561) Maimonidean philosophy as a form of rationalist mysticism?

The Kabbalistic Eitz Chaim as depicted in an early 18th century diagram from the Klau Scrolls Collection showing the complicated mystical path to unio mystica.

Introduction

This article—based extensively on the research by Professor Gideon Freudenthal—explores the possibility of a unio mystica (mystical union) attainable through Maimonidean philosophic and rationalist endeavours. This rationalist unio mystica parallels (and might even surpass) the unio mystica described by the mystics and Kabbalists. If this claim holds, then it is not only the mystics who can, allegedly, experience unio mystica, but also the rationalists. Yet, both states of unio mystica are defined very differently, as one is mystically ecstatic while the other remains purely intellectual. 

Kabbalistic and ecstatic states are often characterised by passive surrender of the mind and intellect, and the loss of self. Maimonides, however, may offer an alternative rationalist unio mystica, which is an active, intense and conscious engagement with the self and the intellect. 

This is quite a technical piece, but it may resonate with those looking for something more than just inspiration and confirmation from their religion. Thinkers and inquirers do not usually go down all that well within established spiritual systems, and are often accused of worshipping the intellect instead of the Deity. What follows is a perspective, based on a reading of Maimonides, that may offer a window into the notion of worship through intellect. Acquisition of knowledge as well as intellectual and empirical pursuits may themselves be vehicles of intense spirituality, creating a unio mystica (or התאחדות in the words of Maimonides, Guide III. 51) with the Divine. This becomes a significant theological counterbalance to the unio mystica, usually considered the unique and exclusive proclivity of the mystics and Kabbalists. 

Classical Greek philosophers

The classical Greek philosophers often claimed that a natural form of ethics and morality came in the wake of their studies. Socrates (470-399 BCE), in his Protagoras (345d), suggests that moral failings stem from ignorance. Plato (c.429–347 BCE) argued in his Republic (VI–VII) that knowledge of the Forms, especially the Form of the Good, leads to just action [see: Kotzk Blog: 527) Neoplatonic echoes in Chassidic Mysticism]. Plato maintained that true philosophers, by apprehending the Good, are uniquely qualified to govern because intellectual vision generally translates into moral virtue. Aristotle (384–322 BCE), in the Nicomachean Ethics (I.7), similarly emphasised that the study of ethics can lead to the cultivation of virtue. 

Maimonides’ emphasis on knowledge over ritual

Maimonides (1138-1204) famously drew on the classical Greek philosophers but seemed to go beyond the typical endpoint of moral virtues. He also advocated the notion that knowledge (sechel) leads to moral and spiritual perfection, and even claimed that such knowledge is all that survives the human after death—however, it is knowledge, rather than ritual, that is the highest virtue. The commandments are simply exercises that prepare the soul to focus on metaphysical truths. The Mitzvot function to reduce bodily distractions so that the intellect can comprehend God. 

In his Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nevuchim, III.51)—known as his ‘mystical chapter’—Maimonides describes the highest religious perfection as intellectual apprehension of God. Moral and ritual practices are presented as preparatory training that removes bodily impediments so the intellect can attain this bond with God. Thus, Maimonides goes a step further than the Greek philosophers and proposes that it is knowledge, not moral virtue, that unites the human with the Divine. 

Hermann Cohen and Freudenthal on the nature of unio mystica

It must be noted, however, that scholars are divided over the nature of Maimonides’ unio mystica. According to the German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), Maimonides remains a pure rationalist and maintains that a human can only come close to the Divine but never achieve an ontological union. [Incidentally, R. Joseph Ber Soloveitchik wrote his PhD dissertation on Hermann Cohen, who developed a rigorous Marburg Neo‑Kantian approach that emphasised the role in Judaism of pure thought and ethics rather than metaphysical speculation. See Kotzk Blog: 551) R. Joseph Ber Soloveitchik’s adaptation of German Volk elements.] 

On the other hand, Freudenthal argues that Maimonides indeed describes a form of union and philosophical mysticism, in his ‘mystical chapter’ of the Guide III:51. However, it remains a rationalist form of unio mystica. It goes beyond Hermann Cohen’s ‘drawing close’ to God (without the union). Yet even Freudenthal’s  ‘rationalist’ unio mystica is not synonymous with the Kabbalistic and  ‘mystical’ unio mystica, which describes a non-rational ecstasy instead. 

We have thus identified three distinct positions on defining human approaches to the Divine: 1) Herman Cohen’s drawing close, 2) Freudenthal’s ‘rationalist’ unio mystica, and 3)  the general Kabbalistic or ‘mystical’ unio mystica. (Herman Cohen and Freudenthal, as mentioned, present two variant readings of Maimonides). 

Maimonidean ‘mysticism’: The experience is the work of the intellect

In this analysis, reference to Maimonides as a rationalist (or even as a rationalist mystic) is primarily focused on his rationalist and philosophical writings and not on his mainstream Halachic works like Mishnah Torah. It should be noted, however, that certain mystics, like Abulafia, regarded Maimonides’ philosophical works as profoundly mystical. Some even considered Maimonides to have been a secret mystic [see: Kotzk Blog: 071) Mysterious 'Secret Document' Attesting That Rambam Was A Mystic:]. Others suggest that Maimonides even made use of Sufi language to convey his views of religious experiences (Blumenthal 1987:27). Freudenthal, however, adopts a different stance. He firmly insists on a rationalist Maimonides throughout, even in his presumed ‘mystical’ moments: 

“If there is mysticism in the Guide, it is intellectual, in other words, tightly connected to intellectual activity. Mysticism here is not an alternative to reason, nor does it come after reason, which prepared for it. Rather, such mysticism is the culmination of metaphysical apprehension. When Maimonides speaks of the bond between man and God, he speaks of the intellect” (Freudenthal 2009:117). 

Maimonides writes: 

“If…you have apprehended God…in accordance with what is required by the intellect, you should…endeavor to come closer to Him, and strengthen the bond between you and Him—that is, the intellect” (Guide III. 51 [Pines, 620]). 

This bond (דבוק)—acquired through knowledge—becomes the union (התאחדות) with, and connection to, God. Freudenthal acknowledges that introducing mystically nuanced language to Maimonidean ideology is fraught: 

“The presupposition that mysticism is opposed to rationality often underlies the difficulty in accepting Maimonides as a mystic” (Freudenthal 2009:116). 

However, this Maimonidean unio mystica that Fruedenthal refers to is: 

“not a vision, nor is it beyond the reach of the intellect. On the contrary, the experience is the work of the intellect” (Freudenthal 2009:116, emphasis mine). 

Any form of rationalist or philosophical mysticism should satisfy two criteria: 

“First, the experience itself should involve philosophical content. Second, philosophy should be able to account for the experience” (Freudenthal 2009:116).  

In this sense, Freudenthal’s understanding of Maimonides’ intellectual mysticism may also be described as epistemological (or relating to the study of knowledge). Maimonides’ ‘mystical’ passages are intelligible as the endpoint of a demonstrable epistemology rather than as an inexplicable ecstatic break with reason. 

According to Professor David Blumenthal, this application of reason in worship of the Divine sees God’s wisdom in the study of  “all of reality”: 

“[Maimonides] associates worship with ahavah, the intellectual love of God that occurs when one perceives ‘all of reality as it really is…contemplating His wisdom in it’” (Blumenthal [citing the Guide] 1987:27). 

Freudenthal’s argument for a rationalist Maimonidean spirituality

If I understand Freudenthal correctly, his reading of Maimonides suggests a rationalist form of unio mystica:

“Philosophy is also a mode of worship leading toward mystical union” (Freudenthal 2009:113, emphasis mine). 

This allows the student of Maimonidean rationalism to experience a deep spiritual connection with God, through knowledge and rationalism, which precludes such studies from being wrongfully (although popularly) classified as secular, at best, or heretical, at worst. This way, Freudenthal reads Maimonides as espousing a rationalist, intellectual form of unio mystica—a philosophical mysticism in which rationalist cognition yields a genuine spiritual bond with God. This rationalist cognition involves the threefold unity of knower, knowledge, and known (discussed immediately below): 

Threefold unity of knower, knowledge, and known

Maimonides presents his view that the intellect serves as the bond (דבוק) between humans and God (Guide 1.68). This bond is not emotively experiential or ecstatic but “purely intellectual,” and  Maimonides’ ‘mysticism’ is “thoroughly rational” (Freudenthal 2009:117). Herman Cohen, of course, would argue that “rationalism excludes mysticism by definition” (Freudenthal 2009:117). 

Maimonides describes his theory of the threefold unity of knower, knowledge, and known as so fundamental to this thought because it is the “foundation of our Law” (Guide 1.68 [Pines 163]). The first chapter of Maimonides’ Guide comments on the first chapter of Genesis: “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26). Maimonides interprets this likeness, or common denominator, as referring to “intellectual apprehension.” The intellect serves as a bonding mechanism, as it is common to both humans and God. “The intellect is the bond between man and God” (Freudenthal 2009:123). Maimonides warns that intellectual apprehension must not be confused with perception or imagination. 

In any intellectual endeavour, the comprehending person becomes the knower who uses knowledge and thereby understands the known. The known is the object of cognition. At the highest level of thinking, these three components are not separate, but united. In their highest manifestation, when God is drawn into the category of the known, then—at that moment of understanding—an intellectual unio mystica can occur. 

“[T]he threefold unity of the intellect is best attained when a person exclusively cognizes nonphysical objects, especially God. For, being incorporeal, God is identical with His essence” (Freudenthal 2009:120). 

Maimonides further warns that knowledge of God is limited because the only way God can be understood is via negative theology (or apophaticism, which describes what God is not), and he resists any claim that God can be exhaustively comprehended. Freudenthal emphasises that the Maimonidean unio mystica is an epistemic (intellectual and intelligible) event rather than an ontological absorption as would be perceived through the experience of a mystic. 

The distinction between rationalist and mystical forms of unio mystica

The Maimonidean concept of an intellectual unio mystica is not an alleged journey into another world but a product of the intellect: 

“The intellect is not a substance. When an intellect is not intellecting, it does not exist. When a human being is not cognizing he has a soul but not an intellect…[Furthermore], [t]he ‘I’ that unites with the object known is not a body or soul, but the subject of the activity called knowledge—the intellect” (Freudenthal 2009:118). 

This stands in sharp contradistinction to mystical and ontological accounts of unio mystica, which depict visionary ascent and rapturous union, often described as the soul (and sometimes even the “I” of the body) being carried into heaven. Maimonides (as read by Freudenthal), instead, describes an epistemological and intellectual unio mystica rather than a soul or spiritual event. 

In the Maimonidean context: 

“It is crucial to remember that the unity established is not between a human and a sensory spatio-temporal object. Human beings do not become the objects they know. The threefold unity applies only to the intellect and the essence or form of its object” (Freudenthal, 2009:119). 

Analysis

Despite the theoretical differences between mystical and cognitive forms of unio mystica, or ‘union’ with the Divine, the interesting—albeit counterintuitive—point seems to be that intellectual pursuits can carry with them an intense form of ‘mysticism,’ analogous to, and perhaps even exceeding, the unio mystica claimed by the mystic. This is something that those consumed with an insatiable yearning for knowledge often attest to. It seems that Maimonides is confirming this intuition and attestation as התאחדות and endorsing this as a rationalist state of unio mystica.

 

Bibliography

Blumenthal, D.R., 1887, On Being a Rationalist and a Mystic, Voice of Tradition, ATLAS, 25-28.

Gideon Freudenthal, G., 2009, ‘The Philosophical Mysticism of Maimonides and Maimon’, in Maimonides and His Heritage, Edited by Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, et al., State University of New York Press, Albany, 113-152.