Tabernacle, Sacrifices, and Judaism: Maimonides vs. Nahmanides

Who needs the Tabernacle? What is the purpose of sacrifices? Maimonides and Nahmanides have radically different answers to these questions, reflecting a core debate about the nature of Judaism and the purpose of its rituals.

Prof.

Menachem Kellner

Prof.

Menachem Kellner

Categories:

Pekudei

Tabernacle, Sacrifices, and Judaism: Maimonides vs. Nahmanides

Much of the book of Exodus is dedicated to the construction of the mishkan (tabernacle).^[1] Moses is told to have the tabernacle and its implements constructed out of expensive materials, and to place it in the very center of the Israelite camp.^[2] What was the mishkan for? Moses Maimonides (Rambam, 1138–1204) and Moses Nahmanides (Ramban, 1194–1270) expressed two very different approaches to its meaning.

In order to understand the nature of this debate, I start with their debate over the nature of sacrifices.

Sacrifices—Maimonides vs. Nahmanides

For Maimonides, the sacrifices were simply a device to wean the Israelites away from idolatry, and nothing more. Sacrifices were not part of God’s ideal plan, as it were, but were “forced” on God by the primitive nature of the Israelites leaving Egypt:^[3]

The familiar mode of worship, the way of life we grew up in, prevalent throughout the world in those days, just meant sacrificing various animals in the temples where those images were erected, bowing down to them, and burning incense before them. The pious and devout in those days worshiped only in temples dedicated to the stars, as I explained. So, with the wisdom and grace evident throughout creation, God did not decree that His Law simply annul, reject, and abolish all such worship (Guide of the Perplexed, 3.32).^[4]

Moreover, Maimonides explains the details of sacrificial law, such as the choice of which animals to sacrifice, as merely the way God decided to wean Israel away from the idolatrous society in which they had lived:

The Torah, as Onkelos reads it, tells us clearly that the ancient Egyptians worshiped the Constellation Aries. So they prohibited slaughtering sheep and abominated shepherds... Beyond that, some Sabian sects worshiped jinn and believed they took a goat form.^[5] That is why they called jinn fauns.

Such beliefs were quite widespread in the days of our Teacher Moses: No more shall they sacrifice to goats (Lev 17:7). So these sects forbade eating goat meat. And slaughtering cattle was abhorrent to nearly all pagans. They all venerated these beasts. So you’ll find even today that Hindus never slaughter cattle, even in lands where other beasts are slaughtered. To blot out all trace of such unsound beliefs, then, we were commanded to sacrifice animals of these three kinds specifically: of the herd and flock (Lev 1:2) (Guide of the Perplexed, 3.26).^[6]

Maimonides continues in this vein, arguing that the sacrificial law was useful at the time for combatting idolatrous beliefs. Presumably, these rules became obsolete over time, as society changed, even if they remained in force as long as the Temple stood.

Nahmanides rejected this claim in intemperate language (in his commentary to Lev. 1:9):

והנה הם דברי הבאי, ירפאו שבר גדול וקושיא רבה, על נקלה יעשו שולחן י"י מגואל, שאיננו רק להוציא מלבן של רשעים וטפשי עולם,

But these are mere expressions, healing casually a severe wound and a great difficulty and making the table of the Eternal polluted [as if the offerings were intended only] to remove false beliefs from the hearts of the wicked, and fools of the world…^[7]

Instead, Nahmanides insisted that the sacrifices had both psychological value (something Maimonides could accept) and also, and more fundamentally, cosmic-theurgical significance.

The Sin of Eden—Maimonides vs. Nahmanides

Nahmanides’ understanding of the purpose of sacrifices connects to his understanding of human history, specifically the sin of Adam and Eve, which, he believed, caused a cosmic breach.^[8] In Kabbalistic terms, this “original sin” (חטא קדמוני)^[9] sundered the sefirot of shekhinah and tif’eret.^[10] The commandments of Judaism are, first and foremost, a “divine need” (zorekh gavoha), to repair this breach in the cosmos.

Here again, the contrast with Maimonides is stark. For Maimonides, the manifest content of the early Genesis stories are not to be taken literally; they don’t teach us the actual history of the universe.^[11] While the latent meaning of the creation story teaches us principles of physics,^[12] the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is an allegorical explanation of the human condition (Guide 2.30).

Maimonides himself stops short of presenting this approach openly,^[13] but R. Joseph Kafih (1917–2000), the great Maimonidean translator, expositor, and member of the rabbinic high court in Jerusalem (no “treyf” academic he!), elucidates Maimonides' point:^[14]

ורבינו הביא רק הטעם המציאותי... והתעלם מכל לשון המדרש, בהתאם לשיטתו שכל אותו התיאור של אדם וחוה והנחש בבראשית ב', הוא מונחים אליגוריים וכמו שכתב במו"נ חלק ב', פרק ל, ולא חוה האשה הטבעית היא שגרמה מיתה לאדם, עיין שם.

Our teacher [Maimonides] brought a realistic explanation [for why women light Sabbath candles] … [he] ignored the language of the midrash, in accordance with his position that the entire description of Adam, Eve, and the snake in Genesis ch. 2 is couched in allegorical terms, as he wrote in Guide ii. 30. It is not Eve the actual woman who caused death to Adam [humankind?]. See there.^[15]

For Maimonides, there was no Fall, no original sin, no cosmic tearing, and, consequently, no need to help put God back together, as it were.^[16] Maimonides’ God is transcendent; Maimonides’ fundamental problem as a religious philosopher is to connect that God to the history of the Jewish people and the mizvot (commandments) of the Torah.^[17] In other words, his problem was to “move” the “unmoved mover” of Aristotelian philosophy.

The God of Nahmanides, in contrast, is imminent in the world and has needs that only the Jewish people can satisfy.^[18] Nahmanides’ problem is to connect the “most moved mover” (as Abraham Joshua Heschel famously put it) to the God who created the entire cosmos.

Application to Sacrifices

This goes a long way toward explaining why Nahmanides reacted so strongly against Maimonides’ view of sacrifices. For Maimonides, God has no need of burnt offerings or worship sites; these are all for the benefit of humanity. For Nahmanides, however, the sacrificial cult plays a crucial role in satisfying the divine need. He affirms this in his commentary on Lev. 1:9, where, introducing a Kabbalistic idea, he says:

ועל דרך האמת: יש בקרבנות סוד נעלם

By way of truth, there is a hidden secret contained in the offerings.^[19]

Nahmanides hints at the meaning of the hidden secret in the continuation of his commentary—namely, that the secret of the offerings is that they satisfy a divine need.^[20]

Purpose of the Mishkan: The View of Nahmanides

With this background, we may now ask (finally), what is the purpose of the mishkan in the wilderness? It is fair to say that in contemporary traditionalist Judaism the view expressed by Nahmanides dominates.^[21] Let us therefore look at his view first. He clarifies his position in his comment on the verse:

^{שמות כט:מו} וְיָדְעוּ כִּי אֲנִי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִי אֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לְשָׁכְנִי בְתוֹכָם אֲנִי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵיהֶם.

^{Exod 29:46} And they shall know that I YHWH am their God, who brought them out from the land of Egypt that I might abide among them, I YHWH their God.

Nahmanides writes:

...יש בענין סוד גדול, כי כפי פשט הדבר, השכינה בישראל צורך הדיוט ולא צורך גבוה, אבל הוא כענין שאמר הכתוב: ישראל אשר בך אתפאר (ישעיהו מ"ט:ג'), ואמר יהושע: ומה תעשה לשמך הגדול (יהושע ז':ט')...

… there is in this matter a great secret. For in the plain sense of things it would appear that [the dwelling of] of the Divine Glory [ha-shekhinah] in Israel was to fulfill a need below,^[22] but it is not so. It fulfilled a need above as in the meaning of Scripture, “Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isa 49:3); and Joshua said, “[For when the Canaanites … hear of it … and cut off our name from the earth,] and what will You do for your great name?” (Josh 7:9)…^[23]

The word mishkan is formed from the root ש.כ.נ, meaning to dwell.^[24] According to Nahmanides, God desires to live in the world generally, but needs to dwell in one place more than all others: among the Israelites, in the Land of Israel generally, and specifically in the Temple. The verse explains that owing to this desire on God’s part, there was a need to redeem the Israelites from Egypt, for God could not dwell in their midst so long as they were still slaves and deep in what tradition would have called the forty-ninth level of impurity.^[25] The late Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein makes this point explicitly, based on his reading of the Sages:

God desires to live in the world generally, but He wants to dwell in one place more than in all others: among Am Yisrael (=the people of Israel), in Eretz Yisrael (=the land of Israel), in the Temple. The verse explains that owing to this desire on God's part, there was a need to redeem Benei Yisrael from Egypt, for God could not dwell in their midst so long as they were still enslaved and mired in the 49^th level of impurity.^[26]

It is a sign of how deeply Kabbalah and Hasidism have influenced contemporary Judaism that for many in our world, the notion of God’s needs (without even the reservation, kiviyakhol, “as it were”) will not be surprising.^[27] Abraham Joshua Heschel traces the idea to the school of Rabbi Akiva and finds opposition to it in the school of Rabbi Ishmael.^[28] Be that as it may, Nahmanides and his followers had rabbinic warrant for the idea.^[29]

Human History According to Maimonides

In order to understand Maimonides’ view of the mishkan, we have to look at his understanding of the history of Judaism.^[30] God’s covenant with Abraham involved only the prime objective of the Torah, the affirmation of God’s existence, unity, and incorporeality. Abraham’s descendants, when tested by Egyptian slavery, proved themselves unable to hold fast to Abraham’s teaching.

Fulfilling his promises to the patriarchs, God sent Moses to become “our teacher” (rabbenu) and lead the Israelites out of Egypt, then saved them from the Egyptians at the Red Sea and brought them to a place called Marah. (Exod 15:22-26). Here we arrive at what I take to be the most revolutionary aspect of Maimonides discussion in Guide of the Perplexed 3.32.

At Marah, God tried again, as it were, ordaining the Sabbath and laws governing social behavior (the rest of the Ten Commandments).^[31] Abraham’s Torah was, we might say, purely theological.^[32] The additional commandments of Marah, Maimonides says, “clearly said nothing of sacrifices and burnt offerings.” They are the institution of the Sabbath and the civil laws. In short, the Torah of Marah added to Abraham’s Torah a further element of theology (belief in creation of the world) and, in addition, ethics.^[33]

The Extra Laws: Added out of Necessity

When tested again (by Moses’ apparent disappearance on Mt. Sinai), the Children of Israel proved themselves unable to hold fast to the minimalist Torah of Marah and worshiped the Golden Calf. It was at this point that God was “forced” (as Isaac Abravanel and Ovadia Sforno were later to say^[34]) to compass the Children of Israel about with sacrifices and their consequences: mishkan/temple, priests and levites, ritual purity and impurity, and pilgrim festivals.^[35]

All of these are only means, not ends in themselves. They all relate to what Maimonides called God’s second intention only, and were not meant to be part of the Torah as originally conceived by God. Maimonides emphasizes his point, concluding his argument dramatically:

Our first laws, then, clearly said nothing of sacrifices and burnt offerings. Those were secondary, as I said. The Psalms voice the same idea as Jeremiah, reproaching the whole nation for flouting the Law’s chief intent and failing to distinguish what’s primary from what’s secondary: ‘Hear, My people, and I will speak; I indict thee, Israel. God am I, thy God. Not for thy sacrifices do I blame thee, or thy burnt offerings, ever before Me. I’ll take no bullock from thy house, nor any goats from thy folds. [Every beast in the forest is Mine; cattle, in the hills, by the thousand!]’ (Ps. 50:7-9). Wherever this theme recurs, that is its thrust. Understand this well and reflect on it.^[36]

With this in mind, we can turn to Maimonides’ understanding of the Tabernacle.

Purpose of the Mishkan: The View of Maimonides

Maimonides defines the purpose of the mishkan in the wilderness and afterwards the Temple in Jerusalem very clearly (“Laws of the Temple,” I.1):

מצות עשה לעשות בית ליי' מוכן להיות מקריבים בו הקרבנות, וחוגגין אליו שלש פעמים בשנה שנאמר ועשו לי מקדש...

It is a positive commandment to make a house for the Lord,^[37] designed for the offering of sacrifices and for making thereto a pilgrimage three times each year. For it is said: “And let them make Me a sanctuary” (Exod 25:8).^[38]

For Maimonides, the point of both the mishkan and the Temple is to provide a single place for the offering of sacrifices (in line with his claim, Guide of the Perplexed 3.47, that God sought to limit the sacrificial cult)—they were certainly not meant to provide an abode for God.

Maimonides’ view finds expression in his Book of Commandments (positive commandment 20):

By this injunction, we are commanded to build a Sanctuary for His service. There sacrifices are to be offered and the perpetual fire is to burn, thither the [prescribed] pilgrimages are to be made, and there the festivals and assemblages are to be held every year, as will be explained. This injunction is contained in His words (exalted be He), “And let them make me a Sanctuary” (Exod 25:8).^[39]

Not a hint here of the idea that God sought an abode on earth! In Guide 3.46 Maimonides provides a long series of historical and social explanations for many of the practices connected to the sacrificial cult, the Temple, and the pilgrim festivals. None of them is theurgic at all, and none of them hints at the sort of view proposed by Nahmanides.

God to Humanity or Humanity to God

There is a deeper debate here. Put crudely, for Nahmanides and thinkers like him, the purpose of the mishkan (as well as many other aspects of Judaism) is to bring God, as it were, down to earth. For Maimonides, on the other hand, it is the point of all Jewish practices to assist human beings in their striving to raise themselves, as it were, in the direction of God.^[40]

Reflecting on all this, and understanding it well, we realize that, according to Maimonides, the sacrifices have no intrinsic value; they are part of a complex, interconnected structure of institutions. All were commanded by God, all of them play an important role in the social world we call Judaism, but they play no role in the divine economy. They reflect our needs, not God’s.^[41] Similarly, the mishkan serves our needs, not God’s.

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Published

March 17, 2020

Last Updated

April 14, 2024

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Footnotes

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Published

March 17, 2020

Last Updated

April 14, 2024

[1] The details of the mishkan are enumerated in Exodus 25–40, with the exception of the narrative about the golden calf and its aftermath in chapters 32–34.

[2] Some of the ideas in this piece are drawn from a forthcoming article that I wrote with my student Matanel Bareli for the Daniel J. Lasker festschrift (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages): “Maimonides on the Status of Judaism.”

[3] Guide 3.32; For discussion, see Roy Pinchot, "The Deeper Conflict between Maimonides and Ramban over the Sacrifices," Tradition 33 (1999): 24-33; David Gillis, “On the Problem of Sacrifices: Maimonides’ Ladder of Enlightenment,” TheTorah (2018); Kenneth Seeskin, “The Tabernacle: A Concession to Human Religious Needs,” TheTorah (2020). Commentators on the Guide, in the Middle Ages and since, have indeed balked at this assertion of Maimonides, but so far as I can judge, none has explored the broader implications of Maimonides’ claim that much of the Torah as we have it reflects God’s secondary intention, not God’s original purpose, as it were, for what Judaism was meant to be. How so? A Judaism without sacrifices has no need for a mishkan or temple in which to bring them; has no need for a priestly class or caste to serve in that mishkan or temple; has no need for tithes to support that priestly class or caste; has no need for laws of ritual purity and impurity (designed only to create awe of the mishkan or temple as Maimonides asserts in Guide 3.45; has no need for pilgrim festivals. It turns out that several score of the Torah’s traditionally numbered 613 commandments would not have been given had the Israelites leaving Egypt been able to fulfill the Torah as God originally intended. On this view, Judaism as we have it appears to be a debased, imperfect expression of God’s own vision, of His Torah. These matters are expanded upon, and the conclusion somewhat softened in Bareli and Kellner (forthcoming).

[4] I cite from the Guide in the forthcoming (and elegant) translation of Lenn Evan Goodman and Philip Lieberman. I thank them for sharing their translation before its publication. For those wishing to see the passage in context, it can be found in Shlomo Pines, Guide of the Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 2.526

[5] The Sabians were a pre-Islamic sect that played an important role in Maimonides' history of religion. On his account, Abraham's mission was directed against the Sabians, and many mosaic laws were promulgated to uproot Sabian ideas and practices. See Sara Stroumsa, “צאבֵּאִים של חראן וצאבֵּאִים אצל הרמב"ם: על התפתחות הדת לפי הרמב"ם” [The Sabians of Haran and the Sabians According to Maimonides: On the Development of Religion According to Maimonides], Sefunot 7 (1999): 277–295.

[6] =Pines, Guide, 2.581

[7] Charles B. Chavel (trans.), Ramban: Commentary on the Torah – Leviticus (New York: Shilo, 1973), p. 19.

[8] Or, was the ‘Fall’ a reflection, rather than a cause, of a cosmic break? See Bezalel Safran, "Rabbi Azriel and Nahmanides: Two Views on the Fall of Man," Isadore Twersky (ed.), Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban) : Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983): 75-106.

[9] The term original sin is ordinarily associated with (Augustinian) Christianity, but it is not unknown in medieval Judaism, especially that strain of Judaism influenced by Nahmanides. For texts see Nahmanides on Lev. 26:6 and (by implication) on Lev. 30:6. See also and his Disputation at Barcelona in Ramban: Writings and Discourses, Translated and Annotated by Charles B. Chavel (New York: Shiloh, 1978), vol. 2, p. 670. A source not translated by Rabbi Chavel, but included in his two-volume edition of Kitvei Ramban (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1982): Torat ha-Adam, Introduction, vol. 2, p. 12. Bahya ben Asher (1255-1340) was strongly influenced by Nahmanides. See his commentary on Lev. 12:7 and his Kad ha-Kemah, on hemdah (beginning). On original sin in Nahmanides’ thought, see further: Moshe Halbertal, “מוות, חטא, חוק וגאולה במשנת הרמב"ן” [Nahmanides' Conception of Death, Sin, Law, and Redemption] Tarbiz 71.1–2 (2002): 133–162. Shlomo Pines detected Christian influence on Nahmanides in connection with the doctrine of original sin: "Truth and Falsehood Versus Good and Evil: A Study in Jewish and General Philosophy in Connection with Guide of the Perplexed I,2," in Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore Twersky, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 95-157 [155-157] (and his earlier studies cited there). In medieval Jewish philosophy generally, see Daniel J. Lasker, “החטא הקדמון וכפרתו לפי חסדאי קרשקש” [Original Sin and Its Atonement According to Hasdai Crescas], Da'at 20 (1988): 127–135, and Deborah Schechterman, “סוגית החטא הקדמון והפרשנות לדברי הרמב"ם בהגות היהודית במאות השלש-עשרה והארבע-עשרה” [The Doctrine of Original Sin and Commentaries on Maimonides in Jewish Philosophy of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries], Da'at 20 (1988): 65–90.

[10] See Dov Schwartz’ exposition of Nahmanides on Lev. 1:9: "From Theurgy to Magic: The Evolution of the Magical-Talismanic Justification of Sacrifice in the Circle of Nahmanides and his Interpreters," Aleph 1 (2001): 165–213 [p. 169]. Moshe Idel defines Zoharic sefirot as “manifestations that are either part of the divine structure, or directly related to the divine essence, serving as its vessels or instruments.” See Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 112.

[11] Compare Rashi on Gen. 1:1; see Menachem Kellner, “Rashi and Maimonides on Torah and the Cosmos,” Between Rashi and Maimonides: Themes in Medieval Jewish Thought, Literature and Exegesis, ed. Ephraim Kanarfogel and Moshe Sokolow (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2010), 23-58.

[12] Guide, part one, introduction:

God, you see, chose to improve us and enhance our lives with His practical norms. But these are well anchored only once we’ve embraced certain intellectual convictions – chiefly, an awareness of Him, so far as we are able. That depends on metaphysics, theological knowledge, which is won only after study of natural science. For physics borders on metaphysics and is its prerequisite, as its students clearly comprehend. That is why God opens His book with the Account of Creation, which belongs to physics, as I’ve explained. Given the immensity and sublimity of the subject and our inadequacy in grasping these profundities properly, they were broached to us obliquely and poetically – in words quite baffling. As the Sages say: “To convey to mortal men the power of the Creative Act is impossible, so Scripture baldly tells you, In the beginning God created....” [Midrash Sh’nei Ketuvim, Batei Midrashot 4] – alerting you to the fact that such things are ineffable. You know Solomon’s words: Far off is that which was, and deep, deep – who can plumb it! (Ecclesiastes 7:24). All is expressed in words of more than one meaning. So the masses absorb what their capacity and limited understanding permit, but the enlightened and aware take it otherwise.

=Pines, Guide, 1.9.

[13] Maimonides teases it out of midrashic comments (thus attributing his view to the Sages):

The points I’m citing from the Sages’ discussions, you should realize, are consummately perfect and perspicuous, crystal clear to those addressed. So I’ll not expatiate or elaborate in glossing them, so as not to reveal secrets (cf. Proverbs 11:13). If I lightly sketch the outlines, a gentle hint will be enough for someone like you see what they were saying.

=Pines, Guide, 2.355.

[14] On Rabbi Kafih’s approach to Maimonides, see James Diamond and Menachem Kellner, Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2019), ch. 7.

[15] Kafih on Maimonides, “Laws of the Sabbath,” v. 3. See his edition of and commentary on the Mishneh Torah. For an academic account of what Maimonides is doing in Guide 2.30, see, for example, Sara Klein-Braslavi, Perush ha-Ramabam le-Sippurim al Adam be-Parashat Bereshit (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1987).

[16] Much of my book, Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006) is devoted to arguing that Maimonides was aware of what I call “proto-kabbalistic” elements in Judaism and rejected them.

[17] This is wonderfully captured in the title of Kenneth Seeskin’s book, Searching for a Distant God: The Legacy of Maimonides (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[18] One wonders what role non-Jews play in the divine economy according to thinkers like Nahmanides. JBS Haldane is reputed to have said that God seems to be inordinately fond of beetles, having created so many of them; is God also inordinately fond of non-Jews?

[19] Chavel trans., p. 21. Nahmanides likes to introduce hints to Kabbalah in his commentary with the expression “by way of truth” (על דרך האמת). See Oded Yisraeli, “The Kabbalistic Remez and Its Status in Naḥmanides’ Commentary on the Torah,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 24 (2016): 1–30.

[20] Elliott Wolfson and Dov Schwartz do go into detail. See Wolfson, “By Way of Truth: Aspects of Nahmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic,” AJS Review 14 (1989): 103-178 (esp. p. 131) and Schwartz, “From Theurgy to Magic.” David Novak summarizes Nahmanides’ complex and esoteric discussion as follows: “But Nahmanides finds the deepest meaning of the sacrifices in a divine reality. In essence, he holds that they fulfill divine needs. This is the view of Kabbalah, and Nahmanides’ approach here deeply influenced later Kabbalists.” See Novak, The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 105.

[21] It would appear that this is also the view of the poet who wrote the Yom Kippur poem, Atta Konanta. See discussion in Dalia Marx, “Yom Kippur's Seder Avodah Begins with God's Creation of the World,” TheTorah (2019).

[22] I.e., a human need – which was clearly Maimonides’ position.

[23] Chavel trans., Exodus, pp. 506-507 (emended). See further Nathan Laufer, Rendevous with God: Revealing the Meaning of the Jewish Holidays and Their Mysterious Rituals (Jerusalem: Maggid, 2016), p. 206. Rabbi Laufer’s discussion shows how popular and unexceptional the idea has become. Nahmanides is preceded by Judah Halevi. See Kuzari, i.98, ii.25-26, and iii.23.

[24] This is not how Maimonides understands the verse, naturally. For discussions of Maimonides on the shekhinah, see Menachem Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006), ch. 6, pp. 179-215 and James A. Diamond, Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), pp. 141-158.

[25] See further the commentaries of Hizkuni (Hezekiah ben Mano’ah, 1250-1310) and Bahya ben Asher. Both follow Nahmanides, seeing the Exodus as taking place so that God could dwell among the Israelites. On this, as well as on many other issues, Nahmanides seems to go out of his way to annoy Maimonides. For important examples in our context, see Dov Schwartz, “From Theurgy…”. For an explicit study of many of these Nahmanidean attempts to annoy Maimonides, see James A. Diamond, Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), ch. 3. In the first paragraph of that chapter, Diamond writes (p. 69): “Their positions diverged so drastically on notions such as providence, ritual, biblical history, and even the very nature of God–and thus what qualifies as authentic monotheism–that it would be no exaggeration to infer that they adhered to two different faiths.”

[26] See: https://etzion.org.il/en/i-might-dwell-their-midst I found this source thanks to Rabbi Laufer.

[27] See Morris Faierstein, "'God's Need for the Commandments' in Medieval Kabbalah," Conservative Judaism 36 (1982): 45-59. Faierstein finds the first first kabbalistic usage of the expression in the Nahmanides text just cited. Further on the notion of God’s need for Israel, see b. Moed Katan 9a. On theurgy in Kabbalah generally, which Moshe Idel defines as “operations intended to influence the Divinity, mostly in its own inner state or dynamics, but sometimes also in its relationship to man," see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 173-199.

[28] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, trans. and ed. by Gordon Tucker (New York: Bloomsbury, 2007), 71–92; trans. from תורה מן השמים באספקלריה של הדורות, 2 vols. (London: Soncino, 1962).

[29] An expression of the fact that Nahmanides’ views on our subject are unexceptional today may be found in an interesting lecture by R. Baruch Gigi (one of the heads of Yeshivat Har Ezion), posted online under the title “Let Them Make Me a Sanctuary, That I May Dwell in Their Midst”. https://etzion.org.il/en/%E2%80%9Clet-them-make-me-sanctuary-i-may-dwell-their-midst%E2%80%9D

[30] The picture isn’t painted clearly in any one source but when we combine two Maimonidean texts, “Laws of Idolatry” ch. 1 with Guide of the Perplexed 3.32, we arrive at the following picture of the history of the Jewish people and of the religion of Israel.

[31] This supplemented the one commandment already given to the Israelites in Egypt – to count the month we now call Nisan as the first of the months of the year (Exod 12:2).

[32] Nahmanides, (Lev. 1:9) followed by many others (more politely), asked, of course, about the sacrifices offered by Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:3-6), Noah (Gen. 8:20-21), and Abraham (Gen. 22:23). The Talmud (b Shabbat 28b and parallels) also maintains that Adam offered a sacrifice. Maimonides would reply that none of these was commanded.

[33] The two aims of the Torah (Guide 3.27) are the inculcation of ethical and intellectual perfection, with the former preceding and subserving the latter.

[34] Isaac Abravanel interprets Maimonides to be teaching that God's original intention had been to command only the Sabbath and civil laws, but after the sin of the golden calf God realized, as it were, that the Jews were too primitive to manage without a full panoply of sacrifices and was “necessitated” (huzrakh) to command them. See Abravanel's commentary to Jeremiah 7 (p. 328 in the Shotland edition). Seforno (d. 1550), in his introduction to Exodus and in his commentary on Ex. 24:18 follows the chronology of Maimonides and Abravanel: the mishkan follows the sin of the golden calf. In his comment on Exod 31:18 he even adopts Abravanel’s language – huzrakh.

[35] For rabbinic sources supporting the claim that the mishkan was commanded only after and because of the sin of the golden calf, see Exodus Rabbah 33:3 and Tanhuma Terumah 8 (in the Warsaw edition; the Buber edition has a very different text) as presented and interpreted by Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1976), pp. 459-460. See also Tanhuma, Pikkudei 2 and Sifri Dt. 1. Maimonides had plenty of rabbinic support for his position.

[36] =Pines, p. 531.

[37] Heb.: bayit le-Hashem. This could be (incorrectly) translated as “a house for the Lord [to dwell in]” as opposed to “a house for the sake of the Lord,” i.e., in which to worship God.

[38] Mendell Lewittes, trans. The Book of Temple Service (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), p. 5. It is probably no coincidence that Maimonides fails to cite the continuation of the verse: “that I may dwell among them.”

[39] In the translation of Charles Chavel (London: Soncino, 1967), pp. 27-28.

[40] The Nahmanidean view of the mishkan has become so compelling, that in his notes to his translation of Maimonides’ 20th commandment, Rabbi Chavel writes: “The Commandment which decreed that Israel should build a Sanctuary for the Divine Presence was regarded as a special manifestation of God’s love for His people.” It appears that R. Chavel took the Nahmanidean view as the Jewish perspective; so much so that he was not aware that he was reading Maimonides as if he were Nahmanides! It was Nahmanides, not Maimonides, who taught that the point of the mishkan, and later of the temple, was to build a sanctuary for the divine presence.

[41] For a detailed exposition of Maimonides’ understanding of halakhah as institutional but not ontological, see Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation, ch. 2.

[1] The details of the mishkan are enumerated in Exodus 25–40, with the exception of the narrative about the golden calf and its aftermath in chapters 32–34.

[6] =Pines, Guide, 2.581

[7] Charles B. Chavel (trans.), Ramban: Commentary on the Torah – Leviticus (New York: Shilo, 1973), p. 19.

[12] Guide, part one, introduction:

God, you see, chose to improve us and enhance our lives with His practical norms. But these are well anchored only once we’ve embraced certain intellectual convictions – chiefly, an awareness of Him, so far as we are able. That depends on metaphysics, theological knowledge, which is won only after study of natural science. For physics borders on metaphysics and is its prerequisite, as its students clearly comprehend. That is why God opens His book with the Account of Creation, which belongs to physics, as I’ve explained. Given the immensity and sublimity of the subject and our inadequacy in grasping these profundities properly, they were broached to us obliquely and poetically – in words quite baffling. As the Sages say: “To convey to mortal men the power of the Creative Act is impossible, so Scripture baldly tells you, In the beginning God created....” [Midrash Sh’nei Ketuvim, Batei Midrashot 4] – alerting you to the fact that such things are ineffable. You know Solomon’s words: Far off is that which was, and deep, deep – who can plumb it! (Ecclesiastes 7:24). All is expressed in words of more than one meaning. So the masses absorb what their capacity and limited understanding permit, but the enlightened and aware take it otherwise.

=Pines, Guide, 1.9.

[13] Maimonides teases it out of midrashic comments (thus attributing his view to the Sages):

The points I’m citing from the Sages’ discussions, you should realize, are consummately perfect and perspicuous, crystal clear to those addressed. So I’ll not expatiate or elaborate in glossing them, so as not to reveal secrets (cf. Proverbs 11:13). If I lightly sketch the outlines, a gentle hint will be enough for someone like you see what they were saying.

=Pines, Guide, 2.355.

[17] This is wonderfully captured in the title of Kenneth Seeskin’s book, Searching for a Distant God: The Legacy of Maimonides (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[22] I.e., a human need – which was clearly Maimonides’ position.

[26] See: https://etzion.org.il/en/i-might-dwell-their-midst I found this source thanks to Rabbi Laufer.

[31] This supplemented the one commandment already given to the Israelites in Egypt – to count the month we now call Nisan as the first of the months of the year (Exod 12:2).

[33] The two aims of the Torah (Guide 3.27) are the inculcation of ethical and intellectual perfection, with the former preceding and subserving the latter.

[36] =Pines, p. 531.

[37] Heb.: bayit le-Hashem. This could be (incorrectly) translated as “a house for the Lord [to dwell in]” as opposed to “a house for the sake of the Lord,” i.e., in which to worship God.

[39] In the translation of Charles Chavel (London: Soncino, 1967), pp. 27-28.

[41] For a detailed exposition of Maimonides’ understanding of halakhah as institutional but not ontological, see Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation, ch. 2.

Prof. Menachem Kellner was founding chair of Shalem College’s Interdisciplinary Program in Philosophy and Jewish Thought. He is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa, where, among things, he held the Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Chair of Religious Thought. He did his B.A, M.A. and Ph.D. at Washington University. Kellner is probably best known for his book, Must a Jew Believe Anything? His most recent book is We are Not Alone: A Maimonidean Theology of the Other (Boston 2021).

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