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The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented DAVID NOVAK THE THEOLOGY OF NAHMANIDES SYSTEMATICALLY PRESENTED Program in Judaic Studies Brown University BROWN JUDAIC STUDIES Edited by Shaye J. D. Cohen, Ernest S. Frerichs, Calvin Groldscheider Editorial Board Vicki Caron, Lynn Davidman, Wendell S. Dietrich, David Hirsch, David Jacobson, Saul M. Olyan, Alan Zuckerman Number 271 THE THEOLOGY OF NAHMANIDES SYSTEMATICALLY PRESENTED by David Novak THE THEOLOGY OF NAHMANIDES SYSTEMATICALLY PRESENTED by DAVID NOVAK University of Virginia Scholars Press Atlanta, Georgia THE THEOLOGY OF NAHMANIDES SYSTEMATICALLY PRESENTED By David Novak Copyright © 2020 by Brown University Library of Congress Control Number: 2019953676 Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeriva- tives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Brown Judaic Studies, Brown University, Box 1826, Providence, RI 02912. STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL JUDAISM Edited by Lenn E. Goodman To the Memory of Harry H. Ruskin (1905-1989) The righteous man lives in his faith. - Habakkuk 2:4 other works by David Novak Law and Theology in Judaism (2 volumes) Suicide and Morality The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism Halakhah in a Theological Dimension Jewish Christian Dialogue Contents Editor's Foreword ix Preface xi Introduction 1 Notes 17 Chapter 1 The Human Soul 25 Chapter 2 Faith 31 Chapter 3 Tradition 51 Chapter 4 Miracles 61 Chapter 5 Natural and Supernatural 77 Chapter 6 The Land of Israel 89 Chapter 7 The Commandments 99 Chapter 8 Eschatology 125 Bibliography 135 List of Abbreviations 136 Index of Names and Subjects 137 Index of Passages 141 Publishers’ Preface Brown Judaic Studies has been publishing scholarly books in all areas of Ju- daic studies for forty years. Our books, many of which contain groundbreaking scholarship, were typically printed in small runs and are not easily accessible out- side of major research libraries. We are delighted that with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foun- dation Humanities Open Book Program, we are now able to make available, in digital, open-access, format, fifty titles from our backlist. Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (1194–1270) was among the more important and innovative Jewish exegetes of the Middle Ages. However, as David Novak shows in The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented (1993), throughout his biblical commentaries Nahmanides maintained a consistent theology, often in conversation with that of Maimonides. Novak systematically reconstructs this theology, drawing on a deep knowledge of the scattered works of Nahmanides and informed by a modern philosophical sensitivity. This edition incorporates typographical corrections of the original text. Michael L. Satlow Managing Editor October, 2019 Editor's Foreword This volume is the second of the Studies in Medieval Judaism series within Brown Judaic Studies. The author, David Novak, one of the foremost living exponents of Jewish theology and social thought, here examines the ideas of Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (1194-1270), the Ramban, Nahmanides in the European literature. An exegete, epistemologist of Jewish history and experience, and pioneer of Kabbalistic reasoning, Nahmanides was the spokesperson of embattled Spanish Jewry at the ominous Barcelona disputation before King James of Aragon in 1263. He was the first major rabbi to treat resettlement of the Land of Israel as a Biblical commandment. Inspired by the ideal of the poet philosopher Judah Halevi, whose theories of Jewish history and destiny so influenced his own, Nahmanides left an increasingly anti-Jewish Spain and spent his final years in the Land of Israel. Like many of his contemporaries, Nahmanides found himself in opposition to the bold rationalism of Maimonides (1135-1204). He was a Talmudist who found limitless scope in exploration of the canon that Maimonides saw not as an end in itself but as a guide to the material, moral and spiritual fulfillment of his people. The present book calls out frequent examples of Nahmanides' explicit and implicit criticism of Maimonidean positions. But in the controversy that surrounded Maimonides' halakhic and philosophic writings after his death, Nahmanides sought a moderating and conciliating role, urging dispassionate judgment, defending anti-Maimonists from the zeal of their detractors, while also supporting Maimonides' thesis that God transcends physicality against those who couched the extremity of their reaction to philosophy in affirmations of divine corporeality. Nahmanides saw more clearly than many that even for those who might reach conclusions at variance with the themes to which Maimonides' thought had led him, it was Maimonides who laid out the problematics of Jewish philosophy most decisively and who framed the issues as all subsequent thinkers would have to confront them. Although his sympathies leaned strongly in the direction of history, revelation, and experience, as X Editor's Foreword counterweights to the rationalistic faith of the Rambam, Nahmanides was never an adversary of reason. His aim was to soften and supplement its claims fromthe rich store of prophetic experience and rabbinic thought. His exegetical impulses were pluralistic and open-minded; and his creative work in kabbalistic exegesis-above all, in promulgating and developing the ancient theme that the life of the commandments allows us to participate in the life of God, and indeed contributes to that life-springs from a wholesome and rationalistic desire to situate the commandments within a comprehensive cosmology, ontology and axiology. So there is no paradox in Joseph Sarachek's observation that, "It was a cabalist, Nahmanides, who saved Maimonides in the hectic days of 1232." Indeed, the Kabbalah itself is a vehicle of Maimonidean and more broadly neoplatonic philosophical themes. What David Novak has done here is to survey the canon of Nahmanides' writings-commentaries, discourses, sermons, even the record made by the Ramban of his Barcelona disputation-to elicit the structure of a systematic theology. Nahmanides, admittedly, was no system builder. As Novak shows, he often subordinated perfect consistency to the nuances he discovered in a text. He willingly sacrificed the chance to enlarge some favorite speculative theme to the material message he found in tradition. In this he reveals that penchant for the empirical that he shares not only with Halevi but with Saadiah. Like both of them, he relies on an idea of experience that is not merely personal but also communal and thus can span the generations and even rein in the exuberance of reason. Yet we see most clearly that Nahmanides is no obscurantist and indeed no anti�rationalist, when we observe him working with a text and finding in it multiple levels of meaning, preferring the subtler, not ignoring the more obvious and accessible, and never giving preference to the merely homiletic or the purely positive over the reading that might shed light on God's inner purposes. While he is not a system builder with a capital S, N ahmanides is a coherent thinker with a distinctive repertoire of themes and commitments that emerge powerfully from David Novak's thematically sensitive selection and careful translation, arrangement and discussion of the key passages of his work. Placement of Nahmanides' thoughts on a systematic footing reveals him as a major theologian, both creative and loyal to the tradition that inspirits him. This book thus fulfills its author's aim when it guides not only historical scholars but contemporary thinkers along the pathways of a rich vein of Jewish theological insight, whose internal structure and integrity are all too readily overlooked by readers who encounter Nahmanides only in the exegesis of particular verses or in the dialectics of some historic debate. It shows us a Nahmanides still capable, after seven hundred years, of contributing vitally to Jewish theology as a living enterprise and a continuing adventure. Lenn E. Goodman Manoa Valley, September 1992 Preface In introducing a recent collection of papers on Nahmanides' thought, Isadore Twersky writes, "great is the literary oeuvre of Ramban, embracing as it does halakah, aggadah, Scriptural exegesis, homilies, kabbalah, philosophy, poetry, polemics.... we should mention also his intensive activity as communal leader and spokesman for Spanish Jewry during prolonged periods of internal crisis, antagonism and strife as well as external oppres­ sion and turbulence."1 Given the immensity of Nahmanides' achievement, a definitive study of his work covering all these areas in detail and leading to a general synthesis has yet to be written. This book does not pretend to such comprehensiveness. My task here is the more modest one of uncovering the theology that guides Nahmanides in his exegetical work and informs his reading of Scriptural and rabbinic texts. I hope that this book will prove helpful to students interested in discerning an overall picture of Nahmanides' theology and to the readers of his works. The main elements of Nahmanides' theology are set forth in the divisions of this book. Each section is based on selections from the texts where the relevant ideas are most clearly presented. In searching for the
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