“FROM MOSES TO MOSES” 181
harm in that. There are worse things regarding which people are ig-
norant, without their ignorance being detrimental to them.^94Maimonides himself certainly did not think that the inhabitants of the
world to come eat, drink, and procreate, yet he encouraged his corre-
spondent to hold fast to this false belief. No wonder that in his letter to
the same well- meaning and yet simple person, Maimonides fl atly denies
that he had ever denied the resurrection of the dead— that is to say, the
return of the soul to the body— and refers his correspondent to the al-
ready written Treatise on Resurrection.^95
Maimonides cares little for the body, whose only reason for existing is
to provide tools for the soul. He also cares little for the soul as the vital
principle of the body. Although he repeatedly uses the term “the immor-
tality of the soul” (baqa al- nafs), his aspirations focus on the immortal-
ity of the intellect. In the phi losophers’ language, this is referred to as the
conjunction (ittisal) of the human being with the Active Intellect. The
individual, the person as a combination of body and soul, has no place in
this blissful existence, for the conjunction annihilates the individuality of
those who reach it. Maimonides here shares the views of his Muslim
contemporary Averroes.
As we have seen above, there are indications that, at times, Farabi and
Maimonides doubted that it was possible for human beings to achieve
this conjunction.^96 In this context, it is interesting to note Maimonides’
reference to the “old wives tales” (khurafat al-ajaiz) that fi ll the heads
of people who have pretensions to be the wise of Israel (a clear reference
to the Gaon).^97 This is the exact expression that, according to Ibn Tufayl,
was used by Farabi in his lost commentary on the Nichamachean Ethics,
where he is supposed to have denied the immortality of the soul.^98 Nev-
ertheless, even if Maimonides and Farabi doubted at times the possibility
of intellectual conjunction, they still regarded this as the goal to which
the phi losopher must aspire.
In view of the analysis presented here, Maimonides’ insistence on the
obligatory belief in the resurrection of the dead appears like a baffl ing puz-
zle. One could understand that he would try to skirt a well- established ar-
ticle of faith that did not agree with his philosophical beliefs. Maimonides,
(^94) Epistles, 414; see also chap. 1, above, apud note 72, and chap. 4, above, apud note
126.
(^95) Epistles, 409– 10.
(^96) See Pines, “The Limitations of Human Knowledge”; and see above, apud note 39.
(^97) Epistle on Resurrection,Epistles, 320 (Finkel, Treatise 3).
(^98) IbnTufayl,Hayy ibn Yaqzan, 112.