Why Is Creation in the Torah?

My writing this paper was originally stimulated by Oren Fass, “My Encounter with the Firmament,” TheTorah (2017), especially the section, “The Infallible Masorah,” in which Fass takes as a given that

[A]ccording to traditional Jewish conceptions, an unbroken tradition (masorah) exists from God at Sinai to our sages to the present (see, e.g., m. Abot 1:1). … Moreover, this same masorah is also responsible for assuring us that what we know about our traditions and our beliefs are true. All proofs and arguments central to the defense of our core faith lead back to the idea of an unbroken chain of information leading to God’s communication with Moses on Mount Sinai.

I believe that while Rashi (and R. Judah Halevi) agree with Fass, Rambam does not.

For an exhaustive treatment, see the essays included in Ephraim Kanarfogel and Moshe Sokolow (eds.), Between Rashi and Maimonides: Themes in Medieval Jewish Thought, Literature, and Exegesis (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2010).

While Rashi popularized this explanation, the position of the Amora from the land of Israel, Rabbi Isaac, quoted here appears in the earlier midrash collection, Midrash Tanchuma (Bereishit §11). See discussion in Jason Radine, “The Torah Begins with Creation to Defend Israel’s Right to the Land?” TheTorah (2020). For more on Rashi’s gloss here, see also Warren Zev Harvey, “Creation from Primordial Matter: Did Rashi Read Plato’s Timaeus?” TheTorah (2019); and James A. Diamond, “In the Beginning There Is the Question” TheTorah (2016).

Rashi may also be commenting sardonically on the futility of Muslim/Christian wars over the Land of Israel—God designated the Land for the Jews, not for Muslims or Christians. In the continuation of his comment, Rashi explains that the point of including the early stories of Genesis was to teach that God created the entire cosmos, so that the People of Israel could fulfill the Torah:

אין המקרא הזה אומר אלא דורשני, כמה שדרשוהו רבותינו: בשביל התורה שנקראת ראשית דרכו (משלי ח:כב), ובשביל ישראל שנקרא ראשית תבואתו (ירמיהו ב:ג).

This verse calls aloud for explanation in the manner that our Rabbis explained it:[4] God created the world for the sake of the Torah which is called (Proverbs 8:22) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) way,” and for the sake of Israel who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) increase.”

Almost anticipating the motto of Orthodox religious Zionism’s mantra, עם ישראל בארץ ישראל על פי תורת ישראל “The people of Israel, in the Land of Israel, following the Torah of Israel,” Rashi’s reading argues that, in sum, the creation story teaches us that the Torah was created for the people of Israel, and that God planned for them to keep the Torah in the land of Israel.

Moses Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed 2:30 gives an account of what the creation story is really all about; it is not about how God created the world, in the same way that we learn in Guide 2:1–2 that the Garden of Eden is not meant to be taken as history. For a study of Rambam’s view of history, see Kenneth Seeskin, “Maimonides' Sense of History,” Jewish History 18 (2004): 129–145.

I cite here and below from the Guide translation of Lenn Evan Goodman and Phillip Lieberman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, forthcoming). For the convenience of readers who do not yet have this exemplary translation, I also provide page numbers to the translation of Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963). The passage here appears in Pines, pp. 8-9.

Maimonides is, after all, the author of the famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, on which see Menachem Kellner, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). For the alternative view, see Howard (Chaim) Kreisel, “Were Maimonides and Some of His Followers Orthoprax?” TheTorah (2017).

This is reflected in the first of Maimonides’ principles of faith, the first of the 613 commandments in his Book of Commandments, and the first commandment in the Mishneh Torah.

In an earlier text, his commentary of the mishnaic tractate Hagigah, Maimonides explains that the commandments (gufei Torah) depend upon their roots (ikkarim, Ar. uṣūl), physics and metaphysics. See Isadore Twersky’s magisterial, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 361 and Kellner, Dogma, p. 40.

Above in the Introduction to the Guide (Pines, p. 6); see also earlier texts: Commentary to Hagigah 2:1 and “Laws Concerning Foundations of the Torah,” 2 (end) and 4 (end); the first of these is presented below.

For possible sources, see Michael Schwarz’s Hebrew Translation of the Guide (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2002), vol. 1, p, 14, note 41.

Maimonides’s well-known elitism forces him to adopt esoteric writing. In doing so, he claims to be following the Sages. The Sages, we learn here, were themselves following the Torah that presented these deep matters, as we just saw, in oblique, poetical and baffling words. For a recent discussion of Maimonides’ intellectual elitism, see Daniel Rynhold and Michael J. Harris, Nietzsche, Soloveitchik, and Contemporary Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 268-277. Maimonides’ esotericism has been the subject of endless discussion. For my view of what Maimonides sought to accomplish by his esoteric writing, see Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006) 15–17, and, in greater detail, Kellner, הרמב"ם של שטראוס [“Strauss’ Maimonides”], Iyyun 50 (2001): 397–406.

This is emphasized by Rabbi Josef Kafih (1917-2000) in his commentary on Mishneh Torah, “Laws of the Sabbath,” v. 3.

Compare the end of chapter 4 in “Laws of the Foundations of the Torah.” There Rambam notoriously takes literally the comment in B Sukkah 28a that while maʿaseh merkavah is “a great thing,” Talmudic discussions (havaya d’Abbaye ve-Rava) are “a small thing.” In his Introduction to the Code of Maimonides, p. 494, Isadore Twersky characterizes Rambam here as taking the Talmudic text with “crushing literalism.”

On commandments as tools, see Confrontation, ch. 2. The commandments are not the only available tool to achieve perfection; this is shown by the fact that Rambam told his translator Shmuel ibn Tibbon that Aristotle (an uncircumcised gentile!) achieved a level of perfection bordering on prophecy. See Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Y. Sheilat (Maʿaleh Adumim: Maʿaliyot, 1987), vol. 2, p. 553. On Rambam on Aristotle, see also Guide 1:5 beginning (Pines, p. 20). Another way of thinking about this point is that, for Maimonides, the study of physics and metaphysics makes the full and accurate observance of the commandments possible. Compare Guide, 3:54 and my discussion in Maimonides on Human Perfection (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), ch. 3.

For a full discussion see Menachem Kellner and David Gillis, Maimonides the Universalist: The Ethical Horizons of the Mishneh Torah (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2020).

In addition to the texts cited in this article, see the ends of chapters 2 and 4 in “Laws of the Foundations of Torah;” in the Guide see chapters 2:2 and 2:29. For several examples of this see James Diamond and Menachem Kellner, Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilizations, 2019).

Emphasis added. Noteworthy here is Maimonides’ emphasis on what he understood in this matter.

Ma^ʿaseh bereshit (Ar: al-^ʿilm al-tibaʾi) thus includes two topics: the science of physics (as exposited in the opening chapters of "Laws of the Foundations of the Torah") and analysis of the question of creation.

Al-^cilm al-ilahi in Arabic. This is the standard Arabic term for metaphysics. Compare further Rambam's early work "Logical Terms," chapter 14, and my Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), pp. 65-79.

I.e., physics and metaphysics.

Note well: the Sages considered physics and metaphysics important.

I.e., the tannaim whose views are cited in Ḥagigah 2:1.

I.e., discursively, and to anyone who wishes to learn.

An obvious reference to the opening sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: "All humans by nature desire to know." Humans, after all, are rational animals; knowing is the activity unique to them. It is no surprise that truly human beings have a great desire for knowledge.

Note well Rambam’s letter to his student with which he opens the Guide of the Perplexed, Pines, pp. 3-4.

For this translation of Rambam’s commentary on Mishnah Hagigah 2:1, see Menachem Kellner, “Maimonides' Commentary on Mishnah Hagigah ii. 1: Translation and Commentary,” in From Strength to Strength: Lectures from Shearith Israel, ed., Marc D. Angel (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1998), 101–111. In the continuation of this passage, Rambam explains that one disrespects the honor of one’s Master (i.e., God) by failing to protect one’s intellect. The Hebrew is kevod kono.

Kuzari i. 69. See Norman Roth, “The ‘Theft of Philosophy’ by the Greeks from the Jews,” Classical Folia 32 (1978): 53–68 and, at much greater length, Avraham Melamed, רקחות וטבחות: המיתוס על מקור החכמות (The Myth of the Jewish Origins of Science and Philosophy) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2010) (pp. 100-120 on Halevi and Rambam). In English, see Melamed, “The Myth of the Jewish Origins of Philosophy in the Renaissance: From Aristotle to Plato,” Jewish History 26 (2012): 41–59.

He says this as well in the Mishneh Torah, Sefer Madaʿ, “Laws of Foundations of the Torah,” 1:1; see the details in my גם הם קרויים אדם: הנכרי בעיני הרמב"ם (They Too Are Called Human: Gentiles in the Eyes of Maimonides) (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2016), ch. 2. On the issue raised here generally, see the discussion of Rambam's understanding of the lost philosophical tradition of the Jews in my Maimonides on the “Decline of the Generations” and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), pp. 43–49 (and the sources cited there). For commentaries on the Guide of the Perplexed which refer to the original Jewish provenance of Aristotelian books, see my "The Conception of the Torah as a Deductive Science in Medieval Jewish Thought," Revue des Etudes Juives 146 (1987): 265–279.

Maimonides’ claim about the meaning of the Torah is actually no more surprising than that of many Kabbalists. For Maimonides, Moses received the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, and the philosophic Torah at Sinai. For many Kabbalists, Moses received the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, and the Kabbalistic Torah at Sinai. Does the latter claim make any more sense than the former? On this, see Oded Yisraeli, “Jewish Medieval Traditions Concerning the Origins of the Kabbalah,” JQR 106 (2016): 21–41. Maimonides, we will see below, held that the Mosaic philosophical tradition had been lost and had to be reconstructed. This strikes at the heart of all claims, Kabbalistic and otherwise, that the true esoteric teaching of the Torah had been passed on in an unbroken chain from Moses.

Concerning that reader, see Rambam’s letter to the student for whom he wrote the Guide, Pines, pp. 3-5.

Pines, pp. 415-416. On all this, see Rambam’s Commentary to Ḥagigah above.

Rambam makes no claims here of divinely inspired daʿat Torah. He emphasizes over and over again that his conclusions are his own, as much as he is convinced (or hopes?) that they accurately reflect the Torah’s teachings…but, he could be wrong.

This calls to mind Rambam’s claim about Abraham, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Madaʿ, “Laws of Idolatry,” 1:3, that he came to know God on his own, without a teacher or guide.

Goodman and Lieberman translate “Law” (the Arabic is שרעיא). In the context, the lowercase seems more appropriate to me. If one wants to translate שרעיא here with an uppercase “L” then I think the more appropriate translation would be “Torah.”

As Rambam makes clear in the introduction to the Guide (Pines, p. 16), publishing the book constitutes a violation of the halakhic proscription (in Mishnah Hagigah 2:1) against teaching the secrets of the Torah publicly. For an analysis of a similar hesitation on Rambam’s part in composing the Mishneh Torah, see Omer Michaelis, “Crisis Discourse and Framework Transition in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah,” Open Philosophy 3 (2020): 664-80.

Actually, he did too good of a job, which explains why there are so many interpretations of Rambam.

Compare the opening paragraphs in Guide 1:71 (Pines, pp. 175–177). On these two passages see now Omer Michaelis, “‘Therefore I Have Removed the Veil’: Disclosure of Secrets in Eleventh-Century Islam and the Literary Character of Maimonides’s Guide,” Harvard Theological Review 113 (2020): 378–404.

This question was raised by figures as diverse as Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi (1320–1380), Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/12), and R. Elhanan Wasserman, hy”d (1874–1941).

For further discussion of this issue, see James Diamond and Menachem Kellner, Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2019), 110-127.

For a remarkable study of Rambam’s methodology, see James A. Diamond, “Forging a New Righteous Nation: Maimonides’ Midrashic Interweave of Verse and Text,” in New Directions in Jewish Philosophy, ed. Aaron Hughes and Elliot Wolfson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 268–325.

The Mishneh Torah is presented as authoritative (based, as Rambam claims it to be in his introduction to the work, on an unbroken tradition). However, it might be said that it is a work of Jewish content, presented in a “Greek” fashion --- logically structured, opening with several chapters of “axioms.”

It is also not authoritative in the sense that Maimonides makes no claim to “da’at Torah” (a view with which he could have very little sympathy). See Menachem Kellner, רבנים בפוליטיקה: מחקר על תיאוריה פוליטית יהודית בימי הביניים ובעת החדשה (“Rabbis in Politics: A Study of Medieval Jewish Political theory”) Medinah ve-Hevrah 3 (2003): 673-698.

My thanks to James Diamond, David Gillis, Eric Lawee, Seth (Avi) Kadish, and Eugene Korn for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

Zev Farber asked me this question as part of the editing process, and I have answered it in this appendix.

On this last point, see Howard Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 291.

On Maimonides on Ezekiel’s mistakes, and generally on his reading of Ezekiel, see also Daniel Davies, “The Secret of the Ma’aseh Merkavah According to Maimonides,” TheTorah (2015). See further Shalom Rosenberg על פרשנות המקרא בספר מורה נבוכים (“Bible Exegesis in the Guide of the Perplexed,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981): 85–157 [143–149].