Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M A S M I D yk ' ld jiroof for or against a ccri.ilii (rnil; atul when tliis was found they asserted lliai ilic iliin must be endowed with those properties; then they employed the same assertion as a proof for tlic identical arguments which led to ihi. ' assertion, and by which tiiey either supporidl or refuied .1 icriaiii opinion . . . Ull yui, hnucicr. .n .1 i i ' n ' i il rule, that Theniistiiis wiis righ . .i) i ' i; », )( ' liroperties of things can not aJjpl than- wires to our opinions, hut our opinions must he adapted to the existing properties. (Italics mine.) It is dear therefore that true knowledge can not be obtained by smothering nature in a fanciful formula but that whimsical concoctions must be given up for the sake of intellectual insight. Although immediate knowledge of God is im- possible, knowledge of His nature can.be ob- tained t hrough His works, and it is through con- tact with the variety of things in the universe and through a grasp of the forms exhibited by these things that man can arrive at true knowledge of the I ' orm of Forins. You, however, know, says Maimonides, how all these subjects are con- nected together; for there is nothing else in exis- tence but God and His works, the latter including all existing things besides Him; we can only ob- tain a knowledge of Him through His works; His works give evidence of His existence, and show what must be assumed concerning Him, that is to say, what must be attributed to Him either af- firmatively or negatively. This knowledge of the works of God consists in the understanding of the field of action, of the myriads of particular sub- stances, the orderly succession of natural processes, and the laws governing these processes. The universe is discovered to be a stable entity and not a haphazard configuration of atoms. Just as the human body constitutes a microcosm so does the universe, whose parts are inter-related to form an organic whole, constitute a macrocosm. But in spite of the fact that the universe is governed by laws and exhibits an all-pervading order it is not a strictly deterministic system as the Mutakallemim took it to be. It is instead an open universe in which the reign of order docs not preclude the ouurrencc of novelty and change. Maimonides ' polemic against determinism and his endeavor to reconcile order with novelty must be understood in terms of his all-embracing interest in man ' s earthly happiness. Just as in the social and political lilc man imist feel himself an active agent in working out his own nature and in identifying himself with society, so must he feel himself a factor in the universe of which he is a part. Man can not feel at home in a world fated from all eternity to remain as it is. In the light of these considerations it is not difficult to see why Mai- monides fought against the notion of the eternity of the universe, an idea identical for him with strict determinism. An unbiased and dispassionate knowledge of nature teaches us that things were not made spe- cifically for man in order that he might enjoy them. They do not come into being to ser ' e man, although by discovering their natures and pur- poses man can employ them for his use. I con- sider therefore, says Maimonides, the following opinion as most correct according to the teaching of the Bible, and best in accordance with the re- sults of philosophy; namely, that the Universe does not exist for man ' s sake, but that each being exists for its ow-n sake, and not because of some other thing. Through the application of reason it is possible to discover the place and value each thing has in the scheme of the universe as a whole, and it is only through reason that man can leam to control things for his benefit. When man arrives at such an intellectual view of nature he truly know ' s and loves God, and this love of God it is which constitutes his supreme blessedness. Through this knowledge he becomes a member in the cosmic order and feels at home in it, just as through moral knowledge he becomes a member in the social order. And it is in the harmonious synthesis of the human and the di- vine, the moral and the intellectual, the material and the spiritual, that man finds his fullest realiza- tion and his highest happiness on earth. Tuenly-sesen-

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M A SMID spectator in a cosmic drama; he is mainly a doer. an active agent in a moral and social context. Here Maimonides follows Aristotle ' s distinction be- tween the absolute actuality of the Prime Mover and the most total and continuous happiness of man. Whereas God as Pure Form eternally con- templates, man ' s siimwiiiii boiinm as a moral and social being consists in the fact that he is able to imitate divinity only sometimes. Man is a so- cial being with some moments of solitude, and not a lonely thinker with some social moments. God must be worked for; in order to achieve di- vinity one must be a participator in all human activities. The final stage in man ' s search for earthly hap- piness consists in the knowledge and love of God. But though such knowledge is the ultimate goal of man as man, it does not consist in a direct in- tuition or embrace of God; it is not an immediate grasp of the essence of God. Another accepted axiom of metaphysics, says Maimonides, is that human reason can not fully conceive God in His true essence, because of the perfection of God ' s essence and the imperfection of our reason, and because His essence is not due to causes through which it may be known. The inability of our reason to comprehend may be compared to the inability of our eyes to gaze at the sun, not because of the weakness of the sun ' s light, but because the light is more powerful than that which seeks to gaze into it. Whatever knowledge of God man may be able to acquire, that knowledge must be mediated by the senses. It is from the raw materials presenting themselves in sense-perception that reason is able to extract universal principles. Reason performs its operations only as a conse- quence of the contact of the human body with things. In his insistence upon the importance of sensory experience Maimonides follows the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition that nothing can be in the mind which is not in the senses before. In denying the possibility of man ' s jump into divine essence Maimonides dealt a death-blow to all Platonists and mystics for whom knowledge of God without the mediation of the senses, direct intuition of God, was the acme of bliss and per- fection. He clasps hands with authoritative Jewish and Aristotelian doctrines that while some may walk uilh God it is impossible for anyone to walk ' ; God. Thus, as the Romans built a system of duties around their republican virtues to keep them free from foreign contamination, and as the Hebrew sages built a fence around the Law to keep it intact, so did Maimonides construct a fence around God ' s essence to glorify the moral and intellectual life of man on earth. More than that. By insisting that God ' s es- sence is beyond man ' s ken and that the study of God must be approached only by a well-adjusted moral and social individual Maimonides dispenses with any partial and one-sided view of the cosmos. The universe, of which God is the form or the actuality of actualities or the highest genus, must not be seen through a partial defeat or success ob- tained in man ' s communal life. He would have man know that success and defeat are inherent in earthly life and that they must not be employed as points of departure or as categories for the under- standing of nature as a whole. He would in one breath damn the Leibnitzian optimism, which pro- claims this to be the best of all possible worlds, and turn in dismay from the self-contained Schopen- hauerian motto that this is the worst of all possible worlds. Give up your prejudices, control your fan- cies, dispel your illusions, repeats Maimonides again and again, study logic, mathematics, and natural science, and then will you be able to approach nature with a single mind and an open heart. For those who approach nature through the phan- toms of their brain will endeavor to adjust things to their prejudices and will thus be unable to see things in their true relationships. We merely maintain, says Maimonides, that the earlier Theologians, both of the Greek Christians and of the Mohammedans, when they laid down their propositions, did not investigate the real proper- ties of things; first of all they considered what must be the properties of the things which should Twenty-six

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M ASMID The philosophy of Maimonides is not that of a lonely conttmplator drawint; a faith for living out of an intellectual love and total embrace cf God. His ideas are not the outcome of a spiritual resurrection attendant upon rejection by the world and man. He is not a solitary thinker spinning universal panaceas from the pinnacle of despair or devising a universal formula of Happiness that would apply to all men under all conditions. Man ' s happiness does not consist in a selfless de- votion to infinite Being or in an absorption in the One of Plotinus. Spiritual life, according to Maimonides, does not consist in a laughter cf Democritus or in the cry of despair of an Ec- clesiastes that All is vanity; there is no Epi- curean garden or Painted Porch of the Stoics in which to find refuge from the defeats and frustra- tions of this world. Human life is no longer an accidental occurrence in a universal pandemonium, a Platonic medital ' to mortis, an ante-chamber to the world to come, or a longing for a sensuous paradise. Neither the persecutions which he wit- nessed nor his personal misfortunes could mar his conviction that the ideal must spring from the natural and not the reverse, that human blessed- ness can not be dissociated from its material basis, and that immortality can only be achieved in living and not in dying. If the neo-Platonists exalted the transcendental realm of Ideas as the natural dwelling place of the human spirit, Maimonides exalted the realm of nature as the womb and matrix of all spiritual values. . . . here, cries Maimonides, ' .; man ' s world, here is his home, ill which he has been placed, and of which he is himself a portion. (Italics mine.) In this emphasis upon man ' s earthly existence lies the philosophical significance of Maimonides. He suggested a way of life that required more reason and less authority, more analysis and less enthusiasm, more searching and less quibbling, more action and fewer words. And in praising Maimonides we can do no better than apply to him the celebrated dictum of Aristotle: When one man said, then, that reason was present — as in animals, so throughout nature — as the cause of order and of all arrangements, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. MAIMONIDES AND THE PRESENT GENERATION (Continued from page 14) men of wisdom and insight. Spiritually famished mankind will continue to discover the sages of Israel and their essentially constructive and spiritual message and foremost among them Mai- monides, true citizen of the world. As we contemplate the life of Maimonides, man of destiny, the glory of his mind, the unique beauty and nobility of his spirit and the com- pleteness and achievements of his life, we stand in reverence of man ' s unlimited capacity for un- derstanding of the infinite, inherent qualities of the chosen ones. The blessed life of Maimonides has made for greater righteousness and happiness of his people and to this day helps inspire us to a life of deeper meaning, of greater harmony with the ultimate source of life, light and goodness — God. It is in this spirit of reverence and humility — his spirit — that we celebrate the eight-hundred years of life of this Tsadik — the name by which his great son Abraham usually designates him. Especially true of Maimonides is the dictum of our sages: Greater are the righteous in death than in life. Twenty-eight