Maimonides’ Contribution to the Development of Jewish Mysticism

Although the medieval philosopher and scholar Moses Maimonides is generally seen (with good reason) as the epitome of Jewish rationalism, and his thought the antithesis of mysticism, Adam Afterman—the author of a recent book on the idea of mystical union with the deity in Jewish texts—argues that Maimonides made an important contribution to the history of Kabbalah. (Interview by Alan Brill.)

Maimonides more than any other medieval Jewish thinker was instrumental in the development of forms of mystical paths that end in mystical union. Maimonides internalized into his vision of Judaism the basic Aristotelian formula of knowledge and union, which was used to explain the contemplative transformation of the human intellect into an angelic intellect. . . . [This idea later] was adopted [by Jewish mystics] to explain how a human can integrate or assimilate into the Godhead.

The idea is that spiritual transformation in this life leads to the soul’s integration into spiritual realms associated [in prior Jewish literature] with the world to come, and eventually with the Godhead itself. [The Maimonidean theory of knowledge] helped the kabbalists explain how a human can integrate into God and how God may integrate into the human.

I must stress that I don’t think Maimonides himself was a mystic. And I don’t think he thought that man can unite with God. But Maimonides developed a worldview that divided the universe into two realms—the material and the non-material metaphysical realm. The metaphysical realm is considered to be unified in itself as pure thought. Thus the religious path that leads us from material existence to [a sort of mental union with angelic beings] is at the same time a movement from multiplicity to unity, a transformation from the corporeal to the union of intellect.

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More about: Judaism, Kabbalah, Moses Maimonides, Religion & Holidays

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF