Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
264forms the bac kbone of the Talmud, interprets the ‘oral law’ by whic h the Rabbis
elaborated Biblic al legislat ion as c ont aining t he rat ional princ iples of t hat law.
Maimonides struc tures the c ommandme nts in terms of Aristotelian VIRTUE
ET HICS... arguing that they seek human moral and intellec tual perfec tion, the
virtues that enable us to know God and realize our likeness t o Him. Comment ing on
t he promise t o all Israel of “a portion in the world to come,” Maimonides lays out
thirteen credal articles that assure even non-philosophers a share in immo rt alit y,
sinc e beliefs are prac t ic al surrogat es for the ideas that render the intellect
immort al. (3) His major and st ill aut horit at ive 14-volume c odific at ion of T almudic
law, t he Mishneh Torah, or Law in Review, was writ t en in Mishnaic Hebrew.
Familiarly c it ed as t he Yad Hazakah, “The Strong Hand,” bec ause the word Yad,
hand, has the numeric al value of 14, it takes as its motto the verse “Then shall I be
unabashed to sc rutinize all Thy c ommandme nts” (Psalm 119:6). It syst emat izes all
of T almudic law, omit t ing rabbinic c it at ions (alt hough fait hfully respec ting rabbinic
authority and prec edent) and c utting c lear of the often digressive Talmudic
disc ussions, organizing t he laws ac c ording t o t heir purposes: a few brief
c ommandments ground a moral c ode, the laws of torts and the penal c ode pursue
peac e and justice, those of the Sabbath or the elaborate Temple ritual draw the
mind to the idea of a transc endent God and wean it from all that is even
reminisc ent of pagan beliefs and prac t ic es. St rikingly, Maimonides elaborat es a
rabbinic polit ic al ideal, wit h t he T orah as its c onstitution, a strong c entral ruler, “to
fight the battles of the Lord,” but under the authority of the Law and the wisdom of
it s int erpret ers...
Maimonides’ c rowning philosophic al ac hievement was t he Guide to the
Perplexed, whic h examines theologic al problems under t he rabbinic rubric s of “the
act of creation” and “the ac t of the c hariot” – t he Biblic al ac c ount s of Genesis and
t he vision of Ezekiel... The Rabbis permitted explication of these passages only one-
on-one and only for the best-prepared students, who need no more than hints to
provoke their understanding. The problems, as Maimonides understood them, were
those of cosmology and metaphysics, centered on the accommodation of the
infinitely transc endent God to the finitude of c reation. For Ezekiel seems to suggest,
with muc h periphrasis, that he saw God in human form; and Genesis c learly
proposes a causal relation between God’s timeless perfection... and our c hangeable
world.
To keep faith with the Talmudic injunc tion, lest unprepared readers face
problems they c annot resolve, Maimonides c ouc hes his Guide as a let t er t o a single
disc iple wit h spec ific c apabilit ies and needs. He never c alls t he Guide a book: and,
more tellingly, does not state the problems it addresses, leaving readers in the dark
about its subject matter, unless they have grappled with these problems. So
effective is this approach that even careful readers often imagine the Guide opens
by refuting anthropomorphis m, when in fac t its first 70 c hapters assume that all
ordinary predic ates and relations are inapplicable to God and address the question
how it is possible for us t o speak of God at all, a problemat ic voic ed in t he Midrashic
remark: “How great is the boldness of the prophets, who liken the creature to its
Creat or!” Maimonides dec onstruc ts prophetic anthropomorphis m, c arefully avoiding
the “onion peeling” that was the bugbear of his predecessor al-Ghazali (1058–
1111), who feared that de-anthropomorphizing, c arried too far, might leave one
with nothing... Maimonides shows how all Biblic al ant hropomorphis ms aim t o
c ommunic ate some (human) idea of perfec tion, while exc luding the limitations that
human ideas t ypic ally ent ail. T he God t hat emerges from t his analysis is no