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self-consciously and explicitly devoted to ethics. The form may have been
essentially Greek; the c onc ern with right behaviour is obviously not new. What is
new is t he c omposit ion of t ext s whic h deal wit h moral behaviour outside of the
stric t c ontext of Torah and Halakhah.
The literature of this period has been divided by Tishby and Dan into four
c at egories: philosophic , rabbinic , piet ist ic , and kabbalist ic. In t erms of lit erary
genre we find ethic s being taught in philosophic al or myst ic al t ext s, sermons,
homilies, wills and let t ers, st ories and fables, poet ry, c omment aries on Bible and
Mishnah, and in manuals of ethic al behaviour.
T urning t o t he first of t he four c at egories of medieval Jewish et hic al lit erat ure,
it would seem that the basic issue whic h underlay disc ussions of ethic s among
medieval Jewish philosophers had to do with the nature of God: the importanc e one
attac hes to ethic al behaviour (the vit a ac t iva as over against the vit a
c ont emplat iva) depends upon one’s assessment of human nature. Sinc e Judaism
teac hes that human beings are c reated in the image of God and reac h their most
perfect self-realizat ion t hrough t he imit at ion of God, it follows t hat our est imat ion of
human nature depends to a great extent upon our estimation of divine nature. If
God is c onst rued as essent ially ac t ive, t hen we should find our perfec t ion in ac t ivit y
and ethic s bec omes a very important department of human endeavour; if, on the
other hand, God is essentially c ontemplative, then we should find our perfec tion in
c ont emplat ion and et hic s plays a c orrespondingly less import ant role in our lives,
often being seen as a propaedeutic to intellectual (contemplative) perfection.
The issue is highlighted in the work of the most important of the medieval
Jewish philosophers, Moses Maimonides (1138–1204). In a semi-popular work,
‘Laws of Charac t er T rait s’. Maimonides present ed a slight ly modified version of
Aristotle’s doc trine of the ‘Golden Mean’ as the ethic al teac hing of Judaism. In his
philosophic work, Guide for the Perplexed, however, he seems to advance a purely
int ellec t ualist int erpret at ion of Judaism, reduc ing et hic al (and, c onc omit ant ly,
halakhic) perfection to the level of a necessary propaedeutic for the achievement of
int ellec t ual perfection. At the very end of the book, however, the moral, practical
orientation of Judaism wins out and Maimonides informs his reader that the truest
perfec t ion involves t he imit at ion of God’s loving kindness, just ic e, and
righteousness after having ac hieved t he highest ac hievable level of int ellec t ual
perfec tion. Maimonides the philosopher, one might say, urges us to imitate God
through metaphysic al spec ulation; Maimonides the rabbi c annot leave it at that and
insist s t hat suc h imit at ion have prac t ic al impac t on our lives in the c ommunity.
Perhaps in response t o t he et hic al writ ings of medieval Jewish philosophers (on
which see the Introduction to Kellner, 1978) writers rooted deeply and often
exc lusively in t he rabbinic t radit ion began writ ing et hic al t reatises based entirely on
mishnaic and talmudic texts, in an attempt to prove that these texts provided all
that one needed in order to produce a complete ethical system. Accepting the
rabbinic injunc tion to turn and turn in the Torah ‘bec ause everything is inc luded in
it ’ (Avot, V. 25), they felt that there was no need to turn to Aristotle for instruction
in either the form or c ontent of ethic s. Rather, all one need do is searc h through
the Torah and the rabbinic c ompilations. Rabbinic ethic s is not a uniquely medieval
phenomenon and works c ontinue to be written to this day in this framework. A