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Three angels, Senoy, Sans(m)enoy and Semangelof, tasked with protecting newborn babies. |
INTRODUCTION:
In this article, we examine the debate between the
rationalist, Maimonides (Rambam, 1135-1204), and the mystic, Nachmanides
(Ramban, 1195-1270) on the nature of the angels. Our starting point is the episode in Genesis
18 describing the “three men” who visit Abraham by the oaks of Mamre.
There are a number of questions one could ask on the basic structure
of the well-known text: G-d appears to Abraham in verse 1 and the three men,
apparently unrelated to the initial vision, appear in verse two. Abraham leaves
G-d and attends to the men. Then verse three suddenly changes from the plural
to the singular: “My lord, if I find favour with you.” And in verse
thirteen, G-d unexpectantly enters the conversation asking why Sarah laughed.
RAMBAM (MAIMONIDES):
According to Rambam:
“Know again that in the case of
everyone about whom exists a scriptural text that an angel talked to him or
that speech came to him from G-d, this did not occur in any other way than in a
dream or in a vision of prophecy.”[1]
On the view of Rambam, the angels did not manifest in any
physical form whatsoever but were, instead, perceived in the imagination or in
some type of vision. This addresses with the problem of the apparent disconnect
between verse one and two. Now the three men were part of Abraham’s vision of
God and not an unrelated event. This also ties in with the expression of
Abraham “lifting his eyes” (spiritually as it were) to see the men. The
‘chief’ of the angels in the vision becomes the representation of God, and this
explains the shift to the singular. The entire episode becomes a single account
of one spiritual encounter with no bearing on physical reality.
Rambam was a rationalist, an anti-corporealist (God did not,
in his view, have a physical manifestation or form) and he did not believe in
angels manifesting in physicality. This Maimonidean interpretation of Abraham’s
angels was similarly extended to all the other biblical references to angels.
RAMBAN (NACHMANIDES):
Ramban, on the other hand, adopts a very different approach.
He puts forward a mystical interpretation where he agrees that angles are
essentially incorporeal, but that they can clothe themselves in a physical “garment”
from time to time and manifest in physical realty. This interpretation fits in
more readily with the literal reading of the biblical texts which reference the
angels. Ramban challenges Rambam by asking why were so many details recorded in
the story of Abraham and his visitors. Ramban asks rhetorically: “Sarah did
not knead cakes and Abraham did not prepare a calf, nor did Sarah laugh?” Ramban
suggests that, on his opponent’s view, Genesis 18 is recording falsehood and all
that needed to be recorded should just have been the announcement of the future
birth of Isaac. Ramban continues to adduce further support for his argument by
bringing in the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32:25 where
“Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.”
If that wrestling was nothing but a mere vision as Rambam would have it, then
why was Jacob limping after the event?
To quote Ramban who writes almost mockingly against Rambam:
“And why did Jacob say, ‘For I
have seen a deity face to face and my life was preserved’? The prophets would
not fear that they might die from a prophetic vision! ...
According to …[Rambam][2],
he would be forced to say the same thing in the matter of Lot – that the angels
did not come to his house and he did not bake for them ‘Mazzot that they ate,’
for it was all a vision …
[I]ndeed, the entire chapter,
was a vision. In which case, Lot remained in Sodom!”[3]
Rambam’s equally mocking, if not sarcastic, retort to this
challenge is to define the imprecise nature of all spiritual visions where
facts merge with imagination, and:
“that it is not prudent to always seek out
profound significance in every minute detail of prophetic discourse.”
THE DEBATE REVOLOVES AROUND ‘OMNISIGNIFICANCE’:
This debate highlights the tension between the rationalist
and the mystical approaches towards the nature of spirituality. In the
rationalist worldview there is no space for omnisignificance. R. Yaakov Elman
(1993:1) in his study on Ramban informs us that the term omnisignificant was
coined by James Kugel, and Elman uses it to best describe the approach of Ramban
where, citing Kugel (1981:103-4):
“the slightest details of the
biblical text have a meaning that is both comprehensible and significant. Nothing
in the Bible … ought to be explained as the product of chance … Every detail is
put there to reach something new and important, and it is capable of being
discovered by careful analysis.”
The Maimonidean rationalist rejects outright any notion of
omnisignificance even within the biblical text, while for the Nachmanidean mystic
it become a veritable cornerstone and foundational belief.
THE BAN:
In our debate, the mutual volleying and mocking soon stops
and Ramban drops his theological bombshell:
“Such words [of Rambam][4] contradict
scripture. It is forbidden to listen to them, all the more to believe them!”
Essentially, the mystic was banning a reading of the Torah
as put forth by the rationalist. This occurrence was to repeat many times
throughout Jewish history, as in the Maimonidean Controversies[5]
(Silver 1965:1-199) and continues to this day, as with the Slifkin affair[6]
(Rothenberg 2009).
Nevertheless, the implications of both views are significant
to the biblical scholar. This debate exposes some crucial questions about the
approaches of both Rambam and Ramban, revealing a gaping chasm between the
mystics and the rationalists. Dr David Frankel asks:
“[M]ight Rambam have believed
that the entire narrative of Genesis 19, including the very destruction of
Sodom, occurred only in a prophetic dream? Might it even have been the
continuation of Abraham’s dream of Genesis 18 rather than a separate dream of
Lot?”
On Rambam’ reading, it is possible that large swathes of
biblical text - which are often assumed to be historical narrative - could fall
under the rubric of some form of prophetic vision and there is no claim to
these descriptions as having occurred in actuality. Furthermore, other
important and well-known biblical narratives would also be subjected to
Maimonidean interpretation. Rambam writes:
“[I]f the fact that an angel has
been heard is only mentioned at the end, you may rest satisfied that the whole
account from the beginning describes a prophetic vision…”[7]
ABRAVANEL:
R. Don Yitzchak Abravanel (1437-1508) comes to Rambam’s
defence and writes in his commentary on Rambam’s Moreh Nevuchim, or Guide
of the Perplexed:
“[W]e may concede to Ramban that
Sarah did not knead and Abraham did not prepare the bull and Sarah did not laugh.
We affirm, however, that the vision was not consequently like false dreams, for
there was a need for all the things he showed him[8]… Ramban
thinks that that which occurs in a prophetic vision is made up and imaginary,
whereas that which occurs in physical reality is more dignified. This is the
opposite of the truth. For that which appears to the intellect of prophecy
is more dignified (נחבד) than that which appears to the senses. It is
astonishing that Ramban should state that it is forbidden to hear this!”
Frankel interprets Abravanel’s defence of Rambam and attack
on Ramban as follows:
The issue at stake between Rambam and Ramban lies in their
interpretation of “events”. For Ramban, the most “dignified” and
important (נחבד) events are those which occurred in history. For him, the truth
of the Torah rests on its perceived historiography. If all the events recounted
in the Torah did not actually take place in reality, then the integrity of the
Torah is severely compromised. This holds true especially for the ‘main’
narratives such as the ones we have discussed. Rambam, on the other hand, is
less concerned about historiography, and for him the most important (נחבד) aspects of Torah are philosophical, ethical truths and of
course the mitzvot, or commandments we derive from the text. Perhaps the tradition that it was Passover when the angels visited Abraham and that the visitors were served milk before meat would attest to some form of Halachic, as opposed to historical significance.
ANALYSIS:
Perhaps the most
striking issue, however, is something that Rambam touched upon - in passing -
in our earlier reference to Moreh Nevuchim. Here it is again:
“Know again that in the case of
everyone about whom exists a scriptural text that an angel talked to him or
that speech came to him from G-d, this did not occur in any other way than in a
dream or in a vision of prophecy.”
What is Rambam saying?
Is he saying that every time the Torah records “that
speech came to him from G-d”, then this “did not occur in any other way
than in a dream or in a vision of prophecy”?
The most oft-repeated phrase in the Torah would probably be
“And G-d spoke to …” and “And G-d said …”. Is Rambam’s
view that each of these “sayings” fall under the same category of
angelic encounters and that these also took place “in a dream or in a vision
of prophecy”?
It appears that the answer is in the affirmative because,
according to Alfred Ivry (2010:314) Rambam believed that:
"[A]ll prophecy is a
function of the prophet's divinely inspired imagination. Every appearance of
God and His surrogates in Scripture is to be understood as an imaginative
construction, not to be taken literally. The events depicted did not occur
other than in the prophet's imagination."
Ivry continues to explain that the Torah is the legacy of
Moses’ prophecy which differs from other prophecy as it was an “intellectual
experience, without involving Moses’ imaginative faculty whatsoever”. Whether
this distinction changes anything in the nature of the historicity of the biblical
events, or whether it remains solely prophetic, philosophic or religious, is,
as Ivry puts it “another subject entirely”.
This was why Ramban forbade us to listen to Rambam’s words
on this matter.
FURTHER READING:
Kotzk Blog: 110) ANGELS IN RABBINIC LITERATURE:
Kotzk Blog: 104) PRAYING TO ANGELS?
Kotzk Blog: 074) THE NOTION THAT G-D HAS A 'BODY' - In Early
and Modern Rabbinical Writings:
Kotzk Blog: 286) GENIZA DOCUMENT REVEALS FIRST STIRRINGS OF
ANTI-MAIMONIDEAN SENTIMENT IN EGYPT:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Elman, Y., 1993, “‘It Is No Empty Thing’: Nahmanides and the
Search for Omnisignificance,” The
Torah U-Madda Journal, vol. 4, 1–83, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological
Seminary, an affiliate of
Yeshiva University.
Frankel D., “Torah Narratives with Angels Never Actually
Happened: Heretical or Sublime?”, in The
Torah.com, Online source:
https://www.thetorah.com/article/torah-narratives-with-angels-
never-actually-happened-heretical-or-sublime. Accessed 23 May 2012.
Ivry, A.L., 2010, “The Weight of Midrash on Rashi and
Maimonides,” in Ephraim Kanarfogel and
Moshe Sokolow, eds., Between Rashi and Maimonides: Themes in Medieval
Jewish Thought, Literature and Exegesis,
Yeshiva University Press, New York, 301-318.
Kugel, J., 1981, The Idea of Biblical Poetry; Parallelism
and Its History, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.
Rambam M., The Guide of the Perplexed, Translated by Shlomo
Pines, 1963, The University of
Chicago Press.
Rothenberg J., 2009, “The Heresy of Nosson Slifkin: A young
Orthodox rabbi is banned for his views on evolution”, Online source: October
2005-The Heresy of Nosson Slifkin (archive.org). Accessed 23 May 2012.
[1] Rambam
Guide of the Perplexed, 2:41-44, Pines translation.
[2]
Parenthesis mine.
[3] Ramban’s
commentary on Genesis 18:1.
[4]
Parenthesis mine.
[5] For
at least a century after Rambam, the Jewish world was thrown into turmoil as a
result of conflict between the rationalist supporters of Rambam and his mystic
detractors.
[6] Dr
Rabbi Natan Slifkin, a young contemporary rationalist rabbi, had his books
banned and was essentially excommunicated by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinic
leadership in 2004.
[7] Rambam
Guide of the Perplexed, 2:42, Pines translation.
[8] My
understanding is that this would not be regarded as omnisignificance as the
details have no material significance. The story as a whole has a religious,
philosophic or pedagogic message or lesson, but the details have no bearing on
reality.
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