and, most recently, Melamed, “Spinozism, Acosmism, Hasidism: A Closed Circle,” in Amit Kravitz and Jörg Noller, eds., The Concept of Judaism in German Idealism (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2018). 33

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critical, at one point he calls these enthusiastic Hasidim “enlighteners” (Aufklärer) with generally “accurate ideas of religion and morality.” They maintained that man achieves his highest perfection only by regarding himself as an organ of God, rather than as a being that exists and acts for itself. The former, they felt, was man’s destiny. Thus the proper course of action was not to spend their entire lives apart from the world, trying to suppress their natural feelings and kill off their vital powers. Instead they should develop their natural feelings as much as possible, use their strengths, and constantly try to extend their influence.35

This pantheistic, or acosmic, idea was illustrated for Maimon by the enthusiastic young initiate who presented a highly original interpretation of a biblical verse describing the prophet Elisha at the time of prophetic inspiration: He continued, full of spiritual excitement: “As the player (musician) played, the spirit of God came to him” (2 Kings 3:15). They [the Hasidic teachers] interpret this verse as follows: As long as a person tries to act as an independent being, he will not be able to receive the Holy Spirit. He must act as merely an instrument. Thus the meaning of the passage is: When the player ‫—המנגן‬the servant of God—becomes identical to the instrument ‫כלי נגן‬, the Holy Spirit will come to him.36

As Maimon explains in a footnote, this is a clever bit of philosophical exegesis because both the act of playing and the musical instrument played upon are designated by the same word, and “the Hebrew character that is used as a prefix can be taken to mean both with and the same.” According to this Hasidic homily, one must annul the boundaries of the self as an independent being in order to make oneself an organ of God. Thus, the player, the played, and the act of playing are one and the same, just as the knower, the known, and the knowing, are according to Maimonides. Nonetheless, after a few weeks in the Maggid’s court, Maimon became disillusioned by what he took to be the lack of intellectual seriousness on the part of the Hasidic followers and their political manipulation by the Maggid and his disciples. Yet the idea of a monist, or acosmist, understanding of Maimonides’ dictum, in which knower and the known can be identified because they are ultimately aspects of the same single substance, would stay with him.

Maimon, ch. 19, p. 86. On this passage, and Maimon’s interesting account of both Hasidism and Kabbalah more generally, see Moshe Idel, Between Hasidism and Magic (State University of New York Press, 1995), especially pp. 196–200. 35 36

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Years later, after having successfully arrived in Berlin, Maimon discussed Spinoza’s controversial monism with Dr. Markus Herz, a leading figure in the Berlin Jewish enlightenment. I tried to explain Spinoza’s system, for instance, and more specifically, that all objects are manifestations of a single substance. He interrupted me: “My God! You and I are different people, aren’t we? Doesn’t each of us have his own existence?” “Close the shutters!” I exclaimed in response. He was surprised by this bizarre reaction, until I told him what I meant by it: “Look,” I said, “the sun is shining through the windows. The rectangular window creates a rectangle of reflected light and the round window creates a circle. Are they therefore different things, or are they one and the same sunshine? If you close the shutters, all the light will disappear completely.”37

Seven chapters earlier, in his account of Maimonides’ discussion of the triple identity of the knowing subject, the object of knowledge, and the act of knowing, Maimon remarks that the “intelligent reader” will be able “to see where all this is going.”38 What he seems to mean by this is that Maimonidian philosophy taken to its logical conclusion and the kabbalistic core of Hasidism, when purified of its obscure symbolism, both point toward the radical monism of Spinoza.39 This idea also seems to lie beneath the surface of Maimon’s ambivalent elegy for his “great friend” Moses Mendelssohn, the leading figure of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala). It is clear that Maimon was deeply grateful to Mendelssohn for his intellectual patronage and gentle, considerate manner. Unlike Herz and others, Mendelssohn regarded Maimon as an intellectual peer, not an amusing cultural novelty, a kind of “dog that has learned to say a few words” and is suddenly found to be philosophizing in what Maimon elsewhere describes as “a grammatically deficient mix of Hebrew, Yiddish-German, Polish, and Russian.”40 Mendelssohn had spent the last year of his life defending his friend, the late Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, against the charge of Spinozism, a charge Maimon, bk. 2, ch. 11, pp. 195–96. For the identification of his interlocutor as Markus Herz, see Martin L. Davies, Identity or History: Marcus Herz and the End of the Enlightenment (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995), p. 10n28. For an exposition of Maimon’s unique reading of Spinoza, see Yitzhak Y. Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism in German Idealism,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 42 (2004), pp. 67–96. 38 Bk. 2, ch. 4, p. 154. 39 For Spinoza’s own discussion of the Maimonidean doctrine of the identity of knowing subject, the act of knowing, and the known object, see Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 2, proposition 7, scholium. 40 Maimon, bk. 1, ch. 21, p. 109. 37

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that was widely taken to undermine the possibility of a moderately religious, politically non-radical, Enlightenment. Writing seven years later, Maimon rejected Jakobi’s controversial attack on Mendelssohn and Lessing, but then went on to argue that Mendelssohn himself had not really been very far from Spinoza’s pantheism. Of Mendelssohn’s rejection of Spinoza in favor of the Leibnizian system of Christian Wolff, Maimon wrote: The only way I could understand Mendelssohn’s and the Wolffians’ attachment to their system was by seeing it as a political trick and as an act of hypocrisy, through which they assiduously tried to approximate the thinking of the common man. . . . Mendelssohn . . . didn’t want to block my drive to explore; in fact, he secretly rather liked it, and he said that even though I was on the wrong path at the moment, I should not curtail my thinking.41

From his close reading of Maimonides, his medieval interpreters, Spinoza, and his own personal experience, Maimon was always very sensitive to the connections between politics and theology. Indeed, he described the first chapter of his Maimonidean synopsis as “Theologica Politica,” perhaps the first description of political theology as an intellectual field or literary genre. Later, when Maimon’s erstwhile patrons, men like Markus Herz who represented the commonly accepted versions of Jewish Bildung and Aufklärung, complained of Maimon’s vocational aimlessness (though he had studied pharmacology and medicine for three years, he had no interest in becoming a pharmacist or physician), his willingness to spread “harmful ideas and philosophical systems,” and his dissolute life (he coyly admits in this chapter to having frequented brothels), Mendelssohn rebuked him. But, at least in retrospect, Maimon would have none of it. I countered the first reproach by reminding him that from the very beginning, I had explained to my friends that my special upbringing had left me uninterested in practical undertakings and made me prefer the quiet, contemplative life. . . . “As to the second point,” I continued, “my opinions and philosophical systems are either true or false. . . . Yet it isn’t the harmful character of my views that has led these men to turn against me; rather, it’s their inability to understand my ideas and their desire to avoid the humiliation of admitting this. As to the third reproach, I say to you, Herr Mendelssohn, nothing less than: We are all Epicureans.42

This is another one of those deceptively simple passages in which Maimon is actually doing a great deal. In the first place, while it might be odd to write

41 42

Maimon, bk. 2, ch. 11, p. 197. Maimon, bk. 2, ch. 13, pp. 208–9.

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of oneself in the very same chapter both that one frequents brothels and that one prefers a “quiet, contemplative life” (italics very much Maimon’s), he is making, yet again, his Maimonian (if not quite Maimonidean) point about the real nature of knowledge, and its distance from the instrumental reason and fashionable chatter of most of his “enlightened” contemporaries. Finally, when Maimon tells Mendelssohn that “we are all Epicureans,” his German readers no doubt took him as merely making the point that the conduct of one’s life is ultimately a matter of taste and subjective desire. Of course, the term “Epicurean” was, like “Spinozist,” a term of learned abuse in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but Maimon meant something much more aggressive, with a real idiomatic punch. For in both rabbinic Hebrew and Yiddish, the word Epicurean, or apiqores, is the standard (and derisive) term for heretic. Thus, if we translate Maimon’s sentence into the only languages that he and Mendelssohn fully shared, it becomes not merely a statement of moral hedonism (or subjectivism), but a bold (and perhaps pained) admission and accusation. This accusation becomes even sharper when we note that Maimon has just criticized Mendelssohn for inconsistency in his famous opposition to the practice of excommunication. If a Jew is duty-bound to follow the laws of his religion, as Mendelssohn held, then, Maimon argued, the religious authorities must have the power to enforce that obligation. Maimon accepted this authority but rejected the proposition that Jews were obligated to remain in their community, that is to remain Jewish. The irony, of course, was that, in this very conversation, Mendelssohn was, in essence, banishing Maimon from Berlin in an act of quasi-rabbinic, or at least Jewish communal, authority. Maimon’s life, or at least his life as he recounts it, was full of such confrontations, more than a dozen of which are recounted over the course of the Autobiography. Although Maimon generally gets the last word in these episodes, like Rousseau, to whom he occasionally alludes, he was not averse to showing himself in an unflattering light. One of the most famous of these confrontations occurs after he sends a comical letter to a Lutheran pastor. The letter re-envisions the story of his life as one of progressive enlightenment leading inexorably to conversion to Christianity, but only as—to quote the poet Heine a half-century later—an entry ticket into European culture.43 I was born in Poland, Jewish. Brought up and trained to be a rabbi, I saw some light in the blackest darkness, which moved me to pursue light and truth, and try to free myself from superstition and ignorance. Because it was impossible to work toward my goal in the land where I was born, 43 Hugo Bieber, Heinrich Heine: A Biographical Anthology, trans. Moses Hadas (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1956), p. 196.

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I moved to Berlin. Supported by some enlightened men of my nation, I studied there—not systematically, but rather simply to satisfy my desire for knowledge. But because our nation has no use for such desultory study, these men naturally grew weary of supporting me, and they declared their support pointless. Thus, for the sake of both earthly and eternal happiness [ewige Glückseligkeit], which depends on the attainment of perfection [Erlangung der Volkommenheit], and also as a way of becoming useful to both myself and others, I have decided to accept the Christian religion. Admittedly, the articles of faith in Judaism come closer to reason than those in Christianity, but with respect to its practical application, the latter has the advantage over the former. And since morality, the chief aim of all religions, consists of actions rather than beliefs, Christianity is thus closer to this aim than Judaism. Furthermore, I hold the mysteries of Christianity to be what they are, mysteries: allegorical representations of the truths that matter most to humanity. In this way, I can reconcile my belief in the mysteries with reason, although I cannot believe in them as they are commonly construed. I ask, then, with all due deference: After giving such a confessional statement, am I worthy or unworthy of the Christian religion?44

The pastor finds Maimon to be “too much of a philosopher to be a Christian,” which is, perhaps, more precisely true than he knows (though, of course, it is Maimon who wrote this dialogue). For, his plangent, chutzpadik self-dramatization notwithstanding, Maimon was drawing upon precise doctrines in Maimonides’ philosophy of religion, which he had summarized only a few chapters earlier: Religious law is instrumental and its ultimate goal is the attainment of intellectual perfection, which is the true understanding of the universe and consequent worship of its creator resulting in “eternal happiness.” However, such an achievement is only possible for a healthy individual living in a well-ordered society. Religious beliefs are thus valid to the extent that they approximate metaphysical truths or are conducive to the governance of that society.45 As Maimon writes near the outset of his commentary to Maimonides’ Guide, Giva’t ha-Moreh, which he had published only two years earlier, “know that the true good is the acquisition of perfection [kinyan hashelemut]  .  .  . and whatever other thing is a means to this acquisition of perfection is good in relation to it.”46 Thus, if one needs to be a Christian Maimon, bk. 2, ch. 14. See, especially, Maimon, bk. 2, chs. 9 and 10, summarizing Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, 3:25–34 and 3:51–54. 46 Maimon, Giv’at ha-Moreh, S. H. Bergmann and Natan Rotenstreich, eds. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of the Sciences and Humanities), p. 35, commentary to Maimonides, Guide 1:2. (Italics ours.) 44 45

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to flourish intellectually in Germany in the 1780s, then Christianity is— on this radical reading of Maimonides—better than Judaism in “practical application,” as long as one does not have to commit to articles of faith that violate reason.47 It should be noted that although Maimon was, here as elsewhere, selfconsciously making an argument that he did not expect his interlocutor to fully understand, his offer to convert did have a specific sociohistorical context. Rumors that Mendelssohn himself might accept some such Arian or Socinian version of enlightened Christianity had swirled about Enlightenment circles for almost two decades. Nor was Maimon’s offer to convert to a demystified Christianity the last of its kind in eighteenthcentury Germany. In 1799, David Friedlander (a disciple of Mendelssohn and a patron of Maimon) famously made a somewhat similar offer to the liberal Protestant pastor Wilhelm Abraham Teller on behalf of some of the leading Jewish families of Berlin, though their aspirations were decidedly more social than metaphysical.48 Maimon presumably had the same radical argument in mind when he was later summoned by Raphael Kohen, the Chief Rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck, who confronted him about having abandoned his wife and family, as well as traditional Judaism: He received me with a great show of respect. When I told him about my childhood and family in Poland, he began to wail out lamentations, wringing his hands: “Oh! Can it be that you are the famous Rabbi Joshua’s son? I know your father very well. He is a pious and learned man. And I know you, too. I tested you on a number of occasions when you were a boy, and I found you so full of promise. Oh! How is it possible that you have changed so much!” (Here he pointed to my shaved beard). I replied that I felt honored to know him—I remembered his examinations well.

Moses Narboni, the medieval Averroist commentator whose commentary to the first part of the Guide appeared alongside Maimon’s, hints at the validity of such an argument albeit only in the face of medieval martyrdom, not modern discrimination. See the discussion of Bernard Septimus, “Narboni, and Shem Tov on martyrdom” in Isidore Twersky ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 2, pp. 447–55, concentrating on the commentary to Guide 3:11 and 3:34. 48 Interestingly, Maimon seems to set his account of his encounter with the Lutheran pastor at roughly the same time as Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem controversy in 1783. For David Friedlander’s offer, see Friedlander, Sendschreiben an seine Hochwürdigne, Herrn Oberconsistorialrat und Probst Teller zu Berlin, von einigen Hausvaetern jüdischer Religion (Berlin, 1799), partially translated in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World, op. cit., pp. 115–20. On this historical episode and its repercussions, see the classic discussion of Michael Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749–1824 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979). 47

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My actions, I maintained, had no more run counter to religion (properly understood) than to reason.49

Later still in Breslau, when his wife and now-adolescent son David arrive to force him to return home or finally grant her a divorce, Maimon describes teaching his son some passages from the Guide of the Perplexed, and trying “to show him that enlightening the mind and reforming religious customs would bring much more good than bad.” Maimon also attempts to use his wife’s demand to raise several hundred thalers from his patrons, ostensibly in order to return to Poland in a position to be financially independent from his traditionalist relatives and their community. Early in the Autobiography, Maimon had written that “the majority of Polish Jews are scholars, that is to say devotees of idleness and contemplation (every Polish-Jewish boy except the most obviously incapable is raised to become a rabbi).”50 Of course, this wasn’t really true—or rather it was only true of the elite rabbinic class into which Maimon had been born—but, despite the derisiveness of his characterization, it is clear that Maimon never moved beyond the idea that someone should support him, so that he could remain in “idle contemplation,” of one kind or another.51 Thus, in an earlier chapter, he reports that “the happiest and most successful period in my life” was when, after already having abandoned his family, he was supported by the Rabbi and Jewish community of Posen as a distinguished scholar. If he really was considering return to Poland with his wife and son, perhaps this was what Maimon had in mind, though it is unlikely that a few hundred thalers would have sufficed. In the end, he raised enough to give his wife a modest settlement and granted her the divorce she had been awaiting for more than a decade. Here, perhaps, is the place to note that in this account, and elsewhere in the Autobiography, there is a persistent note of misogyny.52

49 Maimon, bk. 2, ch. 14, p. 219 below. Maimon does not name Kohen in this passage but expects that at least many of his Jewish readers will recognize him as a leading rabbinic opponent of the Jewish Enlightenment. 50 Maimon, bk. 1, ch. 19. The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 17b and Megilah 3b) stipulates that a scholar is not allowed to live in a town that has less than ten batlonim (literally idlers, i.e., scholars whose only vocation is study and whose living is paid by the community). 51 For the demographic realities with regard to the number of Talmudic scholars on the Polish-Lithuanian ground see Shaul Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century: Creating a Tradition of Learning (London: Littman, 2014). 52 Thus, Maimon only mentions the beauty of two women, his late mother and his wife, but both only in the context of their being the objects of sexual desire by non-Jews. See also Maimon, bk. 2, ch. 13, in which “a foolish old woman falls in love with me,” pp. 205 and 213–14. He does, however, censure the misogyny he allegedly observed among Hasidim at Mezritsh, on which see below, bk. 1, ch. 19, p 97.

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The act of ending an autobiography almost inevitably stands as a kind of narrative surrogate for the death of its subject, which the author cannot possibly describe. The desire for intellectual perfection that underlies Maimon’s autobiography was also understood to be a drive toward death in the medieval philosophical and mystical traditions that he drew upon. Conjunction with or cleaving (devequt) to either the active intellect of Maimonidean philosophy or the Shekhina of the Kabbala was represented as a kind of prophetic rapture and tied in the exegetical tradition to the “kiss of God,” by which Moses and his siblings were said to have died.53 Maimon understood his life to be a search for intellectual perfection, and yet he told it as a comical story of social frustration. In at least some of his philosophical writings, he similarly described the act of cognition as the impossible attempt of the human, finite intellect to grasp its object in the way that the divine, infinite intellect does. Maimon dedicates the final chapter of the Autobiography, which like the chapters on Maimonides, has never been previously translated into English to “those readers who were bored by my earnest account of the More Newochim.” It is a bizarre allegory called “The Merry Masquerade Ball,” which brings together Maimon’s deep engagement with Maimonidean philosophy, Kabbala, the European tradition of the Goddess Natura, Kant’s “Copernican revolution,” and his own ambivalence about ever truly fitting into enlightened society. Maimon’s fable begins as follows: One day, in . . . , a ball was held to honor a famous woman. Although no one had actually seen this woman, she was reputed to be of exceptional beauty, but also extremely difficult. She was like a will-o’-the-wisp; the more one thinks oneself to be nearing her favor, the farther away from it one finds oneself. And as soon as one believes one possesses it fully, it vanishes completely. Her name, which should uttered in a respectful tone, is Madame M . . . . or, to say the same thing another way, the chambermaid Ph’s lady. Because she is, as mentioned, invisible, we know of her beauty only by what comes from the mouth of her gossipy maid, and we can call her by no other name. All the cavaliers gathered at the ball jostled for the honor of dancing with this lovely woman. Her taste wasn’t known, so in an attempt to please her, all kinds of dances were tried out.

As Maimon informs the reader in the first three of twenty-five playful footnotes, this is an allegory of the history of philosophy, the divine Madame M. is Madame Metaphysics, and her chambermaid is Physics. The

53 For Maimonides’ discussion of the deaths of Moses, Miriam, and Aaron, see Guide of the Perplexed, 3:51.

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allegory is, at the most obvious level, about the pursuit of what is behind mere appearances; the impenetrable thing-in-itself is personified as the elusive Madame Metaphysics who is only known through the chattering of her chambermaid. The dancers and the dances each represent, respectively, schools and arguments in the history of philosophy.54 At the end of the exposition of The Guide of the Perplexed with which he prefaced the second part of his autobiography, Maimon had quickly unpacked the famous parable of the king and his palace, which Maimonides had written as “a kind of conclusion,” to the work as a whole, as an account of human perfection. A successful dance with Madame Metaphysics would, apparently, be something like speaking face-to-face with Maimonides’ king. Maimon also almost certainly had in mind the famous parable from the classic work of medieval Kabbala, the Zohar, which tells of “a beautiful young maiden upon whom no one has set eyes,” and her secret lover who must penetrate her veils and riddles until he is “a perfect human being, a true husband of Torah, for to him she has uncovered all her mysteries, holding back nothing.”55 Finally, in his earlier chapter on the “secrets of religion,” Maimon had compared the famous inscription on the pyramid of Sais, “I am all that is, was, and will be; no mortal has lifted my veil,” with the biblical God’s self-description to Moses, both of which, to Maimon, meant “nothing other than that there was a single ‘immediate cause of all Being’.”56 Only a few years earlier, in his Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant had written that perhaps this ancient inscription was the most sublime thing ever said.57 After some characteristic Maimonian slapstick—Monsieur Ph. (Pythagoras) insisted that everyone “dance with ruler, triangle, and compass in hand”; Monsieur Pl. (Plato) insisted that “it was impossible to win the honored lady’s favor if one didn’t keep one’s eyes on certain images floating around the hall (which no one other than him could see)”; Monsieur L. (Luecippus, a materialist) “gave up on the storied lady” and danced with the chambermaid, and so on—Kant arrives on the scene. One of the most intelligent of them couldn’t stand this quixotic behavior any longer. He remarked that the honored lady was a child of the imagination, whose image could spur a knight to acts of heroism, but could also, if unchecked by caution, prompt all kinds of excess. He demonstrated how

54 This chapter should be compared to Maimon’s sketch of the history of philosophy in his introduction to Giv’at ha-Moreh. 55 For the parable of the ulimta shapirta ve-leit lah einayin (literally “the beautiful maiden without eyes”), see Zohar 2:99b (Mishpatim). 56 Maimon, bk. 1, ch. 20, pp. 104–5 below, and see the notes there. 57 Critique of Judgment, § 49 (Ak. 5:316).

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the illusion came to be and how one could save oneself from the threat it posed. This garnered a great deal of attention. Parties formed. Some stubbornly tried to assert the existence of the woman, which up to now had been taken for granted. Others questioned their assertions.

It is at this point that Maimon’s “friend,” who he coyly declines to identify in the accompanying footnote, arrives: “Not only did he support the theory of the lady’s nonexistence, he also claimed that it was possible to be a good cavalier without believing in such a figment of the imagination.”58 An elaborate costume ball given at an intellectual salon was just the kind of social expression of enlightened society in which Maimon was incapable of participating gracefully. He was chronically unkempt, often drunk, and continued to speak German with a pronounced Yiddish accent while gesturing like a Lithuanian Talmudist (his friend Sabbattia Wolff fondly recalled him swaying and chanting over a mathematical treatise by Euler).59 Even his German philosophical prose was constantly veering into a kind of rabbinic commentary or even metacommentary. So there is, perhaps, a poignancy on the surface of this allegory that reinforces its moral: the modern aspiration for metaphysical truth, to dance with Madame Metaphysics, is no less naïve than the desire to conjoin with the Aristotelian active intellect or cleave to the Shekhina of the Kabbalists. However, the final lines of Maimon’s autobiography decline even that much narrative closure: “I wonder how this strange masquerade ball ended.” In 1795, Maimon found his last patron, a free-thinking count named Adolf von Kalckreuth (1766–1830), who invited him to his Berlin residence, and, later, to move to his estate in Lower Silesia, where Maimon stayed for the rest of his life. This was probably the longest period in his adult life in which he stayed in one place, and accounts differ as to how he spent the time. Some depict him as living in a drunken stupor, his main companion a dog who Maimon claimed was, like him, a philosophical eclectic and to whom he promised to leave his library.60 On the other hand, he published his last major work, Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Geist (1797) in these years, and kept up an active philosophical correspondence until the end of his life. In the final weeks of his life, he was visited by an earnest local Protestant clergyman named J. C. Tscheggey, who published a memoir of their conversations about philosophy, religion, and the possibility of Maimon, bk. 2, concluding chapter, p. 243. Wolff, Maimoniana, p. 89. 60 Noah Jacobs, “Solomon Maimon’s Life and Philosophy,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, vol. 4, no. 2 (1959), p. 60. 58 59

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an afterlife. When Tscheggey urged him that his spirit would live on, Maimon replied that, he could go a good way with “faith and hope . . . but what does that help us?” It helps, replied the pastor, “at least to peace.” Maimon replied “I am at peace,” and died on November 22, 1800.61 His body was delivered to the nearby Jewish community of Glogau. He was, according to a local tradition, buried as a heretic. Children are said to have been encouraged to throw stones at the coffin while shouting “apiqores!” When Count Kalckreuth inquired about the funeral, he was, by one account, told that Maimon had been buried in a special area marked traditionally for philosophers, an ironic joke Maimon himself might have appreciated.62 Count Kalckreuth was not satisfied and apparently had a memorial stone erected in his honor.63 Maimon’s friends, Lazarus Ben-David and Sabbattia Wolff, wrote memoirs, and his philosophical work is of permanent value, but, for many, Maimon has been remembered largely because of his own “wonderful piece of autobiography.”64 Finally, a few words are in order about how we have edited and annotated Maimon’s text. As noted above, previous editions and translations of Maimon’s Lebensgeschichte treated it with a fair measure of paternalism, even disrespect, deleting parts of the text and appendicizing others. The present English text is a translation of the original edition as

61 P. Tscheggey “Über Salomon Maimon und seine letzten Stunden,” Kronos einem Archiv der Zeit (1801), pp. 20–46, reprinted in Wolff, Maimoniana, and adapted by Herbert Friedenthal in a curious work, The Everlasting Nay (London, 1944). As several readers have noted, Tscheggey’s account is perhaps indebted to Boswell’s famous account of his encounter with David Hume on his death bed a quarter-century earlier. See Socher, Radical Enlightenment, p. 50 and fn. 113. Nonetheless he does report some of Maimon’s characteristic thoughts and phrases, so it should not be dismissed. 62 For accounts of these rumors about funeral, see Simon Bernfeld, Michael Sacks (Berlin, 1900), p. 3; Jakob Fromer ed., Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte, pp. 35–40; Noah Jacobs, “Salomon Maimon’s Life.” Gideon Freudenthal has rediscovered entries on Maimon’s burial from the registers of the local burial society, which describe him as being interred “gegen dem Scheißhaus, in see “Hitpatchuto shel Maimon me-ha-Kabbalahle-ratzionalism philosophi [Maimon’s Development from the Kabbalah to Philosophical Rationalism]” in Tarbitz 80 (2012): 105–71. 63 The sandstone neoclassical memorial was destroyed during World War II and reconstructed in 2013. See D. Brylla, “Salomon Maimon has a Memorial,” Philosophia (2014) vol. 42, pp. 593–95. 64 For a concise, penetrating account of Maimon’s philosophical development, see the afterword to this volume by Gideon Freudenthal. For an insightful discussion of his place in the generation of philosophers who followed Kant, see Paul Franks, All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005).

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published in 1792 and 1793 (the original page numbers are inserted in square brackets in the body of the text). Whenever Maimon quotes a non-German text—generally a Hebrew or Latin phrase—we have retained the original language in the text and provided the translation in a note. We have also retained Maimon’s own transliteration of Hebrew words (adding explanatory notes where necessary) to preserve these bits of eighteenth-century Ashkenazi-Lithuanian Hebrew dialect. Maimon’s own occasional footnotes to his text are reproduced on the same page and are easily distinguishable from our editorial notes. Occasionally, Maimon ends paragraphs addressing sensitive matters with a hyphen, a practice similar, though not identical, to our ellipsis, apparently indicating to the reader that he must pass in silence over some issues. We preserved this use of the hyphen in our edition. As discussed, Maimon’s writing is rich in references and allusions, both playful and serious, to other works. His sense of himself as an interloper in German and Enlightenment letters who had to prove himself together with the common Rabbinic practice of weaving a new text out of quotations combined to create a unique literary tapestry. We have identified many of Maimon’s sources and allusions, but our aim throughout has been to create a useful reading edition for students and scholars working in English—not a critical edition of the text, an exhaustive commentary upon it, or a comprehensive review of the secondary literature upon which we have drawn. In citing secondary work, we have generally preferred recent work in English, since this edition is primarily for an English-reading audience, however these studies will quickly lead the interested reader into the secondary literature. At the end of this volume the reader will find an Afterword, addressing Maimon’s philosophical itinerary by Gideon Freudenthal, a leading Maimon scholar. It is our hope that this edition, together with other recent scholarship on Maimon, will inspire further work on, and translations of, Maimon’s ingenious body of work, as well as his somewhat brief and wholly extraordinary life.

Editor’s Preface Karl Phillipp Moritz

This book won’t need my praise to find readers. It will speak to anyone who doesn’t regard with indifference how powers of thought can develop in a human mind under even the most oppressive conditions, and how a true drive for knowledge can’t be scared off by obstacles that seem impossible to overcome. What gives the book additional value is its balanced, broad-minded account of Jewry and Judaism, which is in fact the first of its kind. At a time like now, when the cultural education and enlightenment of the Jewish people has become a special topic of reflection, it is a work that warrants close attention. Depicted in a true and unsparing light are the consequences of ignorance in a land roiled by its taking the first steps toward true culture. Indeed, the facts that one reads here may do more good than an extensive treatise on this matter. The author’s story will allow the reader to experience the place where—and the people among whom—he happened to be born, and where reason enabled his mind to reach a state of development that created intellectual needs that could only be met elsewhere, forcing him to leave. And it is certainly remarkable how intellectual needs can intensify to the point where material lack and even the most extreme scarcity that the body can bear mean little, as long as those higher needs are met. Such episodes are important not only for the particular fate of a single individual, but also because they shed light on the dignity of human nature and should inspire our reason to be confident in its powers as it strives upward.

The Autobiography of

SOLOMON

MAIMON

Introduction

The population of Poland can be divided into the following six classes or estates : high nobility, lower nobility, half nobility, burghers, peasants, and Jews.1 The high nobility is made up of large landowners and the administrators who hold the high government office. The lower nobility have the right to own land and to occupy any government office, but their extreme poverty keeps them from acting on those rights. The half nobleman is permitted neither to own land independently nor to hold a high government office—this is what distinguishes him from the regular nobility. The half nobleman does occasionally possess an estate, but even so he remains, to some degree, a tenant of the high nobleman in whose territory his estate lies: The half nobleman [2] must pay the high nobleman a yearly tribute for his land. It is actually the burghers who are the most miserable of all. Of course, the burgher is no serf. He has various privileges, and burghers can even enjoy juridical autonomy. But because the burgher has no profitable land, for the most part, and because he tends not to devote himself seriously to any profession, he lives in the most pitiful state of impoverishment. The classes of most use to the country are the last two, namely, the peasants and the Jews. The peasants work at plowing fields, herding cattle, beekeeping, etc.—in short, tending to whatever the land produces. Members of the latter class are merchants, bakers, brewers, professionals, craftsmen; they sell beer, spirits, mead, and other such things. They are also the only ones who lease land in the villages and towns, except for on the monastery estates, where Their Reverences believe it is a sin to help a Jew make a living, and thus they let their estates out to peasants, even though they pay a price for doing so. Because the peasants lack the right skills to manage the estates well, the estates fall apart, [3] something Their Reverences opt to endure with Christian patience. At the end of the last century, estates declined in value so much due to the landowners’ ignorance, their oppressive treatment of their tenants, and a widespread absence of economic planning, that land which would yield a thousand Polish guilders today might have been leased to a Jew for ten guilders. Because of his even greater backwardness and indolence, 1 This chapter was composed during what turned out to be the last years of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, which dissolved in stages and had entirely ceased to exist by 1795.

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the Jew, for his part, wouldn’t even have been able to make a living from the land. It was a single development that turned this situation around. Using the name Dersawzes, or general leaseholder, two brothers from Galicia, where Jews are much shrewder than they are in Lithuania, managed to lease—and to rent out to others—all of Prince Radziwil’s estates. By bringing about an extraordinarily high level of productivity, the brothers not only improved the estates’ economic condition, but they also made themselves rich.2 Unfazed by the uproar they caused among their fellow Jews, the brothers raised rents and were as strict as can be in collecting money from their subleaseholders. In addition, they kept [4] a close eye on the lands under their control. Whenever they found a leaseholder who was not managing his estate diligently and industriously––not serving himself and the landowner well but instead idling away whole days atop a warm stove, drunk on spirits—they would summon that person and rid him of his lethargy with a whip. This practice earned the landlords the name of “Tyrants” among their people. Yet they had a very positive effect. The leaseholder who had always wound up in chains, as a result of not having his ten guilders of lease money on time, now had so much incentive to work hard that he could not only feed his family from the land he leased, he could also pay much more than just ten guilders: four to five hundred guilders, even a thousand. The Jews can be divided into three categories: uneducated working people, professional scholars, and those who devote themselves [5] to scholarship without concerning themselves with earning a living, relying instead on the first class of people to support them. Head rabbis, judges, school directors, and such types belong to the second category. The third one is made up of scholars whose superior talent and knowledge the uneducated admire so much that they take the scholars into their homes, give them their daughters to marry, and, for years and at their own great expense, provide for both the scholars and the scholars’ wives and children. Later on, however, it falls to the wives to support both these sacred sloths and their offspring, who tend to be quite numerous. The wives, understandably, take great pride in this. Poland may be the only country where you will find religious freedom and religious hatred coexisting in equal measure. Jews there are completely free to practice their religion and enjoy all other civic freedoms. They even have the right to administer their own laws. On the other hand, religious hatred runs so deep that the very name “Jew” elicits disgust. The roots of These brothers were Shmuel and Gedaliah Ickowicz. See Gershon D. Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania: A Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 43–44. 2

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this disgust reach back to barbaric times, and [6] have continued to have practical effects down to my own days in Poland, just thirteen years ago. This apparent contradiction is resolved when we realize that, first, the Jews’ religious and civic freedom in Poland does not stem from respect for the basic rights of all mankind; second, religious hatred and persecution are not the results of a conscious policy of weeding out whatever might be detrimental to the nation’s moral and material wellbeing. Rather, both things—the Jews’ freedom and the animus toward them—are due to the political ignorance and backwardness prevailing in the country. For all the Jews’ faults, hardly anyone else in Poland is at all industrious, so the Polish nation had to grant Jews every possible freedom as a matter of practical necessity. At the same time, Poland’s moral ignorance and backwardness inevitably lead to religious hatred and persecution. [7]

Chapter 1

My Grandfather’s Household

My grandfather Heimann Joseph leased several villages near the city of Mirz, in Prince Radziwil’s territory.1 He chose one of those villages as his base: Sukowiborg, as it was called, on the Niemen River. In addition to a few farmhouses, Sukowiborg had a mill and also a small harbor and cargo depot for ships sailing from Königsberg to Prussia. All this, along with two bridges—one behind the village and a drawbridge on the other side of the Niemen—was included in the lease, which, back then, was worth about a thousand guilders. This was my grandfather’s chasaka(a). Because of the depot [8] and the heavy traffic, the lease should have been very profitable, and with enough energy and economic know-how, my grandfather would have been able (si mens non laeva fuisset)2 not only to feed his family but also to amass considerable wealth. However, the poor condition of the estate and the unfavorable political circumstances, as well as my grandfather’s total lack of knowledge about how to use the land effectively, proved to be fatal liabilities. My grandfather installed his brothers as subleaseholders in the villages under his lease. Not only did his brothers arrange to live with him (under the pretext of wanting to be on hand to assist him in his various undertakings), but at the end of the year, they also tried to avoid paying him any rent. The buildings included in my grandfather’s lease had become run down from old age, and they needed to be fixed. The harbors and bridges, too, had fallen into disrepair. According to the lease agreement, the estate Prince Karol Stanislaw Radziwill (1734–90) was the wealthiest magnate in Poland and a leading figure in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Mirz, or Mir, is now in Belarus. On the economic arrangement Maimon describes, see M. J. Rosman, The Lord’s Jews: Jewish-Magnate Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century (Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1990), and, more recently, Adam Teller, Money Power, and Influence in Eighteenth Century Lithuania: The Jews on the Radziwill Estates (Stanford University Press, 2016). Maimon is far from alone in depicting Prince Radziwill as a violent drunkard. a [Maimon] This term will be explained below. 2 “If our judgment had not been clouded,” Virgil, Aenid, bk. 2, the first of Maimon’s many classical references, on which, see the introduction. 1

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owner was responsible for making all necessary improvements and keeping everything in working order. But the owner, like all Polish [9] magnates, spent his time in Warsaw and was unable to oversee renovations on his estate. His estate administrators, for their part, were far more concerned with bettering their own condition than with that of the estates. Indeed, they subjected the tenants to all manner of coercion, ignored orders to carry out renovations, and spent the money intended for improvements on themselves. My grandfather tried almost daily to reason with the administrators, impressing upon them that he couldn’t possibly pay his rent if they didn’t uphold their end of the contract. But it did no good. All sorts of promises were made, not one of them ever fulfilled. The result was not only the deterioration of the property, but many related misfortunes as well. Because, as I mentioned, quite a bit of traffic passed through the village, and the bridges were in bad shape, it often happened that just as a Polish lord [10] and his wealthy entourage were crossing a bridge, it collapsed, plunging both steed and rider into the bog. In such cases, the poor leaseholder was immediately summoned, made to lie down next to the bridge, and beaten until the lord felt sufficiently avenged. My grandfather therefore did everything he could to prevent such an evil turn from happening in the future. He ordered one of his house servants to constantly stand watch at the bridge, so that if a lord had an accident of the kind just described, the sentry could dash off and bring word of the incident to my grandfather’s house, leaving my grandfather and his whole family enough time to escape into the nearby woods. They would all run out of the house, utterly terrified, and often spend the night under the open sky, until one by one they dared to go home. This arrangement persisted through several generations. My father used to tell a story [11] about a similar incident that took place when he was about eight. The whole family had fled to its usual place of refuge, but my father remained in the house by himself: He had been playing behind the oven, unaware of what was going on. The irate lord, arriving with his entourage, found no one on whom he could take out his wrath, so he had every corner of the premises searched and discovered my father behind the oven. The lord invited him to have a drink of brandy. When my father declined the offer, the lord bellowed at him: “If you don’t want any brandy, you’ll drink water!” He immediately ordered a bucket of water to be brought, and, using a whip, forced my father to drink until the bucket was completely empty. This treatment naturally resulted in a bout of quartan fever that lasted almost a whole year and ruined my father’s health.3 3 A form of malaria in which the patient’s fever tends to spike at three-day intervals (i.e., on the fourth day).

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I had a similar experience when I was three years old. Everyone in my family ran out of the house, including the servant carrying me [12] in her arms. With the servants of the approaching lord chasing after her, our servant began to run even faster, and in her great haste she dropped me. I lay in some bushes whimpering until I had the good fortune to be picked up by a passerby—a peasant—who took me home with him. Only after things had quieted down again, and my family had returned home, did the servant remember that she had lost me while fleeing. She started to wail lamentations and wring her hands. They searched for me everywhere, but they couldn’t find me, until finally the peasant from the village brought me back to my parents. Terror and dismay were not all that one experienced during these escapes; there was also the plundering of one’s house. The pillagers drank as much beer, brandy, and mead as they pleased, sometimes going so far as to empty whole barrels, make off with grain and chickens, etc. [13] If my grandfather had simply accepted the injustice and repaired the bridge at his own expense, instead of trying to argue with a more powerful person, he would have avoided all this suffering. But he kept invoking his contract, while the estate administrator only laughed at his misery. Now a few words about how my grandfather ran his household. His style of living was very simple. The harvest from the fields, along with the yield from the kitchen gardens and the meadows on the land he leased, not only provided his family with ample nourishment, it also sufficed for brewing and distilling spirits. Moreover, my grandfather was able to sell large amounts of hay and grain every year. His beekeeping brought enough honey to brew mead. He also had a lot of cattle. His family mainly ate an awful-tasting cornbread with bran mixed into it, flour-and-milk gruel, and vegetables grown in the garden. Meat was rare. Their clothes were poor-quality linen and rough cloth. Only the women sometimes made small exceptions, and my father, too, a [14] scholar who craved a different way of life. The family also had a strong sense of hospitality. Owing to the important trading route running through it, the area had much traffic. Jews with their wagons comprised part of it, and whenever a Jew passed through our village (something that happened quite often), he had to stop at my grandfather’s inn, where someone would come outside to greet him with a glass of brandy, making the sign of shalam(b) with one hand, and giving him the glass with the other. After that, the Jew would have to wash his hands and sit down at the table, which was always set. b

[Maimon] The traditional Jewish greeting.

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Offering such hospitality while supporting a large family would not have seriously compromised my grandfather’s material situation if only he had run his household better. His failures in this regard were the source of his misfortune. My grandfather pinched pennies in small things but didn’t pay enough attention to matters of [15] greater importance. For example, he thought it was wasteful to use wax or tallow candles at home. Narrow strips of resinous pine had to be inserted into cracks in the wall and lit at one end. The result, not infrequently, was fire damage far exceeding what candles would have cost. There were no windows in the storage room for the beer, spirits, mead, herring, salt, and other things consumed daily at the inn. Light came in through simple openings in the walls. This easy access tempted the sailors and carriage drivers staying at the inn to climb into the room and get drunk on spirits and mead without paying for any of it. Even worse, these champion inebriates often fled upon hearing the slightest noise, because they were afraid of being caught in the act. Instead of taking a moment to shut off the tap, they would jump out of the holes they had come in through, [16] leaving the drink running. Whole barrels of spirits and mead were emptied out this way. The barns were secured with wooden beams, not proper locks. As a result, and also because the barns were located quite far from the main living quarters, anyone could come in and make off with whatever he wanted, even a whole wagonload of grain. The sheep stalls were full of holes, and since all this was near the forest, wolves could slip in through the holes and kill as they pleased. The cows often came back from grazing with their udders empty. In such cases, people would say—expressing a widely accepted superstition— that a magic force had taken the milk from the cows, an evil turn they believed there was no way to prevent. My grandmother, a good, simple woman, would lie down to sleep on the oven fully dressed, exhausted from her activities around the house. Her pockets were generally full of money, but she never knew just how much she had. The housemaid took advantage of this habit [17] and would empty out her pockets halfway. As long as the housemaid didn’t get too greedy, my grandmother tended not to notice that anything was missing. All these misfortunes could have been avoided by repairing the buildings, windows, shutters, and locks, as well as through proper management of the various sources of revenue that came with the lease, and by closely keeping track of income and expenses. But no one thought of doing any of that. And yet, when my father, a scholar partly raised in the

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city, wanted especially fine cloth for his rabbinical dress, my grandfather didn’t hesitate to give him a long, reproachful lecture on the vanity of the world. He would intone on those occasions: Our ancestors, they knew nothing of fashionable clothing, and they were certainly pious people. But you, you need a special shirt, leather pants—leather pants with buttons!—and everything else that goes with them. You’ll make a beggar out of me. I’ll [18] wind up in jail because of you. What a poor, unhappy man I am! What will become of me? My father, in turn, would invoke the rights and privileges of the scholar class. He would also point out that if the lands and finances were being managed well, it wouldn’t matter whether the people in my grandfather’s household lived a little better. He would say that my grandfather’s misfortunes resulted not from how much his household consumed, but rather from his letting others pillage it through his negligence. None of this swayed my grandfather. He simply couldn’t tolerate change, so everything had to remain as it was. In the village, my grandfather was seen as a wealthy man, which he would have been, had he known how to make use of his opportunities. Everyone envied and hated him for his wealth, even his own family. His estate keepers deserted him, his administrators sabotaged him in every conceivable way, his own domestic [19] workers and also ones he didn’t know defrauded and stole from him. He was, in short, the poorest rich man in the world. In addition to all of that, there were even greater personal calamities, which I cannot pass over in silence. The “pope” (i.e., the Russian priest) in my grandfather’s village was an ignorant simpleton who could barely read and write. He was constantly at the inn getting sloshed with his congregants, the peasants, and he always put his drinks on a tab without ever intending to pay it. My grandfather finally grew tired of this, and resolved to stop letting him buy his drinks on credit. The pope was outraged, naturally, and wanted revenge. He found a means repellent to most people, but which the Catholic Church in Poland had frequent recourse to at the time: accusing my grandfather of murdering a Christian and thereby bringing my grandfather before a hanging court. This happened in the following way. [20] My grandfather had secret dealings with a beaver trapper who was often in the area because of how good the trapping was on the Niemen River (beaver trapping remains an aristocratic privilege, and everything regarding it is supposed to go through the prince’s court). One night, the beaver trapper came to my grandfather’s house at about midnight, knocked on the door, and asked to speak to him. The trapper presented him with a

My Grandfather’s Household •

9

heavy sack, and said with a strange expression on his face, “I’ve brought you a good one.” My grandfather wanted to light a fire so that he could examine the beaver and negotiate its price. But the peasant told him that such dealings wouldn’t be necessary: He should simply take the beaver, and they would come to an agreement later about what it should cost. My grandfather, suspecting nothing, took the sack, put it in a corner, and went back to bed. Having just fallen back asleep, he was woken again by very loud knocking on the door. It was the scheming priest. He had come with several peasants from the village, who immediately began to search the house. They found the sack; [21] my grandfather trembled at the thought of the consequences, believing that someone had told the court about his secret beaver trading. Now he wouldn’t be able to deny it. How horrified he was when the sack was opened, and inside there was no beaver at all, but a human corpse! The peasants immediately tied my grandfather’s hands behind his back, put his feet in blocks, threw him onto a wagon, and took him to the city of Mirz, where they brought him before the criminal judge. He was bound with chains and locked in a dark jail cell. Under interrogation, my grandfather insisted that he was innocent, told the questioners exactly what had happened, and, of course, demanded that the beaver trapper be questioned as well. But the beaver trapper was already far away, not to be found. They searched everywhere for him, but this took too long for the bloodthirsty judge. He had my grandfather tortured three times in quick succession as the search was still going on. [22] However, my grandfather continued to insist that he was innocent. Finally, they found the beaver trapper. He was questioned, and because he denied the whole affair he, too, was subjected to a torture test, during which he confessed everything. He admitted that he had discovered the dead body in the water and had brought it to the vicar to be buried. But the vicar had said to him: “There’s plenty of time for that. You know how stubborn the Jews are in their beliefs, and that they are damned for all eternity. They crucified our Lord Jesus Christ. And they are still after Christian blood, which they want for their Easter festival. They need the blood for their Easter cakes, part of their celebration of the triumph of crucifixion. So if you can sneak this corpse into the house of the evil Jewish leaseholder, you will have done something very important. You will have to disappear afterward, but you can practice your trade anywhere.” [23] After giving this confession, the fellow was whipped. My grandfather was set free. The pope, though, remained the pope.

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As a permanent memorial to my grandfather’s escape from death, my father wrote a sort of epic poem in Hebrew, which includes songs, narrates the whole event, and praises the goodness of God. It was established as a rule that the family would acknowledge the day of my grandfather’s rescue. The poem would be read aloud, like the Book of Esther during the Festival of Haman.4 [24]

4 The blood libel Maimon describes is discussed in Hillel Levine, The Economic Origins of Anti-Semitism: Poland and Its Jews in the Early Modern Period (Yale University Press, 1993). More recently, Adam Teller has noted that a blood libel occurred on the Radziwill estates in April 1752, which he tentatively suggests may be related to the one Maimon describes involving his grandfather, though the accounts do not quite tally, see Teller, Money Power, and Influence in Eighteenth Century Lithuania, p. 168 and 154n. The practice of writing a family or community megillah on the occasion of having averted disaster was not uncommon in early modern Askhkazi communities.

Chapter 2

Earliest Childhood Memories

My grandfather lived this way for many years, in the same place where his ancestors had dwelled. His lease had become family property. Because of the Jewish ritual law of chasaka, which gave a person the right of ownership on property that had been in his possession for three years, and which was also recognized by the Christians in the region, no one who wanted to avoid excommunication could obtain my grandfather’s lease through a hossoffa, i.e., by outbidding my grandfather.1 If owning the lease meant dealing with many difficulties, and even with acts of violence, it was, in the end, quite profitable. Thus my grandfather was able not only to live as a wealthy [25] man, but also to provide amply for his children. His three daughters had sizeable dowries and were married off to good men. His two sons, my uncle Moses and my father Joshua, also married well. Because my grandfather was old, and worn down from overcoming so many hardships, he put his sons in charge of the household. Opposites in both temperament and inclinations—my uncle Moses was physically strong and intellectually weak, my father just the reverse—the brothers were not able to work together well. So my grandfather put my uncle in charge of a different village, keeping my father at his house, even though my father, with his scholarly vocation, wasn’t particularly capable in economic affairs. My father kept track of bills, signed contracts, attended to legal matters, and did other such things. My mother was a woman who, unlike him, enthusiastically embraced all of these activities. She was small in stature and, back then, still very young. [26] I cannot proceed here without telling one particular anecdote, for it is my earliest childhood memory. I was about three years old. Because I was so bright and outgoing, I was very popular among the merchants who were always in town, and especially among the shaffars: the good gentlemen who managed both ships and the purchasing and transport of wares for great lords. These shaffars had all kinds of fun with me.

1 The right that is described is presumptive not absolute, that is one who has, in this case, worked on a property for three years is presumed to have the right to continue doing so

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On account of my mother’s small stature and her own lively spirit, these affable men gave my mother the nickname Kuza, which means “filly.”2 Having heard people use the name quite often, and since I didn’t know the meaning of the term, I, too, called her Mama Kuza. My mother reproached me for this. She said that God punishes the person who calls his mother Mama Kuza. One of the shaffars, a Herr Piliezki, came to our house daily to drink tea and won me over by occasionally giving me a piece of sugar. While he was having tea one morning, I, as usual, was waiting for some sugar. [27] He said that he would give me a piece only if I said Mama Kuza. Because my mother was there, too, I rejected his terms. So Herr Piliezki indicated to my mother that she should go into the next room. With her out of sight, I went up to Herr Piliezki and whispered in his ear: Mama Kuza. He wanted, however, that I say the name out loud and promised that he would give me a piece of sugar for every time I uttered it. And so I said: “Herr Piliezki wants that I should say Mama Kuza, but I don’t want to say Mama Kuza, because God punishes people who say Mama Kuza.” I got three pieces of sugar. My father’s way of life at home was more refined, especially because he went on trading trips to Königsberg in Prussia, where he saw all kinds of beautiful and useful things. He was able to bring home pewter and brass tableware. We began to eat better than before, also to wear better clothes. Indeed, I was even dressed in damask. [28]

2

Apparently, this had a sexual connotation.

Chapter 3

Private Education and Independent Study

My father began to read the Holy Scripture with me when I was six. “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.” Here I interrupted him and asked: “But, Papa, who created God?” Father: No one created God; he has existed from all eternity. Solomon: Did he exist ten years ago? F: Yes, indeed, he existed a hundred years ago. S: So could God be a thousand years old? F: Careful! God is eternal. S: But he must have been born at some point? [29] V: No, you little fool! God is eternal and eternal and eternal.—

I wasn’t satisfied with this answer, but I thought Papa must know better than me, and I should leave it at that.1 At the beginning of childhood, when the intellect is still undeveloped but the imagination is already blooming, this kind of thought is quite natural. The intellect seeks simply to grasp, the imagination to encompass. That is, the intellect seeks merely to understand how an object came into being, and it does so without taking into account whether or not we can properly represent objects whose genesis is known to us. The imagination, in contrast, seeks to encompass within an image, as part of a larger whole, that which has an origin we know. For example, an infinite series of numbers following a particular rule is, for the intellect, no better or worse an object than a finite series of numbers [30] following the same rule: both series have clearly defined properties by virtue of conforming Although Maimon’s anecdotes generally turn out to be true when one puts them to the historical test, it should be noted that Jewish boys were traditionally initiated into biblical studies by reading the Book of Leviticus, for complex and partly obscure reasons. The Israeli literary critic Pinchas Lahover suggested that Maimon was comparing himself here to the great Greek philosopher-heretic Epicurus, who was said to have doubted Hesiod’s creation myth as a boy, Diogenes Laertius, bk. 10. This is, perhaps, too clever, especially since Epicurus’ puzzlement would seem to have been over the idea of chaos, and Maimon uses this incident to introduce a discussion of infinity and the imagination. See Lachover’s, “Introduction” to Solomon Maimon, Hayyei Shelomo Maimon (Tel Aviv, 1941), p. 28n2. 1

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to the rule. Only the finite series, however, exists for the imagination. The infinite series doesn’t, because it cannot be encompassed within a complete whole. Much later, when I was living in Breßlau, this idea led to a thought that I developed in an essay and that coincides with the foundations of Kantian philosophy, even though at the time, I knew nothing about that philosophy. (I showed the essay to Professor Garve.)2 I expressed this thought in more or less the following way: Metaphysical thinkers necessarily wind up contradicting themselves. The principle of sufficient reason or cause is, according to Leibniz’s own admission, an empirical principle—here he invokes Archimedes’ experiment with the scale. And, indeed, one learns through experience that every single thing has its cause. But for this very reason, because every thing has its cause, nothing can be the first cause, i.e., a cause that has no cause. How, then, can metaphysicians derive the existence of a first cause from this principle? [31] I later found this objection developed more rigorously in Kantian philosophy. For Kant’s philosophy shows that the category of cause, or the form applied in hypothetical principles of objects in nature—whereby their relation to each other is determined a priori—can only be applied to objects of experience through an a priori schema. The first cause—which contains a complete and infinite series of causes and, because the infinite can never be complete, a contradiction as well—is not an object of the intellect, but rather an idea of reason. Or rather, according to my own theory, it is an invention of the imagination. Not satisfied with simply understanding a law, the imagination seeks to encompass within an image the whole multiplicity that is subject to the law, even when that image runs counter to the law. Another time, when I was reading the story of Jacob and Esau, my father recited a passage from the Talmud that says: Jacob and Esau divided all the goods of the world between them. Esau chose the goods of this life, [32] Jacob the goods of the future life, and because we are Jacob’s descendants, we must renounce all worldly goods. With some disdain, I replied that Jacob shouldn’t have been such a fool; he should have chosen the goods of this world. Unfortunately for me, the answer my father gave was to say: “You godless child!” And then he boxed my ear. The slap didn’t clear away my doubts, but it did make me keep quiet.

Christian Garve (1742–98), one of the most prominent German philosophers of the eighteenth century, and one of the earliest and strongest critics of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 2

Private Education and Independent Study •

15

Prince Radziwil, a great lover of hunting, once came to our village to watch a hunt, bringing with him his daughter (who would later marry Prince Rawuzky), as well as his whole courtly entourage. The young princess and her ladies-in-waiting and servants took their midday nap in the very room where I used to sit behind the oven as a little boy. I was astonished by the splendor and brilliance of the courtly entourage. Utterly delighted, I stared at the beautiful people and their gold- and silver-trimmed [33] clothes; my eyes simply couldn’t get enough of the scene. My father walked in just as I exclaimed, beside myself with joy: “How beautiful!” As a way of calming me and also reinforcing the principles of our faith, he whispered in my ear: “Little fool! In the future world, the duksel will stoke the pezure for us.” (That is, in the future world, the princess will stoke the oven for us.) It is almost impossible to describe what I felt upon hearing this idea. On the one hand, I believed my father and was very happy about the bliss that awaited us, even as I felt sorry for the poor princess, condemned as she was to carry out such miserable duties. On the other hand, though, I simply couldn’t get my head around the notion that this rich beautiful princess in such magnificent clothes would stoke the oven for a poor Jew. I felt very confused until some game drove these thoughts from my head. [34] From my very early childhood, I’ve had a great love of, and talent for, drawing. In my father’s house, to be sure, I never got to see an example of this art. But on the title pages of various Hebrew books, I saw woodcuts of leaves, birds, and other such things. I enjoyed looking at these woodcuts immensely, and I tried to imitate them using little pieces of chalk and coal. What really helped me in this pursuit, though, was a Hebrew book of fables, in which the dramatis personae—the animals—were represented by woodcuts.3 I drew each figure with the greatest precision. While my father admired my aptitude, he also admonished me with these words: You should study the Talmud and become a rabbi. Whoever understands the Talmud—he understands everything. Later, my father moved to H., where there was a manor house with several rooms covered in beautiful tapestries. Because the owner of the estate lived elsewhere and seldom visited the property, the rooms almost always stood empty. [35] My passion for painting went so far that, whenever I could, I would steal off to these rooms and make portraits of the figures on the tapestries. 3 Maimon decorated the title page of his Hebrew manuscript, Hesheq Shelomo. The book of fables he describes is almost certainly Mashal Haqadmoni by the thirteenth-century Castilian poet Isaac ben Solomon Abi Sahula, which was first printed by Gershom Soncino in Brescia in 1490–91 and many times thereafter in both Hebrew and Yiddish.

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I was once found standing in front of these tapestries in the middle of winter. Half frozen, I had a piece of paper in one hand—for there was no furniture in the room—and was copying the figures on the walls with my other hand. My own estimation is that if I had stayed with it, I would have become a great painter, but not a very exact one.4 In other words, I would have been able to outline the main features of a painting with ease, but would not have had the patience to carry out the rest of the work with precision. The little room in which my father studied contained a cabinet filled with books. He had forbidden the reading of all books except the Talmud. But that was not enough to stop me. My father spent most of his day dealing with domestic matters, and I made good use of this time. [36] Driven by my curiosity, I approached the cabinet, leafed through all the books in it, and, having already acquired quite a bit of Hebrew, found several of them to be more enjoyable than the Talmud. This reaction was perfectly natural. Just consider: On the one side, there is the dry content of the Talmud, most of which is incomprehensible to a child. I am not even counting the parts that deal with jurisprudence— the laws of sacrifice, washing, prohibited foods, holidays, etc.—where the silliest rabbinical ideas are developed over many volumes with the most minute dialectics, and fatuous investigations are pursued with the greatest mental exertions imaginable. For example: How many white hairs can a red cow have and still be a red cow?5 Which sorts of sores require what kind of purification? Is it permissible to kill a louse or a flea on the Sabbath?6 (The former is allowed; the latter is a deadly sin.) Should the slaughtering of cattle be carried out at the throat or the tail?7 Did the high [37] priests put on their shirts first and then their pants, or was it the other way around?8 If a man had a brother who died childless, thereby leaving the man, the jabam, obligated to marry his brother’s widow, and then such a man were to fall off a roof and lie in the muck, would he have thereby fulfilled his duties, or would he not have? Ohe iam satis est!9 Maimon is probably making a statement about his intellectual style more generally. See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Avoda Zara, 24a. 6 See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sabbath, 14a. 7 See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hulin, 27a. 8 See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, 49b. 9 The last case is taken from Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 53b and Baba Kamma 27a. Maimon’s “muck” is here a misogynistic euphemism. The hypothetical case discussed there involves a man falling off a roof and, without intent, penetrating his widowed sister-in-law. The rabbis rule that such an incident does not constitute sexual intercourse. The italicized phrase is another instance of Maimon’s schoolboy Latin and means “but enough,” (cf. Martial, Epigrams, vol. 1, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classic Library), edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, bk. 4, p. 327.) 4 5

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Compare these excellent tales, served up to and forced upon children to the point of revulsion; compare these tales, I say, with stories in which natural events are narrated in an edifying and pleasing manner, as well as with a knowledge of how the world works that both broadens one’s perspective on nature and brings everything together in a well-ordered system. Compare stories that do this and more with the Talmud, and, truly, my preference will seem justified. The best of these stories were as follows. There was a Hebrew chronicle published under the title Zemach David [‫]צמח דוד‬, written by an intelligent chief rabbi in Prague named David Gans. (He was, in addition, the author of a book about astronomy, which will be discussed below. Gans had the honor of knowing Tycho Brahe personally [38], and of conducting astronomical research together with Brahe at the observatory in Copenhagen.) There was Josephus, who has been willfully misconstrued, as one can prove by citing certain pieces of evidence.10 There was a history of the persecution of Jews in Spain. And there was the book that held the greatest attraction for me, a work about astronomy.11 Here a new world opened up before me, and I set about exploring it with much enthusiasm. Imagine: There is a child of about seven who knows nothing of mathematics. He comes upon a book about astronomy. It intrigues him greatly, but no one can help him make sense of it (I couldn’t tell my father about my interest, and even he wouldn’t have been able to explain the book’s content). How it must have excited the boy’s knowledge-craving mind! His success further suggests that this was so. Because I was still a child, and beds were scarce in my father’s house, I was [39] permitted to sleep in a bed together with my old grandmother (in the room that served as the study). And because I had to read the Talmud during the day, and was not allowed to touch other books, I decided that evenings would be my time for astronomical study. Thus, after my grandmother went to bed, I would light a fresh strip of pinewood, go up to the cabinet, and take out my beloved astronomy volume. My grandmother complained bitterly about this, because it was too cold for an old woman to be alone in bed. But I didn’t listen; I would continue with my studies until the wood was used up.

10 Maimon probably refers here to the popular medieval pseudepigrahic Jewish work Sefer Jossipon, rather than the historical Josephus. For the standard modern scholarly edition of the Hebrew edition, see David Flusser ed., Sefer Jossipon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981), 2 vols. 11 R. David Gans’ sixteenth-century work of astronomy was Nehmad Ve-naim, which Maimon almost certainly read in the Jessnitz edition of 1742. For a somewhat dated but still useful biography of Gans, see Andre Neher, David Gans: Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the 16th Century (Oxford: Littman Library, 1986).

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Having followed this routine several evenings in a row, I finally came upon an account of the celestial sphere and its circles, devised to explain all astronomical phenomena. In the book where I encountered it, this system was presented through a single diagram. But the author also gave his readers [40] the following good advice: Because, in an plane diagram, the various circles could only be shown with flat lines, readers should make themselves either a proper globe or a sphera armillaris in order to understand the ideas better. I thus decided to build such a sphera armillaris by twisting rods together. After I had done so, I was able comprehend the whole book. Because my father couldn’t know anything about these activities, I always hid my sphera armillaris in a corner of the bookcase before going to bed. The problem was that my grandmother often watched me as I was completely absorbed in reading. Furthermore, she sometimes saw me looking at circles fashioned out of braided rods, and that were stacked on top of each other crosswise. She became terribly worried as a result of this, believing nothing less than that her grandson had lost his mind. [41] And so she reported to my father what she had seen. She also showed him where I kept my magic instrument. Having quickly surmised its purpose, he had me summoned. When I appeared, he questioned me with the following words: F: What kind of toy have you made for yourself? S: It is a kader.(a) F: What is the meaning of this?

I proceeded to tell him how the circles made celestial phenomena comprehensible. My father was, to be sure, a fine rabbi, but he had no special talent for science and could not understand all that I tried to explain to him. He was especially confused by the relationship between my sphera armillaris and the diagram in the book. How could [42] spheres be rendered as flat lines? He could, however, recognize this much: I was quite certain of myself. He scolded me for breaking his rule against reading anything other than the Talmud. Yet inwardly he was very pleased by the fact that without any mentoring or prior knowledge, his young son had been able to carry out a whole scientific project. And with that, the interrogation came to an end. [43]

a

[Maimon] The Hebrew term for globe.

Chapter 4

Jewish Schools. The Joy of Being Delivered from Them Results in a Stiff Foot

My brother Joseph and I were sent to school in Mirz. Joseph, who was about twelve at the time, lodged with a famous schoolmaster named Jossel. This man was every student’s nightmare, the scourge of God. He handled the boys placed in his care with a monstrous brutality whipping them for the slightest offense until the blood flowed, and not infrequently tearing off ears and gouging out eyes. When the parents of his unfortunate victims came to complain, he would hurl rocks at them or whatever was handy, regardless of who the parents were. He would then chase them out of the room with his walking stick, all the way back to where they lived. His charges [44] became either idiots or great scholars. Only seven at the time, and was sent to a different schoolmaster. There is one story that I must tell here. It is partly an illustration of deep brotherly love, but it should also be seen as evoking the mentality of a child hoping for relief from misfortune, while simultaneously fearing that the misfortune will grow worse. One day, I came home from school with eyes red from crying (no doubt I had had good reason to cry). My brother noticed and asked what had happened. At first, I didn’t want to answer, but finally I confided: “I was crying because we aren’t allowed to tell tales out of school.” My brother understood me quite well and was outraged, so much so that he wanted to confront my teacher. I asked him not to, since the teacher would probably punish me for telling tales out of school. [45] Now I must say something about the general condition of Jewish schools.1 Most often the school is a smoky shack with students scattered around, some perching on benches, others sitting on the dirt floor. The teacher, with a filthy shirt on his back, sits on his desk commanding his regiment, all the while holding between his legs a bowl of tobacco, which he works over into snuff with a pestle as massive as the club of Hercules. His assistants conduct drill sessions in their own corners of the room, 1 Maimon’s description of Jewish schools here is an early classic of the enlightened critique of traditional Jewish education, which was a central plank of the Haskala.

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each one ruling over his subjects just as the teacher himself does: as an absolute despot. The children bring breakfast and snacks to school, and the teachers keep the lion’s share of the food for themselves. Sometimes, in fact, the poor boys get nothing at all. And if the boys want to avoid facing the wrath of these tyrants, they won’t complain. Children are locked up here from morning until evening. They have free time only on Fridays and on the afternoon of the first of the month. As to the actual curriculum, at least the Hebrew scripture is still [46] studied quite properly. The method for acquiring the Hebrew language, in contrast, is quite odd. Teachers don’t go over the principles of grammar. Instead, the rules must be learned ex usu: that is, by translating the Holy scripture. As a result, students are much like the ordinary person who develops an incomplete understanding of grammar through the normal use of his mother tongue. Nor is there a Hebrew dictionary. Students begin interpreting the Holy Scripture right away; and since the Holy Scripture is divided into as many sections as there are weeks in the year, students can read through the books of Moses—read every Saturday in synagogue—in a year. Thus, each week, students interpret several verses from the beginning of the section for that week, making every possible grammatical mistake as they do so. But there are no better alternatives. For the students’ native Yiddish-Polish is full of grammatical deficiencies, and so when Hebrew readings are interpreted in the students’ native language, the Hebrew they learn is naturally of the same [47] poor quality. In this way, then, students gain just as little knowledge of the Hebrew language as they do of the Holy Scripture’s content. In addition, Talmudists have buried the Holy Scripture under all manner of strange ideas, and our ignorant teachers confidently believe that the Holy Scripture can have no meaning other than the ones these explicators assign it. Students are compelled to share this belief, with the result that the correct interpretation of words necessarily gets lost. For example, where the first book of Moses reads “Jacob sent messengers to his brother Esau,” Talmudists like to claim that the messengers were angels. Now while the Hebrew word malachim can, to be sure, mean both “messengers” and “angels,” these miracle-chasers have opted for second meaning simply because the first doesn’t suggest anything miraculous. The students, in turn, come to think that malachim means nothing other than “angels,” and thus the primary meaning of “messenger” gets lost. It is only by studying on one’s own, and by reading Hebrew primers and philological commentaries on the Holy Scripture (such as [48] David Kimhi’s and Ibn Ezra’s), which just a few rabbis use, that one can, bit by bit, achieve a correct understanding of the Hebrew language and work toward sound exegetical practices.

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Children are condemned to such a hell precisely when their youth is in full bloom. So one can easily imagine the excitement with which they look forward to being out of school. On high holidays, my brother and I would be picked up and brought home. During one of those trips, the following event took place; it would prove to be of crucial significance for me. My mother had come before the holiday of Shavuot to the town where we were going to school, because she needed to buy various things for her household. Afterward, she took us home. Being freed from school, coupled with the sight of that beautiful person all done up in her best clothes, delighted us so much that we became downright reckless. As we were approaching our hometown, my brother boldly leapt out of the wagon and ran the rest of the way on foot. I wanted to do [49] the same but wasn’t strong enough. I fell hard and landed next to the wagon with my legs caught between the wheels. One of the wheels ran over my left leg, crushing it horribly. They brought me home half-dead. My foot seized up and was completely immobile. A Jewish doctor was consulted. He hadn’t, to be sure, studied medicine at a university or earned a regular degree; rather, he had acquired his medical knowledge by working under a doctor and by reading some Polish medical books. But he was still a very good practical physician who had healed many patients. He had no supply of medicine, he said, and the nearest pharmacy was twenty miles away. Thus he couldn’t prescribe a cure using his normal method. In the meantime, though, we should make use of an easy household remedy. Someone should kill a dog, and I should put my injured foot into the body. Repeating this several times [50] would definitely bring about some relief. His order was followed, with the success that we had hoped for. After several weeks, I could move my foot and put weight on it. My recovery continued until my foot was completely healed. I think that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if doctors paid more attention to household remedies, for they are often used with great success in parts of the world without regular doctors and pharmacies. Doctors might even make special trips to these areas to learn about such methods. I know of many instances of effective treatment that cannot be explained away. All this, however, in passing. I now return to my story. [51]

Chapter 5

My Family Is Driven into Poverty, and an Old Servant’s Great Loyalty Costs Him a Christian Burial

As I’ve said, my father used to go on trading trips to Königsberg in Prussia. During one such trip, he bought several barrels of salt and herring, which he had loaded onto a ship that Prince Radziwil owned. When, upon his return, he went to pick up his goods, a customs official named Schachna flatly refused to allow it. My father’s response was to show him the receipt for the goods. But the official just snatched the receipt and threw it into the fire. My father was now forced to initiate what would be long and costly legal proceedings, which in fact he had to postpone for a year. The next time he traveled to Königsberg, he obtained a receipt from the toll bureau documenting that, [52] under Schachna’s supervision, the goods in question had been loaded onto Prince Radziwil’s ship. On the basis of this receipt, the official was summoned to appear before court. He decided, however, that it would be best not to try to defend himself, and my father won the case on the first, second, and third levels of judicial authority. But the Polish justice system was in such bad shape then that my father had no way to enforce the verdicts. He was never even reimbursed for the costs of the trial he had won. Moreover, my father had made an enemy of Mr. Schachna, who now tried to undermine him in all sorts of ways. And things very went well for Schachna in this. Through various kinds of intrigue, that cunning scoundrel managed to get himself appointed by the prince to be the chief administrator of all the prince’s estates. Having resolved to ruin my father, he waited for the right moment to exact his revenge. He did not have to wait long. Indeed, a certain Jew who went by the name of the land he leased, Schwersen, and who was known as the greatest [53] villain in the region, soon offered him a helping hand. This Schwersen was a great ignoramus. He couldn’t even understand Yiddish and hence resorted to using Russian. His primary way of doing business was to look around the area for the most profitable leases, and then to acquire these leases by outbidding the leaseholders and bribing the estate administrators. Ignoring the chasaka laws, he drove away the legitimate

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leaseholders and thereby increased his wealth. He was prosperous and happy, and in that state he reached an old age. Having long had his eye on my grandfather’s lease, this villain had been waiting for the chance to make it his own. Unfortunately for us, my granduncle Jacob, who lived in another of the villages included in grandfather’s lease, had been forced to go into debt to the very same miscreant. When my great uncle was unable pay off his debt—about fifty-six dollars—by the deadline, Schwersen wasted no time in confronting him. Schwersen brought some servants [54] along and threatened to take my great uncle’s cauldron, his sole possession of value. Utterly overwhelmed, my great uncle snuck the cauldron onto a wagon, drove it as fast as he could to my grandfather’s house, and, unbeknownst to any of us, hid it in the bog closest to the back of the house. His creditor, who had followed him on foot, soon arrived at my grandfather’s residence. He had the whole area thoroughly searched but couldn’t find the cauldron. Seething over his failed ploy, and hungry for revenge against my grandfather, who, he believed, had thwarted his efforts, Schwersen rode to town. He took along a handsome gift for the estate administrator, and he offered him twice as much lease-money as my grandfather had been paying as well as an annual gift. The administrator was pleased to have such an offer, and remembering the insult that my father, a Jew, had dealt him, a Polish nobleman, through the above-mentioned lawsuit, he [55] wrote out a new contract for the odious man on the spot. He not only transferred the lease, along with all its attendant rights, before my grandfather’s lease time had ended, he also robbed my grandfather of all his property: barns full of grain, cattle, etc. He then split the booty with the new leaseholder. In the middle of winter, my grandfather had to leave his home with his whole family and wander from place to place without knowing where he should try to settle. Our departure was a tragic affair. The whole neighborhood lamented our fate. A loyal eighty-year-old servant named Gabriel, who had held my grandfather in his arms when my grandfather was a child, insisted on coming with us. He was warned about the harshness of the season, our present misfortunes, and our uncertain future. But nothing made a difference. He lay down in front of the gate through which our wagons had to pass and wailed for so [56] long that we felt compelled to bring him along. He did not travel far with us, however. His advanced age, the worry caused by our misery, and the brutal weather soon dealt him the final blow. He died, and since we had hardly covered more than a few miles, and no Catholic or Russian congregation would consent to give him a churchyard burial (he was Prussian and a Protestant), he was buried in an open field at our expense. [57]

Chapter 6

New Residence, New Misery. The Talmudist

And so we wandered through the countryside the way the Israelites had wandered through the deserts of Arabia, without knowing where, when, or how we would find a place to make a new home. Finally, we arrived at a village that was owned by two lords. The part belonging to one was already leased; the other part couldn’t be leased because the other lord had not yet built a house. Weary of traveling around in winter with his whole family, my grandfather decided on the spot to lease this still unbuilt house and all that went with it. While the house was being constructed, we would make do. Thus we stayed in a barn for a time. Meanwhile, the other leaseholder did everything he could to prevent us from settling into this place. [58] Nothing he tried worked. The building was finished; we moved in and began to organize our affairs. Here, unfortunately, nothing seemed to go right for us. Not only were we plagued with setbacks, but my mother, who had a lively disposition and liked being active, found little to do and grew bored. Coupled with her worries about whether we would have enough to eat, the problem of boredom drove my mother into a melancholic state, from which she ultimately plunged into outright insanity. She remained this way for several months. Nothing helped. Finally, my father came up with the idea of taking her to Novhardok, where there was a famous doctor who specialized in healing such mental illnesses. I don’t know what mode of therapy this expert used, being too young at the time to ask or even to want to ask about it. But I can say this much with certainty. His treatment was successful, as it was with most patients of my mother’s type. My mother went home refreshed and healthy, [59] and she didn’t suffer a relapse. Just after this episode, I was sent to Iwenez,1 fifteen miles away from where we lived. It was there that I began to study the Talmud. For our people, the study of the Talmud is the primary mark of an educated upbringing. Wealth, outstanding physical abilities, and talents Present-day Ivyanets near the Valozhyn region of Belarus, where the leading yeshiva of the nineteenth century, Etz Hayyim, was founded a generation later by Rabbi Hayyim Itzkovich in 1803. 1

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of all kinds may be valuable and to some extent respected, but nothing, in our view, surpasses the worth of a good Talmudist. He has the first claim to all the offices and honors in the community. When he enters a gathering, all rise to greet him, whatever his age and class, and he is given the best seat. He is the common man’s spiritual guide, lawmaker, and judge. Whoever fails to show such scholars sufficient reverence is, according to dictum of Talmudists, damned for all eternity. The common man is not allowed to do the slightest thing [60] that has not been judged by a scholar to be consistent with the law. Religious customs, permitted and forbidden foods, marriage and divorce—all these matters are not only defined by an enormous number of rabbinical laws, but also through rabbinical judgment, which derives answers for specific cases from these general laws. A rich merchant, leaseholder, or professional man who has a daughter will do everything he can to attract a good Talmudist as his son-in-law. No matter if the Talmudist is misshapen, sickly, or otherwise ignorant. He stands above all others. According to the standard arrangement, the future father-in-law of such a cynosure must pay the phoenix’s parents a negotiated sum at the time of the engagement, along with the dowry meant for the daughter, and he must initially provide the bride and her husband with food, clothing, and shelter. During this time, the couple gets the interest from the money set aside for the dowry, and the learned son-in-law continues his studies [61] at his father-in-law’s expense. Afterward, the Talmudist gains full control of the dowry. He may be promoted to a scholarly office, or he can spend his whole life in erudite indolence. In either case, the woman takes care of running the household and all other economic responsibilities. She will be satisfied if, in exchange for all her labor, she can share to some degree in her husband’s fame and his future blessedness. The Talmud is studied as unsystematically as the Holy Scripture. The language of the Talmud is a mixture of various Oriental languages and dialects. In fact, instances of Greek and Roman also occur. There is no dictionary in which one can look up all of the expressions and phrases that the Talmud contains. Worse still: Because the Talmud doesn’t have the marks that denote vowels in Hebrew and Aramaic, one doesn’t even know how the words that aren’t pure Hebrew should be read. Like the language of the Holy Scripture, that of the Talmud is learned simply [62] through frequent translating. This is what makes up the first level of Talmudic study. For a while, the teacher guides the student through translations. Eventually, the student begins to read and interpret the Talmud on his own. The teacher assigns a section of the Talmud that contains a unifying logic, and the student must explain the section within a certain time limit. Either the student is familiar with the terminology of the section from previous

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reading, or else the teacher, acting as a dictionary, clarifies the words and phrases. But the student himself must explain the content and whole logic of the assigned section. This is the second level of Talmudic study. The two commentaries often included in the text serve mainly as guides. One of them was written by Rabbi Salomon Isaak, a man of great philological learning, broad ranging and thorough [63] Talmudic insight, and uncommon precision in laying out ideas. The other appeared under the title Thosphot (addenda) and was coauthored by many rabbis.2 Its genesis is quite remarkable. A number of the most prominent rabbis decided to study the Talmud together, with each of them choosing part of the Talmud and studying that part until he had it memorized and felt he had understood it completely. Then the rabbis would come together and study the Talmud as a group, proceeding in the order of its parts. As soon as they had read the first part aloud, thoroughly explained it, and corrected it using the internal logic of the Talmud, a rabbi would point to a part in his section that appeared to contradict the part under discussion. Immediately thereafter, a different rabbi would point to a passage in the part he had mastered, which, because of a distinction or condition not expressed in the first part, seemed capable of resolving the contradiction. [64] The resolution of such a contradiction would occasionally lead a third rabbi to discover another contradiction, which a fourth would then attempt to resolve. This process would go on until the part that came first had, by consensus, been explained and clarified. The Talmud is a large and sprawling work consisting of many heterogeneous parts that define the same object in different ways, so it is easy to see why great intelligence is necessary to arrive at its governing principles. These principles can be used, if one is consistent in one’s methodology, to reach many correct conclusions. In addition to the two commentaries mentioned above, there are many others. They pursue many matters even further, and some even correct those two. Every rabbi who is sharp enough should be seen as a living Talmudic commentary. But what demands the greatest mental effort is preparing a summary from the Talmud or [65] a code of the laws it yields. This requires not simply intelligence, but also the most systematic mind. Here Maimonides has no equal, as can be gathered from his code Jad Hachasaka. The third and final level of Talmudic study is that of disputation: an endless argument about the book without any aim or goal. Acumen, 2 Rabbi Shelomo (Solomon) Yitzhaki (1040–1105), the foremost Jewish medieval commentator, is generally known by his acronym Rashi. The Tosafists flourished in the following century and included Rashi’s students and descendants. Maimon’s description of their work is brief but precise and probably the first such description in German.

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eloquence, and impertinence are of decisive importance here. This mode of study was once a common practice at advanced Jewish schools, but in our time it has become much less widespread. It is a kind of Talmudic skepticism, and, as such, it runs largely counter to practical, systematic study. [66]

Chapter 7

Happiness Turns Out to Be Short-Lived

By describing the study of the Talmud, I have digressed. Let me now come back to my story. I was, as I’ve mentioned, sent to school in Iwenez. My father gave me a letter to bring to the town’s chief rabbi, who was a relative of ours. In it, my father asked him both to make sure that I studied under a capable schoolmaster and to monitor my progress. This rabbi, however, brought me to a common schoolteacher. He also said I should visit him every Sabbath, so that he could test me, something I dutifully did, but our sessions were soon discontinued. During one of these exams, I began to argue against the passage I had read and to raise objections. The chief rabbi, without [67] commenting directly on what I had said, asked whether I had raised such objections with my teacher. Yes! “What did he say in response?” Nothing that had to do with the topic, I replied. He told me to be quiet and said that a child should just take care to learn his passage well, without being impudent or bombarding his teacher with questions. “I see!” said the chief rabbi. “Your teacher has made things much too easy for himself. We will have to change that. I will teach you myself out of friendship. I hope that your father will not object any more than your teacher, who will continue to receive the money your father pays for your schooling.” This is how the chief rabbi became my teacher. The approach he took with me was uniquely his own. No weekly lessons repeated until the student has learned them by heart. No exercises done as a solo performance, during which the student is frequently interrupted over a single word or phrase that has little to do with the main [68] topic. The chief rabbi’s method was different. He had me explain something from the Talmud extemporaneously. While engaging me in conversation about subject, he clarified just as much as was necessary to get my mind working on its own. Through questions and answers, he steered my attention away from all matters of secondary importance and toward the key issues. The result was that I made it through all three levels of Talmudic study in a very short time. My father, whom the chief rabbi kept informed of his plans and my progress, was beyond himself with joy. He conveyed his deepest gratitude to this fine man, who had gone to such lengths to help me simply out of friendship and despite his poor health (he was prone to infections

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and was often feverish). But the joy didn’t last long. Within half a year, the chief rabbi had joined his forbears, and I was like a sheep without a shepherd. [69] My father was informed of this, too. He came and brought me back home. Not back to H., though, but rather to Mohilna1, where my family had moved while I was away. It was about six miles from H. The reason for the move was as follows. Mohilna is a hamlet in the territory of Prince R., located four miles from N., his residence. It lies between the Niemen River and a forest containing a large amount of the best wood for shipbuilding. This makes the place well suited for both shipbuilding and trade. Prince R. himself had noticed the excellence of the location, as well as how beautiful and fertile the land was, though the leaseholder had of course tried hard to keep these assets unknown, so that he could quietly have them all to himself. His family had managed this profitable land for several generations, and by taking advantage of the shipbuilding and trade opportunities, as well as of various fine products of the region, he had made himself quite wealthy. [70] But when the prince happened to ride through the hamlet, he was so taken with its beauty that he decided at once to build a town there. He formulated a plan and let it be known that the town he intended to build should be a slabode—that is, a place where anyone can settle and pursue whatever profession he chooses. People wouldn’t even have to pay any kind of tribute for six years. By intriguing against the plan, the leaseholder was able to keep it from being carried out for quite some time. He even managed to bribe royal advisers to deflect the prince’s attention away from his Mohilna project. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to support his family in miserable H., and having been compelled to stay there simply for lack of a better place to settle, my father was very excited about the prince’s intentions. He hoped to find asylum in Mohilna, especially since the region’s leaseholder was my uncle’s brother-in-law. My father went there with my grandfather, conferred with the leaseholder, and told him that he wanted his [71] approval to settle in Mohilna. The leaseholder had been afraid that prince’s plan would lead people to come Mohilna in droves from all over, and that he would be overrun and dispossessed. So he was pleased that the first person to arrive was no stranger, but instead a relative by marriage. Not only did the leaseholder support my father’s move, he also promised to help him however he could. My father relocated his whole family to Mohilna and had a little house built there. While it was being constructed, they once again had to stay in a barn.

1

Now Mogil’no, Belarus.

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After receiving us in such a hospitable manner, the leaseholder began, alas, to drastically change his attitude. He decided that there was no reason to fear being overrun by strangers. After all, a long time had passed since the prince had made his intentions public, and no one except my father had responded. As a Polish general and Lithuanian voivode, the prince was constantly in Warsaw [72] and too inundated with political business to think about executing his plan. Furthermore, bribes could induce his administrators at court to work against its implementation. These factors led the leaseholder to consider my father not only dispensable, but also an unwelcome burden. Now what had earlier belonged to him, the leaseholder, had to be shared with his relative. And so he did everything he could to make things difficult for my father and prevent him from establishing himself successfully. The leaseholder had a stately house built, then got the court to decree that no new arrivals would have the rights of a resident until they, too, had built such a house. My father was forced to take his small savings, which he needed to set up his household properly, and spend it all on a house he did not need. [73]

Chapter 8

The Student Knows More Than the Teacher. A Theft à la Rousseau Is Discovered.1 The Pious Man Wears What the Godless Man Procures

On the surface, then, my father seemed to be doing splendidly, but in truth his situation was precarious. Notwithstanding her tireless efforts, my mother could help only in the smallest ways. My father, furthermore, had to take on a teaching position in addition to his other duties, and so he became my teacher. I have to confess that while I brought him great joy as his student, I also caused great consternation. I was about nine years old, yet not only could I already grasp both the Talmud and the commentaries, I also enjoyed engaging in disputations about them. [74] I had the childish pleasure of getting the better of my estimable father— something that made for more than a little embarrassment on his part. The leaseholder and my father lived like neighbors. That is, they envied and hated each other. The leaseholder regarded my father as an interloper who had forced himself upon him, threatening his position as the sole possessor of Mohilna’s resources. My father, in turn, viewed the leaseholder as a wealthy fool whose actions contradicted his granting of permission, which my father had never actually needed, but had wanted to secure to keep things amicable between them. The leaseholder tried to hinder my father’s success and curtail his rights in all kinds of ways, even though he actually stood to benefit from my father’s presence. At just this time, Mohilna achieved a kind of independence, as a result of which the leaseholder was spared numerous expenses and humiliations. A small synagogue was built, with my [75] father playing the role of chief rabbi, preacher, and spiritual guide, for he was the only scholar in the town. To be sure, my father never passed up an opportunity to remind the leaseholder of this fact and to reproach him for his behavior. But it did my father little good.

The allusion is to Rousseau’s famous account of his theft of a ribbon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions, trans. Angela Scholar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 78–85. 1

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I must now mention the only act of theft I have ever committed. I often went to the leaseholder’s house to play with his children. It happened once that as I entered the parlor, no one was around. It was summer; the servants were busy outside. In the cupboard I saw a neat little medicine box and was entirely smitten. When I opened the box, I found, to my great dismay, that it contained some money, which must have belonged to one of the children of the house. I couldn’t resist the urge to steal the little box. Taking the money was too scandalous for me. But since I realized the theft would be discovered sooner if I left the money, I took the little box along with its contents, pocketing it, full of shame and fear. [76] That night I couldn’t sleep. The money was weighing especially heavily on my conscience, so I decided to bring it back. But the little box was another matter. It was a work of art superior to anything I had ever seen, and I couldn’t make myself give it up. The next day, I emptied out the little box, slipped into the parlor, and waited until no one else was in the room. I tried to put the money back in the cupboard but did not have enough skill to do it quickly or quietly enough. I was caught in the act and forced to confess my whole crime. I had to retrieve the precious artwork (which was worth only a few cents) from its hiding place and return it to its owner, little Moses. I also had to listen as the children of the house called me a thief. Another experience had a more comical ending. It happened as follows. [77] Russians were quartered in Mohilna at the time, and having been issued their new uniforms, they were permitted to sell the old ones. My oldest brother Joseph and my cousin Beer persuaded some Russians they knew to give them a few brass buttons. These they had sewn into their pants in place of the old wooden ones, and they regarded them as the most wonderful ornaments. I was just as taken with them. But because I wasn’t clever enough to get brass buttons in such an enterprising way, I had to use more forceful means. I turned to my father and demanded that Joseph and Beer share their buttons. My father was a just man, but he also loved me above all things. He said: “Well, the buttons rightfully belong to their owners. However, since the owners have more of them than they need, it is only right that they share the surplus.” Praising me and criticizing them, he appended to his speech this line from the Holy Scripture: “The pious man wears what the godless man procures.”2 Over the [78] protests of Joseph and Beer, my father’s judgment was enforced, and I had the pleasure of seeing brass buttons sparkling on my pants. Joseph and Beer couldn’t get over their loss. They complained loudly about the egregious injustice done to them. Before long, my father had 2 A somewhat free quotation of Job 27:17, in the midst of Job’s poetic complaint against divine injustice.

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had enough of the controversy and said: “The buttons have already been sewn onto Solomon’s pants. The use of force is forbidden, but getting them back through cunning is permitted.” Both Joseph and Beer were satisfied with this judgment. They walked up to me, looked at my buttons, and, feigning great astonishment, cried: “What have we here? Your buttons are sewn on with twine, but they should have used hemp thread with your cloth pants. You need to take them off immediately.” While saying this, they detached the buttons—then went away rejoicing over the success of their strategy. I ran after them and insisted they sew the buttons back on. But they just laughed. My [79] father smiled and told me: “You’re too gullible, and if you let people trick you, it isn’t my place to help you. I hope you’ll be smarter in future.” With that, the controversy was over. I had to go back to wearing wooden buttons, and I was subjected to the humiliation of hearing Joseph and Beer reciting the biblical line that my father had invoked: “The pious man wears what the godless man procures.” [80]

Chapter 9

Love Affairs. Marriage Proposals. The Song of Solomon Can Be Used as a Matchmaking Device. Smallpox

I was full of energy when I was young, and my personality was quite engaging. In matters of desire, I was passionate and impatient. But because I was brought up strictly and kept apart from women until I was eleven, I did not feel especially drawn to the fairer sex. One incident would dramatically change this. A poor but very pretty girl, about my age, was brought into my parents’ house as a servant. I found her very attractive, and desires began to stir in me that I hadn’t [81] felt before. But strict rabbinic morality demanded that I make sure not to look at her too closely, and, even more important, not speak to her. And so I could only glance at her furtively now and then. In keeping with the customs of the region, the women of the house generally went to the baths several times a week. One time, following an instinct and hardly even aware of what I was doing, I wound up going to the area where the baths were located. Thus it happened that I saw the pretty young girl get out of the warm bath and jump into the nearby river. This sight transported me into a state of rapture. After I had recovered, I thought of the strict Talmudic laws and wanted to run back home, but I couldn’t. I stayed. It was as if I were rooted to the spot. Still, because I was scared of being caught, I went home, doing so with a heavy heart. From that point on, I was often agitated and occasionally had fits.1 [82] This condition lasted until I was married. Our neighbor, the primary leaseholder, had two sons and three daughters. The oldest daughter, Deborah, was already married. The next oldest, Pessel, was about my age. The peasants in the area even claimed to see similarities between our faces, from which they surmised that there would in all likelihood be a union between us. And, indeed, we developed an attraction to each other. The leaseholder was very keen on having me as his son-in-law; my father did not object. But unfortunately, the leaseholder’s youngest daughter Rachel had fallen into a cellar, injuring 1

A coy euphemism for masturbation.

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her leg. Though she recovered, her leg was never again entirely straight, and my father wanted straight-legged Pessel, not crooked-legged Rachel, as his daughter-in-law. The leaseholder insisted that this wouldn’t happen, for he had decided to have the older daughter marry someone wealthy. His youngest daughter would be married to me, and as my father couldn’t contribute anything to the marriage, [83] the bride’s father would provide for us abundantly. Indeed, beyond offering a considerable dowry, he would add me to his list of heirs, and he would take care of all my needs for as long as he lived. Beyond all that, he promised to pay my father a certain sum immediately after the engagement. And he promised, as well, not only to refrain from challenging my father’s rights, but also to foster my father’s prosperity in every possible way. The enmity between the two families would cease, and in the future they would be joined in friendship. If my father had entertained this proposal, he would have secured his family’s material wellbeing. I would have lived with a crooked-legged woman, to be sure, but she was also a kind wife, as I found out much later through my role as tutor in her house. Freed from all worries and living in lap of comfort, I could have pursued my studies without any impediments. Alas, my father brusquely rejected the leaseholder’s proposal. He had to have [84] Pessel as his daughter-in-law. And because this wasn’t possible, the feud between the families began again. Since the leaseholder was rich, he naturally came out on top. Not long thereafter, my father received another marriage proposal. L. from Schmilowitz, a rich, learned man with only one daughter, was so taken with my reputation as a scholar that he chose me to be his sonin-law without ever having laid eyes on me. He began corresponding with my father about such a union, saying that my father could name his terms. My father answered in a high style, that is, in a mosaic of verses from the Holy Scripture and Talmudic quotations. He pithily formulated his conditions using the following verse from the Song of Songs: “The thousand guilders are for you, Solomon, and the two hundred are for those who have kept watch over your gifts.”2 All this was accepted. [85] My father traveled to Schmilowitz, saw his future daughter-in-law, and had the marriage contract drawn up in accordance with the agreement. He immediately received two hundred guilders, but he wasn’t satisfied, claiming that he had set his request at two hundred guilders only because of the beautiful verse, which he hadn’t wanted to spoil. However, if he didn’t get twice two hundred guilders (about fifty Polish thalers), he would not be willing to go through with the deal. At this, he was paid another two hundred guilders and also given the so-called little presents 2 A play on Song of Songs 8:12, both appropriate and ironic given the romantic nature of that book (and verse) and the businesslike nature of these marital transactions.

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for me: a black silk cap embroidered with gold, a Bible bound in green silk and adorned with silver clasps, etc. He returned home full of joy, handed me my gifts, and said I should start readying myself for the disputation that I was to hold on my wedding day, which would be in two months.3 [86] My mother immediately began to bake the cakes that she was responsible for bringing to the wedding, and also to make all kinds of homemade dishes. I had started to prepare for my disputation when we received the sad news that my bride had died of smallpox. My father was able to resign himself to the loss quite easily, for he thought: Without stooping to any sort of deception, you made fifty thalers off your son, and now you can get another fifty for him. Having never seen my bride, I couldn’t feel much sorrow over the loss either. I thought: The cap and silver-clasped Bible are now mine, and I won’t have any trouble finding another bride. I can even use my disputation later. Only my mother was disconsolate. Cakes and homemade dishes are ephemeral by nature, and they can’t be preserved for long. All my mother’s effort was thus rendered useless by the death of my bride. Not only that, my mother was unable to find a place where her cakes would be safe from my secret raids. [87]

3

A public display of Talmudic erudition and intellectual prowess by the groom.

Chapter 10

People Fight over Me. I Suddenly Go from Having No Wives to Having Two. In the End, I Wind Up Being Kidnapped

In the meantime, my father’s economic situation had grown steadily worse. He therefore felt compelled to go to the capital, N., where he would apply for a teaching position, and I had to accompany him. In N., my father founded his own school under very favorable circumstances. And he was able to use me as his assistant. A widow, famous for both her extraordinary talents and her Xanthippelike character, ran an inn on the edge of one of the surrounding towns, K.1 She lived with her daughter, every bit her equal in both of the abovementioned qualities. The daughter was also [88] indispensable in managing the inn. Infatuated with me, or with my growing reputation as a scholar, Madame Rissia (that was her name) decided that I should be her daughter Sara’s husband. Her family made her aware of the reasons why the plan wasn’t practical: my father’s pride and the attendant impossibility of meeting his demands; my reputation, which had already elicited interest from the city’s most prominent and richest circles; and, finally, her own modest wealth, which wouldn’t be nearly sufficient. But all these considerations did nothing to dissuade her. She had gotten it into her head that she had to have me as her son-in-law, whatever the cost, and by God she would. She sent my father a proposal. Because he was staying in town, she was able to keep at him constantly, repeatedly going to see him to discuss the situation. She promised to meet all his demands to the fullest. [89] However, my father wanted time to think over the proposal. He also wanted to stretch out the decision-making process. Eventually, it was time to return home. Since the inn was at the end of the street, my father and I had to go there to wait for our ride. Madame Rissia took advantage of this opportunity. She began to stroke my hair, presented her daughter, and asked me how I liked her. Then, finally, she pressed my father for a definitive answer. He remained noncommittal, trying in various ways to communicate how many difficulties there were. 1 Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife. Here and elsewhere, Maimon appears to be drawing on the accounts of Diogenes Laertius, who, following Xenophon, depicts her as shrewish.

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As they were going back and forth, the chief rabbi, the preacher, and town elders burst into the room, along with a large group of the most eminent locals. What was responsible for this sudden assemblage wasn’t some sort of magic. It had been brought about as follows: A prominent person had asked the men to come to the town for a circumcision [90] ceremony. Well aware of this, Madame Rissia had sent her son to invite the whole group to the inn for an engagement feast, which would be held right after the ceremonial meal. Thus the men arrived half-drunk. And since they fully believed that the marriage conditions had been worked out, and what remained to be done was simply to write up the contract and sign it, they sat down at the table, placing my father in the center. The chief rabbi began to dictate the marriage contract. My father insisted that nothing had been decided with regard to main issues or even the preliminary articles of the contract. At this point, the chief rabbi became enraged. He felt himself to be the victim of a trick: Someone had wanted to make him, an esteemed person, and also the whole well-respected group that was with him, look silly. He turned to the group and said with a proud expression: “Who is this Rabbi Joshua who [91] thinks so highly of himself?” My father responded: “No need for the ‘Rabbi’ here; I am merely a common man. But I don’t think anyone can fairly challenge my right to look out for the welfare of my son and try to secure a prosperous future for him.” The chief rabbi was immediately struck by the double meaning of the phrase “No need for the ‘Rabbi’ here.” He recognized that he had no right to make legal decisions in this matter, and he understood that Madame Rissia had gotten ahead of herself in inviting a group to an engagement party before the two sides had agreed on the preliminary articles. Softening his tone, he laid out the advantages of the pairing: the high lineage of the bride, whose grandfather, father, and uncle were scholars and had been chief rabbis; the bride’s fine personal characteristics; and the willingness and ability of Madame Rissia to meet all of the demands. [92] My father could think of no objections and so accepted the match. The marriage contract was drawn up, with Madame Rissia pledging to give her daughter the inn and all the property that went with it as a dowry. She also committed to provide the newlywed couple with food and clothing for the next six years. Beyond that, I received a complete edition of the Talmud with the accompanying works, which was worth several hundred thalers, and more. My father did not have to promise anything, and he got fifty thalers for his purse. Wisely, he refused to accept a pledge for the money, and Madame Rissia had to pay him right after the engagement. Once all this was settled, there was a real feast, where good use was made of the brandy bottle. The next day, my father and I set out for home. My mother-in-law promised to send the so-called small presents as soon as possible, as well as the clothes that, in her haste, she hadn’t

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been able [93] to get ready in time. However, many weeks went by, and we saw and heard nothing. My father grew suspicious. Having already found my mother-in-law to be of questionable character, he could only think that this cunning woman was trying to get out of onerous promises. He resolved to give her a taste of her own medicine, encouraged in his decision by the following circumstance. There was a wealthy leaseholder who often came to N. to sell brandy, and who stayed with us while crossing through M. He, too, had his eye on me. He had only one daughter and had made up his mind that I should be her husband. But he also knew the difficulties he would have to overcome if he were to take the matter up with my father directly. And so he chose an indirect approach, which entailed making my father into his debtor. When my father proved unable to pay him back, [94] he would force my father to consent to the union: Only that way, with the money he got for his son, would he be able to wipe out his debt. Putting his plan into action, the leaseholder proposed to give my father several vats of brandy on credit. My father gladly accepted the offer. As the deadline for payment was drawing near, Hersch Dukor (that was his name) came to warn my father. The latter confessed that he couldn’t pay off his debt at the moment and asked the leaseholder to give him more time. “Sir,” said the leaseholder, “I will speak candidly with you. Your situation is getting worse by the day; barring some miraculous intervention, you won’t be in a position to pay off your debt. The best thing for both of us would be this: You have a son, and I have a daughter, the sole heir to my fortune—let us enter into a union. Not only will doing so clear away your debt, but you will also be paid an amount that you yourself will get to determine. Furthermore, it will be [95] my responsibility to do everything in my power to improve your situation.” No one was happier about this proposal than my father. A contract was signed straight away. The dowry and the obligatory gifts set down in it corresponded exactly to my father’s demands, and I became the main heir to the rich leaseholder’s entire fortune. My father’s debt, which ran to about fifty Polish thalers, was forgiven on the spot. In addition to that, he received fifty thalers. Afterward, my new father-in-law traveled to N. to collect some money he was owed. He happened to stay—unfortunately for us—with my sometime mother-in-law. She was an avid gossip, and without any prompting told him all about her daughter’s advantageous marriage. “The father of the groom,” she said, “is himself a great scholar, and the groom is a boy of eleven whose talents are unrivaled.” “I, too,” replied the leaseholder, “have chosen well for my daughter, thank God. No doubt you have [96] heard of both the famous scholar Rabbi Joshua of Mohilna and his youngest son Solomon. The latter is my daughter’s future husband.”

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As soon as he had said this, Madame Rissia started yelling: “That’s a damn lie! Solomon is my daughter’s future husband, and here, sir, is the marriage contract.” The leaseholder then produced his marriage contract. This move led to an exchange of words whose result was that Madame Rissia had my father summoned to appear before a court. She also demanded a full explanation. But my father refused to present himself to the court even after Madame Rissia had him summoned a second time. While all this was going on, my mother died, and her body was brought to N. to be buried. My mother-in-law appealed to the local court to have the corpse placed under arrest, which meant that the burial could not take place until after the hearing. And so my father felt compelled to stand before the court. Naturally, my mother-in-law prevailed, and I was once again the future husband of my first bride. [97] In order to erase all cause for complaint, my mother-in-law set about making good on all of her promises and meeting my father’s demands. She had me dressed in new clothes from head to toe and even paid my father for the food I would eat between the engagement and the wedding. My mother was finally buried, and my father and I returned home. Soon thereafter, my second father-in-law arrived and demanded that my father acknowledge his contract. My father explained that the contract was effectively voided by a previous contract, and that he had only signed the second contract in the belief that my mother-in-law wasn’t going to honor the first one. Having listened to this explanation, the leaseholder seemed to bow to necessity and accept his loss. Yet he continued to hatch plans for making me his. To that end, he got up in the middle of the night, had his horses hitched up, took me from [98] the desk at which I had fallen asleep, quickly packed me into his wagon, and stole off through the gates with his booty. Because these actions made quite a bit of noise, some of the people in the house woke up and discovered the theft. They pursued the robber and tore me from his hands. The whole event seemed to me like a dream. In this way, my father got rid of his debt and was also given a gift of fifty thalers. I, for my part, left immediately with the woman who was legally my mother-in-law, and I became, by law, the husband of my bride. I have to admit that my father’s behavior wasn’t entirely justifiable from a moral point of view. Only his great distress at the time can serve as a partial excuse.2 [99] Despite their dubious halachic legality, early marriages of this sort involving desirable young scholars were not uncommon among Ashkenazi Jews of the time. See Shaul Stampfer, “The Social Implications of Very Early Marriage in Eastern Europe in the Nineteenth Century,” in Studies in Polish Jewry: Paul Glickson Memorial Volume, ed. Ezra Mendelssohn and Chone Shmeruk (Jerusalem: Institute for Contemporary Jewry, 1987), pp. 65–77. 2

Chapter 11

Marrying as an Eleven Year Old Makes Me into My Wife’s Slave and Results in Beatings at the Hands of My Mother-in-Law. A Spirit of Flesh and Blood

My father wasn’t present for the first evening of my wedding festivities. He had told me that he wanted to correct some of the articles in the contract, and that I should wait for his arrival. Thus I did not want attend the first night of festivities, despite all the effort that people had put into it. Nevertheless, the celebrations went on. We waited the next day; still my father didn’t come. Soon they were threatening to have soldiers bring me to the wedding canopy. My response was to say that that wouldn’t help, because a marriage is only legitimate when both halves of the couple are voluntary participants. [100] With evening upon us, my father finally arrived, to the joy of all involved. The articles he had had in mind were corrected, and the wedding took place. I had once read in a Hebrew book about how one half of a married couple could gain power over the other half for life. The book said the husband should step on his wife’s foot at the wedding; if both parties attempt to employ this strategy, the first to do the stepping will get the power. When my bride and I had to stand next to each other during the wedding, I immediately remembered the tactic, and said to myself: You must not squander this chance to achieve lifelong power over your wife. I was ready to step on her foot, but something—whether fear, or shame, or love—held me back. While I was being indecisive, I felt my bride’s slipper crush down on my foot with such force that I would have screamed out loud if my sense of pride hadn’t stopped me. I saw this [101] as a bad sign, and thought: Providence has decreed that you will be your wife’s slave. You will never break free of her chains. Given my cowardice and the boldness of my bride, the reader can see how this prophecy had to come true.1 1 The custom, or superstition, that whichever spouse steps on the other’s foot first will have, as Maimon will shortly say, the upper hand is well attested in several cultures and apparently does not have a Jewish origin. See Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael (Jerusalem, 2007), p. 14n4.

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But not only did I stand under my bride’s slipper: Much worse than that, I was also under my mother-in-law’s thumb. She fulfilled none of her other promises. Her house, which she had pledged as a dowry, had been mortgaged many times over and was burdened with debts. I received barely six months of the six years of food she had promised me and had to fight bitterly even for that. Taking advantage of my youth and my dejected state , she went so far, in addition, as to beat me. I paid her back with interest, though. Hardly a meal went by during which we did not throw bowls, plates, spoons, etc. at each other’s heads. [102] On one occasion, I happened to be very hungry upon returning home from the academy.2 My mother-in-law and wife were busy with household chores, so I went on my own into the supply room and looked over the milk pots. Finding one that had congealed milk and some cream on top, I had at it. My mother-in-law came in and flew into a rage. She screamed: “Not the milk with cream!” The more cream, the better, I thought to myself, and without letting the racket disturb me in the least, I kept eating. My mother-in-law tried as hard as she could to rip the pot from my hands, hammered at me with her fists, and let me feel the full extent of her fury. I angrily pushed her away, grabbed the milk pot, and dumped it over her head. What a sight that was! My mother-in-law covered in congealed milk, which dripped off her on all sides. Nearly exploding with anger, she picked up a piece of wood and would have beaten me to death with it had I not gotten out of there in a hurry. [103] Such scenes occurred frequently. My wife, naturally, had to remain neutral. But whoever got the upper hand, the episodes were hardly a matter of indifference for her. Oh, if only one of you could show more restraint, she often lamented. Tired of the constant warfare, I hit upon a cunning strategy that was, for a while, quite effective. I got up around midnight, found a large clay pot, crept with it to the foot of my mother-in-law’s bed, and began to speak into it: “Rissia, Rissia, why have you been treating my beloved son so horribly? If you don’t change soon, your end will come quickly, and you will be damned for all eternity.” After that, I crept forward and pinched her as hard as I could. Then, in the quiet, I stole back to where I slept. [104] She woke up dismayed the following morning. She told my wife that my mother had come to her in a dream and had both threatened her and pinched her on my behalf, pointing to the blue marks on her arms as proof. When I came back from synagogue, my wife was in tears and my mother-in-law wasn’t home. I asked what had happened but couldn’t get

2

Namely, the Study-Hall (Beit Midrash).

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her to answer. My mother-in-law returned with eyes red from crying and a chastened bearing. I later learned she had gone to the Jewish cemetery where my mother was buried to ask for forgiveness. Afterward, she had the grave measured, and she had a candle of the same length made, with the intention of burning it in the synagogue. She also fasted for a whole day and behaved nicely toward me. I knew, of course, what the reason for all this change was, but I acted as though I hadn’t noticed anything, while silently enjoying the success of my [105] strategy. In this way, I managed to have some peace and quiet for a time, which, unfortunately, didn’t last long. Soon everything was forgotten, and the smallest provocation set the whole dance into motion again. In the end, I had to move out and take up residence in other homes as a private tutor. I returned only for the high holidays. [106]

Chapter 12

Marital Secrets. Prince R., or the Things One Isn’t Allowed to Do in Poland

I was fourteen when my oldest son David was born. It was only natural that it took me a long time to fulfill this most basic marital duty, for I had married at eleven and had previously led the normal life of our people in this region. That is, I had had little social interaction with the opposite sex. I had had, in fact, no knowledge at all of marital duties, and I regarded pretty girls like any other work of nature or art, or more or less the same way I had regarded that handsome medicine box I once stole. I tended to make physical contact with my wife tremulously, as though she were a strange object. [107] In an attempt to cure me of this evil, and in the belief that a spell had been cast on me at our wedding, I was brought to an old witch. She performed all kinds of procedures on me. They helped, I must admit, though only indirectly, i.e., because of their effect on my imagination. From the time I got married until I left Poland—a period that included my coming of age—I experienced many forms of misery, had no means through which to further my intellectual growth, and thus necessarily misused my intellectual powers. As I try to describe those circumstances, I keep dropping my quill; I find myself trying to push back such painful memories. A whole series of factors combined to obstruct the course of my development and hinder the workings of my natural aptitudes, first and foremost, the shape Poland was in back then and the condition of our people within Poland. We were like a donkey buckling under a double burden: the weight of our own ignorance and the religious prejudices bound up with it, and, secondly, the weight of the Polish majority’s ignorance and the religious prejudices bound up with that ignorance. Finally, my family’s misfortunes were involved as well. [108] The Polish nation, by which I mean the Polish aristocracy, is very heterogeneous. Only some aristocrats have the chance—through general education, formal study, and edifying travel—to develop in the way that would best foster their own wellbeing and that of their subjects. Most aristocrats go through life ignorant and without any kind of moral

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compass. What characterizes these people is, in fact, the free rein they give to their dissolute impulses, which ruin the lives of their subjects by the thousands. They strut around with their titles and medals, but their actual deeds dishonor these distinctions. They own numerous estates but don’t know how to manage them. And they make enemies of each other, with the result that Poland necessarily winds up being the booty of neighbors envious of its size. Prince R., as a hetman in Poland and a voivode in Lithuania, was one of the greatest magnates.1 Having received three inheritances from his family, he owned innumerable estates. It would be unfair to say that there was no goodness in his heart and no common sense [109] in his head, but because his education had been neglected and he had no schooling of any kind, he was one of the most depraved princes who ever lived. He had no constructive occupations and this, in turn, led him to become a devotee of alcohol, under the influence of which he committed the most senseless and insane acts. He gave himself over to the basest sensuous desires, without even having any great desire to indulge in such things. And even though he wasn’t actually a brutal person, he terrorized his subjects in the most brutal manner possible. He maintained an army of ten thousand men as a hugely expensive accessory, using it for display and nothing else. During the unrest in Poland, he took the side of the federalists, though he couldn’t have said why. His doing so angered the Russians, who plundered the prince’s estates, which in turn plunged his subjects into destitution. More than once, he fled into exile, [110] with the result that treasures his family had collected over many generations were abandoned to his enemies. How could anyone possibly describe all his dissipations? Several examples will suffice, I believe, to give the reader at least some sense of what they were like. A certain respect for my former lord keeps me from treating his problems as anything other than deficiencies of temperament and education, deficiencies that deserve our pity, rather than hatred and contempt. Whenever he drove down a street—something he generally did accompanied by both his courtly entourage and bands and soldiers—everyone had to disappear from sight. Staying out on the street then could be dangerous, even deadly. Nor was one safe in one’s house. If the prince saw the plainest, filthiest peasant woman, he would have her summoned to his carriage. He once sent for a respected Jewish barber. The latter, having surmised that he was going to be asked to perform a surgical operation, appeared before his lord with his medical instruments. The prince [111] asked: 1

This is Prince Karol Stanislaw Radziwill, discussed above.

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“You have brought your tools?” “Yes, your most eminent majesty,” replied the barber. “Good,” said the prince, “give me your lancet; I will open up a vein for you.” All the poor barber could do was cooperate. The prince picked up the lancet, which he didn’t know how to use. Because of his complete lack of training, and also because his drunken state was making his hands shake, he wounded the barber atrociously. Yet the prince’s courtiers smilingly applauded him, praising his great surgical talent. On a different occasion, the prince went into a church, and, too drunk to know where he was, stood at the altar and proceeded to empty his bladder. Everyone there was horrified. The next day—in the morning, when he was still sober—the clergy told him what he had done. “Oh!” said the prince. “Let us atone.” He then ordered the local Jews to place fifty bricks of candle wax in the church in question, at their own expense. Thus the poor Jews had to do penance [112] because a believing Christian had desecrated a church. The prince once wanted to ride around the walls of the city. But because the walls were too narrow for a carriage with six horses—which was how he always rode—his hussars had to carry him the whole way around. This cost them a great deal of effort, and it could easily have cost them their lives as well. The prince once went with his whole entourage into the Jewish synagogue and wreaked havoc, though even today no one knows what the motivation for the attack was. He smashed windows and doors, shattered ceremonial glasses, threw copies of the Holy Scripture that had been carefully stored onto the ground, etc. A learned, scholarly Jew dared to pick up one of the copies. He had the honor of being shot by the prince himself. From there the whole group went to a second synagogue, where they undertook the same sort of housecleaning. And from the second synagogue they went to the Jewish cemetery, [113] where they destroyed structures and burned monuments. Who would imagine that a lord would behave in this way toward his own poor subjects, whom he can legally punish for his own acts of vandalism? Yet it happened here. On still another occasion, the prince spontaneously decided to take a trip to M., a borough of his that was four short miles from his residence.2 The trip had to be undertaken with his entire court along with his usual entourage. The caravan left early in the morning. First, the whole army began to march, divided, as was customary, into infantry, cavalry, artillery, etc. Then came his security forces, which consisted of volunteers from the poorer nobility. These were followed by the food wagons, 2

Malevo, now in Belarus.

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stocked with Hungarian wine, and then by the prince’s Janitscher musicians and other orchestras. His own carriage came next, and finally his satraps. I call them that, because [114] the only comparable caravan I know of is that of Darius in the war against Alexander. Around evening, his princely majesty himself arrived at an inn on the edge of K., a town just outside his residence. But I can’t say that he arrived in person. For the prince’s consciousness, which is where the personality resides, had been washed away by the Hungarian wine. He was carried into the house and, fully dressed, boots, spurs, and all, thrown onto my mother-in-law’s dirty, unmade bed. I, as usual, took to my heels. But my amazons—that is, my mother-inlaw and my wife—had the courage of warriors, and they stayed in the house on their own. There was bustling activity all night long. People even chopped and cooked and baked and fried food in the prince’s room. They knew that when the prince was sleeping nothing could wake him, except perhaps the trumpets of Judgment Day. [115] The next morning, they nevertheless woke the prince. He didn’t know whether to believe his eyes. There he was in a miserable inn, lying in all his clothes on a bed teeming with bedbugs. His servant, page, and moor were awaiting his orders. He asked how he had wound up there, and he was told that he had begun a trip to M. the day before but had stopped to rest. The whole royal train, meanwhile, had gone ahead. No doubt it had already reached M. The trip was canceled for the time being, and the entire caravan had to return to the royal residence—in the customary formation and with all due ceremony. The prince, however, decided to linger at our inn and to preside over a large lunch. All the nobles who happened to be staying in town were invited. The diners ate off of gold dishes; it would be hard to exaggerate the contrast between this Asiatic opulence and the Lapplandic poverty that obtained in our house. [116] In a wretched inn, whose walls had been partially blackened by smoke and soot, whose beams were supported by ugly rounded reinforcements, and whose windows, made from pieces of cracked low-quality glass and narrow strips of pine wood, were covered over with paper, princes were sitting on filthy benches and at an even filthier table, resplendent with the glow of their royalty and enjoying themselves as they were served golden plates and golden goblets full of the finest foods and the best wine. Before he ate, the prince and the other lords went for a stroll in front of the inn. It was then that he happened to see my wife, who was in the bloom of youth. Although we are divorced, I feel obliged to do her justice, which means acknowledging that even without taste and cosmetic skill— both things she lacked—my wife was a great beauty. It was therefore only natural that Prince R., too, found her attractive. He turned to his

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companions and said: “What [117] a pretty girl! All she needs is a white shirt.” This was his catchphrase; it was equivalent to the great sultan’s throwing of a handkerchief. When the lords heard the prince utter these words, they grew concerned for my wife’s honor, and indicated to her that she should get out of there as soon as possible. She took the hint. While it was still quiet, she slipped away and ran to the other side of the mountains. After lunch, the prince rode back into town with the other lords, to the accompaniment of trumpets, drums, and Janitschar music. He and his entourage immediately resumed their normal schedule of activities. That is, they began to drink and continued to do so all afternoon and into the evening. Then they rode to H., a pleasure park at the entrance to the royal zoo. A very expensive fireworks display was to take place there. Things frequently went wrong during such displays. Whenever the prince and his companions emptied a beaker of beer, a cannon had to be fired. The poor men doing the firing knew more about plows than cannons, and it often happened that they got hurt during the spectacle. [118] “Long Live the Prince!” cried the guests, and the prince, naturally, received the prize in this Bacchic festival. He showered those who handed him the prize with gifts, and not just small precious items, like coins and gold boxes, but actual estates that came with many hundreds of peasants. Finally, a concert would be held. His majesty would drift off to sleep during it, and in that condition, he would be brought back to the castle. It was the poor subjects who had to bear the expense of his extravagances. If the prince couldn’t squeeze enough out of them, he would sell off estates. Indeed, he didn’t even spare the twelve life-size gold men that he had inherited from his ancestors. (I never knew whether they were supposed to represent the twelve apostles or twelve giants.) Nor did he spare the gold table that he had had made. Thus [119] the prince’s vast land holdings gradually became smaller; thus his treasures, collected over many generations, were gradually exhausted; and thus his subjects—but I should break off here. This prince died recently without immediate heirs. His brother’s son is apparently the only heir to his estates. [120]

Chapter 13

Striving for Intellectual Growth amidst the Eternal Struggle against All Kinds of Misery

Thanks to the lessons my father had given me, but thanks even more to my own diligence, I made so much progress that even as an eleven year old I could perform the role of rabbi. In addition, I had acquired some desultory knowledge of history, as well as of astronomy and other mathematical sciences. I had a very burning desire to gain even more knowledge. But given my lack of guidance, of scholarly books, and of all the other necessary means, how could I achieve my goal? I thus had to content myself with proceeding randomly, without a plan. I had to content myself with making use of whatever knowledge I happened to pick up. [121] The only way to satisfy my desire for scholarly knowledge was to study foreign languages. But how was I to begin? Studying Polish or Latin with a Catholic would have been impossible, for the prejudices of my own people prohibited the study of any language except Hebrew. The same prejudices also kept me from seeking out any scholarly knowledge and scientific learning that wasn’t in the Talmud or the innumerable commentaries on it. The prejudices of the Catholics, for their part, were such that no Jew could be taught in their midst. Beyond all that, I had little free time. I had to support a whole family with my work as a schoolmaster, by proofreading copies of the Holy Scripture, and so on. For quite some time, I could only sigh over the frustrated state of my natural drive. Finally, a stroke of good luck came to my aid. I noticed that some very thick Hebrew books [122] contained several different alphabets, and that they were so long that the number of pages exceeded the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Other characters in a second or third alphabet, generally Latin and German letters, had to be used for designating page numbers. Now I didn’t know a thing about printing. I imagined that books were printed like a canvas, that a special form was created and printed onto every page. I surmised, though, that the characters placed next to one another represented equivalent letters, and because I had heard something

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about the order of the alphabets in question, I was able to deduce that, for example, the a next to the ‫ א‬had to be an alpha as well. In this way, I gradually learned the Latin and German alphabets. Through a kind of deciphering, I began to combine different German letters into words. Yet it remained an open question [123] whether all my effort would be futile, for the German characters next to the Hebrew letters might well have been different from those letters. My doubts persisted until I had more good luck: Several pages from an old German book happened to fall into my hands. I started to read it, and how great was my joy and astonishment when I was able recognize from context that the meanings of the words completely matched the words I had already learned. There were quite a few words I was unable to translate into my native Yiddish, but even skipping those words, I was able to use the context to reach a plausible understanding of the whole. This method of learning through deciphering remains my method for grasping and judging the thoughts of others. Indeed, I would argue, you cannot say that you have understood a book as long as you’re compelled merely to present the author’s ideas in their original order, in the language employed by the author himself. That is simply [124] memory. You can boast of having understood an author only when, prompted by thoughts of his that at first you could grasp only dimly, you are moved to bring forth his ideas as though for yourself, despite following his lead. A sharp eye will not fail to appreciate the distinction being drawn here. For the same reason, I feel I have comprehended a book only when, after I fill in its gaps, all its ideas cohere with one another.1 Still, I felt an inner longing that I wasn’t able to quiet. My desire for scientific and scholarly knowledge was still not fully satisfied. Up until then, Talmudic study had been my main pursuit, but I had enjoyed it only with respect to its form, since form activates the highest powers of the intellect. Its content had given me no pleasure at all. Talmudic study forces one to practice drawing the remotest conclusions from a set of principles; to uncover the most obscure contradictions; [125] to make the finest distinctions. But because the principles themselves have only imaginary reality, studying the Talmud cannot satisfy the truly curious soul. And so in this state of privation, I looked for ways to overcome the lack of substance. Now, I happened to know about a kind of systematic The last paragraph is a succinct statement of the method of rational reconstruction in the study of the history of philosophy. It may not be a coincidence that Martial Gueroult (1891–76), one of the leading twentieth-century proponents of the method, wrote his dissertation and first book on Maimon, La Philosophie Transcendentale de Salomon Maimon (Paris: Librairie Felix Alcan, 1929). 1

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knowledge, a so-called science, very popular among the Jewish scholars in my region, namely the Kabbalah, which promised not only to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, but also to make possible an extraordinary degree of self-perfection that would bring one closer to God. Naturally, I had an intense desire for this knowledge. But since the Kabbalah, because of its holiness, is pursued in private, not taught publicly, I didn’t know how to track down its initiates and their writings. [126]

Chapter 14

I Study the Kabbalah, and Finally Become a Doctor

Let me speak at some length about this divine science. “Kabbalah,” in its broadest sense, means tradition. It includes not only secret forms of knowledge that may not be taught publicly, but also a method for deriving new laws, from both the ones in the Holy Scripture and from the foundational laws that Moses is supposed to have communicated orally on Mount Sinai. In its narrower meaning, “Kabbalah” refers only to the tradition of occult sciences.1 These are divided into two groups: theoretical Kabbalah and practical Kabbalah. The former includes the doctrine of God, the properties that His manifold names express, the genesis of the world [127] through the different stages of His restricting of His own endlessly perfect Being, and the relation of all things to Him, the Highest Being. This last doctrine teaches how one can use the manifold names of God, which have special effects on and relationships to objects in nature, to affect these objects at will. The holy names are not simply regarded as arbitrary signs; rather they are treated as natural ones as well. Thus, everything done with such signs necessarily has an effect on the objects to which they refer. Originally, the Kabbalah was apparently nothing but psychology, physics, ethics, politics, and the like presented through symbols and hieroglyphics in fables and allegories, the secret meanings of which were revealed only to those who had some aptitude for reading them.2 Over time, perhaps as a result of tumultuous events, the secret meanings were lost. The signs themselves, rather than their referents, became the focus. Yet the signs clearly had to signify something. And so people began to use their imaginative powers to recover secret meanings that had been lost long ago. [128] Students of the Kabbalah identified the remotest associations between signs and things, until the Kabbalah finally degenerated into the art of running wild with reason, or more precisely, into an art of Maimon’s account of Kabbalah was the most informed and untendentious account to appear in a European language up until that point. 2 Maimon draws upon Maimonides’ account of the allegorical transmission and subsequent loss of the mysteries of the Torah in Guide 1:71: 175–76. On Maimon’s theory of Jewish mysticism, see Moshe Idel, “On Solomon Maimon and Kabbalah,” Kabbalah 28 (2012). 1

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building systematic knowledge on a foundation of idiosyncratic fantasies.3 The truly promising aspect of the Kabbalah’s aims, namely, to affect all of nature without limitations—along with the audacity and ceremony in its self-presentation—naturally had a great impact on zealous types whom sciences and, above all, philosophical principles had not enlightened. The main work for anyone who wants to study the Kabbalah is the Zohar. It was written in a very high-flown style, in Syriac.4 All other Kabbalistic writings should be regarded as commentaries on, or selections from, the Zohar. There are two main Kabbalistic systems: Rabbi Moses Cordovero’s and Rabbi Isaac Luria’s.5 The former is more real, in the sense that it draws more on reason. The latter, for its part, is more formal, in the sense that the structure of its system is more complete. The newer generation of Kabbalists [129] prefers the latter system to the former, because they see having no basis in reason as a positive virtue, a precondition for any authentic Kabbalah. Rabbi Cordavero’s major work is Pardes, or Paradise.6 Rabbi Luria produced only a few scattered writings, but his disciple Rabbi Hayyim Vital composed a large work under the title Etz Hayyim (The Tree of Life), which contains his teacher’s whole system. Jews deem this book so holy that they won’t permit it to be printed.7 Needless to say, I found Rabbi Moses’ Kabbalah to be more appealing than Rabbi Isaac’s. But this was not an opinion I was allowed to express.8 After this digression on the nature of the Kabbalah, let me now return to my story. Having learned that the local assistant rabbi or preacher was a Kabbalah expert, I made his acquaintance and sat in the seat next to his at 3 Maimon’s account here of the degeneration of Kabbalah from the symbolic representation of natural truths to the free play of symbols now divorced from their original referents would seem to be an adaptation of Moses Mendelssohn’s theory of the origin of idolatry in hieroglyphics, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power in Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush with commentary by Alexander Altmann (University Press of New England, 1983), pp. 107–17. Cf. Freudenthal, No Religion without Idolatry, 168–70 and passim, which contains a comprehensive comparison between Mendelssohn’s and Maimon’s views on philosophy and Judaism. 4 That is, Aramaic, or rather a medieval Hebrew-Aramaic pastiche. 5 In Maimon’s spelling: “Kordawera” and “Loria.” 6 Pardes Rimonim [An Orchard of Pomegrnates] is a systematic exposition of the Kabbalah by the prominent Safed Kabbalist, Rabbi Moses Cordovero (1522–70), which Cordovero completed before the age of twenty-seven. 7 In fact, by 1792, three editions of Etz Hayyim had appeared in print over the previous decade. Maimon’s colleague, Isaac Satanow (1732–1804), was involved in the printing of one of these editions. 8 The classic twentieth-century account of these sixteenth-century figures is to be found in Gershom Scholem, Major Trends of Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1941), though subsequent scholarship, especially that of Moshe Idel, has significantly revised and complicated the picture Scholem drew. Maimon’s account is, yet again, brief but accurate and perhaps the first of its kind in German.

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the synagogue as steps toward reaching my goal. When I saw that he would read in a little [130] book after the prayers, always taking care to stash it away immediately afterward, I grew very curious about what it was. After the preacher had gone home, I retrieved the book from its nook. I recognized it as a Kabbalistic work and decided to hold on to it. I would hide with it in a corner of the synagogue until everyone had left and the synagogue was closed, then creep out of my hiding place and read in my precious book for hours, without even thinking of food or drink, until, finally, the evening doorkeeper opened the synagogue. The book was titled Sha’arei Kedusha or The Gates of Holiness.9 Leaving aside its fanatical and exaggerated elements, it contained in brief form the main doctrines of Kabbalistic psychology. I did with it what the Talmudists say Rabbi Meier, who had a heretic for a teacher, used to do: “If he found a pomegranate, he would eat the fruit and throw away the peel.”10 [131] I finished the book in a few days. Instead of satisfying my curiosity, the experience intensified it. I wanted to read more books of this type. I was, however, too shy to tell the preacher, so I decided to write him a letter. I explained how much this holy knowledge appealed to me and fervently asked him to help me by providing me with Kabbalistic books. Soon I received a very warm reply from the preacher. He praised my enthusiasm for the holy science, assuring me that such enthusiasm amidst so little encouragement was an obvious sign that my soul came from Olam Aziloth (the world of immediate divine emanation), unlike the souls of mere Talmudists, which have their origin in Olam Jezire (the world of creation).11 Furthermore, he promised me he would do everything in his power to supply me with books. [132] Because the Kabbalah was his main pursuit at the time, he needed his Kabbalistic books close by, so he couldn’t lend them to me. But he did let me come to his house to study them whenever I pleased. I could not have been happier. I gratefully accepted the preacher’s offer and practically lived at his house, poring over Kabbalistic books day and night. Two notions, in particular, caused me the greatest difficulty. One was that of the Tree, the representation of divine emanations and their complex intertwining. The second was that of God’s beard, the hairs of which were categorized into many complex classes, each having its own unique characteristics, and each hair representing a special derivation of God’s grace. However much I tried, I couldn’t make any rational sense of this. A major work of kabbalistic ethics by Rabbi Hayyim Vital. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagiga, 15b. 11 Olam ha-Azilut is the highest of the four kabbalistics worlds, while Olam ha-Yetzira is the third world in this order. 9

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My constant presence turned out to be a serious inconvenience to the preacher. He had recently [133] married a very attractive young woman, and because his wretched little house consisted of just one room, which served as the living room, study, and bedroom, and because I would stay up all night, my transcendental interests frequently clashed with his earthly ones. As a result, he began to devise a way to get rid of the aspiring Kabbalist. Once he said to me, “It must be a terrible inconvenience for you to spend your time here with me, away from your own home, on account of the books. In God’s name, you can take individual books to study as you please.” I was happy to agree. Indeed, I took one book after another back to my house and studied them until I thought I had learned the entire Kabbalah. I was not content, though, with understanding its principles and multifarious systems. I also attempted to make proper use of them. There was no passage in the Holy [134] Scripture or Talmud whose secret meaning I couldn’t decipher by skillfully using Kabbalistic principles. One book, titled Sha’arei Orah, was particularly helpful in this.12 The book enumerates the names of the ten Sefirot, the main subject of the Kabbalah, each having a hundred or more names. Thus, I was able to find in every word of a biblical verse or Talmudic passage the name of one Sefirah or another, and because I now knew the characteristics of each Sefirah and how they related to each other, I could easily derive a cumulative effect from the combination of names. Let me illustrate this process with a brief example. I found that the name Jehova denotes the six highest Sefirot (not including the first three) as the person of the godhead generis masculini. The word Koh, meanwhile, signifies the Shekhinah (the “indwelling” of God in the world) or the person of the godhead generis feminini. The word amar, in turn, [135] refers to the uniting of genders, or sexual congress. I therefore interpreted the words Koh amar Jehova13 in the following way: Jehova unites with the Shekhinah, a reading that would be genuinely Kabbalistic. Because this passage is in the Holy Scripture, I thought to myself nothing less than that while I said the words, and kept their secret meaning in mind, an actual union of the divine married couple would take place, from which the whole world could expect a blessing. What can stop the debauchery of an imagination that isn’t held back by reason? The book was composed by Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla in thirteenth-century Spain, and Maimon was not alone in using it as a kind of dictionary or primer of kabbalistic symbolism; for an English translation, see Joseph Gikatilla, Gates of Light, trans. Avi Weinstein (New York: Harper Collins, 1994). 13 Literally, “Thus said God.” 12

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I didn’t find my way as easily in the Kabbalah Ma’asith, or practical Kabbalah, as I did in its theoretical counterpart. Though he didn’t boast of it publicly, the preacher did tell people in private that he was a master in this area, too. He made a special point of claiming to be: roeh weeno neroh (to see everything without being seen by others), i.e., the power to make himself invisible. As a young man, I was particularly eager to learn this trick so that I could carry out certain acts [136] of mischief against my comrades without getting in trouble. I also devised a plan for keeping my malicious mother-in-law in check. I thus begged and pleaded with the preacher to share the secret, assuring him that I intended only to do good deeds and prevent evil ones. The preacher granted my wish, but he stipulated that I would have to go through preparatory exercises. I would have to fast for three straight days, performing several Ichudim on each day. These are Kabbalistic prayer formulas whose secret purpose is to bring about sexual unions in the intellectual world, which, in turn, are supposed to promote certain effects in the physical world. Having eagerly carried out these preparations, I uttered the incantation that he had taught me and now firmly believed I was invisible. I immediately hurried off into the Beth Hamidras, or the Jewish academy, went up to one of my peers, and gave him a good slap across the face. He was a robust sort and repaid me [137] with interest. I didn’t understand how he could see me, for I had followed the preacher’s prescriptions with great precision. Still, I determined that I must have neglected something without realizing it, and so I decided to repeat the test. Only I didn’t want to risk having my ear boxed again. Instead, I went to the academy merely to observe my classmates. But as soon as I walked in, one of them approached me and showed me a difficult passage in the Talmud that he wanted me to explain. I stood there stunned and utterly disconsolate over my dashed hopes. Afterward, I went back to the preacher and told him how my experiments had failed. He said, unblushingly and rather aggressively: “If you followed all my instructions, then the only explanation is that you are not suited for this cloaking of the visible body.” Deeply [138] saddened, I had to give up all hope of making myself invisible. This thwarted hope was soon followed by another disappointment. In the preface to the Book of Raziel, which that angel is said to have given to our original father Adam (as he was being banished from paradise), I found the promise that whoever keeps the book in his house will be protected against fire.14 Yet when a fire broke out in the neighborhood not

14 A textbook of practical kabbala, or magic, which dates back to, at least, the twelfth century.

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long afterward, my house, too, was burned, and the angel Raziel himself must have flown up to heaven in a chariot of fire. Not satisfied with this surface-level knowledge of the Kabbalah, I wanted to penetrate into its spirit. Since I understood that this science, if it were worthy of the name, should contain nothing other than the secrets of nature—however cloaked in fables and allegories—I tried to uncover these secrets, and thereby deepen my knowledge to the level of rational knowledge. [139] Back then, however, I could achieve this knowledge only in a very partial way, because I had very little idea about what science as such actually was. Nevertheless, by thinking things through on my own, I was able to come up with many ideas about how this science works. And so, for instance, I was quickly able to explain the first principle from which practitioners of Kabbalistic science commonly proceed. Before the world was created, they say, the Divine Being occupied the whole of infinite space to the exclusion of all else. But then God wanted to create a world to reveal those of His properties that were intended for beings other than Himself. To this end, He withdrew into the midpoint of His perfection, whereupon He sent into the empty space He had thus created ten concentric circles of light. From these emerged various figures (Parzoffim) and gradations, all the way to the sensory world of the present moment.15 I couldn’t imagine how these words could be true if understood literally, as most Kabbalists [140] understand them.16 Nor could I imagine that there was time before the world was created, for I knew from my More Newochim that time is purely a modification of the world, and, consequently, inconceivable without it. I could not picture how God could occupy a space, even an infinite one, nor how He, an infinitely perfect Being, could restrict His own perfection in a circular way to His midpoint.17 Instead, I thought of all this as follows: God is not prior to the world in terms of time, but rather in accordance with His Being as a necessary condition of the world. All things outside of God are necessarily dependent on Him, in both their essence and their existence. Thus, the creation of

15 The last paragraph is succinct statement of the Kabbalistic doctrine of zimzum (divine self-limitation). 16 Maimon’s claim that most Kabbalists understood the zimzum literally is highly contentious. 17 Although he will later go into extraordinary detail in explicating Moses Maimonides’ twelfth-century philosophical classic Guide for the Perplexed, whose Hebrew title he transliterates as “More Newochim,” Maimon here simply assumes that the reader is already familiar with the work.

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the world can be conceived neither as bringing forth something out of nothing, nor as the formation of something independent of God, but only as a bringing forth out of God Himself. And because beings [141] are of different degrees of perfection, we can only suppose to explain their genesis as restrictions of different degrees of God’s Divine Being. Because this restriction must be conceived of as extending from the Infinite Being to materiality, we must imagine the beginning of the restriction figuratively: as the middle point (the lowest point) of infinity. The Kabbalah is, in fact, nothing other than an extension of Spinozism,18 which explains not only the genesis of the world through the restriction of Divine Being but also traces the genesis of every kind of being and the relation of each to the others back to a particular property of God. As the ultimate subject and the ultimate cause of all beings, God is the Ensoph:19 the infinite, about which, taken as such, nothing can be predicated. Yet when it comes to the infinite Beings, positive properties are attributed to Him; the Kabbalists have reduced these to ten, which they call the ten Sefirot. The Book of Pardes by Rabbi Moses Cordovero examines the [142] question of whether we should regard these Sefirot as the divinity itself. It is easy to see, however, that this investigation is no more difficult when carried out with respect to the divinity than with respect to any other being. The ten circles made me think of the ten categories of Aristotle, which I knew from reading the above-mentioned More Newochim—the most universal predicates of things, without which nothing can be thought, etc.20 In the strictest sense, these categories are logical forms that refer not to a merely logical object, but rather to a real one, and without them that object cannot be conceived. They are grounded in the subject, but only through their relation to a real object do they become an object of consciousness. And thus, they represent the Sefirot, which, to be sure, belong to the Ensoph itself, but whose reality is revealed only through their 18 Maimon is here responding to Jacobi’s claim that “the Kabbalah is nothing but undeveloped or newly confused Spinozism” (Jacobi, Main Philosophical Writings, 234). 19 Maimon had already endorsed the view of God as the material cause of the world (i.e., as the subject in which the world inheres) in his early Kabbalistic manuscript, Ma’ase Livnat ha-Sapir. See Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism in German Idealism.” 20 For Aristotle’s original exposition of the ten categories, see Categories, 1b25–2a4. Maimonides does not enumerate the categories in his Guide of the Perplexed (More Newochim), however his contemporary translator Samuel Ibn Tibbon did in the “Explanation of Foreign Terms,” which was appended to his translation and included in the 1743 Jessnitz edition Maimon almost certainly read. In 1794, Maimon himself would publish a book on Aristotle’s Categories.

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particular relation to, and effect on, objects in nature, [143] and whose number can be variously determined from different perspectives. By using this mode of explanation, I brought some unpleasantness upon myself. For the Kabbalists maintain that the Kabbalah is a divine science, not a human one. As a result, they also maintain that trying to understand its secrets in accordance with nature and reason debases it. The more rational my explanations became, the angrier the Kabbalists grew, for they believed that the purely divine was precisely that which made no rational sense. And so I had to keep my interpretation to myself. I brought the work I wrote on these topics with me to Berlin, and I have preserved it as a monument of the human mind’s striving for perfection, regardless of all the obstacles placed in its way. Yet I was still not satisfied. I wanted to encounter science in its natural [144] light, not cloaked in fables. I had already learned to read German, albeit quite poorly. But how was I supposed to find any German books in Lithuania? Fortunately for me, I learned that the chief rabbi of S. had spent time in H. during his youth, where he had acquired German and gained some knowledge of philosophy and the sciences. I also found out that he still pursued philosophical and scientific knowledge, though in secret, and that he had a large library of German books. I therefore decided to make a pilgrimage to this chief rabbi in S., so that I could beg him for a few books.21 Without any thought to transportation or travel costs (I was quite used to such trips, having once gone thirty miles on foot in order to look at a tenth-century Hebrewperipatetic-philosophical book), and without a word to my family, I set off for S. in the middle of winter. As soon as I arrived, I went to the chief rabbi, told him what I wanted, and pleaded with him to help me. He was more than a [145] little surprised, for in the thirty-one years since his return from Germany, not a single person had made a request of this kind. He promised to lend me

21 The nineteenth-century historian Joseph Fünn identified the enlightened Rabbi Maimon visited as Rabbi Shimon ben Mordekhai of Slonim, in Safah Le-Neemanim (Vilna, 1881), p. 94. (N.b.: Parenthetical aside about walking “thirty miles to look at a tenthcentury Hebrew-peripatetic-philosophical book,” (italics added) is a characteristic pun. If it was truly a tenth-century work, it was unlikely to have been peripatetic, that is Aristotelian. Recently, Israel Bartal discovered the diary of Jeremey Bentham’s travels in Poland. The entry from December 9th, 1787 apparently describes the very same library of the Rabbi of Slonim. See Bartal, “Lovers of Books: Jeremy Bentham and Rabbi Samson ben Mordechai of Slonim,” in Chut Shel Chen: Shai le Chava Turniavsky (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Institute), Bartal, Galit Hassan-Rokem et. al. eds., pp. 207–26.

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several old German books. The most valuable of them was a book about optics and Sturm’s Physics.22 I was so grateful to this fine chief rabbi that I was at a loss for words. I packed a couple of the books away and headed home, delighted. When I had read the books, it was as though my eyes had suddenly been opened. I thought I now held the key to all of nature’s secrets, because I knew how storms, dew, rain, and so forth came about. I looked down on everyone who lacked such knowledge, laughing at their prejudices and superstitions, and offering to disabuse them of their false ideas and illuminate their minds. But I did not always succeed. I once tried to teach a Talmudist [146] that the earth is round, and that we have antipodes. He raised the objection that the people at the antipodes would fall off! I set about showing that bodies do not fall in a certain direction into empty space, but rather toward the center of the earth; our ideas of above and below really correspond to farther from or closer to this point. None of it helped. The Talmudist stuck to his position and insisted that my claims made no sense. I went for a walk with several of my friends, and it so happened that a goat was lying in our path. I hit the goat several times with my walking stick; in response, my friends accused me of brutality. I shot back: “What is brutality? Do you think that the goat feels pain when I beat it with my stick? You are quite wrong. According to Sturm, who was a Cartesian, the goat is merely a machine.”23 [147] My friends laughed heartily and said: “Can’t you hear the goat crying out when you beat it?” I replied: “Yes, of course, it makes noise, but when I beat a drum, it does, too.” This answer astonished my friends, and soon the whole city had learned that my mind had gone soft, for I had argued that a goat was a drum. The good chief rabbi of S. later sent me two medical books: Kulm’s Anatomical Tables24 and Voit’s Gaziopilatium.25 The latter is an excellent medical dictionary, which defines and applies in brief concepts from all areas of medicine. For every disease, one finds a definition, its cause, its symptoms, cures, and even proper prescriptions. The book was a real treasure for me. I studied it thoroughly, believing that I now had in my

Probably, Johann Christoph Sturm, Kurzer Begriff der Physic oder Naturlehre, Hamburg 1713. 23 Sturm, Kurzer Begriff der Physic, 848. We are idebted to Florian Ehrensperger for this reference. Cf. Descartes’ letter to Henry More from Feb. 5th, 1649 in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 3, 365–66 (AT 5:276–78). 24 Johnann Adam Kulmus (1689–1745), Anatomische Tabellen (Danzig 1725). 25 Johann Jacob Woyt, Gazophylacium medico-physicum, Leipzig 1709. 22

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possession all of medical science, certainly enough to become a fullfledged doctor. [148] Not wanting to content myself with theory, I resolved to make practical use of my knowledge. I visited patients and diagnosed illnesses and their causes from the symptoms and circumstances. By God, I even wrote out prescriptions. The whole thing was quite comical. If a patient told me a few of the symptoms he was feeling, I would diagnose the disease and then draw conclusions about the remaining symptoms. If the sick person then said he didn’t have those symptoms, I would stubbornly insist that they must be present as well. Me: You have a headache. Patient: No. Me: But you must have a headache.

Because many symptoms are common to a number of illnesses, I often settled on a quid pro quo. I could never keep the prescriptions straight in my mind, which meant that when I wanted to prescribe something, I had to go home first and consult my Gaziopilatium. [149] Finally, I began to concoct medicines following Voit’s guidelines. One can imagine how that went. At least it had the happy consequence of making me realize that I hadn’t grasped much of what goes into being a practicing doctor. [150]

Chapter 15

Brief Account of the Jewish Religion, from Its Origins to the Present

To equip readers to understand the part of my life story that has to do with my views on religion, I will give a brief practical account of the history of the Jewish religion. First, I will discuss the concept of religion in general, as well as the difference between natural and positive religion.1 Religion in general is an expression of the feelings of gratitude, awe, and so forth that stem from the relationship between our happiness and unhappiness, on the one side, and one or more unknown forces on the other. If one looks at how these feelings are expressed only in a general way, ignoring [151] specific expressions, then religion is natural for people. Many of the phenomena that interest people have unknown causes, but people feel compelled to presume causes for these effects—this is the generally accepted Principle of Sufficient Reason2—and to articulate the feelings that these causes bring forth. This articulation can take two different forms, the one being the product of the imagination, the other of reason. Either you can imagine the causes of effects by way of analogy, and ascribe properties to causes that are then revealed in their effects, or you can conceive of causes intellectually, purely as the causes of certain effects, without wanting to determine their properties as such. These two forms are both natural. The latter is 1 Throughout this chapter, Maimon is, in part, responding to the account of Judaism in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, and, more immediately, his erstwhile mentor Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power in Judaism (1783) a decade earlier. His contemporary interlocutors include Saul Ascher, whose political theory of Judaism, Leviathan, was also published in 1792. 2 Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason asserts that “nothing happens without a reason” (Leibniz’s Second Letter to Clarke in Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, p. 321) and that “we can find no true or existent fact, no true assertion, without there being a sufficient reason why it is thus and not otherwise” (Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, p. 646). Essentially, the same principle motiviates many of Spinoza’s claims as well. Maimon’s description of the principle as “generally accepted” is surprising in light of the severe restrictions Kant placed on its validity. See Longuenesse, “Kant’s Deconstruction of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.” Maimon himself was one of the most strict and radical advocates of the principle.

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characteristic of the earlier condition of humankind, the former of its fully developed state. The difference between these two ways of representing the causes of things results in a crucial difference between religions. [152] The first way, assuming as it does that causes will be similar to effects, is the mother of polytheism, or paganism. The second way is the basis of true religion. For if different phenomena are different from each other, their causes, if they are to be similar to their effects, must be different from each other as well. If, on the other hand, and in accord with the truth, you consider these effects using the concept of cause in general, and forgo the aid of the imagination, not trying to define the cause as such by way of analogy (since it is, after all, fully unknown), then you will no longer have any need to assume multiple causes. Rather, one needs to posit only one single unknown subject as the cause of all phenomena. Different philosophical systems of theology are nothing other than refined extensions of these different modes of representation. The atheist system of theology, if one can call it that, entirely dispenses with the concept of a primary cause [153] (since as a necessary idea of reason, its use is, according to the critical system, only of regulative value3). All effects are attributed to particular causes, known or unknown. This assumes no connection whatsoever among the different effects, because otherwise the reason for the connection would have to be sought beyond the connection. Spinoza’s system, by contrast, proceeds from the idea that one and the same substance is the immediate cause of all effects, which should therefore be viewed as predicates of the same subject.4 Matter and spirit are, for Spinoza, one and the same substance, which appears now under this and now under that attribute.5 This single substance is, he writes, not only the sole possible self-subsisting Being (independent of all external causes), but also the only one that exists solely for itself, whose modi (these attributes limited in a particular way) make up all so-called beings except it.6 [154] Every particular effect in nature is On the first cause as mere regulative idea of reason, see Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, A671. Interestingly, Maimon seems to present Kant’s system as atheistic. This might be Maimon’s subtle response to Kant’s insinuation that Maimon was a Spinozist (Ak. 11:50). 4 See Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 1, proposition 16: “From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely many things in infinitely many modes (i.e., everything which can fall under an infinite intellect).” 5 See Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 2, proposition 7, Scholium: “The thinking substance and the extended substance are one and the same substance, which is now comprehended under this attribute, now under that.” 6 Namely, what appears (“so called”) to be a being outside good is really just a mode of God. 3

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ascribed not to its proximate cause (which is simply a mode), but to the primary cause or substance, which is common to all beings. In this system unity is real; variety, though, is merely ideal. In the atheistic system, precisely the opposite is the case. Variety is real, grounded in the nature of the things themselves, while the unity one sees in the order and laws of nature is merely accidental, according to this system. Thus, we tend to define our arbitrary system for the purpose of knowledge. It is hard to fathom how Spinoza’s system could have been made out to be atheistic, since the two systems are diametrically opposed. The atheist system denies the existence of God; Spinoza’s denies the existence of the world. Thus, it should really be called acosmic.7 Leibniz’s system occupies the middle ground between these two. Here all specific phenomena are drawn into an immediate relation with specific causes. [155] But the different effects are conceived of as belonging together within a single system, while the cause of the connections among the variety of things is sought in a Being that is outside the system.8 Positive religion is distinguished from natural religion in just the same way positive civic laws are distinguished from natural ones. The latter are those resting on a murky foundation, the result of an internal Maimon coined the term “acosmism” as the proper description of Spinoza’s philosophy in response to the distortions of the “Pantheism Controversy,” in which Mendelssohn had been centrally involved. This view of Spinoza as a radical religious thinker who denies the reality of the world and asserts that only God exists helped initiate a major revolution in the perception of Spinoza among the German Idealists. He himself had espoused a version of acosmism in his early Hebrew manuscript, Hesheq Shelomo (e.g., folio 139). See Yitzhak Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism in German Idealism,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 42 (2004). The view of Spinoza as denying the reality of the world rather than that of God appears already in Ernst Platner’s 1776 Philosophische Aphorismen: “Spinoza leugnet eigentlich nicht die Existenz der Gottheit, sondern die Existenz der Welt” (p. 353). Platner does not use, however, the term “acosmism.” We are indebted to José María Sánchez de León for drawing our attention to this passage. For a helpful discussion of the passage, see Turro, “Qué tipo,” pp. 160–61. 8 The view of Spinoza’s system as diametrically opposed to atheism was adopted from Maimon by Hegel. Hegel follows Maimon also in describing Leibniz’s position as a mere compromise between the two poles: “The relationship between God and the finite, to which we belong, may be represented in three different ways: firstly, only the finite exists, and in this way we alone exist, but God does not exist—this is atheism; . . . Or, in the second place God alone exists; the finite has no reality, it is only phenomena, appearance. To say, in the third place, that God exists and we also exist is a false synthetic union, an amicable compromise. It is the popular view of the matter that the one has as much substantiality as the other; God is honoured and supreme, but finite things also have Being to exactly the same extent. Reason cannot remain satisfied with this ‘also,’ . . . [According to Spinoza] There is therefore no such thing as finite reality, it has no truth whatever; according to Spinoza what is, is God, and God alone. Therefore, the allegation of those who accuse Spinoza of atheism are the direct opposite of the truth; with him there is too much God.” Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 280–81. 7

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process, not defined in view of their actual use. The former, by contrast, are given a precise foundation, and they are defined from the start in view of their use. However, there is an important difference between a positive religion and a political religion. The former has correcting and defining knowledge precisely as its sole goal: that is, it gives instruction with regard to the first cause. This knowledge is communicated to others according to their capabilities; in just the way one has received knowledge oneself. The latter, however, has as its main aim civic happiness. [156] But one doesn’t leave knowledge as one finds it; rather, one communicates it insofar as one sees it as furthering this goal. Politics, qua politics, is just as irrelevant to true religion as it is to true morality, a potential hazard that can be prevented by acting upon people in other ways, thereby keeping everything in balance. Every political religion is also positive, though not every positive religion is also political.9 Natural religion has just as little in the way of mysteries as purely positive religion does. For if an inability to communicate the full extent of one’s knowledge is considered a mystery, then all forms of knowledge would contain “mysteries.” There would be mathematical mysteries just as much as religious ones.—Only political religions can have mysteries, which serve as indirect ways of guiding people to a political goal. [157] The people are made to believe that this is the best path for reaching their private goals, when in fact the case may be otherwise. There are small and large mysteries in political religion: The former consists of material knowledge of all particular operations and their relation to each other; the latter consist of knowledge of the purely formal or of the end that defines the small secrets. The former represents the embodiment of religious laws; the latter contains the spirit of the laws. Even at its earliest beginnings as a natural religion, when it had nomadic patriarchs, the Jewish religion was different from pagan religions, because it was based on the unity of one incomprehensible divinity, rather than on the many perceptible gods of paganism. Because the particular causes of natural phenomena are unknown, and it doesn’t seem possible to attribute particular effects to specific causes and to use these causes to characterize the effects, [158] all that remains is the concept of cause in general, which can be applied to all effects uniformly. This cause cannot be defined through analogies. For the effects oppose each other, and they cancel each other out in a single object. If one attributes them all to one and the same cause, the cause cannot be defined by likening it to other causes. Maimon draws upon Maimonides, Guide 3:27: 510–12 here, which argues that the Law (i.e. religion) “aims at thow things: the welfare of the soul and the welfare of the body,” a key passage for Maimon. 9

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In pagan religion, on the other hand, every kind of effect can be traced back to a specific cause, which can be characterized, in turn, through its effect. As a positive religion, Judaism differs from paganism in that is not a purely political religion, that is, one that pursues society’s interests (as opposed to true knowledge or private interests). Instead, Judaism is, in accordance with the spirit of its author, suited to a theocratic form of government, which has as its fundamental principle that only a religion grounded in knowledge gained through reason can be compatible with both civic and private interests. [159] In its purest form, Judaism has no mysteries in the truest sense of the word: not mysteries that, for particular reasons, one does not want to reveal, but rather that inherently cannot be revealed to all. After the fall of the Jewish state, religion was separated from the state (since the state no longer existed). The religious leaders no longer tried to organize their religion with an eye to applying it to the state; now their concern was to sustain their religion, upon which the nation depended for its very existence.10 Motivated by hatred toward the nations that had destroyed their state,11 as well as by a desire to ensure that the demise of their state wouldn’t mean the end of their religion as well, they developed the following ways to preserve and expand of their religion:12 1 A method, handed down from Moses, of interpreting laws and applying the laws to particular cases. This is not the method that orders reason to modify laws [160] according to their intentions as times and conditions change, but rather the method that is based on certain rules of interpreting what has been set down in writing. 2 The granting of legal authority to the new decisions and pronouncements brought about through this method; that is, giving these decisions and pronouncements the same authority as older laws. It is easy to imagine the kind of pettifogging dialectics that have been employed in this process, right up through our own times, and one can just as easily imagine how this process would generate an enormous number of laws, customs, and ceremonies of all kinds. 10 See Saadia Gaon, Book of Beliefs & Opinions (New Haven: Yale University Press) Samuel Rosenblatt trans, p. 158: “Our nation of the children of Israel is a nation only by virtue of its laws.” Spinoza makes similar claims in chapter 17 of his Theological Political Treatise. 11 Cf. Spinoza, Theological Political Treatise, ch. 5 (3/72/19–21): “The Pharisees retained [the religious ceremonies], or at least many of them, after they lost their state; but they did this more in a spirit of opposing the Christians than to please God.” 12 Maimon’s discussion here relies primarily on Maimonides’ introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah and his preface to Mishneh Torah.

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The history of Judaism can thus be divided into five main epochs.13 The first epoch, stretching from the patriarchs to the exodus from Egypt, was that of natural religion. The second, from Moses to the time of the Great Council (Keneseth Hagdola), was that of positive or revealed religion as such. This council should not be understood as a particular gathering of theologians [161] at a specific time. Rather, it covers all the theologians from the destruction of the first temple until the founding of the Mishna. 14 The lesser prophets (Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi, etc., who are still regarded as belonging to the 120 elders15) were the first of these, and Simon the Pious was the last.16 As their forebears had done since Joshua’s times, they took the Mosaic laws as their foundation and, in keeping with the times, their circumstances, and traditional methods, they added new laws. The conflicts that arose during the creating of new laws were settled by votes, with majority opinion prevailing. The third epoch began with Rabbi Jehuda the Holy compiling the Mishna and extends to Rabine and Rabassi compiling the Talmud.17 Up until this epoch, it was forbidden to put the laws into writing, due to the concern that they might fall into the hands of people who would misuse them. But Rabbi Jehuda Hanassi (or, as he was otherwise known, Rabbenu Hakades) recognized that such a great variety of laws [162] could be easily forgotten, and so for the sake of preserving the totality of laws, he permitted himself to violate a single law—that is, he allowed himself to commit the laws to writing.18 In doing so, he relied on a passage from the Psalms: “There are circumstances in which one shows one’s devotion to God precisely by violating the law.”19 Jehuda

Although Maimon had read at least some of Jacques Basnage’s History of the Jews (1707), when his Berlin patrons suggested that he might be commissioned to translate it, the following conceptual schema is his own, and probably owes more to Maimonides than Enlightenment historiography. 14 Namely, from 586 BCE (the destruction of the first temple) until the third century BCE, the time of Simon the Pious. 15 According to the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Megilah, 17b) the Great Assembly consisted of 120 elders at the time of its founding. 16 Simon the Pious was a third-century (BCE) priest and is considered as one of the first figures of the Mishna. See Mishna, Tractate Avot, vol. 1. 17 Rabbi Yenuda Ha-Nasi (approximately 136–220 CE) was the president of the Sanhedrin. He compiled and edited the Mishna. Rav Ashi (352–427 CE) was the head of the Yeshiva of Sura, in Babylonia. He compiled and sealed the Babylonian Talmud together with his disciple and friend, Ravina. 18 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Temurah, 14b. 19 Ps. 119:126. Maimon’s translation of the verse reflects rabbinic interpretation rather than its plain meaning. 13

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Hanassi lived during the time of Antoninas Pius;20 he was rich and had all the skills needed for such an undertaking. And so he compiled the Mishna, in which he presented the Mosaic laws using either traditional or some other rational mode of exegetical practice. Here, too, some laws prompted debate. The Mishna is divided into six main parts. The first contains laws about agriculture; the second contains laws about festivals and holidays; the third comprises the laws having to do with the relations between the sexes (marriage, divorce, and the like); the fourth has the laws dealing with judicial doctrine; [163] the fifth contains the laws about temple service and sacrifice. And the sixth part contains the laws of purification. Because the Mishna was composed with great precision and yet cannot be understood without a commentary, it was inevitable that there would be questions and debates, both about how to interpret the work itself and how to apply it to cases not covered sufficiently in the text. Rabine and Rebasse eventually collected all the questions and the various answers to them, along with the debates and their resolutions, within the Talmud. This represents the fourth epoch of Jewish law. The fifth epoch began with the completion of the Talmud and continues through our times and through all eternity (si diis placet)21 up to the arrival of the Messiah. Since the completion of the Talmud, the rabbis have not exactly been idle, to be sure. But they are not permitted to alter the Mishna or the Talmud. Their chiefs tasks are 1) to explain these texts so that the texts seem internally consistent [164] (which is truly no small feat, for one rabbi will employ the most minute dialectical procedures to find a contradiction in the commentary of another), and 2) to extract laws from the labyrinth of different opinions, interpretations, debates, and resolutions, laws, that is, that can be applied in any given case. Furthermore, it is their duty is to draw conclusions using familiar cases and thus bring forth new laws from those that have remained undefined, despite all previous efforts. It is also their duty to create a complete legal code by proceeding in this way. Thus, what was originally a natural religion, very much consonant with reason, has been misused. A Jew is permitted neither to eat nor to drink, neither to sleep with his wife nor to relieve himself, without observing an absurd number of laws. One could fill a library rivaling the one in Alexandria with books about slaughtering animals, the construction of 20 Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus (86–161 CE), the Roman emperor from 138 until 161. The Babylonian Talmud narrates several stories about the close friendship between Antoninus and Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nasi (e.g. Tractate Avoda Zara, 10a). 21 “If you please” (Latin).

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the knives,22 the inspecting of the intestines, etc. And what can one say about the absurd number of books [165] about laws no longer in use, such as the laws of sacrifice and purification? The quill falls from my hand when I recall how so many of my peers and I had to spend the best years of our lives, at the height of our intellectual powers, engaged in this enervating activity: staying up all night to find meaning where there was none, using our cleverness to discover contradictions where none existed and to resolve intractable ones, and chasing shadows through long chains of reasoning—building intellectual castles in the air. It is plain to see that the misuse of the rabbinism is based on the following practices: 1 On an artificial method of interpreting the Holy Scripture, which differs from the natural method in that the latter rests on thorough linguistic knowledge and the true spirit of the lawmakers, gleaned in part through attentiveness to their historical conditions, while the former is [166] invented for laws arising out of new circumstances. The rabbis regard the Holy Scripture not only as the source of the foundational Mosaic laws, plus the laws that can be derived from those laws using a rational method, but also as a source for laws they have fashioned themselves in response to the demands of their own age. Here, as everywhere, the artificial method is merely a way to create an external connection between the old and new laws, so that the latter are received better by the people, and also so that they can be memorized more effectively, since they have been derived from principles and can be ordered accordingly. No rational rabbi would believe that laws referring to biblical passages in this way correspond to the true spirit of the passages. Rather, if asked, he would say: These laws are historical exigencies, which allude to biblical passages for strategic reasons. [167] 2 On the manners and customs of nations whom the Jews have lived among in the diaspora resulting from the demise of their state, whose manners and customs the Jews had to adopt in order not to elicit revulsion. Laws of this type include, for instance, those about keeping one’s head covered (at least in holy places and during sacred practices), washing one’s hands (before eating or prayer), fasting until sunset, saying a number of prayers each day, going on pilgrimages, the walking around the altar, and the like. Such laws are clearly of Arab origin. The proper design of the slaughtering knives was a particularily urgent topic in Maimon’s time and was one of the major issues of halachic debate between the Hasidim and their opponents. 22

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Out of hatred toward the nations that destroyed their state and later oppressed them, the Jews also adopted customs opposed to Greek and Roman ones. In these processes, the rabbis took as their model the Mosaic laws themselves, which partly coincided with [168] established Egyptian laws and were partly opposed to them, as Maimonides shows quite thoroughly in his work More Newochim.23 It is worth noting that for all the rabbinic excesses with regard to practical Judaism, namely, the laws and customs, the theoretical, theological part of Judaism managed to remain pure. Eisenmenger can say whatever he wants. 24 It can be proven incontrovertibly that all the (limited) visual representations of God and his characteristics are meant to make theological concepts comprehensible to the popular intellect. On this issue, the rabbis adhered to the following basic principle, which they established in direct reference to the Holy Scripture: The Holy Scripture uses the language of the common man,25 because religious attitudes and behaviors—the immediate aim of theology—are disseminated best in this way. Thus, to aid the common intellect, they represented [169] God as an earthly king who confers about governing the world with his ministers and councilors, i.e., the angels. But the rabbis try to distance the educated intellect from all anthropomorphic representations, by saying: “The prophets were bold in representing the Creator as resembling his creature,” as stated in Ezekiel 1:26,26 for example, “and on the throne was an image like that of a human.”27 Having impartially revealed the missteps of the rabbis, I cannot conceal the good they have done. A non-partisan, judicious view must prevail. Compare Mohammed’s description of the rewards of the pious with the rabbinic one. The former reads: “Here (in paradise) there are as many bowls as stars in the sky. Young maidens and boys pour and serve. The beauty of the maidens exceeds what we are capable of dreaming of. If one of these [170] maidens were to appear in the sky of the night air, the world would be illuminated just as it is by the sun, and if she were to spit into the ocean, its salty water would be transformed into honey, its bitterness into sweetness. See, for example, Guide 3:37 | Pines 2:541 and Guide 3:46 | Pines 2:585. Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654–1704) was a scholar of Semitics and radical antiJewish polemicist. His massive Entdecktes Judenthum (1700) was one of the most influential works of anti-Judaism ever published. 25 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Nedarim, 3a and Tractate Baba Metzia, 31b. Cf. Maimonides’ Guide 1:26 | Pines 1:56. 26 The original edition has here Ezekiel 2:26. This is a typographical error. 27 Bereshit Rabbah, 27:1. 23 24

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Milk, honey, and white wine flow in the rivers that crisscross through this sweet place. The mud of these rivers consists of fragrant nutmeg, their gravel of pearls and hyacinth. The angel Gabriel will open the gates of this paradise for devout Muslims. The first thing they will see is a table, covered with diamonds, of such extreme length that it would take 70,000 days to walk around it. The chairs around it will be made of silver, the napkins of silver and gold. Once seated, they will eat the most exquisite dishes of paradise and drink its water. When they are sated, beautiful boys will bring them green clothes fashioned out of precious material and gold necklaces and earrings. Each one [171] of them will be given a lemon, and when they bring it to their noses to breathe in its scent, maidens of enchanting beauty will appear. Each one will embrace his with delight, and this moment of intoxication through infatuation will last fifty years without a pause. Each pair will receive a dazzlingly beautiful castle, where for eternity they will eat, drink, and enjoy all kinds of sensual pleasures.”(a) 28 This description is beautiful, but how sensuous! The rabbis, in contrast, say, “Above [in the blessed dwelling reserved for the pious] there is neither nor food nor drink and other such things, but rather, having been crowned, the pious sit and delight in the sight of the divinity.”29 Eisenmenger, in his book Judaism Unmasked (first part, chapter 8), uses crude interpretations in an attempt to ridicule the Platonic doctrine of memory enlisted by the rabbis. But what can’t be made ridiculous in this way? [172] He also mocks them for giving the title “kings” to the wise men, as the Stoic does,30 or for saying that God does nothing without first seeking the counsel of the angels31 (i.e., His omnipotence does not influence nature except through mediating powers), and for the doctrine that everything is preordained by the divinity except the exercise of virtue.32 Would a rational theologian find something ridiculous or godless in this? I would have to write a whole book if I wanted to refute all the accusations and abuse leveled against Talmudists by both Christian authors and would-be enlightened Jews.33

[Maimon] On the Characteristics of Asian Nations, see part two, pages 159 and 160. Von Rollins, Neuere Geschichte der Chineser, Japaner, Indianer, Persianer, Turken, und Russen, 293–94. 29 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot, 17a. Cf. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentence, 8:2. 30 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, 62a. 31 Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, 347. Cf. Bereshit Rabbah, 8:3. 32 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot, 33b. 33 Maimon’s explicit critique of the Jewish Enlightenment’s prejudices toward the Talmudists here should be noted. a

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Imagine someone who has penetrated to the true spirit of the Talmud, who has gained a thorough knowledge of the way ancients in general, and especially those from the East, presented theological, moral, and even physical truths in fables and allegories, and how they exaggerated [173] about everything that interests people. Imagine someone who has done all this and who then treats the Talmudists like those who hunt around in the passages cited above to defend Rabbi Maier (who had a heretic for a teacher34)—such a person would certainly not find all the inconsistencies in the Talmud that these men think they discover so easily. This method of relating theoretical or practical truths to passages from the Holy Scripture or other widely admired writings, that is, doing so as though these truths were being derived using the most rational exegesis, however bizarre the exegesis might actually be, may also be seen as an excellent mnemonic, one that makes such truths accessible to the common man (who lacks the capacity to comprehend them abstractly and has to take them on faith). For if everyone knows the passages, they will be able to retain the truths derived from them. Thus, it very often happens in the Talmud that [174] one commentator derives a new law from this or that passage in the Holy Scripture, another then raises the objection that the law cannot correspond to the true meaning of the passage in question, for the true meaning is this or that, and then the first commentator will rejoin: “This is a new rabbinical law, and the rabbis have merely related it to the passage in question.”35 Due to the widespread presupposition that people know how to use this method, Talmudists believe there is no need to seize every opportunity to give instruction in it. A single example will suffice to illustrate this point. One Talmudist asked another the meaning of the following passage from the Book of Joshua, 15:22: Kinah Dimonah we-Adadah. The latter answered: “The well-known places of the Holy Land are being enumerated.” “Yes, yes!” the first rejoined, “I know very well that these are the names of places, but rabbi . . . One can find [175] a useful exposition beyond the literal meaning, namely: The one (Kinah) to whom a

A second-century CE rabbinic figure, and the main voice in the Mishna. Rabbi Meir’s teacher was Elisha ben Abuya, the iconic heretic of rabbinic literature. Maimon refers here to the Talmudic explanation for Rabbi Meir’s adherence to his teacher even after the latter became a heretic: “He found a pomegranate, ate its fruit and spit out the husk” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagiga, 15b). Maimon invites the reader to adopt a similar attitude toward rabbinic teachings. 35 This is the rabbinic notion of asmachta [‫]אסמכתא‬. Maimon follows the opinion of Maimonides—in the preface to his Commentary on the Mishnah—that asmachta is a mere menemonic. This view is not universally accepted among rabbinic authors. 34

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neighbor gives a cause for revenge (We-dumineh), and who nevertheless remains silent (out of generosity) and refrains from performing an act of revenge, him the Eternal One (we-adadah) will see as being in the right.”36 What a nice opportunity to laugh at our poor Talmudist, who has derived a moral message from the names of particular places, and also, in a unique way, makes a compound out of the name of the final place, Sansena.37 And didn’t the one who asked the question also say that he didn’t want to know the true meaning of the passage, but rather, a teaching that can be grounded in the passage? Thus, the Talmudists have also related to a passage in Isaiah the important lesson that when it comes to morality, what matters is for the most part practice, not theory. The passage reads: “The anticipation of your joy (as foretold by the prophets) will [176] have as its consequences strength, aid, wisdom, knowledge, and the fear of God.”38 They connect the first six with the six Sedarim or divisions of the Mishna (the foundation of all Jewish learning). Emunath (faith, anticipation) is Seder Seraim. Etecho (temporal circumstances or conditions of happiness) is Seder Moad, and so on. This means that however knowledgeable about all six of these Sedarim you may be, the most important is the last one (fear of God).39 As to rabbinic morality, I am not sure there is anything to object to, except that it perhaps is taken too far sometimes. It is genuine stoicism. But for that very reason, it does not exclude other useful principles (that of perfection, a general good will, and so forth). Rabbinic holiness even extends to ideas. The rabbis relate this to the following passage of the Psalms in their characteristic way: “No strange God will reside within you.”40 [177] For the rabbis say: “What strange God could live in the human heart, other than evil desire?”41 They don’t even allow one to deceive a pagan, in neither word nor deed, even where such deception has no bad consequences (for example, making the common remark, “I’m pleased to see you looking well,” when this does not express what is actually in one’s heart).42 The examples of Jews deceiving Christians or pagans that are commonly cited as evidence to the contrary prove

Bablynonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, 7a. Josh. 15:30. Thus, one of the Talmudists expound the name Sansena [‫ ]סנסנה‬as ‫שוכן בסנה‬ (He who abides in the Senna). Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, 7a. 38 Isa. 33:6. 39 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbath, 31a. 40 Ps. 81:10. 41 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbath, 105b. 42 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Metzia, 58b. 36 37

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nothing, for in those cases the Jews were simply not acting in accord with the principles of their morality. The commandment that you shall not covet what belongs to a neighbor is interpreted by Talmudists in such a way that one must guard against the desire to own that thing. In short, I would have to write an entire book if I wanted enumerate the excellent teachings of rabbinic morality. [178] Moreover, the influence of these teachings on practical life is unmistakable. Polish Jews have always been allowed to pursue all kinds of work, rather than just trading and moneylending, to which Jews elsewhere were restricted. Yet Polish Jews are seldom accused of fraud. They remain true to the laws of the land where they live, and they feed themselves through honest means. Their sense of charity, their institutions for caring for the poor and sick, their special societies for burying the dead—all these are sufficiently well known. Such deeds are carried out not by caregivers working for money, but rather by the nation’s elders diligently applying themselves to the tasks at hand. To be sure, Polish Jews are not yet enlightened, at least for the most part; their customs and manners are still crude. But they are faithful to the religion of their fathers, as well as to the local laws. They may not be the most polite people, but their word is sacred to them. [179] But if they are not gentlemen, they pose no threat to the women of other nations. Like other peoples of the East, they do not have a particularly flattering view of women, however, they are quite conscious of their duties toward women. Children are not compelled to learn set phrases meant to express their love and reverence for their parents (for Polish Jews don’t employ French nursemaids), but as a result, they display their affection and devotion all the more fervently. The sanctity and warmth of their marriages, along with the tenderness characteristic of them, warrant special attention. A man is completely separated from his wife for fourteen days every month (the monthly purification as mandated by rabbinic law). Couples are not allowed to touch each other, or eat out of the same bowl, or drink out of the same cup, and as a result, the complacency and resentment that come from too much contact are avoided. In her husband’s eyes, a wife remains what maidens are in the eyes of their admirers. [180] Finally, how innocent young people are before marriage here! It often happens that a boy and girl of seventeen or eighteen are married without knowing a thing about the purpose of marriage, something that seldom occurs, it is safe to say, among young people in other nations. [181]

Chapter 16

Jewish Piety and Exercises in Penance

In my youth, I was very religious, and because I had seen that most rabbis are prideful and combative and have other bad qualities, I had come to have a low opinion of them. I therefore sought out as models only those rabbis known by the name Hasidim, that is, “the pious ones.” Such rabbis devote their lives to the strictest observance of the laws and the cultivation of moral virtues. Yet I eventually began to recognize that while these rabbis may harm other people less than most rabbis do, they harm themselves more. For what they do, in effect, is “throw out the baby with the bathwater,” to cite the well-known saying. In striving to suppress their desires and passions, [182] they also suppress their vitality and, along with it, their ability to act with purpose. Indeed, their practices often result in premature death. A few examples of this—examples I personally witnessed—should suffice to support my claim. Take Simon of Lubtsch, a Jew who, at the time, was well known for his piety. He had performed the Teshuvat Ha-Kana (the penance of Kana), which consists of fasting during the day, every day, for six years and, in the evening, denying oneself the pleasure of foods that come from a living creature (meat, diary, honey, etc.). He also completed the Golath, i.e., a constant wandering, where one isn’t permitted to stay anywhere for even two days. He wore a hair shirt with nothing underneath it. But even so, Simon believed that he wouldn’t have done enough to appease his conscience if he didn’t also perform the Teshuvat Ha-Mishkal (the penance of weighing), a particular penance that is supposed to be proportionate to each sin. Having calculated that his [183] sins were too numerous to be atoned for in this way, he hit upon the idea of starving himself to death. After he had spent a while starving himself, his wanderings took him to the place where my father was living. The scholar walked unnoticed into my father’s barn and collapsed. My father happened to go into the barn. There my father found the man, whom he had known of for a long time, on the ground half dead, a copy of the Zohar—the most important work of the Kabbalah—in his hand. Because he was an acquaintance, my father immediately sent for food, which the man refused. My father tried to persuade Simon again and

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again, repeatedly urging him to eat something. But nothing helped. While my father was taking care of some business in his house, Simon, who wanted to get away from my father’s attempts to save him, summoned all his strength, stood up, and left the barn—and eventually the village as well. When my father went back to the barn and [184] didn’t find him there, he ran after him, only to discover Simon’s dead body not far outside the village. The episode was soon known among Jews everywhere, and Simon became a saint. Jossel of Klezk set himself the challenge of nothing less than hastening the arrival of the Messiah. To this end, he performed strict penances: fasting, wandering around in the snow, sitting up through the night, and such things. Each of these measures had the effect, he believed, of defeating a legion of evil spirits who guarded the Messiah and hindered His arrival.(a) Jossel eventually added many Kabbalistic fatuities to his repertoire, such as incense burning and incantations, until at last he lost his mind and came to think that he could actually see spirits with his bare eyes. He gave each one a name, hurled himself around, and smashed windows and [185] ovens, believing, much like his predecessor Don Quixote, that these spirits were his enemies. Finally, he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Later and with much effort, Prince Radziwil’s personal doctor managed to restore his health. As for my own attempts to perform such penances, I was, alas, never able to do more than resist eating animal products for a good while and fast during the days of atonement for three days in a row. I once resolved to perform the Teshuvat Ha-Kana(b). But this resolution and others like it remained unfulfilled, because I adopted Maimonides’ views, and Maimonides was no friend of fanaticism and hyper-piety. It is strange, though, that even when I was following rabbinic prescriptions in the most rigorous way, I resisted performing ceremonies that had something farcical about them. [186] To this type belonged, for example, the Malkot-whipping before the high days of repentance, in which every Jew lies on his belly in the synagogue, while another Jew gives him thirty-nine lashes with a narrow strip of leather. There was also the Hatarath nedorim, or the releasing from vows on the day before New Year’s Day. Here three men are seated, and another man steps before them reciting phrases that say more or less this: “Gentlemen! I know what a terrible thing it is not to fulfill a pledge, and [Maimon] A certain fool named Chosek wanted to cause a famine in Lemberg, because he was angry with the city. To this end he lay outside its walls, thinking that he would be a blockade of one. The result of this blockade was that he nearly starved to death, while the city knew nothing of starvation. b [Maimon] See above. a

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since, during the past year, I have definitely made some pledges that I have not yet fulfilled, and that I can no longer even remember, I ask you to release me from them. I don’t regret the worthy resolutions that I had vowed to carry out; rather, what I regret is not adding that these resolutions shouldn’t have the force of a pledge.” At this point, the speaker walks away from his judges, takes off his shoes, and sits down on the bare ground (which means that he has [187] banished himself until his pledges have been dissolved). After he has sat for a while and has said a prayer, his judges begin to call out loudly: “You are our brother! You are our brother! You are our brother! Now that you have subjected yourself to the court, the pledges, the oath, and the banishment are no more! Get up off the ground, and come to us!” This they repeat three times, whereupon the man is immediately released from all of his pledges. During such tragicomic scenes, it was only with the greatest effort that I kept from laughing. When I had to perform such rituals myself, I would blush. And so I would try to get out of them whenever possible by claiming that I had already performed the ritual elsewhere, or by saying that I intended to do it at another synagogue. A remarkable psychological phenomenon! One would think that no one could be ashamed of actions he saw everyone else carrying out with no shame at all. But that proved not to be the case here. The phenomenon [188] can only be explained by the fact that in all my actions, I first considered the nature of the action itself (whether it was as such just or unjust, proper or improper), and only afterward did I consider its nature in relation to a goal. I would approve of an action as a means only if I had not disapproved of it as such. Later, I developed this principle more fully in my system of religion and morality. Most people, by contrast, follow the principle: The ends justify the means. [189]

Chapter 17

Friendship and Rapture

I had a very close friend named Moses Lapidoth.1 We were the same age, at the same level in our studies, and lived near each other. Our dispositions were very similar, too, except that I exhibited an affinity for science and scholarship early on, whereas Lapidoth had a gift for imaginative thinking, as well as considerable intelligence and powers of judgment, yet did not want to go farther in these things than plain common sense would take him. I often talked with this friend about matters close to both our hearts, especially about questions of religion and morality. Of the people in our community, we were the only ones who did not merely reproduce the prevailing opinions. We ventured, rather, to think through everything [190] on our own. Since we differed from the rest of the community in our ideas and actions, it was only natural that we increasingly separated ourselves from the group. And since we were living off of the community, separating ourselves had the effect of making our material situation increasingly bad. We noticed this, needless to say, but nonetheless did not want to give up our prized independence for any worldly interest. We consoled ourselves for the loss as best we could, talking incessantly about the vanity of all things, as well as about the religious and moral missteps of the common horde, whom we looked down upon with a haughty pride and disdain. In particular, we tended to rail against the falsity of human virtue à la Mandeville.2 Smallpox had raged where we lived, killing many children. The elders of the community met to identify the secret transgressions on account of which, in their view, they had been made to suffer. They ordered an investigation, and it turned out that a young widow who

Maimon writes with more warmth, indeed love, for his friend Lapidoth than any other figure in the Autobiography. As far as we know, he is otherwise unknown. George Eliot, who, as mentioned in the editorial introduction, was a close nineteenth-century reader of Maimon’s autobiography, later took the surname Lapidoth for one of her Jewish characters in Daniel Deronda (1876). 2 Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733), whose Fable of the Bees, Or Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1705), whose subtitle adumbrates its scandalous argument. 1

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belonged to [191] the Jewish nation had been unduly free in her behavior toward several servants of the court. She was summoned, but all that their many questions could get out of her was that she had been suitably pleasant and forthcoming with these people, whom she served mead. She insisted that she was not aware of having committed a sin. Because there was no further evidence, they wanted to let her go. But an elderly matron, Madame F., came flying in like a fury screaming: “Whip her! Whip her until she confesses her crime! If you don’t, then you’ll bear the guilt for the deaths of so many innocent souls.” Lapidoth, who witnessed the scene with me, said: “My friend! Do you think that Madame F. is accusing this woman so ferociously because a holy fervor has seized her and solely out of concern for the general good? No! She despises the woman because the woman is attractive, while she herself can no longer claim to be.” I assured him that we were entirely in agreement. [192] Lapidoth’s in-laws were poor. His father-in-law was a Jewish sexton, and because his wages were meager, he couldn’t afford to feed his family adequately. Every Friday, this unfortunate man had to listen to all kinds of reproaches and insults from his wife, for he couldn’t even afford all the things essential to the Sabbath meal. Lapidoth described this situation, adding: “My mother-in-law wants me to believe that she becomes so outraged only on account of the holy Sabbath’s honor. In truth, she is outraged because of the honor of her holy belly, which she wants to be able to fill whenever she pleases. The holy Sabbath merely serves as her pretext.” Once, as we were walking on the embankments discussing people’s tendency to deceive themselves and others—as Lapidoth’s mother-in-law so clearly did—I said: “My friend! Let us be fair and apply our criticisms to ourselves as much as to other people. The contemplative life we lead, which is so ill-suited to our circumstances, [193] is it not actually due to our apathy and penchant for idleness? If we reflect on the vanity of all things, don’t we come to think that we are merely trying to justify our idleness? We are content with our circumstances. Why? Because we cannot change them without first struggling against our idleness. Despite all our stated contempt for external things, we cannot deny having a secret longing to eat better and dress better than we are currently able to. We chastise our friends J., N., H., etc. as men of vanity devoted to sensuous desires, because they have abandoned our way of life and pursue occupations in line with their strengths, but how are we any better? We heed our penchant for idleness just as they follow their inclinations. Let us try to gain at least one advantage by admitting the truth, since they claim that their actions are driven by the desire to serve the community, rather than wanting to satisfy their particular desires.”

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Lapidoth, quite taken with my speech, answered me [194] with feeling in his voice: “My friend, you are perfectly right. If we cannot correct our mistakes at present, we should at least be honest with ourselves about them and open the way to improvement.” He and I—two cynics—spent the most pleasant hours carrying on such conversations, occasionally making fun of the world, occasionally making fun of ourselves. We certainly found much amusement in our shabby clothes. With his old filthy jacket fraying into rags, one sleeve having entirely come off because he couldn’t afford to have it mended, Lapidoth pinned the sleeve to his back and asked me: Don’t I look like a Schlachzig (a Polish nobleman)? For my part, I couldn’t boast enough about my tattered shoes with toes that were torn open, and I would say: “At least they don’t pinch.” The similarities between our proclivities and ways of life, coupled with the differences in our talents, made our conversations all the more enjoyable. I was better at scholarship [195] and science, and, more than my friend, I tried to be thorough and accurate in understanding them. He, on the other hand, had the advantage of possessing a lively imagination and, accordingly, had the greater gift for oratory and poetry. Whenever I came up with a new idea, he could clarify it at once and make it more concrete through an abundance of examples. Our affinity for each other went so far that, whenever possible, we spent day and night together; when we returned to the town where we both lived, after our work as family tutors, we would head straight for one another, without even seeing our families first. In the end, we began to neglect our customary prayer sessions. First, Lapidoth set about showing that even Talmudists didn’t always perform their prayers in a synagogue; they also performed them on occasion in a study. Then he demonstrated that not all prayers regarded as necessary were in fact equally necessary. Some of them could even be dispensed with completely. In truth, we cut back more and more [196] even on prayers we recognized to be necessary, until they too were no longer performed. Once, as we were strolling on the embankment during prayer time, Lapidoth said: “Friend! What will become of us? We no longer pray.” Me: What do you think about this? L: I’m counting on the mercy of God, who surely won’t punish His children harshly because of a little omission? Me: God is not only merciful; He is also just. It follows that His mercy won’t be of much help to us. L: What do you think about that? Me (having already derived from Maimonides more accurate ideas about God and our obligations to Him): Our calling is to achieve perfection

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through knowledge of God and by imitating His actions. Praying is simply an expression of our knowledge of divine perfections, and as the result of this knowledge, it is meant only for, and adapted to the way of thinking of, the common man, who is unable to come to this knowledge on his own. [197] Because we are able to recognize the goal of praying, and to arrive at it without such mediation, we can completely dispense with praying as something superfluous.

This argument seemed well founded to both of us. Thus we decided that we would avoid causing trouble. We would leave home each morning with all our taleth and tefilim (Jewish tools of prayer), but instead of going to the synagogue, we would go to our favorite retreat: the embankment. In this way, we successfully kept ourselves out of a Jewish inquisition court. Like all things of this earth, our rapturous interactions had to end. Because we were both married, and our marriages had produced a lot of children, we had to take jobs as tutors in order to feed our families. As a result of this circumstance, we were often apart and could spend only a few weeks together each year. [198]

Chapter 18

Life as a Tutor

My first job as a family tutor was an hour away from where I was living at the time. I worked for the miserable leaseholder I., in the even more miserable town of P., for a salary of five Polish thalers. The poverty and ignorance of the population were indescribable, as was the crudeness of its lifestyle. The leaseholder was a man of about fifty, whose whole face was grown over with hair ending in a thick, dirty, coal-black beard. His speech was a kind of muttering, comprehensible only to the peasants with whom he had dealings every day. He not only spoke no Hebrew, but also not a word of Yiddish; he could only speak a Russian dialect, the common language of peasants in the region. Add to this scene [199] a wife and child cut from the same cloth and also his home, which was a sooty shack, blackened inside and out, with no chimney. Instead there was just a small opening in the ceiling that served as a smoke vent. The hole was carefully closed as soon as the fire was extinguished, so that the heat wouldn’t escape. The windows were narrow strips of pinewood laid over each other crosswise and covered with paper. The dwelling had one space: living room, drinking room, dining room, study, and bedroom all in one. Imagine, as well, that it was kept very hot, and that the wind and the dampness—ever-present in winter—would send the smoke back into the room, filling it with fumes to the point of asphyxiation. Blackened laundry and various filthy articles of clothing are hanging from rods placed along the length of the room, so that the vermin suffocate from all the smoke. Over here sausages have been strung up to dry, their fat steadily dripping down onto people’s heads. Over there are tubs of bitter cabbage and red beets (the staple of the Lithuanian diet). In a corner, [200] the jugs filled with drinking water stand next to the dirty water. Dough is being kneaded, the cooking and baking are being done, the cow being milked, etc. In this splendid dwelling, peasants would sit on the bare floor—you wouldn’t want to sit any higher if you didn’t want to suffocate—and drink brandy and make a racket, while the people doing housework would sit in a corner. I would sit behind the oven with my dirty, half-naked students, translating an old and tattered Hebrew Bible into Russian-Jewish dialect.

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Taken together, they made up the most magnificent group in the world. It deserved to be drawn by a Hogarth, sung by a Buttler.1 My readers can easily imagine how terrible this place was for me. Brandy was the only means available to help me forget my troubles.2 On top of all else, the Russians—who were rampaging through Prince R.’s lands at the time with an almost unimaginable brutality—had a regiment stationed in the village and neighboring areas. The house was constantly [201] full of drunken Russians engaging in every possible act of excess. They smashed tables and benches, threw glasses and bottles at the maids’ and housekeepers’ heads, etc. To cite a single example, a Russian was stationed as a guard in the house where I was working; he was charged with making sure that the house wasn’t plundered. One time, he came home very drunk and demanded something to eat. He was given a bowl of millet that had butter mixed into it. He pushed the bowl away and shouted: It needs more butter. A large container full of butter was brought. He shouted: Bring a second bowl of food. Another bowl was brought immediately, whereupon he dumped all the butter into the bowl and then demanded brandy. He was given a whole bottle, which he emptied into his food. Next, he called for large quantities of milk, pepper, salt, and tobacco, which he dumped in and began to devour. After he had eaten several spoonfuls, he started swinging his fists wildly. He grabbed the innkeeper’s beard and repeatedly smashed his fist into the innkeeper’s face, causing blood to gush out of [202] the man’s mouth. After that, the Russian poured his marvelous mush down the innkeeper’s throat and raged on until he was overcome by his drunkenness, at which point he collapsed to the ground in a stupor. Such scenes were common all over Poland. Whenever the Russian army passed through a place, they took a guide, whom they kept until the next town. Instead of having the mayor or a local magistrate choose one, they tended to grab the first person they saw. Young or old, male or female, sick or healthy—it didn’t matter, since they already knew the way from their special maps and were simply looking for another chance to brutalize people. If the person they took didn’t know the right way, they wouldn’t let themselves be steered off course. But they would beat the poor guide until he or she was half dead, just for not knowing the right way! [203] I, too, was once snatched up to be a guide. Even though I didn’t know the right way, I managed to guess what it was. Thus I arrived at the correct place feeling fortunate, having been punched and elbowed 1 Maimon has in mind the didactic works of the great English artist William Hogarth (1697–1764) such as “The Rake’s Progress” and “The Harlot’s Progress.” 2 This may have been the beginning of Maimon’s alcoholism, a problem mentioned by his contemporaries and perhaps alluded to later in his confrontation with Mendelssohn.

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in the ribs many times, and also given the warning that if I led the soldiers off course they would skin me alive (something the Russians were capable of). All the other jobs I had as a family tutor were more or less the same. During one of them, a remarkable psychological event took place, with me as its protagonist. I will describe what happened when I reach the right point in my story. But an event of the same kind—which occurred at a different time, and which I merely witnessed—should be recounted here. The tutor in the neighboring village was a sleepwalker. He rose one night and went to the churchyard with a volume of Jewish ritual laws in his hand. After spending a while there, he returned to his [204] bed. The next morning, he woke up remembering nothing about what had taken place during the night. He went over to the chest where he always kept the volume locked up, with the intention of getting out the first part, the Orach chayim(a) , which he read every morning. To his astonishment, only three of the four parts, bound as separate volumes, were there, the missing part being the Jore deah(b): All four had been locked safely in the chest. Because he was aware of his condition, he looked for the missing part everywhere, until he finally searched the churchyard and found the Jore deah opened to the chapter Hilchot Ewelot(c). He saw this as a bad omen, and he went home deeply disquieted. When asked why, he related what had [205] happened, adding: “God only knows how my poor mother is doing!” He asked his employer for a horse and permission to ride to the next town, where his mother lived, so that he could find out how she was. To reach the town, he had to pass through the place where I was working as a tutor. When I saw him riding in a state of dismay—he wouldn’t dismount even for a short time—I asked him what was wrong. It was then that I heard the story I have just described. I was struck not so much by the particular circumstances of the incident as by the general phenomenon of sleepwalking, which I hadn’t known about. The other tutor assured me, however, that sleepwalking is common, and that one shouldn’t necessarily attach a deeper meaning to it. Only the episode with the Jore deah, Hilchot Ewelot chapter of the Jore deah had filled him with foreboding, he said. He rode off, and when he got to his mother’s house, he found her sitting at her loom. She asked him why he had come. He said that he [206] hadn’t seen her in a while and simply wanted to visit. After resting awhile, he rode back

[Maimon] Orach chajim, the way of life. [Maimon] Jore deah, instructor of wisdom. c [Maimon] Hilchoth Eweloth, laws of mourning. a

b

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without incident. But he remained uneasy and could not stop thinking about the Jore deah, Hilchot Ewelot. Three days later, there was a fire in the town where his mother lived and the poor woman died in the blaze. When the sleepwalker heard about the fire, he cried out in anguish over her horrible death, then rode straight to the town to behold what he had foreseen. [160]

Chapter 19

Another Secret Society and Therefore a Long Chapter

It was around the same time that I learned about another of my nation’s sects: the new Hasidim, whose influence was on the rise. Among Jews the pious ones are generally called Hasidim. Since time immemorial, some men have distinguished themselves by exhibiting the strictest piety; turning away from material concerns and pleasures; devoting their lives to observing religious laws; and by practicing penance with the greatest rigor, all in order to expiate their sins. They also pray and perform other devotional exercises, subject their bodies to hardships, etc. [208] Some of these men had recently stepped forward as the founders of a new sect. They asserted that true piety was in no way a matter of abusing the flesh, for doing so also weakened the soul’s power and destroyed the spiritual calm and good cheer needed for attaining the knowledge and love of God. On the contrary, they argued, one should satisfy all bodily needs and embrace all sensual pleasures, insofar as they are necessary for our emotional development. After all, God created everything to glorify himself.1 True divine worship was a matter of performing devotional exercises with all one’s strength—and of self-annihilation before God.2 They maintained that man achieves his highest perfection only by regarding himself as an organ of God, rather than as a Being that exists and acts for itself. The former, they felt, was man’s vocation. Thus, the proper course of action was not to spend their entire lives apart from the world, trying to suppress their natural feelings and kill off their vital powers. Instead they [209] should develop their natural feelings as much as possible, use their strengths, and constantly try to extend their influence.— Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketuvot, 8a. Cf. Isa. 43:7. On the influence of the early Hasidic notion of self-anihilation within God on Maimon’s concept of “acosmism,” which exerted a crucial influence on later developments of German Idealism, see Melamed, “Spinozism, Acosmism, and Hasidism.” On the notion itself, see Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstacy and Magic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). 1 2

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One must admit that both methods—the methods of both sects, that is—rest on something true. At bottom, the former method is a kind of stoicism, namely, a striving to use free will to bring our actions into line with a principle higher than our natural inclinations. The latter method is grounded in a system of perfection. The problem is that both methods, like everything else in the world, can be misused, and in fact they are misused. Those in the first sect take their penitential orientation to extremes. Instead of trying to regulate their desires and passions, they try to destroy them, and instead of making reason alone the guiding principle of their actions, as the stoics did, they seek their guiding principle in religion. This is, to be sure, a pure source. But with their false ideas about religion and virtue, they ground religion in the idea of future rewards [210] and punishments from an arbitrary and tyrannical despot. Thus their actions follow from an impure source, namely, the principle of self-interest. And because this self-interest is based on fictions, these men are vastly inferior to the crudest Epicureans, who at least have a real self-interest as the end of their actions. A principle of virtue can be derived from religion only when religion is itself grounded in the idea of virtue.— The followers of the second sect have more accurate ideas of religion and morality, but because they tend to follow vague feelings rather than precise knowledge, they, too, inevitably fall into all kinds of excess. Their self-annihilation necessarily hinders or misdirects their actions. They know nothing of natural science and have no knowledge of psychology, yet are vain enough to regard themselves as an organ of the divinity— which, of course, they are, but only to the degree they have achieved perfection. [211] And so they indulge in the worst excesses, chalking them up to service to God. For them, every bizarre thought is a divine inspiration, every raw urge a divine call to action. In the end, these were not really different religious sects; the difference lay simply in how they practiced their religion. Yet they turned into such enemies that they persecuted each other, and each side charged the other with heresy. At first, the new sect had the upper hand and established itself in almost all of Poland and elsewhere, too. Its leaders sent their emissaries all over, their mission being to preach the new doctrines and attract new members. The majority of Polish Jews are scholars, that is to say, devotees of idleness and contemplation (every Polish-Jewish boy except the most obviously incapable is raised from birth to become a rabbi). Because of this tradition, and because the new teachings made the path to blessedness easier—fasting, staying up all night, [212] and constantly studying the Talmud were deemed not only impractical but also to harm the cheerful spirit needed for true piety—it was only natural that the new sect quickly attracted many members.

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People went on pilgrimages to K. M.3 and other holy places where the illuminated leaders of the new sect lived. Young people left their parents; women and children went in droves to seek out these leaders and hear the new teachings directly from their mouths. The sect came into being in the following way.(a) I have already observed that since the time the Jews lost their state, and began to live strewn among nations where they are more or less tolerated, only one internal constitution has held the Jews together, [213] keeping them as an organized whole amid their political diaspora: their religious constitution. Thus, since the demise of the Jews’ state, nothing has been so important to their leaders as strengthening this tie, which is the one thing that has enabled the Jews to remain a nation. Now, because the source of their teachings of faith and religious laws is the Holy Scripture, and the interpretation and application of these laws to individual cases generates a great deal of uncertainty, it was necessary to use tradition as a guide. Tradition allowed the method of interpreting the Holy Scripture, as well as of cases left undetermined by the Holy Scripture, to be set forth as though in accordance with definite laws. Naturally, such a tradition couldn’t be entrusted to the whole nation, but only to a small body within it as a sort of legislative commission. But some problems remained. The tradition itself created much uncertainty. The derivation of specific cases from general ones led to many conflicts, [214] as did new laws made necessary by changing circumstances. Yet through these very conflicts, as well as the manner in which they were resolved, the legislative body became increasingly large and its influence correspondingly greater. The Jewish constitution is thus, according to its form, aristocratic and vulnerable to all the abuses of such a constitution. Preoccupied with supporting itself, as well as the indispensable scholarly part of the nation, the non-scholarly part couldn’t give its attention to such abuses. On the other hand, men who themselves belonged to the lawmaking body occasionally rose up and not only remonstrated against the abuses, but also questioned the authority of the body. The founder of the Christian religion was of this type; in the beginning, and with good success, he resisted the tyranny of the aristocracy, restoring the whole ceremonial law back to its original state, namely, to that of a pure system of morality (to which the ceremonial system is Namely, to Karlin and Mezeritsh, the two major centers of Hasidism in the 1760s (in this period, “Karliners” was a common name for all hasidim). a [Maimon] Because there is so much talk about secret societies these days, both pro and contra, I believe that I shouldn’t pass over the history of the particular society with which I became entangled, if only for a short time. 3

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related as the means to an end). [215] The reformation of at least part of the nation was thereby achieved. The infamous Schabatai Zebi was a figure of the same type.4 He anointed himself the Messiah at the end of the previous century; he wanted to do away with all of ceremonial law and especially the rabbinic statutes. Within the Jewish nation back then, there were deeply entrenched prejudices, and so a system of morality grounded in reason wouldn’t have been able to produce salutary reforms. One had to oppose prejudices and fanaticism with prejudices and fanaticism. This confrontation happened in the following way. A secret society, whose founders came from among those dissatisfied with the state of things, had long since put down roots in the nation. According to Rabbi Joseph Candia, a certain French rabbi named Moses of Lion completed the Zohar,5 and then managed to introduce it to the Jewish nation as an old book by the famous Talmudist Simon Ben Jochoi.6 [216] This book, as already mentioned, contains an interpretation of the Holy Scripture according to the principles of the Kabbalah; or rather, it contains, first and foremost, the principles of the Kabbalah, at once presented in and created through an interpretation of the Holy Scripture. It has, like Janus, two faces, and it thus invites two kinds of explication. The first is one that has been both widely disseminated in Kabbalistic writings and integrated into a system. Here the imagination has plenty of room. It can run wild with fanaticism as it pleases, without, in the end, becoming more knowledgeable about its object. Some moral and physical truths are depicted here figuratively, and they ultimately get lost in the labyrinth of the hyper-physical. This way of treating the Kabbalah is characteristic of Kabbalistic literati, and it makes up the small mysteries of this secret society.

4 Shabetai Tzvi (1626 1676), the main figure of the mass Jewish Messianic movement that is named after him,Sabbateanism. For the classic account, see Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah. 5 Maimon has apparently confused León in Castilia, Spain with the French city of Lyon. 6 Maimon is, once again, astute in holding to what is now a common scholarly view that the Zohar was largely composed in thirteenth-century Spain, principally by the Kabbalist Moses de Leon in an archaized Aramaic, and attributed to the second-century rabbinic figure Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. “Rabbi Joseph Candia” is more commonly known as the physician, scholar, and Kabbalist, Rabbi Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591–1655) of Crete (Candia), whose ancestor, the Rennaissance Averroist Rabbi Elijah Delmedigo (1460–93), had already challenged the antiquity of the Zohar. On the former, see Isaac Barzilay, Yoseph Shlomo Delmedigo (Yashar of Candia): His Life, Works, and Times (Leiden: Brill, 1974), and, more recently, Michael Engel, Elijah Delmedigo and Paduan Aristotelianism: Investigating the Human Intellect (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).

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The second kind deals with the secret political content of the Kabbalah; only the leaders of the secret society are familiar with it. These leaders themselves, as well as their activities, remain always [217] unknown; the other members, however, can be known. The latter cannot reveal political secrets, which are unknown to them. The former won’t do that, for it would be counter to their interests. Only the smaller (purely literary) secrets are conveyed to the people, framed as things of great importance. The greater (political) secrets aren’t taught; rather, when they have been made sense of, they are put into practice. A certain Kabbalist named Rabbi Joel Baalscham(b) successfully cured several people of their ailments at this time.7 He achieved these results using his medical knowledge, along with a bit of trickery. But he claimed that his treatments consisted exclusively of the Kabbalah Masith (the practical [218] Kabbalah) and the use of holy names, and thus he became famous. Indeed, he achieved a very advantageous position in Poland in this way. He was also concerned with producing successors in the art he practiced. Several of his students won great fame through effective cures and by solving cases of theft. With the cures, things simply took their natural course. The Kabbalists employed the standard medical procedures, but through their sleight-ofhand tactics, they tried to divert the attention of onlookers away from this and toward their Kabbalistic hocus-pocus. As to the thefts, they either arranged these themselves or uncovered them by drawing on their ubiquitous networks of informants. Others, men of greater genius and a nobler mindset, devised much bigger plans. They understood that the best way to promote both their own interests and the common good would be to gain the people’s trust. They tried to do so by means of enlightenment. Their plan was thus at

b [Maimon] Baalschem means the one steeped in the practical Kabbalah, that is, in communicating with spirits and in the writing of amulets. The names of God and various spirits are used for this. 7 Rabbi Joel Ba’al Shem of Zamosc was a somewhat obscure seventeenth-century amulet writer and wonder worker. His legend and sayings are recounted in Mifa’alot Elokim (1727). As Maimon indicates “Ba’al Shem” was literally a master of the use of God’s name, that is, one who was able to manipulate the names of God to magical effect. It is possible, in fact likely, that Maimon had in mind here Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (1690/1700–1760) the founder of the new Hasidic movement. Maimon’s conflation of the two figures may indicate that at the time of his visit to the court of the Maggid around 1770, the association of the Besht with the emerging Hasidic movement was not that clear. Obviously, it is also possible that Maimon’s recollection of the events after more than two decades was somewhat vague and occasioned the confusion of the two names which are pronounced quite similarily in the Ashkenazi dialects.

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once moral and [219] political(c). It seemed at first that they wanted only to eliminate the abuses that had crept into the Jewish system of religion and morality. But realizing this aim, as they had formulated it, would be impossible without producing a further effect—the complete dismantling of that system. The main things they attacked were: 1 The abuse of rabbinic scholarship, which, instead of doing as much as possible to simplify the laws and render them accessible, was being used to make the laws even more confused and inconclusive. Moreover, rabbinic scholarship focused on the law alone (insisting, for instance, that laws no longer in use—sacrifice, purification, and the like—were as important to study as those that were used), when it should have concentrated on applying the laws. For the study [220] of the laws is not an end in itself, but rather a tool for applying them. Finally, in actually applying the laws, rabbinic scholarship considered only matters of external ceremony, not moral purpose. 2 The abuse of piety on the part of the so-called “repentant ones.”8 These people may have cultivated the practice of virtue, but their motivations were not grounded in rational knowledge of God and His perfection. Instead, it was based on false notions about God and His qualities. And so, these repentant ones necessarily failed to achieve true virtue, attaining only an illusory kind. Furthermore, instead of overcoming the slavery of sensual desires and passions out of love for God and an inclination to be like Him, and instead of striving to act according to the laws of a free will grounded in reason, the so-called repentant ones attempted to destroy their desires and passions by destroying their ability to act, as I already showed above, through several sad examples. [221] The enlighteners,9 by contrast, insisted that a cheerful soul open to all kinds of pursuits was a basic condition of true virtue. They not only allowed the experience of diverse pleasures, they even recommended it as a means for achieving a cheerful soul. Their worship consisted of a self-overcoming: withdrawing their thoughts from all things except God, [Maimon] Because I never achieved the rank of a master in this society, my portrayal of its plan shouldn’t be seen as based in empirical fact, but rather as an explanation brought forth through reflection. How well founded this explanation is can be determined only by analogy, in accordance with the rules of probability. 8 Namely, “‫בעלי תשובה‬.” 9 Notice that Maimon is describing here the new Hasidim as “Aufklärer.” This was, in part, a provocation to his enlightened German readers, but as noted in the editorial introduction, Maimon’s notion of enlightenment was quite different from that of the Berlin Haskala. c

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even their own individual selves, and merging with God. This, they believed, produced a sort of self-suppression. They would ascribe any actions they performed in that state to God, not to themselves. Their worship was made up, then, of a kind of speculative prayer, requiring no particular time or set of formulations. They left it up to each person to determine those things for himself, according to his level of knowledge. For the most part, people chose the times that had been established for public worship. But during these services they practiced the aforementioned self-overcoming, immersing themselves so profoundly in the idea [222] of divine perfection that they lost touch with all else, even their own bodies, to the point where, according to their own accounts, their bodies would be completely insensible. Because achieving such a state of disembodiment is no easy matter, they would use all kinds of physical measures, such as swaying and yelling, to put themselves into that state.10 They would remain in the state for the whole prayer session, reentering it whenever other ideas intruded upon their focus.11 It was funny to watch how often they interrupted their prayers with all kinds of strange noises and bizarre movements (from their point of view, these were threats and invectives against their enemy, that pest Satan, who was always trying to interrupt their praying). It was also funny to see how their prayers demanded so much effort that at the end, they would often collapse from exhaustion. However well founded such worship may be, it cannot be denied that it has been much [223] abused. The cheerfulness of the soul resulting from inner activity occurs only according to the degree of knowledge attained. Self-annihilation before God is justified only when one’s intellectual capacities are so concentrated on their object—on account of its size—that one exists outside oneself, or purely in the object. If one’s intellectual capacities are limited with respect to his object, so that he isn’t able to achieve steady progress, then the activity mentioned above will be hindered, rather than facilitated, by focusing on that object alone.12 Because members of the sect went around idly smoking their pipes all day,13 some rather simple ones were asked what they thought about the whole time. They answered, “about God!” This answer would have The original Hasidic practice of ecstatic, loud prayer is still preserved today among the Karliner Hasidim, as well as other groups. 11 The Hasidic ideal was (and is) to avoid “foreign thoughts [‫]מחשבות זרות‬,” which distract the person from concentrating on devotion to God during prayer. 12 In other words, for Maimon, the Hasidim were not entitled to claim the achievement of self-annihilation in God, due to their limited philosophical knowledge. 13 The lulke (pipe) had an important role among the early Hasidim, both in the preparation for prayer, and as a magical tool. See Moshe Idel, Hasidism, Between Ecstasy and Magic. 10

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been satisfying if, in fact, the men in question had been striving ceaselessly to extend their knowledge of the divine perfections through an adequate knowledge of nature. But this couldn’t possibly have been the case, since they had [224] limited knowledge of natural science. And so, directing their actions toward an object that was fruitless (given their capacities) could only be unnatural. Moreover, they could only be justified in ascribing their actions to God if their actions followed from an accurate understanding of God.14 If their actions followed from an incomplete understanding, they would actually be engaging in excessive behavior performed in God’s name. Unfortunately, the latter has proven to be the case. The sect’s rapid expansion—that its new teachings found such resonance with the majority of the nation—is easy to explain. The proclivity for idleness and reflection on the part of people raised from birth to devote themselves to study; the aridity and fruitlessness of rabbinic study; the burden of the ceremonial laws, which the new teachings promise to lessen; and, finally, the longing for ecstasy and the miraculous, both of which the new teachings fostered—these factors suffice to make this phenomenon understandable. [225] At first, the rabbis and the pious people of the old order tried to resist the spread of the sect, which, nevertheless, gained the upper hand. Each side battled against the other, and each attempted to win followers. There was a feeling of unrest in the Jewish nation; opinions were divided. I, for my part, couldn’t understand how the sect actually functioned and thus didn’t know what to make of it. This changed when a young man who had been initiated into the society, and who had had the good fortune to have spoken with its leaders face to face, passed through the place where I was staying. In an attempt to seize this opportunity, I asked the stranger to explain the organization of the society, how one became a member, etc. Still at the first stage of initiation, he knew nothing about the society’s inner organization and could [226] give me no information about that. As to how a person was accepted into the sect, he assured me that this was the simplest thing in the world. Anyone who felt the drive for perfection and didn’t know how to satisfy it or how to overcome the obstacles in his way, needed only turn to one of the leaders, and he was eo ipso a 14 Maimon seems to be charging the Hasidim of not being entitled to the view of themselves as immersed in God, due to their lack of proper philosophical and natural knowledge. In his early manuscript Hesheq Shelomo—written long before he acquired serious knowledge of modern philosophy and science—Maimon too preached self-annhilation in acosmic God, claiming that “only God, may He be blessed, exists, and that nothing but him has any existence at all” (Hesheq Shelomo, p. 139).

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member of the society. He did not even need to confess his moral flaws and misdeeds to the leaders (as is otherwise the custom with medical doctors). After all, these leaders knew everything already. They could see straight into the human heart and discover what was hidden in its most secret folds; they could predict the future; they could make what was far away present. In a further break with tradition, they did not carefully compose their sermons and moral teachings or arrange them according to specific goals. That was how someone regarding himself [227] as an autonomous Being,15 separate from God, would do things. These leaders saw their teachings as divine and, consequently, as infallible—as long as they resulted from the overcoming or annihilation of the self before God. That is, their teachings were infallible as long as they were formulated immediately, ex tempore, without the leaders adding anything of their own.16 The stranger’s description delighted me; so I asked him to share some of these divine teachings. He pressed his hand to his forehead, as though waiting for inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Then he turned to me, and with a solemn expression and arms half sticking out of their sleeves, he started to move more or less as Corporal Trim17 did while reading a sermon. He began to speak as follows: “ ‘Sing to God a new song, His praise in the community of the pious [Hasidim]’ (Psalm 149:1). Our leaders explain this verse as follows: God’s attributes, as those of the most perfect Being, must far surpass the attributes of every limited being. It follows that God’s praise (as an expression of his [228] attributes) surpasses theirs. Until now, God was praised by attributing supernatural abilities to Him: He could discover what was hidden, foretell the future, make things happen merely by willing them, and so forth. Now, though, the Hasidim (i.e., their leaders) are able to perform such supernatural feats, and because God no longer has this advantage over them, it is necessary to find a new form of praise applicable to God alone.” Quite taken with this sensible interpretation of the Holy Scripture, I asked the stranger for more explications of the same kind. He continued, full of spiritual excitement: “ ‘As the player (musician) played, the spirit

“etwas für sich Bestehendes und Wirkendes,” an expression almost synonymous with “substance.” 16 The rejection of pre-planned sermons appears in early Hasidic homilies on Deut. 13:15. See, for example, the interpretation of this verse by R. Moshe Tzvi of Severan in Eliezer Steinman, Be’er ha-Hasidut, p. 119. 17 A character from Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1767), he is a servant who is described as loving to hear himself read. 15

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of God came to him’ (2 Kings 3:15). They interpret this verse as follows: As long as a person considers himself as an independent agent, he will not be able to receive the effect of the Holy Spirit. For that end, he must act as merely an instrument. Thus the meaning of the passage is: When the player [‫—]המנגן‬that is, the servant of God—becomes [229] identical to the instrument [‫]כלי נגן‬, then God’s Spirit will come upon him.(d)18 “Now listen,” the stranger went on, “to the interpretation of this passage from the Mishna: ‘The honor of your neighbor should be as dear to you as your own.’ ”19 “Our teachers explain the passage as follows: Clearly, no one enjoys honoring himself—that would be ridiculous. But it would be just as ridiculous to make too much of the honors that others confer upon us, since such honors do nothing to increase our inner worth. Thus, the passage says, in effect: [230] The honor of your neighbor (the honor your neighbor shows you) should not be any dearer to you than your own (the honor you show yourself).”20 I couldn’t help but admire the high quality of these thoughts, and I was impressed with the ingenious exegesis supporting them.(e) [231] The stranger’s account of the sect fired my imagination; I wanted nothing so much as to have the good fortune to be part of such a praiseworthy

[Maimon] The ingenuity of this explanation comes from the fact that in Hebrew ‫נגן‬ signifies both the infinitive to play as well as a musical instrument. The Hebrew character ‫כ‬ that is used as a prefix can be taken to mean both “when” and “like.” The Hasidic authorities chose this meaning because it fit best with their principle of the annihilation of the self in God, and for this reason they tore these passages from the Holy Scripture out of their context, treating them merely as a vehicle for reinforcing their doctrine. 18 For an insightful discussion and documentation of this teaching in the writings of R. Uziel Meizlish, the disciple of the Maggid, see Weiss, “Al Drush,” p.97, and Weiss, Studies, pp. 71–73. 19 Mishna, Avot, 2:10. 20 For a documention of this teaching in the writings of one of the disciples of the Maggid, see Assaf “Torot ha-Maggid.” e [Maimon] Though I am no Christian, I believe, in view of this latter circumstance, that I don’t need to be ashamed of admiring the following explanation of a passage from the Book of Ezekiel (44:1–2), which was written by a Catholic theologian. The passage reads as follow: “And it [the spirit of God] led me to the gate of the highest holiness, which faces foreward, and the gate was closed. And the Lord said to me: This gate should remain closed, and no one should enter. For the Lord, the God of Israel, comes through here. It should remain closed.” According to this exegete, the passage should be seen as an allegory of the mother Maria. One must concede that there cannot be a better interpretation of the passage. One sees from this what sort of influence the passions have on the capacity to understand, and how enthusiasm can be witty. Here every expression fits, “the gate of the highest holiness, which faces foreward,” and “was closed. This gate should remain closed and no one should enter. For the Lord, the God of Israel, comes through here.” Excellent! Who fails to recognizes here Mother Maria and her attributes? d

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group. And so, I decided to travel to M., where the leader B.21 was. I awaited the end of my work obligations, which was coming up in just a few weeks, with the greatest impatience. Instead of going home, I began my pilgrimage as soon as I had received my wages, though my home was only two miles away. The journey lasted several weeks. Finally, I arrived safely in M. After resting a while, I went to the leader’s house, hoping to be introduced to him immediately. I was told that he couldn’t speak with me just yet. But I was invited to share a meal with him on the Sabbath together with other guests, who had also come to visit him. I would then have the good fortune of speaking with the holy man in person and [232] hearing the most exalted teachings directly from his mouth. In other words, our meeting would be open to others, but it would have individual parts meant just for me, and I should therefore consider it as a special audience. I arrived on the Sabbath for the festive meal and found that a large number of important men from all over the region had gathered for the occasion. The great man finally appeared, cutting an impressive figure, dressed as he was in a white Atlas robe. Even his shoes and his tobacco container were white (among Kabbalists white is the color of grace). He gave each one of the arrivals a Schalam; that is, the great man greeted each of them. We sat down to eat, and a solemn silence reigned during the meal. After we had finished, the leader sang a celebratory, spiritually uplifting melody. He held his hand in front of his forehead for a few moments, then began to call: “Z. from H.! M. from R.! S. M. from N.!”—the names and places of residence of all the new arrivals, [233] something that astonished us more than a little. Each one of us was asked to recite a verse from the Holy Scripture. We did this. Thereupon the leader began to give a sermon, taking the verses we had recited as the text. Even though they were completely unconnected verses from different books of the Holy Scripture, he linked them together with such artistry that they seemed to 21 That is, Rabbi Dov Ber ben Avraham Friedman, the Great Maggid (preacher) of Mezritch, who is generally regarded by historians as the first theoretician and institional founder of Hasidism. He died in 1772, approximately two years after Maimon’s visit. The account that follows is the only external first-hand account of the Maggid’s court, and thus historically invaluable. Although Maimon writes with frank skepticism and is contextualizing the Hasidim within his own theory of secret societies and the history of religion, all of the teachings, doctrines, and practices (including the misogyny described below) he mentions can be independently verified, as has been noted, most recently, by David Assaf, “The Teachings of Dov Ber of Mezritch in Solomon Maimon’s Autobiography,” Zion 71 [Hebrew].

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form a single whole. Even more extraordinary was that each of us felt the part of the sermon dealing with his verse contained something referring directly to his own pressing personal concerns. Naturally, we were amazed. Before long, however, I began to change my opinion of both the leader in particular and the entire society in general. I noticed that their ingenious exegeses were actually, at bottom, wrong, and also that they were restricted to their extravagant principles (self-dissolution, etc.). Once you’d heard one of these interpretations, [234] you heard nothing new from the rest. Furthermore, there were natural explanations for all of their so-called miraculous works. Using physiognomy and cleverly posed questions to get at the secrets of the heart, and drawing on informationgatherers, spies, and a certain degree of perceptiveness, they were able to gain a reputation among the common people for prophetic insights. I found the combination of cynicism and extreme cheerfulness offputting, and I began to dislike the sect intensely. On one occasion, we had gathered in the leader’s house at the hour of prayer. A member of the society arrived somewhat late; the others asked what had kept him. He replied that his wife had given birth to a daughter that night. The others congratulated him loudly. When the supreme leader came out of his study and asked what all the noise was about, the men said they were congratulating P., whose wife had just brought a baby girl [235] into the world. But the leader rejoined in a tone of displeasure: “A daughter! Whip him.”(f) Poor P. didn’t want to go along with the order. He couldn’t understand why he should do penance because his wife had given birth to a girl. But there was nothing he could do. He was restrained, placed across a door stoop, and harshly whipped. The whipping put everyone—except the victim—in a good mood. Then, with the following words, the leader admonished the group to pray: “Now, brothers, serve God with joy!”22 This is just one example of the behavior that caused me to feel about the sect as I did.23 I did not want to stay there any longer. Having received blessings from the leader, I took my leave. I returned home with the intention of abandoning the society forever. Now let me say something about the structure of the society. [236]

[Maimon] Like all uncivilized people, these men were contemptuous of the opposite sex. Ps. 100:2. 23 On the playful nature of this incident, see David Assaf, “ ‘Girl? He Should be Whipped.’ The Hasid as Homo Ludens.” f

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In my experience, the leaders of this sect can be divided into four types: the smart ones, the cunning ones, the strong ones,(g) and the good ones. The highest type, ruling over all the others, is naturally that of the smart ones. These are enlightened men who have acquired a deep knowledge of human weaknesses and motivations, and who early on [237] recognized the truth that intelligence is better than strength. For strength partly depends on intelligence, but intelligence does not depend on strength. However strong a person may be, his effectiveness is still limited if that is all he has. But linking intelligence with psychological knowledge, or insight into the best possible way to use and direct one’s powers, makes these powers infinitely stronger. Thus, the smart ones have focused on the art of controlling free men: using others’ will and powers in such a way that others think they are furthering only their own interests through their actions, when in fact they are working in the smart leaders’ interests, too. This kind of control can be achieved only through a systematic combination and organization of powers, whereby the slightest tapping on this organ brings about enormous effects. There is no fraud or evil manipulation here, because the system presupposes that these actions are the best way for the other people to achieve their goals as well. [238] The cunning ones, too, use the will and strength of others to achieve their own goal. But because they are more shortsighted and impetuous than the smart ones, they often try to achieve their goals at the expense of others. Thus, their artfulness consists not only of carefully concealing the attainment of their own goals, which the smart ones do as well, but also of carefully concealing from other people their failure to achieve their own goals. [Maimon] I have met one person of this type. He was a young man of about twentytwo years old with a weak constitution and a pale, haggard face. He travelled throughout Poland as a missionary. In his face was something so terrifying and intimidating that he was able to use facial expressions to order people around despotically. Wherever he went, he asked about how the community was organized. He condemned those aspects of its organization that displeased him, and established new modes of organization, which were kept in force down to the smallest detail. The elders in the community, mostly old, formidable men whose erudition was much greater than his, trembled in his presence. A great scholar, who did not want to accept the infallibility of these high leaders, was seized by such a terror upon getting a threatening look from the young man, that he fell into a fever that eventually killed him. The young man achieved such extraordinary courage and resolve through early training in stoicism. {The figure described was apparently Rabbi Aharon ben Yaakov of Karlin (1736–72), founder of the Karlin-Stolin Hasidic dynasty who was known for the forcefulness of his personality. Rabbi Aharon visited Maimon’s hometown of Nesvizh, and was said to have forced the community to adopt regulations protecting the poor. However, during that visit, Rabbi Aharon would have been about thirty years old, not twenty-two, but he is generally described as having had a fragile appearance .—Editors} g

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The strong are men who hold sway over the weakness of others through a moral strength that is either inborn or acquired—typically they use a strength seldom found in others, for example, the ability to control all passions except for those that one has made into the goal of his actions. The good are weak men whose knowledge translates only feebly into willpower. They achieve their goals not by controlling others but by letting themselves be controlled. The smart ones are the highest class, because they understand the others, while not being understood by them. So, naturally, the smart ones are able to control the others. [239] They enlist what is useful in the cunning ones and render their other characteristics harmless, tricking the cunning ones into believing themselves to be the deceivers when actually they have been deceived. The smart ones use the strong as well to achieve important goals; at the same time, they deploy smaller forces in combination against the strong ones to rein them in when necessary. Finally, the smart ones make use of the good ones, not only as a means of directly achieving their own goals, but also as a way of getting others to do their bidding. The smart ones hold up these weak good men as a model of submission worth imitating, and thereby preempt any obstacles that would otherwise arise from the independent action of the others. This highest class commonly begins with stoicism and ends with a refined Epicureanism. Its members consist of the early Hasidim, that is, the pious ones devoted to carrying out religious and moral laws and also to controlling their desires and passions. But [240] because, unlike actual stoics, they regard stoicism not as an end in itself, but rather as simply a means to the highest human end, namely, happiness, they do not stop at stoicism. Once they have acquired as much stoicism as is needed to achieve their goal, they hurry to the goal itself, i.e., the pleasure of happiness. The strict stoicism they practice enhances and ennobles their experience of pleasure, something that becomes increasingly dulled among vulgar Epicureans. The higher ones have also cultivated an ability to defer every pleasure until they have been able to determine its true value, which is not the case with vulgar Epicureans.24 It may be that the stoicism of the highest class stems from a certain temperament, and only afterward, through an act of self-deception, did it come to be an ascribed way of carrying oneself. This trick of vanity then gave those in the highest class the courage to actually do what they had credited themselves with, and their success has made them even bolder. [241]

24 Maimon’s description of this “highest class” of Hasidim is somewhat reminiscent of Spinoza’s ideal of the “free man” described at the end of part 4 of Spinoza’s Ethics.

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Still less should we conclude that the leaders (who are not true men of learning) arrived at their system by using their reason. It is much likelier that they were prompted by, in the first place, temperament and, second, by religious ideas. They arrived at a clear understanding and application of the system in all its purity only after the fact. Thus, this sect was a kind of secret society (with respect to both its purpose and its means). If not for the extreme behavior of some of its members, which exposed its weak points and gave ammunition to its enemies, the sect might well have gained control over the whole nation, producing what would have been one of its greatest revolutions. Some members, wanting to present themselves as true cynics, violated all rules of propriety. They ran around naked in public streets, relieved themselves in front of other people, and so on. Extemporizing, in accord with their principle of dissolving the self, [242] they made all kinds of foolish, incomprehensible, and confused statements in their sermons. Some drove themselves insane, to the point of believing that they no longer existed. Finally, there was their pride and their hatred of anyone who didn’t belong to their sect. They were especially contemptuous of rabbis, who certainly had their faults, but who were also far more diligent and useful than these ignorant idlers. Eventually, people discovered their shortcomings and began to disrupt their gatherings and persecute them. This was accomplished, above all, thorough the authority of a famous rabbi whom the Jews greatly esteemed: Elias of Vilna.25 It was done so thoroughly that one now seldom finds traces of the society.26 [243]

Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon (1720–97), the famous Vilna Gaon who signed the antiHasidic excommunications of 1772. There is an interesting tradition that Maimon and the Vilna Gaon actually met and argued, but this is unlikely (if for no other reason than that Maimon would have enjoyed telling the story). See Yehoshua Heschel Levin’s hagiography of the Gaon Aliyot Eliyahu (Warsaw, 1859), pp. 31b–32b, fn. 34. 26 Maimon’s pronouncement of the death of Hasidism was, of course, premature. In the following century, Hasidism was the dominant religious movement of East European Jewry. Yet, Maimon’s judgment is not groundless. The end of the eighteenth century was a crucial interim period in which the leadership of the movement was uncertain, especially after the immigration of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk to Palestine in 1777, five years after the death of the Great Maggid. 25

Chapter 20

Continuation of the Story, as well as Some Thoughts on Religious Mysteries

Since I just mentioned secret societies, this is, to my mind, the best place to offer the intelligent reader my thoughts on mysteries in general and on the mysteries of religion in particular.1 Mysteries as such are a true—or true-seeming—kind of ground and consequence relation between objects of nature, insofar as a person cannot discover that relation through the natural use of his intellectual or perceptual powers. Eternal truths, that is, the necessary relations of objects grounded in the nature of our knowledge capacities, [244] are not, in this way of thinking, mysteries. For however little known such relations may be, anyone can discover them through the use of his knowledge capacities. On the other hand, the effects of sympathy, antipathy, medical conditions, and such things, which some people come to accidentally, and confirm through observations and experiments, are true mysteries of nature. Others would not discover them through their powers of observation, but only due to the same sort of accident, or else from the teachings of those who already discovered them. If such mysteries cannot be confirmed through observation and experiment, believing in them counts as superstition. Religion is a pact between a human being and another moral being of the highest kind. It presupposes a natural relationship between humans and a higher moral being, so that [245] both sides further their interests through the mutual fulfilling of the pact. If this natural (not merely arbitrary or arranged) relationship is true, and if it underlies the reciprocal obligations of those who have entered into the pact, then it is a true natural religion. If not, it is a false one. 1 Maimon is referring to, or playing on, multiple meanings of the word “Geheimnis,” which can denote both secret and mystery. His discussion throughout this chapter is of a piece with contemporary discussions of Egyptian mysteries as a model for Enlightenment secret societies. On this eighteenth-century discourse, see Jan Assman, From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt and Religious Change (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 2014), ch. 6.

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If this reciprocal obligation between a human being and a higher being (or his representative) is formally laid out, the religion is a positive or revealed religion. True religion—natural as well as revealed—which Judaism represents, as I have mentioned, consists, at first, of a tacit contract, and later an explicit contract, between certain people and the Highest Being, who appears to the patriarch in person (in dreams or prophetic visions) and makes his will known. That is, he makes known both the rewards of obeying his will and the punishment for disobedience. Afterwards, a contract is put into effect with the agreement of both sides. In the case of the Judaism, [246] this Highest Being later renewed the contract with the Israelites in Egypt through His representative, Moses, and defined the reciprocal obligations more precisely. Both sides then confirmed the new arrangement on Mount Sinai. I need not tell the intelligent reader that this idea of a pact between God and man is meant as an analogy and that it is not to be taken literally. The most Supreme Being can reveal himself only as an idea of reason. What revealed itself to the patriarchs and prophets visually—in an anthropomorphic way, which accorded with their powers of understanding—was not the most Supreme Being itself, but rather His representative (its sensuous image). The contract that the Supreme Being enters into with man does not have as its purpose a mutual satisfaction of needs, for the Supreme Being has no needs and the contract does not meet man’s needs. Rather, man’s needs are met through observing the relationships, based upon natural laws, between himself and [247] other objects of nature. Thus, this pact can be grounded only in the nature of reason, without reference to any goals. As I see it, the main difference between paganism and Judaism is that the latter is grounded in formal, absolutely necessary laws of reason, whereas the former (even if based on the nature of things and thus real) is grounded in material and thus contingent laws of nature, which necessarily results in polytheism. Each particular cause is personified through the power of imagination—that is, each cause is represented as a moral being and made into a particular god. In the beginning, this practice was merely a kind of empiricism. But over time, people realized that the causes represented as different gods were in fact interdependent in their effects and even arranged in relation to one another. A system of pagan theology gradually emerged in which each divinity claimed a certain rank and a defined relationship to the others. [248] Judaism, by contrast, has been a system from the beginning; it has always presupposed a unity among natural causes. It thus eventually achieved this purely formal unity, which is solely one of regulative use (for the complete systematic interrelating of all natural phenomena) and

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presupposes knowledge of the diversity of different natural phenomena. But owing to their excessive love of system, as well as to anxieties about preserving the purity of the principle, the Israelites appear to have completely neglected the use of this principle. And thus, they arrived at a pure but very unfruitful religion, useful neither for expanding knowledge nor in practical life. This state of affairs explains not only their constant grumbling about the arbiters of their religion, but also the frequency with which they fall into idolatry. Unlike the enlightened nations of today, they could not pursue the purposeful use of their religion and the purity of principle at the same time; they had to choose between the two. [249] Finally, the Talmudists introduced a purely formal application of religion, which had no real end, thereby exacerbating the situation. According to the intention of its creator, Judaism should have made the Jewish nation the wisest and most rational of all. Through the nonpractical use of Judaism, the nation turned instead into the least wise and least rational. Knowledge of nature, rather than being unified with and subordinated to religious knowledge (as matter to form), is completely neglected, and the principle that has been kept pure remains without application. A religion’s mysteries are objects and actions in accord with that religion’s concepts and tenets. While the inner meaning of religious mysteries is of great importance, their external forms are in some way off-putting, ridiculous, or otherwise repellent. Their exteriors must therefore be concealed from the common people, who cannot see into the interior. What we have here, then, is really a twofold mystery for the common man. [250] The objects and actions are the lesser mysteries, and their inner meaning is the greater one. One example of this kind of mystery was the Ark of the Covenant among the Jews in the Tent of Meeting, and later in the Holy of Holies in the temple. According to the testimony of a famous writer, this Ark was very similar to the holy chest in Adytis.2 Thus we find among the Egyptians the coffin of Apis, which hid a dead cow, of great symbolic meaning but grotesque appearance, from the crude eyes of the masses. In the Ark of the Covenant of the first Temple of Solomon, there were of course merely two tablets, according to the testimony of the Holy Scripture. But I have found a passage in the Talmud about the Ark of the second Temple—the one built after the Babylonian exile—that is too noteworthy not to be mentioned here. Maimon is probably referring to his philosophical rival Karl Leonard Reinhold’s Die hebräischen Mysterien, oder die älteste religiöse Freymaurerey (1787), which, in turn, inspired Friedrich Schiller’s influential essay of 1790 “Die Sendung Moses.” 2

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This account reads as follows: After they had taken possession of the temple, the Jews’ enemies found in the Holy of Holies the image of a man and a woman [251] with bodies intertwined, and they desecrated the holy relic with a vulgar interpretation of its inner meaning.—3 The image was supposed to be a vivid sensuous representation of the union of the nation and the divinity, and it had to be kept out of sight of the common folk to protect it against misuse. The common people would not be able get beyond outward signs and penetrate to interior meanings—hence the practice of hiding the Cherubim behind a curtain. All the mysteries of the ancients were of this type. The greatest of all the mysteries of the Jewish religion, however, is the name Jehova, which expresses pure Being, abstracted from any particular type of being, and without which Being as such cannot be conceived of at all.4 The doctrine of the unity of God and the dependence of all other beings on Him— both the possibility and the actuality of other beings—can be completely understood only within a single system.—5 When Josephus says, in defending the Jews against Apion, [252] that “The first lesson of our religion concerns the divinity, and it teaches that God contains all things and is a completely perfect and blessed Being, as well as the single cause of all beings,”6 I believe his words offer the best explanation there is of a very difficult passage, the one in which Moses says to God: “See! When I go to the children of Israel and say, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask, ‘What is His name?’ what am I to answer?”7 And God replies, “You should tell the children of Israel that Jehova, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent you to Him, for this is my name for all eternity, and it commemorates me at all times.”8 In my opinion, this passage means nothing other than that the ground of Judaism is the unity of God as the immediate cause 3 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma, 54b, quoting Reish Lakish, and cf. Midrash Lamentations Rabbah, ed S. Buber (Vilna, 1899), p. 8. The allegorical interpretation Maimon goes on to assert is consonant with Rabbi Akiva’s allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs as depicting the love between God and Israel. Although Maimon speaks of discovering this text it is alluded to in a crucial passage of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem, op. cit., p. 114, which is also on the nature of religious symbolism, and to whose theory he would appear to be responding here and elsewhere in the Autobiography. 4 See Maimonides, Guide 1:61–63. 5 Maimon seems to be alluding here to Spinoza’s system. Like Maimon, Spinoza too accepted Maimonides’ interpretation of the Tetragrammaton as indicating God’s inner-most essence as pure existence. For Spinoza’s and Maimonides’ interpretation of the Tetragrammaton, see Melamed, “Spinoza’s Deification of Existence” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 6 (2012): 75–104. 6 Josephus, Contra Apion, 2:23. 7 Exod. 3:13. 8 Exod. 3:15.

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of all Being;9 the remarkable inscription on the pyramid at Sais says as much: “I am everything that is, was, and will be; no mortal has lifted my [253] veil.” And the inscription under the pillar of Isis: “I am all that is.”10 For the Talmudists,11 the name Jehova means Schem ha-Ezam (nomen proprium), the name of the Being that God as such is entitled to, without any consideration of His effects.12 The other names of God are appellative, expressing characteristics that He has in common with His creatures, although He has them to a greater degree. For example, Elohim means a lord, a judge, and so forth. El means a potentate. Adonai is a lord. And so, it is with all the rest.13 The Talmudists take this principle so far as to assert that the entire Holy Scripture consists of names for God.14 The Kabbalists used the principle, too. After listing the main properties of God and ordering them within a system (which they named Olam Ezilloth or the Sephiroth), they not only searched the Holy Scripture for an appropriate appellation for each one, but also made all kinds of combinations out of these [254] characteristics, setting them in different contexts and expressing these combinations with similar combinations of the corresponding appellations. Thus, they interpreted the Holy Scripture however they wanted to, finding in the text what they themselves had brought into it. There can also be religious mysteries consisting of the knowledge that this religion, as an enlightened person understands it, has no mysteries at all. Such knowledge can either go with an effort to gradually disabuse the people of mysteries and suppress the so-called minor mysteries by revealing the major ones, or, in contrast, with an effort to maintain the

Here Maimon seems to adopt Spinoza’s claim that the Hebrews were accustomed to ascribe all actions to the first cause, paying little attention to the intermediary causes. See Spinoza, Theological Political Treatise, ch. 1 (3/16–17) and ch. 6 (3/94), and his Compendium of Hebrew Grammar, ch. 12. Cf. Maimonides, Guide 2:48| Pines 2: 409–12. 10 The saying is quoted by Schiller in the essay mentioned above (he also wrote a famous poem about it), and most famously by Kant, who says in the Critique of Judgment, sec. 49, that the inscription at Sais is “perhaps the most sublime thing ever said.” 11 See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah, 38s: “My name—the name that is peculiar to Me.” 12 See Maimonides, Guide 1:61 | Pines 1:147. 13 See Maimonides, Guide 1:61 | Pines 1:147 and Guide 1:63 | Pines 1:155–56. 14 This is, in fact, a mystical tradition most famously proclaimed by the thirteenthcentury Talmudist and kabbalist Moses Nachmanides who read the doctrine back into earlier rabbinic texts. In his introduction to his commentary on Genesis, he writes: “the whole Torah is comprised of names of the Holy One, blessed be He. And the letters of the words separate themselves into divine names when divided in a different manner.” The classic modern discussion of this and related ideas is Gershom Scholem, “The Name of God and the Linguistic Theory of the Kabbala,” Daedalus. (For a possible Talmudic source for this teaching, see Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot, 21a.) 9

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small mysteries among the people by making preservation of the minor mysteries a purpose of the major ones. In the spirit of its creator, Judaism is of the former type. Both Moses and the prophets who followed him unfailingly [255] stressed that external ceremonies are not the purpose of religion; its purpose, rather, is knowledge of the true God as the single ineffable cause of all things and the exercise of virtue according to the mandates of reason. Pagan religions, by contrast, show obvious signs of being of the second type. Still, I am not inclined to believe, as some are, that everything is intentionally set up in Paganism to be deceptive. I believe that the founders of these religions were in many cases deceived deceivers, and I think that this perspective is much more in line with human nature. Nor can I imagine that any intentionally deceptive secret plans could have been passed down from generation to generation through a formal tradition. What would be the point? Don’t more recent generations have the same ability to formulate practical designs that earlier ones had? There have been princes who never read Machiavelli and yet succeeded brilliantly at putting his principles into practice. [256] I am convinced that the Society of the Pious15 described in the last chapter had few if any links to freemasons or other secret societies. But one can speculate. What matters is the degree of probability. In my estimation, every state contains societies that are in essence secret, but whose outward appearance suggests otherwise. Every group with a common interest is, for me, a secret society. However well known their aims and main operations may be, the most important ones remain hidden from non-initiates. There are good things and bad things to say about them, just as about all secret societies, and so as long as they don’t cause too much trouble, they will be tolerated. The Society of the Pious had more or less the same goal as the orders of the illuminati in Bavaria and made use of nearly the same means. Their goal was to infiltrate a people wandering in the dark;16 [257] to do so, they used superstition in a remarkable way. They sought to attract young people, for the most part. Marshaling a kind of empirical knowledge of human nature, they tried to form each person into what nature had destined him to be and steer him into the right position. Every member of the society knew just enough about its aims and organization to be able to see his subordinates behind him, not his superiors in front of him. These superiors knew the art of communicating truths of reason to their subordinates through exalted images, and also that of turning

15 16

That is, the Hasidim. This is a Maimonidean trope.

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sensuous images into truths of reason. One might almost say that they could speak the language of animals17—a very important art, indispensible for any teacher of the people. By doing away with melancholic piety, they won the hearts of the happy and energetic young. The principle of selfannihilation that they taught is, understood correctly, [258] no different than the foundation of self-activity. The principle dislodges all other modes of thinking and acting, which, established through education, habituation, and discussions, undermine productive human activity, and the principle also clears the way to a free mode of activity suited to the individual. In fact, this is the only way moral and aesthetic feeling can be achieved and perfected.18 It is harmful only if misunderstood, as I have tried to show using this society as an example. [259]

17 Maimon’s irony here is especially pointed because the Baal Shem Tov (and a few other early Hasidic masters) were said to know the language of animals, birds, and trees. See In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov [Shivhei ha-Besht], 242–44. 18 Maimon once again endorses what he takes to be the chief teaching of Hasidism, i.e., the self-anihilation of the I, and its submersion in an acosmic God. It is this bold Hasidic doctrine that he planted in German philosophical soil.

Chapter 21

Trips to Königsberg, Stettin, and Berlin, to Further My Understanding of Humanity

Having grown tired of my work as a tutor, I quit and was now on my own. My material situation quickly grew desperate. Nor was I in any position to satisfy my desire for systematic and scientific knowledge where I was living. So I decided to go to Germany to study medicine and other sciences. Now the question became: How I could travel so far? I knew that some merchants in my town would be traveling to Königsberg in Prussia [260] soon. But because they were merely acquaintances, I couldn’t expect them to let me come along at no cost. After much deliberating, I formulated a plan. I had a friend who was a very learned and pious man, greatly esteemed by all the Jews in the town. I told him about my goal, and I asked him for advice. I laid out my material circumstances, explaining that because I had dedicated myself to understanding God and his works, I was no longer suited for most normal occupations. What I especially impressed upon him was that I been supporting myself as an instructor of the Holy Scripture and the Talmud, which, according to the edicts of several rabbis, shouldn’t really be permitted. This was why I wanted to study medicine, a profane art; moreover, I would be helping not only myself in doing so, but also all of the Jews in the region. There was no real doctor in the area, and those who [261] presented themselves as such were the most ignorant barbers whose “cures” were often fatal. My reasoning had an extraordinary effect on this pious man. He sought out one of the merchants—he knew them all—and conveyed the importance of my strivings. He prevailed upon the merchant to take me with him to Königsberg and even to pay my way. The merchant could not refuse the request of such a righteous man. And so I traveled to Königsberg with this Jewish merchant. When I arrived there, I visited H., the local Jewish doctor, told him of my intention to study medicine, and asked him for advice and support. He was busy with his work and had no time for a proper conversation. In addition, he couldn’t understand me very well. His solution was to send

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me to talk with some of the students who were living as lodgers in his house. When I revealed my ambitions to these young men, they [262] had a good laugh—and why not? Imagine a Polish-Lithuanian man of twentyfive or so, outfitted with an extremely thick beard and torn, filthy clothing, speaking a grammatically deficient mix of Hebrew, Yiddish-German, Polish, and Russian, and presenting himself as capable of understanding German and being knowledgeable in several fields of scholarship. What were these young men to think? They began to have some fun at my expense. They handed me Mendelssohn’s Phaedon, which had happened to be lying on a table, and said that I should read from it.1 I read pitifully (as a result of how I had taught myself German, as well as because of my bad accent), and laughter broke out once more. Still, they asked me to explain what I had read. I did so in my customary style. Since they couldn’t understand me, the young men told me to translate what I had read into Hebrew. [263] This I did on the spot. The students, who understood Hebrew, were astonished. They now saw that I had not only comprehended the words of the famous author, but was also capable of expressing them effectively in Hebrew. Thus they began to take an interest in me. During my stay in Königsberg, they gave me food and old clothes. They gave me advice as well, suggesting that I should go to Berlin, where I would have the best chance of realizing my goal. They recommended that I travel from Königsberg to Stettin by ship, the most practical course in light of my circumstances. It would be easy to get from Stettin to Frankfurt an der Oder, and from there to Berlin. And so I went by ship, with nothing more to eat than some toasted bread, a few herrings, and a flask of brandy. The young students had said that the journey would last ten days—two weeks at most. This prophecy would prove false. [264] Due to unfavorable winds, the trip took five weeks. It isn’t hard to imagine the conditions I had to endure. Aside from the crew and me, there was only one other passenger on the ship: a woman who incessantly sang spiritual songs to console herself. I understood as little of the crew’s Pomeranian-German as they did of my Polish-YiddishLithuanian. Not once did I get to enjoy a warm meal. And I had to sleep 1 Phädon was first published by Moses Mendelssohn in 1767, approximately three years before this incident, and was an instant success. The book was a kind of adaptation of the Platonic dialogue Phaedo, which updated its arguments for the immortality of the soul in modern philosophical terms, earning Mendelssohn the sobriquet “the Socrates of Berlin.” Koenigsberg was an early center for the Haskala, in part because Jews were allowed to attend the university (Markus Herz, for instance, studied medicine there).

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in a storage room on full, hard sacks. On top of all that, the ship was in danger several times. Naturally, I was seasick more often than not. We arrived, finally, in Stettin. I was told that from there to Frankfurt an der Oder was a short walk. But if you are a Polish Jew in the most desperate shape, without a penny to buy food and unable to understand the local language, how can you manage any trip, even just a couple of miles? [265] But it had to be done. I left Stettin, and then, overwhelmed by the thought of how miserable my situation was, I sat down beneath a linden tree and began to weep bitterly. However, my despair soon abated. I summoned my courage and began walking on. After a few miles, I arived at an inn, utterly exhausted—this was around evening. It happened to be the day before the Jewish day of fasting that comes in August.2 My situation was as sad as any you could imagine. I was dying of hunger and thirst, and I was supposed to spend all of the next day fasting. I didn’t have a penny to my name or anything of value to sell. After brooding for a long time, I finally realized that in my travel sack I still had the iron spoon I had brought onboard the ship. I took out the spoon and asked the innkeeper to accept it in exchange for some bread and beer. At first he refused, but after a lot of pleading on my part, he agreed to give me a glass of sour beer for [266] the spoon. Having no real options, I accepted the deal. I drank my glass of beer and went out to the stalls to sleep in the hay. In the morning, I continued my journey. First, though, I asked where the Jews lived, so that I could go to a synagogue and be among my brothers, singing lamentations about the destruction of Jerusalem. This is what I in fact did. Around midday, after the praying and singing, I sought out the local Jewish schoolmaster and struck up a conversation. Recognizing that I was a full rabbi, he took an interest in me. He arranged for me to get my dinner that evening from a Jew, and he gave me a letter of introduction to take to the schoolmaster in the next town, describing me as a great Talmudist and honorable rabbi. There, too, I was received rather well. The most respected and wealthiest Jew in the town invited me to join him for the Sabbath meal. When I went to the synagogue, I was given the best [267] place. And I was shown all the signs of honor to which a rabbi is entitled. After the service, the wealthy Jew brought me to his home, and gave me the best seat at his table—namely, between himself and his daughter. She was about twelve years old and had done herself up beautifully. 2 That is, the 9th of Av, commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.

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I began to hold forth as a rabbi, delivering a very learned and edifying discourse. And the less the gentleman and the madam understood of what I said, the more divine the discourse seemed. Suddenly, I noticed to my dismay that the girl’s face had twisted into a disagreeable expression. At first, I didn’t understand why, but when I turned my gaze to myself—and to my filthy, shabby beggar’s clothes—the mystery was solved. She had good reason to be upset. How could she not be? I hadn’t once put on a fresh shirt [268] since leaving Königsberg about seven weeks earlier; I had been compelled to sleep at inns on the same bare straw that who knows how many other poor people had slept on; and so on. Now that my eyes had been opened, I saw the awful extent of my wretchedness. But what should I do? How could I get myself out of this execrable state? Feeling troubled and sad, I took my leave of these good people and continued on my way to Berlin. All the while, I had to struggle against every kind of privation and misery. At last, I reached the city. Here I would be able to solve my problems and realize my dreams, or so I believed. Alas, I was sadly mistaken. As is well known, Jewish beggars are not tolerated in Berlin, so the local Jewish community had built a house at the Rosenthaler gate where the poor would be taken in and Jewish [269] elders could find out about their circumstances. Depending on the result of the interview, the poor arrivals were either granted entrance into the city—if they were sick or looking for work—or sent on. I, too, was taken to this house, filled partly with sick people, partly with indolent rabble. It took a while for me to find someone I could discuss my situation with. Finally, I noticed a man who, judging by his clothes, must have been a rabbi. I went up to him and was overjoyed to discover that he was, in fact, a rabbi, quite well known in Berlin. We talked about all kinds of things, and since I am a very candid person, I told him about the path my life had taken in Poland. I also revealed that I intended to study medicine in Berlin, showed him my commentary on the More Newochim, etc. He noted all this and seemed quite [270] interested in me. But then, he abruptly disappeared. The Jewish elders finally arrived around evening. Everyone present was called before them and asked why he had come to the city. When it was my turn, I said quite openly that I wanted to live in Berlin in order to study medicine. The elders immediately rejected my request, handed me a penny to buy bread, and moved on. The reason why was none other than the following. The rabbi I spoke of earlier was an orthodox zealot. After he had gotten a sense of my ideas and plans, he went into the city and told the elders about my heretical convictions. I was planning, after all, to publish a new

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edition of the More Newochim outfitted with my commentary, and not only did I want to study and practice medicine, I also wanted to immerse myself in the study of science and broaden my knowledge. [271] Orthodox Jews regard this last objective as dangerous, potentially harmful to both religion and good morals. They were convinced that I was especially at risk, being one of those Polish rabbis who, rescued by a happy accident from the slavery of superstition and perceiving the light of reason, have suddenly cast off their chains. This is a well-founded fear, at least to some extent. Such rabbis are like people who have long been starving and then happen upon a table decked out with good things to eat. They will greedily dig in and gorge themselves until they are overstuffed. Being refused permission to stay in Berlin left me thunderstruck. Just when I was so close to it, the way to the ultimate fulfillment of all my hopes and wishes was suddenly blocked. I felt like Tantalus.3 And I didn’t know what to do. The way the man in charge of the poor house treated me was especially hard to take. Acting on instructions from his superiors, he insisted on a speedy departure and [272] did not let up until he saw me outside the gate. Once there, I threw myself on the ground and began to cry bitterly. It was a Sunday, and as on most Sundays, many people were strolling outside the gate. Most of them paid no attention to the wailing worm. But to a few sympathetic souls, I was a conspicuous sight. They asked me why I was so despondent. I answered them, but they couldn’t understand me, in part because of my unintelligible language and in part because of all the interruptions resulting from my weeping and sobbing. I was so shattered that I became ill with a high fever. The soldier on guard reported this to the poor house, and the man in charge came out and brought me back inside. I stayed there overnight, hoping only that my illness would take a turn for the worse. That way, I could force them to let me stay in the house for a long time, during [273] which I would get to know a number of people. Through their patronage, I might obtain permission to live in Berlin—these were my hopes. Alas, they were false ones. The next day, I woke up feeling healthy and free of fever. And so I had to leave. But where was I to go? I had no idea. I set off down the first road I came to, putting myself in the hands of fate. [274]

In Greek mythology, Tantalus was, of course, condemned to stand beneath a tree whose fruit always eluded his grasp. As with Maimon’s other classicisms the reference is straightforward and should be contrasted with the subtlety and erudition of his rabbinic allusions. 3

Chapter 22

My Misery Reaches Its Nadir. Rescue

That evening, I came to an inn where I met a poor wanderer, a Jewish beggar by profession (ex professo). I was very excited to meet one of my fellow brothers, whom I could talk to, and who knew the area very well. I decided to wander around the region in his company as a way of keeping myself alive, even though you couldn’t find two people more different than we were. I was a learned rabbi; he was an idiot. I had supported myself in a respectable manner up until that point; he was a professional beggar.1 I had ideas about morality, propriety, and respectability; he knew nothing of such things. Finally, I was physically healthy but also rather weak; he [275] was a strong, well-built fellow who would have made an excellent soldier. Notwithstanding all these differences, I joined him, for I was now forced to roam around in a foreign land to survive. During our wanderings, I tried to impart something of my ideas about religion and true morality, while he instructed me in the art of begging. He taught me the most commonly used expressions and made a point of recommending that I hurl abuse at anyone who turned down my requests. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t put his teachings into practice. The lines that beggars used struck me as silly. I thought that when you are reduced to asking others for help, you should describe your condition quite simply. As for cursing, I couldn’t understand why someone who refuses another’s request deserves to be insulted. I also thought that verbally abusing people would only make them more hostile toward us, and thereby make our goal even harder to attain. [276] So when I went begging with my companion, I acted as though I were asking and cursing just he did, but in truth I didn’t speak a single comprehensible word. When I went out alone, I didn’t know what to say. But just by looking at my face and appearance, people could see what I was lacking. Occasionally, my companion would scold me for being such a poor student, and I would accept his reproaches with great patience. On such Jewish beggars (betteljuden), who were not uncommon at the time, see Moses Shulvass, From East to West: The Westward Migration of Jews from Eastern Europe during the 17th and 18th Centuries (Wayne State University Press, 1971), pp. 79–125. 1

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We spent almost six months this way, wandering around a district of only a few square miles. We decided in the end to make Poland our destination. Upon arriving in Posen, we stopped at the Jewish poor house, which was run by a destitute tailor. Here I resolved to put an end to my wandering—whatever the cost. It was fall, and the cold weather was setting in. Since I was barefoot and practically naked, this wouldn’t be good for my health, which hadn’t been holding up well. Proper [277] meals were out of the question for us. Instead I had been making do with moldy bread scraps and water. I had to spend the nights on old straw, sometimes even on the ground. In addition to all that, the Jewish holy days and days of penance were approaching. Being still very religious back then, I could not stand the thought of not observing these days while others were using them for the benefit of their souls. I decided not to go any farther. If left with no other choice, I would lie down in front of the synagogue and either die there or arouse the sympathy of my fellow Jews, who would save me from my suffering. And so when my companion woke up the next morning, got ready to go begging, and told me to do the same, I said that I wouldn’t. When he asked me how I planned to support myself, all I could answer was: “God will help me.” [278] I went to the Jewish school, and there I met several young students. They were studying, but partly also taking advantage of their teacher’s absence and playing games. I, too, picked up a book. Some of the students noticed my odd clothing. They approached me and asked me where I was from, as well as why I had come to the school. When I answered in my Lithuanian language, they laughed and mocked me. But this treatment didn’t drive me away. Having remembered that a chief rabbi from my region had been named chief rabbi in Posen a few years earlier, and had brought along a good friend of mine as a scribe, I inquired about my friend. I was sad to learn that he was no longer in Posen. The chief rabbi had been made chief rabbi in Hamburg, and my friend had gone with him once again. However, my friend had left his twelve-year-old son with the current [279] chief rabbi, who was the sonin-law of the former chief rabbi.2 2 Maimon had been looking for Rabbi Raphael Kohen with whom he will later have a climactic confrontation in Altona, below bk. 2, ch. 14, pp. 219–20. The rabbi of Posen at the time was Rabbi Hirsch Janow (1733–85), who was known as “Hirsch Harif” (sharp or clever Hirsch), and thus well equipped to appreciate Maimon’s rabbinic acuity, though Janow was known as an opponent of Haskala, who opposed Mendelssohn’s controversial German translation of the Bible and accompanying commentary.

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While this news was more than a little disheartening, what the boys said about my friend’s son gave me a bit of hope. I asked where the new chief rabbi lived and went to his house. Because I was nearly naked, I was too embarrassed to enter. Instead, I waited outside until I saw someone going into the house. I asked him to be so kind as to ask my friend’s son to come out. The boy recognized me at once, though he was amazed to see me in such a deplorable state. I said that now wasn’t the time to recount all the misfortunes that had left me in such sad shape; the question was what could he do to alleviate my suffering? He agreed and approached the chief rabbi, introducing me as a great scholar and pious man who, due to a series of extraordinary circumstances, now found himself languishing in extreme poverty. [280] The chief rabbi—a fine man, a perceptive Talmudist, and a kind person—was moved by my distress. He summoned me, and we spoke for a long time and discussed some of the most important issues in the Talmud. He found me well versed in all areas of Jewish knowledge. Having formed this impression, he asked me about my plans. I said I hoped to find work as a tutor, but for the moment, I wanted nothing more than to celebrate the holy days and break off my wanderings—at least for a time. The sympathetic rabbi told me not to worry, called my request a small matter, and said I should consider it granted. He then gave me all the money he had with him, invited me to join him for every Sabbath while I was in town, however long that might be, and ordered his boy to arrange for me to have a proper place to stay. The boy soon returned to take me to my new lodgings. [281] Since I had assumed I would be given a bit of space in some poor man’s house, imagine my surprise when I found myself in the house of one of the Jewish elders. They had prepared an excellent room—the elder’s study, for both he and his son were great scholars. I looked around, then walked up to the elder’s wife, pressed a few pennies into her hand, and asked her to make me some porridge for dinner. She smiled at my ingenuousness and said: “No, no, sir, this isn’t our arrangement. The chief rabbi didn’t send you here to make you pay for your porridge.” She explained that I would not only be lodging in her house, but eating and drinking there, too, for as long as I stayed in town. I couldn’t believe this good fortune. I grew even more delighted after dinner, when I was led to a clean bed. It was incredible. I [282] couldn’t believe my eyes, and asked more than once: “Is this really for me?” I can honestly state that never in my life, neither earlier nor later, have I enjoyed the kind of bliss I experienced upon getting into that bed and feeling my body, so exhausted for half a year that it was nearly lifeless, start to regain its former strength.

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I slept until late the next day. As soon as I woke up, the chief rabbi sent someone to look in on me and ask me to come see him. When he inquired as to whether my lodgings were satisfactory, I could find no words to express what I felt. In my ecstasy, I shouted out: “I slept in a bed!” The chief rabbi was greatly pleased. He then sent for the school cantor and said: “H., go buy material for new clothes and bring them to H. S. I’ll take care of the bill.” He turned to me and asked what kind of clothes I wanted. Overcome [283] by gratitude and respect for this excellent man, I couldn’t reply in words. Instead, a torrent of tears served as my answer. The chief rabbi had new underclothes made for me as well. In two days, everything was ready. Wearing clean underclothes and the new clothes, I went to the rabbi to express my gratitude, but I was able to get out only a few broken words. This was a wonderful sight for him. He refused my thanks, telling me that I shouldn’t make so much out of what he had done. It was just a small favor, not worth mentioning. At this point, the reader might be thinking that the chief rabbi was a rich man for whom the money for new clothes was actually a small matter. Let me assure you: This was hardly the case. The rabbi earned only a modest salary. Because he devoted most of his time to study, his wife, who had different views about charity, had to manage his affairs [284] and the household. Thus he had to carry out his acts of generosity without his wife’s knowledge, which meant telling her that others had given him money for the clothes. Moreover, the rabbi’s own way of life was very abstemious. He fasted during the day every day except the Sabbath, and he ate no meat during the week. Still, in order to satisfy his desire to do good works, he had to take on debts. His austere life, with all its studying and working at night, weakened him so much that soon after he was made chief rabbi in Förde (to which a great many of his students followed him), he died young: He was around the age of thirty-six. When I think of this remarkable man, I can’t help but feel deeply moved. I had left a few little things in my previous lodgings at the poor tailor’s, so I went back to pick them up. The poor tailor, his wife, and my former begging companion had heard about my glorious transformation and were eagerly awaiting me. [285] A touching scene! The man who had arrived, just three days earlier, barefoot and nearly naked, whom the destitute inhabitants of the house had seen as human trash, whose own companion, clad in a canvas jacket, treated him with mockery and contempt, now returned, his reputation preceding him, with a cheerful face and dressed like a chief rabbi, a figure worthy of reverence in this shack. They all said how happily surprised they were to see me in such changed circumstances. The tailor’s wife picked up her baby and requested, with

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tears in her eyes, that I bless it. My comrade movingly asked for forgiveness for the rough way he had spoken to me. He said he considered himself lucky to have had such a traveling companion but would be unhappy if I didn’t accept his apology for mistakes committed out of ignorance. I was friendly to all of them. I gave the little one my blessing and my traveling comrade all the money I had. The scene caused a genuine stirring of emotion in me. [286] Meanwhile, my reputation had grown and spread so much that all the scholars in the town sought me out to engage me in debate. This was due to the chief rabbi’s opinion of me, as well as to that of my host, a great scholar who after many disputes and discussions, had come to hold my talent and learning in high esteem. The more the town’s scholars got to know me, the more they respected me. This time was, without a doubt, the happiest and most upstanding period in my life. The young scholars of the town decided to provide me with a salary, in exchange for which I would give lectures on Maimonides’ famous, profound work More Nevochim. This decision was never put into practice, however, because the parents of these scholars were afraid that my lectures might lead their children astray and shake their faith by promoting independent thinking. [287] The parents acknowledged, to be sure, that I remained a pious man and orthodox rabbi, even as I displayed a certain tendency to contemplate religion freely. But they didn’t trust their children to exercise the same sort of judgment. They were worried—perhaps with good reason—that their children would go from one extreme to the other, from superstition to atheism. After I had spent about four weeks here, the man whose house I was living in came to me and said: “Herr S.! Let me make a proposal. If you are inclined to study on your own, you may stay here for as long as you like. But if you want to concentrate on someone other than yourself, if you want to serve the world with your talents, there is a wealthy man—one of the most eminent in town—who has only one son, and who wants more than anything to have you as his son’s tutor. This man is my brother-inlaw. If you don’t want to do it for his sake, then do it for mine—and as a favor to the chief rabbi. [288] My nephew is engaged to a member of the chief rabbi’s family, and the boy’s education means a great deal to him.” I happily accepted. And so it was under advantageous conditions indeed that I became a part of this family as their new tutor, a position I kept for two years, receiving countless honors from the family. No one did a thing in this house without my knowing about it. Everyone greeted me with the greatest displays of respect. It was almost as though they saw me as superhuman. Thus two wonderful years went swiftly by. Yet during this time, some little things happened that should not be left out of my story.

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First, the respect these people harbored for me swelled to such an extent that they wanted to make me into a prophet, despite my protests. This situation came about in the following way. My student was engaged to marry the daughter of a chief rabbi who was the brother-in-law of the chief rabbi in Posen. During the Shavuot holiday, the bride’s aunt and uncle picked up the girl—she was about twelve—and brought her to Posen. While [289] she was visiting, I noticed that she had a very phlegmatic temperament and was quite consumptive. I conveyed my observation to my employer’s brother, making it clear how concerned I was about the girl’s health. Indeed, I believed she would not live long. The girl was sent back to her parents after the holiday; two weeks later, a letter brought the news of her death. After that, it was not only the people in the house where I worked who saw me as a prophet; the whole city did as well. They all believed that I had foretold the girl’s death. Because nothing was farther from my mind than fooling someone, I tried to convince these superstitious people that anyone with some experience in the world could have predicted the girl’s death. But my attempts didn’t help. I had become a prophet, and I had to remain one. The second incident to report was as follows. In one Jewish house, fish would be served for the Sabbath meal every Friday, [290] and on one occasion, the person cutting open the carp thought he heard it utter something. This terrified everyone. The rabbi was asked what to do with a fish that had ventured to talk, and he decreed, in accord with his superstitious outlook, that the fish was possessed by a spirit and should be wrapped in a shroud before being given a splendid burial. This horrible event was a topic of conversation in the house where I was working. Having been able to escape such superstitious ideas thanks to my diligent study of the More Newochim, I laughed heartily and said that if they had sent the carp to me, I wouldn’t have buried it. I would have performed an experiment to discover how talking carps taste.3 This bon mot was soon famous in town. The scholars waxed indignant over it, accused me of heresy, and tried to undermine me in all kinds of In part because the Bible speaks of both fish and the righteous as being “gathered,” when they die, there is a kabbalistic tradition that righteous dead who have committed only minor sins are reincarnated as fish. See, e.g., Rabbi Isaac Komarno (1806–74), who wrote that the Messiah will not come until “a fish is sought for a sick person and cannot be found,” that is, until humanity is sinless, in Morris Faierstein, trans. and ed., Jewish Mystical Visions and Book of Secrets (Paulist Press, 1999), p. 292. For an amusing twenty-first-century reprise of the incident Maimon describes in New Square, New York, see Corey Kilgannon, “Miracle? Dream? Prank? Fish Talks, Town Buzzes” in New York Times, March 15, 2003. 3

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ways. But I commanded as much respect as before in the house where I was working, which rendered their efforts fruitless. [291] Because I felt protected—and because the spirit of fanaticism, rather than scaring me off, spurred me on to additional contemplation—I took things a bit further. I slept through prayer time more often than not, seldom went to synagogue, and so on. In the end, the accumulation of my sins was so great that nothing could prevent me from being the target of censure. At the entranceway to the Jewish community’s house in Posen, there was a stag horn attached to the wall. It had been there since who knows when. All the Jews agreed that if you touched the horn, you would die on the spot, and they could give many examples of such deaths having occurred. But I was not impressed. I laughed at what they said, and when I happened to walk past the stag horn along with some local Jews once, I remarked: “You Posen Jews are such fools. You think that anyone who touches this horn will drop dead. Watch me touch it.” [292] These Jews stared in horror, expecting me to die on the spot. When I didn’t, their fear was transformed into hatred. They saw me as someone who had desecrated the holy temple. Such fanaticism revived my desire to go to Berlin and wipe out whatever was left of my own superstition through enlightenment. Therefore, I asked my employer to let me go. He begged me to stay on longer, and he even promised to shield me from opprobrium and scorn. But my decision was firm. I took leave of my employer and his family, boarded the Frankfurt coach, and went to Berlin. End of the First Part

Preface to the Second Book

Not for my own sake, dearest reader, but rather for yours alone I begin the second part of my autobiography with yet another preface. Its purpose is to convey how to make good use of this book and how to judge it properly. When I say that I didn’t feel inclined to write my autobiography, I am not merely playing some kind of author’s game. Nor did I think that only great men, men of title and rank, should be permitted to recount for the world the affairs of state in which their lives were entangled, the courtly cabals with which they had constantly to wrestle, or their political or military adventures at sea or on land. For what seem to be the most insignificant occurrences of daily life can be in some respects more interesting—and more edifying, too—than such brilliant deeds, which are more or less the same in every case. And so if you know something about the person who has experienced storied events, you will be able to guess what the events were a priori, and to predict them with a high degree of accuracy. Nature is inexhaustible; but the great-man memoir was exhausted a long time ago. The true cause that held me back was merely my awareness of my own inability. The events of my life were psychologically, pedagogically, and morally interesting and edifying enough, but I doubted whether I could depict them in a way that would render them so for readers. Taking only psychological issues into account, I wrote a few autobiographical fragments for the Magazine of Empirical Psychology (Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde).1 They received so much more praise than I had expected that I could no longer resist the demands of my friends, and, most importantly for me, of the editor,2 who wanted me to write my autobiography in its entirety, however imperfectly it might turn out. 1 An influential journal that more or less invented the genre of the psychological case history. For an overview, Mathew Bell, The German Tradition in Literature, Thought and Philosophy, 1700–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), ch. 4. See also p. 239 below. 2 Namely, Karl Philipp Moritz (1756–93), founding editor of the journal in which Maimon published his initial autobiographical fragments and himself the author of the important autobiographical novel Anton Reiser, which was published in four parts (1785–86 and 1790). See Moritz’s brief editorial introduction to Maimon’s autobiography, p. xxxvii above. The actual extent of his editorial involvement in the book has been impossible to determine in the absence of manuscripts.

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I haven’t written this life story in accord with the established rules of good biographies. But I believe I can still justify to you, dear reader, both my plan and the rules that I followed. First, I resolved to be faithful to the truth, in recounting and describing both events and people, regardless of whether it would be advantageous or disadvantageous for me, my family, my people, or my other affiliations. In discussing myself, I wasn’t about to let what passes for modesty, and is really the self-protective mechanism of all worthless people, mislead me into omitting something useful to others just because it reflected positively on me. True modesty does not compel us to conceal our merits as best we can, so that those others who lack them might not feel inferior (how fatal that imperative would be for the destiny of mankind!). It is up to those others to manage such feelings. Rather, modesty demands that we not overestimate our merits, and that after comparing them with the much greater merits of other people, indeed, with the highest perfection of which humans are capable, we reduce them to their true value. Nor, on the other hand, have I yielded to the affectation of infallibility, or tried to leave out or cover up any human failing stemming from my own ignorance and missteps in my upbringing that might serve as a warning to others. As the well-known saying has it: homo sum nihil humanum a me alienum puto.3 I try to treat others with equal justice, portraying their good deeds as models worth imitating and their bad ones without prettification. You will no doubt have noticed, dear reader, that there are three types of people when it comes to describing one’s own perfections and flaws. The first class of people are very philanthropic. They seek to display all the goodness and beauty they can find within themselves for the benefit of others, while taking great care to reserve their perfidy and foolishness for their own use. These are the so-called worldly and educated people. The second type of person does just the opposite of this, keeping their wisdom to themselves and bringing their foolishness out into the open. The third class occupy the middle ground: They afford others the same rights as themselves, revealing whatever the Lord’s blessing has had them bring forth. This class has seldom received its due, especially since the fall from grace. For people are more inclined to see everything from the bad side than the good, and because they deviate so much from a social tone that was once accepted, they generally offer us only fragments with 3 “I am human and nothing of that which is human is alien to me,” the most famous line of the second-century Roman playwright Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, Act 1. This was one of the favorite classical lines of Enlightenment writers, as noted by Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation—The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York, 1966), p. 128.

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which to judge them, rather than an easy overview of the whole. Whoever has the misfortune of belonging to this class will be portrayed by some theologians as a danger to religion; by some politicians as a threat to the peace; and by some doctors as having a disease of the liver.4 The very sight of such a person will make some women ill. But all of these “some’s” are, in the opinion of Butler, the great metaphysician, instruments that rascals use to reach their aims. They are, that is, fools.5 So it is for your use and spiritual benefit, dear reader, that I have tried to put everyone and their behavior in the proper place in this memoir: the people I knew as well as myself. I am not, to be sure, a great man, a philosopher for the world, or a buffoon. Nor have I ever suffocated mice, tortured frogs, or made a little man dance by shocking him with electricity.6 But what does that matter? I love the truth, and where the truth is at stake, I do not ask myself about the devil or his grandmother. From the fact I left my people, my homeland, and my family7 to seek the truth, the reader will surely recognize that no petty motivations can have shaped my account of the truth. I harbor personal animus toward no one. Yet whoever is an enemy of truth, whoever abuses his public standing to mislead people, and does so with base intentions, is eo ipso my enemy, even if we otherwise have nothing to do with each other. Be he a Roman bishop, a professor, or the Sultan of Turkey, I will not pass up a single opportunity to show the public just what he has done. It is an established truth: Nature makes no leaps.8 Any large event is the result of many smaller ones, which work together partly in harmony and partly in conflict, constraining each other. Great events cannot be regarded as anything but the effects of these smaller processes. Maimon himself, of course, fits all three descriptions. Maimon appears to be paraphrasing Bishop Butler’s observation in his “Dissertaion on Virtue,” that “the words and actions of men . . . of different educations, will perpetually be mistaken by each other,” in David McNaughton, ed., Joseph Butler: Fifteen Sermons and Other Writings, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 141. We thank Professor Aaron Garrett for pointing this out to us. 6 Both the air pump (the creation of a vacuum) and the harnessing of electricity were emblematic scientific achievements of the age, and their (sometimes gruesome) public demonstations were a staple of the Enlightenment public sphere. Maimon’s larger point is to contrast this modern “experimental philosophy” with his own more classical approach to metaphysics and epistemology as well as to denigrate salon intellectuals. Gideon Freudenthal points out that with the phrase “philosopher for the world,” Maimon was alluding to Philosoph für die Welt, a 3 volume book series (Leipzig,1775–1777) by Moses Mendelssohn’s friend Johann Jakob Engels discussing such matters, in “Rabbinische Weisheit oder Rabbinische Philosophie? Salomon Maimons Kritik an Mendelssohn und Weisel,” in Mendelssohn Studien, 14 (2005), pp. 131–164. 4 5

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As you know from reading the first part of the book, my intellectual and moral development underwent a great and seemingly sudden change. I felt it my duty to treat this aspect of my autobiography comprehensively and not leave out seemingly insignificant things that had an effect on this process. Through his writings, a great man—perhaps, indeed, the greatest man the Jewish nation has produced—exerted the most decisive influence on both the development of my meager capabilities and on my character. Gratitude toward him, the greatest of my benefactors, together with my plan of focusing on my education in this autobiography, have made me decide to familiarize you, dear reader, with the mind of this excellent teacher and his singularly brilliant way of dealing with the most important matters in human affairs. I hope that doing so explains aspects of my character and my thinking that would otherwise be inexplicable.9 It was not his particular doctrines that had the largest impact influence on my progress, but rather his noble audacity in thinking, acknowledging no limits except those of reason; a love of truth before all else; his firmness of principle and methodological rigor in deriving truths from those principles; his passionate stand against all educational prejudices, zealotry, and superstitions; and the flexibility of his thinking, as well his skill—indispensable for a philosopher—at recognizing the interchangeability of ideas that seem incongruous and treating them accordingly. I have portrayed this great man’s ideas and manner of thinking through an excerpt from one of his most important works, not contenting myself with a dry translation (like Buxtorf’s), but instead explaining certain obscure passages and using more modern philosophy to correct and fill in the gaps in the reasoning of others.10 For the philosophical historian, this section will no doubt come as a welcome contribution to the history of philosophy. Nor have I forgotten the other intellectual benefactors who, directly or indirectly, contributed to my intellectual rebirth. However, the gratitude that I owe these excellent men is not so great that it will keep me from pointing out their weaknesses (where this seemed necessary for justifying

A paraphrase on Genesis 12:1. An axiom of Leibniz, see New Essays, 4:16: “la nature ne fait jamais des sauts.” 9 Moses Maimonides is perhaps the only figure in Maimon’s autobiography for whom his admiration is entirely unqualified. Curiously he never describes precisely how and why he adopted the great philosopher’s name. 10 The parenthetical reference is to the great Christian Hebraist Johannes Buxtorf the Younger (1599–1664), who translated Maimonides’ Guide into Latin as Rabbi Mosis Maiemonidis Liber doctor perplexorum (Basel, 1629). 7 8

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my own behavior). As the well-known saying has it: amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.11 Because in the end I became a writer, and I have articulated my ideas in my own way, it was only natural that I would be either misunderstood or not understood at all. I thus felt compelled to do something for any friend of truth not content to learn about books from journalists’ reviews. Namely, I wanted to provide an exact definition of both the plan behind my writings and their way of treating material. These measures should correct the misunderstandings. Candor is one of my defining characteristics. I thus wanted to depict myself not simply by faithfully describing how I behaved at various moments in my life, but more importantly, by evoking my life through the very style of my description. In addition, my autobiography should serve as the most faithful record I can provide of the ways in which I have tried to fulfill what I saw as my mission in life, as well as of my shortcomings. This ledger of successes and failings should help the reader understand me and, I hope, improve himself. [1]

“Socrates is my friend, Plato is my friend, but truth is more of a friend,” though Maimon has garbled the saying slightly. See Henry Guerlac, “Amicus Plato and Other Friends,” Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 4 (Oct.–Dec., 1978), pp. 627–33. Maimon is here implicitly defending his depiction of Moses Mendelssohn, who updated Plato in his philosophical dialogue Phaedon, and was known as “the Socrates of Berlin.” 11

IntroduCtIon1

Expansion of My Knowledge and Development of My Character. On Both of Which the Writings of the Famous Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon Had the Greatest Influence. Precise Account of These Writings

The first part of this autobiography showed me striving to develop my humble capacities and my character. While the obstacles chance put in my way did slow this process, it did not block it altogether. And as every action must have an equal and opposite reaction,2 it seems in my case that these obstacles were an intentional device on the part of wise providence, which actually helped me in some ways to reach my goal. Lacking [2] enlightened teachers and suitable readings, I had to learn to reflect for myself. The scarcity of helpful texts taught me to value all the more those that I could find. I felt compelled to give them my full attention, correct their mistakes, fill in their gaps, and try to bring light and order to their dark, confused chaos. Gradually I began to see that all the strokes of misfortune, which, as I recounted in the first part, befell my family and me, were not caused by an inescapable necessity. Nor were they punishments for imagined sins—a platitude stemming from ignorance and indolence— but largely consequences of just such ignorance and indolence. The concept of mediate causes gradually displaced the concept of a first cause that exceeded their limitations, returning the latter to its proper function: the idea of searching endlessly for these mediate causes. Melancholic and ecstatic religion was slowly [3] transformed into a religion of reason.3 The free cultivation of the capacity for knowledge and morality took the place of the slavish religious service. And I recognized perfection as being the precondition for true blessedness.

The front matter of volume two of the original edition lists the chapters of the second book and their headings. We have moved these pages to the table of contents at the beginning of the book. 2 This paraphrases Newton’s third law of motion. 3 Apparently, this note refers to Maimon’s transition from traditional RabbinicLithuanian culture (melancholic religion), through Hasidism (ecstatic religion), to the (Spinozist?) religion of reason. 1

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The writings of the famous Maimonides (Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon) were most influential in bringing about this happy transformation. My admiration for this great teacher reached the point where I regarded him as the ideal of a perfect human being and his doctrines as having been dictated by divine wisdom itself. Because I was beginning to feel new desires and passions, and because I was worried that they might lead me to actions this teacher would have abhorred, I went so far as to use the following oath as a preventative measure: I swear, by my reverence for and indebtedness to my great teacher Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, not to commit this or that deed. [4] As far as I can recall, this oath was always powerful enough to hold me back. But to enable the reader to assess the influence this great man’s writings had on me, I must first familiarize the reader, at least to some extent, with the spirit of these writings. Readers looking for mere incidents or a novelistic story can skim these pages, which will not, however, be unimportant for intelligent readers. Spanish by birth, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon came from a family of rabbis and lived in the twelfth century, when the Moors were still thriving in Spain. Back then, the relationship of Spain to France was the opposite of what it is today. The arts and sciences were flourishing in Spain. Political progress and enlightenment had reached a high level. In France (as in other Christian countries), on the other hand, there was political desolation, ignorance, and crude manners. Spain had the most [5] famous academies and universities, with learning of all kinds fostered and encouraged in every possible way. The government had not only granted Jews protection and civil freedom, but also raised them into high offices and positions of honor: the Jews were full participants in this general well-being and enlightenment. They took up all sorts of occupations and applied themselves to the arts and sciences with great success. For their co-religionists in France and Christian lands, the situation was, by contrast, bleak. There the Jews’ ignorance and religious prejudices maintained the upper hand over healthy human reason, and they not only despised the arts and sciences but also condemned them as inimical to religion. Their scholars focused mainly on Talmudic study, and it was in so doing that they displayed their great gifts. This led, naturally, to misunderstandings and feuds between the French and Spanish scholars. The latter regarded the former as pettifogging [6] pedants who, lacking foundational language skills, rational exegesis, and proper methods of thought, squandered their intelligence on pointless exercises. The French, meanwhile, accused the Spanish of straying from the religion of their fathers and damned all profane knowledge as heretical, with necessarily harmful effects on Judaism.

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Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon enjoyed a good education, including not only the study of the Talmud but also that of languages and science. In all these pursuits he went far. Because (in accordance with the Talmudists’ dictum4) he thought it impermissible to support himself with theological scholarship,5 he turned to the study of medicine, with great success. While still in his twenty-second year,6 he produced a commentary on the Mishna. This was an extraordinarily important effort that required more than linguistic skill and a deep understanding of the spirit of that great [7] work. It also took into account the Talmudists’ diverse interpretations and even the multifarious laws they had derived from the Mishna using their own logic, so that they could be made consistent with one another, as well as with the Mishna itself. This work, written in Arabic, has been translated into Hebrew multiple times, in various eras. Maimonides’ second major Talmudic undertaking was his book of ritual laws, entitled Jad Hachasakah and written in Hebrew.7 It contains all the Jewish laws and customs that are either explicitly in the Holy Scripture or derived from scripture through the Talmudists’ particular mode of exegesis and methods. It also contains those laws and customs added in accord with the needs of the times by the Talmudists themselves or their successors. Maimonides shows himself here as a man of rare learning, extreme perspicacity, and systematic intelligence. Especially notable is that in both of [8] these works, he focused on improving knowledge and refining customs, never missing an opportunity to restore the harmony between religion and reason where it had been lost due to misunderstandings, even if doing so meant departing from his main topic. In a passage of his commentary on the Mishna, where he enters into an excursion of this kind, he himself writes: “I have strayed from to topic at hand, to be sure. However, this was by design, for correcting an article of faith is more important to me than anything else that I have undertaken to do here.”8 Right at the beginning of the second work, for instance, one finds types of laws that one wouldn’t ordinarily look for in a book of laws, because if these concepts hadn’t been linked to the actual so-called Mishna, Avot, 4:5. See Maimonides’ commentary on Avot, 4:5, and Mishne Torah, Laws of the Study of Torah, 3:10. 6 At the very end of his commentary on the Mishna, Maimonides notes that he began writing it at the age of twenty-three and completed the commentary by the age of thirty. 7 A colloquial Hebrew title meaning “The Great Hand,” and alluding numerologically to the fourteen volumes of Maimonides’ rabbinic code, whose formal name is the Mishneh Torah. 8 The excerpt is from Maimonides’ preface to Pereq Heleq (ch. 11 of Tractate Sanhedrin). See Maimonides, Haqdamot le-Perush ha-Mishna, p. 149. 4 5

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laws and the methods particular to the laws, they would never have been taken into the nation. [9] The first part, Hylchoth Jessodei Hathora (the laws of a rational theology), contains a system of natural theology that has been reconciled with revealed theology. The second part, Hylchoth Deoth (ethical laws), similarly contains a system of rational morality that has been reconciled with the moral codes we find in the Holy Scripture and the Talmud. Here there is even a chapter in which dietary laws are treated in accord with the principles of medicine. In the section Hylcoth Kidosch Hachodesch (the laws of the festival of the new moon), the author seizes the opportunity to address astronomy in its entirety. He proves incontrovertibly that during the time of the Second Temple, the supreme council in Jerusalem (Synedrium)9 did not use a special calendar (as is done today) to specify the date of the festival of the new moon and the various holidays that depend on that date; rather, it used the visibility of the new moon [10] itself.10 All the provinces sent messengers to Jerusalem, where they testified before the high council as to the new moon’s period of visibility. However, their testimony was declared valid only after its plausibility had been confirmed a priori, that is, using astronomical reasoning. To this end, the high council had to undertake difficult astronomical calculations, bringing into account such things as the geographical length and width of a given area, the centerpoint and true location of the sun and moon in the eclipse, the parallax and distance of the moon from the earth, and so on.11 Maimonides precisely and comprehensively illustrates how this method was most likely used to perform these calculations effectively. His concern was less to explain an arbitrary law than to expand our understanding of necessary natural laws. [11] Several parts of this work were heavily criticized. There was, for example, a rabbi named Rabbi Abraham Ben David whose level of intelligence and religious learning were not much lower than Maimonides’, but who, as a fervent Talmudist through and through, lagged far behind him in scientific knowledge and scholarly skill.12 Ben David wrote an especially severe critique.13 I would like to mention several notable passages from Namely, the Sanhedrin. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, ch. 5. 11 See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, chs. 11–19. 12 Rabbi Abraham ben David (1120–98), on whom see Isadore Twersky, Rabad of Posquières: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961). 13 Thus, in response to Maimonides’ claim that anyone who believe that God has corporeal properties is a heretic, Rabad writes: “there were many who were greater and better than Maimonides who followed this path” (commentary on Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 3:7), i.e., while not supporting anthropomorphic views, Rabad rejected Maimonides’ attempt to regiment Jewish dogma. 9

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it to provide a vivid illustration of how an orthodox theologian reacted to a heterodox one. Maimonides sought to develop a rational interpretation of the Talmudic fable of the great feast for the pious that God will make from Leviathan in the life to come.14 Specifically, he wrote that the pious will be honored according to the degree of perfection they have achieved in this life in seeing the divinity as the ideal of the highest perfection. The [12] fable adds, to be sure, that God will give the cup (over which, according to Jewish custom, one prays after a meal) to each of the pious, one after the other, but that they will all refuse this honor because of their manifest imperfections, until finally King David himself accepts it.15 Since our Maimonides could derive no rational message from this addendum, he passed over it in silence. With holy fervor, Rabbi Abraham comments: “Is this the great feast of which the Talmudists speak? The passing of the kiddush cup doesn’t occur! It would have been better if the author had said nothing at all about the feast!”16 As another example, the Talmudists had decreed that when New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday, it should be postponed to the following day.17 In Hylchoth Kidosch Hachodesch, Maimonides explained that they made this law so [13] that the provisional calculation (according to which the New Year’s festival occurs on one of these days) would come out closer to the true calculation (according to which the festival should occur later). He omitted to mention the childish reason that the Talmudists themselves adduced.18 Rabbi Abraham criticizes him with these words: “The author boasts about his knowledge of this science (astronomy), and he claims to have mastered it down to its foundations. Because I am not part of his guild, whose members busy themselves with profane science, I will refrain from commenting on this entire section. But this one passage pushes my patience past the breaking point. According to the author’s own reasoning, why shouldn’t the New Year’s festival be postponed a day when it falls on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday as well? Why should Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday have some special privilege? I believe that the author is playing a trick on his readers here.”19 [14] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentence, 8:2–4. Leviticus Rabbah, 13. 16 See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 8:2 and the commentary of Rabbi Abraham ben David ad. loc. and, with regard to David at the banquet of the righteous, 8:4, alluding to Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 119b. 17 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Rosh ha-Shana, 20a. 18 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh, 7:1–7. 19 Rabad’s commmetary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Kiddush haHodesh, 7:7. 14 15

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Any sensible reader will easily see that this objection is mere chicanery. Maimonides’ explanation is an attempt to bring the rational reason he himself adduced into line with the reason provided by the Talmudists. According to him, there must be some days that require a postponement of the New Year’s festival, but that these days designated for the festival are Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday follows from the reason given by the Talmudists. In another passage, the esteemed Rabbi Abraham arrogantly dismisses Maimonides’ position, saying that the Holy Spirit itself has come down against Maimonides’ view, and so that’s that.20 All these criticisms notwithstanding, Maimonides’ work was very well received, especially by Jews living in Islamic lands. Even today, many Jews see it as the foundation of all Jewish jurisprudence. [15]

20

Rabad’s commmetary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Lulav, 8:5.

Chapter 1

More Newochim: Its Plan, Goal, and Method. Theologica Politica1

Maimonides’ most important work is without a doubt More Newochim (Guide of the Perplexed), which I have referred to many times in this autobiography. In it we see, in exemplary fashion, his pure love of truth, his sincere religious and moral mindset, his deep insight into all branches of human knowledge, and his all-penetrating philosophical mind. The intention of this excellent work, as the title indicates and Maimonides himself explains in his preface, is to instruct those who are wavering in their faith and reestablish the harmony [16] between (religious) faith and rational knowledge.2 His method is a deliberate lack of order and method, while his style and delivery are magnificent. One feels as if one is encountering the awe-inspiring voice of truth itself. His goal is to perfect the capacities of knowledge and volition. The entire book is composed as a message in Arabic to Maimonides’ famous student, Rabbi Joseph Ben Rabbi Jehuda.3 Rabbi Samuel Ibn Tibbon later translated it into Hebrew.4

This is Maimon’s characteristically bold application of Spinoza’s famous phrase to Maimonides. It struck the twentieth-century political philosopher Leo Strauss forcibly, see Leo Strauss on Maimonides: The Complete Writings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), “The Place of the Doctrine of Providence According to Maimonides,” p. 326n34. 2 See Maimonides’ preface to the first part of the Guide (Pines 1:5–6). 3 Joseph ben Yehuda Ibn Simon (1160–1226), a philosopher, physician, and poet. Born in the city of Ceuta in Morocco and immigrated in his twenties to Cairo, where he studied with Maimonides. Later he moved to Aleppo, and finally settled in Baghdad. 4 Samuel ben Yehuda Ibn Tibbon (ca. 1150–ca. 1230), a physician and philosopher who lived in Provence. He translated Maimonides’ Guide from Arabic into Hebrew toward the very end of the latter’s life, and consulted Maimonides on issues of translation. Ibn Tibbon’s translation was widely accepted. In fact, the vast majority of the readers of the Guide have read it in Ibn Tibbon’s translation. It is this translation that Maimon read (almost certainly in the 1742 Jessnitz edition) and which he translates, summarizes, and comments upon here. 1

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In a letter addressed to Rabbi Samuel, Maimonides states:5 I have always admired you, even before I knew you personally, because I could tell from your work that you had enormous speculative ability and discipline in research. And yet, I thought, perhaps his ambitions exceed his intellectual abilities. After you read with me astronomy, though, and the preceding issue of pure mathematics that preceded them, [17] my initial opinion of you was reinforced. I was impressed by your intellect and quick comprehension. While I recognized that your ambition in mathematics may have gone a bit too far, I didn’t try to change you, because I could already tell that these ambitions would nevertheless lead to great success. However, it was when you read logic with me that I knew I had not been mistaken in harboring such hopes for you. I thought you were worthy of receiving the secrets of the prophetic writings—that is, the rational interpretations of these writings, which are secrets for those who don’t have the key. I gave you some hints about this, and noticed that they weren’t enough for you, that you wanted a more thorough explanation of these theological topics, as well as to know my judgment of the various dialecticians’6 views and methods. You had, I found, already learned something about these topics elsewhere, but not enough to satisfy your great [18] intellect. But I held you back, advising you to pursue these topics in their proper order, since in my opinion one should pursue the truth systematically, not arbitrarily. Because providence has decreed that we should to be apart, I have decided, after much reflection, to write this work for you and students like you, and to send it to you in installments.7 This work tries, first, to properly interpret various singular expressions (names) that occur in the prophetic writings; some of them are common (to many kinds of objects),8 others are figurative (and while rooted in their relation to one kind of object can be carried over onto others by way of analogy), although lay readers take them to have just one meaning. Still others are dubious.(a) [19]

This quote is from the Dedicatory Epistle at the beginning of the Guide. The epistle is printed at the beginning of all standard editions of the Guide, though its authenticity is questionable. Maimon, however, does not doubt its authenticy and his translation of the epistle is quite close to the original text. 6 I.e., members of the Islamic school of philosophy known as the Kalam. 7 Here ends Maimon’s summary of the epistle dedicatory and begins the discussion of the preface to the first part of the Guide. 8 I.e., equivocal terms. a [Maimon] In my commentary, I explained this murky passage in the following way. Common expressions are those that are common to many kinds of objects. Figurative expressions were originally applied to certain kinds of objects and later applied to analogous objects. The third class treats these, namely different kinds, not as different kinds, but rather as having been seen belonging to a common conceptual category, or those where this attribution is at the very least problematic. [Editorial note: Cf. Maimon, Give’at ha-Moreh, p. 2a, and his appendix on symbolism in Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie.] 5

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My aim isn’t to explain these types of expression to the common man or philosophical beginner. Nor am I trying to teach those who want to learn nothing but the system of (religious) [20] laws. I am attempting to lay the foundation for the systematic study of jurisprudence (the wisdom of the laws). I merely want to offer some brief guidance to those in whom religion is firmly rooted as a result of education and habit, who behave ethically, who are well-versed in philosophical scholarship and methods, and who, on the one hand, are inclined to give reason its due, but on the other, are troubled and [21] necessarily embarrassed by the common meaning of the Scriptures (which in many cases conflicts with reason). Should he simply follow his reason and completely reject the ideas and images that the conventional meaning of scripture suggests? If he does so, he will be afraid that he has harmed his religious faith. If, however, he clings to the common meaning and silences his reason, he will think that he has compromised the authenticity of his faith. This work will also interpret the allegories in the prophetic writings, or at least clarify that they are allegories that have not been recognized as such and have therefore caused thinkers no little embarrassment. I have therefore titled this work More Hanwochim, or Guide for the Perplexed. I do not mean to promise that this work will allay any possible doubts that someone might form, just the most important of them. In addition, no reasonable person can expect me to treat all my material exhaustively, or carry out to its conclusion every [22] reading of an allegory that I begin. This is hard to do in oral lectures and even harder in written presentations. I feel it necessary to make these prefatory statements so that this work will not become the target of every fool who thinks himself wise, at which he shoots the arrows of his foolishness.

I noted, though, that these distinctions are not fully justified, for perhaps the first two classes are not real, and all the expressions are included in the third category. How, for example, can one claim with certainty that the Hebrew word ‫ אכל‬is an expression common to different kinds of objects (food and fire), and thus in the first group, or that it was originally applied to food and only later carried over to fire. Originally it could have been applied to these different kinds of objects not as different kinds, but rather to the categorical concept common to them both (preserving one thing through the destruction of another). I have demonstrated this point about all so-called figurative expressions in the Berlin Journal for Enlightenment, volume 5, issue 5. I thus include in the first type of expression solely the ones that are shared between classes of objects that have nothing objective in common and are related to each other purely subjectively. Expressions common to opposing things—for example, the Hebrew word ‫ ברא‬which means both to destroy and to bring forth out of nothing (create)—are of this kind; a common expression has been maintained purely through the commonality of the subjective form of an opposition. Expressions that simultaneously designate cause and effect, substance and accident, and so forth are also of this kind: shared by both kinds of objects on account of a commonality of subjective forms.

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In accordance with the prescriptions of the Talmud,9 this work will give independent thinkers some suggestions as to the principles of natural science and metaphysics.10 Even these suggestions will not be organized according to a particular method, but rather presented interspersed among other material. The truths in this work are meant to come to light only to conceal themselves again at once,* which is in keeping with divine wisdom (the nature of things), always hiding the [23] most important truths from the vulgar eye. As it is stated in the Psalms: “The secret of God is for the pious alone.”11 *Ac si divina natura innocent et benevolo puerorum ludo delectaretur, qui ideo se abscondunt ut inveniatur, atque animam humanam sibi collusorem in hoc ludo, pro sua in homines indulgentia et bonitate, cooptaverit. (Baco de Varulamio Nov. Org Praefatio12) But you must not think, my good man, that I myself am in full possession of these secrets. No, truth occasionally shines forth to us human creatures for a moment, but then it darkens again, on account of our physical constitution and our ways. We are like travelers in a dark night, who now and then see a flash of lightning. For some of us, lightning flashes the whole night through. This was the level of illumination that the greatest of all prophets experienced: Moses, about whom it was said: “You stay with me”13 (with true knowledge of my nature). For others, lightning flashes at intervals, more or less often. Indeed, there were those who saw only one flash of lightning all night. Of them it is said: “They prophesied (this one time), but no longer.”14 Some do not have even the good fortune [24] to see the light of a lightning bolt even once. The light they see is merely that of a body glowing in the darkness, and even this weak light does not remain constant: it appears and disappears at different times, at different strengths. Likewise, there are different degrees of wisdom. About those who never see the light at all, but constantly cast around in the dark, we read in the Psalms: “They know nothing, understand nothing, and wander in the dark”;15 and See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagiga, 11b: “The Work of Creation may not be expounded in the presence of two, nor the Work of the Chariot in the presence of one, unless he is a sage and understands of his own knowledge.” Cf. Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah, 2:12 and 4:10–13. 10 The last sentence is a close paraphrase or interpretation of Maimonides’ text rather than a translation. Cf. Pines 1:6. 11 Ps. 25:14. 12 Maimon here inserts a passage from Bacon, see Works of Lord Bacon, 2:643 | New Organon, 12: “Just as if the divine nature delighted in the innocent and amusing children’s games in which they hide themselves purposely in order to be found.” 13 Deut. 5:28. 14 Num. 11:25. 15 Ps. 82:5. 9

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in the Book of Job: “They do not see the light that shines so clearly in the sky.”16 To the rabble, I have nothing to say here. Teaching these higher truths is as challenging as learning them. Even what one understands completely cannot always be communicated in an orderly fashion; other areas of knowledge, about visible phenomena, have it easier. The expression appropriate to the object and the proper method of presentation sometimes seem to suggest themselves; at other times, it costs us much effort to find them. [25] The wise ancients thus felt compelled to seek refuge in fables and allegories. If, however, you wanted to present these truths undisguised, you learned to understand them yourself, your presentation would be so obscure and roundabout that disguise would seem far preferable. In this the wise ones are, as elsewhere, compelled by the nature of the object to follow God’s will. When God wanted to perfect our community through His practical laws, these laws presupposed pure theories based in turn on proper concepts of God and His relation to us, that is, on natural theology.17 Because this itself presupposes natural science, He began His book of laws with the story of creation, which is an allegorical representation of the principles of natural science. Our wise men say: “The actual way the world was created cannot be communicated to any human being, hence the [26] brevity of the Scriptural description—‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’ ”18 By this they suggest that the story of Genesis expresses important mysteries about nature. To this end, the Scriptures use many expressions that have multiple meanings, which the common man understands in accord with his meager capacities, and which the wise man, in contrast, should interpret in a more intelligent way.

Maimonides then tries to demonstrate how important it is to interpret the fables, allegories, and unusual expressions properly, in order to understand the Holy Scripture properly. He lays out the different types of such expressions. Finally, he admonishes the reader to study his work attentively, and only after proper preparation. His preface then concludes with the following words: I know that the beginner will gain something useful from this book as well, but as a whole it will be a welcome resource for the experienced thinker whose reason has shaken his faith. Confused [27] minds, whose brains

Job 37:21. In Ibn Tibbon: “ha-hokhma ha-elohit [the divine science].” 18 See Abraham Wertheimer, ed., Batei Midrashot, 1:251, and Nachmanides’ commentary on Genesis 1:1. 16 17

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are stuffed with wrong opinions and incorrect methods regarded as true wisdom (for they have no idea about what true wisdom is)—such minds will despise this book, partly because they won’t understand it, which will offend their vanity, and partly because it will expose their weak points and shine a bright light on the fatuousness of their prejudices and wrong opinions. God is my witness for how long I refrained from composing this work, because it treats of the most important matters and is the only work of its kind in our nation. Now, in composing this work, I lean on what it says in the Scriptures: “It is time to act for the sake of God’s honor, for they have forsaken thy pure teachings,”19 and also rely on the command: “All your actions should be for the sake of God’s honor.”20 In short, because I felt compelled to present the demonstrative truth in a way that will perhaps [28] please only a single man of reason while repelling a thousand fools, for his sake I will not suppress the truth, and I won’t concern myself with the censure of the great mass of people.

In the following very noteworthy preface, Maimonides gave seven reasons why one sometimes encounters contradictions in written texts. 1 When the author of a text is merely a compiler, collecting opposing views without attributing each one to its actual creator. In such cases, the views presented necessarily contradict one another. 2 When the author alters his own views about certain things during the writing of a text, without acknowledging it, and allows both his earlier and his later views to stand. 3 When some expressions must be understood in their allegorical, not conventional, sense to resolve contradictions. [29] 4 When a condition or qualification that one defers until later is then left out, whether by necessity or choice, or when the subjects of opposing assertions are distinct but this isn’t made clear. 5 In addition, the requirement that scholarship be presented methodically can lead to an apparent contradiction. Difficult materials must sometimes be used as a basis for making less difficult material comprehensible. But a good method of teaching mandates that what is easy should come before what is difficult. So what is to be done? The teacher must try to make the difficult material as easy as possible, even give up strict precision to some extent, and defer to the capabilities of his students. He should wait for another occasion to present the given material with all due precision, as the truth demands.

19 20

Ps. 119:126. Mishna, Tractate Avot, 2:17.

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6 When the contradiction is not manifest, but rather concealed, so that one doesn’t notice it by looking at the first [30] two claims in isolation. Or if one takes a given statement on its own and connects it to a sequence of other statements, one will eventually encounter the contradiction. This goes even for the best authors. If, in contrast, the contradiction between the first two statements is obvious, and the author simply forgot the first statement by the time he wrote the second, this is such a crude mistake that one shouldn’t dignify it with a critical response. 7 When one has to deal with important truths, which one cannot and must not treat comprehensively, and one can only put them before the reader in partial form, partly hiding them from his eyes, there is also sometimes occasion for an apparent contradiction. A skilled writer, however, knows how to arrange this so that a common reader won’t notice it.

Maimonides then showed which writings present this or that kind of contraction. In the Mishna and the Talmud there are contradictions of the first two types. In [31] the prophetic writings, contradictions of the third and fourth type. In philosophical writings, we find contradictions of the fifth type; and in other works, contradictions of the sixth type. The contradictions in Maimonides’ own work must therefore be of the fifth and seventh types. [32]

Chapter 2

Continuation. Interpretation of Expressions with Multiple Meanings. Language in the Hands of Theologians, like Clay in the Hands of Potters. Anti-Rousseauean Refutation of an Objection. Cautionary Rule for Aspiring Metaphysicians: One Must First Learn to Swim before Plunging into the Great Oceans of the World

The first part of More Newochim deals mainly with formulations about God and His properties that have multiple meanings. Zelem in Hebrew does not mean, as many have believed, the external corporeal figure, but rather the inner form or the essence of a thing, through which it is what it is. For human beings, this essence is reason (as their differentia specifica). Hence it is said of them: Bezelem Elohim1—they were created after the model of divine form. Damuth [33] (resemblance)2 here does not mean perfect resemblance, but rather correspondence in something. Because human beings have been blessed with an intellectual capacity that is independent of their physical structure, it is said of them that they were created in God’s image.3 A scholar presented me with the following question that he hoped I could resolve. “The story of Genesis, understood in the conventional sense, suggests that people were initially meant to use their reason no more than other animals do, and that they came by this perfection only by violating the prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit. It is quite extraordinary that they would have acquired a perfection as punishment for a crime. It is as though the fable told of someone committing a major crime and being placed as a result among the stars in the sky.”

Gen. 1:27. Gen. 1:26. 3 This concludes Maimon’s summary of Guide 1:1. The quote below proceeds to his translation of Guide 1:2 (cf. Pines 1:24–25). For Maimonides, knowledge pertains only to the true and the false while good and bad are mere social conventions (in Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew mefursamot). Maimon would appear to read the passage as applying to only relative good and evil. 1 2

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I responded as follows, (Maimonides continues): “No! My friend, you are wrong. The matter [34] is not as you present it! Reason, imparted by God as the highest human perfection—namely, the ability to distinguish true from false—was employed by human beings in the most perfect way before their crime. Only because of this could it be said that God spoke with them and commanded them, which cannot be said of animals lacking reason.” The vocation of humanity was to use reason alone to gain knowledge of (absolute, universally valid) good and evil,4 and to distinguish true from false. The form of reason was meant to yield the highest laws of both morality and logic, since knowledge of relative good and evil, grounded in material objects, lies beyond the scope of reason and thus cannot yield a universally valid principle of morality. [35] We are not, however, simply intellectual beings. We are also physical creatures, whose actions are determined not only by general rational form5 but also by matter. Human beings could not maintain the perfection of existing as purely intellectual beings, and so they were transferred into the order of nonrational animals. The knowledge of good and evil they acquired through their crime, of which the Holy Scripture speaks, thus has a very different source than the knowledge of true and false. Knowledge of good and evil is not of the general law of reason, but simply of the material motives of behavior, and their acquisition was in fact a great loss. Themunah means in general the idea of a thing, either sensuous or intellectual.6 An example of the latter meaning is the statement about Moses: “He sees Themunath Jehova”7—that is, he has a comprehensive, full concept of God. Seeing, [36] when used in reference to God (that someone has seen God, or that God has seen something), means to have a concept of. Aristotle begins his profound metaphysical investigations with the following apology:8 “[the reader] shouldn’t accuse him (he says) of temerity for trying to get to the bottom of bottomless things; rather, one should be grateful for his diligence in striving to explore as far as the limits of human knowledge will allow.”9 (Critical philosophy stands above this apology, for unlike dogmatic philosophy, it doesn’t pursue investigations of things as such. It concerns itself, rather, with the forms of our capacity for knowledge and the conditions of its application to objects of experience. The limits of

Here Maimon departs from Maimonides’ claims in Guide 1:2. For Maimonides, knowledge of good and evil is merely conventional, and not rational. 5 Here again Maimon is Kantianizing Maimonides’ text. 6 See Guide 1:3. 7 Num. 12:8. 8 Guide 1:5 | Pines 1:29. 9 Aristotle, De Caelo, 291b25–28. 4

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this investigation are determined by the capacity for knowledge itself and thus cannot be exceeded, as the critique stated above implies.) Precisely this, (continues Maimonides), goes for us as well. Only with the right preparation [37] should one enter into this area of science. One must first be schooled in logic, have foundational knowledge, and improve one’s morals, all while remaining modest in one’s judgments. Hence the claim about Moses: “He hid his face, for he did not dare look at God,”10 and our wise men say11 that precisely because he didn’t dare look at God, he was deemed worthy of looking at God (Themunath Jehova),12 i.e., because he wasn’t hasty in his judgment of God, his judgment was correct. The young geniuses (under the name Azilei Benni Israel13) were in fact hasty in their judgment, and thus they achieved only very shallow knowledge. It is therefore said of them: “They saw God; he had at his feet a sapphire-like stone, and so on.”14 From this formulation it is clear that their knowledge of God wasn’t purely intellectual, but rather mostly sensuous.

Thereupon follow still more expressions that Maimonides tries to explain in the same way. [38] In the third section,15 the author shows that above all metaphysics have been subjected to conflicts, the natural sciences less so, and mathematics not at all. The reason for this is that the last of these areas of inquiry allows for the most rigorous demonstrations and doesn’t admit prejudices that spring from personal inclinations and passions, something that often occurs in the first two. In the next section,16 Maimonides adds: Our higher capacity for knowledge, insofar as it is bound up with a body, shares a fate with our sensuousness. If, for example, one strains one’s vision so as to perceive something from a greater distance than normal, or something that is simply too small, one won’t simply fail to achieve this goal, one will also weaken one’s vision, with the result that one won’t even be able to distinguish what he could tell apart before this exertion.

Exod. 3:6. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot, 7a. Cf. Midrash Tanhuma, 1 and Shemot Rabbah, 2:5. 12 Num. 12:8. 13 “The nobles of the children of Israel” (Exod. 24:11). 14 Exod. 24:10–11. 15 Oddly, this discussion occurs in Guide 1:31 | Pines 1:61 (and not in Guide 1:3). If Maimon relied on handwritten notes, he might have confused “3” for “31,” or perhaps it is simply an error on the part of his editor or printer. (Incidentally, Maimon refers to the chapters of the Guide as sections [Abschnitte].) 16 Guide 1:32. 10 11

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The situation with thinking is the same. If you try to determine what lies beyond the sphere of your capacity for thinking, or [39] to deny something for whose opposite one has no clear proof, you become not only not more fully developed through this exercise, you will become less fully developed—indeed, it can even have an ill effect on your ethics. By this I do not mean to impose arbitrary limits on thinking, as fools and indolent types do, fools and indolent types who try to pass off their ignorance and foolishness as perfection, and the knowledge and scholarship of others as imperfection; rather, I simply want to draw our attention to the natural boundaries of human knowledge.

In section 34,17 Maimonides presents five reasons why one shouldn’t begin studying systems of thought with metaphysics and why the untrained intellect should be made aware of everything notable in this science. First, on account of how difficult the subject inherently is, for this science requires an extraordinary degree of acuity and penetrating intellect. “Far away [40] from us and much too deep for us is that which the world was at its origin—who could discover it?” “Wisdom! Where will it be found?” Therefore, we must always begin with the easier part. Scripture often compares wisdom with water. Our scholars interpret this comparison in the following way, among others: Whoever understands swimming will fish pearls from the bottom of the sea. Who doesn’t understand it will drown, and so it also goes in the search for truth. Second, on account of weaknesses in our capacity for knowledge. Humans cannot have their highest perfection from the beginning. This perfection is for them a mere potentiality. “Humans are born as wild donkeys!” Nor is it inevitable that this capacity will be actualized. Obstacles and a lack of practice can get in our way. Hence the statement: “Not many become wise.” [41] Our scholars say: “Those who ascend are very few.”18 Third, on account of all the preparation. Humans naturally rush to results as the goal of their knowledge; but the preparations, as the means, are bothersome, and people neglect them. Indeed! If one could achieve results without preparations, then there would be no preparations.— Wake the greatest imbecile out of his slumber and ask him if he wants to know the number of heavenly bodies and how they are constituted, if he wants to know what angels are, how the world came to be, how its destiny can be derived from the order we observe in it, what the soul is,

17 18

Guide 1:34. Bablonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, 97b, and Tractate Sukka, 45b.

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how it is connected to the body, and if and how it can be separated again from the body—in response the imbecile would certainly say: Of course, I want to know all this, and he would exhibit a natural desire to, but only under the condition that you [42] can present all this quickly and in a few words. And if you say to him that in order to acquire all this important knowledge, he must interrupt his work for only eight days, he will no doubt refuse the offer, and he will have much to say in objecting to these considerable preparations and far-reaching investigations. Now, these matters are connected; there are no (real) objects other than God and His works, that is, everything existing outside Him. God can be known only through his works; through them we gain knowledge of His existence, of what must be affirmed or negated about Him. Thus, we must extend our investigation to include all objects, so that from every type of object we can gain true premises about metaphysical truths. How many premises of this kind cannot be derived from the properties of numbers and of algebraic formulas? From these we can learn much about what we must negate [43] of God if we want to have a correct concept of Him.19(a) As to astronomy and the natural sciences, you will not doubt that they are crucial for achieving a correct concept of the relationship of the world to divine wisdom. There are other speculations, which, to be sure, don’t offer directly metaphysical premises, but that nevertheless indirectly exercise our capacity for knowledge, promoting skill in demonstrating and in methodical thinking, through which one can uncover the mistakes of most thinkers, which are the source of many false opinions and have their basis in the confusion of the [44] necessary and the accidental, the purely formal, and thus universally valid, with the material. Those who strive for perfection must thus focus first on sound logic, then on mathematics, on natural science after that, and only then on metaphysics. How many people can tolerate studying a few of these areas thoroughly, even if we leave out all those whose course of study is interrupted by death? If we didn’t have hard-won views handed down by tradition, and if we weren’t guided to a dressing-up of the truth well-suited

Bablonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, 97b, and Tractate Sukka, 45b. [Maimon] Excellent! The nature of irrational numbers, for example, shows us that one can have no concept of what a thing is as an object and yet be able to define its relationship to other things. Thus, we have no concept of God as an object and yet we can define his relationship to us, which is the basis of morality. Algebraic formulas often bring us to the concept of the infinite as to a limit concept, which is not of constitutive, but rather of regulative use and as such, a concept that is of great importance in metaphysics. 19 a

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for our powers of imagination, if we wanted to promote the most correct concepts of all things, the most comprehensive explanations, and the most rigorous demonstrations, which can be [45] gained only after the most thorough preparations, the majority of us would pass from this world without knowing whether or not the world has a God. Thus, we don’t engage seriously with the majority of people. The few, however, whom God has called to this perfection—of them we demand with full justification that they undertake the necessary preparations. Fourth, on account of the natural (temperamental) disposition. It is so that the capacity for knowledge hangs together closely with temperament. There are many hot-tempered people, and others who are jovial and incline to frivolity, who are incapable of a single thorough consideration. The latter ones are not made for metaphysics, for this area of thought is not like medicine and geometry, on which the state of one’s emotions has no impact. Rather, we read in reference to metaphysics: “God despises the crooked one; to the straight ones he discloses his secrets.”20

Fifth, on account of the piling up of material pursuits, particularly when one has to provide for a wife and children, and even more so [46] when luxury gains the upper hand. This state of affairs is the case with most people, and thus only a few are able to achieve thorough knowledge. The study of metaphysics is for the select few, not for the common herd. In the following section,21 the author says that everything he previously put forth about the difficulty of metaphysics, the natural theology grounded in it, and the necessity of keeping the common man out has nothing to do with the pure faith in God’s non-corporeality and His freedom from passions. Rather, just as one must teach the common man and even children (as an article of faith) that there is only one God, so must one make comprehensible that this God is not a body, and that between Him and creatures there exists not the slightest resemblance. His existence, His life, His wisdom, and other characteristics are not different from ours with respect to degree, but also with respect to kind, [47] so that there is no relation between them. Developing this teaching further and more precisely is reserved for a select few. In the following section,22 Maimonides shows, using a mass of evidence from the Holy Scripture, that this God displays rage and vengefulness only when paganism is at issue; also, only the pagan is named as an enemy of God. The reason for this is that paganism contains a

Prov. 3:32. Guide 1:35. 22 Guide 1:36. 20 21

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false system with respect to the most important object of our knowledge. Whoever attributes something corporeal to God is His enemy. Every person must try to gain pure knowledge of Him, and if it cannot be arrived at through independent reflection, it must be taken on from others, with loyalty and faith. [48]

Chapter 3

Continuation. The Crow Is Robbed of the Feathers Stolen from Other Birds, or the Denial of God’s Positive Characteristics

The fiftieth section1 is the author’s brief introduction to his doctrine of the negation of God’s positive properties. “Faith,” he writes, “doesn’t lie in what one says, but rather in what one represents, when one believes that an object really is as one represents it to be.” Do you want to content yourself with praying for certain truths without understanding them? If so, that is very easy. Even the most obtuse person can manage it. If, however, you want to reach a higher level of speculation, and you [49] want to be convinced that God is a true unity without any piecing together, then you must know that God can have no essential attributes. But whoever believes that He is indeed a unity and yet has multiple attributes will, while saying that God is a unity, represent Him in his thoughts to be of a plural nature. This way of conceiving of God resembles the Christians’ claim that He is both one and three, as though what matters is how we express something, rather than how we represent it to be. Take care not to wind up among those of whom it is said: “You are close to their mouth, but far removed from their innermost.”2 Rather, strive to be just like those of whom it is said: “Think for yourself on your bed and be silent.”3

There are things inherently so self-evident that anyone can recognize right away that they are true,4 and no proof is necessary: for example, first principles and that which is known through immediate sensory perception, [50] or what comes close to this. However, as soon as false views about what should be obvious are circulated, scholars are compelled to ground these self-evident truths. Thus, for example, Aristotle demonstrates the existence of movement, because some philosophers had Guide 1:50. Jer. 12:2. 3 Ps. 4:5. 4 Maimon’s expositon of Guide 1:51 begins here. 1 2

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denied it.5 Thus, too, he demonstrates the impossibility of atoms, whose reality some thinkers had asserted.6 It has been the same with God’s essential attributes, for it should be self-evident that an attribute is something beyond the essence, and, consequently, that an attribute can be added on only accidentally. If something is present in the essence, speaking of it as people often do is redundant, like saying, for example, a human is a human, or it is like giving a simple definition, for example, that a human is a living, rational creature. An attribute of the latter kind could be ascribed to God (provided that the concept of God can be explained), [51] but we deny that this is so, because the concept of God is in fact inexplicable. The former kind of attribute, however, must be denied on the very basis of God, because it comes from outside His essence and thus represents an accidental modification, which goes against the necessity of this Being and His true unity. Some thinkers try to overcome these difficulties by asserting that God’s attributes are neither His essence nor outside His essence. But this claim is just as if someone wanted to say: general concepts (genera and species) exist as little as they don’t exist. Or, an atom isn’t in space and yet occupies space. Or, humans don’t act and yet can be skilled in action. Such assertions consist merely of words, not in an actual mental representation, and have even much less reality outside representation. With such attempts, thinkers have failed to find a means between contradictory propositions. [52] Chapter fifty-two addresses five kinds of attributes. 1 When the definition (Definitio) is ascribed to what is defined (Definitum) as an attribute, or when a thing is defined, when, for example, one says, a human is a rational animal. Because every definition consists of a genus and the proximate species, a definition presupposes the concept of the proximate species as something inherently possible, and it is on this possibility that, in turn, the possibility of the thing defined depends. God, as the absolutely possible Being, on which the possibility of all other beings depends, cannot be defined, and an attribute of this kind cannot be ascribed to Him. 2 When an essential determination is ascribed to a being as an attribute, for example, when one says: a human is a rational animal. An attribute of this kind can only be ascribed to a composite; it cannot be ascribed to God as a Being absolutely simple. [53]

See Aristotle’s response to the Eleatics’ arguments against the reality of motion in bk. 6, ch. 2 and bk. 7, ch. 8 of Aristotle’s Physics. 6 See Aristotle, Physics, 231a20–231b22. 5

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3 When an accidental modification is ascribed to a being (the possibility of ascribing a property as an attribute of God follows from what has been said already). Such an attribute cannot be ascribed to God as the absolutely necessary Being. 4 Nor is it possible to ascribe a relationship or relation to God as an attribute. The relationship of space and time doesn’t apply to God as a purely intellectual Being. His relation to the world is also no true relation, for such a relation assumes that the relata are of the same kind, and are distinguished only through this relation. Thus, for example, master and slave are both humans, and because individual differences aren’t taken into account here, they are distinguished from each other only though this relation. By contrast, God has nothing in common with all other beings. Even His existence is of a kind different from theirs, for with Him, existence is necessary, and the existence of the other beings is merely accidental.7 [54] 5 When the effect is ascribed to the cause as an attribute. (The laws of Solon, the city of David.) Such attributes, which leave the rest of the Being totally undefined, can be rightly ascribed to God. In the following section,8 Maimonides shows that manifold effects9 don’t require their efficient cause to be a manifold. For example, the sun melts some things, makes others harder, cooks, burns, blanches, blackens, and so forth. All attributes ascribed to God in the prophetic scriptures are thus to be seen as attributes of the fifth kind. In the fifty-seventh section, the author shows that one isn’t even permitted to ascribe existence to God as an attribute in the way one does with other things, because the existence of God, as that of a necessary Being, is already contained in His essence.10 Thus it cannot be ascribed as an attribute. God exists, then, without existence11—and the same goes for His other attributes. [55] In the following section,12 Maimonides goes farther still and shows that with regard to God, one can only use as attributes negations of negations. (One can see from this proposition that the author’s concept of God is the same one Descartes and Leibniz took as the basis for their a

Guide 1:61. Guide 1:53. 9 Or actions. 10 Here Maimon diverges slightly but signficantly from Maimonides’ assertion that God’s essence and existence are identical. See Guide 1:57 | Pines 1:132. 11 Cf. Guide 1:57 (Pines 1:132): “He exists, but not through an existence (other than His essence).” 12 Guide 1:58. 7 8

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priori proof of the existence of God—namely, the concept of the most real Being, or of reality itself with all limitations negated.)13 He then shows how one can come progressively closer to knowledge of God through this double negation. All philosophers, it is said, agree: “God’s perfection triumphs over our knowledge. Owing to his highest clarity, we remain in the dark.”14 The Psalmist has a more exalted formulation for this: “For You, silence is praise.”15 In closing, he cites a passage from the Talmud that coheres well with that one. Someone had positioned himself to pray before Rabbi Chaninah, beginning his prayer with the words: “You great, strong, fear-inspiring, exalted, and magnificent God.” [56] Rabbi Chaninah interrupted him and said: “Have you finished complimenting your Lord? We wouldn’t even permit ourselves to use the first three expressions (great, strong, fear-inspiring) if Moses himself hadn’t used them and the Men of the Great Council hadn’t put them into the standard prayer. Yet you want to go much further! It is just as if one were to celebrate a king with millions of gold pieces by boasting that he had millions of silver pieces. The compliment would actually be an insult.”16 Thereupon Maimonides emphatically denounces the excesses of prayer formulas meant to propitiate and flatter God, and he concludes this section with a remark about the parable of Rabbi Chaninah. Its message isn’t that one should celebrate a king who has many pieces of gold for having a few hundreds of them. For in the first place, he says, such a message would be appropriate if divine perfections were of the same kind as ours, [57] just different with respect to degree; but it isn’t in this case, for the comparison between divine and human perfections is impossible. Solomon, too, gives us a remark that fits well with this observation, he says: “God is in heaven (far above us), you are on earth. Thus, your words (with respect to God) must be few.”17 In the following section,18 Maimonides shows that the person who ascribes (positive) characteristics to God doesn’t merely have an incorrect concept of God, such a person has no concept of God. What would one say, for example, in response to someone who, having heard people 13 For a discussion of the ens realissimum, see the “Ideal of Pure Reason” in Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A578/B606. 14 Guide 1:59 | Pines 1:139. On whether Maimonides’ allusion here is to Bahya ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Heart, or to Al-Ghazali, see Michael Schwarz’s note to his modern Hebrew translation of the Guide Moreh Nevuchim LeRabbenu Mosheh ben Maimon (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press), p. 148, n13. 15 Ps. 65:2. 16 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot, 33b, and Tractate Megila, 25a. 17 Eccles. 5:1. 18 Guide 1:60.

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talking about an elephant, formed the following concept of one? It is a water animal with a transparent body that has one leg, three wings, a wide face, and human appearance. It sometimes speaks like a person, flies like a bird, and swims like a fish. One could not say about this person that he had an incorrect concept of an elephant; rather, one would say that he had no concept at all, for his concept is merely [58] fabricated, and thus its reality is to be doubted. God is a necessary Being. He can thus have no attributes outside his Being; for if this were so, He would be dependent on something outside Himself with respect to these attributes. Therefore, when someone says, God is a necessary Being to whom certain attributes can be ascribed, one cannot simply say that he has an incorrect concept of God. Rather, we should say that he has no concept of God. But in this case, the concept isn’t just doubtful; it is a completely misguided fabrication. [59]

Chapter 4

Continuation. Explanation of the Manifold Names of God as Names for His Actions. Destiny of Metaphysics. It Becomes the Slave of Theology. Its Degeneration into Dialectics

In the following sections,1 Maimonides explains all the names of God’s actions, with the exception of the name Jehova, which the Talmudists correctly call Schem Haezem, the Name of the Essence, for it means absolute Being (abstracted from all specific modes of being), and this is the true essence of God. Finally, he inveighs against the Kabbalists, who invented a huge number of holy names that have no meaning, believing that they would be able to produce miracles with them.2 “The fool,” Maimonides says, “believes everything!”3 [60] In the sixty-fifth section, he explains the term speaking, when used in reference to God, as an expression of divine will or of His wisdom. “God spoke to Moses” means Moses had ideas that corresponded to God’s will or wisdom.4 The following section begins with a passage from the Second Book of Moses, in which we read: “The tablets are God’s work.”5 This means, Maimonides says, they are the work of nature.6 Having enumerated many natural phenomena, the astonished Psalmist exclaims: “How great Your works are, Jehova!”7 Similarly, we also read: “the pine trees of Lebanon that He planted,”8 i.e., that didn’t come about through human

Guide 1:61–63. Maimonides criticizes the writers of amulets (Guide 1:61 | Pines 1:149 and Guide 1:62| Pines 1:152), but, of course, makes no reference to “the Kabbalists,” with whom he was not, strictly speaking, familiar, since the efflourescence of classical Kabbalah came in the following century. Kabbalistic amulets were, however, common in eighteenth-century Ashkenaz. 3 Prov. 14:15. Cf. Guide 1:62 | Pines 1:152. 4 Guide 1:65 | Pines 1:159. 5 Exod. 32:12. 6 Guide 1:66 | Pines 1:160. 7 Ps. 104:24. 8 Ps. 104:16. 1 2

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industriousness, but rather through nature. The expression: “the writing is God’s writing”9 should be explained the same way. Because this expression is rather murky, I will cite a passage from an old commentary on the work, that of Rabbi Mosis [61] Narboniensis, which will help me explain it.10 Let us note (says this fine rabbi), that according to the testimony of ancient travelers, one could see the image of a thorn bush (seneh) on every stone near Mount Sinai. For this reason, the mountain is called Sinai. An excellent man from Barcelona, one of the children of Ben Chesdai, traveled there and brought back several of these stones. I saw the thorn bush quite clearly, and when I broke a stone into small pieces, I noticed the image on even the smallest ones. I was puzzled by this but at the same time happy, for it shed light on a passage by our Maimonides.”11 The writing on the tablets was etched into them in the same way when the tablets were created.—12

In the sixty-eighth section, Maimonides demonstrates quite trenchantly a proposition asserted by the philosophers: God as a representing subject, His representation, and the represented object are one and the same. Maimonides [62] does so in the following way. Before a person has formed a representation of something, he has (in relation to the object) merely the capacity to represent. For its part, this something has, before I have formed a representation of it, merely the ability to be the object of a representation. Yet with the actual representation, the capacity for representing ceases (with respect to the object), for it goes over into the actuality of the representation; and the same goes for the ability of the object, when the object is actually represented. The actual representing is at once the capacity for representing that has been actualized, and the actualized capacity of the object to be represented. Thus, all three are one.13 Since there is no

Exod. 32:16. Moses Narboni was a radical Averroist interpreter of Maimonides who flourished in the fourteenth century. Maimon discusses this naturalistic interpretation in his own commentary to the first part of the Guide of the Perplexed, Give’at ha-Moreh, which appeared side by side with Narboni’s commentary. This 1791 edition of the Guide was the first time the commentary of Narboni appeared in print. For discussion of the origin and paradoxical later reception of Narboni’s naturalistic remark about the tablets, see Abraham Socher, “Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin, and the Stones of Sinai,” Times Literary Supplement (TLS), March 2008. 11 More Nebuchim [Guide of the Perplexed] (1791), 62a. 12 That is to say, in a natural rather than supernatural way. The dash Maimon places here suggests that he could say more but the philosophically astute reader will understand his radical point. 13 Guide 1:68 | Pines 1:163–64. 9

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potentiality in God, but rather everything (possibly) conceivable is actually represented by Him, it follows that God as a representing subject, His representation, and the represented object (which is only conceived by analogy with a finite capacity for represention) are one and the same.14 The intelligent reader can easily see where all this is going.—15 [63] In the following section, Maimonides says, philosophers call God the first ground or the first cause.16 The dialecticians,17 however, reject these appellations, and prefer to call God the master craftsman,18 because they believe that there is an important difference between these concepts. More specifically, they say that a cause cannot as a cause precede its effect. If we call God the cause of the world, we have to see the world as being as eternal as He is. But the master craftsman can in fact precede his effect. This mistake arises from the dialecticians’ lack of attention to the difference between mere capacity and actuality. The cause in mere capacity— just as with the master craftsman—precedes the effects; and the reverse is also true: In actuality the master craftsman can precede his work just as little as the cause can precede the effect. And so, there is in fact no difference between the two appellations. That the philosophers prefer to call God a cause rather than a master craftsman, even though the two appellations are the same, as has been shown,[64] happens not because the philosophers are trying in this way express their view about the eternity of the world, but rather because the term cause encompasses all four types of causes: matter, form, efficient cause, and final cause. By contrast, the master craftsman signifies only one cause.19 Drawing on all four meanings, philosophers conceive God as the cause of the world. Nor do I need to give intelligent readers a comprehensive explanation of the consequences of this proposition.—20

Guide 1:68 | Pines 1:165. That is, in the direction of what he called “acosmism” in his discussion of Hasidic theology, above. The intelligent reader may also wish to consult Spinoza’s Ethics, pt. 2, proposition 7, scholium. Cf. Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism,” 84. 16 Guide 1:69 | Pines 1:166. 17 Namely, the Kalamists. 18 “Der Werkmeister.” “The maker” in Pines’ translation of the Guide. 19 Namely, the efficient cause. 20 The “philosophers” cited by Maimonides in Guide 1:69 (Pines 1:167) in fact consider God to be the efficient, formal, and final cause of the world, but not the world’s material cause. It is Maimon who adds the crcucial assertation that God is also the material cause of the world, a move he made in his early work the Hesheq Shelomo as well. For the Spinozist implication of this view, see Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism,” 79–85. 14 15

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In the seventy-fourth21 chapter, he continues: The vast knowledge and sciences our nation once possessed have been lost due to the expanse of time that has passed and the pressure exerted by barbaric nations, and especially because these treasures, which were for the most part not preserved in writing, didn’t stand open for all to use. According to a principle our nation adopted: what belongs to an oral tradition should not be set down in writing.22 Even the Talmud couldn’t be written down at first. Here, however, our jurisprudence revealed its greatest wisdom, [65] for we wanted to avoid what we would eventually fall into: diversity of opinion, doubts about the meaning of Scripture, battles among scholars, sectarianism, and so forth, which led inevitably to confusion in the execution of laws. The Great Court23 was thus given sole legislative authority. Even more caution was needed with respect to religious secrets, which were imparted to only a select few.24

This withholding is the reason why so many truths important for our nation have been lost almost completely, with the exception of some hints, which one can find here and there in the Talmud, like a few grains scattered among many empty shells. Most busy themselves with the shells without finding the few grains hidden among them. Indeed, the little bit that one finds about these truths among some Geonim (the rabbis who came directly after the Talmudists) and the Karaites, who wrote about the unity of God, was [66] taken from Arab dialecticians, who wrote much more on this matter. Our brothers also took many principles and views from the sect of the Methusleh [Muatazila], which emerged among the Arabs. They took nothing, however, from the newer sect of the Asserieh [Ashariyya], which likewise emerged among the Arabs, only somewhat later. It isn’t the case that our brothers made a deliberative choice, electing in the end to follow the principles of the former over the latter. They simply adopted these principles as if they were demonstrably true and defended them without deviating from them. The Sefardi, particularly the Andalusians of our nation, held to the methods of Greek philosophy and eagerly adopted their systems (as long as they weren’t in conflict with our religion). And thus, their positions are often in agreement with those taken in this work. All the assertions of the Arabian sects, namely, the Methusleh and the Asserieh, are built on premises and principles taken from the writings of This is another typographical error. The reference should be to Guide 1:71. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, 60b, and Tractate Temura, 14b. 23 Namely, the Great Sanhedrin, the highest Rabbinic court during the second temple era. 24 Guide 1:71 | Pines 1:176. 21 22

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the (Christian) [67] Greeks and Armenians,25 whose entire striving had the goal of challenging the views of the peripatetic school. Because the Christian religion spread among these nations, within which philosophical thinking had established roots, and the Christian theologians saw that their principles weren’t compatible with such thought, they invented dialectics. This was meant to be a means of establishing views that would undermine the opinions of the philosophers and at the same time reinforce the Christian religion. The Arabs later came by the views of the philosophers and, simultaneously, refutations of them,26 and they believed that here they had gained something important. The dialecticians took from the views of ancient philosophers what they deemed useful for their purposes, even if more recent philosophers had refuted it, for example, the reality of atoms and of empty space, and they saw what they had borrowed as indispensible for every religion. [68] Things subsequently became even worse. The religion of Mohammed also needed new principles, and because it, too, was quickly divided into sects, each sect had to seek to establish such principles that would serve it well. There are without a doubt certain doctrines of faith that are equally necessary for Jews, Christians, and Arabs, for example, the proposition of the creation of the world out of nothing and the belief in miracles that depends on it. In short, the first dialecticians, among baptized Greeks and Arabs, took their principles not from nature, but rather constructed a nature that conformed to principles that were indispensible for them. Yet they acted as though pure speculation, free of preconceived opinion, had led them to their notion of nature. Nature, however, isn’t arranged according to accepted views, as Tamastius [Themistius] correctly claims; rather, all true ideas must conform to nature. In studying the writings [69] of the dialecticians and the philosophers, I found the methods of the former to be everywhere the same. Their chief tenet is: The nature of things doesn’t yield a criterion of truth, for the intellect can always conceive of it otherwise, and what is even worse, they often confuse intellect with the power of imagination. (The immortal dialectic! Our more recent dogmatic metaphysicians, too, know how to make use of it. Whatever contains no contradiction is possible. Therefore: the world is accidental. Therefore: an ens realissimum is possible. And therefore also: an ens realissimum is

25 26

In Ibn-Tibbon: “Aramim,” i.e., Syrians. Here Maimonides refers specifically to John Philoponus (Guide 1:71 | Pines 1:177).

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also necessary, and so forth.)27 In accordance with their premises, they marshal evidence to show that the world came to be, and from that it naturally follows that the world has a cause. They proceed to show that this cause is both a unity and non-corporeal. Thus, they base the existence of God on the contingency of the world. I rejected this method, and I am justified in having done so, I believe, for everything that these men present as proof for the creation of the world [70] is subject to many doubts and will have purchase only among those who do not know the difference between rigorous demonstration and sophistry.28 But whoever understands the difference will find that their proof is uncertain and that their premises are arrived at through tricks. The best thing a truth-loving theologian can do in this situation is to undermine, where possible, the philosophers’ proof for the eternity of the world. Every unbiased thinker, every thinker who doesn’t want to hide from the light, must allow that the question of whether the world is eternal or created cannot be resolved through proofs. (Kant showed that when we aren’t merely talking about the world as an appearance, but rather as a thing in itself, it’s not only the case that there is no one definitive proof, but opposing proofs, antinomies, are possible.)29 Philosophers have been fighting about this for three thousand years. Now given that this is so, how can we ground the proof of God’s existence in the questionable idea [71] of the creation of the world, since then, God’s existence can only be conceded hypothetically? The best approach here is, in my estimation, to prove the existence of God, His unity, and non-corporeality through the philosophical method. It takes as its ground the eternity of the world, though, to be sure, I don’t accept this view. Once I have rigorously proven these important truths without reference to the question of the eternity of the world, I will then take up this question myself, and I will cite as much evidence as I can in support of the idea of the newness of the world. If you want to content yourself with the dialecticians’ proofs, that’s fine by me. If you want to dispense with proofs and evidence, and if, instead, you accept the testimony of the prophetic scriptures, that can’t hurt either. But you must not ask me: “If we presuppose the eternity of the world, how can the divination take place?” (What a subtle point!)30 For we shall be speaking of this below. [72] 27 The target of Maimon’s criticism here seems to be Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s proofs of the existence of God relying on a variant of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. 28 Maimon here continues translating (and summarizing) Maimonides. 29 For Kant’s First Antinomy, see his Critique of Pure Reason, A427/B455. 30 This is Maimon own interpolation in his translation/summary of Maimonides’ claims in Guide 1:71 | Pines 1:181.

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My method is, in short, as follows. I assert that the world is either eternal or it is not. If it isn’t, its genesis must have had a cause, because what has a genesis cannot be the cause of its own genesis. This cause is thus God. If, however, the world is eternal, it follows from a rigorous demonstration that there is a single non-corporeal Being that has no cause beyond itself.31 This Being is God. Thus, a rigorous proof of God’s existence, unity, and non-corporeality must be grounded in the presupposition that the world is eternal, yet without accepting this latter view. I will base this proof on the manifest nature of things; the dialecticians’ proofs, by contrast, rest on things that are contrary to nature, which is why they were forced in the end to assert also that there is no nature. I will offer some proofs of the genesis of the world and, in this way, achieve the dialecticians’ goal without denying the existence of nature. [73] I have already noted that there is nothing beyond God and the world, and that a proper concept of the world is our sole means of knowing God. Thus in the following chapter, I will be seeking to set forth the correct concept of the world, namely, as an ordered whole. Afterward, I will lay out the methods of the dialecticians and, finally, the principles and argumentative techniques of the philosophers. (The idea of the world as an ordered whole, the reciprocal effects of its parts on each other, the parallel between the world and every single organized body—all this is magnificent. But because the supporting data have been taken from Aristotelian physics, which is severely lacking, I will leave this section untranslated. As to Maimonides’ way of revealing the shortcomings in the views of the dialecticians, I have remarked in my commentary on this work that the majority of these views can be defended using the most recent developments in metaphysics, and I have shown how it is possible to do this.32 However, the present text is the right place neither for translating the whole critical reckoning [74] with the dialecticians nor for presenting my commentary on the debate. It is only the following wonderful passage that I cannot help but translate.) Dearest Reader! If you have correct ideas about the soul and its powers, you will know that most animals have the power of imagination, and that humans don’t distinguish themselves from other animals through having this faculty, and that, finally, the actions of the imagination and of the intellect aren’t the same; rather, they are of opposing types.33 Maimonides’ text here reads simply “who has no cause” (Pines 1:181). By slightly modifying Maimonides’ words to “has no cause beyond [auser] itself,” Maimon is inserting a Spinozist twist, as he makes God causa sui. 32 See Maimon’s Give’at ha-Moreh, 81a–99a. 33 Guide 1:73 | Pines 1:209. 31

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The intellect separates what has been melded together (in perception), abstracts from the basic perceptions out of which it has been melded together, and produces correct concepts about them. A single perception thus provides the intellect with material for a large number of ideas and concepts, which it distinguishes from each other just as the imagination distinguishes individuals. The intellect distinguishes general characteristics [75] from individual ones in that each one of the former must be grounded in a determination of reason. The intellect also distinguishes between essential predicates (properties) and accidental ones (modi). The imagination, by contrast, isn’t capable of doing any of this. It can present something only individually, as the senses have received it. Or the imagination can compound what is encountered dispersed in nature into an image—that is, fabricate (the fabrication of ideals isn’t simply the workings of the imagination, but rather the working of the imagination and the faculty of judgment at the same time). And even amid its abstracting, the imagination cannot present the general cleansed of the individual-corporeal. Thus, the imagination cannot be the standard of universally valid truth. Listen now, to how mathematics has served us in this regard and what truths it has enabled us to arrive at! There are things that the imagination simply cannot represent, as little as the intellect [can represent] a contradiction. And yet experience or reason [76] has convinced us that they are true. Imagine, for example, a sphere as large as the entire universe with a line through its center. Now imagine that there are two people positioned at opposite ends of this axis, thus forming a single line with it. This axis can be seen as parallel with the horizon or not. In the first case, both must fall off. In the second, only the one who comes to stand under the horizon falls. This, at least, is how the imagination represents the scene. Now, that the earth is round has been proven, as has that both poles are populated; and yet the inhabitants of both poles carry their heads toward the sky and their feet on the ground, without either group falling off the earth. And one cannot say that one group is above and the other below, for each is both above and below in relation to the other. Thus the second book of mathematical figures (presumably, Apollonius’ book of conic sections is meant here34) also [77] proves that there can be two lines (one straight and one curved) that originate at points a limited distance from each other, and that come, the further they are extended, progressively closer to each other without ever meeting, even

34 The note in parentheses is Maimon’s. Maimonides refers here to theorem 13 of the second book of Apolonius’ Conic Sections.

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if one extends them into infinity.(a) This, too, the faculty of imagination cannot imagine. The impossibility of the imagination’s representation of God as a body or as a corporeal force—that has been shown as well, for the imagination cannot conceive of something existing that has no body. [78]

a [Maimon] Maimonides is speaking here of the asymptotes of the curve. In my commentary on this work [Give’at ha-Moreh in More Nebuchim (Guide of the Perplexed) (1791), 94a–b—Eds.], I carried out a proof of this proposition independently of the theorem of the curve.

Chapter 5

Continuation. The Concept of Angels. Some Remain at Their Stations as Ambassadors, Others Have Been Ordered Back. Genesis and Influence of the Uniform Beings. Aristotelians’ Reasons for the Eternity of the World

The second part begins with the premises of peripatetic philosophers and the proofs derived from them for the existence of God, His unity, and His non-corporeality. Because modern metaphysicians have already used what is good in this treatise and corrected what is erroneous, I will skip over it.1 The Aristotelian idea of the heavenly bodies as living rational creatures is a very beautiful metaphysical dream, whose presentation I will pass over as well.2 [79] But what Maimonides says about the angels is so original and, I believe, so important for undermining superstition that I cannot but give the reader some sense of it, insofar as possible though the author’s own words. Both the Holy Scripture and the Talmud often speak of angels, of whom God makes use, and who carry out his orders in the lower world.3 This way of imagining them is anthropomorphic. Let us now see how our author tries to refine such imagining and bring it into line with truth. That there are angels (he says), for this I don’t need to provide evidence from the Holy Scripture. One encounters them often in the text.4 In this work, I have already shown that the angels aren’t bodies; Aristotle asserts this as well. We differ only in our nomenclature: He calls them separate intellects; I refer to them as angels. His claim that these separate intellects are mediators

The only “modern philosopher” that may have used the preface to the second part of the Guide is Spinoza, who accepts some, and rejects many, of the twenty-six premises discussed by Maimonides. 2 This topic is discussed in chapters 1–5 of part 2 of the Guide. Skipping it has the added advantage of relieving Maimon of the explication (and philosophical burdens) of medieval cosmology. 3 Guide 2:6 | Pines 2:261. 4 Maimon’s text here is partly a quote, partly a summary of the first two pages of Guide 2:6. 1

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between God and nature—this, too, [80] can be found in our writings. All divine effects take place through angels, for angel means messenger. One who carries out the order of another is an angel.5 Thus we find that the Holy Scripture attributes even the most random movements of non-rational animals to an angel, provided that these movements serve a larger purpose. “God,” it says, “sent his angel to shut the lions’ mouths, so that they would do me no harm.”6 (translated non-biblically: the lions had no appetite for me). Thus, an angel affected Bileam’s donkey, too7 (the imagination, namely, that played a trick on him). Even the elements are called angels: ‘He made the winds into angels’”8 The expression angel means, among other things, every force in nature. Thus we find in Midras Koheleth: “God and his high council have assigned every part of the human body its proper place”9—that is, every part takes the place that it should have, thanks to the natural forces influencing it. One shouldn’t imagine here [81] that God found it necessary to consult with others. Rather, the idea is that even the smallest parts of the natural world are determined by angels, i.e., by active powers. Oh! How far the blindness of stupidity extends! If you say to a scholar of our nation (a rabbi): “God sends an angel into the stomach of a pregnant woman to form the fetus,” the scholar will certainly give his full approval. He will see this as an instance of God’s supreme power and wisdom, even if he also believes that an angel is a fiery body the size of a third of the whole world.10(a) Indeed, he will say that everything is possible for God. If, on the other hand, you say to him: God has planted the seed of the desire for self-development in every person, and this is actually the aforementioned angel, the scholar will condemn the thought as heretical, for he has no concept of true power and wisdom, which [82] manifests itself in the bringing forth of active forces that operate under the surface. In Bereschith Rabah, we read: “An angel cannot deliver two different messages, and two angels cannot deliver the same message.”11 Properly explained, this is clear. Every effect needs a certain force, and every force can bring forth only a certain effect. In explaining the story of Judah and Tamar,12 Rabbi Jochanan said that Jehudah wanted to pass by Tamar. But on his behalf, God signaled to the See Gen. 32:4. Dan. 6:23. 7 Num. 22:23–28. 8 Ps. 104:4. 9 Qohelet Rabba on Eccles. 2:11. 10 Guide 2:6 | Pines 2:263. a [Maimon] An allusion to a passage in the Talmud. [In fact, the reference is to Bereshit Rabbah, 68:12.] 11 Bereshit Rabbah, 50:2. 12 Gen. 38. 5 6

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angel who manages relations between the sexes, i.e., God arranged to have natural forces act upon the body, through which Judah’s member achieved the position needed for sexual congress.13

(I find it hard to believe that in his comment, Rabbi Jochanan displayed thought as subtle as Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon’s; otherwise, he could not have seen this scene as a special intervention of providence, as the whole context of the passage suggests.) [83] Everything possible that has become real must have an efficient cause, which contains the reason why what was merely possible became actual.14 This efficient cause is either material or immaterial. Matter, however, is not active insofar as it is matter in general (for matter as such is something passive); rather, it is active (bringing about an effect) only insofar as it is a determinate matter (having a form). The proximate cause has in turn its own cause, and so forth. But this cannot go on infinitely (for an endless series of causes is never complete and thus cannot bring forth a cause). Everything that has become actual presupposes a necessary first cause. The reason why this necessary (and, consequently, eternal) cause brought forth its effect now and not sooner lies either in the lack of an external relation (as a necessary condition) between the (proximate) cause and the effect, when the former is material, or, when it isn’t material, in the lack of the necessary preparation of the matter. The taking shape of a [84] thing that is melded together requires the reciprocal attraction of the parts as well as their reciprocal effects on each other. This, however, requires a certain relation in space, for bodies can only mutually attract and affect each other from certain distances. But the forms (simple15 substances, forces) don’t require (for their existence in matter) a relation in space (for between a simple thing and one melded together there can be no relation in space). Rather, they require only the preparation of matter. However, the cause of these forms as such can be nothing other than a form. And because these forms are simple beings, they cannot come into—and out of—being over time, i.e., gradually; rather, they do so suddenly and all at once.16 The effect of a simple being separated from matter is therefore best compared with the outflow of water. Just as the latter, in itself, isn’t limited by any particular direction or distance, [85] but only by the capacity of the area into which this discharge occurs, the effect of the former extends to everything that is receptive to it. Because God as the primary cause of the

Bereshit Rabbah, 85:8. Guide 2:12 | Pines 2:277. 15 Namely, having no parts. 16 Guide 2:12 | Pines 2:278. 13 14

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world is immaterial, we can in a sense say: The world is an expression, or outflow, of God. Indeed, we cannot express ourselves better than that.

This chapter does preparatory work for the following one, in which beliefs in the eternity of the world are critically examined.17 The author displays great subtlety here. He is himself favorably disposed toward Aristotle’s belief in the eternity of the world: One would expect nothing else of a dogmatic philosopher. But to avoid confrontation with the theologians, he subsequently attempts to undermine the reasons supporting this view. Yet in doing so—only in passing and without reference to his critical investigation—he presents the most important, most decisive supporting reason of all. He says that because the effect of [86] a non-material Being can only be determined by the receptiveness of the material, which is the cause why this effect becomes manifest at certain times and with certain objects, one can’t tell from this reason why the world as a whole, even in regard to its materiality, could have come into being in time, for here no preparation of the material could have occurred, since the material itself is supposed to have been brought forth from nothing. With this established, he proceeds to the following section. Among those who accept the existence of God, there are three kinds of views about the eternity of the world or its creation from nothing. 1 The view of our revealed religion. On this view, the world as a whole, that is, everything that exists outside of God, was brought forth from nothing by God, His wisdom, and in accordance with His free will. Indeed, even time itself is something created. For time is inseparable from movement (or change of any kind). Movement is an [87] accident of what is moved, but that which is moved emerged out of nothing. Thus, when we say that “God was before He created the world,” so that the word “was” expresses time, and, in addition, when, in doing so, we represent time to be infinite, this is merely our representation of time, not true time. For since time is not a quality (as, for example, black and white are), it is an accident that is inseparable from movement. I note in passing that the reason why some philosophers (Galenus, for instance) have been so wrong about the nature of time, so wrong that they have even doubted whether time should be counted among real things, lies in the fact that time is an accident of another accident. Accidents that inhere directly in the substance are easy to understand. Conversely, accidents of other accidents are hard to grasp. This is the case with time as an accident of movement,18 which is itself an unsteady accident of bodies. It suffices to say that time in general, like all 17 18

Guide 2:13 | Pines 2:281–85. Aristotle, Physics 4:219b1–9.

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substances and [88] their accidents, is something created. However, if one assumes that time is eternal, one must also accept the eternity of the world, for time can’t be conceived of as an accident without substance. (In our times, Kant has shown that time is as little a substance as an accident, and that it is, rather, a form of the world as a sensible appearance. The world as a thing-in-itself doesn’t exist, by contrast, in time; and thus this antinomy, which arose merely from the use of this form of the thing in itself, was fully overcome.)19 2 The view of the philosophers, insofar as we know about it. Here the claim is that even God Himself cannot bring forth something out of nothing, a claim that takes nothing away from His infinite power, for it contains a contradiction. Matter is in itself necessary and thus eternal. By contrast, God brings forth forms according to his free will. On this view, the world comes into being and disappears like each individual thing, but not out of and into [89] nothing. Plato, too, inclines toward this view, as we can see from his book, the Timaeus. 3 Aristotle’s view and that of his acolytes and interpreters. According to Aristotle, not only matter, but everything that we perceive in the world as unchanging is eternal (the heavenly bodies, as the physicists of the time saw it, and such things), and the order of nature will remain unchangingly the same, as it has been since the beginning. Aristotle proves the eternity of the world in the following way. He says: 1 Movement as such can neither come into being nor disappear, for everything that comes into being comes into being through movement; thus, movement itself cannot come into being. For the same reason time, too, cannot come into being: Time is an accident of movement.20 2 Matter as such (materia prima) can neither come into being nor disappear, for everything that comes into being comes out of matter.21 3 I will pass over the third proof, whose basis is error-laden physics [90] propositions about the nature of heavenly bodies.22 4 Everything actual must as such be possible. Thus, possibility must precede actuality even in time. Building on this proposition, Aristotle’s acolytes try to prove the eternity of the world in the following way: Before it reached the point of existence, the existence of the world was, they say, either possible or necessary or impossible. If the world were necessary, it would have to have existed for all eternity. If it were impossible, it could never have reached existence. If, See Kant’s First Antinomy in the Crtique of Pure Reason, B454–B461. Aristotle, Physics, 8:250b10–252b7. 21 Aristotle, Physics, 1:192a27–35. 22 Aristotle, De Caelo, 1:270a13–26. 19 20

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however, the world were possible, then we must ask what the subject of this possibility was. For there must always have been something there about which one can assert: It was possible. Some of the more recent dialecticians wanted to destroy this proof by claiming: possibility concerns only the efficient cause that could bring forth the world, not the object of the effect. But this amounts to saying nothing. There are two kinds of possibility: the possibility that an [91] object has to become actual and the efficient cause’s possibility of bringing forth this effect. In addition to this proof of the eternity of the world, which is based on the observation of the world as such, Aristotle’s followers found other proofs for it in the Being of God. They say: 1 If God created the world from nothing, He must have possessed the ability to do so, an ability that in effect became actuality. This means that God had to have had a cause that brought this capacity to actuality, and He would then no longer be the primary cause. 2 That someone is active at one time but not at another happens because of adventitious motivations and obstacles. The former move the will to action, the latter hold it back. But because God, as the most perfect Being, cannot have either adventitious motivations or obstacles, we cannot explain [92] why He would be active at one time but not at another. Rather, His activity must be as eternal as His existence. 3 God is, as the most perfect Being, perfect in His effects to the highest degree. Aristotle often says: Nature is wise—it brings forth nothing superfluous,23 rather everything in the most perfect way. His followers extrapolate and say: The actual world is the most perfect one. There can be no better one, and because it is a result of the highest wisdom, it must have always been so. How can one think, they continue, that God, the most perfect Being, was simply idle for the endless period before the creation of the world, bringing forth nothing and deciding only recently to bring forth the world? For if one believes that God has created as many worlds as grains of sand would fit in our universe, and each one lasted as many years, all this militates against His infinite duration as [93] much as the idea that He created the world just yesterday. In addition, they invoke the authority of the ancients and also how widely people have believed in the eternity of the world.24 [94]

23 24

Aristotle, De Caelo, 271a33. Guide 2:14 | Pines 2:289.

Chapter 6

Continuation. Counter-Reasons. A Psychological Explanation of Prophesy That Doesn’t Undermine the Dignity of Prophesy

Next Maimonides shows that even Aristotle himself (who was in the best position to evaluate his own methods of proof, having established the theory of proof) presents these proofs [of the eternity of the world] as being less than unshakeable demonstrations, something that comes to light through many passages in his works. In the following passages,1 Maimonides tries (without violating the laws of logic in the least) to undermine these proofs insofar as this is possible. Using a single conspicuous idea, he at first tries to overturn those proofs taken from the nature of the world as such. [95] The nature of each thing that has developed to full actuality (he says2) is different from what its nature was when it had only a tendency to actuality, and this in turn is different from the nature of the same thing when it resided only in potentiality. And so, one cannot draw conclusions about the one condition based on the other. If one neglects this remark, one will necessarily wind up with unresolvable difficulties and inconsistent assertions. Let us imagine a person born in the desert with perfect natural capacities. His mother died after nursing him for only a few months; his father took over his upbringing, seeing it through in lonely circumstances. This person, who has never encountered a woman or any feminine animal, therefore asks his father: How did we come to be? What is the efficient cause of our existence? And how did we come into the world ? The father, as is only natural, gives him an account. Each of us, he says, is conceived in the womb of someone of our kind, namely, a woman of such [96] and such constitution. At first, we are all tiny in our mother’s womb, but we grow over time until we reach a certain size, at which point an exit from our captivity opens up, and we continue to live and to grow. When the son proceeds to ask whether we eat, drink, breathe, and excrete waste in our mother’s womb (since we

1 2

Namely, Guide 2:17–22. Guide 2:17 | Pines 2:294–95.

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live), and his father denies all this, he will seek to counter his father in the following way. Every one of us, he will say, who has for a short time lost the capacity to breathe, will necessarily die. So, how could someone live for nine months without breathing in his mother’s body? How could he nourish himself without using his mouth, etc.? For these reasons, he will come to regard the entire fact as false and believe that people cannot come to be in such a way. It is just the same with respect to our views about Aristotle. Leaning on the testimony of revealed religion, [97] we believe that the world came into being in such and such a way and with such and such an order. Proceeding from the nature of the actual world, Aristotle tries to refute our belief. We can concede that everything he builds upon is a fact, only we assert that one cannot extrapolate from the nature of the actual world to conclusions about its nature before it had reached full actuality. What will Aristotle do to counter our position? Nothing! With this, I have built a strong wall around (revealed) religion, one wall that can repel all the arrows aimed at it. If, however, Aristotle goes on to ask, if one cannot proceed from the nature of the actual world to conclusions about its nature before it had achieved full actuality, how can one prove the world was created from nothing, we will reply: That is not at all our intention. We merely want to show that this question cannot be determined through recourse to the nature of the world. The genesis of the world from nothing is [98] at the very least problematically possible, and it is simply this that we wanted to show.3

(The intelligent reader not unfamiliar with modern philosophy will find similarities between Maimonides’ critique of Aristotle and Kant’s critique of the dogmatists. Kant, namely, shows that the dogmatists have no justification for drawing conclusions about the nature of the world as a thing-in-itself from the nature of the world as an appearance. And, similarly, Maimonides shows that Aristotle has no justification for drawing conclusions about the world’s previous nature from the nature of the fully formed world.)4— Next Maimonides tries to undermine those reasons for the eternity of the world that are derived from God’s Being.5 Guide 2:17 | Pines 2:298. A somewhat similar reading of the Kantian antinomies as creating space for faith was also offered by Maimon’s contemporary, Pinhas Eliyahu Hurwitz in Sefer ha-Brit. On Hurwitz, see David Ruderman, A Bestselling Hebrew Book of the Modern Era: The Book of the Covenant of Pinhas Hurwitz and Its Remarkable Legacy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), and the review by Yitzhak Melamed, “The Angel and the Covenant,” Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2016. 5 Guide 2:18 | Pines 2:299. 3 4

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1 If one says: God, as the most perfect Being, cannot have mere potentiality, but rather everything that is in His capacity must constantly be actual. Thus, if God created the world from nothing at a particular time, [99] then that which had been in him merely as a potential (for creating the world) became actual. The actualization of the world must therefore have a ground external to God. And if this in turn is so, He cannot be the most perfect Being. But it is very easy to overcome such a doubt. A being that consists of matter and form only actualizes the potential of its form. Before it attains this form, it merely has a potentiality, which becomes actual (through the form). By contrast, an immaterial being has within itself the ground for its effects. From this it doesn’t follow that the being would produce effects at one time but not at others, and that consequently a change occurs in it, as a mere potentiality attains actuality. The active intellect (universal world spirit), which, according to Aristotle and his followers, is non-material, doesn’t always produce effects but rather does so at certain times; yet one can hardly say about it that for this reason it undergoes change. For material and the non-material [100] beings have no similarities when it comes to producing effects. But, one will say, this solution is sheer sophistry. The reason why the active intellect doesn’t always produce effects lies in the preparation of matter (its receptivity for this effect). But this reason doesn’t apply to the creation of the world from nothing. The following serves as an answer: With our comparison, we do not aim to present the true reason why God created the world at one time and not earlier—that would have been sophistry—rather, we merely want to undermine the reason for the opposing view about the eternity of the world. For what we have shown is that God undergoes a change just as little as the immediately active intellect, which is not subject to change, though it does not always act. And this last point is certainly true. 2 If one goes on to say that God cannot have (external) motives and obstacles, that His will must therefore be immutable and the [101] world (as the object of His will) must be eternal,6 the resolution of this doubt will in fact be difficult, and we have no further answer for it, except that God’s will is, like His essence, inscrutable.7 It is therefore not contradictory when we say: The will of God operates according to reasons unknown to us—and without (external) motivations and obstacles—yet only at certain times. 3 The reasoning that people still tend to invoke is that supreme wisdom is eternal in God’s Divine Being; from this it follows that the world, as a

Guide 2:18 | Pines 2:300–301. Here Maimon diverges very significantly from Maimonides’ text and gives the opponent much more ground than Maimonides is willing to give. 6 7

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consequence of that Being, must also be eternal. But this is very weak, for even God’s decision that the world should attain actuality at a certain time and not earlier is a result of His supreme, inscrutable wisdom.

In the following sections,8 Maimonides tries to undermine Aristotle’s view of the necessity, and consequently, the eternity of the world by showing that if the existence of the world could be explained through necessary natural laws, [102] we should be able to use the same laws to explain the order and arrangement of all appearances. Aristotle makes a great effort to actually do this and explain the order and arrangement of the world according to immutable natural laws. But our Maimonides observes that Aristotle succeeds only with respect to earthly objects, not with regard to the order and arrangement of the heavenly bodies. For everything that Aristotle established here, in his doctrine of nature, was overturned by Ptolemy’s theory of the arrangement of the world in eccentric circles, the epicycles, and such things. We can, Maimonides says, identify a reason for only some of the appearances on earth. The arrangement and order of the heavenly bodies is, by contrast, fully unknown to us.9 God kept heaven for Himself; earth, however, He gave to humans.10 Maimonides draws the following conclusion from this: that because the actuality of the world cannot be explained by the necessity of nature, it [103] must be a consequence of God’s inscrutable will. Here I must remark that Maimonides’ objection to Aristotle’s views sails wide of its mark. The world may be, in terms of time, finite or infinite; still, everything in it (as consequences of the highest wisdom) must be explainable through the principle of sufficient reason. How far we can actually get in achieving this is beside the point. Those things that Maimonides, working with the astronomy of his day, regarded as inexplicable, new discoveries (particularly Newton’s system) equip us to explain quite well. The highest order in the arrangement of world’s structure is for us a necessary idea of reason, which, through the use of reason with regard to objects of experience, we can approach but never reach.11 There will always be plenty of appearances that we regard, on account of their immutability, as subject to general laws but that can’t be derived from such laws, and that [104] are thus to be always regarded by us as axioms. Even the excellent Newtonian system leaves many holes in this area. It’s not only the case that many appearances can’t be explained through the laws of general attraction and thus point to even more general laws, Guide 2:19–24. Guide 2:24 | Pines 2:326. 10 Ps. 115:16. 11 On Maimon’s notion of “Idea of Reason,” see Maimon, VT, 44–48. 8 9

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under which one can conceive them being subsumed along with the others into a unity. It’s also the case that even the appearances that can be explained through the laws of general attraction bring us back, in the end, to something inexplicable. In this system, we find, for example, the greatest agreement among the size, distance, and orbiting times of the planets. This agreement, however, would also exist even if one of these data were different from what it actually is and the others were in line with them. That these data are so and not otherwise can thus only be regarded as an axiom of nature. But this argumentum ad ignorantiam allows for conclusions neither for nor against the eternity of the world, [105] and Newton himself appears not to attach much importance to this. In the following section, Maimonides says that he doesn’t reject the notion of the eternity of the world because it runs counter to the conventional meaning of several passages in the Holy Scripture (where the creation of the world is described).12 For these passages can also be interpreted in such a way that they cohere with that notion. Rather, he rejects it mainly because it militates against miracles and the attendant faith in a revealed religion.— Because I cannot deal expansively with this material here, I will postpone this for another occasion. In the following sections,13 Maimonides explains prophecy as a natural occurrence: that is, according to psychological laws. Prophecies can be distinguished from common psychological phenomena only through the perfection of the subject and the truth and importance of their messages. [106] But because I have already developed this idea in an essay about the auguring capacity (Deutsche Monatsschrift), I will simply refer the reader to that earlier work.14 [107]

Guide 2:25 | Pines 2:327–28. Guide 2:32–48. Maimon skips the discussion of Guide 2:26–31. 14 Maimon, “Über das Vorhersehungsvermögen,” Deutsche Monatsschrift (1791), 2:45– 67. Reprinted in Maimon GW, 3:276–98. 12 13

Chapter 7

Continuation. Relation of All Natural Events to God. A Very Comfortable and Pious Method. Divine Equipage, a Cosmological Idea That the Prophet Ezekiel Wouldn’t Have Dreamed of. Excellent Morals, but Not in Line with Today’s Taste. Origins of Evil. Prophesy. Final Causes

Everything that comes to be, Maimonides continues, has its proximate cause, and these causes, in turn, have their own proximate causes, and so on until the first cause: God’s will. Because they could assume that this was generally accepted, the prophets often opted for a concise way of expressing themselves and attributed an effect directly to the first cause: They were thereby counting on their listeners to interpolate intermediary causes into their thoughts. These intermediary causes could be physical or moral causes, or [108] even accidental impetuses, and so they attributed the effect directly to God, and said: God did it, willed it, sent it, and such.1 I want to present a few passages from the prophetic writings here as representative examples, which will enable you to draw inferences about those I that do not present. We read about those actions of nature that happen according to immutable laws, such as, for example, snow melting as the air temperature rises and the churning of the sea during stormy weather: “He sends His word, and has them (snow flakes) melt.”2 “He ordered that a storm wind howl and make the waves churn.”3 About His preventing rain from falling we read: “I will forbid the clouds to rain.”4 Just this manner of expression occurs also with reference to such events whose cause

1 Maimonides addresses this issue in Guide 2:48. Maimon’s detailed explanation could be a response to Spinoza’s famous critique of the Hebrews (including, presumably, Maimonides), “who are accustomed to relate an action towards the first cause which brought it into being,” and disregard the intermediary causes. See Spinoza, Hebrew Grammar, ch. 12 (1/75), and the Theological Political Treatise, ch. 1 (3/16–17), and ch. 6 (3/94). 2 Ps. 147:18. 3 Ps. 107:25. 4 Isa. 5:6.

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is the free will of man: for example, war, conquest, or the injury and imprecations that one person inflicts on another. Thus, we hear of [109] Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion: “I order the one whom I had designated to do it,”5 and so on. About Simei, the son of Gera, we read: “Let him be, for God spoke to him: Curse David,”6 and this says nothing other than that this cursing is an effect of moral intermediary causes, whose first cause, however, is God. About Joseph being freed from prison, we read: “He (God) sent a king who freed Joseph.”7 About the Persians’ destruction of the Babylonian monarchy, we read: “I will send agents of dispersion to Babylon to disperse them (the nation).”8 About Elias, whom a widow supported, we read: “I ordered a widow to nourish you.” Thus, Joseph says to his brothers: “You didn’t send me here; God did.”9 Likewise, about an effect whose cause is an animalistic drive to satisfy a natural need, we read: “God ordered the fish to spit out Jonah,”10 which [110] says nothing less than that God is the first cause of this drive, and not that He made the fish into a prophet by revealing His will to it. It is the same with the locusts that ravaged the land during the time of the prophet Joel, “for mighty are they (locusts) who carry out his commands.”11 And about the devastation of the land Iduma12 by wild animals: “He (God) selected them (the animals), and His hand distributed it (the land) according to his plan.”13 This form of expression is used as well for accidental occurrences. We read, for example, that Rebecca “should become the wife of your lord’s son, as God promised” (as Providence arranged it),14 and Jonathan says to David: “Go, for God sends you away” (though only the accidental throwing of the spear prompted his escape).15 From this you see how Scripture attributes a confluence of causes to God, whether essential, accidental, voluntary, or arbitrary, through these five [111] expressions: command, say, speak, send, call.— (Dearest Reader! God, who, as the aforesaid should have made clear, sent me to Germany and commanded that I relate the story of my life, Isa. 13:3. 2 Sam. 16:10. 7 Ps. 105:20. 8 Jer. 51:2. 9 Gen. 45:8. 10 Jon. 2:11. 11 Joel 2:11. 12 Namely, Edom. 13 Isa.34:17. 14 Gen. 24:51 15 1 Sam. 20:22. 5 6

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now commands that I draw your attention to this section,16 which elucidates how, through rational exegesis, one can reconcile reason and faith and bring them into perfect harmony. Further, it illuminates that achieving Enlightenment isn’t a matter of attaining new knowledge and modes of scholarship; rather, it consists in overturning the false ideas taught to us by others as part of our upbringing and education).17 Maimonides begins the third part of the Guide with an interpretation of Ezekiel’s image of God’s equipage, which he regards as an allegorical representation of cosmological truths. Because he wants to present this reading for rational reasons, and isn’t exactly permitted to do so on account of theological reasons, [112] he employs a special technique: He cites the passages from the prophetic description without interpreting them, but in such an order and in juxtaposition with such addenda that the intelligent reader will easily arrive at the same interpretation on his own. Isaiah, he goes on to say, put in general terms just what Ezekiel described in such a laborious manner.18 Our wise men made us aware of this by saying everything that Ezekiel saw Isaiah saw as well. Jesiah is like an urbanite, Ezekiel a man from the country who sees the king ride by. The former merely says: I saw the king ride by, presupposing that the equipage is well known. But the latter, for whom an equipage is something entirely new, describes everything extensively.19 (Isaiah, as a cultured man from the royal family, had already developed true insights into the structure of the world and the order and relations of things, [113] and he no longer had a need to describe these things. By contrast, Ezekiel, who came to such insights late, describes the scene laboriously. Verily, the Talmudists aren’t as stupid as people believe.) All corporeal things, Maimonides continues, which come to be and cease to be, cease to be purely because of their materiality.20 On account of form, all have their lasting being. Thus, all weaknesses and failings, both physical and moral, have their ground in matter. Because this is so, and divine wisdom wanted that there would be no matter without form and no form without matter, and that the exalted human form, the image of God, would be connected with a dark matter that is the cause of weakness, divine wisdom conferred upon human

Guide 2:48 | Pines 2:409–12. Maimon’s exaggerated sarcasm here underlines the implicit blasphemy of his earlier adaptation of God’s call to Abraham to leave his family and homeland (Gen. 12:1) with regard to himself in his “Preface to the Second Book.” It also has a certain poignance given the evident disorder of Maimon’s life. 18 Guide 3:6 | Pines 2:427. 19 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagiga, 13b. 20 Guide 3:8 | Pines 2:430. 16 17

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form some power and capacity over matter, through which it can to some degree control matter and keep its weaknesses in check. And with regard to this capacity and their use of it, humans are very diverse. Some strive for the highest perfection their form can attain [114] and think of nothing except achieving pure concepts and true ideas of all things in order to bring themselves in this way into unity with the divine intellect. Such people are ashamed of satisfying even the most indispensible bodily needs, and they try to conceal the shame of their satisfaction as much as possible, or even to get beyond it completely. If, for example, the king has punished someone by sentencing him to transport manure, the latter, if he is otherwise a free man, will try to conceal this ignominy as much as possible; he will load up only a little, and he won’t travel far with it (provided this part of the punishment has been left open), so that his hands and clothes won’t be dirty, and others won’t see him. A slave, by contrast, won’t regard being filthy all over as much of a punishment and will react to being in this state with indifference. There are people who are ashamed of corporeal needs and especially sensation (under which taste, too, is understood), eating, drinking, intercourse, and such. A rational [115] man needs of this as little as possible, broods about this, doesn’t talk about it, and avoids all indulgence. All his striving goes toward fulfilling his vocation as a human, which consists of achieving knowledge of eternal truths, of which the most important is knowledge of God and his effects. Such people are constantly with God, and of them it is said: “You are gods and children of the Highest Being—all of you!”21 The others, those separated from God, namely, fools, do exactly the opposite. They foreswear all serious thought and thorough judgment; they establish their sensual satisfaction, which is our greatest ignominy, as their chief goal in life, and they think about nothing except eating, drinking, and intercourse. Of them it is said: “They drink wine to excess,”22 and “women rule them,”23 counter to the rule laid down immediately after the creation of the world: “He (the man) should rule you.”24 Thus, Maimonides proceeds to preach stoicism. Because I fear [116] that I will displease men of gallantry and ladies if I present his reasons more expansively, I will break off here. In the following section,25 Maimonides says: Matter is a strong divide that doesn’t allow us to attain a real concept of a separate intellect. The prophetic writings suggest this in saying: There is a divide between God Ps. 82:6. Isa. 28:8. 23 Isa. 3:12. 24 Gen.3:16. 25 Guide 3:9 | Pines 2:436–37. 21 22

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and us; he conceals himself from us in darkness, fog, and clouds.26 Likewise, the psalmist says: “Clouds and fog envelop him.”27 This means that our bodies are a thick shell that blocks our insight into his true essence, but not that God is a body enveloped by clouds and fog, as the conventional meaning seems to indicate. Thus, God’s revelation took place on Mount Sinai in thick clouds and fog as a way of suggesting this truth. It is well known that on the day of the revelation, it was very cloudy, though with little rain.28—[117] Darkness affects us; for God, however, there is only the great eternal light whose rays chase away all darkness. Thus, we read in the Scripture: God’s glory lights up the earth.29 In the following section,30 Maimonides, going against the views of the dialecticians, shows that all evil consists from privation only. Thereupon,31 he shows that one cannot give a final ground of the existence of the world, not when one accepts, with Aristotle, the eternity of its Being, nor when, on the basis of the Holy Scripture, one believes the opposite. In the first case, we do know, along with Aristotle, the relative ends of the existence of the individual parts of the world, as the object of the highest intellect;32 but we cannot know the purpose of the absolute existence of the world in general, which is necessary. In the second case, too, we cannot seek beyond God’s will the purpose of the being of the world as the object of God’s will. [118] In the following chapter, Maimonides contests the views of those who try to make humans the goal of all creation, doing so by showing that this proposition isn’t consonant with how small humans are in relation to the immeasurable enormity of the world.33 God’s providence rests, according to Maimonides, on the use of reason and is proportional to this. I have already addressed, in an Essay on Theodicy published in the Deutsche Monatsschrift, the chapters dealing with this; I thus refer the reader to that work.34 [119]

Lam.3:44. Ps. 97:2. 28 Guide 3:9 | Pines 2:437. 29 Ezek. 43:2. 30 Guide 2:10 | Pines 2:438–40. 31 Guide 3:13| Pines 2:448–56. 32 For a helpful discussion of Maimonides’ critique of teleology, see Warren Zev Harvey, “Spinoza and Maimonides on Teleology and Anthropocentrism,” in Spinoza: a Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) Yitzhak Melamed, ed., pp. 43–55. 33 Guide 3:14 | Pines 2:457. 34 Maimon, “Über die Theodicee” Deutsche Monatsschrift (1791), 3:190–212. Reprinted in Maimon, GW, 3:309–31. 26 27

Chapter 8

Continuation. Overcoming Doubts about God’s Omniscience. The Book of Job as the Vehicle for a Metaphysical Treatise on Providence

Maimonides then tries to overcome the doubts some philosophers raised about divine omniscience and providence.1 Inherent (he says) in the concept of God (as a necessary Being) is that all perfections pertain to Him, and that all deficiencies must be negated of Him. One will readily concede that ignorance in this regard is itself a deficiency. What has misled some philosophers to, as noted, the bold assertion that God can’t know [120] everything is merely their observation of human events (that evil people often thrive while the good ones fare poorly), which result not only from necessary natural laws, but rather, in the first place, from our free will. The prophets remarked on this repeatedly,2 and the Psalmist says: “The godless speak: ‘The eternal one doesn’t see, the God of Jacob does not understand. Take heed, you foolish people, dumb ones, when will you become wise? Should the one who created the ear not hear, and the one who forms the eye not see?’ ”3 Several medical scholars of our nation asked me some time ago: What did David want to say with his comparison between the idea of purposeful construction of the organs and their use?4 By this logic, the one who created the mouth must eat, and the one who built the lungs must scream. Note, reader, how these scholars misunderstood the entire passage. [121] It is obvious that whoever makes an instrument wouldn’t be able to make it if he had no idea about the effects it was supposed to produce. If, for example, a needle-maker had no idea about sewing, he wouldn’t be able to make a needle as it needs to be for this purpose. The godless say that God’s omniscience doesn’t extend to individuals because they can be perceived only through sensuous organs. David refutes this by invoking

Guide 3:16 | Pines 2:461–64. See the biblical quotes in Guide 3:19 | Pines 2:477–78. 3 Ps. 94:7–8. Maimonides discusses this passage in Guide 3:19 | Pines 2:478. 4 Guide 3:19 | Pines 2:478. 1 2

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the constitution of the organs themselves, which couldn’t have been built so purposefully without an understanding of their use. How can one believe that the so purposefully arranged moisture of the eye, its skin, and its nerves could have come to be by accident? Truly not! They are effects of necessary laws of nature, as has been shown by every philosopher and doctor. Nature as such has no consciousness and no capacity for consideration. Thus, this arrangement must be the doing of an Intelligent Being that has an idea [122] of the use of these parts. David correctly names all those who deny this fools and idiots,5 and he shows that such doubts are a function of our limited perspective, and that we must not reject truths grounded in other reasons on its account. He says that God, who gave humans the capacity for knowledge, knows their thoughts are futile.6

The peripatetics’ objections to the omniscience of God are that: 1 God must imagine what could happen in the future, what is merely possible, either as possible or as actual. And in the first case, his omniscience undergoes a change, because after what was possible has become actual, God must understand itself differently than before (due to the additional predicate of the actual). In the second case, however, His representation wouldn’t be adequate, and also because 2 a real (not merely formal) representation must encompass the represented object, but what is infinite cannot be the object of a [123] real representation, for it cannot be encompassed.7 The author attempts to overcome these objections in the following way. How a person who has created something represents that something will differ greatly (Maimonides says) from how everyone else will represent it.8 The artist, for example, who makes a water-clock9 must form a representation of it before he makes it. The quantity of the water that flows out, its complex routes, their different directions, and all the piping—he doesn’t become familiar with all this through observing the finished product, but rather it is known to him earlier; his way of representing the clock isn’t determined by these movements, but rather the other way around: The latter are determined by the former. For the mere observer, this is all very different. Every movement leads him to form a new representation. Therefore, if these movements are infinite, then he cannot encompass them within such

Ps. 94:8. Ps. 94:10–11. 7 Guide 3:20 | Pines 2:481. 8 Guide 3:21 | Pines 2:484. 9 This is Maimonides’ own example. 5 6

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a representation. He cannot know anything about any of the movements prior to the object’s genesis. [124]

We find just the same difference obtaining between our knowledge and God’s omniscience. We know what we know purely from the observations we make about nature. Thus, we can’t know that which isn’t present or that which is infinite. Our mental representations come to be in succession and are as diverse as the things we perceive. God, by contrast, doesn’t know things from perceptions and observations, which would make his knowledge subject to multiplicity and change; rather, the opposite is the case: The things we perceive are the consequences of his pre-knowledge, which determines and makes them what they are. God’s Being contains no multiplicity and isn’t subject to change. He represents His knowledge as the ground of all things. The representation of all things is thus inseparable from the representation of His Being, even if we are unable to attain any intuitive cognition of such a representational capacity. The Book of Job is, according to Maimonides, a disputation on divine omniscience [125] and providence, applied to one single case (whether an actual case or a poetic invention).10 The pious man (not, however, the wise one, for he knows no evil other than moral imperfection) suffers without having done anything wrong. What is explored, then, is the cause of this suffering. Gods’ angels (the forces of nature) administer the operation that God entrusted to them (maintaining the objects of nature). Idle Satan (the privation) mixes in among them11 (privation is not an end of nature as such, but rather an evil inseparable from matter) and wanders the earth,12 but he has nothing to do with heavenly things (privation occurs only in the corporeal realm on account of matter, not in the noncorporeal realm). He is given power over Job’s property, indeed, even over Job’s body, but not over his soul (as a rational being with free will, man is not subjected to physical evil and can avoid moral evils). [126] Here an excellent passage from the Talmud warrants mentioning, where Rabbi Simon Ben Lakish says: “Satan, the evil spirit, and the angel of death are one and the same person.”13 (Privation or the limitation of forces of nature, evil desires that are the privation of reason’s activity and that of the free will, and physical as well as moral destruction are all one and the same thing.)

Guide 3:22 | Pines 2:486. Job 1:6. 12 Job 1:7. Cf. Guide 3:22 | Pines 2:487. 13 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Batra 16a. Cf. Guide 3:22 | Pines 2:489. 10 11

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Maimonides ascribes, in accordance with his plan, a philosophical view about divine providence to every person in the Book of Job. He does this in such an exemplary fashion that each person coheres not only with himself, but also with the system attributed to him as it unfolds throughout the whole book.14 Another scholar of our nation, Rabbi Levi Ben Gerschon, understood how to make good use of these suggestions for interpreting a book that is otherwise so difficult to explain, and he wrote a compete commentary on Job in accordance with this plan, which is perhaps the only one of its kind.15 [127]

Guide 2:23 | Pines 2:490–503. Gersonides’ (1288–1344) commentary on the Book of Job was completed in 1325, and printed for the first time in Ferrara in 1477. For an English translation, see The Commentary of Levi ben Gerson on the Book of Job, trans. Abraham L. Lassen (New York: Bloch, 1946). 14 15

Chapter 9

Mosaic Jurisprudence. The Silly Paganism of the Sabians, an Impetus to Many Otherwise Inexplicable Laws, of Which the Beard Still Remains

Next, Maimonides comes to the explanation of Mosaic commandments, prefacing it with several preparatory chapters. All actions, he says, can, with regard to their ends, be divided in the following way: purposeless, playful, unsuccessful, and good actions.1 The first are those in which one has no goal in mind: for example, when one plays with one’s hand while thinking. To these belong as well the actions of the insane. The second are those for which one sets a goal, but a small goal, namely, just [128] amusing oneself. The third are those actions for which one sets a goal, but where, as a result of certain causes, one doesn’t achieve it. The fourth are those actions for which one sets an important goal, which one in fact attains. God’s effects cannot be of the first three types; rather, they are of the fourth kind.2 God saw all that he had made, and it was good.3 The opinion of those who maintain that God’s effects are merely results of his will (without an idea of the goal) collapses here, though, of itself. In the following section, Maimonides says that just as there is a diversity of views concerning God’s effects (in nature), so too there is a diversity of views with respect to His laws.4 Some see them as being nothing other than the consequence of God’s will, others regard them as the consequences of His wisdom. Maimonides concurs with the latter. He tries to explain some passages in the Talmud that appear to contradict this in such a way that they agree with it. Others, which don’t allow [129] for such interpretations, he simply wonders about.5 The goal of the laws is the perfection of the body (which is conceived as including the condition of its exterior) and the perfection of the mind, that is, the Guide 3:25 | Pines 2:502. Guide 3:25 | Pines 2:503. 3 Gen. 1:31. 4 Guide 3:26 | Pines 2:506. 5 Guide 3:26 | Pines 2:508. 1 2

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capacities for knowledge and willing.6 Among the Mosaic laws, however, there are some that appear not to aim at any of these goals.7 Such goals were, according to Maimonides, set in opposition to the paganism that predominated then. He thus provides a brief account of this paganism and the fatuous mythology that was its basis. It is well known, he says, that Abraham was raised in the faith of the Sabians.8 They regarded the stars as gods and the sun as the greatest god. In their writings, they recount the following about Abraham: “Because Abraham, who was born in Kuth, strayed from the common belief and asserted the existence of a God beyond the sun, one confronted him with counter-ideas based on the obvious influence of the sun on nature. Abraham [130] replied: I gladly concede this influence. But the sun does not have this power from itself. It is like an ax in the hands of a woodcutter. The king then had him put in prison. But because he continued to spread his new doctrine, making a complete reformation seem imminent, the king drove him into the Eastern territories.”9 Naturally, they say nothing whatsoever about Abraham’s divine revelations. The highest thing achieved by the philosophy of that era is the idea that God is the soul of all heavenly bodies.10. The Sabians thus believed in the eternity of the world. According to them, Adam, just as much as everyone else, was beget by his parents. He was a prophet devoted to the moon (heaven protect us from such an honor!). He preached that people should worship the moon and also wrote various books about agriculture. Noah was a farmer and didn’t want to go along with revering the (star) images, [131] and for this the Sabians censured him. He, too, was thrown in jail for worshipping God. But his son Seth didn’t agree with him in this and prayed to the moon.11 There were all kinds of laughable fairy tales about these beliefs, which

Guide 3:27 | Pines 2:510. Guide 3:28 | Pines 2:513. 8 Guide 3:29 | Pines 2:514. For an outstanding discussion of Maimonides’ theory of the Sabians, see Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 84–105). 9 Guide 3:29 | Pines 2:514–15. Maimonides claims to cite this story from a book titled, al-Filaha al-nabatiyya [Nabatian agriculture], on which see Stroumsa, Maimonides and His World, pp. 98–102. 10 Guide 3:29| Pines 2:515. 11 Seth was the son of Adam, not Noah. Maimon seems to misread this sentence in Maimonides’ text, which in Pines’ translation reads: “They [the Sabians] deem that Seth disagreed with the opinion of his father, Adam, concerning the worship of the moon” (Pines 2:515). Since Adam (according to the Sabians) was a prophet devoted to the moon, it would seem that Seth rejected, rather than accepted, the cult of the moon. 6 7

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illustrate the age’s high level of superstition and ignorance. These tales relate that when Adam traveled from Thascham12 (near India) to Babel, he brought along many natural oddities, among them a golden tree with leaves and blooms and a stone tree that couldn’t be destroyed by fire. We hear, moreover, about a tree that casts a shade over ten thousand men (though the tree was only as tall as a person). And so forth. According to this account, the Sabians invented star-icons: gold ones for the sun and silver for the moon. They divided climates and minerals according to the planets that influenced them. (The symbols common to planets and minerals, for example ☉, which signifies the sun and gold, ☿, which signifies Mercury and [132] quicksilver, and so on, are still the remaining traces of this.) They built temples where they displayed these star images, believing that the powers of the planets were conferred upon the images that corresponded to them and that the planets thereby inspired people and gave them deep insight into the nature of things, as well as capacity for prophesy. Likewise, about the trees belonging to the planets they claim that when one plants them in the name of their planet, and nurtures them in a certain way, people will be inspired, owing to the influence of the planets. The prophets of Baal and Ascharah,13 who are mentioned in our Holy Scriptures, are from this sect. This foolishness ramified in many directions, leading to different kinds of magic, like séances. The first intention of the Mosaic laws is thus: to eradicate this superstition and the paganism based on it. For everything that Jevoha despises they worship in their [133] gods.14 I find in their writings that they took care to sacrifice to the sun, their great god, seven bats, seven mice, and seven other creeping animals. How repulsive. Familiarity with the Sabians and their practices of worship was very useful to me in identifying the reason behind many (Mosaic) laws, which one couldn’t explain without reference to it. The main book for this is titled Hoabadah Hanbathiah,15 translated (into Arabic) by Aben Chaschiah. This book is full of pagan nonsense and such things that were very appealing to the commoners. Namely, it is about magic, communicating with ghosts, and how one can use talismans to access the heavenly powers. Drawing on the Book of Adam, they also assert that there is a

In Ibn Tibbon: “‫”כאשר יצא מאקלים תשא״ם הקרוב להודו‬. “Thascham” thus seems to refer to a certain climate area. The climate of the sun, according to Pines (2:516), or perhaps the climate of Palestine, as suggested by Michael Schwarz,More Nevochim Lerabbenu Moshe ben Maimon, 2:523n13. 13 Ashera (‫)אשרה‬. 14 Deut. 12:31. 15 The Nabatean Agriculture.56. 12

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tree in India whose branches are transformed into insects when they are thrown onto the ground. In addition, there is also supposed to be a tree in the form of a person who occasionally emits sounds and words. There is supposed to be there, as well, a certain herb [134] with which one can make oneself invisible by carrying around a small amount. If one burns it in the open, one will hear noise and terrible voices for as long as it gives off smoke. All this can undermine faith in God’s miracles and lead people to think they that are brought about by secret arts.— Thus, we are told that the tree Amloi,16 which they worshipped, has stood in Nienwah for twelve thousand years and was, on account of its position, involved in a drawn-out legal case with Mandragula.17 The prophet who owed his prophetic powers to the Amloi tree lost these capacities for quite some time as a result of this. When he regained them, his god cited the distraction of the case as the cause and ordered the prophet to send the files of the court case to all known courts in a position to decide which of the two gods was the more powerful one? From this one can get a sense of the wisdom of those dark times. [135] Even more splendid is the story of a prophet named Tamuz who wanted to convert a king to worshipping the seven planets and the twelve zodiac signs, but who was killed by that king in the most brutal way. The next night all the images of the world gathered in the temple of the golden image of the sun. This image, surrounded by all the others, hurled itself to the ground and began to lament Tamuz and to tell his sad tale. This went on throughout the night. The following morning the images went their separate ways, each one flying back to its temple. From this story comes the annual custom of gathering and mourning Tamuz on the first day of the month Tamuz (July). (One can find a trace of this in Ezekiel, where we read: “The women weeping for Tamuz.”18) However, the tales the book tells about Adam, the serpent, the tree of knowledge, and so on, are poetic fabrications modeled on the biblical stories. [136] There are other writings of the Sabians, for example, the Book of Astamchos,19 which is wrongly attributed to Aristotle, the Book of Talismans,20 the Book of Hermes,21 the Book of Isaac the Sabian, meant as

“Althea bush” according to Pines (2:519). Guide 3:29 | Pines 2:19. 18 Ezek. 8:14. 19 “The book of al-Ustumakhus” in Pines’ translation (2:520). The Bodleian library has a manuscript of this book. The manuscript notes that the book was written by Aristotle for Alexander the Great. 20 In Maimonides, the reference here is in the plural: “books of talismans” (Guide 3:29 | Pines 2:520–21). 21 Namely, Hermes Trismegistus. 16 17

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a defense of this religion, and another book by the same author about the customs of the Sabians, their holidays, sacrifices, prayers, and so on. These books were translated into Arabic. Many others have been lost over time. The ground on which this paganism rested was the belief, widely disseminated at the time, that one could promote the fertility of the land, and thus the wellbeing of people, through worshipping the stars.22 Hence the related great respect for agriculture and for cattle, which were indispensible for agriculture (and could not be slaughtered). Cattle were thought to conform instinctively to the will of the gods and to voluntarily devote themselves to serving people for this important end. In the book Hoabada Hanbatiah, where the vineyard is discussed, we read: [137] “The old wise men and the prophets teach us that on holidays we should play these instruments (specified in the book) before the star images, in return for which we are promised divine rewards of long life, protection against illness, fertility of the earth, and so on.” However, God, who wanted to relieve us of these mistakes and spare us these pointless actions, had Moses promise the opposite—that, namely, by worshipping the stars we would bring upon ourselves infertility, sickness, and short lives. Divine effects are always the same.23 Nature makes no leaps.24 Everything gradually achieves perfection, after much preparation. One can observe this same wisdom in the divine laws, many of which have as their ground a wise forbearance toward human weakness, in that the human habit of holding sacrificial ceremonies in temples is legitimated, though it is restricted and made [138] to conform to divine law. And this was the best way for divine wisdom to reach its goal.25 Maimonides divides the Mosaic laws into fourteen classes and presents his reasons for each one in a very perspicacious way that was also appropriate for his times.26 He also attempts to convey the usefulness of and practical wisdom in the stories and anecdotes about people and places that we find in the Mosaic books.27 [139]

Guide 3:30 | Pines 2:522. Maimon might be relying here on Maimonides’ identification of divine and natural actions at the beginning of Guide 3:32. 24 “La nature ne fait jamais des sauts.” Leibniz, New Essays, 4:16 25 Guide 3:32 | Pines 2:526–27. 26 Guide 3:35 | Pines 535–38. 27 Guide 3:50 | Pines 2:613–17. 22 23

Chapter 10

Conclusion of the More Newochim. Excellent Morals. Definition of the True Worship of God, Which Makes Priests Unnecessary

The final sections of this superb work contain, as a conclusion, Maimonides’ practical application of morality. In this section, Maimonides shows what true religious worship consists of, worship, that is, of someone who has achieved real knowledge of God, and he also shows how such worship can be the means of achieving both earthly and eternal happiness. He begins with the following comparison. The king, he says, lives in his palace. Of his subjects there are some within the vicinity of the palace, others outside it. Among the first group [140] there are some who turn their backs on the royal palace and distance themselves from it. Others set out for the palace with the intention of gaining an audience before the king but don’t manage to complete the journey. Others reach the palace but can’t find the entrance. A few make it into the outer courtyard, and a few get into the palace itself, where it is hard to catch a glimpse of the king and to speak with him, but they persist and, by virtue of much effort, succeed. We can apply this parable to religious service in a number of ways.1 All those who have just as little natural as revealed religion are outside the vicinity of the divine palace. Numbering among this type are, for example, the wandering Nordic Tartars as well as the wandering Southern Moors. They have nearly the same rank as animals lacking reason. They are less than humans but somewhat more than apes, because they have the external form of humans and at least some of their knowledge. [141] Those who are in the vicinity of the palace but who, nevertheless, turn their backs on the palace, counted as religious people. However, they are people whose religion is based on false beliefs, which they have either come to by themselves or arrived at by holding to a tradition. The further they devote themselves to these beliefs, the more they distance themselves 1 Maimon’s explication of Maimonides’ famous closing parable also prepares the reader for the “little allegory” with which he closes his own autobiography.

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from true religion. This group is even worse than the first one, and it must sometimes be wiped out completely, so that others aren’t ruined (Here Maimonides has in mind the Mosaic law: “You should eliminate and spare no soul”).2 Those who strive to reach the royal palace, but who never get to see it are the common horde, who obey the laws perfunctorily, without understanding their ground. Those who reach the royal palace only to circle it eternally, unable to find the entrance, are the Talmudists. They have come to true beliefs through tradition and have formulated a theory of religious laws. But they haven’t considered the [142] foundations of religion. Nor have they explored the ground of their faith. Those who truly explore the foundations of their religion are in the outer courtyard. There are different gradations among them. Those who, finally, achieve thorough scientific knowledge of all of this are in the royal palace. Note well, my son! As long as you are still studying mathematics and logic, you will count among those who walk around the palace searching for the entrance. Hence the allegorical expression of some of our sages: “Bensomma (a certain Talmudist) is still outside!”3 If you focus on natural science, you will make it to the outer courtyard. As soon as you have finished this course and have embarked upon the study of metaphysics, you will find yourself in the palace near the king. There are many gradations of knowledge here, however. Those who, in the end, achieve perfection in this science, who abstract their thoughts from all other things and focus on knowledge of the Highest Being, consider everything [143] only in relation to it, they will have the good fortune of conversing with the king. This is the grade of perfection characteristic of prophets. One went so far in the degree of his knowledge and in abstracting from all his thoughts except those about God that it is said about him: He remained with God,4 conversing with Him in this holy state in the most familiar way, with the result that he experienced such an ecstatic state that he ate no bread and drank no water.5 His higher powers held the upper hand over the lower ones. Thus, some prophets see God up close, others from far away. God appeared to me in the distance!6 After achieving right knowledge, one must, then, direct one’s thoughts toward God alone. This is the religious worship characteristic of the person searching for truth, a worship that comes along with the steady Deut. 20:16. Maimon’s note follows the commentary of Shem Tov. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Hagiga, 15a. Simon ben Zomah was a first and second century CE Mishnaic sage. 4 Exod. 34:28. 5 Exod. 34:28. 6 Jer. 31:2. 2 3

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acquisition of knowledge. But whoever does not have a right concept of God, and yet thinks about and speaks about God in accordance with an imagined idea of Him or one handed down by others [144], he doesn’t speak or think about God at all, for what he imagines and what he speaks about is an arbitrary fabrication, which doesn’t correspond to a real object. If you want to achieve a true idea of God, you must begin to devote yourself to Him, to come closer to Him, and to constantly reinforce the bond between you and Him (the intellect). The Holy Scripture also teaches us that the true religious worship requires a right knowledge of God. Thus, we read: Love your God Jehova and serve Him with all your heart.7 Love is proportional to knowledge. The Talmudists, too, say the worship in question is the service of the heart,8 which means abstracting one’s thoughts from all things and directing them exclusively toward the Highest Being. This can only be sustained in solitude; for this reason, thinkers love solitude and seek out company only in moments of great need. [145]

7 8

Deut. 11:13. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Taanit, 2a; Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Berachot, 4:1.

Admonition1

I have already shown that the reason we received from God makes up the tie between Him and us. It is of course up to Him whether this tie should become gradually closer or increasingly slacken. The only way to make tie the between God and us stronger is for us direct our reason exclusively toward knowledge of God. The tie becomes weaker when we direct it elsewhere. Even if you are the greatest metaphysician, the tie between you and God is necessarily severed as soon as you eat or perform some other unavoidable bodily function. For what happens then is that the required relationship between you and Him ceases to be.2 The whole intention of so-called religious worship, for example, reading the Holy Scripture, praying, and so on, is nothing other than abstracting one’s thoughts from other things: directing them toward God alone. But if you pray only with your tongue, and you are thinking about your worldly affairs; if while reading the Holy scripture, [146] you have the construction of your home in your heart, and you aren’t thinking about what you’re reading; or if you carry out a commandment without thinking about its true meaning and purpose, as when someone digs a ditch or chops wood, you are like one of those about whom it is said: “Your mouth is near, but inwardly you are far away.”3 The person, however, who develops himself so successfully in this that he can take care of daily affairs while thinking about God, as is expressed in the allegorical idea, “I sleep but my heart remains awake,”4 this person, I say, has reached the level that was characteristic of the greatest of all prophets (Moses), about whom we read: “Moses alone may approach God.”5 I have already noted that divine providence is proportional to the degree of reason one has cultivated.6 Thus, the perfect person, who never stops thinking about God, will be constantly guided by divine

Guide 3:51 | Pines 2:621. The question of whether one could remain in communion with God (devequt) during the everyday activities of life was a hotly debated topic between contemporary Hasidim and their opponents. On this question, see Idel, Hasidism, passim. 3 Jer. 12:2. 4 Song of Sol. 5:2. 5 Gen. 24:2. 6 Guide 3:17–23. 1 2

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providence. Another person, whose thoughts sometimes turn away from God, won’t be [147] a full beneficiary of divine providence, but won’t be completely deserted by it either. He invites comparison with a skilled writer during the times when he isn’t writing. His intellect isn’t at this moment actualized, but it has the capacity to come close to actuality. The person who has no idea about God is like someone who lives in perpetual darkness, never seeing light. The person who achieves true knowledge of God and thinks about him constantly is in a state like that of being constantly in the light. Whoever achieves this knowledge but directs his thoughts elsewhere is at such times as if under cloudy skies. Thus, I believe that all the evil the prophets and the pious ones encountered they could only have encountered during times of forgetting, and the degree of the evil must correspond to that of the forgetfulness. This clears away the doubt that some philosophers have raised about divine providence because of the misfortune good people sometimes suffer. For as I have shown, misfortunes of that kind [148] can only happen during a time of turning away from God (with thoughts directed toward other things). Righteous men as well as evil ones are then subject to the whims of chance. (Divine providence is for Maimonides nothing other than the guidance of reason, and it occurs only when reason is being exercised properly.)7 What follows is the adducing of many moments in the Holy Scripture that, according to his exegesis, cohere with these thoughts.8 In the fifty-second section,9 we read: “The behavior of a man when he is alone with his family is very different from his behavior when he is in the presence of a great king. Whoever strives for perfection should know that the greatest of all kings, namely, the reason that God has given him, resides within him.” The conclusion of this work states that humans can achieve four kinds of perfection.10 1 The lowest form, which the majority of people strive after, is the perfection of property, i.e., the things one has in one’s possession. This perfection doesn’t stand [149] in a natural relation to people, but rather in a merely imagined one. The relation can cease without necessitating a change in one of the correlatives.

7 Maimon’s brief judgment on Maimonides’ understanding of providence is correct, if one conceives reason as not merely instrumental (i.e., finding the best means for a given end), but also allows reason to distinguish between the true and the false highest goods. 8 Guide 3:51 | Pines 2:626–27. 9 Guide 3:52| Pines 2:629–30. 10 Guide 3:54| Pines 2:634–35.

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2 Perfection of beauty, the body, strength, and such things. This perfection, too, isn’t a chief goal of man, insofar as he is man, but rather, insofar as he is an animal. However strong a man may be, an elephant will be stronger. 3 Perfection of morality. This kind isn’t the chief goal either, but rather a propaedeutic for it. Morality is only useful in society, for other people. Outside of society it has no use. 4 Perfection of knowledge. This kind is true perfection and the ultimate end of humanity. It is characteristic of humans alone, for it is only through this perfection that they maintain their essence as humans. They (the teachings of wisdom) will belong to you alone and to no one who is a stranger [150] to you.11 Strive then, human, after that which is your very self, and don’t work for others, as it is expressed in the allegorical formulation: The children of my mother resented me and made me into the keeper of the vineyard of strangers, not my own vineyard.12 The highest end of humanity is knowledge of the truth. God fulfills His promise to us. The people that walked in the darkness have seen a great light.13 [151]

Prov. 5:17. Song of Sol. 1:6. 13 Isa. 9:1. 11 12

Chapter 11

My Arrival in Berlin. Acquaintances. Mendelssohn. Doubting Metaphysical Systems. Teaching Locke and Adelung

Although I have taken a lengthy detour in presenting Maimonides’ famous work, I feel no need to apologize to the intelligent reader. Not only is the subject of my remarks inherently interesting, but Maimonides also had a decisive impact on my intellectual development. Now, however, I will return to the story of what I experienced in Berlin and elsewhere. The first part of my autobiography ended with my journey to Berlin, so it is there that I will return to. Because I was traveling by stagecoach this time, I didn’t have to stop at the Rosenthaler Gate and wait for the Jewish elders [152] to question me. I rode without difficulty into the city, where I was able to lodge wherever I pleased. Remaining in the city was a very different matter. The Jewish police officials daily searched the inns and hostels where foreigners might be, and they interrogated the lodgers about the nature and the prospective duration of their stay. The official in charge at the time, L. M., was a frightening fellow who treated poor foreigners in a thoroughly despotic manner. It goes without saying that the officials didn’t let up until foreigners had either found a permanent residence in the city or had left it. I received one such visit just a day after renting a room on the New Market from a Jew who took in poor travelers, most of whom were not only poor but also hungry. L. M. subjected me to a thorough interrogation. I told him that since I was planning to find work as a private tutor, I didn’t know exactly how long my stay [153] would be. He was suspicious, thinking that he had seen me here before, and he seemed to regard me as being like a comet coming closer to the earth the second time around and posing a much greater threat. In addition, he saw that I had a Mylath Hygoian, or a Hebrew logic written by Maimonides with Mendelssohn’s commentary (I neglected to mention this in my account of Maimonides’ works).1 Upon The edition with Mendelssohn’s commentary of Millot Hahigayon was published in Hamburg in 1761. L. M. was, of course, objecting to it as a product and symbol of Jewish Enlightenment rather than to its content. 1

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making this discovery, L. M. flew into a rage. “Good, good,” he shouted, “I have seen enough!” Then, turning to me with a menacing expression, he said, “If you don’t want your departure to be a public spectacle, you will leave Berlin at once.” I trembled and didn’t know what to do. However, I had heard that a Polish Jew of considerable talents, respected in the best circles, had moved to Berlin to pursue his studies; I decided to seek him out. Having received me as a compatriot, and in a very friendly way, he asked me where in Poland I was from and why I had come [154] to Berlin. As to the latter question, I answered that I had been drawn to science and philosophy from childhood on, adding that I had read assorted Hebrew writings on scientific topics. Now I had traveled to Berlin to be meimik bechochma (that is, to steep myself in science and scholarship). This odd rabbinic expression made him smile, and he warmly conveyed his approval. After we had spoken for a while, he asked me to call on him often, something I happily promised to do. I left in a cheerful mood. The very next day, I went to see my Polish friend again and found him with several young people from a high-standing Jewish family. They apparently visited him often to discuss scientific theories and scholarly questions, and they wasted little time in engaging me in conversation. They seemed to find my dialect, guilelessness, and candor disarming. They laughed quite heartily when they heard the expression meimik bechochma, which they, too, knew. They [155] encouraged me, telling me I wasn’t wrong to think I could become meimik bechochma here. And when I revealed my fear of L. M., the Jewish police official, they again lifted my spirits. Indeed, they offered to use the influence of their family to secure sponsors, so that I could stay in Berlin for as long as I wanted. They kept their word. Their uncle D. P., a wealthy man of excellent character, wide-ranging knowledge, and refined taste, not only showed me great respect but also provided me with clean lodgings and invited me for a Sabbath meal. Other members of the family, too, sent food to my room on certain days. Among them was H., a brother of these young people and, in addition, an upstanding man of formidable erudition. He was an enthusiastic Talmudist and therefore dutifully asked if I was neglecting the Talmud because of my proclivity for scientific and philosophical scholarship. When he learned that I was so eager to become meimik [156] bechochma, he stopped sending me food.— Since I now had permission to stay in Berlin, I could concentrate on putting my plan into practice. By sheer coincidence, I happened to walk into a store that sold butter and find the owner dissecting a very old book in order to repurpose the paper. I looked and saw, much to my astonishment, that the book was Wolff’s Metaphysics or the Doctrine of God, the World

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and the Human Soul.2 I couldn’t understand how, in a city as enlightened as Berlin, someone could treat such an important work so barbarically. I asked the owner whether he would perhaps be willing to sell me the book. He would be, for two cents. I gave him the sum without the slightest hesitation. As I took my treasure home, my heart was filled with happiness. Reading the book for the first time, I was enthused. Not only [157] the exalted scholarship in its own right, but also the famous author’s organization and mathematical method, his precision in explaining, his rigor in demonstrating, and the systematic presentation—it all lit a completely new light in my mind. The sections on ontology, cosmology, and psychology were quite easy to read. The parts on theology, however, caused me much trouble, for their teachings not only failed to cohere with what came before them but even seemed to contradict it. I could not accept Wolff’s proof for the existence of God a posteriori, or according to the principle of sufficient reason. And I observed that by Wolff’s own admission, the principle of sufficient reason is an abstraction, derived from individual empirical cases, which merely declares that every object of experience must be grounded in another object of experience, rather than in objects beyond all experience. I also compared [158] this new metaphysical doctrine with Maimonides’ and especially Aristotle’s—those which I already knew, that is—and I couldn’t make them all fit together. I decided to write out these doubts in Hebrew and send them to Herr Mendelssohn, about whom I had heard so much. He was more than a little amazed to get such a letter. He answered at once that my doubts were, in fact, well founded, but that I should not be disheartened or put off. Instead, I should always pursue my studies with a beginner’s excitement. Energized and emboldened by these words, I wrote a metaphysical disputation in Hebrew, in which I cast doubt on the foundations of both revealed and natural theology. Through a series of philosophical arguments, I attacked twelve of the thirteen articles of faith established by Maimonides, sparing only the one about rewards and punishment, which I accepted, in a purely philosophical sense, as natural consequences [159] of voluntary actions. I then sent my work to Mendelssohn, who was astonished. Here was a Polish Jew who had only just learned Wolff’s metaphysics, and yet he had been able to penetrate so deeply into it that he could supplant its arguments with a more correct ontology. Mendelssohn invited me to join him for a conversation, and I accepted. But I was so shy, and the customs and living standards of people in Berlin were so new to me that I would enter their stylish homes in fear 2 Christian Wolff, Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Halle, 1719).

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and bewilderment. When I opened the door to Mendelssohn’s house and saw him and the other elegant people present, as well as the beautiful, tastefully appointed rooms, I scurried back outside, shut the door, and wanted to flee. Mendelssohn, however, had seen me. He came out and spoke to me in the kindliest tones. Coaxing me back into his room, he steered me to a place near a window, effusively complimented my writing. He assured me that if I continued in this way, I would make great progress [160] in metaphysics. And he promised to help me overcome my philosophical skepticism. But this excellent man didn’t simply stop there. He also wanted to help me in practical terms, and he thus recommended me to the best, most enlightened, and wealthiest Jews in Berlin, who looked after my board and other needs. Soon I had a standing invitation to eat with them and use their libraries. Of these people, H., a man with great knowledge and a generous heart, was particularly noteworthy.3 He was a special friend and student of Mendelssohn’s and seemed to enjoy my conversation very much. We often discussed the most important issues in natural theology and morality. Our relationship came to be such that I revealed my thoughts to him with complete openness, without any dissembling at all. In conversation with H., I laid out all the systems I had studied up until that point, defending them with the greatest tenacity. H. raised objections; I answered them and raised objections of my own. [161] At first, this friend regarded me as a kind of speaking animal. He found me delightful the way one would a starling or a dog that has learned to say a few words. More than his rational faculties being stirred by the content of our exchanges, his imagination was fired by the strange mix of animal qualities in my facial expressions and external bearing and the reason in my thoughts. But after a while, the amusement gave way to earnestness. He began to pay attention to the actual issues. Given that notwithstanding his abilities and knowledge, he didn’t have a philosophical mind, and also that the vitality of his imagination detracted from the maturity of his judgment, it should be easy to guess how our exchanges turned out. A few instances will suffice to convey a sense of how I comported myself in such discussions, of the holes in my arguments caused by my deficient command of the German language, and of my practice of explaining everything [162] through examples. I tried to explain Spinoza’s system and more specifically, that all objects are manifestations of a single substance. H. interrupted me: “My 3 This was the distinguished physician Markus Herz (1747–1803), who was a friend of Mendelssohn’s and a student of Kant’s.

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God! You and I are different people, aren’t we? Doesn’t each of us have his own existence?” “Close the shutters!” I exclaimed in response. He was surprised by this bizarre reaction, until I told him what I meant by it: “Look,” I said, “the sun is shining through the windows. The rectangular window creates a rectangle of reflected light and the round window creates a circle. Are they therefore different things, or are they one and the same sunshine? If you close the shutters, all the light will disappear completely.” On another occasion, I defended Helvétius’ system of self-love. H. objected, maintaining that we love other people, too. “For example, I love my wife,” [163] he said, and to confirm it, he gave her a kiss. “That does not disprove my point,” I replied. “For why did you kiss your wife? Because you get pleasure from doing so.”4 A. M., a very courteous and, at the time, very rich man, also gave me free access to his home. Here I found a German translation of Locke. In a cursory first reading, I enjoyed him a great deal, and I recognized him as being the first modern philosopher whose sole concern was truth. I therefore suggested to A. M.’s private tutor that he should let me help him understand this excellent work. At first, the tutor smiled at my proposal and at my ingenuousness—I, who had barely even looked at Locke, would teach him, someone born into and raised in the German language and German scholarship. Nonetheless, he acted as though he saw nothing odd about my suggestion. He accepted it and set up a time for us to study Locke together. I arrived at the appointed time and began to read the text aloud. But since I couldn’t read a word of German properly, [164] I told my student that he should do the reading; my task would be to explain each part of the text. Pretending to be sincerely eager to learn from me, my student agreed, just for the fun of it. His astonishment was therefore great when he realized that this wasn’t a joke. Not only had I comprehended Locke correctly, but my explanations and commentary, when presented in my native language, also revealed a genuinely philosophical mind. I became a familiar figure in the house of the widow L., and when I suggested to her son, young S. L. (who is still my patron), that he should take German lessons from me, there was even greater cause for amusement. However, my reputation had made the bright young man keen to have me as his teacher, and he asked me to give him lessons on Adelung’s German Grammar. It was a book I had never laid eyes on, [165] but I 4 Henriette Herz (1764–1847) was twenty years younger than her husband and famous for her beauty as well as her wit. She presided over the most famous intellectual salon in Berlin. See Deborah Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).

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didn’t let that stop me.(a) My student read the German Grammar aloud, piece by piece, and I not only explained what Adelung meant, but also added my own commentary. I found Adelung’s philosophical discussion of the partes orationis especially objectionable. In response, I communicated my own construction of this principle, which my intellectually ambitious pupil has retained to this day. But as someone with no experience of the world, I sometimes went too far with my candor and wound up in difficult situations. I had read Spinoza, whose deep thinking and love of truth I was particularly drawn to. And because back in Poland, I had, through my reading of Kabbalistic writings, [166] chanced upon the same ideas that underlie his system, I began in effect to contemplate the system again, and I became so convinced of its truth that all Mendelssohn’s attempts to steer me away from it failed. I countered all the objections to Spinoza that the Wolffians raised, raised objections of my own to their system, and demonstrated that when one changed the definitiones nominales of Wolff’s ontology into definitiones reales, the results went against their conclusions. The only way I could understand Mendelssohn’s and the Wolffians’ attachment to their system was by seeing it as a political trick and as an act of hypocrisy, too, through which they assiduously tried to approximate the thinking of the common man.5 I expressed this opinion openly and without reservations. For the most part, my friends and patrons had never thought about philosophy. They blindly accepted the conclusions of the dominant system as definitive [167] truths, and thus they couldn’t understand my resistance, nor of course share it. Mendelssohn took a different sort of tack. He didn’t want to block my drive to explore; in fact, he secretly rather liked it, and he said that even though I was on the wrong path at the moment, I should not curtail my thinking. For as Descartes correctly remarked, “doubt is the beginning of all real philosophizing.” [168]

[Maimon] My method of reading and comprehending books without any prior knowledge, which I have already described in early chapters of my autobiography, and which was born out of a lack of books in Poland, became so advanced that, before I would begin to read, I was confident I would understand everything. 5 That is, the opposite of the “theological politics” Maimon attributed to Maimonides. a

Chapter 12

Mendelssohn. A Chapter Dedicated to the Memory of a Great Friend Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?1

The name of Mendelssohn is so well known that I needn’t devote much space to portraying the excellent moral and intellectual characteristics of this renowned son of our nation. Here, then, I will simply outline the qualities that made the greatest impression on me. He was a fine Talmudist, having studied under Rabbi Israel, the famous Polish rabbi who was rejected as a heretic by his nation.2 This rabbi, otherwise known as Nezach Israel (the strength of Israel)—the name derived from the title [169] of a Talmudic work he had written—had great philosophical talent in addition to his immense Talmudic capabilities and expertise. He was especially gifted in mathematics. Even while still in Poland, he had managed to acquire formidable expertise in this area by using the few texts on the topic written in Hebrew. The Talmudic work just mentioned draws on and displays his knowledge, for in it he solves important mathematical problems, either as a way of illuminating dark passages in the Talmud, or as a way to define a law. Of course, Rabbi Israel was more interested in spreading useful knowledge within his nation than in explaining or defining laws: The latter process was merely a means to that end. Thus he showed, for example, that when the Jews in our regions turn to the east to pray, they are not acting in accord with the law. Because the Talmudic law decrees that Jews must face Jerusalem, and

1 “How shall we keep in or limit our grief, so dear was this man?” Horace, Ode 1.24, addressed to Virgil on the death of their mutual friend Quintilius. Perhaps significantly, all three were avowed Epicureans. 2 Israel Zamosc, whose book Nezach Israel (Frankfurt, 1741) was a critique of traditional Talmudism. On his scientific and philosophical work, see David Sorkin, “The Early Haskalah,” in New Perspectives on the Haskalah, Shmuel Feiner and David Sorkin, eds. (London: Littman, 2000); David Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

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our part of the globe [170] lies northwest of Jerusalem, we should actually pray facing southeast. He goes on from there to show, among other things, how spherical trigonometry can be employed in any part of the world to determine the proper direction with great precision. Along with Rabbi Fränkel, the famous chief rabbi, Rabbi Israel contributed much to the development Mendelssohn’s impressive skills.3 Mendelssohn had a thorough knowledge of mathematics. He appreciated mathematics not simply because of its self-evident truth, but also because he saw it as the best exercise in systematic thinking. It is, of course, well known that Mendelssohn was a great philosopher. Though he didn’t invent new systems, he improved the old ones, especially the Wolff-Leibniz system, which he applied to diverse philosophical topics with much success. It is hard to say whether he had more perspicacity or profundity. He combined the two, possessing a high degree of both. In his precision in defining and dividing, [171] as well as in drawing distinctions, the former capacity is manifest; in his deep philosophical treatises, the latter one. Mendelssohn was, as he himself admitted, fiery by nature. But by cultivating stoic virtues, he had to a large extent succeeded in mastering this temperament. Take, for example, the following encounter with young B., who had decided that Mendelssohn had treated him unfairly. B. not only complained to Mendelssohn about this, but in doing so he went so far as to utter one impertinence after another. Mendelssohn stood leaning on a chair; his eyes fixed on young B., listening to all the rudeness with the greatest stoical patience. Only after the man had cooled down did Mendelssohn go up to him and say: “Leave! You see that you won’t achieve your goal. You cannot make me lose my temper.” Yet after such confrontations, Mendelssohn was unable to hide how troubled he was about human weakness. [172] I myself was often too heated in my debates with him, and I did not show the respect one owes to such a man. This is something I regret to this day. Mendelssohn was a keen observer of people. This skill does not consist of simply identifying several seemingly unrelated aspects of a person’s character and then depicting them with a certain virtuosity. Rather, it also entails identifying the essential aspects of a person’s character— those which, in effect, determine all the others and can therefore be used to understand the others. Mendelssohn knew how to discover a person’s deepest motivations and whole inner moral system with great precision. 3 Rabbi David Fraenkel (1707–62), the author of the canonic commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, Qorban ha-Eda. For the classic twentieth-century account of Mendelssohn’s intellectual development, see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London, 1973).

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Moreover, he had successfully developed fundamental insights into the mechanics of the soul. He made use of these gifts not only in his in his daily interactions with others, they figured, as well, in his works. Mendelssohn was adept at the practical—and also enjoyable—art of adopting another person’s way of thinking. He knew how to complete someone else’s thoughts and fill in the gaps. [173] Indeed, he could understand newly arrived Polish Jews, whose thinking was, for the most part, confused and whose speech was an unintelligible dialect. In his conversations with them, he took on their expressions and style of speaking, and he tried to lower his style of thinking down to their level in order to bring them up to his. He knew how to find the good qualities in everyone, the bright side of every event. And he liked talking to people whom others mostly avoided, because they didn’t use their strengths well. Only stupidity and listlessness thoroughly disgusted him. I once saw him talk at length with a man who had the most illogical mind and little in the way of self-control. Just listening exhausted my patience. After the man had left, I asked Mendelssohn in amazement: “How could you spend so much time talking to that man?” Mendelssohn replied: “Why shouldn’t I have? If we don’t know how a given machine [174] is built or the mechanisms by which it works, we study it closely. Doesn’t this person warrant attention, too? Shouldn’t we try to understand his odd statements the same way? Like any machine, he surely has his motor forces and turning wheels.” When debating a rigid thinker, the kind who clings dogmatically to the system he has accepted, Mendelssohn would be rigid and exploit the smallest mistake in his opponent’s logic. With a flexible thinker, on the other hand, he would be flexible, tending to conclude the debate with the following words: “We must focus on the things themselves, not on each other’s words.” Nothing repelled Mendelssohn as much as triviality and affectation: He simply couldn’t conceal his abhorrence of these qualities. On one occasion, [175] H. invited a group to join him for a conversation, with Mendelssohn as the main interlocutor. Yet H. prattled on the whole time about the things that interested him, which tended to be coarse and lacking in substance. Mendelssohn showed his disgust by refusing to dignify this worthless person with even a moment of his attention. Then there was the lady who acted as though she were extraordinarily refined, and who tended to criticize herself as a way of cajoling others into praising her. Mendelssohn tried to draw her to a more reasonable mode of behavior by emphatically demonstrating how misguided her actions were. She should aim, he stressed, to better her ways. In a disjointed conversation, he wouldn’t contribute much. He would offer some of his own reflections, but mainly he would enjoy observing

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the others. But he would take part most enthusiastically in a coherent discussion. Mendelssohn was also good at guiding an exchange with artful interventions that did not come across as heavy-handed. [176] Mendelssohn’s mind was simply too busy for trivialities. Matters of the greatest importance kept it ceaselessly active: moral principles, natural theology, the immortality of the soul, and the like. In domains such as these, which, in my view, should be of interest to all humanity, Mendelssohn accomplished as much as one can hope to using the principles of Wolff-Leibniz philosophy. In all his investigations, perfection was the compass he followed. His God was the ideal of complete perfection; the idea of complete perfection was the foundation of his morality. The guiding principle of his aesthetics was sensuous perfection. When I was still getting to know Mendelssohn, our debates generally centered on the following matters. Having been a loyal disciple of Maimonides before I learned about more modern philosophy, I insisted on the unity of all [177] God’s positive characteristics. My reasoning was that we can only represent these properties in a limited way. Proceeding from this position, I came to a dilemma. Either 1) God isn’t the most perfect Being, in which case we should be able not only to conceive of His characteristics, but also to know them—that is, we should be able to represent them as actual concepts (ones that map onto objects), or 2) God is the most perfect of all beings, and we can thus conceive of the idea of Him, though we must still take as problematic the reality of the idea as given. Mendelssohn, for his part, insisted on affirming all of God’s realities, a position very much in line with Wolff-Leibniz philosophy, because there a concept need only be thinkable (in the sense of being without contradictions) in order to have reality. My own morality, back then, was genuine stoicism: striving to achieve freedom of will and the dominance of reason over subjective impressions and passions.4 This view also meant believing that the highest calling of man was the assertion of his differentia specifica—knowledge of truth. All [178] other drives that we share with the animal world should be employed to that end. For me, there was no distinction between knowledge of the good and knowledge of the true. Following Maimonides’ lead, I held knowledge of the truth to be the highest good worthy of man. Mendelssohn, on the other hand, regarded the concept of perfection that forms the basis of morality as extending well beyond knowledge of the truth. All of our natural drives, capacities, and powers must be exercised as something good—as realities—in themselves, and not as merely

4

This is how Maimon elsewhere describes rabbinic ethics.

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as means with which to bring about something good. The highest perfection is the idea of the maximum or greatest sum of these realities. As I saw it (following Maimonides), the immortality of the soul lies in the unification of the active intellect, to the extent that it is active in practice, with the world spirit. [179] Only those who devoted themselves to gaining knowledge of eternal truth partake of this immortality, and they do so only to the extent they are thus devoted. It follows that individuality is lost when this higher form of immortality is achieved.5 That Mendelssohn thought otherwise, in accordance with modern philosophy, should surprise no one. I cannot convey his opinions on revealed or positive religion as information conveyed to me by Mendelssohn in person. I will present them only insofar as I have been able to derive them from what Mendelssohn wrote about the topic, which I will supplement with my own reflections. The reason why is as follows. As a budding free-thinker, I denounced all revealed religion as false as such and claimed that its utility, insofar as I could recognize it through the writings of Maimonides, was merely temporal. And as a naïve and inexperienced person, I blithely assumed it would be possible to persuade [180] others of this, despite their entrenched customs and long-held prejudices. I also presupposed, without any doubts or self-reflection, the usefulness of such persuasion. Mendelssohn wouldn’t talk to me about this topic, for he must have feared that I would criticize his responses as sophistry and question his motivations (as many had done and continue to do). However, what he writes in the preface to Menascheh Ben Israel, as well as in his Jerusalem, shows that he accepted the revealed laws of religion, though not revealed teachings, as eternal truths. What he wrote also makes it clear that he regarded the laws of Judaism as the fundamental and inviolable laws of a theocratic constitution, insofar as circumstances allow for one. I have found my way to full agreement with Mendelssohn’s reasoning on this topic, something that resulted from my thinking freely about the fundamental laws of the religion of my fathers. The fundamental laws of [181] Judaism are simultaneously the basis of a state. All who belong to the state, who want to enjoy the rights granted to them on the condition that they obey the laws, must in fact obey them. However, those who want to leave the state, who no longer want to be seen as members and want renounce all the rights that go with membership, are no longer obligated to follow the law, not even in their conscience, whether they join another state or recede into solitude.

5 This is a crisp description of the so-called Averroist, or radical Maimonidean, position with regard to immortality in the middle ages.

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I also accept the truth of Mendelssohn’s remark that a Jew doesn’t necessarily free himself from his religious laws by converting to Christianity, for Jesus of Nazareth himself followed the laws and ordered his disciples to do the same. What if, however, a Jew no longer wants to be part of the theocratic state and embraces a pagan or philosophical religion, which is nothing but pure natural religion? And what if, [182] as a member of a civil state, he simply places himself under the authority of its laws and demands his rights from the state, without saying a thing about his religion—and the state, for its part, is rational enough not to demand such information (which shouldn’t be its concern)? If Mendelssohn had spoken about cases such as these, I don’t believe he would have said that every Jew is duty-bound in conscience to follow the laws of his ancestral religion simply because they are the laws of his ancestral religion. Mendelssohn lived according to the laws of his religion, as far as we know; he likely saw himself as a member of the theocratic state of his fathers, and from his perspective, he behaved as duty required. But someone who leaves that state is acting no less in accord with his duty. At the same time, I consider it wrong to continue to claim to be Jewish, with family ties and interests as one’s motivation, and yet violate its laws (assuming that, in the opinion of [183] the people doing so, the motivating factors just mentioned do not stand in their way). Thus I cannot see how Mendelssohn could both: (a) claim that the church has no authority in civil matters, as he did in defending a Hamburg Jew who publicly flouted religious laws and was therefore excommunicated by the chief rabbi of Hamburg;6 and (b) assert the permanence of the Jewishtheocratic state. What is a state without rights, and by this logic, what exactly would the rights of this theocratic state be? Mendelssohn asks (in the preface to Menascheh Ben Israel, page 48), “How can the state permit any one of its useful and respected citizens to be punished by the laws?” “Not so!” I would reply. It wasn’t the power of excommunication that threatened the Hamburg Jew. To be free of it, he need only say and do nothing that would, by law, result in excommunication. Excommunication means only: As long as you publicly oppose the laws of our [184] community, you will be excluded from it. Therefore, you must decide whether public opposition or the advantages of the community will be more conducive to your happiness. All this certainly wouldn’t have escaped a man like Mendelssohn, and I will leave it to others to decide whether, or to what extent, one should be allowed to be inconsistent for the good of humanity. Maimon refers to a well-known case of the time. The Rabbi in question was Rabbi Raphael Kohen, who Maimon had met as a child, looked for in Posen (bk. 1, ch. 22), and with whom he would dispute below, bk. 2, ch. 14, p. 219. 6

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Men who are otherwise estimable—that is, men from whom one would least expect it—treated Mendelssohn unfairly in various ways. Lavater’s derision is already sufficiently well known, and all fairminded men have condemned it. Acting on his affinity for Spinozism, which no independent mind would ever look askance at, Jacobi, a deep thinker, tried to make Mendelssohn (as well as his friend Lessing) into a Spinozist despite himself (malgre lui). [185] Jacobi also published an exchange of letters on the topic that was not meant to appear in print or be presented to a general audience. What purpose were these measures supposed to serve? If Spinozism is true, then it would be so without Mendelssohn’s endorsement. With eternal truths, what matters isn’t having the majority on your side. This is especially so when the truth is of the kind I take this one to be: a truth that defies all expression. Such injustices must have caused Mendelssohn much aggravation. Indeed, a famous doctor once claimed that Mendelssohn died as a result of them. Though I am no doctor, I would reject this diagnosis in the strongest possible terms. Mendelssohn behaved like a hero toward both Jacobi and Lavater. No! This hero died in the fifth act. After Mendelssohn’s death, the astute H. Pr. Jakob, based in Halle, published a book under the title: Putting Mendelssohn’s “Early Hours” to the Test. In it, he showed [186] that according to the Critique of Pure Reason, all metaphysical assertions should be dismissed as unfounded. But why should Kant’s accomplishment be more damaging for Mendelssohn than for any other metaphysician? Mendelssohn did nothing less than make the Leibniz-Wolff philosophy more complete, apply it to various important topics of human inquiry, and present all this eloquently. Maimonides wrote a superb astronomical treatise, in which, with the greatest precision, he operated according to Ptolemian principle, applying astronomical knowledge to the most important objects. If someone published a book called Putting Maimonides’ “Hylchoth Kidosch Hachodesch” to the Test, a book that takes on Maimonides and tries to refute him using Newtonian principles, they would have produced a work very much like H. Pr. Jakob’s. But enough said! [187]

Chapter 13

My Initial Aversion to Belle Lettres and My Ensuing Conversion. Departure from Berlin. A Stay in Hamburg. I Get Drunk the Way a Bad Actor Shoots Himself. A Foolish Old Woman Falls in Love with Me—and Is Rejected

I didn’t feel at all drawn to literature and literary criticism. Indeed, I couldn’t fathom how one could make a systematic study out of that which pleases or displeases; I felt at the time that these responses had purely subjective causes. Once, when I was out strolling with Mendelssohn, our conversation turned to poets. He recommended that I read them. “No, I don’t like reading poets,” I replied. “What, after all, [188] is a poet if not a liar?” Mendelssohn smiled and said: “So, you agree with Plato, who banished all poets from the Republic. I hope that in time you will change your mind.” This soon happened. Longinus’ On the Sublime fell into my hands. The examples he took from Homer, and especially the famous part about Sappho, made a very strong impression on me. I thought: This is all silliness, of course, but the images and the descriptions are truly beautiful. Afterward, I read Homer’s works and I had to laugh at the foolish fellow. I said to myself: What a serious expression he wears while telling these tales for children. Yet I gradually started to enjoy reading him. Ossian, on the other hand, whom I read soon thereafter (in German translation, needless to say), I worshipped from the start.1 The solemnity of his style, the powerful economy of his descriptions, the purity of his convictions, the simplicity of the [189] objects he depicted, and, finally, his affinity with Hebrew poetry all delighted me enormously. I also took much pleasure in reading Geßner’s Idylls. My belletristic friend the Pole, whom I spoke of in the previous chapter, was pleased to see my conversion, for I had earlier challenged him on the value of belle lettres. Once, when my friend read aloud a passage These poems, which caused an international literary sensation in the late eighteenth century, were not by an ancient Gaelic poet named Ossian but rather by their publisher, the Scottish poet James Macpherson. 1

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from the psalms as an example of forceful rhetoric—the passage in which King David shows his mastery of cursing (en maître)—I interrupted him: “That’s supposed to be art? My mother-in-law, God bless her, curses a lot better than that when she’s bickering with her neighbor.”2 But now he triumphed over me. Mendelssohn and my other friends were also immensely pleased. They wanted me to concentrate on the humaniora, because one would never [190] be well equipped to serve the world with the products of one’s intellect unless one had done so. But it wasn’t easy to persuade me to take this step. I always rushed headlong into the pleasure of the moment, never thinking about how I could heighten and prolong my experiences by preparing myself for them in the right way. I soon acquired a taste not merely for studying literature, but also for everything good and beautiful that I could come to understand. I acted on this inclination with unbounded enthusiasm. Having been choked back until then, the drive for sensual pleasure began to demand its due as well. The initial impetus was this. For quite a while, several men who worked as tutors had been fixtures in the homes of the richest and most elegant families of the Jewish nation.3 They focused on the French language (which was seen at the time as the height of Enlightenment), geography, arithmetic, economics, and such subjects. They had acquired a few highbrow phrases, as well as some vaguely formulated [191] ideas about the more foundational sciences and philosophical systems. As a result, and also because they were practiced in gallantry toward the fairer sex, these men were quite popular. They were generally considered to be clever, capable fellows. When they began to realize that my reputation was growing, and that the admiration for my knowledge and talents had started to eclipse them, they hit upon a strategy for preserving their position by undermining me. They decided to bring me into their group, treat me in a friendly way, and help me however they could. But their motives were hardly pure. They were hoping that once we were linked, people would be more likely to show them greater respect. In addition, they were hoping that some real philosophical knowledge and scientific expertise would rub off on them. They had heard, after all, of my generosity and my love of free intellectual exchange. Thirdly, they also thought, on the other hand, that 2 Presumably something like “May his children be orphans  / His wife a widow.” (Ps. 109:9). Maimon’s jest alludes to the famous passage in the Zohar 3:152a in which Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai is quoted as saying that if the Torah merely consisted in ordinary stories and words, then “we could compose a better Torah right now.” 3 On the class of young maskilim at the time, see Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), especially pp. 76–79.

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they could intoxicate me with the allure of sensual pleasures, given my well-known enthusiasm for whatever I had judged to be good. [192] Their plan was to use this strategy to cool my interest in philosophy and the sciences and alienate me from my other friends (whose friendship had made these men so envious). And so they extended their invitation, avowed their friendship, assured me of their high regard for me, and requested the honor of my company. Not suspecting anything malicious, I happily accepted their offer. Since I recognized that Mendelssohn and my other friends were too important to spend time with me on a daily basis, the prospect of a new group of friends seemed attractive. Furthermore, I was very pleased to have friends of a middling ilk, with whom I could spend time sans façon and enjoy the pleasures of sociable interaction in a relaxed way. My new friends took me to merry gatherings and taverns, brought me along on excursions, and also to . . .4––all at their own expense. In my jovial mood, I, meanwhile, told them all the secrets of philosophy, explained the most recondite philosophical systems in detail, and corrected [193] their ideas about various areas of human knowledge. But because philosophical thinking can’t simply be drummed into someone’s head, and also because these gentlemen possessed no special aptitude for it, they couldn’t make any real progress through lessons of this kind. Once I had noticed how things stood with them, I made no secret of my opinion of their intellects. Nor did I hide the fact that I enjoyed their company mainly for the meat, the wine, and so on. This rather derisive treatment wasn’t especially to their liking. But they took it in stride. Since they wouldn’t be able to achieve everything they’d wanted to through our relationship, they would try to achieve at least part of what they had hoped for. Behind my back, they gave my eminent friends exaggerated reports about my least important actions and utterances, claiming, for example, that I had considered Mendelssohn a philosophical hypocrite, thought of others as lightweights, was promoting dangerous philosophical systems, and was very committed to Epicureanism (as though [194] they were true Stoics!). They even began to openly try to undermine me. Of course, their campaign against me had consequences. It also happened that my more respectable friends had observed that in my studies, I simply followed my inclinations instead of holding to a set plan. They suggested that I study medicine, but they couldn’t convince me to take that step. I realized that the theory of medicine contains many auxiliary sciences, each of which could be mastered only by a specialist. In addition, I saw 4

The coy ellipsis is meant to indicate brothels.

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that a particular genius and faculty of judgment, both of them rare, are needed for the practice of medicine. Most doctors exploit the ignorance of the public. They spend the customary few years at a university, where they have the opportunity to attend all sorts of lectures. But they go to only a few of them. In the end, they use money and powers of persuasion to induce someone else to write a dissertation for them. Thus their path into the medical profession is an easy one. [195] I had, as I have mentioned, a great love of painting. However, my friends advised me not to devote myself to this form, for I was no longer young and would not have the patience needed for the precise work that painting requires. Finally, someone recommended that I study the art of pharmacy. Because I already had some knowledge of physics and chemistry, I decided to act on the idea. But I never intended to make practical use of my expertise; I wanted only to acquire theoretical knowledge. And so instead of directly participating in order to master techniques, I was content to simply watch the important chemical processes. I thus learned the art of pharmacy without becoming a pharmacist. After my three-year apprenticeship, H.J.D. gave Madame Rosen—in whose pharmacy I had studied—the sixty thalers she had been promised. I received a certificate [196] documenting that I had learned the art of pharmacy, and everything seemed to be in order. Yet this course of study, or rather, my way of pursuing it, did a great deal to further alienate my friends. In the end, Mendelssohn summoned me. He told me about my friends’ mounting frustration, then proceeded to enumerate its causes. My life had no direction whatsoever. I had rejected or thwarted all of my friends’ attempts to help. I had been spreading dangerous ideas and philosophical systems. My manner of living was thought to be dissolute. My reputation was that of an ardent devotee of sensual pleasure. I countered the first reproach by reminding him that from the very beginning, I had explained to my friends that my special upbringing had left me uninterested in practical undertakings and made me prefer the quiet, contemplative life. Moreover, this life could both satisfy my natural inclinations and serve as a means of supporting myself (e.g., by teaching). “As [197] to the second point,” I continued, “my opinions and philosophical systems are either true or false. If they are true, then I don’t know how knowledge of the truth could be harmful. If they are false, then let people refute them. I have revealed my views only to A., B., C., and D., who, as enlightened men, seek to transcend all prejudice. Yet it isn’t the harmful character of my views that has led these men to turn against me; rather, it’s their inability to understand my ideas and their desire to avoid the humiliation of admitting this. As to the third reproach, I say to you, Herr

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Mendelssohn, nothing less than: We are all Epicureans. Moralists can give us merely the rules of prudence, or of using the appropriate means to achieve a given end. But they cannot prescribe the ends themselves. “Still,” I added, “I realize now that I must leave Berlin. Where will I go? It doesn’t matter.” And with that, I bid Mendelssohn farewell. He gave me a letter testifying in very strong terms to [198] my abilities and talents and wished me a safe trip. I took leave of my other friends as well, thanking them, briefly but sincerely, for the kindness they had shown. One of my friends was very struck by how tersely I said goodbye to him: “Be well, my dear friend. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” It seemed to this prosaically poetical but otherwise excellent man that my formulation was too short and too dry, given all the displays of friendship he had brought forth. And so he said to me, noticeably displeased: “Is this all you learned in Berlin?” But I didn’t answer him. I simply walked away, bought a ticket on the Hamburg carriage, and left. When I arrived in Hamburg, I went to a merchant for whom S. L. had given me a letter of introduction. The merchant received me in the most welcoming way, [199] inviting me to join him at his table for as long as I stayed in the city. Given that this man knew how to do just one thing— make money—and that knowledge and science didn’t especially interest him, he must have been so generous simply due to my recommendation, or because he felt obliged to do his correspondent a favor. But since I didn’t cut the kind of figure you would want to be seen with, and also because I knew nothing about business, he wanted to get rid of me as soon as he could. He asked me where I wanted to travel to from Hamburg. When I answered Holland, he gave me the advice that with this being the best time of year for making the journey, I should hurry up with my trip. I therefore bought a ticket on a ship leaving for Holland. I had to wait several weeks, though, for the ship to depart. For traveling companions, I had a pair of barber’s apprentices, a tailor’s apprentice, and a shoemaker’s. They laughed at everything, argued energetically, and sang all kinds of songs. But I couldn’t [200] take part in any of this, because they barely understood the language I spoke. In addition, they made fun of me in all sorts of ways. I patiently endured it all. The ship sailed down the Elbe without difficulties, until it reached a village at the point where the river flows into the North Sea, a few miles from Hamburg. Due to unfavorable winds, we had to remain there for six weeks. The crew and the remaining passengers went into the local tavern, where they drank and gambled. I was too sick for that, so sick in fact that I nearly despaired of getting well. Finally, a good wind came, the ship set sail on the North Sea, and on the third day, we arrived in Amsterdam.

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A boat approached the ship to bring the ship’s passengers into the city. I didn’t trust the Dutch boatman at first, not wanting to wind up in a deathtrap (I had been warned about the dangerous ships in Hamburg). But the [201] captain of the ship assured me that he knew this particular boatman well, and I should have no qualms about putting myself in his hands. Thus I entered the city. I didn’t know anyone there, but I had heard about a man living in The Hague from an excellent Berlin family— this man had brought over a house tutor whom I happened to know from Berlin. So I set off for The Hague on a cargo barge. Here I arranged to lodge with a poor Jewish woman. I was still resting, trying to recover from my trip, when a tall, haggard man walked in, wearing filthy clothes and with a short pipe dangling from his mouth. Without noticing me, he proceeded to speak with the innkeeper. Finally, she said to him, “Herr H., there’s a guest here from Berlin. Talk to him.” H. turned to me and asked: “Who are you? What are you doing in Holland?” In keeping with my inveterate candor and love of truth, I told him I was from Poland, that my love of philosophy and the sciences had led me to spend several years [202] in Berlin, and that I had come to Holland with the aim of working, should the opportunity arise. As soon as he realized that he had a scholar before him, he began to bring up various philosophical and mathematical topics (he had done a lot of work in the latter field). He had found in me a man after his own heart, and we became friends on the spot. Afterward, I went to see the family tutor I knew from Berlin. He described me to his employer as a person of great talents, one highly regarded in Berlin and outfitted with excellent letters of introduction. Because this employer respected both his tutor and everything else that came from Berlin, he invited me for a meal at his home. My appearance suggested nothing special, and I was, moreover, still utterly exhausted from my sea journey. Thus I cut an odd figure at the table; indeed, the employer didn’t know what to make of me. But he set great store [203] by both Mendelssohn’s written recommendation and also his own tutor’s oral one. Suppressing his bemusement, he invited me to eat at his home during my stay. He had invited his brothers-in-law—sons of B., a man had won fame through his wealth and charitable works—to come that evening, too. As scholars, they would be able to provide a better assessment of my abilities. We discussed an array of Talmudic subjects and even topics from the Kabbalah as well. When they saw that I was an initiate in the secrets of Jewish mysticism, and that I was able to explain passages they had deemed inexplicable and solve other stubborn problems, they came to the conclusion that they were in the presence of a great man. But it didn’t take long for their admiration to turn to hatred. Apropos of the Kabbalah, they told me about a man who had been living in

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London for many years and could perform miracles using the Kabbalistic formulas.5 [204] I expressed some skepticism, but they assured me that they had witnessed the man’s feats during his stay in The Hague. I replied that as a philosopher, I didn’t doubt the truth of their story, but perhaps they hadn’t investigated the matter thoroughly enough and had accepted certain preconceived notions as facts. I added that I would continue to doubt the effects of the Kabbalah until someone could prove that they were inexplicable through the familiar laws of nature. This position they considered heresy. At the end of the meal, I was given the wine cup so that I could say the customary blessing over it. I declined this honor, adding that I wasn’t doing so out of feigned embarrassment about speaking in front of a group. For in Poland, I had been a rabbi and had given many sermons and held many disputations before large audiences. I was ready to prove this, I stated, by presenting a daily public lecture. But I felt the prayer I was being invited to say was a function of an anthropomorphic system of theology; [205] it was nothing other than my love of truth and abhorrence of self-contradiction that made it impossible for me to say it. With this claim, I had exhausted their patience—and then some. They cursed me as a damned heretic and decided it would be a mortal sin to tolerate my presence in a Jewish home. My host was no philosopher, but he was a reasonable, enlightened person, and he took little notice of these imprecations. My modest talents mattered more to him than my piety. The guests left right after the meal, full of indignation. All their subsequent attempts to dislodge me from the house of their brother-in-law would remain fruitless. I stayed in the house for about nine months, leading a life of complete independence but also extreme reclusion. I had no occupation or true social interaction. [106] But I cannot pass over in silence a remarkable event, remarkable both psychologically and morally. Lacking nothing except an occupation aligned with my strengths, I became depressed in Holland, as is natural. My weariness often led me to think of suicide, of putting an end to a life that had become a burden to me. But whenever I was about to act, my love of life always regained the upper hand. During the festival of Haman6, I ate and drank prodigiously, as is customary among Jews. This was at the house where I was taking my meals. When the feasting was over at about midnight, I set out for the house where I was lodging. Holland is of course full of canals, 5 This was Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk (1708–82), on whom see Michael Oron, Rabbi, Mystic or Impostor? The Eighteenth Century Baal Shem Tov of London, trans. Edward Levin (London: Littman, 2017). 6 I.e. Purim.

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and walking alongside one, I had the feeling that this was an opportune moment for carrying out the resolution I had formed many times. My life has become a burden to me, I thought to myself. At present, I am provided for, but how will things look in the future? How will [207] I support myself then? After all, I’m of no practical use in the world. Calm deliberations had repeatedly led me to decide to end my life; it was just cowardice that had kept me from going through with it. But now that I’m standing, thoroughly intoxicated, on the edge of a deep grave, this can happen in a blink of an eye with no difficulty at all. Soon, I was leaning over the canal about to throw myself into it, but only the upper part of my body obeyed the command of my soul, which must have been counting on the lower part to refuse. I stood that way for some time, upper body bending over the water and legs rooted firmly to the ground. A passerby might have thought that I was paying the water a compliment. This hesitation destroyed my whole resolution. I felt like someone who is supposed to swallow his medicine, but lacks the requisite courage and keeps picking up his bowl of medicine only to put it back down. Finally, I had to laugh at myself, for what [208] was driving me to suicide was actual abundance in the present and merely imagined scarcity in the future.(a) I gave up my resolution and went home, putting an end to the tragicomic scene. I feel obliged to mention another comical scene as well. A former beauty of about forty-five lived in the Hague (‘s-Gravenhage) in those days, earning her living by teaching French. One day, she [209] visited me in my room. She introduced herself, told me of her irresistible longing for scholarly conversation, and promised that for this reason, she would visit me quite often. She said that it would be an honor if I in turn visited her. I was happy to accept her offer and went to see her a number of times. We got to know each other better through frequent conversations about philosophy, belles lettres, and such topics. I was still married, and nothing about his woman attracted me with one exception: her passion for learning. I thought only about what we were discussing. But she, who had long been a widow, was smitten with me: She said so herself. With looks as well as words, she began to send me romantic signals. I found it all very

a [Maimon] Love of life, or the drive for self–preservation, appears to increase rather than diminish as one’s means of supporting oneself decreases, and as the uncertainty in one’s life grows. For necessity spurs us to greater activity, which in turn brings about a greater passion for life. But if poverty and material need become overwhelming, desperation results: that is, the sense that supporting oneself is impossible. The inevitable consequence of such desperation is suicidal impulses. In sum, obstacles to satisfying the passion for life can make this passion more intense, but if they render satisfying the passion impossible, they will produce despair.

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funny. I couldn’t believe that a woman might fall seriously in love with me, so I took what she said as airs and affectation. However, she [210] became increasingly serious, brooding at times during our conversations and occasionally breaking out in tears. During one of our exchanges, we turned our attention to the topic of love. Proceeding with my usual candor, I said that I could love a woman only for her winning feminine qualities (beauty, charm, a soothing nature, etc.). Whatever else a woman might have (talent, erudition, etc.) would elicit merely admiration, not love. The woman attacked this view with both a priori reasons and empirical examples, drawn primarily from French novels. While she attempted to correct my conception of love, I remained unconvinced, and because the woman was taking her facial expressions and sighs to an extreme, I stood up and said good-bye. Having walked me to the door, she grasped my hand and didn’t want to let go. I asked sharply: “Madame, what is wrong with you?” [211] She replied in a trembling voice: “I love you.” When I heard this laconic declaration of love, I began to laugh violently. Still laughing, I tore myself from her grasp and ran away. She was heartbroken. A while later, she sent me the following letter: Dear Sir, I was greatly mistaken about you. I took you to be a man with noble ideas who forms refined impressions. But I now see that you are a true libertine. All you care about is pleasure. You only like women for their beauty. A Madame Dacier, who studied all the Greek and Latin authors, translated them into her native language, and enriched them with learned annotations—someone like that would not give you pleasure. Why? Because she wasn’t pretty. You, who are otherwise so enlightened, should be ashamed of yourself, sir, for harboring such pernicious principles. And [212] if you refuse to reconsider, then tremble before the prospect of a scorned love avenged.

I answered as follows: Dear Madame, You are mistaken, as the result proves. You call me a true Epicurean. With this, you pay me a great compliment. For if I despise the title “Epicurean,” I am, on the contrary, quite proud to be a “true Epicurean.” I admit that I like a woman’s beauty. Because beauty can be enhanced through other talents, I can appreciate those talents, but only as a means to the main end. On the other hand, I can admire a woman for her talents, but not love her, as I have already explained in person. I greatly respect Madame Dacier’s erudition: She might have fallen in love with the Greek

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men present at the siege of Troy, [213] always hovering around her as they were, and she may have expected to be loved by them in return— but other than that, nothing. As to your vengeance, Madame, I remain unafraid of it. Time, which destroys all things, has ruined your weapons, too, namely your teeth and your nails. Your . . .

With that, the bizarre love affair came to an end. I saw that there was nothing more for me in Holland. The main goal of Dutch Jews is, after all, to make money, and they have no real inclination for scholarly inquiry. Furthermore, because of my inadequate Dutch, I couldn’t teach in any field. And so I decided to return to Berlin. I intended to travel by way of Hamburg, but had the chance to travel by land to Hannover. There I went to see M., a rich man (but one who does not even deserve to enjoy his own wealth). I showed him Mendelssohn’s letter of introduction and described my desperate circumstances. He carefully read the letter—written by a certain Moses Mendelssohn [214]—called for ink and a quill, and without saying a word wrote on the letter: “I, Herr M., hereby vouch for the complete accuracy of what Herr Mendelssohn has written in praise of Herr Solomon.” Thereupon he dismissed me.—[215]

Chapter 14

I Return to Hamburg. A Lutheran Pastor Calls Me a Mangy Sheep and Claims That I Am Unworthy of Being Taken into the Christian Flock. I Become a Gymnasium Student and Make the Chief Rabbi as Mad as a Ram

I arrived safely back in Hamburg but wound up in the most straightened circumstances. My lodgings were a ramshackle inn. In addition, I had nothing to eat, and I simply didn’t know what to do. But I couldn’t go back to Poland. There I would spend my life languishing in misery and privation, cut off from the pursuit of science and systematic knowledge, far away from enlightened interlocutors, and sinking back into the darkness of superstition and ignorance that, through the greatest effort, I had barely managed to escape. I had come too far, intellectually and morally, for that. [216] But with my insufficient mastery of the local language, customs, and way of life, which I still hadn’t been able to adapt myself to, I certainly couldn’t count on being able to make my way in Germany. I hadn’t acquired a profession. Nor had I distinguished myself in any one field of knowledge. In fact, I didn’t really speak a single one of the languages in which I might have made myself comprehensible to others. I came to the conclusion that my only option was to take on the Christian faith. I would undergo baptism in Hamburg. And so I resolved to head straight for the closest pastor, whom I would tell about both my decision and my motives in an open way perfectly in keeping with my candor. Because I couldn’t express myself well in spoken German, I wrote down my thoughts in German using Hebrew characters; I then went to a schoolmaster and had my statement rewritten in German letters. The upshot of the letter was as follows: I was born in Poland, into the Jewish nation. Brought up and trained [217] to be a rabbi, I saw some light in the blackest darkness, which moved me to pursue light and truth and to try to free myself from superstition and ignorance. Because it was impossible to work toward my goal in the land where I was born, I moved to Berlin. Supported by some enlightened men of my nation, I studied there—not systematically, but rather simply to satisfy my desire for knowledge. But because our nation has no use for such desultory

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study, these men naturally grew weary of supporting me, and they declared their support pointless. Thus, for the sake of both earthly and eternal happiness, which depends on the achievement of perfection, and also as a way of becoming useful to both myself and others, I have decided to accept the Christian religion. Admittedly, the articles of faith [218] in Judaism come closer to reason than those in Christianity. But with respect to its practical application, the latter has the advantage over the former. And since morality, which is the chief aim of all religions, consists of actions rather than beliefs, Christianity is closer to the aim of religion than Judaism. Furthermore, I hold the mysteries of Christianity to be what they are, mysteries: allegorical representations of the truths that matter most to humanity. In this way, I can reconcile my belief in the mysteries with reason, although I cannot believe in them as they are commonly construed. I ask, then, with all due deference: After giving such a confessional statement, am I worthy or unworthy of the Christian religion? If the former is the case, I am ready to put my resolution into practice. If the latter, then I must give up all claim to having religion, for it would force me to lie, i.e., confess my faith in words that contradict my reason.1 [219]

The schoolmaster to whom I dictated these words was astonished and marveled at my boldness. He had never heard anyone offer such a confession of faith. Shaking his head anxiously, he paused several times while writing to ask himself whether merely transcribing such a document was a sin. Getting him to complete the task wasn’t easy. But in the end, he just wanted to be done with it. I went to a very fine pastor, gave him the text, and asked him for a response. Reading attentively, he, too, marveled over my words. After he had finished, we spoke. Pastor: As I see it, you want to adopt Christianity simply to improve your material circumstances? I: Pardon me, Pastor, but I believe that I explain well enough in my statement that my goal is to achieve perfection. [220] Clearing away external obstacles and bettering my circumstances are prerequisites for that. They are not, however, my ultimate aim. Pastor: External motivations aside, do you feel any inner attraction to Christianity? I: I would be lying if I said I did. Pastor: You are too much of a philosopher to become a Christian. Reason has the upper hand in you, and faith must conform to reason. You treat the mysteries of Christian religion as mere fables, and the 1 On the sources of Maimon’s philosophical-theological argument regarding means and ends in the attainment of perfection, see the editors’ introduction.

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commandments of this religion as mere laws of reason. At this point, I cannot find your confession of faith satisfying. Pray to God. Ask Him to illuminate you with His Grace and to fill you with the spirit of true Christianity. Once you have done that, come back here. I: If that is how things are, Pastor, then I must admit I am not qualified to be a Christian. I will always shine the light of reason [221] on whatever light I receive. I will never accept new truths until I can see how they relate to the truths I know already. So it seems I must remain what I am: a stubborn Jew. My religion compels me to believe nothing and instead to pursue the truth and perform good deeds. If external circumstances currently keep me from doing so, that isn’t my fault. I am doing all I can.

With that, I bid the pastor good-bye. The hardships of my journey, together with a lack of nourishing food, weakened me, and I came down with a fever. I lay in an attic on a pile of straw, painfully deprived of sustenance and of course comforts, too. Out of genuine pity, the innkeeper called for a Jewish doctor, who prescribed an emetic. Having discovered that I was an unusual person, he engaged me in conversation. We spoke for several hours, and he said that I should visit him after I had recovered. The cure he prescribed worked and my fever soon broke. [222] In the meantime, a young man who knew me from Berlin had heard about my arrival. He came to tell me that Herr W., whom I had met in Berlin, was now living in Hamburg, and that I should visit him right away. I did so. W. was a capable and upstanding man, inclined by nature to do good works. He asked me what I was planning to do next; I laid out my situation and asked for advice. His opinion was that my precarious position had the following cause. Having devoted myself so enthusiastically to pure knowledge and scholarship, I had neglected the study of languages, which left me unable to communicate and use my knowledge and expertise. But it wasn’t too late to change that. If I wanted to, I could reach my goal by enrolling in the gymnasium in Altona, where his son was a student. He, Herr W., would act as my patron.2 I gratefully accepted his offer and went home feeling elated. [223] Meanwhile, Herr W. spoke with the gymnasium’s teachers and its director. In particular, he sought out a man whose gifted mind and heart This was the Gymnasium Christianeum in nearby Altona. An undated twentiethcentury brochure published by the gymnasium contains the text of two educational certificates for Maimon, the first of which is dated November 1783, and describes Maimon as “a young man of the Jewish nation, named Solomon from Lithuania.” The second, dated February 1785, refers to him as “Salomon Maimon, born in Lithuania,” cited in Samuel Hugo Bergman, The Philosophy of Salomon Maimon, trans. Noah Jacobs (Jerusalem, 1967), p. 2, thus giving us the rough date of his adoption of Maimon as a surname. 2

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cannot be praised enough: a lawyer named G. Herr W. described me as a man of uncommon talents who would certainly make a name for himself in the world. All I needed to do was improve my language skills, something I hoped to achieve through a short course of study at the gymnasium. This plan was approved. I registered as a student and was given a room at the gymnasium. I lived there for several years, peacefully and happily. Of course, because students at such places tend to progress quite slowly, and I had already gone quite far in acquiring knowledge in various fields, I found some of the lectures boring. So I didn’t attend them all, only the ones that appealed to me. I greatly admired the gymnasium’s director, Herr Dusch, for both his comprehensive erudition and his excellent character, and I heard many of his lectures. [224] To be sure, the philosophy of Ernesti, which he lectured on, left me rather cold, as did his lectures on Segner’s mathematical compendium.3 But I learned a great deal from his English language classes. Rector H.—a cheerful old man, but rather pedantic—was not particularly pleased with me, because I didn’t want to do his Latin exercises or learn Greek. The history professor, Vice Rector . . . , began his lectures ab ovo with Adam. Only with great effort was he able to reach—two years later—the construction of the Tower of Babel. The French teacher, Assistant Vice Rector  .  .  .  , used Fenelon’s Sur l’existence de Dieu for the purpose of explication, a work I came to dislike in the extreme. While the author pretended to be against Spinozism, he was, I realized, actually arguing for it. My professors were never able form an accurate sense of who I was during my time at the gymnasium, [225] because they never really had the chance to get to know me. Believing I had gained a solid foundation in the languages I wanted to learn, and now weary of this idle way of life, I decided to leave the gymnasium at the end of my first year there. However, Director Dusch, who gradually had begun to get to know me after all, begged me to stay for at least one more year. Since I otherwise wanted for nothing there, I acceded to his wishes. Around this time, the following event took place. A Polish Jew—whom my wife had sent to look for me—learned that I was there. He came to Hamburg and visited me at the gymnasium. My wife was demanding that 3 Johann Heinrich Ernesti was a Lutheran theologian-philosopher, who translated Cicero and feuded with his academic colleague Johann Sebastian Bach, who later composed the motet for Ernesti’s funeral. Johann Andreas Segner (1704–77) was a professor at the University of Halle and one of the leading scientists of the age.

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I either return home immediately or give the man a letter of divorce to take back to her. Neither option appealed to me. I didn’t want to divorce my wife without due cause. Nor was simply packing up and going back to Poland, [226] where I wouldn’t have the slightest prospect of advancement or chance to lead a life of reason, a palatable course of action. I explained this predicament to the messenger, adding that I planned to leave the gymnasium soon. My aim was to travel to Berlin, in the hopes that my Berlin friends would give me moral and material support and help me carry out my scholarly plans. This answer failed to satisfy him. Indeed, he saw it as an evasion. Because he had no authority, and couldn’t do anything to me on his own, he went to the chief rabbi and lodged a complaint. The rabbi, in turn, sent someone from his court to summon me to appear before his tribunal of justice. I replied that the chief rabbi’s jurisdiction didn’t extend to me, since the gymnasium had its own jurisdiction, which my case should be decided under. The rabbi did all he could to make me bend to his will: His strategy was to go through the local government. However, it was all in vain. Seeing that he couldn’t sway me with such tactics, [227] he sent his messenger again. But this time he merely requested that I come see him. All he wanted to do was talk. I happily accepted the invitation and set off at once.4 He received me with a great show of respect. When I told him about my childhood and family in Poland, he began to wail out lamentations, wringing his hands: “Oh! Can it be that you are the famous Rabbi Joshua’s son? I know your father very well. He is a pious and learned man. And I know you, too. I tested you on a number of occasions when you were a boy, and I found you so full of promise. Oh! How is it possible that you have changed so much!” (Here he pointed to my shaved beard.) I replied that I felt honored to know him: Indeed, I remembered his examination well. My actions, I maintained, ran no more counter to religion (properly understood) than to reason. He interrupted me: “But you have no beard and you don’t go to synagogue—doesn’t that run counter to religion?” [228] “No!” I answered, and demonstrated that according to the Talmud all of this was permissible given the circumstances I found myself in. Thereupon 4 Rabbi Raphael Kohen (1722–1803) was the chief rabbi of the Jewish “triple community” of Hamburg, Altona, and Wandsbeck (which were under three distinct secular governments), and a leading opponent of the Haskala, who had once threatened to excommunicate Moses Mendelssohn, and did ban his Bible translation. In 1789 a halachic work of his was anonymously and brutally attacked by Maimon’s odd and brilliant peer Saul Berlin (1740–94) in one of the major episodes of late eighteenth-century Jewish intellectual life. Although he did not name him, Maimon would have expected his Jewish readers to recognize his portrait of Kohen and to have this background in mind.

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we entered into a wide-ranging debate over the issue, a debate in which we were both right. Because this method wasn’t getting him anywhere, the rabbi turned to sermonizing. When that, too, failed to produce results, he worked himself up into a holy fervor, and he began to shout: “Shofar! Shofar!” (This is the name of the horn that is blown in synagogues at New Year as a call to come and repent; Satan is supposed to be terribly afraid of it.)5 While shouting, he pointed to a Shofar that happened to be lying on a table. He asked me: “Do you know what that is?” I answered brazenly: “Of course, it’s a ram’s horn.” These words made the rabbi tumble back into his chair. He began to bewail my lost soul. And as he did, I walked out, leaving him to bewail my soul for as long as he pleased. At the end of my second year, I determined that letting the professors get to know me better would [229] be fair to the gymnasium, and good for my own prospects as well. I went to Director Dusch and told him that I would be leaving soon. I also said that I wanted a certificate attesting to my progress. And, in addition, I asked him to give me an examination. That way, the certificate could come as close as possible to expressing the truth. He had me translate a series of passages, both prose and poetry, from Latin and English, and he was very satisfied with my renderings. Then we discussed several philosophical topics. Here he found me to be so well versed in the material that he soon broke off. Finally, he asked, “How about mathematics?” I requested that he test me in this, too. “We are more or less up to the theory of mathematical bodies in our math class,” he said. “Why don’t you solve a problem that hasn’t yet come up in the lectures, such as how the cylinder, [230] sphere, and cone relate to each other? You can have a few days.” I replied that that wouldn’t be necessary. I could complete the assignment on the spot. Not only did I prove the proposition that had been given to me, but I also demonstrated quite a few additional ones from Segner’s geometry. The rector was very surprised. He summoned all the students in the gymnasium and, to their embarrassment, impressed upon them how much I had managed to achieve. Most of the students didn’t know what to say, but some offered this response: “Director, you mustn’t think that Maimon has made so much progress at school. He almost never came to the mathematics lectures, and when he did, he didn’t pay attention.” They wanted to say more, but the director silenced them and gave me a glowing certificate. I can’t help but quote several lines here, as, after a while, they had the effect of spurring me on to accomplish more. Only for this reason am I relating 5 The Shofar is also blown on the occasion of an excommunication, as Maimon was well aware.

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part of the esteemed rector’s evaluation. My doing so should not be seen as self-aggrandizement. [231] He wrote: “His talent for understanding all that is good, beautiful, and useful, and, above all, everything in the sciences that requires a strong intellectual effort as well as deep and abstract thinking, is, I would almost say, extraordinary. Knowledge that most people acquire only through the greatest effort is his favorite kind. The use of his mental powers seems to be his main, if not only, source of enjoyment. Up to now, philosophy and mathematics have been his preferred subjects; the progress he has made in these subjects has astonished me . . .” I took my leave of the gymnasium’s teachers and administrators, all of whom paid me the compliment that it had been an honor to have me at their school. I then set off once more for Berlin. [232]

Chapter 15

Third Journey to Berlin. Failed Plan to Become a Hebrew Author. Journey to Breslau. Divorce

I went to see my old friends Mendelssohn, Doctor B., F., J., and L., and since I was now competent in several languages, I asked them to help me find an occupation that accorded with my capabilities. They hit upon the idea that I could produce enlightenment-bringing books in Hebrew for the benefit of Polish Jews still living in darkness (Hebrew being the only language they understood). These great friends of humanity would pay to have the books printed and disseminated within our nation.1 I eagerly accepted this proposal. Now, however, the [233] question arose as to what sort of writings I should start with.2 The excellent men helping me were of differing opinions on this point. J. thought that a history of the Jewish nation would best serve our purpose. Through such a book, the nation would learn about the origins of its religious doctrines and about how the doctrines had become degraded. Here, moreover, Polish Jews would see how ignorance and resistance to reason caused the Jews’ state to fall into decline and the Jews to suffer under the persecution and oppression that followed. J. suggested that I translate Basnage’s History of the Jews from the French.3 He gave me Basnage’s work and requested a sample translation as a sort of test. Everyone, even Mendelssohn, found my performance acceptable. I was all set to start working on my project. 1 Maimon would not have been alone in such endeavors. His erstwhile patrons seem to have been thinking of him along the lines of the Haskala popularizer Mendel Lefin (1749– 1824) or Barukh Schick, who famously published a Hebrew translation of the first six books of Euclid’s Elements in Uqlides (The Hague, 1780). On Lefin, see Nancy Sinkoff, Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2004); For Schick, David Fishman, Russia’s First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov (New York: New York University Press, 1996). 2 For Maimon, enlightenment was primarily the propagation of scientific and mathematical knowledge (an endeavor that was grounded in his radical Maimonideanism, and its conception of human perfection), while Mendelssohn’s friends aimed at making East European Jews into reasonable approximations of the contemporary German bourgeoisie. 3 Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, depuis Jesus-Christ jusqu’a present. The Hague, 1716.

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F., however, was of the opinion that we should begin with natural religion and rational morality, since they are the goal of all enlightenment. He therefore advised me to translate Reimarus’ natural theology.4 Mendelssohn kept [234] his opinion to himself, believing, as he did, that no undertakings of this kind would hurt, but also that they wouldn’t much help. I entered into the project not because of my own convictions about it, but because my friends had prevailed upon me to do so. I was all too familiar with rabbinic despotism, which for centuries has used force of superstition to hold on to its position in Poland, and which, in order to protect its power, has also tried to hinder the spread of truth and light in every possible way. I knew that the Jewish theocracy and national character were so intertwined that getting rid of one would necessarily mean the demise of the other. Thus, I recognized that my efforts at enlightening others would likely be in vain. Still, I accepted the job. My friends wanted to see it done, and I had no other way of supporting myself. Though they hadn’t yet settled on a plan for my project, my friends decided to send me to Dessau, where I would be able to work in peace. [235] I arrived in Dessau hoping that my friends would come to a definite decision about the course of my work within a few days. I was deceiving myself. As soon as I left Berlin, my friends stopped thinking about the plan. I waited about two weeks. Having heard nothing, I wrote to Berlin: If you cannot come to a consensus on the plan, then leave the selection to me. My own view is that the enlightenment of the Jewish nation should begin neither with history nor with natural theology and morality. For one thing, these fields are widely accessible, and since Jewish scholars respect only that which demands a great exertion of mental powers, these topics would not foster much respect for systematic scholarship and science in general. Furthermore, these topics would often come into conflict with the scholars’ religious prejudices, and the scholars would therefore be unreceptive to works dealing with them. Finally, the Jewish nation has in truth no actual [236] history, for the nation has almost never been in a political relationship with other nations, and aside from the Old Testament, Josephus, and a few fragments about the persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages, nothing has been written about it.

I concluded that it would be best to start with a field that, as well as being uniquely helpful in developing the mind, has no connection to ideas about religion: mathematics. And so I proposed to produce a mathematics textbook in Hebrew. 4 Reimarus, Abhandlungen von den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen Religion. Hamburg, 1781.

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F. soon answered that I should pursue this idea. Thus, I set about writing my textbook with all due industry, laying out Wolff’s Latin mathematics,5 and completing the project within a few months. Afterward, I went back to Berlin to present the outcome of my efforts. As soon as I arrived, however, J. delivered the unfortunate [237] news that because of the considerable length of my book, and especially because the copperplates it required would cost so much, he was unable to publish it at his own expense. I could have the manuscript back and do whatever I liked with it. I complained to Mendelssohn. He felt it wouldn’t be right if I went unrewarded for my labors, but on the other hand, he couldn’t force his friends to pay to publish a book that, given the Jewish nation’s aversion to science (which I myself had acknowledged), had such uncertain prospects. His advice was therefore to have the work published by subscription. Needless to say, I had no choice but to content myself with this tack. Mendelssohn and the other enlightened Jews of Berlin subscribed, and all I received for my trouble was my manuscript and the subscription list. No one thought anymore about our plan. The episode led to another falling out with my Berlin friends. As a man with little experience of the world, believing [238] that actions should accord with the laws of justice, I insisted our agreement be honored. My friends, for their part, realized—if only too late—that their vaguely outlined project was doomed to failure, because the costs of producing such long and expensive books were unlikely to be recouped. Given the Jewish nation’s religious, moral, and political condition, its few enlightened members would probably never take the step of studying scientific topics in Hebrew, the language least well suited to representing the sciences. They would simply study the sciences from the original sources. Meanwhile, the unenlightened—who make up the majority—are so in thrall to rabbinic prejudices that they would regard the study of science (even in Hebrew) as forbidden fruit. Besides, they devote themselves exclusively and incessantly to the study of the Talmud and its countless commentaries. [239] Recognizing all this, I didn’t insist that my book be printed. I wanted merely to be compensated for the work I had put into it. Mendelssohn remained neutral, for he believed that both sides were right. But he did promise to convince his friends to do something else to help me support myself. In the end, not even that came to pass, and I decided to leave Berlin again and relocate to Breslau. I took letters of introduction with me, but they didn’t do me much good. By the time I made it to Breslau, letters besmirching my reputation had arrived, making a very bad impression on precisely the people my 5 Probably, Wolff, Elementa matheseos universae (“Elements of General Mathematics”). 2 vols. Halle: 1713–15. The manuscript of Maimon’s translation is lost.

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letters of introduction were addressed to. Naturally, I was received coldly. Since I knew nothing about the defamatory letters, I was at a loss to explain this reception. I quickly decided to leave Breslau. [240] I just happened, however, to make the acquaintance of Ephraim Kuh, the famous poet of the Jewish nation.6 As a learned and noble-minded man, he enjoyed my company so much that he put aside all of his undertakings and amusements and devoted himself exclusively to spending time with me. He enthusiastically recommended me to the rich Jews of the city, describing me as an excellent mind. Once he realized that his endorsements were not being taken seriously, he tried to find out why, and he eventually discovered those friendly letters from Berlin. “Solomon Maimon attempts to spread harmful philosophical systems,” they declared. Being an intelligent man, Ephraim Kuh immediately saw why these accusations were being made, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t disabuse the wealthy Jews of the opinions they had formed based on what they had read. I admitted to him that during my stay in Berlin, I had felt, as a young an inexperienced man, an irresistible [241] drive to disseminate and communicate the truths that I had recognized. But I also made it clear that experience had made me much wiser, that I now went about my work with the utmost tact and caution. The accusation in the letters was thus baseless. Frustrated over my rather fraught situation, I decided to introduce myself to various Christian scholars. My hope was that through their recommendations, I could win an audience with the wealthy people of my own nation. I was again worried that my poor German would not be equal to the challenge of expressing what I wanted to say, so I wrote a short essay, aphoristically presenting my thoughts on the most important philosophical topics, and I brought the essay to a well-known professor: Professor Garve.7 I gave him a brief description of what I was planning to do, then handed him my aphorisms to look over. We had a friendly discussion, after which Professor Garve produced a favorable testimonial about me. He also orally recommended me, quite forcefully, to the rich banker Herr Lipmann [242] Meier, who provided me with a monthly stipend and spoke to other Jews about my plight. The nineteenth-century German-Jewish novelist Berthold Auerbach depicted this friendship in Dichter und Kaufmann: ein Lebensgemälde aus der Zeit Moses Mendelssohn (Stuttgart, 1860). Küh had suffered a nervous breakdown after he was identified as a Jew subject to special taxes by a Saxon customs official and later (like Maimon) flirted with conversion while attacking the local Jewish establishment, so his advocacy probably didn’t help Maimon. For an interesting short account of Küh’s life, see Sander Gilman, Jewish SelfHatred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 115–21. 7 Christian Garve (1742–98), a philosopher, translator, and bookseller. He was author of an influential and critical review of the first edition of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 6

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Gradually, my situation improved. Many young Jews sought my company, among them the middle son of Aaron Zadig. My humble person delighted him so much that he wanted to have the pleasure of learning about the sciences and philosophy from me. He asked his father to pay for the instruction, and this affluent, enlightened, and sensible man, who wanted his children to have the best German education and spared no expense for it, happily agreed to. Herr Zadig summoned me and proposed that I lodge with him and receive a modest honorarium, in exchange for which I would spend several hours a day giving his middle son lessons in physics and belle lettres, plus an hour of instruction in arithmetic. I was extremely pleased to accept. Not long afterward, Zadig asked whether I might like [243] to teach his children Hebrew and basic mathematics, subjects they had been learning from a Polish rabbi named Manoth. But it seemed wrong to me to inflict hardship on this poor man, who had a family and had done a satisfactory job. And so I declined. Rabbi Manoth retained his job, and I began mine. I had a hard time pursuing my own studies in this house. For one thing, there was a lack of books. For another, I lived together in a room with the children and was constantly being disturbed by their lessons with other tutors. The rambunctious demeanor of these young people clashed, moreover, with my own, which had become quite serious. As a result, minor instances of misbehavior annoyed me greatly, and I was often unable to work. It was with social interaction that I sought to fill out my time. I frequently called on Heiman Lisse, a small, corpulent [244] man with an enlightened outlook and a cheerful disposition. With him and other affable brothers, I whiled away my evenings, chatting, joking, and playing games. I sat in coffeehouses during the day. In other houses, too, I soon became a familiar figure, especially in the homes of one Bortenstein and a banker, Simon, both of whom showed me much kindness. Everyone tried to persuade me to devote myself to medicine, something I had become very much opposed to. Yet when I considered the circumstances and saw that I had few other options for supporting myself, I let myself be persuaded. Professor Garve recommended me to Professor Morgenbesser, whose medical lectures I actually attended for a while. In the end, I could not overcome my dislike of the art of medicine, and I gave up this course of study as well. I gradually came to know other Christian scholars, primarily several [245] worthy teachers at the local Jesuit college and also the late Lieberkühn,8 whose talents, outstanding character, and affection for humanity won him the esteem he so richly deserved. 8 Probably, Philipp Julius Lieberkühn (1754–88), a scholar and educator, who served as the Rektor of the Elisabethen-Gymnasium in Breslau.

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I didn’t quite abandon my attempt to publish books in Hebrew. I translated Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours into Hebrew, and I sent a few pages of my translation to Isaac Daniel Itzig as a way of putting my work to the test.9 But I received no answer, for this excellent man was simply too busy to spend time on matters beyond his immediate concerns. I produced another book in Hebrew as well: a work of natural philosophy according to Newtonian principles.10 I have kept the manuscript to this day, as I have all my writings in Hebrew. [246] In the end, I wound up in a wretched situation in Breslau, too. Zadig’s children entered into business—which had been the expectation all along—and no longer needed lessons. Meanwhile, my other means of support gradually dried up. Since I now had to find other ways to provide for myself, I turned to teaching. I explained Euler’s Algebra to one young man,11 instructed a pair of children in the basic elements of German and Latin, and so on. But none of this lasted, and soon I was back in lamentable circumstances. It was just then that my wife and eldest son arrived from Poland. My wife’s upbringing and the circumstances of her life had been crude, but she had the courage of an amazon, as well as plenty of common sense. She demanded that I return home with her on the spot, without recognizing how impossible it would be for a man like me, a man who had been in Germany for some years, who had extricated himself from the fetters of superstition and religious prejudice, who had shed his raw manners [247] and way of living, and who had greatly expanded his knowledge, to voluntarily return to his former barbaric and miserable state, throw away all the forms of thought he had acquired, and subject himself to rabbinic rancor over the slightest utterance of an independent idea or deviation from ceremonial law. I told her that going home wasn’t possible right away. I would first have to talk to my friends, both here and in Berlin, about giving me a fund of several hundred thalers, so that I wouldn’t be dependent on my religious relatives in Poland.12 But my wife didn’t care about any of that. She countered what I said with an ultimatum. If I didn’t leave with her immediately, she would divorce me. Forced to choose the lesser of two evils, I agreed to the divorce. 9 Isaac Daniel Itzig (1750–1806), an educator and the son of Daniel Itzig (1723–99), an influential Prussian Court Jew and patron of the Haskala. Maimon quotes extensively from his Hebrew translation of Mendelssohn’s Morgestunden in Giva’t ha-Moreh, but the complete translation is not extant. 10 Ta’alumoth Hochma [Mysteries of Wisdom], Breslau 1786. Currently held by the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Mich.186). 11 Euler, Vollständige Anleitung zur Algebra. 2 vols. St. Petersburg: 1770. 12 While exact value conversions are difficult, it is clear that “several hundred thalers,” would not suffice for Maimon to support a family for a significant period of time. However, little in this account gives one the sense that Maimon was serious about the possibility.

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Meanwhile, I had to provide my guests with room and board, as well as act as their guide during their stay in Breslau. I did both, introducing my son—more than my wife—to the differences [248] between life here and life in Poland. With the help of some passages from the More Newochim, I also tried to show him that enlightening the mind and reforming religious customs would bring much more good than bad. More than that, I tried to convince my son to stay with me. I promised him that with my help, along with the support of some friends, he would be able to develop his fine natural talents in Germany, and that he would use them more effectively here. But my wife took him to see several orthodox Jews, whose advice she thought it best to rely on. These men counseled her to push for a divorce. And under no circumstances should she let my son stay. Furthermore, she should not reveal her decision until she had gotten enough money from me for household purposes. Then [249] she could part ways with me forever and return home with her booty. This wonderful advice was followed to the letter. After I had given my wife the twenty ducats I had managed to collect from my friends, and had told her that we would have to go to Berlin to get the rest of the sum needed, she began to make trouble. Finally, though, she said that divorce would be the best thing for us, because I would never be able to live happily with her in Poland—nor she with me in Germany. She was, I felt, absolutely right. Still, it was sad for me to lose a wife I had once loved. Yet I also wanted deal with the matter properly. So I told my wife that I would agree only to a divorce demanded of me by a court. This came to pass. I was called before the court, and after my wife had presented her reasons for requesting a divorce, the judge said: “We cannot do anything in this case but [250] advise you to divorce.” To this I replied: “We haven’t come here to ask for advice, but to get a ruling from a judge.” At that, the head of the court stood up from his seat (so that what he said wouldn’t have the force of a ruling), approached me with the legal code in hand, and pointed to the following passage: “A vagabond who abandons his wife for years, without writing to her or sending her money, should be compelled by a court to grant his wife a divorce when he is found.”13 “It is not for me, “ I answered, “to compare this case to mine. That is your responsibility as a judge. So take your seat again, and give your ruling as a judge.” The chief judge alternately blanched and blushed, stood up and sat back down, as the judges exchanged glances. Finally, the chief judge began angrily [251] inveighing against me. He called me an

13

See Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer, 70, sec. 3.

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execrable heretic and cursed me in the Lord’s name. I let him fume and walked away. Thus, the strange proceedings ended. Everything remained the same as before.14 When my wife realized that such tactics would get her nowhere, she turned to pleading, and finally I relented, with the condition that the chief judge who had thundered all those curses would not be the one to preside over the divorce. After the divorce, my wife and son went back to Poland. I remained in Breslau for a time, but with my situation there steadily growing worse, I decided to return to Berlin. [252]

Maimon refrains here from telling the reader who is unfamiliar with the Jewish laws of divorce that a wife cannot unilaterally divorce her husband, and a husband cannot be forced to divorce his wife, though significant pressure may be brought to bear upon him. Bluma Goldstein discusses this episode at length in Enforced Marginality: Jewish Narratives on Abandoned Wives (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Californal Press, 2007), ch. 2. 14

Chapter 16

Fourth Trip to Berlin. Atrocious Conditions and Help. Study of Kant’s Writings. A Depiction of My Own Works

When I reached Berlin, I learned that Mendelssohn had died and saw that my former friends wanted nothing more to do with me.1 I was completely at a loss. At this moment of crisis, a gentleman named Bendavid2 sought me out. He said that having heard of my deplorable circumstances, he had gathered donations amounting to the small sum of thirty thalers, which he promptly gave me. In addition, he introduced me to a certain Mr. Jojard, an enlightened and noble-minded man who actively took up my cause and kindly arranged for me to receive support from Mr. J. Another man, Professor . . . , tried to ruin [253] my relationship with this worthy man by denouncing me as an atheist. Still, I eventually received enough money to rent an attic apartment from an old woman. It was at this time that I decided to study Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which I had often heard about but never seen.3 The technique I used to study the work was quite unusual. After reading it through once, I had a mere obscure idea of each section. I then tried to sharpen my understanding through my own reflections in order to work my way to the author’s meaning. This is actually what one calls thinking oneself into a system of thought. Because I had also employed the same method in mastering Spinoza’s, Leibniz’s, and Hume’s systems, it was only natural to look to create a kind of coalition system. I eventually came up with one, and I gradually put it into writing in the form of observations and commentary on The Critique of Pure Reason, which was how it had developed in my mind. [254] The end result was my Transcendental Philosophy. In it, the Mendelssohn died on January 4, 1786. Lazarus Bendavid (1762–1832), a Jewish mathematician and Kantian philosopher. He was one of the early followers of Kant. He also argued for the radical reform of Jewish society in his 1793 pamphlet, Etwas zur Characteristik der Juden. For Maimon’s two letters to Bendavid from the last year of his life (1800), see Melamed, “Two Letters by Salomon Maimon on Fichte’s Philosophy, Kant’s Anthropology and Mathematics.” International Yearbook of German Idealism 8, 2011, 379–87. 3 Maimon studied the first edition (1781), as we can learn from his comments on the Critique of Pure Reason in his Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (1790). 1 2

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above-mentioned systems are developed in such a way that the points of connection among them are easy to see.4 Thus, the book will be difficult for anyone who, out of intellectual rigidity, has contented himself with knowing only one of these systems and has neglected the others. My Transcendental Philosophy takes up the problem that Kant’s Critique tries to solve—namely, quid juris?—but in a much broader sense than in Kant’s works.5 My theory thus leaves room for Humean skepticism in all its force. On the other hand, a complete solution to the problem would necessarily lead to Spinozist or Leibnizean dogmatism. When I had finished my manuscript, I showed it to Herr . . .6 He said that he was one of Kant’s best students and had faithfully attended Kant’s lectures, as one could see from his own writings. But he still didn’t feel capable of judging the Critique [255] or any work related to it. He therefore suggested that I send my manuscript to Kant himself and let him judge it. He promised to write a cover letter I could send with my text.7 And so I wrote to Kant and sent him my manuscript, along with Herr . . .’s letter. I had to wait a long time for an answer.8 Finally, it came; in Kant’s letter to Herr . . . , there was the following passage: 4 The only common ground shared by the systems of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Hume would seem to be the high bar required for genuine rationality. While Spinoza and Leibniz affirm a strict commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Hume’s skepticism can be seen as the adoption of the principle accompanied by the claim that our cognitions fail to satisfy the requirements of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. See Peter Thielke, “Apostate Rationalism and Maimon’s Hume” Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (2008): 591–618. 5 At the outset of “The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding,” Kant notes that “teachers of jurisprudence” distinguish between a question of fact (quid facti) and a question of law (quid juris). Kant employs this distinction to ask the question, “by what law or right do I know X?” See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A84–85/B116–17. 6 This is Marcus Herz (1747–1803), to whom Maimon earlier referred as “H.” See Herz’s letter to Kant, dated April 7, 1789 (Ak. 11:14–15). 7 In the April 7, 1789 letter accompanying Maimon’s manuscript (and Maimon’s own letter to Kant), Marcus Herz writes: “Herr Salomon Maimon, formerly one of the crudest of Polish Jews, has managed to educate himself in the last few years to an extraordinary degree. By means of his genius, shrewdness, and diligence he has achieved a command of virtually all the higher disciplines and especially, just lately, a command of your philosophy or at least of your manner of philosophizing. Indeed, he has achieved this to such an extent that I can confidently assert him to be one of the very, very few people on earth who comprehend you so completely. He lives here in pitiful circumstances, supported by some friends, devoted entirely to philosophy. He is also my friend and I love and treasure him uncom-monly. It was my urging that caused him to send these essays, which he means to publish, for you to review beforehand. I took it upon myself to ask you to look over his writings and convey your opinion of them and, if you find them worthy of publication, to let the world know of this in a brief statement. I know full well the audacity of this request; but, praise God, I also know the man of whom I make it.” (Ak. 11:15). Kant, Correspondence, 292. 8 Herz’s letter was sent on April 7, 1789. Kant response is dated May 26, 1789, barely six weeks later. Evidently, for Maimon, this period must have felt long.

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What were you thinking, my friend, in sending me a thick bundle of the most subtle investigations, not simply to read through but also to think through? I am sixty-six years old and still saddled with the task of completing various long projects (the last part of the Critique, that of judgment, which should be published soon, and I am also working out my system of the metaphysics of nature [256] and of ethics in accordance with requirements of the Critique). On top of that, I receive many letters demanding specific explanations of certain points, something that leaves me constantly out of breath. And my health is not the best. I had half-decided to send the manuscript back at once, citing all the reasons just mentioned as excuses. All it took, however, was a glance at it to recognize its excellence. I saw not only that none of my critics have understood me and the main question I try to address as well as the author, but also that very few people possess the intelligence required for such profound investigations to the degree that Herr Maimon does. And this moved me to . . .9

Another passage contains the lines: Maimon’s work contains so many acute points that the published version would [257] make a most favorable impression.

In the part he addressed to me Kant wrote: I have done as much as I could to respond to your honorable request, and if, in the end, I was unable to assess your entire treatise, you will find the reasons why in my letter to Herr H. Certainly it has nothing to do with disapproval. For I harbor none toward any serious effort in rational and well-meaning investigations, and none at all toward those such as yours, which betrays no small gift for the most penetrating philosophical thought.10

It is easy to imagine how important, and how encouraging, such winning praise from this great expert was. Especially crucial was Kant’s avowal that I had understood him well, for this prevented a group of proud Kantians—who believed that they had sole possession of his critical philosophy—from [258] subjecting my book to the treatment they gave all other responses to Kant, even ones that tried to develop critical philosophy further, rather than to refute it. Without providing any evidence, these Kantians would simply claim: This author hasn’t understood Kant. According to the author of the Critique, I would have had some

Kant to Herz, May 26, 1789 (Ak. 11:48–74). In the Akademie edition, Kant’s letter to Maimon is dated May 24, 1789, two days before his letter to Herz (AK. 11:48). 9

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justification in using this argument against the people who liked to wield it against others.—11 I was staying at the time in Potsdam, at the tannery owned by Herr I. . . . But as soon as Kant’s letters arrived, I went to Berlin to try to get my Transcendental Philosophy published. As someone born a Pole, I dedicated the book to the king of Poland and brought a copy of it to the Polish ambassador. But it was never sent. When I asked why (something I did repeatedly) I was given various excuses. Sapienti sat!12 A copy of the book was sent, as was customary, to the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung. Quite a while passed and the newspaper still [259] hadn’t reviewed the book. I therefore wrote to the editors myself. They replied that: “I surely knew how few people were able to understand and judge such a book properly. Three of the most speculative thinkers had declined to review my book, having been unable to follow me into the depths of my investigations. The journal had invited a review from a fourth philosopher, from whom they were hoping to receive a positive response. At the moment, however, they were still waiting.” It was at this time that I began to contribute to the Journal für Aufklärung. My first article was about truth, and I wrote it as a letter to my noble friend L13 . . . in Berlin. What inspired this exercise was a letter he sent me when I was in Potsdam. Striking a jocular tone, he had written: “Philosophy has lost its value. I should therefore make good use of my opportunity to learn tanning.” I replied [260] that philosophy isn’t currency subject to the vagaries of exchange rates. And I developed this proposition in my article. I began by criticizing Wolff’s explanation of logical truth, which is that logical truth consists of agreement between our judgment and the object. How can this be so, when logic abstracts from all particular objects? Logical truth therefore is not agreement between our cognition and a (particular) object, but rather agreement between our cognition and an object as such, or agreement with itself that doesn’t involve a contradiction. For nothing that is not in agreement with itself (formally) can be conceived of as existing in an object (materially). Truth must mean the

In his May 26, 1789 letter to Herz, Kant had stressed that the content of his letter should be be kept confidential. Maimon may be attempting to justify the publication of Kant’s letter here. 12 “A word is enough for the wise.” Since by 1790 Poland was on the verge of losing its sovereignity, and Prussia was one of its three chief enemies, it would seem that the Polish ambassador can be forgiven for not responding to Maimon’s dedication of the Essay on Transcendental Philosophy to the Polish monarch. 13 Maimon, “Über Wahrheit: Ein Brief des Hrn. S. Maimon, an seinen edlen Freund L in Berlin,” Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung 5/1 (1789), 67–84 | Maimon, GW 1:599–616. 11

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purely logical (the forms of identity and of contradiction); objectivity, in contrast, must mean reality (a relation to a real object). This led to a comparison between real and ideal currency and real and formal cognition, as well as to a comparison between the former and intuitive and symbolic cognition. In the end, [261] I showed that the true and the (absolute) good have the Law of Identity as their common principle. In another article published in this journal,14 I demonstrated that rhetorical tropes do not consist of transferring the word for one thing onto an analogous thing (which is how people customarily think of them). For such a word, which signifies what the things have in common, isn’t actually being transferred at all. Rather, true tropes have to do with transferring words from one part of a relationship onto its correlate. Because with logic we can explain a priori any kind of relation in which different objects can be conceived of, all kinds of tropes can be determined a priori and integrated into a system. Writing in the same journal, Rector Tieftrunk raised an objection that gave me the chance to expand on my reasoning in a second article.15 There I explained [262] that Wolff’s definition of truth—agreement of our judgment with the object—can be nothing but agreement with the particular object of our judgment, as is made clear by the examples given in the corollary. I also showed that this definition of logical truth is wrong, because it explicates not logical truth, but rather metaphysical truth. I showed as well the difference between the forms of identity and contradiction and the other forms of thought: The former refer to an object as such, the latter to a specific one. The former are valid everywhere (they are the conditio sine qua non for an object as such, as well as for every particular object). That this is the case with the latter is doubtful. (The Kantian explanation of how the necessity of objective judgments derives from the possibility of a synthesis is insufficient, in view of judgments that refer to particular objects.) [263] Furthermore, just as logical truth consists of formal thought, metaphysical truth consists of real thought. In another article, titled “Bacon and Kant,” I compared the efforts of these two reformers of philosophy.16 They agreed that logic can offer merely formal, not real cognition. Both, therefore, saw as an abuse of thought commonly committed by metaphysicians the attempt to realize the purely formal through itself, and this without their taking into 14 Maimon, “Was sind Tropen?” Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung, Bd. V/2 (1789), 162–79. 15 Maimon, “Über Wahrheit. Schreiben des Herrn Maimon an Herrn Tieftrunk” Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung, Bd. 7/1 (1790), 22–51 16 Maimon, “Baco und Kant. Schreiben des H. S. Maimon an den Herausgeber dieses Journals,” Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung, Bd. 7/2 (1790), 99–122.

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account the nature of the real (materially) and the conditions of its subsumption under the formal. Bacon and Kant differed only in the paths they took to try to put an end to this abuse. Bacon chose the path of induction and presented a method for making induction more and more complete. Kant, in contrast, focused on the analysis of the cognitive faculty. Bacon’s approach emphasizes the actuality of objects, while [264] Kant’s is more concerned with the purity of forms of cognition and their proper use. In the end, Bacon’s method was more fruitful, even though there was less proof for it. Kant’s method was less fruitful, yet it was more rigorous and the evidence for it more compelling. I also contributed an article about the world soul, in which I addressed the claim that there is a single world soul common to all creatures.17 I tried to show that this assertion is not merely equally as good as its contrary, but that it is in fact more compelling. I compared the debate about the unity or plurality of souls with the debate about creation according to the systems of evolution and epigenesis. Drawing on the evidence and arguments I presented, I declared the latter system to be true. I demonstrated, moreover, its agreement with the concept of a world soul. Finally, I showed that the proposition of a [265] world soul is—at least as an idea—much more elegant than Leibniz’s harmony and his theory of obscure representations. I also invoked other reasons in support of my claim. My final article for this journal had to do with the structure of my Transcendental Philosophy.18 I explained that I regard Kantian philosophy as being irrefutable by dogmatic critics, though vulnerable to the attacks from Humean skepticism. I thus developed the skeptical system in all its rigor and broad applicability, and I presented it as pushback against not only dogmatic philosophers, but also the so-called critical ones. A group of young Jews from all over Germany had gathered during Mendelssohn’s lifetime and formed an association called The Society of Students of the Hebrew Language. They saw—and rightly so—the lamentable moral and political [266] condition of the Jewish nation as having its roots in the following factors: its religious prejudices, the dearth of rational interpretations of the Holy Scripture, and arbitrary rabbinic interpretations of the Holy Scripture arrived at through inadequate competence in Hebrew. The young men had organized intending to remedy 17 Maimon, “Über die Weltseele (Entelechia universi)” Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung, Bd. 8/1 (1790), 47–92. Cf. Maimon’s description of his position on individual immortality in contrast to that of Mendelssohn, “As I saw it (following Maimonides), the immortality of the soul lies in the unification of the active intellect, to the extent that it is active in practice, with the world spirit,” above, bk. 2, ch. 12, p. 202. 18 Maimon, “Antwort des Hrn. Maimon auf voriges Schreiben,” Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung, Bd. 9/1 (1790), 52–80. The essay is reprinted as a supplement to Florian Ehrensperger’s recent (2004) edition of the Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie.

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these shortcomings. They wanted to learn Hebrew from the sources themselves and, in turn, introduce a more rational mode of exegesis. Furthermore, they resolved to put out a Hebrew monthly journal under the title: ‫ האמאסף‬The Collector.19 It would contain interpretations of difficult passages from the Holy Scripture, as well as Hebrew poems, essays, and translations from useful writings. Theirs was certainly a laudable intention. But I saw at once that they would never accomplish it with the means they had. I knew rabbinic principles and the rabbinic way of thinking too well to believe that such a periodical could bring about change. Notwithstanding some superficial changes, the Jewish nation has always been [267] an aristocracy disguised as a theocracy.20 For centuries, the scholars, who make up the nobility of the nation, have used their status as the legislative body to win so much respect from the common people that they can do whatever they want with the people. This esteem is the natural tribute that the weak owe the strong. For the nation is divided into drastically unequal classes: namely, the common people and the scholars. Because of the nation’s grim political situation, which various events brought about, the former class is deeply ignorant not only in matters of art and science, but also in the laws of their own religion, the very thing that their eternal wellbeing depends on. And so they have to leave to the ranks of the learned, whom they support at their own expense, the interpretation of Holy Scripture, the codification of the religious laws that can be derived from it, and the rules for their application in specific cases. The scholars use their own brilliance, wit, and insight [268] to compensate for their linguistic deficiencies and lack of rational exegesis. One must read the Talmud with the Tosphoth commentary21 (supplements to the first commentary by Rabbi Salomon Isaak)22 in order to have a sense of the high level they have achieved in applying these talents. The scholars don’t judge products of the intellect according to the degree to which they are practical or useful. What matters for them, rather, is the degree of talent it took to produce these ideas. They will barely respect someone who understands Hebrew, knows the Holy Scripture well, and has memorized the entire Jewish corpus juris (which is truly no small feat). The highest compliment they would pay such a person is: Chamor 19 The association and journal were the flagship institutions of the Haskala. For an overview, see Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment, especially ch. 8. 20 Cf. Spinoza, Theological Political Treatise, ch. 17. 21 The Tosafoth (literally: additions) is a compilation of highly sophisticated dialectical expositions of the Babylonian Talmud from the twelvth and thirteenth centuries. Together with Rashi, they constitute the two canonical commmentries on the Babylonian Talmud, and since the early modern period, these two commentaries have been printed at the margins of the Talmudic text on virtually all editions of the Banylonian Talmud. 22 That is Rashi, the canonical rabbinic commentator on both the Talmud and the Bible. See above, p. 26, n 2.

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nosse sepharim—an ass loaded down with books.23 On the other hand, someone whose brilliance has enabled him to derive a new law from known ones, make fine distinctions, and uncover hidden contradictions will be practically deified. And in truth, when it comes to issues that have no external aim, this is well founded. [269] It should be easy to imagine how little resonance an institution like the one in question—devoted as it was to refining sensibilities, building up linguistic competence, and other such trivialities—would find among such people. It is these people, not the few, scattered enlightened ones, who have guided the ship hitherto buffeted by the seven seas. For the rabbinic scholars, enlightened are simply idiots, never mind how much refinement or knowledge they might have. Why? They haven’t studied the Talmud, at least not to the degree and manner the scholars demand. The scholars respected Mendelssohn to some degree only because he was a good Talmudist. I was therefore neither for nor against this monthly. I even contributed several articles to it, only one of which I will mention here: a Kantian interpretation of an obscure passage in Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishna.24 It was translated into German and appeared in the Berlinische Monatsschrift as well.25 [270] A while later, this society, which now called itself the Society of Friends of the Noble and Good, asked me to write a Hebrew commentary to Maimonides’ famous work the More Newochim. I took up the assignment with pleasure, and it was soon completed. At present, only the first part of the commentary has been published.26 Its preface can be seen as a short history of philosophy.27 The phrase apparently first appears in Jewish literature in Bahya Ibn Pakuda’s JudeoArabic philosophical classic Duties of the Heart (1080), though its origin is in a passage in Quran 62.5, where it is used to describe Jews who are burdened with a Torah they do not follow. However, by the time Maimon encountered the phrase it was regarded by Talmudists as indigenous to rabbinic culture. Maimon is evidently unaware of the fact that it had also entered European literature through Montaigne in his essay “On the Education of Children.” 24 Shelomo ben Yehoshua [Solomon Maimon], “Beur philosophi al divrei ha-Rambam be-ferush ha-Mishnayot shelo, Avot 3:17 [Explication of Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishna, Avot 3:17]” ha-Measef [The Collector], February 1789, 131–36. 25 Maimon, “Probe rabbinischer Philosophie,” Berlinische Monatsschrift, Bd. XIV (1789), 171–79 26 More nebuchim, sive Liber doctor perplexorum. novis commentaris uno R. Mosis Narbonnensis, ex antiquissimis manuscriptis deprompto; altero anonymi cujusdam, sub nomine Gibeath Hamore adauctus; nunc in lucem editus cura et impensis Isaaci Eucheli. Berlin 1791. 27 Maimon’s commentary on the second and third part of the Guide never appeared in print, on which see the discussion of Gideon Freudenthal, “Shelomo Maimon: Parshanut ke-shitat Hitpalsafut,” [Solomon Maimon: Commentary as a Way of Philosophizing] Da’at (2004), pp. 125–60. Instead, Isaac Satanow, the director of the Haskala’s Freischule Press printed his own commentary to the second and third parts alongside Maimon’s commentary to the first part in Sefer Moreh Nevuchim (Berlin, 1795). This combined edition became the standard Haskala edition of Maimonides Guide. 23

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I had been a follower of one philosophical system after another: Peripatetic, Spinozist, Leibnizian, Kantian, and, finally, Skeptic. I always subscribed to the system that I regarded at the time as the only true one. Finally, I came to realize that there is something true about each of these different systems, and also that they are all equally useful, just in different respects. The diversity among the systems stems from the diversity of their foundational ideas: ideas about the objects of nature, their attributes, and their modifications. Unlike the concepts of mathematics, [271] these cannot all be defined and constructed the same way by everyone a priori. And because this is so, I decided to compile a philosophical dictionary. It would, I hoped, be of use both to myself and to others. In it, all philosophical concepts are defined neutrally, not from the perspective of a devotee of any particular system, but, instead, either in terms common to all the different systems, or with multiple explanations given from within the various systems.28 For example, the concept of right is explained in the broader sense, common to all systems of morality, as regularity in free voluntary action. This is done without asking whether this regularity serves an end or not, or, if it does have a clear end, what type of end it has. In its narrower sense, right is, in the Epicurean system, the kind of regularity that aims at happiness. In the Stoic system, it is that which has as its end the perfection of free will. In Wolff’s system, it aims at perfection in general. In the Kantian system, it is the regularity that has practical reason [272] as its goal. The dictionary also explained the reasons (pro and contra) by which each system tries to specify the true and the useful. In this work, I take the side of skeptical philosophy. I arrived at such a position by rejecting, on the one hand, dogmatic philosophy, which makes a leap (without knowing: how?) from discursive thinking to real cognition ; and on the other side, critical philosophy, which focuses too much on the formal and thus loses sight of the reality of cognition. In my view, these philosophies correct each other. Skepticism claims that our knowledge is partly pure and partly real. Unfortunately, however, the pure isn’t real, and the real isn’t pure. The pure (i.e., the formal) is the idea that one gets closer and closer to by using the Real (through induction) but that one never arrives at. Only the first part of this work, too, has been published. [273] I also published an assortment of articles in the popular Deutsche Monatsschrift, on topics including deception, prognostication, and theodicy. In the first of these,29 I showed that illusion, like deception, is Maimon, Philosophisches Wörterbuch, oder Beleuchtung der wichtigsten Gegenstände der Philosophie, in alphabetischer Ordnung. (Berlin: Johann Friedrich Unger, 1791). 29 Maimon, “Über Täuschung,” Deutsche Monatsschrift (1791), 1:274–87. 28

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opposed to truth, and because the senses can’t teach us truth, they also can’t delude us or deceive us. I showed as well that illusion and deception are essentially different, demonstrating in doing so what the difference consists of. I described a kind of illusion that I call philosophical illusion in order to distinguish it from the more common aesthetic sort. Although still subjective, philosophical illusion nevertheless has a kind of universal applicability. I developed this idea both here and in my philosophical dictionary, in the entry on fiction. In the article about prognostication,30 I took as my starting point that the existence of an ability to foretell the future is, at the very least, problematic, and I tried to [274] explain it simply by extending the law of association (that is, without taking on a new principle). In addition, I explained phenomena that seem to prove the existence of this using the familiar law of association. An article by Kant in the Berliner Monatsschrift31 provided the occasion for the third article, which is about theodicy.32 There Kant demonstrates the insufficiency of all theodicies, but treats the questions that lead to this conclusion as being well founded. I argue that theodicy is dispensable, but my reasoning proceeds, by contrast, from the idea that the questions that prompt discussion of it are not well founded. I also contributed an array of articles to the Magazine of Empirical Psychology, in addition to editing it with Moritz.33 So much for the situations I encountered in my life and the events that seem to me to be worth relating. I haven’t yet reached the harbor of tranquility, but rather quo nos fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamur.34 [275] Now I would like to compensate those readers who were bored by my earnest account of the More Newochim; to them I dedicate my conclusion, the following little allegorical story. [276]

Maimon, “Über das Vorhersehungsvermögen,” Deutsche Monatsschrift (1791), 2:45–67. Kant, “Über das Mißlingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee” Berlinische Monatsschrift, September 1791, 194–225. 32 Maimon, “Über die Theodicee,” Deutsche Monatsschrift (1791), 3:190–212. 33 Gnoti Sauton, oder, Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde appeared between 1783 and 1793 and was one of the very first psychology (and parapsychology) journals. Maimon coedited the journal together with K. Ph. Moritz in its last years. See also p. 122 and pp. xv–xvi above. 34 “Where fate takes us, we must follow.” Virgil, Aeneid, bk. 5, 709. 30

31

ConCludIng Chapter

The Merry Masquerade Balla A Story from a Friend’s Diary

One day, in . . . , a ball was held to honor a famous woman. Although no one had actually seen this woman, she was reputed to be of exceptional beauty, but also extremely difficult. She was like a will-o’-the-wisp; the more one thinks oneself to be nearing her favor, the farther away from it one finds oneself. And as soon as one believes one possesses it fully, it vanishes completely. Her name, which [277] should be uttered in a respectful tone, is Madame M. . . . .b or, to say the same thing another way, the chambermaid Ph’sc lady. Because she is, as mentioned, invisible, we know of her beauty only by what comes from the mouth of her gossipy maid, and we can call her by no other name. All the cavaliers gathered at the ball jostled for the honor of dancing with this lovely woman. Her taste wasn’t known, so in an attempt to please her, all kinds of dances were tried out: amiable vainquer, charmant vainquer, passepièd, dance d’amour, princesse burée, courante, rigaudon, gavotte, sarabande, and so on. Menuett and the English dance were regarded as common and not attempted at all. The old cavaliers danced first, being granted this privilege on account of their age. But because the noble art of dancing, like all arts, grows more and more perfect over time, and because it couldn’t possibly have reached its current state of perfection . . . years ago, [278] these men, too old to learn something new, could offer nothing more than all kinds of faux pas and odd caprioles, and they often became confused. They not infrequently stepped out of line, and instead of executing their precious moitié, repeatedly crashed into her chambermaid. a [Maimon] I cannot avoid the impression that my friend’s story is meant to be an allegorical representation of the history of philosophy. Thus, in order to spare the reader the effort of speculating, I will provide some annotations, which should help with the interpretation of the allegory. [For a brief interpretive discussion see our introduction.—Editors] b [Maimon] This means metaphysics. c [Maimon] Physics.

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In order to prevent this misfortune from happening again, some wanted to chase the chambermaid out of the room. Others, however, were against this. There were arguments; challenges went back and forth. But these elderly gentlemen were even less suited to dueling than dancing.d Monsieur Py.e insisted that the men dance with ruler, triangle, and compass in hand, measuring every step with mathematical precision. Monsieur X. . . .f was content to make a circle around the dance floor and [279] claim that he could dance very well without moving from the spot.g He asserted as well that our eyes are prismatic glasses, multiplying one and the same object in various ways.h Monsieur H  .  .  .i cried for sorrow and predicted an imminent fire.j Monsieur L.  .  .  .k gave up on the storied lady and chose the chambermaid for his moitié. So, too, did Monsieur D. . . .l Now the petit maître by the name of S. . . .m came in. They flit like butterflies from one woman to the next, laughed at the stiff comportment of the old fools, and in this way enjoyed their evening very much. [280] Monsieur S.  .  .  .n had no patience either for the old men’s clumsy earnestness or the frivolous newcomers. He wanted lightness and grace from the one and order and regularity from the other. At first his admonitions made a big impression on the young men and women, but because he had arrived too late, after dissoluteness had already gained the upper hand, he was soon felt to be insufferable and was thrown out of the hall.o The next to arrive was Monsieur Pl. . . . ,p a man of noble bearing and earnest character. He claimed that it was impossible to win the honored lady’s favor through dancing if one didn’t keep one’s eyes on certain images floating around the hall (which no one other than him could see)

[Maimon] Before Aristotle, logic was not a science. [Maimon] Pythagoras, whose metaphysics were based on the doctrine of numbers and mathematical figures. f [Maimon] Xenophanes asserted that the only infinite Being is circular. g [Maimon] He denied the existence of movement. h [Maimon] He asserted: Everything is one, despite the appearance of diversity. i [Maimon] Heraclitus. j [Maimon] He asserted the destruction of the world through fire. k [Maimon] Leucippus rejected all metaphysical principles and made material principles into the basis of his philosophy. l [Maimon] Democritus. m [Maimon] The sophists. n [Maimon] Socrates. o [Maimon] As is well known, he was put to death. p [Maimon] Plato: an allusion to his theory of forms. d e

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and coordinate one’s steps with them. Now everyone believed they, too, could see these miraculous images, and they were delighted by this new discovery. [281] But after the first rush had passed, they began to feel ashamed of their gullibility. “What nonsense!” they all cried. “We don’t see any images. This Monsieur Pl. is either a madman or a fool.” Now Monsieur Ar.q stepped forward, a man whose exterior was not very promising, but whose intellectual capacities were great. Among other things, he had written a book about the art of dancing,r laying out the rules of that activity, determining all possible errors a priori,s reducing all dances to ten,t and insisting that everyone had to dance according to the rules he had set forth. After him came Monsieur Z.,u a man of earnest character and great pride. He claimed to depend on nothing, love nothing, hate nothing, and fear nothing. When, as he danced, he felt cramps [282] so painful that he thought he would burst, he pretended to be fine. Monsieur Pyr.v wanted nothing to do with either the lady or her chambermaid. Rather, he claimed that dancing, as salutary movement, is good for one’s health. Now it was the young cavaliers’ turn. They danced more tastefully and gracefully than those who had gone before them but with no better results.w The old arguments flared up among them, and, with a few small exceptions, everything remained as it had been. One of the most intelligent of them couldn’t stand this quixotic behavior any longer. He remarked that the honored lady was a child of the imagination whose image could spur a knight to acts of heroism, [283] but which could also, if unchecked by caution, prompt all kinds of excess.x He demonstrated how the illusion came to be and how one could save oneself from the threat it posed. This garnered a great deal of attention. Parties formed. Some stubbornly tried to assert the existence of the woman, which up to now had been taken for granted. Others questioned their assertions.

[Maimon] Aristotle. [Maimon] His Organon, in which logic is described as a kind of dancing around with concepts without actually moving from one’s spot. s [Maimon] All kinds of fallacies. t [Maimon] The categories. u [Maimon] Zeno, the founder of the school of Stoics. v [Maimon] Pyrrho, founder of the school of Skeptics. He claimed that we must search for truth even though we will never attain it with certainty. w [Maimon] Modern philosophy introduced a better analytical method without making any progress in metaphysics. x [Maimon] Presumably Kant is meant here. q r

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My friend.  .  .  ,y who was there at the ball, entered into the debate. Not only did he support the theory of the lady’s nonexistence, he also claimed that it was possible to be a good cavalier without believing in such a figment of the imagination. He challenged both parties to defend their claims against his counter-reasoning. When the group asked about the content of his challenge, the masked coward from the anti-lady party, who had seen it first but lacked enough faith in his capacities to accept it, replied, [284] “I don’t know; it is written in an illegible hand.” Some of those men who hadn’t shown much skill at dancing wanted to be done with the whole story. Monsieur . . . left the hall, went into the next room, and spent the rest of the evening with a couple of bottles of champagne in the company of Madame B . . . Monsieur . . . played a game of piquet while enjoying a pipe of the best tobacco. Other upstanding men who had grown tired of this fencing exhibition went home to tend to their affairs. My friend’s diary breaks off here. I wonder how this strange masquerade ball ended . . .

[Maimon] Anyone who wants to decipher who this friend might be and what his chief assertion is should be able to do so on his own. In addition, the reader doesn’t have to be an Oedipus to unmask the fellow in the mask. [*The friend, of course, is Maimon and the cowardly fellow in the mask is very likely Maimon’s rival Karl Leonard Reinhold. For a concise, philosophically illuminating account of Maimon’s relations to both of these contmeporaries and others, see Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy fron Kant to Fichte (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), ch. 10.—Eds.)] y

Afterword Maimon’s Philosophical Itinerary

Gideon Freudenthal

In his Lebensgeschichte, Maimon describes his way from Lithuania to Berlin as a migration from the “blackest darkness” in Lithuania to Berlin, a capital of Enlightenment, “to pursue light and truth and to try to free myself from superstition and ignorance” (215). The way from darkness to light coincides with the way from Jewish lore and Hebrew language to West-European culture and German. The dramatic transformation culminates in an “intellectual rebirth” (geistliche Wiedergeburt) (124) and, typical of conversion, with the assumption of a new name: “Shelomo Ben-Yehoshua” takes on the name “Salomon Maimon.” This narrative has much to recommend itself in respect to science but is misleading in respect to philosophy. Concerning modern science and learning, Maimon certainly suffered deficiencies in Lithuania. The very few scientific books he could obtain with heroic efforts were, at least in part, semi-popular or outdated, and he was not even in a position to appreciate the fact that such books failed to capture modern science. But even more detrimental was the fact that he did not enjoy systematic schooling. As a child, for example, he read a treatise of astronomy that happened to be on his father’s bookshelf. In retrospect, Maimon observes that he read the book before he ever studied elementary geometry, and that he therefore poorly understood it (17–18). It is also worth noting that this Hebrew book on astronomy (Nechmad ve’naim by David Gans) was completed in 1609 but published for the first time in 1743. By the time Maimon read it, it was more than 150 years old! When Maimon finally entered Berlin (1780) and encountered modern mathematical books, he broke out in tears, lamenting that in Lithuania he was deprived of the means to attain (intellectual) perfection, which is the vocation of man.1 In this respect, the move to Berlin and the studies 1 Lazarus Bendavid, “Über Salomon Maimon, ” in National-Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Gewerbe in den Preußischen Staaten, Bd. 1 (1801), pp. 88–104, here: 93.

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at the Gymnasium “Christianeum” in Altona (1783–85) were indeed revolutionary.Things are different in metaphysics. It is true, in Lithuania Maimon studied medieval Jewish philosophy only (in the first place: Maimonides’ The Guide of the Perplexed). Nevertheless he seemed little impressed upon his encounter with modern philosophy, and immediately turned to criticize Wolff’s metaphysics, the foremost philosophy of recent decades (197). This tallies well with Maimon’s view that philosophy does not make substantial progress in history. In his allegory “The Merry Masquerade Ball,” which concludes his autobiography, Maimon extensively discusses pre-Socratic and Greek philosophy in general, and then turns without further ado to a very brief presentation of Kant and himself. Modern philosophy in general, so he says there, “introduced a better analytical method without making any progress in metaphysics” (242, n w.). Maimon’s philosophical work gives us an opportunity to realize an old dream: to witness a conversation between philosophers of different ages. Schooled in Medieval Aristotelian and Neoplatonic metaphysics, Maimon read Locke and Leibniz, Bacon and Hume, Wolff, Mendelssohn, and Spinoza, and above all Kant. He leaped over more than six hundred years of philosophical history. He therefore “misunderstood” Kant in a very productive way and conceived an original philosophy of his own, a synthesis of traditional metaphysics and modern philosophy that was little understood in his time and after. Maimon’s own conclusion from living simultaneously in different epochs was that “the philosophical opinions circulate so-to-say among the philosophers of all epochs and all parts of the world.”2 Maimon’s style of writing is also indebted to his Jewish heritage. In Jewish lore, new knowledge is mainly generated and conveyed through commentaries: commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud, supercommentaries (i.e., commentaries on commentaries) on both, or commentaries on any other more or less canonical text. In philosophy, too, Maimonides’ The Guide of the Perplexed or Halevy’s Kuzari have usually been printed together with renowned commentaries. Maimon’s first literary products were three commentaries or supercommentaries on well-known Jewish texts.3 It is not surprising, therefore, that writing commentaries has been Maimon’s first and natural choice of medium for philosophical work, and indeed most of his German writings, too, are commentaries of a sort on canonical books.

Salomon Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Valerio Verra (Hildesheim, 1970), 4:384. All contained in the convolute Hesheq Shelomo, not yet published and kept at the National Library in Jerusalem. Heb 8o 6426. 2 3

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However, Maimon saw no contradiction between writing commentaries, which are essentially unsystematic, and systematic philosophizing. In a letter to Reinhold he affirmed that “it is my innermost conviction that my system is as completely elaborated as any other,” and added: “I flatter myself that I can deliver the best commentaries on Hume, Leibniz and Kant.”4 Concerning his first German book, Versuch über die Transscendentalphilosophie (1790), Maimon said that he committed his thoughts on Kant’s Critique to paper “in the form of glosses and clarifications.” Upon repeated rereading of his text he found some loci unclear, and clarified them with notes almost as long as the text itself. “And since I am my own commentator, I dare say that I understood myself.”5 Maimon’s writings were often not understood or misunderstood precisely because they were written as commentaries. Extracting the philosophical position of an author from his commentaries on another philosophy requires specific hermeneutic skills alien to the modern reader. The reader must keep in mind the commentator’s expositions of various passages in the text and attempt to reconstruct a general conception in which they all cohere. He must develop hermeneutic hypotheses and corroborate or refute them by other passages. His role is much more demanding than that of the reader of a systematic treatise; he has to reconstruct the system from scattered elements, whereas the latter finds them already assembled. No wonder that many readers believed that there was no systematic thought behind Maimon’s “glosses and elucidations.” Although Maimon’s thought is arguably systematic, his opposition to philosophical “systems” is clear and firm. The apparent inconsistency is perhaps best understood and resolved in terms of the French Encyclopédie. Maimon admires the “esprit systématique” of modern science and philosophy but strongly opposes the “esprit de système.” (The terms are Condillac’s in his Essay des Systèmes, 1749, and they were quoted in d’Alembert’s Discours préliminaire to the Encyclopédie, 1751.) The former is what we may call the scientific spirit: It begins with observed phenomena, forms concepts, and formulates explanatory hypotheses, which are then checked against phenomena. The latter is the attempt to construct general metaphysical systems beginning not with particular knowledge but with some supreme principle: such “systems” are barren, and they deal of words instead of reality. In Maimon, philosophy should be continuous with the sciences. We begin with knowledge of particulars, formulate conjectures, corroborate Maimon, GW, 4:241. Maimon, Versuch über die Transscendentalphilosophie mit einem Anhang über die symbolische Erkenntniß und Anmerkungen von Salomon Maimon, aus Litthauen in Polen (Berlin, 1790), p. 334. 4 5

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or falsify them, and we strive for ever more general theories towards a single vanishing point, the “infinite intellect.” Maimon does not claim that such an “infinite intellect” exists, but only that this is the guiding idea of our intellectual endeavor. The construction of knowledge “bottom-up” is made explicit in Maimon’s criticism of both Fichte and Reinhold. In 1794, he wrote to Fichte: I am expecting with joy the time when, as you say, “philosophy should be a systematic science.” On my part, too, I will not fail to contribute towards this goal as much as is in my weak forces. We will meet on the very same way, even though it seems that we will travel it in opposite directions. You wish to travel it from top to bottom (from the concept of a science as such to the concrete sciences), but I want to travel it from bottom to top.6

The alternative to a “system” top-down or to a leap from phenomena to a supreme principle of all is a science-like philosophy that proceeds bottom-up step by step from phenomena to ever more comprehensive hypotheses—but never reaches either the top or certainty. In a philosophy “bottom-up,” concepts are formed by abstraction from objects in experience and they naturally also apply to them. However, in a philosophy like Kant’s, in which the fundamental concepts (“categories”) are inherent to the mind and a priori, independent of experience, a serious problem arises: can we justify our presumption that these concepts of the mind apply to the (a posteriori) world of experience? If the sensible world and the mind are independent of each other (“dualism”), why would the objects of experience fall under our concepts? Why should concepts inherent to the mind fit sensations arising from impressions of the objects on our senses? For example: We have the concepts “cause-effect” and we formulate “natural laws.” But what guarantee do we have that the world is governed by natural laws and that our concepts apply to it? In Kant, this problem appears as the “quid-juris-question.” In mathematics the problem does not arise in this form. Its objects are not “given,” but “constructed” in pure intuitions in accordance with a concept, and the “correspondence” between concept and object is then evident.7 This correspondence guarantees that the concept applies to the object constructed. Moreover, the object constructed is understood as a “schema” of all objects that fall under the concept. Thus, what we prove of a triangle is true of all triangles, not only of the singular object constructed. The concept “schema” will serve also to answer the question how pure concepts (for example: cause-effect) apply to sensible experience.

6 7

Maimon to Fichte, Berlin, October 16, 1794. Maimon, GW, 6:449–50. Kant, CpR, A713/B741.

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In his autobiography, Maimon recounts how he studied Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and wrote his Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. My Transcendental Philosophy takes up the problem that Kant’s Critique tries to solve—namely, quid juris?—but in a much broader sense than in Kant’s works. My theory thus leaves room for Humean skepticism in all its force. On the other hand, a complete solution to the problem would necessarily lead to Spinozist or Leibnizean dogmatism (231).

Returning either to “dogmatism” or to “skepticism” (or, in Maimon’s case, to both) means that Kant’s ambition to supersede these schools is denied. With this also Kant’s claim is denied that there are “synthetic judgments a priori,” i.e., propositions that amplify our knowledge and are nevertheless necessarily true. Maimon sent the manuscript of VT to Kant, on April 7, 1789. In the accompanying letter, he specified that whereas Kant’s question refers to the application of “something” a priori to “something” a posteriori, he, Maimon, asks: “How can an a priori concept be applied to an intuition, even an a priori intuition?”8 In Maimon, the essential contrast is hence not between a priori and a posteriori or between the forms of the understanding and “experience” as in Kant, but between understanding and sensibility as such and therefore also within mathematics, most prominently in geometry. In the published version of VT, which was edited after receiving Kant’s response, Maimon further extended Kant’s “quid juris” question and maintained that it is one and the same as the important question that has occupied all previous philosophy, namely the explanation of the community (Gemeinschaft) between soul and body, or again, as the explanation of the world’s arising (with respect to its matter) from an intelligence . . . or again, the relation of form to matter.9

As with many other terms in Kant’s work, “quid juris” too is his own coinage, and the question concerning it seems peculiar to his philosophy. Maimon’s understanding of it in a “broader sense” and the thesis that it “has occupied all previous philosophy” is a radical critique of Kant’s claim to have achieved a “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy. On Maimon’s reading, Kant is yet another philosopher who offers an answer to an age-old question. Maimon is of course aware that no academic philosopher of his time (or ours) would accept such reinterpretation, but in

8 9

Maimon, GW, 6:424, my emphasis. Maimon, VT, pp. 61–63 and 362.

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his view followers of Kant are sectarians who tend to believe that “Kant knows everything, and knows everything better than others and he alone knows everything.”10 Many a scholastic [schulgerechter] professor who has heard something of the question quid juris? [  .  .  .  ] will here shake his head and cry out: a strange notion to reduce the question quid juris? to the question de commercio animi et corporis! But what seems strange to many a professor, need not, on this account, be strange in fact.11

Maimon rather recommends the “indispensable skill” of replacing ideas by others if the difference pertains to the expression only (124)—and he himself demonstrated this ability in reformulating the allegedly peculiar Kantian quid juris question as a limited version of the “form-matter” problem of “all previous philosophy.” On the other hand, Maimon’s critique implies also that the quid juris question is not an artificial product of some idiosyncrasy of Kant’s philosophy, but a genuine problem, such that remains valid under different conceptualizations. It seems that this is also what Maimon claims for his own philosophy, which, he says, is a “coalition system” of all the philosophies he had studied (230). Having established that the categories are inherent to the mind and independent of experience, Kant ventures to argue that we can nevertheless be assured that they apply to experience. The nature of Kant’s argument (or arguments) of these most enigmatic sections of the Critique has been controversial for centuries and no consensus has been reached. Fortunately, Kant’s argument need not be elaborated here since Maimon not only interpreted the question in a “broader sense,” but also considered only one element of Kant’s answer: the so-called “schematism.” The schematism is intended to mediate between the heterogeneous a priori concepts and a posteriori objects of experience in that it shares a property with each. It is a method of the imagination (Einbidlungskraft) to produce an image that corresponds to a concept. For example: the application of the concept of causality to experience. Causality cannot be experienced with our senses. In order to apply the category of causality to events in experience, we need “some third thing,”12 which is homogenous with both. For Kant, this third thing is time. We subsume phenomena under the category “causality” (a priori) if they follow upon one another in a rule-governed succession in time (a posteriori).13

Maimon, GW, 7:568. See also pp. 390 and 669 in the same volume. Maimon, VT, pp. 360–62. 12 Kant, CpR, A138/B177. 13 Kant, CpR, A144/B187. 10 11

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In his criticism, Maimon points out that “cause” and “effect” are correlative concepts. Such concepts define each other and that an effect has a cause is therefore necessarily true. But not so the application of these concepts to experience! A cause must have an effect and vice versa, because they are so defined, but this does not entail that there are in experience objects corresponding to these concepts or that fire warms stones (Maimon turns an example of Kant against him). We know this fact only from experience. If the assertion is true, it is contingent, not necessarily true. In conclusion, there are no synthetic judgments a priori in experiential knowledge. In spite of the admiration for Newton’s physics, this theory, too, is only probable, and as all knowledge it leaves “room for Humean skepticism in all its force” (231).14 Maimon discussed the “quid juris” question in a “broader sense,” including in it the creation of the material world by an intelligence, and the mind-body-problem. These additions to the quid juris question have already been discussed in Maimon’s early Hebrew manuscripts, although of course neither the “quid juris” question or Kant are mentioned there, since he had not yet encountered Kant. Maimon’s point of departure in these manuscripts is Maimonides’ theory of knowledge. In this theory, the intellect is not a substance and has no nature of its own. The soul’s potential for apprehension is called the “potential intellect.” Once the essence (“form”) is abstracted from the sensible object and known, this potential of the soul actualizes in knowledge. In this knowledge the “form” of the object and the cognizer’s potential for apprehension unite in actual knowledge (also called “intellect in actu”). On this reading, the omniscient God, who is permanently in actu, is identical to the world (or its form), and the human intellect, when actualized, is identical to the “forms” or the “essences” of objects of experience. However, Maimon rejected Maimonides’ theory of the intellect. He conceived God and the human intellect as substances with properties. This gives rise to the two questions that Maimon was to add later to Kant’s quid juris question: the relation of God or “separate forms” (ideas or incorporeal intelligences) to sensible bodies and the mind-body problem. The manuscript Livnat Hasappir (‫ )לבנת הספיר‬begins thus: The opinion of the metaphysicians who negate attributes of Him, may He be exalted, is known, and also Maimonides discussed this at length in The Guide [of the Perplexed]. But you should know that this is true in respect to Himself without connection to the existent beings, since in this latter

14

See also Maimon, VT, 37.

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respect the opposite is true. . . . And in his [Maimonides’] opinion . . . the soul . . . is nothing but potentiality and preparation. . . . And after asking his honor for forgiveness, I say that it is the other way around. I say that the soul is a separate substance, existing for itself, attached to the body but not mixed with it.

Conceiving the intellect and God as immaterial substances raises the problem of their correspondence with the material realm. Somehow the gulf between these heterogeneous realms must be bridged, or blurred. The latter is what Maimon does here: And in general I say that all things are images (‫ )צלמים‬of the separate forms, since we know already that the image is a body of a certain shape (‫)תמונה‬ done wisely to accept a supreme power adequate to this figure, since the separate [form], although it is spiritual and lacks bodily shape* [see on the asterisk below], nevertheless has some resemblance to that shape, and therefore the body done according to that shape is drawn to that shape due to the signs and the resemblance of the things.15

How can abstract “separate forms” lacking bodily form nevertheless “resemble” sensible substances? How can sensible substances be “images” (‫ )צלמים‬of abstract forms? What are the “signs” by which they are coordinated? In later years Maimon would criticize Kant and ask by what signs (Merkmale) a concept is coordinated with a sensible appearance.16 But in the early Hebrew manuscripts no further explanation of the nature of the “signs” and “similarity” is attempted. However, the heterogeneity of “separate forms” and sensible appearances is clearly articulated and also the presupposition that they must somehow “resemble” each other. In the quotation above, the asterisk refers to a note. In this note, Maimon mentions Locke and Leibniz, whom he read in Berlin, making this note a later, critical reflection on his previous views: But all I have written here is based on the view of some of the early philosophers who say that the hylic intellect is a separate substance and something other than the apprehended [forms] (‫ )מושכלות‬that are in fact received. But I now revoke this opinion of mine since in fact there is no hylic intellect or a subject other than the forms apprehended in actu.17

The position Maimon adopts in the note is evidently the basis of his later critique of Kant. The only way to answer the quid juris question in a satisfactory way is to dissolve it, i.e. to conceive of the human mind and of Maimon, Hesheq Shelomo, p. 125. VT, 60–70. 17 Hesheq Shelomo, p. 124. 15 16

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God as substantially the same as the sensible world. Note that Maimon ascribes here to “some of the early philosophers” the view that gives rise to the question how the mind and sensible objects are coordinated. In his German period he believes that he is encountering the same position in Kant and therefore says that the quid juris question is “one and the same as the important question that has occupied all previous philosophy.”18 The problem has changed, though. In Kant it addressed the distinction between concepts and intuitions, a priori on the one hand, and experience a posteriori, on the other. In Maimon, it addressed the distinction between an immaterial intellect and intuitions as such, whether a priori or a posteriori. What seemed to be the same problem in a “broader sense” in fact modified its meaning, such that its resolution “leads either to Spinozistic or to Leibnizian dogmatism” (231). It seems safe to say that Maimon assimilated the Kantian problem to his own philosophy, formed on the basis of traditional Aristotelian and Neoplatonic metaphysics. Both the Leibnizian and the Spinozistic resolution of the form-matter (or understanding and intuition, concept and object) problem consist in showing that these are not different in kind. The differences between the solutions lies in this: Spinoza that supposes “one and the same substance is the immediate cause of all effects . . . Every particular effect in nature is ascribed, not to its proximate cause (which is merely a mode), but to the first cause, which is common to all beings” (63–64).19 By contrast, in Leibniz, “all specific phenomena are drawn into an immediate relation with specific causes. But the different effects are conceived of as belonging together within a single system, while the cause of the connections among the variety of things is sought in a Being that is outside the system.” (64). In both philosophies the seemingly heterogeneous realms are homogenized with reference to their common origin. The first difference between them is their relation to the sciences. Spinoza “immediately” refers all effects to a single “remote cause” (God or nature), whereas Leibniz concentrates on the “secondary causes” (which are studied by the sciences) and only gestures towards the remote first cause. On Maimon’s reading, Spinoza continues a train of thought that begins with ancient religion. It is expressed in the tetragrammaton Yehova or in God’s answer to Moses (Exodus 3:13–14): “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh,” [I am that I am]. In his autobiography he writes that this passage “means nothing other than that the ground of Judaism is the unity of God as the immediate cause of all being; the remarkable inscription on the pyramid

18 19

Maimon, VT, pp. 61–63. See also GH, p. 161.

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at Sais says as much: ‘I am everything that is, was, and will be’ ”(104).20 To these conceptions conforms “a single system only.” writes Maimon with an obvious allusion to Spinoza. Maimon ascribes this view of original monotheism not only to Moses and Josephus Flavius but also to the Kabbalists and Talmudists. In fact, he repeats Maimonides who claimed that “immediate” reference to God is typical of biblical monotheism, a claim that was repeated yet again by Spinoza.21 The second difference between Leibniz and Spinoza is that the first cause is transcendent according to Leibniz, immanent according to Spinoza. Maimon’s first addition to the quid juris question arises here: How can a transcendent (immaterial) intelligence create a material world (or how can an object in intuition be constructed from a concept)? In Spinoza, this problem does not arise, as there is no creation, and God and the World are one and the same. Of course, these characterizations of “Spinoza” and “Leibniz” do not intend to do justice to either of them. The names “Spinoza” and “Leibniz” stand here for very general philosophical ideas. Spinoza stands for the slogan “All is One and One is All” used by Mendelssohn in his Morning Hours (1785). When Maimon inserted a translation of the chapters on Spinoza in Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours into his own Hebrew commentary on Maimonides’ Guide, he quoted this slogan and added that the view is very deep and agrees with Kabbalah.22 Maimon’s resolution of the quid juris question is hence squarely embedded in the context of the pantheism controversy of the 1780s. And yet, Maimon says that although he read Spinoza in Germany: “back in Poland, I had, through my reading of Kabbalistic writings, chanced upon the same ideas that underlie his system” (197). In fact, this is so! In his early manuscript Eved Avraham, we find the following super-commentary on Ibn Ezra on Exodus 23:21. Maimon writes: Since He is all and all is from Him. You should know that there is no independent being besides Him, may He be blessed. We apprehend existent beings through the apprehension of the accidents in the substance and of the substance in the accidents. To clarify this, consider the following example of a simple element as is water. We apprehend of water its coldness and humidity which are accidents of the substance water. . . . But after apprehending these accidents by our senses, we conceive by the understanding that these accidents require a substance as their subject. We thus apprehend the substance through the accidents. And the substance of all beings is the creator,

Maimon, Autobiography, p. 196. Maimonides, Guide, bk. 2, ch. 48; Spinoza, TTP, I:6. 22 Maimon, GH, p. 161. 20 21

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may He be blessed, and He is concealed on his own part and revealed by the aforementioned accidents, and is both the revealing and the revealed.23

In Berlin, Maimon explained (to Markus Herz) Spinozism in the very same terms. It is the doctrine that “all objects are manifestations of a single substance” (195). H now also translated the vague notion that concept and object are not heterogeneous into a precise program. Take the allegedly synthetic “principle” of geometry, that the straight line is shortest between two points. The choice is of course not accidental. This proposition is a foremost example of synthetic judgments a priori in Kant.24 Demonstrating that concept and intuition are not heterogeneous means showing that the straight line in intuition is a sensible presentation of the concept “shortest line.” This can be done in two ways, either by a proof that the straight line is shortest, or by constructing the sensible object “straight line” from the concept “shortest line.” Maimon elaborated in detail both possibilities. As to the proof, Maimon seems to have realized that it failed. Nevertheless, he left the proof in place but added a note: My intention here is merely to show: that according to the quoted definition of a straight line, the proposition: A straight line etc. [is the shortest between two points] is not an axiom, but a proposition analytically inferred from others. And suppose that we nevertheless finally hit on synthetic propositions on which all others are based (I leave undecided as yet whether this is the case), I nevertheless maintain that just as by means of my definition I rendered analytic this proposition which was claimed to be synthetic, I can do the same with these [synthetic propositions] too.25

The claim that truths of intuition are presentations of conceptual truths does not mean that we already possess analytic proofs of all of them. It rather means that we have good reasons (and some good examples) to believe that such a “research program” is viable, although it may be infinite. However, Maimon could present no such example. Another way to demonstrate that concept and intuition are not heterogeneous is to construct a straight line from its concept. Such construction has ramifications for the quid juris question “in the broader sense.” It demonstrates that an “intelligence” (a power of concepts) may create a material world (objects in intuition): God, as an infinite power of representation, from all eternity, thinks himself as all possible essences, that is, he thinks himself as restricted in every Maimon, Eved Avraham, Hesheq Shelomo, p. 81. Kant, CpR, B16; Prolegomena § 20 | AA 4:301–2. 25 Maimon, VT, pp. 66–67. 23 24

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possible way. He does not think as we do, [namely], discursively; rather, his thoughts are at one and the same time presentations (Darstellungen). If someone objects that we have no concept of such a style of thinking, my answer is: We do in fact have a concept of it, since we partly have this style in our possession. All mathematical concepts are thought by us and at the same time exhibited as real objects through construction a priori. Thus, we are in this respect similar to God.26

We may think that God creates a material world in the same way as we construct geometrical objects in intuition. However, do we really construct from concepts objects in intuition? Initially, this seems evident and easily comprehensible: As soon as the understanding prescribes the rule for drawing a line between two points (that is, that it should be the shortest), the imagination draws a straight line to satisfy this demand.27

Maimon here repeats Kant, who said that we draw a line by the motion of a point in pure intuition. But Kant did not say by what rule we guarantee that this line is “straight.” And in fact, there was no such rule. Another problem concerns continuity. To construct a continuous line we must construct infinitely many points, and this is impossible. To imagine that a moving point traces a continuous line in space means simply to hide the problem of continuity behind “motion” and, moreover, to acknowledge the authority of the imagination over the understanding. Thus, whereas the construction of objects in intuition allows us to discover properties not contained in the concepts, it also demonstrates the subjection of the understanding to the alien rule of the imagination: The understanding prescribes the productive imagination a rule to produce a space enclosed by three lines. The imagination obeys and constructs the triangle, but lo and behold! three angles, which the understanding did not at all demand, impose themselves. Now the understanding suddenly becomes clever since it learned the connection between three sides and three angles hitherto unknown to it, but the reason of which remains unknown to it. Hence it makes a virtue of necessity, puts on a imperious expression and says: A triangle must have three angles!—as if it were here the legislator whereas in fact it must obey an unknown legislator.28

The heterogeneity of concept and intuition thus remains in place and so does Kant’s quid juris question. Moreover, Kant took for granted that Maimon, GW, 4:42. Maimon, VT, p. 19. 28 Maimon, GW, 3:185–201; see also GW, 4:449–50. 26 27

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there are synthetic judgments a priori and only asked how they were possible. Maimon argued that we have no such judgments. Synthetic judgments are not a priori and certain but experiential and probable only. Maimon’s own and mature solution of the quid juris question conceives understanding and sensibility as one in kind but on opposite ends of a continuum with an infinite distance between them. At the end of a précis of the history of philosophy that introduces his Hebrew commentary on Maimonides’ The Guide of the Perplexed, Maimon succinctly presents his own philosophy: And I, the author, having learned from books and studied with God’s help the science of philosophy, found that the objects of philosophy are the elements (‫ )יסודות‬of sensible objects, not the sensible objects themselves. And we apply the logical forms not to the sensible objects as such but to their elements, which are the infinitely small parts from which the sensible bodies are composed, and which are themselves concepts of the understanding notwithstanding their being the elements of the sensible objects. And I believe that this is the very same view of the philosopher Leibniz. The sensibles are by their nature infinitely divisible since the [sensible] forms of their cognition (‫ )השגה‬are time and extension which allow infinite division. But the elements of the sensibles conceived by the intellect abstracted from time and space, are the indivisible individuals that he mentioned. And the intellect cannot conceive any ratio and relation among the sensibles, since the sensibles are not the objects of its cognition. But it conceives the ratio and the relations among the elements of the sensibles, and only these are the individuals spoken of. However, by its nature, the imagination cannot conceive these individuals. And therefore these ratio and relation are taken by it [the imagination] to hold among the sensibles themselves that are the objects of its cognition.29

The truth of the matter is hence first a complete dichotomy between continuous objects of sensibility and discrete objects of the understanding. And yet, these have a common border, and exactly on this border are the “infinitely small parts,” which are “concepts of the understanding notwithstanding their being the elements of the sensible objects.” In Leibniz, too, says Maimon, the monadology is correlated with the infinitesimal calculus. The difference between them is nevertheless important. Maimon conceives the infinitesimal element of sensible bodies as “without any finite extension, although not as a mathematical but rather as a physical point, or as the differential of an extension.”30 He refers at this

29 30

Maimon, GH, p. 18. See also VT, 9, 186, 192, 355–56. Maimon, VT, p. 27–28; see also GW 4:53.

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place to Leibniz, but in Leibniz, the monads are “metaphysical points” and therefore heterogeneous with sensible bodies. Conceiving of the elements as “physical points” establishes homogeneity between “concepts of the understanding” and “elements of the sensible objects”—and therefore the possibility of applying concepts to intuitions—although they are infinitely distant from one another. The metaphysical and the physical world are not separated: the metaphysical realm is the limit of the physical. The reason why these ideas are attractive is obvious. The solution of the quid juris question (in the wide sense) is here continuous with the most advanced mathematical and physical theories of the time: with the infinitesimal calculus and with analytic mechanics and its concept of the “point mass” of zero extension but non-zero mass. The challenge is also obvious: can something be both a concept and an element of a sensible body? Although Maimon himself remarked that elucidating philosophical notions by means of the calculus may appear to be an attempt to clarify the obscure by what is even more obscure, there is an enormous difference between an obscurity in the foundations of the calculus (the validity of which nobody doubted) and the obscurity of muddled thought. In fact, leading contemporary mathematicians conceived the calculus exactly in the same terms as Maimon. The formulation of the alleged conceptual “obscurity” of ontology in the language of the calculus was in itself a major philosophical achievement. Maimon’s conception of the “differential” is, of course, squarely embedded in the discourse of the eighteenth century, as was his discussion of Spinozism. And yet, here too, it has medieval roots. In The Guide of the Perplexed, Maimon’s primary source of philosophy in Lithuania, Maimonides presents the philosophy of the Kalam (an Islamic school that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries) in twelve principles, which he discusses in detail. The first principle states that all bodies of the world are composed of “very small particles that, because of their subtlety, are not subject to division. The individual particle does not possess quantity in any respect. However, when several are aggregated, their aggregate possesses quantity and has thus become a body.”31 Maimonides presents some of the paradoxes that follow from the assumption that reality is composed of discrete atoms while space is continuous, especially the propositions referring to rational and irrational magnitudes in book 10 of Euclid’s Elements. The implication is that geometry (the mathematics of continuous magnitude) would be at odds with reality. In his commentary on the Guide, Maimon sides with the Kalam against Maimonides, but also introduces some new ideas to “further improve” Kalam philosophy, first the distinction between extensive and intensive

31

Maimonides, Guide 1:73 | Pines 1:195.

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magnitudes. The elements have no extensive magnitude but possess intensive magnitude, namely varying degrees of the force of representation (like Leibniz’s monads). He adds the distinction between aggregation and chemical synthesis, and, finally, the notion of the “infinitesimal” itself.32 In short, Maimon interprets the atoms of Kalam as his own differentials. Maimon’s construal is not substituting one philosophy for another. It is rather a benevolent interpretation and improvement of Kalam ontology. In spite of Maimon’s Leibnizian leanings, there is a clear difference between his critique of Kant and that proffered by Leibniz’s followers. Their main point of criticism was that Kant didn’t name a “principle” that governs synthetic judgments a priori and guarantees their necessity. Given the concept of the subject, say “triangle,” the principle should have determined its true predicates, say that the sum of its internal angles equals two right angles. Kant himself didn’t think that synthetic judgments a priori require a “principle.” He rather explained their possibility by the cooperation of the understanding and intuition, both in a priori and empirical propositions: [ . . . ]for just as empirical intuition makes it possible for us, without difficulty, to amplify (synthetically in experience) the concept we form of an object of intuition through new predicates that are presented by intuition itself, so too will pure intuition do the same only with this difference: that in the latter case the synthetic judgment will be a priori certain and apodictic.33

Maimon’s Principle of Determinability is not a principle by which such judgments are inferred from the concept of the subject, as the Leibnizians demanded. It is merely a criterion of well-formed propositions. A real synthesis consists of a subject and a predicate. The subject is a concept that can be thought by itself without the predicate, the predicate cannot be thought without the subject concept. “A straight line” is such a synthesis. A line can be thought (not imagined!) without the property straight, but straight cannot be thought without a subject (line). If the subject and the predicate can be thought independently of each other (“yellow” and “malleable”—two properties of gold), their alleged synthesis is merely an arbitrary combination (combined because they are observed to exist in the same place and time), not a synthesis. If it is not empirically based, such combination might produce nonsense (for example, “a sweet line”).34 A “real synthesis” is characterized by new properties that are neither properties of the subject nor of the predicate but of the synthesis GH, p. 126–27. Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science (1783), trans. Gary Hatfield in Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, eds. Henry Allison and Peter Heath (Cambridge, 2001), p. 281. Emphasis mine. 34 VT, 92–93; VT, 124–25; Logik, 435. 32 33

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itself. Note the agreement between this characterization and that of a chemical “compound” as distinguished from a “mixture.” For example, in a right-angled triangle the sum of the squares on its sides equals the square on the hypotenuse. This is neither a predicate of “triangle” nor of “right-angled” but only of their synthesis.35 The Principle of Determinability is the “supreme principle of all real knowledge that determines objects.”36 As a principle of (transcendental) logic, it rigorously applies to concepts that are homogeneous with it, not to sensible bodies. This is Maimon’s answer to the quid juris challenge. Therefore the principle applies directly to differentials as concepts and indirectly to sensible objects that are constituted by such differentials as their elements.37 It should be noted that a well-formed synthesis need not have a referent. For example, a decahedron, the synthesis of a solid with ten equal faces, cannot be constructed. The synthesis is legitimate, but not real.38 The Principle of Determinability neither generates truth, nor is it a criterion of truth. It is merely a criterion of well-formed syntheses. In spite of all his efforts to develop a method of invention, Maimon confined himself to the much more modest achievement of the Principle of Determinability. Kant’s world is famously split into two realms: The realm of experience and that of “things-in-themselves.” In Maimon there is no such duality: things-in-themselves are the “limits” of our knowledge of sensible objects. However, the properties predicated of them at the limit are sometimes contrary to each other, as the paradoxes of the infinite show. Since they are paradoxical, such properties cannot be real. If their concepts are indispensable, we use them with the caveat that they are “fictitious.” Discrete differentials and continuous matter and space are related to each other as true reality and appearance, but also opposed to each other as “reality” and “fiction.” This is so because there are two major ways of proceeding from appearance to reality, the way of the understanding and the way of the imagination. The first formulates a rule of progression, the second imagines an existent last member of the series. We can follow a rule of the understanding towards the “differential” as a limit of ratios (dy/dx) or follow the imagination and assert the existence of a least element “differential” or “infinitesimal” (dy, dx). We can conceive a number as a ratio determined by its place in a series or imagine it as a collection of units. Similarly, we can proceed towards an ever more general concept Euclid, Elements, bk. 1, prop. 47; VT, 243. Maimon, GW, 7:203; VT, 84–97; Logik, 20; 309–11. 37 VT, 355. 38 Logik, 18, 312. 39 See Maimon, GW, 4:210–11 and 225–26, 229. 35 36

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or assert that an all-encompassing origin exists. The similarity to Kant’s notions of “antinomies” and “ideas” is obvious. However, what in Kant is a conflict within reason is in Maimon a conflict between reason and the imagination. The fictitious character of a notion increases in proportion to the share of the imagination in apprehension. Since all real human knowledge involves imagination to some extent, all knowledge is also fictitious to some degree. “Fiction” in Maimon spans from the continuity of geometrical lines, “imaginary numbers” and “differentials” (or “infinitesimals”) in mathematics, over “force” and “compound motion” in physics, to “monads,” “God,” and “immortality” in metaphysics. These concepts are indispensable but may not claim reference. A similar problem arises concerning causality in general. Even if causality is objective, this does not determine any specific application of this concept to experience. We know specific causal relations only from experience, and we might ascribe necessary causal relations to objects that merely display some regularity only. With this Humean skepticism remains in place. Moreover, if the claims that there are synthetic judgments a priori are refuted, their possibility need not concern us, and Kant’s (but not Maimon’s) quid juris question is empty.39 “Our knowledge,” Maimon writes, “is partly pure and partly real. Unfortunately, however, the pure isn’t real, and the real isn’t pure”(238). Maimon’s “glosses on and clarifications of” Kant amount to a radical critique that denies Kant’s revolution in philosophy and claims to further improve on him on the basis of Leibniz and Hume. We have also seen that Maimon’s “misunderstanding” of Kant’s quid juris question closely followed his early metaphysical-kabbalistic manuscripts, which also include a clear formulation of his later “Spinozism.” Finally, Maimon’s interpretation of Kant’s “Schematism” is understandable on the basis of the search for “signs” (Merkmale) and “resemblance” that coordinate the intellectual and the sensible realms in his early manuscripts. We have also witnessed Maimon’s reading of Medieval philosophy with eyes informed by modern philosophy: He “improved” on Kalam ontology with the infinitesimal calculus and with the introduction of the concept of the chemical “compound” and, finally, with Leibniz’s monadology. This may help understand the nature of a “commentary” such as Maimon’s. It is not an attempt to elucidate a text but rather to “further improve” philosophical conceptions by assimilation of new knowledge and arguments. The reciprocate “commentary” of modern philosophy and traditional metaphysics (in addition, of course, to Maimon’s genius) is the basis of his innovative and singular position in the philosophy of the eighteenth century.

Abbreviations

Maimon’s Works GW Gesammelte Werke (7 vols). Edited by Valerio Verra. Hildesheim: Olms, 1965–76. LB Salomon Maimon‘s Lebensgeschichte. Von ihm selbst geschrieben und herausgegeben von K. P. Moritz, Berlin: Friedrich Vieweg, 1792–93. GH Giv’at Hammore [Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed, 1791]. New edition with notes and indexes by S. H. Bergman and N. Rotenstreich. Jerusalem: Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1965. VT Essay on Transcendental Philosophy [Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie]. Translated and edited by Alistair Welchman, Henry Somers-Hall, Merten Reglitz, and Nick Midgley. London: Continuum, 2010. Logik. Logik. Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens . . . Berlin: Ernst Felisch, 1794

Other Works Guide Maimonides, More Nevokhim, with four traditional commentaries, Jerusalem 1960. Pines The Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.

Bibliography

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Index

The index covers Solomon Maimon’s autobiography, pages 1 to 243. Subheadings are sorted alphabetically with the exception of subheadings for the main heading “Maimon, Solomon” and the sections “Education & studies” and “Tutoring & teaching” under that heading which are sorted chronologically. The abbreviation “SM” stands for Solomon Maimon. References to footnotes are indicated by “n” after the page number, followed by either a letter (for footnotes by Maimon) or a number (for footnotes provided by the editors). Aben Chaschia (Ibn Wahshiyya), 183 Abhandlungen von den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen Religion (Reimarus), 223 Abraham, 182 Abraham ben David, Rabbi: criticism of Maimonides, 130–32 Abraham Ibn Ezra, 20 acosmism, 64 active intellect, 169, 202 Adam, 56, 182, 183, 184, 218 Adelung, Johann Christoph, 192, 196–97 Against Apion (Josephus), 104 Aharon ben Yaakov of Karlin, Rabbi, 98n(g) algebra, 144, 144n(a), 227 Algebra (Euler), 227 allegories, 72, 137; in Christianity, 95n(e), 216; in Kabbalah, 52, 57; in the Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 135, 137, 138, 174, 187, 189, 191. See also masquerade ball (allegory) Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (journal), 233 Altona, 217 A.M., SM studying Locke with private tutor of, 196 Amsterdam, 209–10 Anatomical Tables (Kulmus), 60 Andalusian Jews, 155 angels, 70, 71, 143; malachim as, 20; in the Guide of the Perplexled (Maimonides), 161–62, 179; in Talmud, 161 Antoninas (Antoninus) Pius, 68

“Antwort des Hrn. Maimon auf voriges Schreiben” (SM), 235 Apollonius, 159 Archimedes: experiment with scale, 14 aristocracy: Jewish, 88, 236; Polish, 44, 45; tyranny of, 88 Aristotle: active intellect, 169; book of Astamchos (al-Ustumakhos) wrongly attributed to, 184; categories, 58, 242; eternity of the world, 164, 165–66, 167, 168, 170, 176; existence of movement, 147; heavenly bodies, 161; impossibility of atoms, 148; logic, 242; metaphysics, 141; physics, 158, 165; proof of the existence of God, 194; separate intellects, 161 Ark of the Covenant, 103–4. See also mysteries Asceticism. See penance Ascharah (Ashera), 183 Asserieh (Ashariyya), 155 association, law of, 239 Astamchos (al-Ustumakhus; book of), 184 astronomy: David Gans,’ 17; Maimonides on, 130, 131, 134, 144, 170, 204; Newtonian principles, 204; Ptolemian principles, 204; SM’s early grasp of, 17–18, 49 asymptotes of the curve, 160n(a) atheism, 117 attributes of God: corporeal, 145–46; equates to no concept of God, 150–51; existence as attribute, 149; five kinds, 148–49; Mendelssohn on, 201; negation of positive, 147;

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Index

attributes of God (continued) negations of negations of, 149–50; only accidental, 148 Autobiography (SM), 121–25 B. (accusing Mendelssohn), 199 B. (Rabbi Dov Ber ben Avraham Friedman, the Great Maggid of Mezritch), 96; exegetical practice, 97; sermon, 96–97 B. (wealthy man in the Hague), SM discussing Talmud and Kabbalah with sons of, 210 B., Doctor (SM’s friend in Berlin), 222 Baal, 183 Babel, 183, 218 Babylon, 103, 173 “Baco und Kant. Schreiben des H. S. Maimon an den Herausgeber dieses Journals” (SM), 234–35 Bacon, Francis, 136; compared with Kant, 234–35; on metaphysics, 235 Basnage, Jacques, 222 Bavaria, 106 Beer (SM’s cousin): controversy with SM about brass buttons, 32–33 beggars, Jewish, 111, 112, 113–14; SM’s begging companion, 116–17 Bendavid, Lazarus, 230 Bereschith Rabah (Bereshit Rabbah), 162 Berlin, 109, 111, 112, 192, 193, 194, 209, 210, 215, 217, 221, 224, 227, 229; Rosenthaler gate, 111 Berlinische Monatsschrift (journal), 237, 239 Berlinisches Journal für Aufklärung (journal), 135n(a), 233, 234, 235 blood libel: against SM’s grandfather, 8–10 Book of Raziel, as fire protection, 56–57 Book of Talismans, 184 Bortenstein, Mr., 226 Brahe, Tycho, 17 Breslau, 14, 222, 224–25, 226, 228, 229 Butler, Joseph, Bishop, 123 Buttler (Butler), Samuel, 83 Buxtorf, Johannes, 124 categories, Aristotle’s, 58, 242 Catholic Church: in Poland, 8–9; prejudices of, 49 Catholic exegesis, 95n(e)

ceremonial laws: and Christianity, 88, 203; in Hasidism, 93; and Jesus of Nazareth, 88, 203; and morality, 88–89; original state of, 88; Schabatai Zebi on, 89; SM on, 227. See also Mishneh Torah (Maimonides); Mosaic laws Chaninah, Rabbi, 150 chasaka, 4, 11, 22 Chosek (ascetic), 76n(a) Christian scholars, SM’s relationship with, 225, 226 Christianity: allegories in, 95n(e), 216; compared to Judaism, 216; concept of trinity, 147; exegesis in, 95n(e); fables in, 216; invention of dialectics, 156; and Jewish ceremonial law, 88, 203; Jewish conversion to, 203; monastery estates in Poland, 1; mysteries, 216; SM’s conversion attempt, 215–17. See also religion Christians: accusations and abuse leveled against Talmudists, 71; allegedly deceived by Jews, 73 coalition system, 230–31 Collector, The (ha-Measef; journal), 236; reception by rabbinic scholars, 237 Conics (Apollonius), 159 contemplation, through natural sciences, 92–93 contemplative life, devotion to: Jewish scholars, 87, 93; SM, 79, 117, 119, 208 Contra Apionem (Josephus), 104 contradiction: and possibility, 156; and thinkability, 159, 201, 234 contradictions in: Maimonides’ works, 139; metaphysics, 14, 165; Mishna, 139; The Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 138–39; philosophical writings, 139; prophetic writings, 139; Talmud, 26, 50, 68, 69, 139, 237 conversion from Judaism to Christianity, 203, 215–17 Copenhagen, 17 Cordovero, Moses, Rabbi, 53, 58 creation, according to the systems of evolution and epigenesis, 235 creation of the world, 156, 157, 158, 169, 171, 175; Aristotle and his followers, 165–66; Kabbalah, 57–58;

Index

philosophers, 165; revealed religion, 164–65. See also eternity of the world critical philosophy: in contrast to dogmatic philosophy, 141–42; SM’s mastery of Kant’s, 232; too much focus on the formal, 238. See also Kant, Immanuel Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 204, 230, 231, 232 Dacier, Anne (Madame Dacier), 213 David, 131, 173, 177–78, 206 David (SM’s son): birth, 44; meets SM in Breslau, 227–28 David Kimichi, Rabbi, 20 Deborah (leaseholder’s oldest daughter), 34 deception, 73, 99, 106, 238–39 Delmedigo, Joseph Solomon, Rabbi (Rabbi Joseph Candia), 89 Democritus, physics, 241 Démonstration de l’Existence de Dieu (Fénelon), 218 depression, 211 Descartes, René: doubt as beginning of all real philosophizing, 197; Johann Christoph Sturm as follower of, 60; proof of the existence of God, 149–50 despair, 212n(a) Dessau, 223 Deutsche Monatsschrift (journal), 171, 176, 238 diet: Lithuanian, 82; SM’s family, 6 dogmatic philosophy: in contrast to critical philosophy, 141–42; Kantian philosophy irrefutable by, 235; leap from discursive thinking to real cognition, 238; SM’s skeptical system as pushback against, 235 Dov Ber of Mezritch. See B. (Rabbi Dov Ber ben Avraham Friedman, the Great Maggid of Mezritch) D.P. (uncle of SM’s acquaintance in Berlin), 193 Dukor, Hersch, 39–40 Dusch, Johann Jacob, 218; examining SM, 220 Dutch Jews, 214 Egypt, 67, 102, 103 Egyptian laws, 70

• 277

Eisenmenger, Johann Andreas, 70; attack on Talmud, 71 Elbe, 209 Elias, 173 Elias of Vilna (Rabbi Elijah ben Salomon, the Vilna Gaon), 100 empiricism, in polytheism, 102 enlightenment: benefits of, 228; benefits of history for, 222, 223; benefits of mathematics, 223–24; benefits of natural religion for, 223; benefits of rational morality for, 223; and French language, 206; Hasidism, 90–92; overturning false ideas, 174; for Polish Jews, 222, 223, 224; SM’s desire for, 119; suitedness of Hebrew for, 224; in the twelfth century in Spain, 128 ens realissimum, 156–57 Ensoph, 58 Epicureanism: concept of right in, 238; in Hasidism, 99; self-interest in, 87; SM committed to, 207, 209, 213 epigenesis, 235 Ernesti, Johann Heinrich, 218 Esau, 14, 20 “Essay on Theodicy” (SM), 176 Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (SM), 230, 231n6, 233, 235 eternity of the world, 157, 158, 161, 182; Aristotle, 164, 165–66, 167, 168, 170, 176; philosophers, 165; refutation of Aristotle by Maimonides, 167–71; revealed religion, 164–65. See also creation of the world Etz Hayyim (The Tree of Life; Vital), 53 Euler, Leonhard, 227 evolution, 235 excommunication, 11, 203 exegesis: Catholic, 95n(e); in Hasidism, 94–95, 97; Maimonides,’ 131–32, 190; rational, 68, 128, 174, 236; Talmudic, 72, 129; use of philology in, 20. See also interpretation of Holy Scripture existence of God, 64, 157, 158, 161, 164; Aristotle on, 194; Descartes on, 149–50; Leibniz on, 149–50; Maimonides on, 194 “Explication of Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishna, Avot 3:17” (SM), 237

278

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Ezekiel, 172 Ezekiel (book of), 70, 95n(e), 174, 184 F. (SM’s friend in Berlin), 222, 223, 224 F., Madame, Moses Lapidoth on, 79 fables, 72; in Christianity, 216; Hebrew book of, 15; in Kabbalah, 52, 57, 59; in the Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 137, 140; in Talmud, 131 Fénelon, François, 218 fiction, 239 first cause: as idea of reason, 63; Kant on, 14; mediate causes displacing, 127; and metaphysics, 14; in the Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 154, 163, 166, 172, 173; and principle of sufficient reason, 14; and religion, 65; Spinoza on, 64 Förde (Fürth), 116 France, arts and sciences in the twelfth century, 128 Frankfurt an der Oder, 109, 110 Freemasons, 106 G. (lawyer), 218 Gabriel (angel), 71 Gabriel (SM’s family servant), 23 Galenus (Galen), 164 Galician Jews, 2 Gans, David, 17 Garve, Christian, 14, 225, 226 Gates of Holiness, The (Sha’arei Kedusha; Vital), 54 Gates of Light, The (Sh’arei Orah; Joseph Gikatilla), 55 Gaziopilatium (Gazyphylacium medicophysicum; Woyt), 60, 61 Genesis, 13, 14, 137, 140. See also Moses (books of) Geonim, 155 German Grammar (Adelung), 196–97 Germany, 59, 108, 173, 215, 227, 228, 235 Gersonides (Rabbi Levi ben Gerschon), 180 Geßner, Salomon, 205 Gnoti Sauton, oder, Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde (journal), 121, 122, 239 God: beard of, 54; being eternal, 13; causes and actions of, 172–73;

different in kind and not degree, 145, 150; effects as consequence of His will and His wisdom, 150, 181; as Ensoph, 58; expressions of, 140; fear of, 73; mediating powers, 71; names of, 104–5, 152–53; non-corporeality of, 161; omniscience, 177–80; predestination, 71; as a representing subject, His representation and the represented object, 153–54; right worship requires right knowledge of, 187–90; space and time does not apply to, 149; teachings in Kabbalah, 52, 54, 55; unity of, 104, 147, 161; visual representations of, 70; world as expression or outflow of, 164. See also attributes of God; creation of the world; existence of God Golath (penance of exile), 75 Great Council (Keneseth Hagdola), 67 Guide of the Perplexed, The (Maimonides), 57, 58, 239; aim, 133, 135; allegories, 135, 137, 138, 174, 187, 189, 191; angels, 161–62, 179; benefits of enlightenment, 228; boundaries of human knowledge, 142–43; causes and actions of God, 172–73; contradictions, 138–39; division of actions, 181; evil and privation, 176; expressions (names), 134, 134n(a); expressions with multiple meanings, 140–42; fables, 137, 140; final ground of existence of world, 176; first cause, 154, 163, 166, 172, 173; Genesis, 137, 140; God as a representing subject, His representation and the represented object, 153–54; God as unity, 147; God different in kind and not degree, 145, 150; God’s effects as consequence of His will and His wisdom, 181; harmony between faith and knowledge, 133; imagination, 158–60; intellect, 158–60; intermediary causes, 172; on Kabbalists, 152; knowledge of good and evil, 141; knowledge of true and false, 141; letter to Rabbi Samuel, 134; logic, 187; mathematics, 142, 187; matter and form, 174–76; meanings of expressions about God, 140; metaphysics, 136, 142, 143–45,

Index

187; method, 133; morality, 141, 186; Mosaic laws, 70, 181, 181–82, 185, 187; name Jehova, 152; names of God as names for his actions, 152–53; natural sciences, 136, 137, 142, 187; nature of time, 164–65; omniscience, 177–80; paganism, 145–46; parable of the palace, 186; perfection, 141, 175, 187, 190, 191; practical laws based on natural theology, 137; preaching stoicism, 175; prophecy, 171; providence, 177–80, 189–90; right worship requires right knowledge of God, 187–90; secrets of prophetic writing, 134; secrets revealed and concealed, 136; style, 133; Talmudists, 187; teaching truth undisguised, 137; title explained, 135; world as expression or outflow of God, 164; world as ordered whole, 157–58. See also attributes of God; creation of the world; eternity of the world; Maimonides, Moses H. (brother of SM’s acquaintance in Berlin), 193 H. (conversation partner of Mendelssohn), 200 H. (Markus Herz), 195–96, 231n6 H. (Rector in Altona), 218 H. (SM’s family residing in), 24, 29 H. (SM’s friend in The Hague), 210 Haggai, 67 Halle, 204 Haman, Festival of (Purim), 10, 211 Hamburg, 114, 203, 205, 209, 210, 214, 215, 217, 218 ha-Measef (The Collector; journal), 236; reception by rabbinic scholars, 237; SM on, 237 Hannover, 214 Hasidim: comparison between new and old, 86–87; as cynics, 100; as enlighteners, 91–92; follow vague feelings rather than knowledge, 87; speaking the language of animals, 107 Hasidism: attitude towards women, 97; bodily needs and sensual pleasures, 86; disappearance, 100; enlightenment, 90–91; Epicureanism, 99; exegetical practice, 95; four types of

• 279

leaders, 98–100; and Freemasons, 106; genesis of, 87; interpretation of the Holy Scripture, 88, 94–95; use of imagination, 106–7; interpretation of Mishna, 95; medico-magical practices, 90, 94; membership, 93–94; miraculous works and prophetic insights, 97; penance, 75–77, 86–87, 97; perfection, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 150, 177; “the pious ones,” 75; in Poland, 87; principle of self-interest, 87; rapid expansion, 87, 93; resistance and support for, 93; self-annihilation, 86, 87, 94, 95n(d), 107; Society of the Pious, 106–7; speculative prayer, 92; stoicism in, 87, 99; use of superstition, 106; worship, 92 Hatarath nedorim (annulment of vows), 76–77 Hebrew poetry, 236 Heimann Joseph (SM’s grandfather): beaten by Polish lord, 5; blood libel against, 8–10; brothers as subleaseholders, 4; clothes, 6, 8; diet, 6; estate administrators, 5; frugality of, 7, 8; household management, 6, 7, 8; lease, description of, 4–5; lease, family property, 11; lease, loss of, 23; plunderings of his house, 6; settles in Mohilna, 29; strong sense of hospitality, 6; writes a family megillah after the blood libel against him, 10 Helvétius, Claude Adrien, 196 Heraclitus, metaphysics, 241 hermeneutics. See exegesis; interpretation of Holy Scripture Hermes (Hermes Trismegistus; book of), 184 Herz, Markus (H.), 195–96, 231n6 hetman, 45 History of the Jews (Basnage), 222 H.J.D. (SM’s friend in Berlin), 208 Hoabadah Hanbathiah (The Nabatian Cult), 183, 185 Hogarth, William, 83 Holland, 209, 211, 214 Holy of Holies, 103, 104 Homer, 205 hossoffa, 11 household remedies, 21 Hume, David, 230, 231, 235

280

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Index

I. (Isaac Daniel Itzig), 233 Ibn Wahshiyya (Aben Chaschia), 183 Ichudim, 56 Ickowicz, Gedaliah, 2n2 Ickowicz, Shmuel, 2n2 idleness, devotion to: Jewish scholars, 87, 93; SM, 79 idolatry, 103 Iduma (Edom), 173 Idylls (Geßner), 205 Illuminati, Orders of the, 106 illusion, 238–39, 242; aesthetic, 239; philosophical, 239 imagination: in Hasidism, 106–7; and infinity, 13–14, 178; and intellect, 13–14, 156, 158–60; invention of the, 14; in Kabbalah, 55, 89; metaphysics as figment of, 242, 243; personification of causes, 102; in polytheism, 63, 102; in religion, 62–63; seeks to encompass, 13; and truth, 159 India, 183, 184 infinity: intellect and imagination, 13–14, 178; in Kabbalah, 58; as limit concept, 144n(a) intellect: active, 169, 202; and imagination, 13–14, 156, 158–60, 178; and infinity, 13–14, 178; seeks to grasp, 13 interpretation of Holy Scripture: according to principles of the Kabbalah, 89; artificial method, 69; in Hasidism, 88, 94; in Jewish schools in Poland, 20; in Judaism, 69, 88, 236; natural method, 69. See also exegesis Isaac the Sabian (book of), 184 Isaiah, 174 Isaiah (book of), 73 Isis, inscription at, 105 Islam, 156 Israel, Rabbi (Israel Zamosc), 198 Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, 90n7 Itzig, Isaac Daniel, 227, 233 Iwenez (Ivyanets), 24; chief rabbi of, 28–29 J. (SM’s friend in Berlin), 222, 224 J. (SM’s patron), 230 Jacob, 14, 20, 104, 177 Jacob (SM’s granduncle), 23 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 204

Jad Hachasaka (Maimonides). See Mishneh Torah (Maimonides) Jakob, Ludwig Heinrich von, 204 Janow, Joseph Hirsch, Rabbi, 114n2 Jehova, 152, 188; denotes the six highest Sefirot, 55; expressing pure Being, 104–5; mystery of name, 104–5 Jehuda the Holy, Rabbi (Jehuda Hanassi, Yehudah Ha-Nasi), 67–68 Jerusalem, 110, 130; praying facing, 198–99 Jerusalem (Mendelssohn), 202 Jesus of Nazareth, and ceremonial law, 88, 203 Jewish schools, in Poland: buildings, 19; children, 21; interpretation of Holy Scripture, 20; study of Hebrew, 20; teachers and assistants, 19–20; third level of Talmud studies at advanced, 27 Job (book of), 32n2, 137, 177, 179–80 Jochanan, Rabbi, 162–63 Joel, 173 Joel Baalscham (Joel Ba’al Shem of Zamosc?), 90 Jojard, Mr., 230 Jonah, 173 Jonathan, 173 Joseph, 173 Joseph (SM’s brother): controversy with SM about brass buttons, 32–33; school time in Mirz, 19, 21 Joseph ben Rabbi Jehuda (Joseph ben Yehuda Ibn Simon), 133, 134 Josephus, 17, 104, 223 Joshua, 67 Joshua (book of), 72 Joshua (SM’s father), 24, 28, 29; attitude towards SM’s secular studies, 18; attitude towards SM’s talent for drawing, 15; becomes SM’s teacher, 31; in charge of his father’s household, 11; chief rabbi in Mohilna, 31; controversy about brass buttons, 32–33; fine cloth for rabbinical dress denied by his father, 8; founds his own school in N., 37; his wife supporting in economic affairs, 11; lawsuit against Mr. Schachna, 22; life-style, 12; marriage arrangements for SM with Hersch Dukor, 39; marriage

Index

arrangements for SM with L. from Schmilowitz, 35–36; marriage arrangements with SM’s future wife Sara, 37–40; marriage proposal for SM to marry leaseholder’s daughter Rachel, 34–35; mistreatment by Polish lord at the age of eight, 5; and Raphael Kohn, 219; relationship with leaseholder of Mohilna, 31; settles in Mohilna, 29; silences SM’s adoration for worldly beauty, 15; silences SM’s doubts on biblical accounts, 13, 14; and Simon of Lubtsch, 75–76; at SM’s wedding, 41 Jossel (schoolmaster), 19 Jossel of Klezk, 75–76 Journal of Empirical Psychology (Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde), 121, 122, 239 Judah, 162 Judaism, 62; aristocracy, 88, 236; ceremonial law and morality, 88–89; compared to Christianity, 216; concept of cause, 65; contract between people and Highest Being, 102; in contrast to paganism, 65, 102; estimation of learning by scholars, 236–37; existence of Jewish nation, 66, 88; external ceremonies, 106; following or rejecting the laws of, 202–3; formal application of religion by Talmudists, 103; Great Council (Keneseth Hagdola), 67; grounded in formal laws of nature, 102; history, 67–68; interpretation of Holy Scripture, 69, 88, 236; knowledge of nature neglected, 103; legislative commission for interpretation of Scripture, 88; misuse of rabbinism, 68–70; Mosaic laws in the history of, 67–70; mysteries, 66, 104; name of Jehova expressing pure Being, 104; non-Jewish manners and customs, 69–70; positive religion, 66; practical (laws and customs), 70; prophets, 67; pure but unfruitful, 103; purpose according to Moses and the prophets, 106; rabbinic despotism, 223; rabbinic scholars, 236–37; rabbinism, 68–71, 70–71; renewal of contract through Moses,

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102; separation from the Jewish state, 66; and Talmud, 237; theocracy, 66, 202–3, 223, 236; theoretical (theology), 70; unequal classes in, 236; unity of natural causes solely of regulative use, 102; unity with God, 104; ways of preserving and expanding, 66; wisdom and rationality in, 103. See also religion Judaism Unmasked (Eisenmenger), 71 K. (Karlin), 88 Kabbalah, 210–11; allegories in, 52, 57; “art of running wild with reason,” 52; attempt to recover secret meaning, 52; Book of Raziel, as fire protection, 56–57; Cordovero, Moses, Rabbi, 53, 58; creation of the world, 57–58; deciphering Holy Scripture or Talmud, 55; divine emanations, 54; divine science opposed to rational explanation, 59; Etz Hayyim (The Tree of Life; Vital), 53; fables in, 52, 57, 59; as fire protection, 56–57; formulas for performing miracles, 211; God as Ensoph, 58; God’s beard, 54; hierarchy of four worlds, 54; Ichudim, 56; imagination in, 55, 89; infinity in, 58; interpretation of Holy Scripture, 89; invisible through, 56; Luria, Isaac, Rabbi, 53; Maimonides on, 152; medico-magical practices, 90; mysteries in, 89; original meaning of, 52; Pardes Rimonim (Moses Cordovero), 53, 58; perfection, 51; popularity, 51; practical, 52, 56, 90; reason in, 52, 53; science cloaked in fables, 59; secrets in, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 90; Sefirot, 55, 58; Sha’arei Kedusha (The Gates of Holiness; Vital), 54; Sha’arei Orah (The Gates of Light; Joseph Gikatilla), 55; as Spinozism, 58; theoretical, 52, 56; as tradition of occult sciences, 52; Vital, Hayyim, 53; zimzum, 57n15; Zohar, 53, 89 Kant, Immanuel, 230, 239; antinomies, 157; causality and first cause, 14; compared with Bacon, 234–35; concept of right, 238; critique of

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Kant, Immanuel (continued) dogmatists, 168; and dogmatic critics, 235; and Humean skepticism, 235; letter to SM, 232; metaphysics, 204, 235, 242; necessity of objective judgments, 234; notion of time, 165; quid juris? 231; used for interpretation of Maimonides, 237. See also critical philosophy; Critique of Pure Reason (Kant) Karaites, 155 Karlin (K.), 88 Kohen, Raphael, Rabbi, 114n2, 203n6, 219n4 Königsberg, 4, 12, 22, 108–9, 111 Kuh, Ephraim Moses, 225 Kulm (Johann Adam Kulmus), 60 L. (rich man in Schmilowitz), 35–36 L. (SM’s friend in Berlin), 222, 233 L. (widow in Berlin), 196 Lapidoth, Moses (SM’s close friend): clothes, 80; cutting back on prayers, 80; as cynic, 80; on falsity of human virtue, 78–79; free-thinker, 78; lively imagination, 80; poor parents-in-law, 79 Lavater, Johann Caspar, 204 law of association, 239 law of sufficient reason. See principle of sufficient reason laws. See ceremonial laws; Mishneh Torah (Maimonides); Mosaic laws laws of general attraction, 170–71 leadership, four types of, 98–100 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 230, 231; middle ground between atheism and Spinozism, 64; obscure representations, 235; pre-established harmony, 235; principle of sufficient reason, 14, 62; proof of the existence of God, 149–50. See also Wolff-Leibniz philosophy Lemberg, 76n(a) Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 204 Leucippus, 241 Lieberkühn, Philipp Julius, 226 Lisse, Heiman, 226 Lithuania. See Poland Lithuanian diet, 82 Lithuanian language, SM’s, 114

L.M. (Jewish police official in Berlin), 192–93 Locke, John, 192, 196 logic: Aristotle on, 242; categories as forms of, 58; form of reason, 141; Maimonides on, 187, 192; of the Mishna, 129; pre-Aristotelian, 241; prerequisite for metaphysics, 142, 144, 187; of the Talmud, 25–26; and truth, 233–34 London, 211 Longinus, 205 love, 213; of life, 211, 212n(a); of truth, 123, 124, 133, 157, 187, 191, 196, 197, 201, 210, 215 Luria, Isaac, Rabbi, 53 Lutheran pastor: conversation with SM about his conversion to Christianity, 216–17 M. (Malevo), 46, 47 M. (Mezritch), 88, 96 M. (rich man in Hannover), 214 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 106 Madame (in The Hague), rejected by SM, 212–13 Madame Dacier, 213 Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde (journal), 121, 122, 239 Mair, Rabbi (Meier), 54, 72 Maimon, Solomon: dropped and left alone at the age of three, 6; calls his mother Mama Kuza, 11–12; admires the beauty of Princess Radziwill, 15; grandmother on his nightly studies, 17–18; leg being crushed and healed by dead dog, 21; family moves to H., close to Iwenez, 24, 29; mental illness of his mother, 24; family moves to Mohilna, 29; commits theft, 32; controversy with his brother and cousin about brass buttons, 32–33; controversy over planned marriage arrangement with leaseholder’s daughter, 34–35; marriage arrangements with L. from Schmilowitz, 35– 36; becomes his father’s assistant, 37; marriage arrangements with future wife Sara, 37–40; married twice, 39–40; death of his mother, 40; wedding festivities, 41; fightings

Index

with his mother-in-law, 42–43; first son David born at the age of fourteen, 44; attempt to become invisible with the help of practical Kabbalah, 56; practices medicine, 61; attempts at exercises in penance, 76–77; friendship with Moses Lapidoth, 78–81; as guide for Russian soldiers, 83–84; at the court of Dov Ber in Mezritsch, 96–97; travels to Königsberg, 108; translates Mendelssohn’s Phaedon into Hebrew on the spot, 109; travels to Stettin, 109–10; travels to Frankfurt an der Oder, 110; received as great Talmudist and honorable rabbi, 110–11; first trip to Berlin and access denied, 111–12; lives as beggar for about six months, 113–14; travels to Posen, 114; meets chief Rabbi of Posen, 115, 116; stays in Posen in one of the elders’ houses, 115; happiest period in his life, 117; reputation growing, 117; talking carp episode, 118; horn episode, 119; second trip to Berlin and stays at the New Market, 192; permission to stay in Berlin, 193; meets with Polish friend and his friends, 193; sends doubts on Wolff’s proof of existence of God to Mendelssohn, 194; sends his metaphysical disputation to Mendelssohn, 194; philosophical discussions with Markus Herz, 195– 96; debates with Mendelssohn, 199; Berlin friends trying to undermine, 206–7; frustrates his Berlin friends, 208; travels to Hamburg, 209; travels to Amsterdam, 209; travels to The Hague and stays for about nine months, 210–11; discusses Talmud and Kabbalah with friend H., 210; attempted suicide, 211–12; rejects Madame, 212–14; travels to Hannover, 214; Herr M.’s recommendation, 214; second trip to Hamburg, 214; conversion attempt, 215–17; cured by Jewish doctor, 217; several years in Altona, peaceful and happy, 218; travels to Dessau, 223; third trip to Berlin, 224; failure of the mathematics project, 224; travels to

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Breslau, 224; discussion with Christian Garve, 225; relationship with Christian scholars, 225, 226; receives monthly stipend by Lipmann Meier, 225; stays in Aaron Zadig’s home, 226; sends his translation of Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours to Isaac Daniel Itzig, 227; divorce, 218–20, 227–29; fourth trip to Berlin, 230; letter to Kant, 231; Kant’s letter, 232; travels to Potsdam, 233; fifth trip to Berlin, 233 Character & characteristics: abhorrence of self-contradiction, 211; appearance, 109; atheist, 230; beard, 109, 219; boldness, 216; candor, 125, 193, 197, 210, 213, 215; childhood literary preferences, 16–17; clothes, 12, 80, 109, 111, 114, 116; curiosity, 16; cynic, 80; dedicated to contemplative life and idleness, 79, 193, 208, 221; depression, 211; desire for knowledge, 201, 215; enthusiasm, 17, 54, 206, 207; Epicurean, 207, 209, 213; follower of one philosophical system after another, 238; free-thinker, 78, 202; generosity, 206; heretic, 111, 118, 211, 229; as Kantian, 238; as Leibnizian, 238; libertine, 213; life no direction, 208; little experience of the world, 224; love of free intellectual exchange, 206; native language, 109, 114; not qualified to become a Christian, 217; oath to Maimonides, 128; passion for painting/drawing, 15–16, 208; Peripatetic, 238; problems adapting in Germany, 215; promoting dangerous philosophical systems, 207; as rabbi, 211; regarded as prophet, 118; religiosity, 75, 76–77, 80, 114, 119; reputation of an ardent devotee of sensual pleasure, 208; sexuality, 34, 44; shyness, 194–95; Skeptic, 238; Spinozist, 238; spreading dangerous ideas and philosophical systems, 208, 225; stoicism, 201; too much a philosopher to become a Christian, 216; truth-loving, 123, 211 Education & studies: reads Genesis at the age of six, 13; reads story

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Maimon, Solomon: Education & studies (continued) of Jacob and Esau, 14; use of his father’s library, 16–18; nightly studies as a child, 17; astronomy studies at the age of seven, 17–18; Talmud studies, 17, 24, 28, 50; school time in Mirz, 19; being taught by his father at the age of nine, 31; grasp of Talmud and commentaries at the age of nine, 31; learns Latin and German alphabets, 49–50; could perform the role of a rabbi at the age of eleven, 49; prejudices preventing from learning languages, 49; learning through deciphering, 50; Kabbalah, 53–55; German books, 59–61; medicine, 60; physics, 60; plan to study medicine, 108, 111, 112, 207, 226; science, 112; well versed in all areas of Jewish knowledge, 115; Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 118; fight against superstition through study, 119; intellectual rebirth due to Maimonides, 124, 201; scarcity of teachers and texts, 125; from melancholic religion to religion of reason, 127; Wolff’s Metaphysics, 193–94; Locke studies with private tutor of A.M., 196; Spinoza, 197, 230; method of reading and comprehending books without any prior knowledge, 197n(a); literature, 206; chemistry, 208; physics, 208; pharmacy, 208; knowledge of Dutch, 214; gymnasium in Altona, 217–18, 220–21; English classes, 218; Latin studies, 218; knowledge of German, 225; medical lectures by Morgenbesser, 226; Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 230; method of thinking oneself into a system of thought, 230; Leibniz, 230; Hume, 230. See also Kabbalah Tutoring & teaching: taking up residence as private tutor, 43; work as schoolmaster, 49; at leaseholder I.’s family, 82–83; plans to lecture on Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 117; two years in Posen, 117; German, 196–97, 227; in The Hague, 210; physics, belle lettres and

arithmetic to Aaron Zadig’s middle son, 226; in Breslau, 227; Euler’s Algebra, 227; Latin, 227 Works: “Antwort des Hrn. Maimon auf voriges Schreiben,” 235; Autobiography, 121–25; “Baco und Kant. Schreiben des H. S. Maimon an den Herausgeber dieses Journals,” 234–35; commentary to Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides), 111, 134n(a), 158, 160n(a), 237; editing Guide of the Perplexed (Maimonides) with commentary, 111–12; enlightenment-bringing books in Hebrew for Polish Jews, 222; essay on philosophical topics, 225; essay on the principle of partes orationis (based on Adelung), 197; “Essay on Theodicy,” 176; Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 230, 231n6, 233, 235; essay on Wolff’s proof of existence of God in Hebrew, 194; “Explication of Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishna, Avot 3:17,” 237; mathematical textbook in Hebrew, 223; metaphysical disputation doubting the foundations of revealed and natural theology in Hebrew, 194; Philosophical Dictionary, 238, 239; “Probe rabbinischer Philosophie,” 237; Ta’alumoth Hochma (natural philosophy according to Newtonian principles in Hebrew), 227; translation of Basnage’s History of the Jews into Hebrew, 222; translation of Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours into Hebrew, 227; translation of Wolff’s Latin mathematics into Hebrew, 224; “Über das Vorhersehungsvermögen,” 171, 239; “Über die Weltseele (Entelechia universi),” 235; “Über Wahrheit: Ein Brief des Hrn. S. Maimon, an seinem edlen Freund L. in Berlin,” 233; “Was sind Tropen?,” 234; writing for the Journal für Aufklärung, 233 Maimonides, Moses, 117; astronomy, 130, 131, 134, 144, 170, 204; attempted harmony between religion and reason, 129; commentary on the Mishna, 129, 237; contradictions in,

Index

138–39; criticism by Rabbi Abraham ben David, 130–32; dietary laws and medicine, 130; exegetical practice, 131–32, 190; firmness of principle and methodological rigor, 124; flexibility of his thinking, 124; greatest man of the Jewish nation, 124; ideal of a perfect human being, 128; immortality of the soul, 202; interpretation of the Talmudic great feast for the pious, 131; Jad Hachasaka, 26, 129, 130, 131; Kantian interpretation of his commentary on the Mishna, 237; life in Spain, 128; Mishneh Torah, 26, 129, 13, 131; on morality, 130; Mylath Hygion (Millot Hahigayon), 192; natural theology reconciled with revealed theology, 130; no friend of fanaticism and hyper-piety, 76; noble audacity, 124; perfection, 80–81, 201; philosophical skill, 124; on prayer, 189; against prejudices, zealotry and superstitions, 124; proof of the existence of God, 194; rational theology, 130; religious education, 129; revealed religion, 202; ritual laws and customs, 129; secular education, 129; SM attacking his articles of faith, 194; SM’s indebtedness to, 124, 128, 201; stoicism, 175; truthloving, 124. See also Guide of the Perplexed, The (Maimonides) Malachi, 67 malachim, 20 Malevo (M.), 46, 47 Mandeville, Bernard, 78 Manoth, Rabbi (tutor of Zadig family), 226 Maria (mother of Jesus), 95n(e) marriage arrangements, Jewish, 25, 34–40 Mashal Haqadmoni, 15n3 masquerade ball (allegory), 240–43 mathematics, 134, 147, 206, 220, 226; in contrast to philosophy, 238; and enlightenment, 223–24; imagination and intellect in, 159–60; Mendelssohn’s expertise in, 199; prerequisite for metaphysics, 144, 187; Rabbi Israel’s expertise in, 198

• 285

medical science, SM’s command of, 60–61 medicine, alternative, 21 medicine, Jewish practice of, 21, 45, 108, 217; by Kabbalists, 90; by Maimonides, 129 medicine, SM’s plan to study, 108, 111, 112, 207–8, 226 Meier, Lipmann (Meyer), 225 Meir, Rabbi (Mair), 54, 72 meimik bechochma, 193 melancholia, of SM’s mother, 24 melancholic piety, 107 melancholic religion, 127 Menascheh ben Israel. See Vindiciae Judaeorum (Menascheh ben Israel) Mendelssohn, Moses, 109, 192, 207, 222; accused by Jacobi as Spinozist, 204; attempt to steer SM away from Spinozism, 197; authority of the church in civil matters, 203; commentary to Mylath Hygion (Millot Hahigayon; Maimonides), 192; on conversion, 203; death, 204, 230; in discussions, 200–201; on enlightenment for Polish Jews, 223; on excommunication, 203; fiery by nature, 199; frustration with SM, 208–9; on God’s realities, 201; on the immortality of the soul, 202; inconsistent for the good of humanity, 203; Jerusalem, 202; keen observer of people, 199–200; knowledge of mathematics, 199; Lavater’s attacks on, 204; laws of Judaism as laws of a theocratic constitution, 202–3; Menasch Ben Israel, 202, 203; perfection, 201–2; permanence of the Jewish theocratic state, 203; perspicacity and profundity, 199; on poetry, 205; repelled by triviality and affectation, 200; revealed or positive religion, 202; SM on his philosophy, 197, 199, 207; on SM’s failed mathematics project, 224; on SM’s skepticism, 195; on SM’s translation of Basnage’s History of the Jews, 222; SM’s translation of his Morning Hours into Hebrew, 227; and The Society of Students of the Hebrew Language, 235; stoicism, 199; style of debating, 200–201; support of SM, 194–95, 206, 209, 210, 214; as

286

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Index

Mendelssohn, Moses (continued) Talmudist, 198, 237; using principles of Wolff-Leibniz philosophy, 201, 204; Vindiciae Judaeorum (Menascheh ben Israel), 202–3 mental illness: of SM’s mother, 24 metaphysics, 142, 158; abuse of thought, 234–35; Aristotle, 141; Bacon, Francis, 235; contradictions in, 14, 165; and Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 204; difficulty of, 143; and the doctrine of first cause, 14; dogmatic, 156–57; existence of God, 161; as figment of imagination, 242, 243; heavenly bodies as living rational creatures, 161; Heraclitus, 241; Kant, Immanuel, 204, 235, 242; limitation of our capacity for knowledge, 143; and logic, 142, 144, 187; as Madame M., 240; in Maimonides’ parable of the palace, 187; and mathematics, 143–45, 187; in modern philosophy, 242; natural disposition for, 145; non-corporeality of God, 161; as perfection, 145; Plato, 241–42; Pythagoras, 241; SM on, 243; unity of God, 161; Xenophanes, 241 Metaphysics or the Doctrine of God, the World and the Human Soul (Wolff), 193–94 Methusleh (Muatazila), 155 Meyer, Lipmann (Meier), 225 Mezritch (M.), 88, 96 Midrash Koheleth, 162 Mirz (Mir), 4, 8–9 Mishna, 67; commentary needed, 68; contradictions encountered, 139; interpretation by Hasidim, 95; logic of, 129; Maimonides’ commentary, 129, 237; six main parts of, 68, 73 Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), 26, 129; Hylchoth Deoth (ethical laws), 130; Hylchoth Jessodei Hathora (laws of a rational theology), 130; Hylchoth Kidosh Hachodesch (laws of the festival of the new moon), 130, 131. See also ceremonial laws; Mosaic laws Mohammed: on paradise, 70–71; religion of, 156 Mohilna (Mogil’no), 39; description, 29; plan to attract leaseholders, 29, 30; region’s leaseholder, 29–30,

31; Russian soldiers stationed, 32; synagogue in, 31 More Newochim (Maimonides). See Guide for the Perplexed, The (Maimonides) Morgenbesser, Michael, 226 Moritz, Karl Philipp, 121n2, 239 Morning Hours (Mendelssohn), 227 Mosaic laws: division by Maimonides, 185; and Egyptian laws, 70; in the history of Judaism, 67–70; intention to eradicate superstition and paganism, 183; and paganism, 182; perfection as goal, 181–82. See also ceremonial laws; Mishneh Torah (Maimonides) Moses, 52, 66, 67, 102, 104, 106, 136, 141, 142, 150, 152, 185, 189 Moses (books of), 20, 152. See also Genesis Moses (SM’s uncle), 11 Moses (victim of SM’s theft), 32 Moses ben Maimon. See Maimonides, Moses Moses of Lion (Lyon), 89 Mount Sinai, 52, 102, 153, 176 Mylath Hygion (Millot Hahigayon; Maimonides), 192; commentary by Mendelssohn, 192 mysteries: of Christianity, 216; in contrast to eternal truths, 101; definition, 101, 216; in Judaism, 66, 104; in Kabbalah, 89; minor and major, 105–6; of nature, 101, 137; of religions, 65; and superstition, 101; twofold, 103. See also Ark of the Covenant mysticism. See Hasidism; Kabbalah N. (Nesvizh), 29, 37, 39, 40 Narboni, Moses, Rabbi, 153 natural science, 87, 93, 136, 137, 142, 144, 187 natural theology, 130, 194, 195, 223 Newton, Isaac, 204, 227; laws of general attraction, 170–71 Nesvizh (N.), 29, 37, 39, 40 Nezach Israel (Israel Zamosc), 198 Niemen (Neman) River, 4, 8, 29 Noah, 182 North Sea, 209 Novogrod (Novhardok), 24

Index

omniscience, 177–80 On the Sublime (Longinus), 205 orthodox Jews, 111–12, 228 Ossian, 205 paganism, 182, 183, 185; in contrast to Judaism, 65, 102; corporeal attributes of God, 145–46; deception in, 106; grounded in material laws of nature, 102; and Mosaic laws, 182; as pure natural religion, 203; representing causes of effects in, 63, 66; results in polytheism, 102. See also religion parable of the palace (Maimonides), 186 paradise: Mohammed on, 70–71; in the Talmud, 71 Pardes Rimonim (Orchard of Pomegranates; Moses Cordovero), 53; Sefirot, 58 passion for life, 212n(a) pastor, Lutheran, conversation with SM about his conversion to Christianity, 216–17 patriarchs, 65, 67, 102 penance: Golath, 75; in Hasidism, 75–77, 86–87, 97; to hasten the arrival of the Messiah, 76; Hatarath nedorim, 76–77; by Jossel of Klezk, 76; Malkot-whipping, 76; Prince Radziwill forcing local Jews to do, for his desecration of church, 46; SM’s attempts at, 76–77; Teshuvat Ha-Kana, 75, 76; Teshuvat Hamishkal, 75 perfection: different degrees of, 58; divine, 57, 81, 91, 92, 93, 150, 177; four kinds of, according to Maimonides, 190–91; of free will, 238; as goal of Mosaic laws, 181–82; in Hasidism, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93; human, 80–81, 86, 122, 131, 141, 143, 150, 175, 187, 201–2, 216; and Kabbalah, 51; Mendelssohn on, 201–2; metaphysics as, 145; precondition for blessedness, 127; of prophets, 187; in rabbinic morality, 73; SM on, 80–81, 201–2; striving for, 59, 80–81, 93, 144, 175, 191, 216; in Wolff’s system, 238 Pessel (leaseholder’s second oldest daughter), 34–35 Phaedon (Mendelssohn), 109 Philosophical Dictionary (SM), 238, 239

• 287

physics, 240–41; Aristotelian, 158, 165; Democritus, 241 Physics (Sturm), 60 piety: abuse of, by “repentant ones,” 91; in Hasidism, 86, 87; Maimonides on, 76; melancholic, 107; of Simon of Lubtsch, 75; SM’s, 211 Piliezki, Herr (shaffar), 12 pious, the: in the book of Job, 179; delight in the sight of the divinity, 72; evil encountered by, 190; great feast for the, 131; rewards of, 70; secrets of God is alone for, 136; wears what the godless man procures, 32–33 pious ones, the. See Hasidim Plato, 124, 165; doctrine of memory, 71; metaphysics, 241–42; on poets, 205 poetry: Hebrew, 205; Mendelssohn on, 205; SM on, 205 Poland, 210, 211, 215, 227, 228; aristocracy, 44–45; burghers, 1; Catholic Church, 8–9; civic freedoms, 2–3; land leasing, 1, 2, 4; legal system, 22; monastery estates, 1; nobility, 1; peasants, 1; religious freedom, 2–3; religious hatred, 2–3; Russian army rampaging through, 83–84 Polish Jews, 1, 2; charity of, 74; customs and manners, 74; hatred against, 2–3; ignorance of, 44, 82; influence of rabbinic morality on, 74; marriages, 74; physicians, 21; poverty, 82; professional choices, 74; rabbinic despotism, 223; religious prejudices against, 44; scholars, 2, 87; SM’s plan to produce enlightenmentbringing books for, 222; theocracy, 223; uneducated working people, 2 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. See Poland politics, in contrast to religion and morality, 65 polytheism, 63, 102. See also paganism “pope” (Russian priest), accusing SM’s grandfather of murdering a Christian, 8–9 Posen, 114, 118, 119; chief rabbi, 115, 116, 117 Potsdam, 233 Prague, 17 prayer: by enlighteners of new Hasidim, 92; facing Jerusalem, 198–99; as

288

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Index

prayer (continued) function of an anthropomorphic system of theology, 211; Maimonides on, 189; Rabbi Chaninah on, 150; and sexual unions in the intellectual world, 56; SM on, 80–81, 211; speculative, 92 priest, Russian (“pope”), accusing SM’s grandfather of murdering a Christian, 8–9 primary cause. See first cause principle of sufficient reason, 14, 62, 194; articulation by imagination, 62–63; articulation by reason, 62–63 “Probe rabbinischer Philosophie” (SM), 237 Professor (denouncing SM as atheist), 230 prognostication, 238, 239. See also prophecy prophecy: Maimonides on, 171; SM on, 171 prophets, 67, 70, 73, 102, 106, 135, 149, 157, 172, 173, 174, 175–76, 177, 185, 190; perfection of, 187; Sabian, 182, 183 providence, 177–80, 189–90 Prussia, 4, 12, 22, 108 Psalms, 67, 73, 94, 136, 150, 152, 176, 177, 206 Ptolemy, 170, 204 Purim, Festival of (Haman), 10, 211 Putting Mendelssohn’s “Early Hours” to the Test (von Jakob), 204 Pyrrho, 242 Pythagoras, metaphysics, 241 Rabassi (Rav Ashi), 67, 68 Rabbenu Hakades (Rabbi Jehuda Hanassi), 67 rabbinic despotism, in Poland, 223 rabbinic morality: attitude towards women, 34; holiness, 73; influence on practical life, 74; praised by SM, 74; as stoicism, 73 rabbinic scholarship, abuse of, 91 Rabine (Ravina), 67, 68 Rachel (leaseholder’s youngest daughter), 34–35 Radziwill, Karol Stanislaw, Prince, 2, 4, 22; alcohol abuse, 46, 47, 48; atrocities against Jews, 45–46; character,

45; daughter admired by SM, 15; economy, 48; Mohilna project, 29, 30; personal doctor of, restoring health of Jossel of Klezk, 76; political decisions, 45; Russian soldiers rampaging through his lands, 45, 83; staying at inn of SM’s mother-inlaw, 47–48; vandalism, 46; violence against women, 45, 48 Radziwill, Princess, 15 Rashi (Rabbi Salomon Isaak), 26, 236 Rawuzky, Prince, 15 reason: art of running wild with, 52; communicating truths of, 106–7; essence of human beings, 140, 141, 189–90; exercise of virtue according to, 106; ideas of, 63, 102, 170; in Kabbalah, 52, 53; product of, 62; and religion, 62–63, 66, 68, 129, 216, 217; religion of, 127; in stoicism, 87; system of morality grounded in, 89 Rebecca, 173 Reimarus, Hermann Samuel, 223 religion: articulation by imagination, 62–63; articulation by reason, 62–63; contract between people and Highest Being, 102; definition, 62, 101; ecstatic, 127; false, 101; melancholic, 127; mysteries of, 65; natural, 62, 64–65, 101; philosophical, 203; political, 65; polytheism, 63; positive, 62, 64–65, 102; of reason, 127; reason in, 62–63, 66, 68, 129, 216, 217; revealed, 102; true, 63, 101. See also Christianity; Judaism; paganism; theology repentance, 91 “repentant ones,” 91 right, concept of: definition, 238; in the Epicurean system, 238; in Kant’s system, 238; in the Stoic system, 238; in Wolff’s system, 238 Rissia, Madame (SM’s mother-in-law): fightings with SM, 42–43; marriage arrangements, 37–40; mastery of cursing, 206; Prince Radziwill at her inn, 47–48; Xanthippe-like character, 37 Rosen, Madame (pharmacist), SM’s three-year apprenticeship, 208 Rosenthaler gate (Berlin), 111 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 31

Index

Russian army: plundering Prince Radziwill’s estates, 45, 83; SM as guide for, 83–84; stationed at Mohilna, 32 Russian priest (“pope”), accusing SM’s grandfather of murdering a Christian, 8–9 S. (Slonim), 59 Sabians, 182–85 Sais, inscription at, 105 Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Rabbi (Samuel ben Yehuda Ibn Tibbon), 133 Sara (SM’s wife), 37; appearance, 47; divorce, 218–19, 227–29; Prince Radziwill at her mother’s inn, 47–48; violence against, by Prince Radziwill, 48; wedding ceremony, 41 Schabatai Zebi (Shabetai Tzvi), 89 Schachna, Mr. (customs official), 22, 23 Schmilowitz, 35 schools, Jewish. See Jewish schools Schwersen, Mr.: lease holdings of, 22–23; robbing SM’s grandfather’s lease, 23 secret society. See Hasidism; Kabbalah secrets: in Holy Scriptures, 136; in Kabbalah, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 90; of nature, 60; in political religion, 65; of the prophetic writings, 134. See also mysteries Sefardi, 155 Sefer Jossipon, 17n10 Sefirot, 55, 58 Segner, Johann Andreas, 218, 220 self-annihilation, in Hasidism, 86, 87, 92, 94, 95n(d), 107 self-contradiction, abhorrence of, 211 self-deception, 79, 99 self-preservation, 212n(a) Seth, 182 ‘s-Gravenhage (The Hague), 210, 212 Sha’arei Kedusha (The Gates of Holiness; Vital), 54 Sha’arei Orah (The Gates of Light; Joseph Gikatilla), 55 Shabetai Tzvi (Schabatai Zebi), 89 shaffars, 11–12 Shimon Mordekhai of Slonim, Rabbi, 59n21 Shofar, 220 Simei, son of Gera, 173 Simon, Mr. (banker), 226 Simon Ben Jochoi (Shimon bar Yohai), 89

• 289

Simon ben Lakish, Rabbi (Reish Lakish), 179 Simon of Lubtsch, 75–76 Simon the Pious, 67 skepticism: Humean, 231, 235; Mendelssohn on SM’s, 195; Pyrrho, 242; SM’s, 195, 235, 238; Talmudic, 27 S.L. (SM’s patron in Berlin), 196, 209 slabode, 29 Slonim (S.), 59 sleepwalking, 84–85 smallpox, 36, 78 Society of Friends of the Noble and Good, 237 Society of Students of the Hebrew Language: on moral and political condition of the Jewish nation, 235; studying Hebrew from the sources, 236 Society of the Pious. See Hasidism Socrates, 124, 241 Solomon, 103, 150 sophists, 241 Spain: arts and sciences in the twelfth century, 128; attitude towards Jews, 128; history of the persecution of Jews in, 17 sphera armillaris, 18 Spinoza, Benedict de, 195–96, 230, 231; acosmic not atheistic, 64; on first cause, 64; matter and spirit, 63–64; substance immediate cause of all effects, 63; unity real, variety ideal, 64 Spinozism: Fénelon arguing for, 218; Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s, 204; Kabbalah as, 58; Mendelssohn’s attempt to steer SM away from, 197; SM convinced of truth of, 197 Stanislaw II. August Poniatowski, King of Poland: SM’s Essay on Transcendental Philosophy dedicated to, 233 Stettin, 108, 109, 110 stoicism: concept of right, 238; courage and resolve through practice of, 98n(g); in Hasidism, 87, 99; Maimonides,’ 175; Mendelssohn’s, 199; perfection of free will, 238; rabbinic morality as, 73; and reason, 87; SM’s, 201; Zeno, 242 Sturm, Johann Christoph, 60 suicide, SM’s attempted, 211–12 Sukowiborg (Zukowy Borek), 4

290

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Index

superstition, 7, 101, 117, 118–19, 124, 183, 215, 227; Maimonides undermining, 124, 161; use of, in Hasidism, 106 Ta’alumoth Hochma (SM), 227 Talmud, 15, 18, 67, 155, 162n(a), 210, 219, 224, 233; angels in, 161; apparent inconsistencies, 72; Ark of the Covenant, 103–4; attack by Eisenmenger, 71; attributes of God, 150; and children education, 17; commentaries, 26, 236; content, 26; contradictions encountered, 26, 50, 68, 69, 139, 237; dealing with jurisprudence, 16; “dry content,” 16; on evil, 179; exegesis, 72, 129; God’s effects as consequence of His will, 181; on Jacob and Esau, 14; language of, 25; logic of, 25–26; meaning of the names of God, 105; method of relating to other writings (asmachta), 72–73; mnemonic device of, 72; name Jehova, 152; not written down at first, 155; on paradise, 71; principles of natural science and metaphysics, 136; and rabbinic scholars, 237; skepticism, 27; Tosphoth (Tosafot), 26, 236 Talmud, study of: benefits and shortcomings, 50; importance of, 24–25; level one: language, 25; level two: interpretation, 25–26; level three: disputation, 26–27; method of the chief rabbi of Iwenez, 28 Talmudists, 174; accusations and abuse leveled against, by Christians, 71; formal application of religion, 103; Maimonides on, 187; role of, 25; SM’s defense of, 71; as sought-after sons-in-law, 25; women running their household, 25; on worship, 188 Tamar, 162 Tamastius (Themistius), 156 Tamuz, 184 Teshuvat Ha-Kana, 75, 76 Teshuvat Ha-Mishkal, 75 The Hague (‘s-Gravenhage), 210, 212 theft, 32 Themistius (Tamastius), 156 theocracy, Jewish, 66, 202–3, 223, 236

theodicy, 176, 238, 239 theology: anthropomorphic system of, 70, 211; atheist system of, 63–64; natural, 130, 137, 195, 201, 223; pagan, 102; rational, 130; revealed, 130; Wolff’s, 194. See also religion Tieftrunk, Johann Heinrich, 234 Timaeus (Plato), 165 time: does not apply God, 149; inseparable from movement, 164; Kant’s notion of, 165; Maimonides on nature of, 164–65 Tosphoth (Tosafot), 236; genesis of, 26 Tree of Life, The (Etz Hayyim; Vital), 53 truth: cannot be harmful, 208; criterion of, 156; definition, 234; eternal, 101, 175, 201, 204; imagination and, 159; logical, 233–34; logical versus metaphysical, 234; love of, 123, 124, 133, 157, 187, 191, 196, 197, 201, 210, 215; metaphysical, 144; opposed to deception and illusion, 238–39 “Über das Mißlingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee” (Kant), 239 “Über das Vorhersehungsvermögen” (SM), 171, 239 “Über die Weltseele (Entelechia universi)” (SM), 235 “Über Wahrheit: Ein Brief des Hrn. S. Maimon, an seinem edlen Freund L. in Berlin” (SM), 233 Vindiciae Judaeorum (Menascheh ben Israel), 202–3 Vital, Hayyim, 53, 54 vocation of man: in Hasidism, 86; Maimonides on, 141 Voit (Woyt, Johann Jacob), 60, 61 voivode, 30, 45 Vollständige Anleitung zur Algebra (Euler), 227 W. (SM’s patron in Hamburg), 217–18 Warsaw, 5, 30 “Was sind Tropen?” (SM), 234 Wolff, Christian: concept of right, 238; explanation of logical truth, 233, 234; Metaphysics or the Doctrine of God, the World and the Human

Index

Soul, 193–94; ontology, 197; perfection, 238; principle of sufficient reason, 194; proof of the existence of God, 194; SM translating his Latin mathematics into Hebrew, 224 Wolffians, attachment to their system as political trick and hypocrisy, 197 Wolff-Leibniz philosophy, 199, 201, 204 women: attitude towards, in Hasidism, 97; attitude towards, in rabbinic morality, 34; attitude towards, SM’s, 213; supporting scholars, 2, 25; violence against, by Prince Radziwill, 45, 48

• 291

world soul, 235 world spirit, 169, 202 Woyt, Johann Jacob (Voit), 60, 61 Xenophanes, metaphysics, 241 Zachariah, 67 Zadig, Aaron, SM teaching his children, 226 Zemach David (Gans), 17 Zeno, 242 Zohar, 53, 75, 89 Zukowy Borek (Sukowiborg), 4