Latest / The Podcast of Jewish Ideas / 78. Medieval Attitudes | Dr. Menachem Kellner (Universalism & Particularism #3)

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78. Medieval Attitudes | Dr. Menachem Kellner (Universalism & Particularism #3) · The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Groutings, friends, and welcome back to the podcast of Jewish Ideas,
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  Speaker 1: of Jewish Ideas, we are currently running a multi part
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  Speaker 1: series on the thorny and intriguing issue of Judaism and universalism.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: In pursuit of enlightenment and insight on this topic, we
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: will be journeying through the full sweep of Jewish intellectual history,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: from the Bible down to our own day, inviting our
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: ergudiguests to reflect on the many questions and proposed solutions
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that are brought to the four in the discussion of
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: these issues. On today's episode, we'll be exploring the world
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of medieval Jewish philosophy and examining the extent to which
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the dichotomy of universalism and particularism may be used to
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  Speaker 1: categorize the ideas and writings of some of the most
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  Speaker 1: important thinkers of that age. Our guest today is my
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  Speaker 1: old teacher and mentor, doctor Manahem Kellner, who is the
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  Speaker 1: Wolfson Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa.
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  Speaker 1: And was the founding chair of the Department of Jewish
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  Speaker 1: Philosophy and Thought at Shalem College, Jerusalem. Professor Kellner is
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  Speaker 1: the author of numerous books and articles precisely on our
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  Speaker 1: subject today, including his recent work My Monety is the
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  Speaker 1: Universalist The Ethical Horizons of the Mischtah, published by Lidmann
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  Speaker 1: Library of Judicivilization in twenty twenty. It is a pleasure
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  Speaker 1: to welcome Professor Kellner to the Podcast of Jewish Ideas today.
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  Speaker 2: Professor welcome, Thank you very much, and masaltove on your
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  Speaker 2: recent accomplishment. I'm talking to doctor JJ Kimkey.
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  Speaker 1: That's very kind to your professor. And of course we'll see.
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  Speaker 1: We'll see how the rest of this conversation goes. We'll
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  Speaker 1: see if we're still on what such good terms by
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  Speaker 1: the end, because I intend to dig into some serious,
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  Speaker 1: serious topics here, So let's jump in before we go
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  Speaker 1: to the whole discussion of the Rambam and other figures.
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  Speaker 1: I've not defined terms a little bit. I'm used the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: term universalism very often in writing band the Rabam and
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  Speaker 1: others in Jewish dupal philosophy. Could you perhaps give us
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: something of a definition or at least explain the parameters
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of the time as you understand it, then as it
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  Speaker 1: applies to medieval jewishilosophy.
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  Speaker 2: Let me start with two introductory comments, and you'll stop
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  Speaker 2: me if I get off the track too much. First,
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  Speaker 2: and this is I think very important to note, universalism
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  Speaker 2: is not a word in Hebrew, and there is no
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: way of translating it into Hebrew except for saying universaliute
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: or something like that. That has to be addressed. Secondly,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: it is my opinion, my correct opinion, that the Jewish
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  Speaker 2: tradition itself is neither universalist nor particularist, but rather it
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: has elements of universalism and elements of particularism, and certain
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: figures emphasize one kind of element, other figures emphasize the
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  Speaker 2: other kind of argument. So that's the first two introductory
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  Speaker 2: comments I wanted to make as to what I take
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  Speaker 2: universalism to mean within the Middle Medieval context, I e.
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  Speaker 2: What my monety's thought. Of course, what my mon's thought
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: is always a vexed issue, since there as many monities
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: as there are people read him. But luckily for you
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  Speaker 2: and me, I've got the right mamanity, so we're okay
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  Speaker 2: in any of it. I would start with three basic claims,
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  Speaker 2: and then if you want, I'd be happy to expand
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  Speaker 2: on them. The first basic claim of my monity and
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  Speaker 2: universalism is universalism is that all human beings are created
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  Speaker 2: in the image of God. No ifs, no butts, no,
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  Speaker 2: wherefores no restrictions. Can I call him Rambam. It's easier
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  Speaker 2: for me. Rambam takes the opening verses of Genesis seriously,
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  Speaker 2: where it says that God created all human beings in
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  Speaker 2: the divine image, whatever that means. So I think Rama
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  Speaker 2: takes that very, very seriously. A second point is the
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  Speaker 2: notion of chosenness is very important in Judaism, notion of
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  Speaker 2: covenant between God and the Jewish people. But there are
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  Speaker 2: many ways of understanding what it means to be a
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  Speaker 2: chosen people, and certainly in the view of Rambam, it
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  Speaker 2: carries with it no sense of an inherent superiority. In general,
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  Speaker 2: expanding that point, Rombab's God does not endow people with gifts.
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  Speaker 2: Rombam's God challenges people to do things, and so Faraba
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: on the idea of the chosen people is a challenge
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  Speaker 2: to behave in a certain fashion. It's not a gift
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  Speaker 2: that God has given to the Jewish people, the exclusion
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  Speaker 2: of all others. And finally, a third general point is
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  Speaker 2: and connected to all this is there is a debate
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: in the rabbinic panetic literature, the literature of the messenaics ages,
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  Speaker 2: over to whom was the Torah actually addressed. So one
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  Speaker 2: side of the debate says that Torab was given to Israel,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: to the Jewish people. The other side of the debate
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  Speaker 2: says that ultimately the Torah is addressed to call by
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  Speaker 2: a olum all human beings. So certainly the point that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: David Gillison I made in our book about my monitoring
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: is that Ramman thought that the terro was ultimately addressed
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  Speaker 2: to all human beings. Those like three basic points of
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  Speaker 2: the where I understand universalism. Since I made a professor
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: a very long time, I feel like I'll expand on that.
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  Speaker 1: Or I will I will ask that in a moment,
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  Speaker 1: but I want to. I want to made a couple
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  Speaker 1: of sort of preliminary questions beforehand, and one of them
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  Speaker 1: is a little bit that it seems to me at
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  Speaker 1: least and Kramn fam wrong, that there's something about philosophy
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  Speaker 1: as such that could or perhaps necessarily does push on
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  Speaker 1: towards universalism. In other words, that because of course, the
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  Speaker 1: medieval period that we're discussing is the time that Jewish
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  Speaker 1: thinkers like my one of these, like Zid you're going,
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  Speaker 1: like bas turned towards philosophy, turn towards discipline of philosophy,
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  Speaker 1: and of course those days that included science and physicsca.
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  Speaker 1: And in order to engage in that, you have to
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  Speaker 1: have a basic understanding that those of other traditions have
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  Speaker 1: wise things to say and and have some sort of
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  Speaker 1: access to truth, and have some sort of ability to
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  Speaker 1: to formulate truth and to discover truth in some sort
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  Speaker 1: of way. And that seems to me ready to lead
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  Speaker 1: or to open the door somewhat to a kind of
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  Speaker 1: universalistic outlook. Is that how do you characterize that that claim?
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  Speaker 1: In other words, does philosophy necessitate this? Can philosophy lead
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  Speaker 1: to it? Is there a much more tenuous connection? What
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  Speaker 1: do you say is the connection there?
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  Speaker 2: I would characterize that claim is one hundred percent correct?
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  Speaker 1: Fair enough? Okay, that's very kind of you. And then
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  Speaker 1: then let me ask, but isn't it the case? There
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  Speaker 1: were some who were involved in philosophy who who then
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: went down a very much a non universalistic roots. In
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  Speaker 1: other words, how could it be the one engaged in
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  Speaker 1: philosophy but then sort of interest towards particularism or runs
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  Speaker 1: towards it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you're aiming at you, Huda lav Okay, let's let's
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  Speaker 2: dive into that that's trying to get to. Let me
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  Speaker 2: first say a few words about the other side. Why
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  Speaker 2: philosophy leads to universalism. All the people we call medieval
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  Speaker 2: Jewish philosophers live Phileo out of the question because he
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: had no impact on subsequent Jewish life. But starting with
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Sadia go on and moving up until say, the the
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Gerus Farad the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in
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  Speaker 2: fourteen ninety two, you have a long list of people
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  Speaker 2: who took philosophy seriously, which meant that they read philosophers.
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  Speaker 2: Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages is a product of
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  Speaker 2: exposure to non Jewish sources. If it's Soagia with the
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  Speaker 2: klam if it's you mentioned him in Pancudo, with Neoplatonism,
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  Speaker 2: certainly Rombaum and neoplatonized aris Ittillianism, et cetera, all the
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  Speaker 2: way through. So I guess the best way to make
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  Speaker 2: this point briefly is that if you were not open
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  Speaker 2: to being influenced by outside sources, you didn't do philosophy.
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  Speaker 2: My friend and colleague Evesrabisky once pointed out before his
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  Speaker 2: accident that there were two kinds of miemonodeans in the
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Middle Ages. There were the Tawmudic mimonodeans and the philosophical mimonodeans.
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  Speaker 2: The Tawmudiic mimonodeans read primarily the Missionatara. That's the rob
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  Speaker 2: bomb of the Yeshiva world today, or I should say
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the non Zionis Yeshiva world today, and they had no
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  Speaker 2: interest in Romam's philosophical writings. Let me illustrate that the
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  Speaker 2: mimonodes Ramum's Missionatora, his alot of work, begins with four
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  Speaker 2: chapters summarizing the structure of the universe has understood in
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: contemporary philosophy and science. The rest of the book is
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: all you might call straightforward dry, not dry, but straightforward
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: helaja Jewish law. Now, if you examined, say the database
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: that Barilin University put out looking for hyperlinks on my
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: monodes Missionatora, so the first four chapters have almost no
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  Speaker 2: hyperlinks to rabbinic literature, and after that the thousands or
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  Speaker 2: If you look at a traditional picture of the missionatora,
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  Speaker 2: a page of the Missionatura looks like a page of Talmud,
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  Speaker 2: a small amount of Rambamb in the middle, surrounded by many,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: many commentaries. The first four chapters are a lot of
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  Speaker 2: Rambam and the one major commentary there is so unimportant
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  Speaker 2: that nobody knows who it is. It's called the commentary.
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  Speaker 2: So this is an example of the way in which
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  Speaker 2: the rabbinic or tom Mudich Mamanodaeans took Rambamb very seriously,
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  Speaker 2: but did We're not interested in his philosophical work and
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: largely not aware of it. And then you have the
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: philosophical Maimonideans, who, because they were traditionally observant Jews, knew
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: about the Halakha, but it didn't didn't move them. That
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: wasn't where their heads were at. They were interested in living.
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  Speaker 2: So they studied the Guide of the Perplexed Bokim, and
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: they were commentaries on it in respet, sponsors to it,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: and translated it without paying a lot of attention to
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: his alohic work. So the fact that we focus on
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: people who wrote Jewish philosophy means by definition, we're focusing
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  Speaker 2: on people who were open to the cultural world around them.
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  Speaker 2: It's important to point out these people were not assimilated,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: but they were definitely acculturated. The very fact that Saja
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: wrote in Arabic and Rambam wrote in Arabic, and Huda
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  Speaker 2: Halevi of all people wrote in ra you don't liive me.
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  Speaker 2: The great, great Hebrew poet wrote his Kuzari in Arabic,
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  Speaker 2: which means languages carry with them a whole world of ideas.
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  Speaker 2: As you know, you know better than me because you
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: write so well in English. But you can't just write
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  Speaker 2: a book in Arabic and not know something about the
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Arabic world. Rama for example, will often sort of like
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: make references to passages from the Qur'an, not because he's
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: a quote, you know, a closet Muslim, because it's part
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: of the culture in which he grew up. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: his his Hebrew, as scholars who know more about this
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  Speaker 2: than I do have pointed out, has lots of Arabisms.
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  Speaker 2: You know, he was. I love to say that to
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  Speaker 2: my students. Rambam and I are alike. I think in
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  Speaker 2: English and teaching Hebrew. He thought in Arabic and wrote
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  Speaker 2: a Hebrew so Yeah, it's no doubt that you're right.
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  Speaker 2: Once you're interested in the in these issues, in philosophical issues,
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  Speaker 2: you are basically part of a world, part of a culture,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: part of a universe of discourse which includes the sciences
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: and philosophy, especially in the Middle Ages where science was
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: part of philosophy.
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  Speaker 1: So with that introduction, now let's move before we dive
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: different into the Rumbam, into who you have portrayed as
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the rumbums Nemesis on this particular aspect, which is Rabbi
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Hudan Levy, a poet, philosopher of the eleventh and twelfth
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: century and great work to Kuzaris, He's major philosophical work.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And so let me ask you, I mean, could you
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: explain what you mean by particularism in that context? Can
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you offer your conception of a Hallevi and his and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: why is he the sort of archetype of medieval Jewish particularism.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, he is not the archetype. He's
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: a moderate particularist. When you get to the Zohar you
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: get to really heavy duty particularism. But Halev is a
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: particularist in the following sense. His Book of Genesis is
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: not the one with which you're familiar. In his Book
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: of Genesis, the Jewish people were chosen from the moment
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of creation. In other words, Adam and Eve had children,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: two boys who fought and one killed the other. Why
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: because the murderer kane Kayne was jealous of Heavil. Because
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Heavel had inherited from his parents, answer from his father
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: for all Avi's purposes, a particular we could call a
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: genetic compliment, which made him unlike his brother. And in
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Alevi's view, in each generation, one person inherited this special
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: genetic component, shall we call it, until he got to Jacob,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: all of whose children inherited it, and therefore they became
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: the children of Issuel, the children of Jacob, and they
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: were they were suddenly not just individuals but people. Now,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: why does he have this view? And that's his view, Okay,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: that's his picture, is his rendition of the book of
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Book of Genesis, which shows that the Torah was designed
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: from the very beginning of creation to be given to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: a particular kind of person. Now that particular kind of
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: person carries I have to say with him, I'm sure
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: a Lev doesn't mind having women in the picture, but
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: that wasn't his stick that particular genetic component enables that
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: person to achieve prophecy in principle, nothing more than that. Now,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Allavi will emphasize that human beings are human beings, Gentiles
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: can be saintly, he has no problem with it, but
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: he does have a problem with the idea that gentiles
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: could prophesy. Prophecy is something a gift. For rambamb prophecy
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: is something you earn, you create basically if you work
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: hard enough. But for a levy, it's a gift, and
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: it's a gift that's only given to people who have
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: this special gene of using genetic languages, even though it's
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: inappropriate to enable them to receive the gift, and that
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: would be the Jewish people. Does he just jump out
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: of the full blown with this kind of stuff. No,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Like I said, there are particular elements in Judaism and
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: universalistic elements. You can find in rabbinic texts, things which
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: emphasized the particular side. Don't ask me which ones, and
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: you can find elements. Certainly the text which emphasized the
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: universalist elements. Now it's not fair to psychoanalyze Haleevi, but
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I'll do it. Anyway, Alevi lived in a world in
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: which his colleagues were Christians and Muslims. In Spain, the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Christians hated the Jews and the Muslims. The Muslims hated
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the Christians and the Jews. You know the subtidy. They
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: were friendly people. There are also, but by and large
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: they shouldn't say hated, disdained, looked down upon. In fact,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: in Muslim Spain, where Alevi was born and raised before
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: he moved to the Christian side of the peninsula, there
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: were different kinds of Muslims, because Muslims of Arabic descent
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: saw themselves as adherently superior to Muslims of North African descent.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: To it, Johnny cum Lately's I remember once I was
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: teaching a college William and Mary in Virginia. I had
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: a student who told me that whereas he came from
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the southern side of the James River, where he was
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: raised as a child, for his whole life on the
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: northern side of the James River, people still called him
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: a come here.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So, as you say this, this kind of mild chauvinism
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: is hardly unique.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: That's right. So the Arabs of Spain, the Arabs of
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Spain as opposed to the Muslims of Spain looked down
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: on Muslims who were not you might say, come over
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: on the Mayflower. So my reading is that Levy was
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: insulted by all this. He knew that he was a
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: great poet, he knew that he was a learned man
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: and accomplished in all the sciences, and yet his colleagues there,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: the people with whom he had dealings, looked down on
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: him because he was a Jew. Now what's going on here?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: You have to understand I'm being very unfair. I am
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: assuming that if a Leave had not been insulted, he
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have been a universalist. But that's not fair. You know,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Let's just me doing my thing. Viasably poor you and
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: al av. But that's an attempt for me on my
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: part to understand why he he presents Judaism in that light. Now,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I want to emphasize, because of things that happened later,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: he was not a racist, and nobody in the Middle
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Ages were racists in the modern sense of the term.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: There were no racist and Halabi did not deny that
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: gentiles could convert. Look, the whole book is I had
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: a conversation between a Jewish Jewish rabbi a Jew. My father,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: who was a Jewish rabbi, was always amused by that
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: expression of Jewish rabbis if there are other kinds of
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: rabbis in any of it. Halabi's book is about a
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: gentile king getting prophetic inspiration, talking to a Jewish stage
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: and ultimately converted, so conversion was not a problem for him. However,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: he was enough of a particularist to think that when
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: person converted to Judaism, that doesn't mean they can have prophecy.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: They remain in effect, you might say, second class Jews,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: with only with respect to the issue of prophecy and
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: their descendants. He doesn't specify after how many generations, two three, whatever,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: their children they're grandual release the great grandchildren can become
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: if they've merged with the Jewish people. They they sort
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: of speak that they could say, the tate or the
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: genetic disability of the original convert doesn't go follow through.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: So he is much less of a of a particulars
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: and people came after him, like some of the authors
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: of the zoar Is. Certainly the morale of Prague, certainly
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: most conceded. Most Jews today, it's important to point.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: That to your much he is let's say, the first
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: theorist perhaps of a kind of particularism, which states that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: there is something inherently different about Jews, that they possess
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: some sort of all this transcends Hebrews in yoh, right,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: this sort of divine entity and uh, and that's essentially
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: passed on through the genes, although or you know, parents
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a child. Unclear exactly why and how a spiritual quality
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: like that would be necessarily passed down. But but and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that's what that in his mind is what marks a
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Jew essentially correct that exactly.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: But and I'm doing my best to present all Levi
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: in the but to my mind are the best possible terms.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: A Rabbi friend of mine once said, yes, haw Leave's
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: view is that Jews have this unique quality or characteristic. However,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: before the coming of the Messiah, that's just theoretical, because
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: nobody else is going to become a prophet in principle, Therefore,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: how Leave should be as welcome him to converse as
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: was Rambam, who was very welcoming. And I have no
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: idea what he thought about that. He obviously didn't have
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a problem with converting the King of the Kasars and
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: all of his And the book says that the king
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: and all of his nation converted to Judaism, which Alb's
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: eyes was obviously a good idea. Whether or not he
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: believed it, I don't know, but that was the story
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: he told. So I've done, I've done my best just
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: now to present the most my monety in Alevia could find,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: which is the opposite of what usually happens in most
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Jewish circles. Rambam is converted to alv.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Right and uh and and well that's because they in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: many Jewish circles, they hold Alevi's view up to be
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a prototype of you know, or something to be, and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: therefore Rama must be. So shoehorns into that. So let's
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: so let's cross the divide. I'd go back to Rama
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: for a moment. And okay, So for Alevi that something inherents,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: something irreducible, something genetic, and in the soul that marks
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a Jew. And your claim is that param is not
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the case.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly where did the Jews come from?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: There was a guy who.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Lived in ancient Mesopotamia named Abraham, who, although he grew
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: grew up in a world full of idolators was smart
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: enough to realize that idolatry was nonsense, and for the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: first forty years of his life he worried about this
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: subject and thought about it and investigated it, and then
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: had a moment of illumination when he realized that there
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: had to be a cause behind everything we see. And
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: so he discovered that there existed a one, unique God,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and in response to that, God made this Abraham, the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: founder of God's people. But the important point you realize
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: is the way in which the Ramba presents this picture
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: in his work called a Loss concerning Idolatry or Pagan
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: worship Dza. It didn't have to be Abraham. Most of
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: my colleagues were secretary of hearing me say this. If
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: it had been a shaman in Nevada today, a Navajo
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: who was the first human being after the corruption of
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: humanity after the flood to rediscover God, then the Torah
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: would have been given in the Navajo language. The narratives
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: of the Torah would reflect the history of the Navajou people,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: the holokhauv of the Torah, which would in its essence
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: be the same as the terra as we have it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: But it's outward clothing would reflect Navajo culture. Now Raba
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: doesn't say that. Okay, he never read Tony Hillermann, so
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: he doesn't know about the Navajos, But that is the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: upshot of what he says there. God did not choose Abraham.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Abraham chose God, and Abraham's children had a hard time
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: with that, so much so that when they were in
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Egypt they became idolaters. God had to in effect take
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: them out of Egypt and retrain them. All this Rambam
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: says was by way of it was recompensed to Abraham.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Because of Abraham's discovery of God. God promised him, and
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: promised Abraham that he would become the progenitor of a
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: nation especial nations, not specially in any hardware terms, but
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: especially in the sense that they were the nation meant
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: to teach God's Torah. Let me put to you like this,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Judaism was meant at first to be Abrahamic. What is
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Abrahamic Judaism is the Judaism monotheism and Menschluchkite good behavior
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: and ram I'm basically in the thirty second chapter of
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the third part of the Guide, he tells this story
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: how God gave Abraham no commandments, but you know, he
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: had certain marks like circumcision and all, but there was
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: no there were no commandments for Abraham to obey, but
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: he was meant to be a progenitor of a holy nation.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: If holiness is obviously reflects not inherent qualities, but the
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: way you behave I say, obviously that would be rob
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: BAM's view and mine as well for that matter. And
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: so the Jews went down to Egypt and reverted to idolatry.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So God stept them out of Egypt and brought them
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: to a place called Mara, where there was bitter water,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and they had to throw a log into the water
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: to sweeten it. And there the Book of Exodus says
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: that God gave the Jews to shabbat the Sabbath which
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: teaches creation in cooring Rambam, and gave them a series
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: of commandments to obey about interpersonal behavior. Do you need fine?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So that's the second kind of Judaism that God was
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: aiming at my understanding of Rambam. Then we get to
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Mount Sinai and the Jews and Moses failed to synchronize
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: their watches. So Moses go up for forty days to
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Mount Sine. It disappears. The Jews keep looking at their
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: what and where's Moses, Where's Moses? It doesn't show up,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: so they build the Golden Calf. That's when God says, Okay,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: this is not going to work. I'm going to give
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: them everything you need to replace Idolatrist worship, only it's
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: going to be for a monotheistic God. And so you
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: have the creation of the Tabernacle and the priests and
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: the Levites and the whole apply of Jewish law to
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: keep the Jews separate so they will remain remain loyal
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to the notion of mantheistic notion. That's the picture Ramba
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: presents in Guide three point thirty two, connecting it to
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: the first chapter of Laws of Idolatry. Now that means
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: there's it could have been different, just like the laws
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: of Juraism could have been different if they have been
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: given in a different period.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: And so okay, so that is that.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: This is yeah, I've shocked you.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm sorry, list, I've you took an entire course.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I wassusing the entire course on this subject. This is uh,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: this is you know, this is good stuff. But then okay,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: so with the Rambam heat so Judaism was given, aspects
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: of Jewism were given, you know, in stages. I suppose
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: as a response to the weeks of the people is
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: fair enough, in which case I mean so. So then
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: then let me ask what the RUMs is left for
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: gentiles to do? And what is what is what is
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: their role? Because in even levies, because sorry, it doesn't
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: seem to be very much for them to do. But
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you'd expect if if indeed my mom is universalistic as
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: as you as you claim to them, surely as as
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: you have claims, if you've written about and you've you've proven.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: That's a very strong word, especially in intellectual history. We
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: don't use words like proven. But given you substantiated, let's say, okay,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: so what is the role what is the difference in
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the role of gentiles between as in these two thinkers.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Ah, that's a really very good question.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: It is the question that is begged by this particular difference.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Right. Let me start by telling you a story. A
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: friend of mine, a rabbi in America who is very
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: my mind, and told me that he once asked three
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: of his teachers at you Shiv University of all places.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Does God listen to the prayers of gentiles? So one said,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: of course. Second rabbi said, of course not. The third
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: rabbi says, I have no idea, and I don't care.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Rab I'm agreed with the the yu rabbi who said,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: of course, God listens to the prayers of other people.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Why why are there so many? Goam? The famous entomologist
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: from Harvard your school, I forget his name, said God
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: must be in orderly a love of beatles, because there
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: are so many varieties.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Of them, A shoal proof, a proof of that particular proposition.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. So I ROBM doesn't actually address the question
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: of why are so many gentiles? Uh, it's a fact,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: that's the way that I mean. He didn't even know
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: about the Chinese, right, You know that India existed. You
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: know they were billion of them. I guess at the
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: time that there weren't a billion, but there are quite
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: a few. Certainly, He had no no knowledge of the Americas,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: or of Africa or whatever. I mean. He knew that
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Africa existed because he lived in Egypt, right, But that's
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: about it. I think it's a fact. That's the way
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the world. You know, after the after the flood and
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: after the Tower of Babel, people split up. According to
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the biblical story, I don't think they have a role
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: in Rambam's view, Well, that's not fair either. In his
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: discussion of the Messiah at the end of the Missionatah,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: he makes the following surprising claim, which was by the
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: way censored for most traditional texts because people couldn't handle it.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: He says that the job of the Christians is to
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: teach the world very notions of in his eyes, quasi monotheism,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: but the idea that there are commandments and stuff like that.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: The job of the Muslims is to teach the world monotheism,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: to make it possible for a Messianic process to take place.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: In other words, in his view, even though he thought
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: that Christianity was a form of tritheism and of idolatry,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: but he thought that Christianity and Islam had a messianic role,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: and that role was to in effect monotheia is the
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: world so that the Messiah could come. Like I said
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of our discussion, Rambom doesn't believe in
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: God giving out gifts or toys. The Messiah will come
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: when the world is ready for the Messiah to come.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: God doesn't send the Messiah. We have to earn the
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: coming of the Messiah. We have to create a world
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: in which the Messiah can function. So, in effect, if
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I'm right about that, and I am, but I am
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: right about that, you can't He says, you need the
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Christians and the Muslims to make your world a place
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: in which the Messiah can function, because the Messiah is
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: also a job for Ramba is to teach the whole
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: world Judaism. So I guess that's the best I can
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: do in answering your very challenging question, why are there
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: so many beetles, I mean so many gentiles?
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Right? Well? In which case that that leads to another question,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: which I you know, which is the flip side of this,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: which is then, well, what is the role of the Jews?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: In other words, or put it put it most extinctly,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: what is special about the Jews in this world view? Again,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: in the Halavii world you it's easy to see what'special
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: about the Jews. They have something inherent, a part of
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the soul or something like that, which is which is
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: capable of some kind of ultimate connection to the devine
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: therefore Jews alone can have prophecy, ett et cetera. There's
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: it's easy in that world view to see what is
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: special about the Jews and why. But if again, my
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: money is a universalist, then what is then? I suppose
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the Jews are what I possessive possession of special doctrines
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: or special practices that are supposed to be told you,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: what do they have that is different?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: First of all, there's nothing special about the Jews. Let's
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: be rare, okay. Jews are human beings. Gentiles are human beings.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: They share that one hundred percent. What's special about Judaism
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: is that teaches the truth, whereas Islam teaches close to
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the truth. Christianity teaches a little bit further away from
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: the truth, but they don't teach the full truth of monotheism,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: of fulfillment to the commandments that make a community a
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: community holy by virtue of its being just. The Jews
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: are not wholly in any kind of inherent sense. People
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: who behave correctly, who behave in fulfillment to the commandments
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: which create a holy humunity, become a holy community which
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: is expressed by its behavior, not by its essence. My friend,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Professor Danny Lasker likes to point out that the old days,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: before you were born, we used to talk about IBM
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: personal computers and clones of IBM personal computers. You may
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: have heard about that.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I think we study a history of science or something like.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: That, right, And the difference between them was that the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: IBM computer's hardware was considered to be better because both
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: the IBM computer and the other and the clones worked
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: on the same same programs, but the hardware was considered
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to be better. So if you could afford, you bought
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: an IBM PC. According to Judah Levian people like him,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: the difference between dw and Gentiles and the hardware. According
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: to Ram, the difference Drew and Gentiles and the software.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Like Danny says, in the in the programs they run,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: so to speak, and programs can be changed. That's why
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: for rambamb conversion, he's serious about it. Obviously, he's serious
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: about everything. Is not a talent, not an issue. He
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: has a very famous letter to a man named Ovaja
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: who became a convert in the Muslim world and was
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: offended by things that his rabbi told him. So he
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: asked rambab Rama, first of all, said nasty things about
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: the rabbi and then said, look, the bottom line is
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: you have to understand we born Jews are descended or connected.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Our yukis, our connection is to Abraia Mazagan Jacob, your yukis,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: your connection is to God Almighty. You know you're more
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: of a jewo than we are. Also, we're Jewish. This
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: arma doesn't say I'm adding it. We're Jewish because we
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: were born Jews. You chose it. Nowadays the expression is
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Jews by choice. Clearly, from this it turns out that
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Rama had a great deal admiration for Jews, but whereas
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: al Aby would accept them. But there was always this asterisk.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So we before you went down the path
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of my monetizing hallev and now I want to ask
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: about the possibility of halleviizing my monodies in the sense,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: now if my monodies does have this this basic theory
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: of a universal general knowledge and truth, and that the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Jews specialness is derivative of the fact that they have
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: this truth and they know this truth in this but
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to teach this truth, et cetera. So well, firstly, are
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: there limits to my monodes universalism? In other words, are
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: there elements of his thought that don't quite fit with this,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: or or let's say, inconvenience to your overall reading of him,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: let's start with that.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Well, one of them is very unfortunate. He was an
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: unbelievably harsh intellectual elitist. So my moldy is as a
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: universalist in the sense that everybody is in the club
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: as long as they have a Harvard PhDe. But if
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: they don't have that, they haven't achieved that level of
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: intellectual success, then they're simply not in the club. They're
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: barely Humian. This is you know, this is not a
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Jewish position. Brom Bomb is here, he's basically talking Aristotle
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: or Aristotle as he understood him. Look, it makes sense.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Aristotle defines human beings as rational animals. Right, if you're
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: not rational, you're just an animal. So that's brom Baum's view,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: and that's, you know, not not the view of the
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: traditions of Judaism. But that's one way in which his
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: universalism is. Uh is always say unfortunate, how you would
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: not be guilty of that? Since all the Jews have
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: this inner in jan Luis Elahi attempt his quality and
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how smart or and how educated you are. Now.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, I have proven to my total
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: satisfaction that ram Bump thought that women were also human
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: beings and the Middle Ages, that was a striking claim.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say that that's not quite
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: as common as it sounds.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: No, right, it's very much not as common as it sounds.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: So there's like that's a kind of universalism. Also, he
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: wasn't a feminist in our terms. He was, like might say,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: a philosophical feminist, not a sociological feminist. But in his
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: day and age it was very unusual. He and Varois
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: had been rushed were basically the only two people in
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: the Middle Ages. I'm exaggerating, but there were very few
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: people actually agreed with this view that women are created
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: in the needs of God fully my friend ral Bog,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I mean even been gershow in twelve eight to thirteen
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: forty four it says explicitly that women are like monkeys.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: They look like human beings, but they don't have the
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: intellectual abilities. That's this is a more standard view. So
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: that's another version of what I would call my monitors
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: and universalism. Can I continue on this riff?
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Please? Another way of looking at it is the laws
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: of Judaism for my monodes halaka Jewish law is not
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: a is not a divine need meets Gomar says, God
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: needs these commandments, no, their challenges to behave in a
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: particular fashion, and if you do that, you're so to speak,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: in the in the Jewish club. But there are also
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: seven laws for gentiles to obey, and then you're a
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: very good gentile. It's not as if there's nothing gentiles
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: can do to achieve a share of the world to come.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: That's an important point. The world to come is restricted
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: for Rambam, is restricted to people who've gotten into the club,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: which means JJ, after one hundred and twenty years, you
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: and I are going to be very lonely there.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, if we could, you know, we'll just have
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a never ending us on this particular.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be fine, you know, it's not. There are
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: all kinds of jokes about that. The sky dies and
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: it's being shown around heaven and they go past a
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: big corridor and I'm not hope I don't offend anybody.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: And as Saint Peter so To speaks, walking down the road,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: they passed the door and say, Peter says, should be
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: quiet here, and the guy says, why do you have
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: to be quiet? He says, this is the Mormon heaven.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: They think they're alone here.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: You could substitute Mormon there. For for many faith traditions,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: it's not a moment specific joke.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: This is the philosophers. They think they're all in here, right.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So, So this is interesting because when one says the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: word universalism, one brings to mind a more tolerant, expansive,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: inclusive form, a worldview in which you know, everyone has
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: a place, everyone has a roll, et cetera. Whereas one
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: of the interesting things about my Monestine system is as
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: you've presented it is that while it is more open
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and expansive towards non Jews who have correct philosophical opinions,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: it is distinctly unfriendly for Jews who have incorrect philosophical opinions,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: even if they are simply mistaken.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's another point that is where Ramam is simply wrong.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Jewish law allows for making mistakes. You know, you, I
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: don't know whether you turn out a light on the
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Sabbath or you either cheezburger by accident, whatever you do,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Oh grase, you made a mistake, so there are ways
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to fix it. You repent, but if you have a
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: mistake about the nature of God, it's unfixable unless you retrain.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: In other words, there's no inadvertence in theology. For Ramam
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: there is anadvertence in Jewish Lawkaga Hebrew. There is no
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: room for that in theology. That's not a Jewish view
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned. So this is another place
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: where philosophy is I think sort of taken has influenced
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: him too much, But he's being consistent. You know that
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: heaven is for rational animals. If you're not rational, which
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: left his animal now you should be.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: It's not just rationalism, that's the most interesting thing about.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: It's merely that you exercised your irrational faculties and came
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: to some sort of inclusion. For him, the conclusions he
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: comes to are in his mind so inescapable that if
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: you have not come to them, so those very specific conclusions,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: then you have.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Not used your mind properly.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it is impossible to be a good philosopher
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and comes to different conclusions than him.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent. Rambaum would not admit that Heydergirl was
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: a good philosopher.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I had to go return the favor.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Fine, But but Heidger couldn't say to Rombaum that he
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: was a lot, So there's no I mean, ram he
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: was not alone in this. You know, Perfection is not
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: a salami you can slice all into various parts. A
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: perfect human being is perfect morally, and that's very important
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: for Ramam. You can't become a philosopher if you're immral,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: and in his eyes, the best way to be moral
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: is to fulfill the Jewish law. It's not the only way,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: but it's the best way. And for Jews it's an
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: obli obligatory thing. A question which he never addresses and
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: for which I have no idea how he would handle it. Is,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: what do you do about a person born in a
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Jewish Jew, born Jew who becomes a saintly perfected philosopher
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: but doesn't fulfill the commandments? Rambaum, the rabbi would not
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: want to admit this guy to heaven. Rambam the philosopher
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: has no way to keep him out.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Well, the rumbum could simply reject the possibility, at least
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: the theory to reject the possibility that someone could become
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a puffet philosopher without keeping the commandments, at least for
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: a Jew. But the problem is.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: That how is that possible? How do you you know? Aristotle,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: he says, reached the level of perfection just before prophecy.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: He says that explicitly in his own language and a
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: letter to his translator Samuel Libinjimmin. So he clearly thought
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: they were gentiles who could achieve. I mean, he knew them,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: He had friends there. He had a wide circle of
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Muslim friends with whom he corresponded and who helped him out,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: who protected him. And he didn't live like a He
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: didn't live in the world where only people spoke yidish.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Far from it.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, Now, let me ask another question, which is
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't Rumbum entirely system throughout his life and suddenly within
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: his own the boundaries that he himself set out? In
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: other words, did agree with himself?
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: No?
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Or put another way? Could my money, sorry, could rum
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: up gains my money just heaven or vices? I can't
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: remember tell you how you titled it.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: I read an article with that title once.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's what I've referred to it. I just kind
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of which way around it was. But did the rum
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: of himself stand up to his own very stringent categories.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I would like to think so, but like everybody else,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Rama was a complicated person. Now, if he took his
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: own views about intellectual sophistication seriously, he would have been
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: a miserable human being to the unsophisticated, to the irrational. Yeah,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: we have lots of evidence that he took his job
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: as a kumul rabbi as a judge seriously. And for example,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: he first comes to our notice in letters that he
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: wrote this is so appropriate nowadays. It's so sad, trying
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to raise money to free hostages. That's our first evidence
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: of Rombaum's public behavior. We have letters in the kiro
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Genese of some guy writing home that he went to
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: visit the Rombam to ask what we would call in
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: the innershek klutz contra a stupid question. I don't remember
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: what the question was. We asked a really dumb question.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: And he went there with his little boy. So he writes,
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I was taking into see the great rabby Moses, and
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: I told him my question. He said, wait before I
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: answer your question, how was the little boy? He gave
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: him some lemon cookies, and then he answered my question
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: with great deal of respect and sent me on my
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: happy way. So I mean that guy obviously an idiot.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: But Rambaum certainly acted according to the quality criteria of
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: noblesse obliges. He knew that he was of the nobility,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: but that obligated him in certain forms of behavior, so
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: he also he was If he was consistent, he would
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: not have been a communal rabbi. He would not have
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: been a judge. He would not have led the Jewish community.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: He would have just spent his life in the uh
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: in the Cairo Palace there with the what's his name,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Saladin's nephew was running things and basically spent his time
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: in their version of Widener Library. But no, he was
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: deeply involved in the community, and he writes in the
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: famous letter to samely been Jimming what his daily life
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: was like and how much energy invested in running things
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: in the community. As my wife likes to say, if
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: she reminds me before I teach a course or a
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: class in rama, she always says, remember to remind them
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that Rabbam was also a rabbi, and.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: He was the perpetual temptation of philosophy professors to forget
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that convenient, that important fact exactly.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: My colleagues very often forget that he was also a rabbi.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: So so that's the sense in which he was not
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: really consistent with his own theories. And remember when he
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: committed time to the Jewish community, he was harming himself
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: because his understanding of the world to come and you
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: earned what you earned there is what you learned here.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: So if he spent one minute less on his philosophical meditation,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: he was harming his eternal life right the set in
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: the theory. So so he's a complicated He was also, Look,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: he was very proud of his son Abraham, a very
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: proud father, and we have letters to that effect as well.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: This way, he was a proud father. But he never
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: mentioned his wife.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: You must have had a wife, I mean, I don't
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: think it was the style in those days, tom among.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: You know, and we know who his fall in law was.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: We have no idea who his wife was.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I'd like to move a little bit too to maybe
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: other parts of the medieval Jewish philosophical world and simply
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: ask whether those who out did Halevi on the particular
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: side or out did my monoties on the universalist side,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: and one of you set up these two major thinkers
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: as of good I don't know archetypes is the right word,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: but but things who exemplify these two strains of thought.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: But you know neither of them.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: It's well, I our mutual friend Marty Miller, who by
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: the way, just got an article accepted to HTR.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: The ultimate achievement, I should think absolutely uh.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: He has written a lot about the picture of gentiles
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: and capitalistic in Zohar literature, and it is a complicated book.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: You can't you can't still to speak, says, But there
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: are passages in the Zor which say that gentiles are
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: born with defective souls and there's nothing that can be
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: fixed about that. That's the that's that's the nature of
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: being a gentile. Is your soul comes from the realms
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: of impurity. And that's way beyond anything Hale ever had
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: nightmares about. So and there's many such passages in UH
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: in cabalistic literature. Not only there are also other aspects
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: of cowbola that make it sound almost my monody in
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: but the the part that got accepted by the Jewish
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: people is largely that aspect of it. As to your
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: other question, where there are more more my monornity and
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: than my moderity.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Is my mind us within h Yeah.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. In other words, there are people like
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: motion our Boni, who uh was a I don't know
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: what he thought about universalism. He was he thought that
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: rob Bum held the world was uncreated, for example, which
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: made his Drama was not also a rabbi, that's for sure.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: So there were certainly people who Look, why was this
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: such a huge debate about philosophy in general and Ramam
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: in particular after his death. Look, he died in twelve
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: oh four, and soon thereafter the Jewish world, at least
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: first of all the jew the world in the Middle
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: East was torn over the question did he believe in resurrection?
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: But then the world of Europe was torn over the
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: questions can you study him at all? Remember his books
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: were burned, the whole question about who did it and why?
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: But it happened. There were people who were very sensitive
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: to the aspects of my monody and thought, which made
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: it uncomfortable for them. One example, which I think would
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: be helpful. Whereas Rama never says this explicitly, he clearly held,
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I'm convinced of this that in order to be a
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: good Jew, you had to be a scientist. In his
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: terms of science, the secrets of the Torah were physics
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: and metaphysics. And in order to love God, he says
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: that this He says explicitly in the first two paragraphs
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: of the second chapter of Mission of Torah the Laws
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Foundations of the Torah, Chapter two, that in order to
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: love God, you have to study God's works. Now, Bob
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: makes the point very helpfully. In Exodus thirty two, God
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: says to Moses, I'm sick and tired of these Jewish people.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Let's wipe them out and start the whole story over
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: again from you. Your descendants will be the new Jewish people,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: which is sort of funny because moses descendants are never mentioned,
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: but leave that aside. And so Moses says, no, if
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: you're going to destroy the Jewish people, Mia, wipe me
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: erased me from the book that you wrote. So Bob says, well,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: what book could write. Most see that and think it
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: means that Torah. No, Robot says, it means kill me,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: remove me from the world that you made. The world
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: that you made is the is the book that God wrote.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: This became a motif later on in the just before
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: the Enlightenment, a lot of people talked about God as
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: the author of the universe. So here we see robot
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: basically adopting a mind and in view, to be a
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: good Jew, you have to keep the commandments, et cetera,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: and study the book that God wrote. There are two
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: bad God wrote two books. I think rob Bam held
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: us clearly, Torah and science. Now there are a lot
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: of Jews then and today who would tell me you
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: can't possibly believe that, And that's why some of them said,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: don't study Rambam. I mean to this very day. I
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: used to visit Lakewood quite often. I have a lot
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: of family the Liquid New Jersey. It's a you're it's
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: just scheduled from Europe. That stills somehow managed to get
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: to the to the.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: East, pointed chet Settle.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: These days, yeah, now it's really yes, they it used
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: to be a lot less nicely appointed. But in any event,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I went into the very big Jewish bookstore they're looking
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: for asked where they have the guide copies of the
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Guide of the perplex They sent me to it like
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: a side aspect, aside whatever, And they're in a section
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: called Kabbala Jewish bitsticism. That was the only copy of
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: the Guide in the perplex and now Kabala in the
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Shiva world is not something you study. The Ashkenazi chival world,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: the smartishchival world. It is certainly much more widely studied.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: So clearly they thought that it wears on the other
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: side of the room. There were like twenty five different
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: editions of the mission Torah. Do you go into any
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: standard you shiver in the world today, any standard Ashkenazi,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: non Zionist y Shiva, and there'll be the bit be
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: drash will be full of copies of the Mission of
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: Toura and the commentaries on it, and the commentaries on
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the commentaries on the commentaries on it. You will never
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: find the Guide of the perplexed. Whereas you go into
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: a Zionist y Shiva here in Israel and extent in
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: the United States, you'll find lots of copies of Alavi
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: the Kuzari, and also a few rumbums, a few guys
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: of the perplexed. So, yeah, how did I get onto that?
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Well, it was it was going down various lines of
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you know, are there more mimonode than my Monotheans? And
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: and and why it was the truth is that Rambam's
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: reception is an important is important part of this part
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: of the story, because, of course, in many ways the
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Rumbam does win out in the sense that his works,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: especially the Missister, are eventually given private place on the
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Jewish bookshelf. But do you think, let me ask you,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: are there any aspects of my monody and universalism that
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: get adopted in later generations? Because you seem to be
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: You've implied several times your opinion is that essentially the
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Haleve view one out. And I want to ask him,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: is that is that the case? Is that was the
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: victory total and comprehensive? Or are there aspects of run
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: mother's universalism which which sort of ends it into the mainstream.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: I would be happier if I could say, yes, Look,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: there are obviously people who agree with me. There may
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: be only ten of the whole world, but there are
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: those ten ominion more. But uh by and large, No,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: I mean there are people like say Hermine Cohen, who
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: certainly appreciated my monorites, but was not Sabbath observant. True
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: his my minorities. He was very Jewish Harmon gohn Ah,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: but he grew up in an observant tone, but he
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: didn't keep it, so he was not. He was certainly
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: of my monor d and universalists, but not the kind
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: of universalists my Monotyes himself, would have preferred. Uh I
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: met a loss to think of. Look, his influence was vast.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: I'm right now writing an article about why while there
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: are many my Monoradeans today, there are no Gersonadeans.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: What would characterize a gus D in this sense.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: Well, anyone who takes them seriously beyond you know, every people. Look,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I just a new book came out. I think it's
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: called The Rootlets Companion to Jewish Philosophy. I don't know exactly.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: I have an article there where try with our friend
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Marty Miller, So I sort of skimmed the whole book.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Rama was mentioned, I know, let's say it, almost every
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: other article. There are thirty or forty articles there. So
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: in that sense, his impact, his philosophical impact remains huge.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Or thirty forty years ago, Arthur A. Cohen and Paul
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Mendis Floor put out a book of essays on Jewish theology.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: I forget what it was called, And actually I read
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: the whole book. You know, one of the few people
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: in the world who did it my sympathy and there
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: you know, each the articles on all kinds of subjects, death, life, love, purity, whatever,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: almost every single article says my monety says. That's how
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: they start. And one of the reasons is is very important.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: Another reason is that he had seems to say about
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: every topic, but I would say, here, I think I'm
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: on firm ground. Rambam is one of those few people
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: who if he held a position, that position thereby becomes
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: jewishly legitimate. Interesting, you cannot take a sentence a position
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: held by Rambam and say that it is jewishly illegitimate,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: which is why so many people have to interpret him
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: to say things he didn't say. May I tell you
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: one story along those lines, please please?
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Many years ago I was teaching at the University of Kaife,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: of course on Rambam. We were reading the chapters in
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: the Guide of the Rebels to deal with Providence, and
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: in my class was a woman who was one of
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: the first people who became a calal employer in the
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: rabbinic courts. It was very unusual at the time. And
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: to end it, Rabanite and her husband was a Diana
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: reminted court judge. So I met him once at some
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: kind of event in the city. I don't remember what
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: it was, and he says in typical Rabbinic language, he says, hey,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: meaning me, because third person taught the Rabbani to my
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: wife that according to Rambam, divine providence doesn't extend to everybody.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: And I said, that's true. And that's what he says
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: in the seventeenth chapter of the third part of the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Guy that the perplex and this guy, this guy, this
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: rabbi says, well, there are three possibilities here. One is,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: we all know that the Raman wrote his book in Arabic,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: and maybe this translation that you're using is simply wrong.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: The second possibility is perhaps people who were produced the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: text garbled it. And a third possibility he says, of course,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: then he asks, He says, of course, I don't think
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: this is possible, but just fill up the picture. Maybe
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: his honor naming me is wrong. Doesn't understand the text.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: He couldn't handle what Rambam wrote black on white, right.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: He couldn't. He didn't want to add in the rather
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: obvious fourth possiblity, which is that he himself was wrong.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly that couldn't be. Or briefly, a very good friend
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: of mine was teaching in a synagogue in a town
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey called dot Teck. He gave a hold
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: of me on the Sabbath. Here he gave a long
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: talk about my monitory and universalism. And after the Sabbath,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: the young man took him aside, and we say, in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: the nick language hawk Demagini for an hour how the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: Rambamb could not possibly have held the views that this
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: guy attributed to him. And so my friend ripped out
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: all kinds of relevant texts to show them in The
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: man was himself the son of a of a Russian
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: ship at Yu himself will learned a Jew. So he
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: finally had to admit, yes, that's what Rambam said. But
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: then he said, but so what we accept talvi not rombum.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: At least he was willing to admit that's what Rambam said,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: but made a difference to him.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. But the very fact that he
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: questioned about the Rumbam, and trying so hard to fight
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: that the Rumbam said what he thought he said daily
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: belies that idea that, oh, we don't hold the rubb no. Obviously,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: my monodese is significant enough that they continue to be
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: arguments to this day, debates on which you have participated in.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: What exactly my monodese said meant?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: Like I said, he is so important that he can't
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: be ignored. He has to be I love this. The
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: story is told that when Shakespeare was first translated into Yiddish,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: the title page says that you know, all the plays
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: William Shakespeare are tuched when far Bessert translated and improved
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: by the name of the translator. I must try to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: find out if that was actually true or simply an
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: urban myth. And I got all kinds of answers from
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: friends on the internet, so I'm saying, yes, we saw
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: the book. I'm saying it's an urban myth. In any
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: of ate. Rambam has been for thousand as well, since
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: twelve o four, subjected to translated and improved over and
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: over and over again. His text the Bistrata, has been rewritten.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Various passages have been excised or simply changed a little bit.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Doesn't take a lot of work to change them to
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: make them sound from more religious, which is why it's
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: important to use a correct text, because very often his
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: text has been subjected to for Titians for our bessert
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: translated and improved.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: And see see the upshots of your answer seems to
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: have been of the questions I asked how many minutes
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: ago that indeed HALEEVI has won and the Rambamb you know,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: difficulty to amount or that he hasn't really enswered so
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: much to the mainstream. Is that is that still the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: case today? Can you there shall we say Jewish thinkers
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: or streams of judas and today that you think accurately
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: represent the Rombam's blend of universalism coupled with very strict
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: adherence to the law, coupled with a philosophically minded pursuit
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: of closest with God. Something like these various components that
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: you've pointed out on my monety's position, do they simply
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: don't exist anymore?
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, look, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs was not a
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: specialist in Rambamb, but a very smart man, and he
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: was without constantly citing Rambam. He was very my manager.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: He was a rabbi, He was a chief rabbi, very
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: concerned to divert himself to the needs of the Jewish
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: community and deeply acculturated. That's so without relying upon Rambam explicitly,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: I don't think Rambam shows up all that often in
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: his writings, but he was. That's an example of a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: very Mimoitian figure. Another example could be a rabbi solo
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Agic who does quote Ra momb A lot, but he's
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: rama of the mission tour is, he's all over the place,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: but he himself was a communal leader. He was a
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: rabbi and very very acculturated. So that being my monody
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: in the sense that we've described him here this afternoon
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: or by in your case, by this morning, he was
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: also my monity in that sense, the sense of being
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: a Jewish leader who was swam comfortably in the currents
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: of the philosophy around him, who held his own in
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So they're many such less well
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: known individuals whom I think we could call them, you know,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: modern Mimnodians in that sense, But in terms of universalism
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: that's a harder sell. Resolvation was very open, but he
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: certainly was more hall Avian than Rambambian. And the questions
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: of the Jewish people, I do my senses that are
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: by sex was more more of my wand and than
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: hall Avian in that question.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: But and you never had the opportunity to ask him.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I've met him on several occasions and we talked
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: to a lot of things, but I don't remember that
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: this particular question came up. But he he he liked
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: b bumb.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, We'll have to do the final question
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: I like to pose, which is a question I like
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: to post to many of my audiences that if you
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: had to sit down for dinner with the stund to
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: dinner with the subject of your study, namely in this
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: case thrombam Uh, what would you be asking him? What
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: would you want to approach? Firstly, what do you think
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: the experience would be like? Would you enjoy it? And
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: more than that, what what would you what would you
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: want from him?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's an embarrassing question.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: I often say I wouldn't want to meet the Rambum
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: because he would expect me to be thinner than I am.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, he would. Then all of us I would have
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: to be much more disciplined and and what's the word
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: like sparing in our physical lives than we are.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: Secondly, I would have a hard time speaking to him in Arabic.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: We could we could converse in Hebrew. That's the amazing
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: thing about the mission of Dora. I translated one of
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: the fourteen volumes. Say for Ah, the Book of Love,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: it's all about prayer. But he writes so clearly, Unlike
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: my friend Roald bog who's who loved ambiguous santecedents. Rarely
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: do you have a question about what Arama was saying.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Because Hebrew is so pellucid, and I use that word
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: crystal clear. So we could correspond in Hebrew him in me.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't know all the slang I know, but we
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: really could. It's amazing how as good as Hebrew was.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: But to answer your question, what would I ask the rahmbum?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would want to convince him that you
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: don't have to be a philosopher to be a good person.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: I would want to convince him that the Jewish tradition
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: is right, and that you can be a saintly fool.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: And and you can be a foolish philosopher as well
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: or a scoundrel on the philosopher.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely right, you could. You'd also be a scount
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: you could be I mean, I don't know. I've read
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: little bits of Heider. Girl. You don't understand a word.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: I don't see why people find them so important. But yes,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: there are plenty of foolish philosophers good philosophers. There's a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: famous story told about an expert on Jewish ethics who
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: beat his wife at the university many years ago. So
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: when he has called out her and he says, look,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: mathematicians are are not expected to become triangles.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, I've heard that story many guys, in many forms,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: so the version of sory, but essentially, and okay, let
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: me ask you think the Rambum would be possibly receptive
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: to your to overtures.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: I can't look it. Them died in twelve o four.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: A few things have happened since then. One of the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: many reasons I try not is if people ask me
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: what I'm say about X, Y or Z, I usually
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: say I don't know. I can tell you what he
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: actually said about similar subjects, but what he would say
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: today in our reality, that's not a fair question. It's
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: not fair to ask him either. First we have to
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: give him eight hundred years worth of updating. I mean,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: this is a guy me, a guy who revers rombum right.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: That should have been clear from their conversation.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: But even though you spend a fair amount of the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: conversation saying how you don't think the rama is rights
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: about this, So do you think he's right about that?
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not on my Ownerdan right. I hope to
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: be Rambaum was. I think like my teacher Stephen Schwarzschild
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: was not looking for cosidium. So he would have taken
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: criticism in stride because he will He wanted people to
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: use their brains. He himself is always like he's constantly
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: correcting what he wrote and asking people send him corrections
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: if they found mistakes, and that's an important aspect of
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: his personality, one of many reasons to admire him.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think at this point we shall have to
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: draw the cutting down. Professor Monachal Kelna, thank you so
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: very much. But Johnny yesterday on the podcast Jewish Ideas,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: this has been a splendid conversation and I recommend the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: readers to peruse many of the excellent books that written
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: in particularly the subject, and we look forward to seeing
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: your future output on these issues.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for Johnny, Thank you and good
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: luck with your job.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: This has been the podcast of Jewish ideas by Tora
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: in Motion, produced by Alisha Kellman and myself Jjkimbri, edited
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and mixed by Alisha Kelman. You can stay up to
• 1:11:28
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