The esoteric Torah teachings of “The Guide for the Perplexed”.

 Honey and milk are under your tongue.

Song of Songs 4:11 (1)

Summary: The esoteric part of the Torah may not be published. Yet, Maimonides, driven by the dramatic circumstances of his time, found ways to write it down without transgressing the Law.

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At the time of Maimonides the Judaism of Europe, including that of his native Spain, was on the verge of total annihilation. Maimonides was born shortly after the first Crusade and was a contemporary of the next two. No disaster of such magnitude had hit the Jews before. Even in his native Andalusia, yet sheltered from the Crusades, the Jews were forced by Almohad fanatics to choose between conversion to Islam and exile.

Just like the survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants, the Jews of the twelfth century had to question themselves about the meaning of the trials imposed on them by history and the place of divine intervention (2). In this context, Maimonides was convinced that Judaism was in danger of disappearing insofar as the material conditions for its survival could no longer be assured (3).

The existence of Judaism depends fundamentally on the study and transmission of the Torah, more precisely of the Talmud. However, the functioning of the Talmudic schools, which ensure this study and transmission, requires a minimum of political stability impossible to achieve in the midst of the persecutions of the time.

The intensification of anti-Jewish persecution on a planetary scale explains why the main works of Maimonides aim to allow the essentials of the Talmud to be transmitted even in the absence of Talmudic schools.

As its name suggests, the Oral Torah is not intended to be transmitted in writing. The Babylonian Talmud (4), specifies that it is forbidden to repeat by heart what is written in the Torah, and it is forbidden to read what one has learned orally.

It was only reasons of force majeure which led our Sages to fix the oral tradition in writing. Insofar as political conditions no longer permitted oral transmission, our Sages were faced with the dilemma of letting this tradition disappear or of committing the transgression of putting it in writing. They took the latter option: …it is better for one letter of the Torah to be violated than for the whole Torah to be forgotten. (5)

• The fixation of the Mishna, the central core of the Talmud, was made by Rabbi Judah the Prince in the 2nd century CE following the defeat of Bar Kokhba in the war against Hadrian's Rome.
• The Gemara is made up of commentaries and debates around the Mishna. It was fixed three centuries later by Rav Ashi, Ravina and Ravina II following the fierce persecutions that the Sassanid kings (Yezdegerd II and Firuz) led against the Babylonian Jews.

At the time of Maimonides the situation of the Jews was so degraded that the possibility of teaching the Oral Torah, that is to say the Talmud, was compromised, even having been fixed in writing for centuries. In response to this serious historical crisis, Maimonides made in his Mishneh Torah (6), the first exhaustive and systematized collection of all the halachot (7). He obtains the conciseness of the Mishnéh Torah at the price of the exclusion of all the halachic debates and the aggadoth (8) of the Talmud.

The halakhic debates of the Talmud contain the jurisprudences while the aggadoth of the Talmud contain the meaning of these laws, their raison d'être.

Logically Maimonides should have composed a synthetic collection of aggadoth which was complementary to the Mishneh Torah. If he did not do it, it is because he could not do it, for the Law forbids the publication and writing down of the core of this tradition: the secret Torah constituted by the The Work of Creation (Ma'aseh Bereshit מעשה ברשית) and the Design of the Chariot (Ma'aseh Merkavah מעשה מרכבה).

In addition to the Oral Torah, fixed in writing in the Talmud, which constitutes an exoteric public teaching, there is an esoteric secret Oral Torah which can only be transmitted privately by a teacher to a single student at a time and taking into account a number of restrictions. Yet, this esoteric teaching is the very heart of aggadah and contains the ultimate meaning and raison d'etre of the entire system of mitzvot (9) expounded in the Mishneh Torah.

On the one hand, Maimonides cannot commit such a serious violation as the publication of the secret Torah and on the other hand, he cannot let this secret teaching disappear, because he deems it essential for the perpetuation of Judaism. In other words, Maimonides is faced with the dilemma of violating the Law to preserve it, he will solve this dilemma by finding a way to transmit this tradition while respecting the prohibition of its transmission. : the result is this atypical and unclassifiable great work of genius, which is the Guide of the Perplexed.

The Mishnah Haguigah (10) and the Gemara (11) corresponding to it which deal with the prohibition and the very special method to be used for the teaching of the Design of the Chariot, specifies that this teaching must be addressed to a single person, worthy of receiving it and capable of understanding by itself so that the teacher will proceed by insinuations and will communicate only the main lines, leaving it to the pupil to complete it.

“One may not expound … the Work of Creation and the secrets of the beginning of the world before two or more individuals; nor may one expound by oneself the Design of the Divine Chariot, a mystical teaching about the ways God conducts the world, unless he is wise and understands most matters on his own.” Mishnah Haguigah 2:1 (12)

To satisfy the commandment that the teaching should be addressed to one person, Maimonides writes the Guide in a pseudo-epistolary style. In the dedication of the work, Maimonides explains that the Guide is addressed to only one person, a disciple of merit who had to go into exile to escape persecution. The Guide is written as a conversation. Maimonides refers to this work with the Arabic term maqâla (مَقَال‎) which can mean treaty, but whose primary meaning is opinion, story, conversation. The Guide is thus presented as a substitute for a face-to-face conversation.

However, Maimonides knows that this measure is not sufficient to circumvent the prohibition to make public the secret teaching of the Torah, ultimately he does not make it public because, concerning this teaching, everything he affirms or insinuates in one part of the work he contradicts it elsewhere, sometimes on the same page, sometimes in another chapter or in another section. This amounts to teaching nothing about the secret Torah since, according to logic, whoever affirms and denies a thing has said nothing about the thing in question. Among the contradictory assertions that Maimonides offers, it is up to the reader to choose which is the correct one.

Maimonides develops several additional tactics in order to discourage readers who are not targeted by his teaching, and if failing to do so, put them on the wrong track by letting them believe that they are reading a kind of theological-philosophical treatise which seeks to justify Judaism within the framework of Aristotelian reason.

We thus find ourselves faced with the singular case of a meticulous work, where nothing is left to chance, and which is nevertheless riddled with diversions, digressions, traps of all kinds and where the main subject, the secret Torah, is expounded in a disguised, disorderly, and scattered manner.

Why did Maimonides undertake such monumental work to compose a work destined to be little understood?

Unlike reading the Mishneh Torah, a work intended for everyone, young or old, intelligent or witless — because no one is supposed to disregard the Law and because this knowledge is essential for the observance of the cult —, the reading of the Guide is not essential to the practice of Judaism, the Guide is intended only for the perplexed capable of understanding for themselves.

The teaching of the Guide, although not essential for the practice of Judaism can however, under certain historical conditions, such as those experienced by Maimonides, be essential for the survival of Judaism. Since the fundamental lesson of the secret Torah is the unconditional love that the Jew must devote to the Eternal.

Unconditional meaning without expecting any reward, knowing that there is no reward to be expected.

The esoteric teaching of the Work of Creation affirms this love even if nothing in the knowledge of nature leads one to believe that there was a creation of the world, the esoteric teaching of the Design of the Chariot affirms this love even if nothing in the knowledge of history and in personal experience leads to belief in divine Providence. In other words: Not believing that the Eternal created the World and/or not believing that the Eternal intervenes in history would not be a sufficient reason not to love Him.

If Judaism is not always based on simple belief, then what is it based?

It is up to everyone to discover it, provided that they are capable of learning the study of the secret Torah. Study that, thanks to its secret nature, can only be personal and private.

The study of the Guide is reserved for the self-taught. It allows him to establish an individual dialogue with Maimonides who brings him elements to maintain the flame of Judaism despite the worst conditions of doubt and perplexity, it also brings him Lights, not those of the Encyclopedia, but rather those of Hanukkah (13), lights to be contemplated, which should not have a practical use, and in the case of the secret Torah, which could not be used even if one wanted to (14).

There is also a reading of the Guide which has led some to assume that Maimonides was an atheist. I don't agree because for Maimonides himself the question of the existence of God was not an issue, the relationship between Maimonides (Osgood) and God (Daphne) is perfectly described in the closing scene of Billy Wilder's Some like it hot: God (Daphne) says “You don't understand, Maimonides, I DON'T EXIST!” and Maimonides (Osgood) answers, “Well.. nobody's perfect”.

Maimonides really was a mystic who makes you believe he is a rationalist, a Platonist who makes you think he is an Aristotelian, a rabbi who makes you assume he is a philosopher.

Notes

1. דְּבַשׁ וְחָלָב תַּחַת לְשׁוֹנֵךְ

2. “... the conscience of a part of the sons of our people is absent and confused, their heart capsizes, doubt seizes them, their reason is confused…” Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen p.112.

3. “… our persecution extends from one end of the world to the other…” ibid. above p. 111.

4. T'murah 14b

5. Ibid. supra.

6. Religious law code that excludes all Talmudic debates. The title Mishnéh Torah irritated many, since it is the same name that is given to the 5ᵉ book of the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy = second Torah).

7. Jewish laws.

8. Exegetical and homiletic legends.

9. Pious acts. Compliance with Torah Laws.

10. 2:1

11. BT Haguigah 11b and 13b

12. אֵין דּוֹרְשִׁין … בְּמַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית בִּשְׁנַיִם, וְלֹא בַּמֶּרְכָּבָה בְּיָחִיד, אֶלָּא אִם כֵּן הָיָה חָכָם וּמֵבִין מִדַּעְתּוֹ

13. חֲנֻכָּה‎ Festival of Lights.

14. …my goal is (to ensure) that the truths are glimpsed there, and that they then slip away, so as not to be in opposition to the divine goal, which moreover it would be impossible to oppose… Guide I p 10 above. This statement contains a paradox: Why would the Torah forbid doing something impossible?

SOURCES:

1. This writing is largely inspired by an article by Leo Strauss (1899-1973) The Literary Character of The Guide for the Pexplexed, first published in 1941. I became aware of this article in the late 1970s while reading L'instance de la lettre ou la raison depuis Freud of J. Lacan, who quotes it.
2. The best introduction and overview of Maimonides' work and its significance for Judaism was given by Yechayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) in a series of radio lectures for Israeli soldiers, which ultimately published as a book in 1980 under the title The faith of Maimonides.
3. We quote the French translation of the Guide by Salomon Munk (1856) Le Guide des Egarés.

OTHER READINGS:

1. Also from Leo Strauss you may read Persecution and the Art of Writing, also published in 1941 and How To Begin To Study The Guide Of The Perplexed published in 1962 as an introduction to Shlomo Pines’ translation of the Guide.
2. Shlomo Pinès published in 1963 an introductory essay on the Guide for students of philosophy: The philosophical sources for The Guide of the Perplexed.
3. A more poetic work on the same subject is Homo Mysticus (1999) by José Faur who was my brother's teacher at Spertus (Chicago).