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Aspects of Maimonides' Historiosophy Y. TZVI LANGERMANN Aspects of Maimonides’ Historiosophy id Maimonides believe in human freedom of action—that is, that humans freely choose what to do and what not to do, and hence bear moral (and legal) responsibility for their actions?1 DFor a long time, that question would have seemed superfluous; human freedom of choice was considered one of the flagship teachings of Maimonides, one that went hand in hand with his repudiation of astrology. However, two leading scholars of the preceding generation, Alexander Altmann and Shlomo Pines, published closely reasoned investigations that argue for some determinism in Maimonides' philos- ophy.2 Human freedom of action—and related issues, including astrolo- gy—have now joined the long list of topics whose place in Maimonides’ system of beliefs—his “true” beliefs, one should always add—are a matter of debate. Not too long ago, after years of worrying over these very critical issues, I arrived at what I think to be a precious clue towards their proper 1. No attempt has been made to supply exhaustive references to the ever-growing body of studies on Maimonides. The sources cited in the few footnotes are with very few exceptions only those that I consulted in the course of writing. 2. Shlomo Pines, “Studies on Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi’s Poetics and Metaphysics,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 6 (1960): 195-1988, on p. 198; Alexander Altmann, “The Religion of the Thinkers: Free Will and Predestination in Saadya, Bahya, and Maimonides,” in Religion in a Religious Age, ed. S. D. Gotein (Cambridge: Harvard, MA, 1974), 25-52, esp. 41 ff. Y. TZVI LANGERMANN is Professor of Arabic at Bar Ian University. After earn- ing his doctorate at Harvard in History of Science, he worked for fifteen years at the National Library in Jerusalem cataloguing manuscripts. His interests range widely; most of his recent publications focus on Maimonides, Ibn Kammuna, and the history of medicine. 94 The Torah u-Madda Journal (18/2020-21) Y. Tzvi Langermann 95 understanding. I will not hide my Archimedean moment, even if it is not the usual type of academic reference. It came while watching a video talk (on YouTube, of course) by the late Professor Joseph Ben-Shlomo, who was explaining what he calls the Bible’s historiosophy.3 Historiosophy, simply and sufficiently put, is the idea that history serves some divine purpose.4 The train of events looks human enough— the sum of good and bad choices on the part of freely choosing and cap able actors. In truth, though, the end was already decreed by the One Above, and whatever train of events actually occurred would have led to it, no matter what. Maimonides’ historiosophy, as I understand it, may be formulated more precisely: There are some predetermined events whose future occurrence is decreed. There follow a series of events, involving human choice, and each choice is judged on its moral merits or demerits. The series terminates at the final event, whose occurrence has been foretold. But not all events are so predetermined. It seems that we are speaking of only a few pivotal events in the divine plan for humankind in general and the Jewish People in particular. But—and this will be a recurrent theme—we do not know for sure. The classic example is the book of Genesis. Abraham receives a divine revelation that his descendants will go to Egypt and remain there for some time. This is followed by a series of stories involving ethical choices—especially the choice of Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery, which sends him down to Egypt, and the choice of Joseph to resist the temptation of Potiphar’s wife, which leads to his impris- onment, where he interprets the dream of Pharaoh’s cup-bearer. This chain of events, in all its sometimes bizarre detail, leads to the end result that Joseph, as the viceroy, invites Abraham’s descendants to settle in Egypt. That event had been foretold centuries beforehand; yet the actors in the events leading up to it were free to choose and capable of executing their choices. They are therefore held morally responsible for their actions. I will argue that, by and large, this biblical story is the model for Maimonides’ understanding of some critical events in Jewish history, 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj6r8MxmUpw (accessed April 1, 2017). Google in Hebrew: Shiv‘im Panim- Parashat Va-yiggash). 4. Prof. Ben-Shlomo apparently learned of the term and/or concept from Gershom Scholem; Prof. Ben-Shlomo is said to have been the only one of Scholem’s students with whom the master had a close personal bonding. See the detailed and reliable Hebrew Wikipedia biography. 96 The Torah u-Madda Journal both past and future. There are some predetermined events that will happen, no doubt about it; but along the way, humans make choices, for which they are accountable, even though the final event that ostensibly resulted from those choices would have happened in any case. This point can be illustrated by a number of passages from Maimonides’ writings. Of course, in common with all people who think, Maimonides’ mind was not frozen with regard to any particular issue. Nonetheless, I think that, with regard to the topics of this paper, he maintained the same line of thought consistently, even if his thoughts at a given moment are not the exact replica of an opinion he expressed years earlier. As is always the case, the level of detail that Maimonides decides to display, as well as the text and context within which the passage occurs, will differ from case to case. And like all attempts to systematize Maimonides’ thought, the present offering will have its rough edges. Does the element of determinism in his thought affect in any way Maimonides’ repudiation of astrology, and if it does, how? Clearly, it does not impinge at all on the micro-level of individual human actions (discrete actions of individual humans), which remain free and undetermined by the stars. But how about on the macro, world history level? Maimonides surely knew of astrological theories that connect human history, the rise and fall of kingdoms, the emergence and decline of religious communi- ties, and the coming of prophets, among other things, with the move- ments of the planets, especially the cyclical conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn.5 The very notion of a predetermined instant—that is, not just the notion that a certain event must occur, but also that the instant of its real- ization has already been fixed—calls up astral associations. I will argue that Maimonides rejects any astral connection to what- ever determinism does figure in his historiosophy. There are no fuzzy boundaries; the stars do not effect or affect future events in any way. Indeed, precisely because the astral connection begs to be drawn, Maimonides goes to great lengths to exclude any such possibility. Maimonides remains, in this respect at least, an orthodox Aristotelian. The celestial motions mark time—and that is all. Significantly, Maimonides occasionally speaks of time as being a causative agent. While this may be a figure of speech in Arabic (and other languages), I suspect that it may be more than that. I will add a few thoughts on this point near the end of this paper. 5. E.S. Kennedy and David Pingree, The Astrological History of Mā’shā’allāh (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). Y. Tzvi Langermann 97 In sum, then, Maimonides adopts a biblical historiosophy, in which there are some predetermined events that must inevitably occur. In my view, it is hard to conceive of an authentic Jewish worldview that is not historiosophic in some way. Jews have never thought of themselves as aimlessly adrift on the sea of history, even when we suspect that God chooses not to look, or we sense that we cannot come up with a good captain and crew. As for humans as individuals, they freely choose their actions and hence are responsible for them, even if it turns out that a particular choice looks to have precipitated a happening that had been divinely pre-ordained. In all of this, the stars fulfill the role that Aristotle has assigned to them, marking time and nothing more. Historiosophy in Maimonides We will begin by examining the finalhalakhah in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, chapter 6: Is it not written in the Torah, “They will enslave and oppress them” (Gen. 15:13)? He decreed that the Egyptians will do evil! And it is written, “This people will rise up and stray after the deities of the nations of the land" (Deut. 31:16). See now, He decreed that Israel will worship false gods,6, so why did He punish them? It is because He did not decree for a given, discrete individual that he will be the one who strays. Rather, each and every one of those who strayed and worshiped false gods could have not worshiped if he had so wished. The Creator has only made known the way of the world.7 To what may this be compared? To someone who says, “This nation will have both righteous people and evildoers.” That is no reason to say that it has been decreed for the evildoer that he will be an evildoer, [simply] because the Holy One, Blessed be He, informed Moses that there will be evildoers in Israel, just like it is said, “For there will not cease to be a pauper in the land” (Deut. 15:11). So also with regard to the Egyptians: Each and every one of those who afflicted and harmed Israel had the authority not to harm them had he [so] wished, for He did not decree concerning a particular individual.
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