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Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers of Provence Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

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Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers of Provence Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah Judaism as Philosophy Studies in Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers of Provence EMUNOT: JEWISH PHILOSOPHY AND KABBALAH SERIES EDITOR: DOV SCHWARTZ (BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY, RAMAT GAN) EDITORIAL BOARD ADA RAPOPORT ALBERT (UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON) GAD FREUDENTHAL (CNRS, PARIS) GIDEON FREUDENTHAL (TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY, RAMAT AVIV) MOSHE IDEL (HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM) RAPHAEL JOSPE (BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY, RAMAT GAN) EPHRAIM KANARFOGEL (YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK) MENACHEM KELLNER (HAIFA UNIVERSITY, HAIFA) DANIEL LASKER (BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY, BEER SHEVA) Judaism as Philosophy Studies in Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers of Provence HOWARD KREISEL BOSTON / 2015 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalog record for this book as available from the Library of Congress. Copyright © 2015 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved Effective February 13, 2018 this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the publisher or as permitted by law. Open Access publication is supported by: Cover design by Ivan Grave ISBN 978-1-61811-179-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-61811-201-9 (electronic) ISBN 978-1-61811-789-2 (open access) Published by Academic Studies Press in 2015 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com To the memory of my mother, Helen Kreisel [née Saremsky] Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................ ix Section I Maimonides 1. Maimonides’ God: The God of Abraham or the God of Aristotle? ........................................................ 3 2. Maimonides on Divine Religion .......................................... 19 3. Maimonides on the Eternity of the World ........................... 40 Introduction 40; The Esotericist Reading of Maimonides’ Philosophy 43; The Esotericist Reading of Maimonides’ Position on Creation 50; A Philosophic-Esotericist Reading of Maimonides’ Position on Creation 61; Conclusion 66; Appendix: The Platonic View of Creation from Eternal Matter and an Esotericist Reading of Maimonides 67 Section II Three Jewish Philosophers of Provence 4. Moses Ibn Tibbon: Translator and Philosophical Exegete ...... 73 Contents vii Introduction 73; Moses Ibn Tibbon: His Life and Works 86; Moses Ibn Tibbon’s Approach to Aggadah 97; Some Additional Matters in Moses Ibn Tibbon’s Writings 111 5. Levi ben Avraham and his Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Judaism, Livyat Ḥen ................................... 116 Introduction 116; The Structure of Livyat Ḥen and Its Sources 119; Levi ben Avraham’s Biblical Exegesis 124; Levi ben Avraham’s Rabbinic Exegesis 140; Levi ben Avraham as Social Critic 146; Appendix: Table of Contents of “Boaz” 156 6. Nissim of Marseille and his Radical Philosophic Commentary on the Torah ................................................. 161 Introduction 161; Political Philosophy 166; The Principles of Judaism 176; Providence 184; Prophecy 187; Miracles 190; Reasons for the Commandments 192; Additional Ideas in Nissim’s Commentary on the Torah 198 Section III The Reception of Maimonides in Medieval Provençal Jewish Philosophy 7. From Esotericism to Science: The Account of the Chariot in Maimonidean Philosophy till the End of the Thirteenth Century ................ 209 Introduction 209; Early Traditions of the Account of the Chariot 210; Maimonides on the Account of the Chariot 229; The Account of the Chariot in Jewish Philosophy in Provence till the End of the Thirteenth Century 246; Conclusion 260; Appendix: Some Comments on Maimonides’ Esotericism 262 8. Sage and Prophet in the Thought of Maimonides and the Jewish Philosophers of Provence ................................... 270 Introduction 270; Maimonides’ Approach to Prophecy 272; The Public Roles of the Prophet and the Sage in Maimonides’ Thought and Their Legal Authority 282; Sage and Prophet in Provençal Jewish Philosophy 292 9. The Prophecy of Moses in Medieval Jewish Provençal Philosophy: Natural or Supernatural? .................................. 315 Introduction 315; Levi ben Avraham 320; Nissim of Marseille 330; Joseph Ibn Kaspi and the Critique by Kalonymos ben Kalonymos 332; Levi Gersonides 337; The Voice of God 342; Conclusion 353; Appendix: Some Comments on Maimonides’ Approach to Miracles 354 viii Contents 10. Reasons for the Commandments in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed and in Provençal Jewish Philosophy ..... 361 Introduction 361; Characteristics of Maimonides’ Approach to the Reasons for the Commandments 364; Reasons for the Commandments in Provençal Jewish Philosophy 369; Levi ben Avraham 382; Conclusion 392 11. From Dialogue to Contemplation: The Transformation of the Meaning of Prayer in Maimonides and the Medieval Jewish Philosophers of Provence ......................................................................... 396 Introduction 396; Maimonides 403; The Jewish Philosophers of Provence 420; Appendix: Livyat Ḥen: On the Explanation of the Secret of Prayer 429 Bibliography ..................................................................... 437 Index ............................................................................... 465 Acknowledgements n the past decade and a half, most of my academic activity has been Idevoted to producing annotated editions of important medieval Jewish philosophic treatises written in Provence that had not been published till now. On occasion I would also write articles, many of them in response to invitations to deal with a general topic in medieval Jewish philosophy for one of the more popular series of collected essays. Thus when I was approached a number of years ago by Dr. Igor Nemirovsky at the suggestion of Professor Dov Schwartz to contribute a volume of my articles to the series “Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah,” published by the Academic Studies Press, I was at first reluctant to do so. I had no desire to present simply a compilation of articles. I preferred a book devoted to a central theme, in the model of my previous book of articles, Maimonides’ Political Thought, and I was not sure that I could put together another book of this nature. Upon further reflection, I realized that insofar as much of my research during this period focused on Maimonides and his reception in Provence, I could in fact dedicate a book to this topic. This undertaking would x Acknowledgements entail, however, translating and editing an extensive amount of material that I had written in Hebrew, in addition to reediting a number of articles written in English. With this in mind, I accepted Dr. Nemirovsky’s proposal. The process took far longer and it involved far more work than I originally envisioned. Seven of the eleven chapters in this volume are based on writings that appeared till now only in Hebrew. I myself translated these writings, while at the same time I revised them exten- sively. I rearranged some of the discussions, added or modified many points, and also attempted to eliminate much of the redundant mate- rial. Four other chapters appeared originally as English articles, to which I also introduced a fair number of revisions. In all the chapters I included cross references to other chapters in the volume. In short, I have tried to create more of a cohesive book than simply a collection of diverse articles. It is my sincere hope that for the non-Hebrew reader, this volume will help to illuminate the thought of some very interesting but lesser known Provençal Jewish thinkers with whom I have dealt previously mostly in my Hebrew writings. This volume is also intended as a contribution to the understanding of how the Provençal thinkers of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries read Maimonides and the scope of his influence on them, as well as to how I think the modern reader should read Maimonides. I gratefully acknowledge the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies, Brill Academic Publishers, and Yeshiva University Press for their permission to republish the following articles: “Maimonides on Divine Religion,” in Maimonides after 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence, ed. Jay Harris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 151-166. “From Esotericism to Science: The Account of the Chariot in Maimonidean Philosophy,” in The Cultures of Maimonideanism: New Approaches to the History of Jewish Thought, ed. James Robinson (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), 21-56. “Reasons for the Commandments in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed and in Provençal Jewish Philosophy,” Maimonidean Studies 5 (2008): 159-188. Acknowledgements xi The fourth English article that appeared previously is “Maimon- ides on the Eternity of the World,” in Jewish Philosophy: Perspectives and Retrospectives, ed. Raphael Jospe and Dov Schwartz (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2012), 157-184. I would like to thank the staff of Academic Studies Press, most of all Ms. Sharona Vedol, her successor Dr. Meghan Vicks, and Ms. Kira Nemirovsky who accompanied the project from its inception to frui- tion. I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful job done by the copyeditor, Ms. Deva Jasheway. My colleagues at the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have provided me with a stimulating academic environment that has contributed much to my research and I would
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