The Secret of the Ma’aseh Merkava According to Maimonides

E.g., Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah, 2:11 and 4:10.

Later authors (Chasdai Crescas, for example) took “the Rav” (as they called him) to task for his interpretation. The sciences are not esoteric: they are taught openly in other nations. Why would the Mishna forbid studying them? More importantly, knowledge available to everyone else as well could hardly constitute the Torah’s secrets and the Jews’ special insight into the divine. See: Chasdai Crescas, The Light of the Lord, 4:10. Crescas was a critic of Maimonides’ philosophy, but even one of his great expositors and defenders, Isaac Abravanel, objected to the philosophers’ identification and went into great detail to show that Maimonides’ interpretation is forced.

E.g., Guide introduction to part one.

Mysterium tremendum et fascinans is a phrase used by Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy (Oxford University Press, 1958).

Note that this comment seems to distinguish Maimonides’ explanation of Ezekiel’s vision from his account of the merkavah’s contents in Mishneh Torah, in which study of what can and cannot be known about God is part of the study of the chariot. Here Maimonides says that God is not depicted allegorically, and he stresses that God is not included in the vision: “understand this!”

Although from a peshat reading, it seems as if God appears—on a throne—in Ezek 1.26-28, Maimonides, at least, didn’t think “the likeness of the glory of God” is the same as God, so the man isn’t God.

Maimonides clearly felt some conflict about writing his interpretation down. On one hand, he was charged with the responsibility of keeping secrets and did not want to reveal what he believed the prophet concealed. On the other hand, he also felt the need to teach and share divine knowledge with his fellow creatures. He describes this dilemma in the his introduction to Part 1 of the Guide:

If we should adhere to parables and to concealment of what ought to be concealed… we would, as it were, have replaced one individual by another of the same species. If, on the other hand, we explained what ought to be explained, it would be unsuitable for the vulgar.

Ultimately, he decides that it is necessary to put down the secret teaching in writing, with the risk of revealing it to everyone. By the time he has finished his explanation of the chariot, he writes “I have plunged deep into it with temerity.”

I shall explain to you what the prophet Ezekiel said, peace be upon him, in such a way that anyone who heard that interpretation would think that I do not say anything more than what the text indicates, but that it is as if I translated words from one language to another or summarized the statements’ external meanings. And if that interpretation is pondered with perfect care by one for whom this treatise is composed and who understands all its chapters, each chapter in turn, the whole matter that has become clear me will become clear to him (Guide, Introduction to Part 3).

It is worth noting that this is a traditional interpretation of Maimonides, in line with those offered by the medieval commentators. José Faur rejects it: “The standard interpretations offered by the commentators of the Guide stand in such flagrant contradiction with the biblical text that to accept them the reader must presume that Maimonides was scripturally illiterate.” Homo Mysticus (18)

In what way does astronomy count as metaphysics? That is a tricky question, and I’m not sure there’s a definite answer. Although it is possible that he is deliberately stating one thing when he believes another as a part of his attempt to hide the real interpretation of the chariot, I doubt that it’s a conscious attempt to fool the masses. They wouldn’t perceive the interpretation in any case. Astronomy per se is not metaphysics, or even a high form of natural science (like physics) but only one of the mathematical, preparatory sciences. Maimonides states that its purpose is simply to describe the configurations of the stars, not to tell us why they are the way they are. However, he may have included discussions of the relationships between the spheres and the intelligences in metaphysics, though he never says so explicitly. If he did, then Ezekiel’s vision could be classified as a “low” form of metaphysics, and this might be an indication that Ezekiel’s vision isn’t as advanced as one might think.

Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah, 3:3. As far as I am aware, Maimonides was the first to use this metaphor in Hebrew. It seems to have been a known propaedeutic image in Arabic thought of the time. I’ve noticed it twice in the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, for example. “There are nine spheres combined one above the other like the rings of an onion.” 1:56. Like Maimonides, the Brethren of Purity use it to express the idea that the spheres are concentric and that there is no vacuum between them. E.g., vol.2:28.

From reading the chapters in part two of the Guide, it is not obvious that they are about Ezekiel’s vision, and from reading the chapters in part three, it is not obvious that they depict the cosmos, or even that they hint at those in part two. In order to understand the hint, or to understand why the chapter hinted at is important, the reader needs to “connect them with one another.”

Reading on does not help. All seven chapters are written in a similar way, seeming to clarify nothing.

It is worth noting that the idea of keeping knowledge a secret was anathema to the medieval philosophers, who believed restricting knowledge to be unfair. Aristotle opens his Metaphysics with the statement that “all people by nature desire to know,” so imposing limits that only a few are permitted to overstep frustrates human nature. Can we have been created without the possibility to do what, by nature, we must? Furthermore, why should truth be kept secret when the knowledgeable have a responsibility to help as many people as possible to fulfil their potentials? I imagine Maimonides struggled with this problem as well, though his arms were tied by the rabbinic mandate in this case.

For an English translation of the letter, see Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (Springfield, NJ: Behrman House Inc., 1972), 464-473.  Maimonides can be thought of as a forerunner to scientific rejections of astrology, and he is rightly celebrated for scorning it. While he accepted that the heavens influence what happens down here, he was skeptical about the conclusions the astrologers claim to be able to draw and the talismanic practices that were so common in everyday life. See Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 41. Even Maimonides accepted use of amulets for medicinal purposes.

This was “evident” to the ancients from the way in which the sun heats the world and the moon somehow seems to influence the water through tides.

Arabic thought was greatly influenced by the astronomer Ptolemy, whose Almagest Maimonides mentions. Ptolemy also wrote an astrological work, known as the Tetrabiblos, which remained an important university textbook centuries after Maimonides. http://www.astrolabium.be/IMG/pdf/project_description.pdf

Gersonides was a famous Jewish astrologer who is also often held to be an arch-rationalist. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gersonides/ Tzvi Langermann explains the scientific foundations of Gersonides’ astrology in an appendix to the English translation of the Wars of the Lord.

See chapters 2:19 and 2:24. There is some disagreement over whether or not the lack of understanding is inherent to the subject or a matter of the current state of science. Many scholars of Maimonides would no doubt object that this is only Maimonides’ “exoteric” view rather than his real opinion. Whichever view one takes on that matter, explaining Maimonides’ “exoteric” position is also valuable. I have not been convinced that there is sufficient textual or philosophical evidence to indicate that, in the case of God’s will, it is not also his real position.

One of the reasons that astrology was held to be religiously problematic is that it reduces the role of human freedom. If actions are determined by the stars, humans are not free to act without compulsion. And without the freedom to choose, morality might collapse. After all, there is no point blaming someone who has no other choice than to act a certain way. The commandments too seem to presume an ability to disobey. What point would they have if they cannot be disobeyed? Now, Maimonides is usually thought to have been a champion of free choice. However, as in the previous note, some scholars have argued that he was a closet determinist. Here too, it is said, he only hints at his true position while leaving the masses in the dark. The issue of creation has exercised interpreters for centuries. Many argue that Maimonides did not believe the world to be have been created, just as he did not really believe that God creates through will, even though he claimed to have done so. Such hidden beliefs could merge with a hidden deterministic worldview.

For a very readable account of the origin and history of universal harmony and the music of the spheres, see Jamie James, The Music of the Spheres: music, science and the natural order of the Universe (New York: Grove Press, 1993).

This appears in chapter 8 of section 2, the chapter preceding that in which Maimonides sets out his explanation of how the four-sphere theory could work.

The main message is, ostensibly, that one ought to recognize truth on the basis of the arguments that support it rather than on the basis of the person who states it, even when doing so entails opposing sages wiser than ourselves.

וָאֶשְׁמַ֣ע אֶת־ק֣וֹל כַּנְפֵיהֶ֡ם כְּקוֹל֩ מַ֨יִם רַבִּ֤ים כְּקוֹל־שַׁדַּי֙ בְּלֶכְתָּ֔ם ק֥וֹל הֲמֻלָּ֖ה כְּק֣וֹל מַחֲנֶ֑ה

Isaac Abravanel strongly criticizes Maimonides’ interpretation, detailing the discord between Maimonides’ interpretation and the biblical text. “He did not pay attention to the verses,” Abravanel writes. Some might argue that we could never know, but Abravanel is surely right to say that the interpretation doesn’t fit the text well.

Maybe he could still associate the passage with what he would consider pseudo-science, and since he thought of scientific study and understanding as an integral component of worshipping God, believing such theories and basing actions on those beliefs would be a kind of idolatry, even when the opinions are held by the punctiliously observant.