Spring 2010 - Interpretation

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2 6 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n It is true, to be sure, that on at least one occasion Maimonides speaks of views that improve social relations as “correct” opinions: at Guide 3.28.512, he says that certain beliefs are necessary for political welfare—for example, “the belief that God becomes violently angry with those who disobey Him and that it is therefore necessary to fear Him and to dread Him and to take care not to disobey”—and when he proceeds to consider by contrast the “correct opinions” concerning the whole of being, he calls these latter the “other correct opinions” (sāir al-arā al-ṣaḥīḥah). And immediately following, at 3.28:513, Maimonides speaks of commandments that might be necessary for “communicating a correct opinion [ray ṣaḥīḥ] that ought to be believed either on account of itself or for the acquisition of a noble moral quality.” Yet, among the “correct” politically salutary beliefs is “our belief that He, may He be exalted, is violently angry with those who disobey Him and that it is therefore necessary to fear Him and to dread Him and to take care not to disobey,” (3.28:512), a belief whose patent falsity Maimonides had earlier unequivocally affirmed (Guide 1.55:128-29). Maimonides thus encourages the masses to embrace beliefs that are, strictly speaking, false, views that are “correct” only in the sense that they are useful and beneficial from a moral and social or political point of view. Another instance of this Maimonidean approach may be seen, for example, in his Commentary to Sanhedrin 10 (commonly known as Pereq Ḥeleq), where he identifies the target of Avtalyon’s warning in Avot 1:3, “Sages, mind your words!” as Antigonos Ish Sokho, who famously said: “Do not be like servants who serve the master for the sake of reward; rather be like servants who serve the master not for the sake of reward” (Avot 1:11). Although Maimonides undoubtedly shares Antigonos’s view, he nevertheless evidently does not approve of its being promulgated to the masses. It is also true that both the gold and the silver are called “ḥokhmah,” wisdom (Intro., 12). Yet, there is no more reason to assume that all forms of ḥokhmah are the same than that all metals are (see 3.54 for the four senses of ḥokhmah). As Maimonides interprets the Adam and Eve parable in 1.2, “knowing” good and bad is very different from “knowing” true and false. And although Maimonides has recourse to a peculiar circumlocution in his characterization of the internal meaning as containing “wisdom that is useful for beliefs concerned with the truth as it is,” it seems likely that Maimonides’ intention here is to indicate that the internal meaning or, perhaps, the very recognition that there is an internal meaning, is useful for fostering belief in what is known to be true through reason. The external meaning is anything but useful in this regard.
Creation as Parable in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed 2 6 9 A similar lesson may be derived from another occasion on which Maimonides compares silver to gold. In Guide 1.59, Maimonides cites approvingly a story from the Talmud (BT, Berakhot 33b; Megilah 25a) that tells of a certain sheliaḥ ẓibbur (prayer-leader) who embellished the rabbinically prescribed formula for praising God with additional encomia of his own and was sharply reprimanded by R. Ḥanina. R. Ḥanina compared the man’s excesses to the offense one commits when one praises a king for having a million silver pieces when what the king actually has is a million gold ones. Maimonides notes the far greater gravity of this qualitative insult as compared with the merely quantitative one of praising a king for having one thousand gold pieces when he actually has a million. Thus, to say that peshat is like silver while the truth that lies beneath it is like gold implies not that peshat is merely somewhat less valuable with respect to truth than the deeper sense that lies within (a mere quantitative difference), but rather that its value lies elsewhere (a qualitative difference). Indeed, with respect to truth the peshat is of no value at all; if anything, it obscures the truth. Maimonides indicates in yet another way that peshat is a hindrance to truth. When he lays out the Guide’s two purposes (Intro., 6), he says, as we have seen, that the first purpose of the Guide is to explain certain problematic words in the Torah and the second is to clarify the hidden parables in the Torah, that is, the parables that are obscure and do not announce themselves as parables. Confusion can be dispelled, according to Maimonides, “if we explain these parables to him [i.e., one who truly possesses knowledge] or if we draw his attention to their being parables” (Intro., 6; emphasis added). In other words, all that is needed in order for the reader to be set straight is for him to be alerted to the fact that the hidden parable is a parable; that recognition alone will suffice to remove the perplexity. But, how can that be? Presumably, because once the reader sees the parable for what it is he will not be constrained by it; he will be able to look past it, through it, to the truth it contains. Making sure his point is not lost, Maimonides returns to it at the end of his treatment of the matter of parables (Intro., 14): In some matters it will suffice you to gather from my remarks that a given story is a parable, even if we explain nothing more: for once you know it is a parable, it will immediately become clear to you what it is a parable of. My remarking that it is a parable will be like someone’s removing a screen from between the eye and a visible thing. (Guide, Intro., 14) This screen, like the apple’s coating of silver filigree, is an obstruction—so far at least as truth is concerned.
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Spring 2010 - Interpretation

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