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The Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Mystical Aspects of Happiness in the Treatise on Ultimate Happiness Attributed to Moses Maimonides

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The Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Mystical Aspects of Happiness in the Treatise on Ultimate Happiness Attributed to Moses Maimonides Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 26 (2018) 174–211 brill.com/jjtp The Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Mystical Aspects of Happiness in the Treatise on Ultimate Happiness Attributed to Moses Maimonides Avi Elqayam Bar Ilan University [email protected] Abstract This article explores the metaphysical, epistemological, and mystical aspects of hap- piness in the Judeo-Arabic Treatise on Ultimate Happiness (Kitāb as-Saʿāda al-Ākhira), of which only two chapters have survived from what is thought to have been a more comprehensive text. Although the treatise is attributed to Moses Maimonides, the con- ception of happiness (saʿāda) it presents is clearly that of the Pietists (Ḥasīdīm), the Jewish-Sufi circle of thirteenth-century Egypt. The discussion of happiness in this short treatise constitutes an important chapter in the philosophical and mystical discourse about happiness in medieval Jewish-Islamic thought, especially within the Jewish-Sufi mystical stream led by Maimonides’s descendants. Keywords Jewish mysticism – Moses Maimonides – Sufism – ultimate happiness 1 Introduction In this article, my aim is to explore the metaphysical, epistemological, and mystical aspects of happiness in the Treatise on Ultimate Happiness (Kitāb as-Saʿāda al-Ākhira),1 of which only two chapters have survived from what 1 For a critical edition of Kitāb al-Saʿāda al-Ākhira, see De Beatitudine, capito duo, R. Mosi Ben Maimon adscripta, ed. and trans. H. S. Davidowitz with additional notes by D. H. Baneth (Jerusalem: Mekitze Nirdamim, 1939), 33–71; Georges Vajda, review of Perakim b-Hatslaḥa © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/1477285X-12341231Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 02:50:12PM via free access Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Mystical Aspects of Happiness 175 is thought to have been a more comprehensive text. The Treatise, written in Judeo-Arabic, is attributed to Moses Maimonides (1138–1204); however, this compact exposition was more likely penned by a descendant of Maimonides of the Jewish Sufi school, either Abraham ben Moses Maimonides2 (1186–1234) or ‛Obadyah ben Abraham ben Moses Maimonides (1265–1228).3 Regardless, the conception of happiness (saʿāda) it presents is clearly that of the Pietists (Ḥasīdīm), the Jewish-Sufi circle of thirteenth-century Egypt.4 The Treatise was translated into Hebrew in the late fourteenth century by Zeraḥya Halevi Saladin of Saragossa (late 14th–early 15th c.), a philosopher and translator, author of philosophical essays, and a disciple of Ḥasdai Crescas (De Beatitudine), ed. H. S. Davidowitz, Revue des Études Juives 107 (1946–1947): 212–213; idem, “Une Citation non signalée du Chapitre sur la Beatitude attribute à Moise Maimonide,” Revue des Études Juives 130 (1971): 305–306; Jacob Israel Dienstag, “Perakim b-Hatslaḥa Attributed to Moses Maimonides—Bibliography, Editions, Translations and Studies” [Hebrew], Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 16 (1986): 51–56. The name of the treatise is subject to speculation, as it is not provided in what survives. It has been suggested that it was Kitāb as-Saʿāda, but this is not certain. Baneth notes that the phrase as-saʿāda al-ākhira appears several times in the treatise, though not in reference to the title. One can also point to the author’s use of the phrase kamal as-saʿāda for “ultimate felicity.” See Davidowitz, De Beatitudine, 9. 2 Naftali Wieder proposed that the author was Abraham ben Moses Maimonides or one of his school. The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and West [Hebrew], vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Ben- Zvi Institute, 1998), 699–700. 3 Paul Fenton proposed that the author was Abraham ben Moses Maimonides’s son ʿObadyah. See ʿObadyah ben Abraham ben Moses Maimonides, The Treatise of The Pool, ed. Paul Fenton (London: Octagon Press, 1981), 44–45. On his mystical doctrine, see George Vajda, “The Mystical Doctrine of Rabbi ‛Obadyah, Grandson of Moses Maimonides,” Journal of Jewish Studies 6 (1955): 213–225; Steven Harvey, “Avicenna and Maimonides on Prayer and Intellectual Worship,” in Exchange and Transmission across Cultural Boundaries: Philosophy, Mysticism and Science in the Mediterranean World, ed. Haggai Ben-Shammai, Shaul Shaked, and Sarah Stroumsa (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2013), 97–98. 4 For a general introduction to the Jewish-Sufi school of Maimonides’s offspring, see Paul B. Fenton, Deux traités de mystique juive (Paris: Verdier, 1987); idem, Treatise of the Pool; idem, “Judaeo-Arabic Mystical Writings of the XIV–XVth Century,” in Judaeo-Arabic Studies: Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, ed. Norman Golb (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1997), 87–101; idem, “Abraham Maimonides (1186– 1237): Founding a Mystical Dynasty,” in Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership in the 13th Century, ed. M. Idel and M. Ostow (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1998), 127–154; idem, “The Literary Legacy of the Descendants of Maimonides,” Peʿamim 97 (2003), 5–25; idem, “Maimonides—Father and Son: Continuity and Change,” in Traditions of Maimonideanism, ed. Carlos Fraenkel (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 103–137; Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 26 (2018)Downloaded 174–211 from Brill.com09/26/2021 02:50:12PM via free access 176 Elqayam (1340–1410).5 He took part in the Disputation of Tortosa (1413–1414). He gave the eulogy at Crescas’s funeral and succeeded him as rabbi of Saragossa. Saragossa was home to an active circle of philosophers and translators who rendered works of philosophy from Arabic and Latin into Hebrew, an initia- tive led by translator Benvenist Caballeria, a.k.a. Ibn Lavi.6 Zeraḥya Halevi is known for his translation from Arabic into Hebrew of Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī’s (1058–1111) seminal work The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-Falāsifah).7 His translating the Treatise on Ultimate Happiness suggests that the work held great interest for Crescas’s circle.8 The Treatise on Ultimate Happiness deals with the nature of ultimate hap- piness (as-saʿāda al-ākhira) and the means for attaining it. The anonymous author explores prophetic, rabbinic, and philosophical theses about ultimate happiness, with the aim of reconciling the apparent contradictions between them. As we shall see, the author draws upon the technical vocabulary of multiple disciplines in this attempt, especially the terms taṣawwuf and falsafa. The author’s synthesizing vision argues that the attainment of ultimate happiness depends on perfecting the human intellect through philosophy, as 5 Baneth, in Davidowitz, De Beatitudine, xxviii n. 54. It has been mistakenly suggested that the author is Zeraḥya ben Shealtiel Gracian (d. 1290), who was born either in Barcelona or in Toledo. See Davidowitz, De Beatitudine, xxvii–xxx; Israel Moses Ta-Shma, Rabbi Zeraḥya Ha-Levi and His Colleagues [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1993), 7; Ḥaviva Pedaya, “Possessed by Speech: Towards an Understanding of the Prophetic-Ecstatic Pattern among Early Kabbalists” [Hebrew], Tarbitz 56 (1996): 622. The name of the translator, Rabbi Zeraḥya Ha-Levi, is mentioned in two manuscripts of his translations: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. 719; New York, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Ms. 2341. 6 Ari Ackerman, The Sermons of R. Zeraḥya Halevi Saladin [Hebrew] (Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2002), 29. 7 Abu Hamid Muhammed al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, trans. Michael Marmura (London: Brigham Young University Press, 2002). On the Hebrew translation, see Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin: Kommissionsverlag des Bibliographischen Bureaus, 1893), 327–330. On the influence of al-Ghazālī on Crescas’s circle, see W. Zev Harvey and Steven Harvey, “Rabbi Ḥasdai Crescas’s Attitude toward al-Ghazālī” [Hebrew], in The Intertwined Worlds of Islam: Essays in Memory of Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, ed. Naḥem Ilan (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2002), 191–210. 8 The Treatise on Ultimate Happiness was very likely influential in shaping the perception of happiness in Crescas’s circle. Crescas himself criticized the concept of happiness in Aristotle’s and Maimonides’s philosophies. On the perception of happiness in Crescas’s thought, see Gabriella Berzin, “ ‘Happiness,’ ‘Pleasure’ and ‘Good’ in the Thought of Maimonides and Ḥasdai Crescas,” in Shefaʿ Tal: Studies in Jewish Thought and Culture Presented to Bracha Sack [Hebrew], ed. Zeev Gries, Howard Kreisel, and Boaz Huss (Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004), 85–111. Journal of Jewish Thought & PhilosophyDownloaded from26 (2018)Brill.com09/26/2021 174–211 02:50:12PM via free access Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Mystical Aspects of Happiness 177 detailed by Aristotle and Maimonides,9 on reaching the contemplative ideal of human perfection, and, above all, on attaining the Neoplatonic goal of the soul’s renascence in the spiritual world, achieved by following the esoteric doc- trines of Ibn Sīnā (980–1037), the “Chief Master” (al-Shaykh al-Ra ʾīs), and al- Ghazālī, the “Proof of Islam” (Ḥujjat al-Islam). Practically, the treatise proposes that ultimate happiness is a function of one’s perceptions and preparations: I have already informed you, in what I elucidated for you previously of the philosophers’ theses about
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