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BOOKS: Just Because the Rambam Said It...
Erin Leib
Controversies over Maimonides just never seem to end. The great thinker, who lived from 1138 to 1204, is once again causing a stir -- not in France or Spain, where in medieval times he was accused repeatedly of heresy, but in America. Marc B. Shapiro, professor and chair of Judaic studies at the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania, recently published an all-you-ever-thought-was-right-is-wrong account of the famous "Thirteen Principles of Faith," set out by Maimonides in his Commentary to the Mishnah. The principles -- which have been popularized in the "Ani Ma�amin" catechism (recited by some during morning prayers) and in the Yigdal prayer -- articulate beliefs regarding the nature of God, creation, prophecy, revelation, providence and messianic times.
For Maimonides, mere recitation won�t do. He framed his list with a rather ominous warning: Anyone who harbors even a doubt about a single principle will be deemed a heretic, severed forever from the Jewish people and stripped of a place in the world to come. "One is required to hate him and destroy him," he gently writes.
The Orthodox establishment, especially of late, has embraced these harsh words literally, and, in Shapiro�s estimation, the Principles have largely become the "last word" on Orthodox theology. A survey of contemporary Orthodox literature bolsters Shapiro�s claim. In several works, the Principles are identified as "the one clear unambiguous creed of Judaism"; they are "the sine qua non of Torah faith." It is said that "all Torah scholars agree on the validity and significance of the Principles."
Shapiro has come along to tell us otherwise. Despite the monolithic picture drawn by some influential rabbis, not all Torah scholars actually agree on the validity of the Principles, and they never did, Shapiro argues. His research is exhaustive, almost encyclopedic, and it is highly convincing: The Principles never were, nor were they intended to be, the static final statement of Orthodox theology. Neither Maimonides himself, nor many traditionalists who preceded and followed him, bought the whole package deal. Quoting Gershom Scholem in an entirely different context, Shapiro writes, "It seems to me to be an extraordinary example of how a judgment proclaimed with conviction as certainly true may nevertheless be entirely wrong in every detail." It�s no wonder that, according to the Forward newspaper, Eichler�s Jewish bookstore, of Borough Park, Brooklyn, returned its copies of Shapiro�s book to the publisher on account of "neighborhood complaints."
"The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides� Thirteen Principles Reappraised" most definitely reappraises. It reexamines each principle with rigorous scrutiny and also revalues, pointedly asking just how a creed so demanding and also so contested could have come to occupy such a place of primacy. For every one of the Thirteen, Shapiro comprehensively documents the high levels of dispute that can be found in traditional sources surrounding the doctrines assumed to be consensus notions today.
Take the Third Principle, the incorporeality of God, for example. Shapiro collects evidence from the Bible (where God, at the very least, has an arm, a nose, a face and a back), the Talmud (where God wears tefillin), remains from 3rd- and 6th-century synagogues (where God is depicted with a hand extending from heaven), and medieval philosophy to illustrate the acceptance of, or at least tolerance for, a God with bodily form. Professors Meir Bar-Ilan and Israel Ta-Shma, of Bar-Ilan and the Hebrew Universities, respectively, are cited for their independent claims that commentator Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 1040-1105) was a corporealist! Rashbam (R. Samuel ben Meir, c. 1085-c.1174) might have been one too. The Rabad (R. Abraham ben David Posquieres, c. 1125-1198) and Nachmanides (1194-1270) did not agree with the view, but defended it against the claim of heresy, a trend that continued for centuries. Shapiro then literally lists the many authors, both pre-dating and post-dating Maimonides, who, while themselves not corporealists, nevertheless report this to be a widespread view, not only of the masses but also of some scholars. If this weren�t enough, the book additionally contains an appendix with visual images to prove the point. Title pages from rabbinic works, dated 1540, 1698 and 1742, all contain vivid depictions of God. The Big Daddy in the Sky idea didn�t come from nowhere, though in only one picture presented is He bearded.
In this case, Maimonides did in fact adhere to the dogma. Corporealism, whether ancient or contemporaneous, was anathema to him, and any sacred texts that use such language are to be understood figuratively, by his account. But the notion that anyone with an opposing view must be dismissed summarily as a heretic seems shocking after Shapiro�s account, as some rather pious Orthodox figures would fail the test and Maimonides would have known that. Furthermore, the persistence of alternative views, at least into the 19th century, indicates that the current claim that Maimonides closed the discussion is simply false.
A second stratum in Shapiro�s book deals with principles that are revealed to be contrary to what Maimonides himself believed. The Fourth Principle, regarding creation ex nihilo, is one such example. Though the dogma demands belief in creation from nothing, Maimonides explicitly contradicts this in his "Guide for the Perplexed," where he argues for the possibility of creation from eternal matter, a position that was supported by many medievals, following the thought of Plato. The same can be said of the Eleventh Principle, regarding the existence of heavenly reward and punishment. Though this is taken to be a statement about direct intervention by God, Maimonides explicitly argued for a naturalistic account of providence in the "Guide," the Commentary on the Mishnah, and the Mishneh Torah. For him, God does not bestow goodness; humans cultivate it through their intellect. In light of these counter-references, either Maimonides himself was a heretic or his principles of what constitutes heresy are themselves the deviation.
Given this lack of consensus, both internal and external to Maimonides, why the dogmas and why their stringency? Shapiro offers only a brief account of Maimonides� motivation in even formulating the Principles. He invokes the famous distinction presented in the "Guide" between "true beliefs" and "necessary beliefs." True beliefs are truths about God that yield intellectual perfection. Necessary ones are things better believed for the sake of social order. It is in this latter category that Shapiro places the more contentious of the Thirteen Principles. Islamic polemics, especially regarding the integrity of Torah, threatened the faith of the Jews of Maimonides� era, and so better to harden the beliefs of the masses than to educate with nuance during such times, he presumably reasoned. "With such a goal, namely the creation of religious myth," Shapiro provocatively writes (perhaps purposefully in a footnote), "absolute truth is not important." In other words, desperate times call for desperate measures, and desperate measures call for double-speak.
Turning from philosophy toward sociology, Shapiro, himself a committed Orthodox Jew, finally takes up the question of the ossification of the Thirteen Principles within the contemporary Orthodox community. In addition to the statements quoted above that testify to this phenomenon, Shapiro draws upon the negative reception of an earlier article on the subject (which he published in Yeshiva University�s Torah Umadda journal in 1993) intended to illustrate the problem. That piece created a "sensation" in Orthodox circles, and provoked Shapiro, who was labeled an "iconoclast," to ask: Where is the creativity of theology of old? Where is the debate and even the occasional tolerance that used to characterize conversations about such lofty matters? Shapiro does not shy away from criticizing his fellow believers, and his assessment is trenchant: Orthodox Jews simply don�t "do" theology anymore. Talmud they do, and very well too, but serious engagement with theology and philosophy has fallen by the wayside. The "turn to the right" of the past half-century has meant a heightened dogmatism across the board, and hence the popular (albeit implicit) position that Maimonides has thought all that needs to be thought about God, so now let us return to the tractate at hand.
Shapiro�s armchair sociology may or may not be right, but his aim is truly constructive and his tone is passionately concerned. If Orthodoxy is to take tradition seriously, then it must take all of it seriously, and that means confronting, and maybe even celebrating, the diversity of voices that constitute it. And if it is to take the God relationship seriously, then it simply cannot leave the work of theology to someone else. The last word has not been spoken.
Erin Leib is a University fellow at the Committee on Social thought at the University of Chicago.
The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides' Thirteen Principles Reappraised / By Marc B. Shapiro. The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization: 221 pp. : $29.50
August 23, 2004
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