National Jewish Scholars Project

Maimonides on Judaism
and Other Religions

The Samuel H. Goldenson Lecture, February 23, 1997
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio

David Novak

Nineteen thirty-five was not a good year for the Jews, certainly not for the Jews of Germany. The new Nazi regime was by then fully in power and the venerable German Jewish community very much in peril. Yet, de-spite the uncertainties of the hour, German Jewry was still able to transcend its present situation and join with Jewish communities elsewhere to celebrate the eight hundredth anniversary of the birth of the man who might very well be considered the greatest of all Jewish thinkers, Moses Maimonides, who was born in Cordoba in Muslim Spain in 1135.

One of those who celebrated this occasion in Germany was a young Polish Jewish scholar living there at the time, my late revered teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel (who was a former distinguished member of the faculty of the Hebrew Union College). In fact, his celebration of this occasion resulted in the publication of his first book in German that very year, Maimonides: Eine Biographie.¹ Professor Heschel once told me the following story about how the Jewish community of Berlin publicly celebrated this event. It seems that a symposium was held at which the main speakers were three rabbis, each repre-senting a major segment of religiously affiliated German Jewry: orthodox, conservative, and liberal. Most striking in these respective presentations was that each of these rabbis used a different name for Moses the son of Rabbi Maimon the Spaniard (which is what Maimonides called himself). The orthodox rabbi called him the Ram-bam, which is what traditional Jewish literature has always called him. The conservative rabbi called him Mai-monides, which is how he would be most recognizable to germanified ears. And the liberal rabbi called him Mai-muni, which is how he would have been known to his Arabic speaking contemporaries. Professor Heschel imagined that a total stranger walking into the proceed-ings might very well have assumed that three different thinkers were under discussion. Of course, these differ-ences in nomenclature indicate deeper conceptual differences. Hence what we learn from this rather charming story is that what we are looking for will largely determine just whom we actually find. It would seem that before one discovers the "real" Maimonides, once must decide (however tentatively) just what sort of views are being sought.

One’s view of where Maimonides’ central significance lies might very well be located in just how one understands the importance of Maimonides’ calling his code of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, "our great composition" (in Arabic: ta’alifana al-khbir; in Hebrew: hibburenu ha-gadol). Mai-monides made this point in his most important theological work, Guide of the Perplexed, where he compares the work he is writing with the larger work he had already written.² Thus one must ponder the significance of Maimonides the halakhist as compared to Maimonides the philosophical theologian, and vice-versa. Those who would like to call him Maimuni, that is, those who emphasize Maimonides as the medieval philosophical theologian (or even just the philosopher), the student of Aristotle, Alfarabi, and Avicenna, would say that the ad-jective "great" refers to the simple fact that Mishneh Torah is quantitatively larger than the Guide.³ For Mai-monides, "the science of the Law in its true sense" is what he is developing in the Guide, a discipline that he clearly means to be intellectually superior to the "legal-istic study of the Law (fiqh)," which is most elaborately developed in Mishneh Torah.⁴ Conversely, those who would like to call him the Rambam, that is, those who emphasize Maimonides as the systematic halakhist, would say that his philosophical work is essentially apol-ogetic, geared to the doubts of his own generation, but that his enduring significance for Jews is what he has bequeathed in Mishneh Torah (and related halakhic works). As such, the "great" in "our great composition" is not just a quantitative judgment, but even more so a qualitative one. What we have here seems to be an example of the perennial impasse between law and philosophy or between praxis and theoria.

Nevertheless, couldn’t one attempt to overcome this very impasse by seeing Maimonides’ philosophical signifi-cance in his work as a halakhist? The advantage to this assumption is that it satisfies the desire of the most intellectually curious Jews for a philosophy of Judaism, but without limiting Maimonides’ thought to a by now irretrievable scientific-metaphysical paradigm of his own time. For if the phenomenological centrality of Judaism lies in the commandments themselves (the mitsvot, both biblical and rabbinic), then Jews now experience the same essential Jewish practical data that Jews have always experienced (the differences being matters of more specific details).⁵ And this is unlike the world experienced in scientific-metaphysical discourse, which changing scientific paradigms have shown to be essen-tially different in different periods of history.⁶ In other words, the enduring object that attracts the attention of the philosopher could very well be –- at least for the philosophically attuned Jew -– more available in the commandments of the Torah than in the world itself. Traditional Jewish practice of the commandments of the Torah has been more consistent than scientific or philo-sophic engagement with the world has been.

Furthermore, by locating the Jewish philosophical quest in the Halakhah -– for our purposes here and now in Maimonides’ halakhic work –- one need not dismiss his more metaphysical speculations in the Guide as only apologetics. For there is much in those very speculations that can be connected to his reflections on the more phenomenologically enduring data of the commandments of the Torah. That is, one can still see the greater Jew-ish significance of Mishneh Torah without making Maimonides’ more specifically philosophical interests Jew-ishly insignificant. And if it be objected that this is not the way Maimonides understood himself, we should retort that our primary interest should not be in the man himself but in what he was interested in and attempted to teach us: the truth, especially the truth of the Torah (torah emet).⁷ We are interested in where Maimonides’ thoughts lead us to the truth, even if we locate ourselves differently than he located himself in that common quest.⁸ We should approach Maimonides in the same way he approached the Rabbis on the question of their natural science (as distinct from their legal authority), only accepting what could be demonstrably shown to be true about it.⁹ Just as that approach in no way diminished his ongoing respect for them, it should in no way diminish our ongoing respect for him.

In focusing upon Maimonides the philosophical theolo-gian, that is, as a philosopher of Judaism, we might best begin by adopting the way the words of the Rambam were introduced in more strictly halakhic lectures in the pre-World War II Lithuanian yeshivas, especially in the famed yeshiva of Slobodka. (The method is the same; but our questions are more explicitly philosophical than theirs were -– here and now in this yeshiva of Cincin-nati.) There, one would begin by presenting what appeared to be a difficulty in his own words, what they called a schwere Rambam. Such a "difficulty" can be of two kinds: a problem in locating the talmudic source (meqor) of what the Rambam said inasmuch as Mishneh Torah only cites biblical sources verbatim; or a seeming contradiction (steerah) when comparing one passage from his halakhic work with another. Usually, solving the first kind of difficulty is a test of one’s talmudic erudi-tion; solving the second kind is a test of one’s exegetical ingenuity. In approaching Maimonides’ views of other religions, especially from the essential vantage point of the practical philosophy of the Halakhah, we face a difficulty of the second kind. It calls for exegetical in-genuity of a synthetic sort, although not the view that sees everything Maimonides said to be one seamless garment, which precludes any development within his own point of view. A synthetic method need not be as ahistorical as that of the more traditional students of Maimonides the halakhist.

II.

Maimonides’ views on the relation of Judaism to other religions can best be located in his codification of a ruling of the Talmud. The question is whether one may teach Torah to a gentile. Virtually quoting the Talmud verbatim, Maimonides writes in Mishneh Torah: "A gentile who engages (oseq) in the study of the Torah deserves to die (hayyav meetah). He should not engage in the study of anything but their seven commandments alone."¹⁰ As is well known, the Rabbis enunciated a doctrine of "the Seven Noahide Commandments" (sheva mitsvot bnei Noah), which includes those basic norms they considered binding even on the gentiles.¹¹ It be-came the standard whereby non-Jews, as both individuals and communities, could be considered worthy of Jewish respect. It further became the standard whereby Jews could determine which non-Jews would be enjoying the bliss of the world-to-come with them and which ones would be excluded. For although there is a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua about the presence of gentiles in the world-to-come, Maimoni-des sides with Rabbi Joshua in the view that the righteous of the gentiles will, in effect, join the righteous of Israel there.¹² Nevertheless, in this world, the ways to fulfill the law of God are to be quite distinct for Jews and for gentiles respectively. So far, Maimonides is on very solid talmudic grounds.

However, in the enumeration of the mitsvot, which is the prelude to the books of Mishneh Torah, Maimonides writes: "He has commanded us to sanctify the name of God ... to proclaim (le-farsem) this true faith to the world."¹³ Here, of course, lies the "difficult Rambam." For how could one possibly proclaim this true faith to the world without teaching the Torah to the gentiles who inhabit this world? Assuming that Maimonides, at least in his halakhic writing, does not cultivate paradoxes for the sake of expressing both exoteric and esoteric doctrines, how could we resolve this contradiction between two texts from the same overall work?¹⁴

Further, in a responsum on the very question of teaching the Torah to gentiles, Maimonides writes:

It is permitted (muttar) to teach the com-mandments to Christians (notsrim) and draw them to our law (datenu). But it is not permitted to teach anything from it to Muslims (yisma’elim) because it is known to you about their belief that this Torah [of ours] is not from God ... and if one can convince the Christians of the correct interpretation [of Scripture], it is possible (efshar) that they might return to what is good (she-yahzoru la-mutav).¹⁵

Here again, the question is: How could one cause Chris-tians to "return to what is good" if they are not to be taught from the full Torah? For if Maimonides seems to be advocating a kind of Jewish proselytizing of the gentiles, especially those gentiles who already have something in common with Judaism, then it would seem that the difference between the Torah for the gentiles and the Torah for the Jews is one of degree rather than one of kind. But does this not contradict the teaching of the Talmud that Maimonides has faithfully codified, namely, that gentiles are not to be admitted to the study of the full Torah of Israel unless, of course, they have already presented themselves as candidates for conversion to Judaism? In other words, the difference between candidates for conversion and potential prose-lytes is that the former have brought themselves to the Torah, in effect having accepted it before really knowing what it teaches, whereas the latter have been first taught the Torah by the Jews and then accept it there-after.¹⁶ Everybody within the normative Jewish tradition accepts the necessity of the institution of conversion (gerut), but Maimonides’ advocacy of proselytization seems to be a lone voice within that tradition. Never-theless, when such a lone voice is that of the one later halakhists called "the great eagle" (ha-nesher ha-gadol), everybody within that tradition must surely sit up and take notice.

The key to the resolution of these great difficulties lies in discerning just what Maimonides means by gentiles, especially Christians, "returning to what is good." If the Torah is that which we call "the good doctrine" (leqah tov), how can those who have never been Jews "return" to where they have never been?¹⁷ Sound textual schol-arship would indicate that we ought to see if Maimonides has ever used this term elsewhere.

In writing about the Messianic Age, for which all Jews are to hope, Maimonides writes:

It should not enter one’s mind that in the days of the Messiah any aspect of the normal world order (minhago shel olam) will be abrogated or that there will be any innovation in the created order, for the world will run as usual ... [but] all of them [Jews and gentiles] will return (yahzoru) to the true law (le-dat emet) ... The sages and the prophets did not desire the days of the Messiah in order to rule over the whole world nor to exercise authority over the gentiles nor that the nations might lift them up over them ...¹⁸

However, the question here, once again, is whether that "return to the true law" is to take place in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, that is, as a necessary precondition for the universal reign of the Messiah, or is it a necessary result of the Messiah’s reign when it is already in place. In the case of the former, the con-nection of non-Jews to Judaism is something that can be persuasively effected by Jews in the present; in the case of the latter, however, it is something that must wait for a seismic change in the political order of the world, even though the natural order of the world will remain the same.

The answer to this question can be found when we look at the fuller version of Maimonides’ messianic theology in Mishneh Torah, which is the part of the "Laws of Kings" that the Christian censors removed from the printed edi-tions of the work. There, after quickly dismissing the messianic claims of Jesus of Nazareth, Maimonides nevertheless writes:

However, the thoughts of the Creator of the world are beyond the ability of humans to apprehend ... and all the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and this Arab [Muhammed] who arose after him, they are only to prepare the way for the Messiah-King and to order (le-taqqen) the whole world to serve the Lord together, as it is said in Scripture, "For then I will turn to the peoples (el ha-ammim) with clear speech (safah berurah) to call all of them in the name of the Lord and to serve Him with one accord" (Zephaniah 3:9).¹⁹

From this text we see that the role of Christianity and Islam is to prepare the world for the reign of the best form of polity possible in this world, which is the reign of the Messiah-King, who will combine the highest theoreti-cal ability with the highest practical ability.²⁰ That is, he will teach the truth about God and the relation of the world to him, as well as the good that God wants his human creatures to practice in the world. Since the Torah already fully expounds upon these two excellences superlatively, the chief distinction of this polity is that it will be one where the complete law of the Torah is able to be fully authoritative and wholly effective politically. In other words, the Messiah-King will actualize the full potential of the Torah of Moses, not introduce the changes into it that have come from Christianity and Islam. That might very well be the meaning of "returning to what is good," namely, returning Christians especially to the Jewish roots of their own faith, roots from which Christian doctrine has partially, but not wholly, deviated.²¹

Maimonides’ use of the term "return" (yahzoru) is espe-cially striking in that he uses it in the very opposite way it is used in the Talmud for discussing converts. When the Talmud talks about a convert "returning," it means in the sense of "reverting to his [old] character (le-suro)," or "reverting to his [old] vice (le-qilqulo)."²² Jewish authorities have the responsibility to try to prevent that from happening to the converts they have sponsored. Thus Judaism is a new condition in which one makes a total break from whatever his or her previous religious condition might have been. But if a convert’s true con-version to Judaism from Christianity especially is, rather, a return to Christianity’s own roots, both historically and metaphysically, then conversion is not so much a break from one’s immediate religious past as much as the actualization of one’s authentic religious potential. For Christians, it is a return to the true meaning of biblical faith and practice. For Muslims, as Maimonides points out in another responsum, it is a return to the primeval monotheism of Abraham.²³

The question becomes, however, just how Christianity and Islam are able to contribute to this messianic polity, considering the obvious defects of their founders, Jesus and Muhammed, and considering that both faiths chal-lenged the full authority of the Torah, even though Christians, unlike Muslims, have not rejected the textual basis of that authority in Scripture. Looking at their teachings alone, one can hardly see any connection to the full authority of the Torah that is to characterize the messianic polity. Because of this obvious difficulty, Mai-monides asks us to look at the historical effects of the spread of Christianity and Islam in what for him was the civilized world. But just what have they accomplished for God’s ultimate purposes for humans in this world?

In the case of Islam, the effect has been to bring mil-lions of former polytheists to monotheism. It is well known that at the level of theoretical theology, Maimon-ides had a high regard for Islam. He vigorously denied that it had any idolatrous aspects to its theology.²⁴ His greatest philosophical influences were Muslim thinkers. Islam’s defect is, however, that Muslims do not accept the Mosaic Torah as the complete revelation of God to humankind.²⁵ Instead, they regard it as a flawed revela-tion, one whose many errors are corrected by the full revelation of God to humankind in the Quran.

On the other hand, Christianity’s theoretical theology is very problematic for Jews. The doctrine of the trinity, especially, seemed to both Jewish and Muslim thinkers to be a serious deviation from pure monotheism. Maimoni-des follows this common Jewish-Islamic critique of what seems to be Christianity’s compromise with polytheism.²⁶ Now by "polytheism" one can mean one of two errors: the worship of a god or gods other than the Creator of the universe; or the worship of the Creator of the universe through worldly intermediaries. For Maimonides, Christianity seems to be like the second, milder, form of polytheism. It is an error concerning the means rather than the end of worship. Nevertheless, as he indicates in the responsum we examined earlier, which deals with the question of the permissibility of teaching the Torah to the gentiles, Christians are closer to Judaism than Mus-lims are because "the uncircumcised ones [Christians] believe that the text of the Torah has not changed."²⁷ That is why we may teach the Torah to them, but not to the Muslims. What this means is that having a revealed text in common is more important than certain abstract theological commonalities. For not only is Scripture the source of the most complete knowledge of God possible in this world; it is also the most perfect law for the governance of the body politic. So it would seem that for Maimonides, despite its serious theoretical errors, Christianity’s merit is its acceptance of the authority of the full text of Scripture as a practical matter. Indeed, the Ten Commandments and all they entail -– especially in the area of interhuman relations, the subject of morality –- are taken by Christianity to be God’s perpetually binding law for all humankind. It is the subject of what many Christian theologians were to eventually designate as "natural law."²⁸ Thus, it would seem, whereas in the area of theory Christians need to be corrected in their erroneous interpretations of Scripture, in the area of practice their interpretations are not erroneous but only incomplete. In this area, especially, the errors are more of omission than of actual commission.

III.

With this in mind, we can perhaps clarify the meaning of a much discussed and debated text in Mishneh Torah.

Whoever accepts upon himself the seven commandments and is careful to practice them, such a person is one of the pious of the nations of the world (hasidei ummot ha‘olam) and he will have a portion in the world-to-come. Now he is one who accepts them and practices them because (mipnei) God commanded them in the Torah and made them known to us through Moses our master, namely, that they were previously commanded to the Noahides. But if he practices them because (mipnei) of rational inclination (hekhre ha-da‘at), such a person is not a resident-alien (ger toshav) nor one of the pious of the nations of the world, but he is one of their sages.²⁹

Why would gentiles accept the Noahide commandments? There are four possible explanations. One, for political reasons; that is, when Jews had full sovereignty in the land of Israel, gentiles who wanted to live there per-manently had to accept these commandments as a residence requirement. But since there is at present no such Jewish sovereignty, the question is hypothetical -– until, of course, the Messiah restores that sover-eignty.³⁰ Two, because of the rationality of the commandments themselves. Even though Maimonides would surely agree that all the mitsvot of the Torah are rational, the reasons for the Noahide commandments are especially evident. Nevertheless, what is unintended is unattainable. If one’s intention in practicing them does not include the transcendent dimension of their being the law of God, one has not thereby aspired to the transcendent realm of the world-to-come.³¹ (That is why, also, the correct reading of the end of this text is "but [ela] he is one of their sages," not the printed version that states "he is not [ve-lo] one of their sages." Maimonides is here noting a defect in metaphysical in-tent, not in intelligence.³²) Three, a gentile could accept these commandments as the law of God, even if he or she still does not see their historical authority as being from Mosaic revelation. Such a person could very well be a Muslim inasmuch as the Quran teaches the basic morality of Judaism but does not acknowledge its Jewish originality. Four, a gentile could accept these commandments because they are the law of God revealed to Moses. It would seem that such a person could only be a Christian, or someone who was already on the doorstep of Judaism consciously, that is, a can-didate for conversion.

Heretofore we have seen a strong trajectory in what might be termed the theological Halakhah or halakhic theology of Maimonides.³³ He seems to have constituted a place for Christians in the Jewish scheme of things that is unlike that of any other historical community. Yet we have a glaring contradiction in the way Maimonides treats Christianity in his halakhic discussions of idolatry (avodah zarah). The earlier text is from his commentary on the tractate of the Mishnah dealing with idolatry.

Know that this Christian nation, who advo-cates the messianic claim in all their various sects, all of them are idolaters. On all their various festivals it is forbidden for us to deal with them. And all Torah restrictions pertain-ing to idolaters pertain to them.... We deal with them as we would deal with any idol-aters on their festival.³⁴

Later in Mishneh Torah, when dealing with the prohibi-tion of gentile wine to Jews, either as regards drinking it or even profiting from the sale of it, Maimonides writes:

The resident-alien (ger toshav), namely, one who has accepted the seven Noahide com-mandments, as we have already explained: his wine is forbidden for drinking but it is permitted to derive monetary benefit from it (muttar be-haniyyah) ... Such is the case with all the gentiles who are not idolaters, like these Muslims ... so rule all the post-talmudic authorities (geonim). But as for even the nonsacramental wine (stam yeinam) of those idolaters, it is forbidden to derive monetary benefit from it.³⁵

It is quite clear that in this text Maimonides is making a halakhic distinction between what he considers to be the non-idolatrous Muslims and the idolatrous Christians.

From texts like these, most traditional halakhists have concluded that for Maimonides Christianity is no different from, let us say, Hinduism. Yet, from the texts we exam-ined earlier, it would seem that Christianity is not an idolatry. For if it were, how could Jews possibly be allowed to teach the Torah to Christians, something they are forbidden to do even to the monotheistic Mus-lims? Furthermore, how could Christianity be an idolatry and still be deemed a necessary preparation for bringing all of humankind to the worship of the one true God and the practice of his universally applicable law?³⁶ And, although a master is not responsible for the conclusions of his disciples, especially when they lived after his death, one can still question how such a faithful follower of Maimonides’ halakhic opinions as the fourteenth-century Provençal scholar Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri could assume that both Christians and Muslims were exempt from the various talmudic restrictions against idolaters. For Meiri, Christians and Muslims are exempt because each of them is "constrained by systems of divine law (megudarim be-darkhei ha-datot)."³⁷

In answering these questions, the only conclusion that allows that Maimonides was neither devious nor careless is that his views on the subject of Christians changed. Perhaps he learned more about Christian teaching when writing the last part of Mishneh Torah, especially when writing the responsum about teaching the Torah to gen-tiles, which seems to have been written after the completion of the rest of the work: The question it answers seems to be based on the text of Mishneh Torah that codified the talmudic ban on teaching the Torah to gentiles. It would not be the only subject about which Maimonides changed his mind.³⁸ Only those traditionalists who have elevated his halakhic works, primarily Mishneh Torah, to the status of revealed texts could not allow for the development of his views as a human thinker, albeit one who was a genius. Such development inevitably means one changes one’s mind, even if that change of mind can be justified by more general principles that remain consistent throughout one’s career as a thinker.

What is so amazing about Maimonides’ most mature view about Christianity is that it is developed as part of an overall theme encouraging the restoration of the Jewish proselytization of gentiles. Although there is great de-bate among historians of the late Second Temple period of Jewish history as to just how much actual pros-elytization really took place at that time, conversion to Judaism was certainly more prevalent than it was when it became dangerous for Jews to accept converts from Christianity or Islam because of the restrictions of the Christian and Muslim political authorities, under whose rule Jews later had to live for many centuries.³⁹ To read statements of such otherwise diverse Jewish thinkers as Philo and Hillel the Elder, it would seem that at least in principle, Judaism was being advocated as the best pos-sible way of life for any human being in the world.⁴⁰ One can certainly recognize this fact without necessarily having to conclude that actual proselytizing efforts were carried out by Jews on any large scale.

Indeed, it is very much the same in Maimonides’ case: His advocating the persuasion of Christian biblicists to become Jews does not entail any practical program to actually go out and bring them into the Jewish fold. In his day, the certain political danger such actions would pose to the Jewish community would far outweigh the possible benefits of converting more gentiles to Judaism. Maimonides was no doubt aware of how hypothetical his views on this subject were. In fact, he states in the responsum on teaching the Torah to gentiles that even if Jewish efforts to convince Christian biblicists of the superiority of Jewish interpretations of Scripture (for them, the "Old Testament") are unsuccessful and "they do not return (ve’afilu lo yahzoru) as they [their Jewish teachers] would like them to return, there is no harm that will come from this."⁴¹

In his views on Christianity and Islam, Maimonides pro-vides a deeper reflection on the significance of the Noahide laws than that of virtually all other halakhists, both before and after him. More commonly in halakhic discourse, the Noahide laws are seen as being part of a distinct code of law that applies to gentiles like the Halakhah applies to Jews. Even today, there are hala-khists who, when asked about "the Jewish point of view" on a topic of general moral concern, will simply invoke the Noahide laws as what "they" are to do. However, the issue of gentile morality is only one aspect of the Noahide doctrine, and since we have no examples in the Talmud of cases actually adjudicated according to those laws, they do not seem to be even its most important aspect. The fact is, the gentiles were not asking Jewish authorities to tell them what they ought to be doing. And even today, when gentiles inquire about "the Jewish point of view" on topics of general moral interest (like abortion, euthanasia, or capital punishment), they are not seeking governance as much as guidance.⁴² That is, they want to add ideas, not conclusive practical rulings, to a wide-ranging discourse. (Many contemporary ortho-dox halakhists, who like to be called "ethicists" when entering discussions with non-Jews, seem to be oblivious to the essential difference between governance and guidance.)

More significant, however, is how the doctrine of Noahide law became a standard that determined the sort of relations Jews could have with various gentiles and gentile communities, all of whom are not alike. This question became more important after the talmudic period, with the rise of Christianity and Islam, both of which claimed to have Jewish antecedents. In the case of Islam, the connection to Judaism was in Abrahamic monotheism and the fact that the scriptural revelation of the Jews, however flawed it might be, still had some merit, enough for Jews (and Christians) to be a "people of the book" (ahl al-khitab), with certain rights as pro-tected resident-aliens in a Muslim polity (ahl ad-dhimi). In the case of Christianity, the connection was much thicker, for Christians started out as a sect of Jews and, as we have seen, refer to the exact same book in making their claims, sometimes consonant with and sometimes against those of Judaism. By applying the doctrine of Noahide law to these two new religious com-munities in history, Jews were able to deal with them in a way that did not simply reduce them to the status of the ancient idolaters (ovdei avodah zarah). We have seen how Maimonides, although basing himself on the Talmud, applied this doctrine in some very new ways.

However, a third aspect of the doctrine of the Noahide laws is philosophically the most significant. Before the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the Jews themselves were Noahides, and as such were bound by Noahide law. Without their adherence to that law, it would not have been possible for them to accept the full Torah at Sinai. Thus the Noahide law was not exchanged for or over-come by the Mosaic Torah; it was a necessary preparation for it. Noahide law became the potential to be actualized by the Mosaic Law and its tradition, which took up the Noahide law intact.⁴³ Thus Maimonides writes about it:

The first human (adam ha-ri’shon) was com-manded about six things ... Even though they are all received by us (qabbalah be-yadeinu) from Moses our master, neverthe-less human intelligence inclines towards them. From the words of the Torah in gen-eral it will be evident (year’eh) that they were commanded about these things. To Noah was added the prohibition of eating the flesh of a living animal (ever min he-hai) ... So it was in the world until Abraham came ... who was commanded in addition to these about circumcision ... and in Egypt Amram was commanded further commandments until Moses our master came and the Torah was completed (ve-nishlemah) through him.⁴⁴

Here we see how Maimonides applies a concept of Aris-totelian philosophy to his philosophy of Judaism, namely, the principle of act-potency. This concept asserts, in effect, that "the child is father to the man," namely, what comes later is a development out of what came earlier. Aristotle formulated this concept in his reflec-tions as a philosophical biologist; Maimonides seems to have applied it in his reflections as a philosopher of Judaism.⁴⁵ As regards the relation of Noahide law to the Mosaic Torah, Maimonides sees Noahide law as the first installment, as it were, of the full Torah. This is not only a historical trajectory evident in the past, but perhaps even more importantly, it indicates that every true Noahide is a potential Jew –- a potential waiting to be actualized. Hence, although in the historical sense, Christians and Muslims come after the emergence of Judaism, in the metaphysical sense they are essentially the same as the Noahides that the Jews themselves were before the emergence of Judaism -– that is, before the giving of the Torah at Sinai and its acceptance by the people who because of this event became Israel fully. In this metaphysical sense, Jews see in Muslims and even more in Christians their own primeval selves.

IV.

We can see this type of thinking at work in the way Maimonides deals with the whole process of conversion to Judaism (giyyur). What is important to note here initially is how Maimonides constitutes the process of conversion in a way that both supplements and even changes the talmudic sources on this subject.

The Talmud basically sets out the process of conversion in five consecutive steps.⁴⁶ First, the would-be candi-date for conversion requests admission to the Jewish people at his or her own free initiation, not due to any invitation, either overt or covert, from any body of Jews. Second, the Jewish authorities to whom the would-be gentile candidate for conversion presents himself or her-self are to try to dissuade this person by emphasizing to him or her the precarious state of being a member of a despised, persecuted people. (Maimonides explains that this is done to ensure that the candidate is not coming to Judaism for the sake of any tangible benefit by the economic or political standards of this world.⁴⁷) Third, if the candidate is not so dissuaded –- and expresses humility about becoming a Jew and being elevated to a higher spiritual level –- the person is accepted as a can-didate for conversion, and Jewish authorities have now committed themselves to the forthwith completion of the conversion process. Fourth, the approved candidate for conversion is given a selective course of instruction in a few of the many commandments of the Written and Oral Torah and the consequences for both disobedience and obedience of them. And fifth, male candidates are to be circumcised and both male and female candidates im-mersed in a miqveh.

Maimonides codifies all five of these steps, but then goes on to add one further requirement and change another.

The addition is that before step four, namely, selected instruction in a few of the commandments, he adds that "they are to instruct him in the essentials of the faith (iqqrei ha-dat), which are the uniqueness of God (yihud ha-Shem) and the prohibition of idolatry."⁴⁸ Now we must ask why Maimonides makes this addition to the talmudic requirements for the preparation of converts. After all, wouldn’t both of these matters be included in the selective course of instruction in the command-ments? For the prohibition of idolatry is the most basic sine qua non of being a Jew, so much so that the Talmud states that "whoever denies idolatry is called a Jew."⁴⁹ How could it not be included in any course of instruction in Judaism, however rudimentary? And the affirmation of the uniqueness of God is what a Jew is to do twice daily in the recitation of the shema. Certainly this heart of all Jewish worship would not be omitted in any such course of instruction.⁵⁰

The answer to this question seems to me to be that in Maimonides’ view (and here is where his philosophical theology deepens his halakhic work), both the acknowl-edgment of the uniqueness of God and the prohibition of idolatry are the two most rationally compelling com-mandments of the Torah. In fact, they really do not need an external revelation at all, inasmuch as they are already known to any rational person.⁵¹ They are intel-ligible first principles (muskalot) whose truth is inherent and evident (what Aquinas later called ratio per se and ratio quo ad nos) rather than merely probable assertions (mefursamot) or authoritative traditions (mequbba-lot).⁵² That is how Maimonides understands the passage in the Talmud that states that six hundred and eleven of the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Written Torah were given through Moses, but that the first two commandments of the Decalogue, namely, "I am the Lord your God" and "You shall have no other gods besides Me" (Exodus 20:2-3), they heard directly from the mouth of God (mi-pi ha-Gevurah).⁵³

Now it seems more likely that the difference between the first two commandments and all the rest, which the Talmud is emphasizing, is that these two commandments were revealed to each and every Jew at Sinai immedi-ately, whereas the revelation of all the other commandments was mediated by Moses. But, for Maimonides, the difference is more radical; it is the difference between reason and revelation, with reason being the necessary precondition for the acceptance of revelation. In fact, revelation is the further elaboration and specification of the first positive commandment and the first negative commandment. This being the case, one requires instruction in these commandments that is in some way separate from instruction in all the rest. Of course, if the candidate for conversion comes from either Christianity or Islam, this step in his or her in-struction in Judaism can be more of a confirmation than a literal introduction, as we have seen before.

Earlier we noted that a "difficult Rambam" is usually where either Maimonides’ talmudic source is obscure, or where he seems to contradict himself in two separate passages. I have appropriated that yeshivah methodol-ogy, especially regarding the latter type of difficulty, in dealing with Maimonides’ more theologically significant work. I would, however, add a third type of difficulty: where we know Maimonides’ talmudic source, but he seems to have changed it. (Remember that only biblical sources are quoted verbatim in Mishneh Torah; rabbinic sources are inevitably paraphrased in some way or other.) In his presentation of the laws governing the process of conversion, we find an example of this third category.

In informing the candidate for conversion of the seri-ousness of the commandments, our text of the Talmud reads: "Just as they are to instruct him about the punishment [entailed by disobedience] of the command-ments, so are they to instruct him in their rewards [entailed by obedience to them]. They are to say to him, ‘Know that the world-to-come is only made for the righteous (tsaddiqim), and that Israel at this time is neither able to bear too much good nor too much pun-ishment.’ ..."⁵⁴ Two points seem to be made here: one, that the converts are becoming part of the righteous of Israel to whom the world-to-come has been promised; two, that both the full reward and full punishment associated with the commandments of the Torah are matters that are not settled in this world. All of this, of course, is quite standard rabbinic theology.⁵⁵

But Maimonides’ text becomes a "difficult Rambam." He says that they are to say to him, "Know that the world-to-come is only in store (tsefunah) for the righteous and they are Israel."⁵⁶ Not only does this seem to be a deviation from the text of the Talmud, but it seems to contradict Maimonides’ own assertion, which we have al-ready examined, namely, "The pious of the nations of the world, they have a portion in the world-to-come."⁵⁷

Some scholars have simply assumed that Maimonides’ text of the Talmud was different from ours here.⁵⁸ But the internal contradiction is much harder to explain. Nevertheless, perhaps one can solve both problems in the following way. In the Talmud, "Israelite" and "Noa-hide" seem to be two separate and distinct statuses, each with its own set of commandments. But, for Maimonides, as we have seen, when a Noahide (who is likely to now be a Muslim or, especially, a Christian) understands the full intentionality of what he or she already believes and practices, then such a person ought to become a Jew -– if, of course, he or she subordinates will to intellect, and if it is politically possible for this public act to be done without entailing grave danger for either the convert or the Jews who have accepted him or her. If this is so, then by the time such Noahide gentiles present themselves to Jewish authorities for conversion, there is no point in reminding them that they are already included in the world-to-come. It is clear that this inclusion is a kind of post-humous honor. In effect, their status seems to be akin to that of the resident-alien (ger toshav) in this world. Thus to remind the candidate of the advantage of being a Noahide would be at this stage of his or her life a matter of regression. Only for pagan gentiles would this be a matter of progression. If this interpretation is cor-rect, then we could plausibly conclude that Maimonides indeed emended the text of the Talmud for his own theological-halakhic purposes, and that he did not really contradict his own view of what the Noahides in truth are. What we might term his "monotheistic trajectory" is remarkably coherent in principle, and it is in no way refuted because he changed his mind on the place of Christians in it.

V.

Of course, in studying any set of normative texts that make claims upon those of us who are members of the same normative community as their author, which is the case even with Jews living today and Rabbi Moses son of Rabbi Maimon, one must judge the validity of these claims. And even if one accepts their validity, one must decide just how possible it is for us to put them into actual practice. So we must now ask ourselves how seriously we accept Maimonides’ claim that we ought to engage in proselytizing non-Jews, especially Christians, and most especially those Christians who come to us for instruction in the Hebrew Bible we both accept as God’s revelation intact.

To sharpen the question, let me tell you about a recent personal experience of mine. A serious Evangelical theo-logian asked me: "If you Jews really believe that Judaism is the truth, and if the very concept of truth means that it is universal, then why do you not engage in active proselytizing? Why do you keep what you believe is the truth to yourselves? Should not one’s affirmation of the truth entail the goodness of sharing it with whomever one can? Why do you not approach us with what you believe is the truth the way we approach you with what we believe is the truth?" And even though this theo-logian is not a Southern Baptist, we can [infer] from his question that he, like them, believes that Christians should persuade Jews of the truth of the Christian mes-sage and bring them into the Church.

Well, we all know how vehemently most of the "official" Jewish community reacted to this most recent provo-cation from the Southern Baptist Convention. Mostly, they protested, it violated the spirit of democratic pluralism that says, in effect, "Let every nation go in the way of its God, but we will go in the way of the Lord our God forever" (Micah 4:5) –- that is, "Let every culture remain intact, free from outside pressures to become like another." In other words, one can make a decent moral argument against overt proselytizing: It inevitably be-comes a form of spiritual, cultural, and even political imperialism. But this still does not answer the theological challenge of the Evangelical theologian’s question (which, I might add, was addressed to me in an ex-tremely respectful way). But if one accepts Maimonides’ views that I have elaborated in this lecture -– and I do in principle –- then I would respond as follows:

It is clear that authentic proselytizing, as opposed to merely offering suggestions about "life style," presup-poses that one is convinced that the teaching of his or her revelation (and its tradition) is the truth. That is more than saying it is "true," based on some independent criterion of truth. To cite the most intelligent of modern Jewish rationalists, Hermann Cohen, Judaism is true because it is based on independent philosophical criteria of truth.⁵⁹ But that would seem to compromise the phenomenological originality of Judaism. Furthermore, to say in relativistic fashion that Judaism is true for its adherents like Christianity is true for its adherents destroys the concept of truth altogether. Any truth that is not universally valid would either mean that there is no one universe to which it pertains, or that such "truth" is less than absolute. It would seem, though, that the Jewish doctrine of creation (beri’at olam) teaches that there is but one universe and one human nature, and the Jewish doctrine of monotheism (yihud ha-Shem), which asserts that God is the apex of truth, teaches that truth is absolute.⁶⁰

However, in response to the Evangelical’s challenge, one could very well argue that belief in the Torah as truth (torat emet) does not entail a practical program of active proselytizing in the way that proselytization pre-supposes a belief in truth. Proclaiming the truth might be more appropriately practiced by Jews living up to the highest standards of the Torah and simply not hiding that life from the eyes of the gentiles -– when they let us, that is. That is why Jewish misconduct, especially in the area of greatest interest to the rest of the world –- inter-human relations –- is considered to be "the profanation of the name of God (hillul ha-Shem)."⁶¹ Furthermore, to engage in active proselytizing might very well compromise the strict standards of the Torah’s commandments because of the missionary’s zeal to be "relevant" to the culture of his or her would-be pros-elytes. Indeed, the history of Christianity, especially, illustrates that point quite vividly. And to engage in active proselytizing might well involve the kind of triumphalism that Jews have regarded as being the pseudo-messianism to which Christianity has been so vulnerable throughout its history.

Nevertheless, the possibility if not the reality of prose-lytizing does presuppose that we believe that the Torah is the highest truth revealed to the world in the world and for the world. If we do not believe that as the truth, then we are ripe for conversion to some other claim to be that truth. (Just think of how many Jews were "converted" to such ideologies as Marxism and Freudianism because they were convinced that the affirmation of truth is an irrepressible human need, and that Judaism does not satisfy it.) This is what I think Maimonides was concerned with -– the necessity to see the Torah as truth, rather than whether or not we can actually proselytize gentiles and whether or not such efforts would even be successful. Thus our answer to the challenge of the Evangelical theologian and all like him should be more than a moral condemnation of what might be seen as ideological aggressiveness. It should be our affirmation of the universal truth as God has let us know it, which no other claim to the truth can displace. To answer anything less would be unworthy ultimately of the people whom God has elected and to whom God has revealed as much of the truth as this world can bear to know. I think such a response is one that would have Maimonides’ approval.

Endnotes

¹It was published by Erich Reiss Verlag, Berlin, in the series "Judentum in Geschichte und Gegenwart." An English translation by Joachim Neugroschel, Maimonides: A Biography, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, 1982). Another important search for Maimon-ides, published that same year by Schocken Verlag, Berlin, was Leo Strauss’ Philosophie und Gesetz (now in English translation by Eve Adler, Philosophy and Law [Albany, N.Y., 1995]). On the eve of a present that was soon to be no more, two young men who were both to become great Jewish thinkers in America turned to Maimonides -– in very different ways respectively -– to be their link to the Jewish past.

²See Guide of the Perplexed (hereafter "Guide"), pt. 1, intro., trans. S. Pines (Chicago, 1963), p. 10; 3.29, p. 517.

³For the view that Maimonides was basically a practi-tioner of what was known in his day as falsafa ("Greek philosophy"), see Oliver Leaman, Moses Maimonides (London and New York, 1990).

⁴See Guide, pt. 1, intro., p. 5.

⁵See M. Horayot 1.3; Y. Horayot 1.3/46a; B. Horayot 4a.

⁶See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolu-tions (Chicago and London, 1962), esp., 91ff.

⁷Cf. Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Westport, Conn., 1959), 67.

⁸See Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah: Avot, intro. ("Shemonah Peraqim"), ed. Y. Kafih (Jerusalem, 1965), 2:247.

⁹See ibid.: Yoma 8.6 (Jerusalem, 1964), 1:173.

¹⁰Mishneh Torah (hereafter "MT"): Melakhim, 10.9 re B. Sanhedrin 59a.

¹¹See D. Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws (New York and Toronto, 1983).

¹²MT: Melakhim, 8.11 based on T. Sanhedrin 13.2 and B. Sanhedrin 105a re Ps. 9:18. R. Joseph Karo in Kesef Mishneh thereon notes that this is Maimonides’ own opinion (although one R. Joseph thinks is correct). In Kesef Mishneh on MT: Edut, 11.10, where Maimonides makes the same point in favor of R. Joshua’s view, R. Joseph makes the more formal legal point that in all disputes between R. Joshua and R. Eliezer, the law is according to the view of R. Joshua (see B. Baba Metsia 59b; Niddah 7b).

¹³Sefer ha-Mitsvot, pos. no. 9. My whole discussion of this issue builds upon my earlier treatment of it in Jewish-Christian Dialogue (New York, 1989), chap. 3 ("Maimonides’ View of Christianity"), 57ff. Hopefully, a number of new points are made in this lecture.

¹⁴Cf. Guide, pt. 1, intro., pp. 17ff.

¹⁵Teshuvot ha-Rambam 1, ed. J. Blau (Jerusalem, 1960), no. 149, pp. 284f.

¹⁶For the notion that it was Israel’s merit to have ac-cepted an unknown Torah at Sinai, see B. Shabbat 88a re Cant. 2:3 (and, implicitly, Exod. 24:4).

¹⁷Re the Torah as "goodness" per se, see B. Berakhot 5a re Prov. 4:2.

¹⁸MT: Melakhim, 12.1, 4.

¹⁹MT: Melakhim, chap. 11, ed. M. D. Rabinowitz (Jeru-salem, 1962), p. 416.

²⁰For this as the sign of divine law, hence a charac-teristic of its optimal administrator, the Messiah-King, see Guide, 2.40 (also, 3.27).

²¹It should be recalled that the first heresy rejected by the Church was that of Marcion, who advocated a total break from the God of Israel and the Torah of Israel. See Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (New York, 1967), 38ff.

²²B. Kiddushim 17b; B. Avodah Zarah 64a.

²³See Teshuvot ha-Rambam 2, no. 293, pp. 549f.

²⁴See ibid. 2, no. 448, pp. 725f.

²⁵See Quran 2:79.

²⁶See Guide, 1.50.

²⁷Teshuvot ha-Rambam 1:285.

²⁸See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2/1, q. 100, a. 1 and a. 3.

²⁹MT: Melakhim, 8.11.

³⁰See ibid., 8.10; also, B. Avodah Zarah 64b and Arakhin 29a.

³¹For Maimonides’ belief in the rationality of all the com-mandments, see Guide, 3.26; also, Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism, 278ff.

³²See ibid., 288ff.

³³This term was one often used in our conversations and correspondence by my late, lamented friend, Prof. Jakob J. Petuchowski, who was a distinguished member of the faculty of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati until his untimely death.

³⁴Commentary on the Misnah: Avodah Zarah 1.3, ed. Y. Kafih (Jerusalem, 1965), 2:225. See, also, ibid., 1.4, p. 226; MT: Avodah Zarah, 9.4 (full text in Kafih’s ed. of Commentary on the Mishnah, 2:225, n. 10).

³⁵MT: Ma’akhalot Asurot, 11.7.

³⁶See I. Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimon-ides (New Haven, 1980), 452f.

³⁷Bet ha-Behirah: Avodah Zarah 20a, ed. A. Sofer (Jeru-salem, 1964), p. 46.

³⁸Cf., e.g., MT: Tefillah, 8.9-10 and Teshuvot ha-Rambam 2, no. 221, pp. 393ff. and no. 248, pp. 482ff.; also, ibid., no. 82, pp. 333 (see Blau’s note thereon) and MT: Tefillah, 7.10.

³⁹For an excellent discussion of the whole question historically, see Martin Goodman, Mission and Conver-sion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1994).

⁴⁰Re Philo, see De Vita Mosis, 2.43-44. Re Hillel, see M. Avot 1.12; Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, version A, chap. 12; B. Shabbat 31a.

⁴¹Teshuvot ha-Rambam 1:285.

⁴²See D. Novak, Jewish Social Ethics (New York, 1992), 4f.

⁴³Re Jews as themselves originally Noahides, see B. Nedarim 31a. Re Noahide law being taken up intact into Jewish law, see R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes, Torat ha-Nevi’im, chap. 10 in Kol Sifrei Maharats Chajes 1 (Jerusalem, 1958), 58ff.

⁴⁴MT: Melakhim, 9.1.

⁴⁵See Aristotle, Physics, 194b16ff.; 201a1 and 204a8ff.; Metaphysics, 1044b1ff.; also, D. Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue, 124ff.

⁴⁶B. Yevamot 47a-b.

⁴⁷MT: Isurei Bi’ah, 13.14. See B. Yevamot 24b.

⁴⁸MT: Isurei Bi’ah, 14.2.

⁴⁹B. Megillah 13a. See B. J. Bamberger, Proselytism in the Talmudic Period (Cincinnati, 1939), 36, n. 5.

⁵⁰See M. Berakhot 2.2.

⁵¹See Guide, 2.33; also, Sefer ha-Mitsvot, pos. no. 1, and D. Novak, Law and Theology in Judaism 1 (New York, 1974), 136ff.

⁵²See Summa Theologiae 1, q. 2., a. 1.

⁵³B. Makkot 23b-24a.

⁵⁴B. Yevamot 47a-b.

⁵⁵See, e.g., M. Sanhedrin 10.1; M. Kiddushin 1.10; M. Avot 2.16; B. Kiddushin 39a; Hullin 142a.

⁵⁶MT: Isurei Bi’ah, 14.4. Cf. Gerim 1.5.

⁵⁷MT: Melakhim, 8.11. See ibid.: Edut, 11.10. For the significance of Maimonides’ use of the term hasid rather than the term tsaddiq found in the Tosefta and the Bavli, see Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism, 305f., n. 8.

⁵⁸See R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes, Hiddushei Maharats Chajes: B. Yevamot 47a-b.

⁵⁹See Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. S. Kaplan (New York, 1972), 1ff.

⁶⁰See B. Shabbat 55a. For an excellent discussion of Maimonides’ view of the unity of human nature, see Menachem Kellner, Maimonides on Judaism and the Jew-ish People (Albany, N.Y., 1991), 1ff.

⁶¹See, e.g., B. Baba Kama 113a.

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