Maamar Yikavu haMayim by Shmuel Ibn Tibbon
Introduction
This article—based extensively on the research by Professor Carlos Fraenkel—examines whether Shmuel ben Yehuda Ibn Tibbon of Provence (c.1150-c.1230), the translator of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, was a faithful commentator or a subtle but masterful critic. It discusses Shmuel Ibn Tibbon’s intellectual relationship with his teacher, Maimonides (1138-1204). Ibn Tibbon becomes an important link in the transmission of the Guide, originally written in Arabic within a distinct Islamic intellectual milieu—by translating it into Hebrew for a very different cultural setting: the Jewish communities of Christian Europe.
Preliminary challenges
a) Ibn Tibbon was not just a translator. He worked on the Guide, one of the most difficult books to understand, a complex manuscript that Maimonides—by his own admission—had written in code, and concealed intentional contradictions “by all means” to avoid offending the mainstream. According to Maimonides:
“In speaking about very obscure matters [like philosophy] it is necessary to conceal some parts and disclose others. Sometimes…the discussion proceed[s] based on a certain premise, whereas in another place…the discussion proceed[s] on the basis of another premise contradicting the first one. In such cases the vulgar [common reader] must in no way be aware of the contradiction; the author accordingly uses some device to conceal it by all means” (Maimonides, Introduction to Guide for the Perplexed [Pines, 1965, 18]).
b) Another factor to consider is that, sometimes, conflicting sources had been included, but without attribution, giving rise to what appear to be contradictions. Maimonides continues:
“The author has collected the remarks of various people with differing opinions, but omitted citing his authorities [and sources]” (Ibid. [Pines, 1965, 17]).
c) This is further complicated by the translator (and reader) not knowing which explanation to apply to which contradiction: are the inconsistencies intentional, or perhaps two opposing schools of thought?
A good example of this dilemma is Maimonides’s view of Divine Providence (i.e., God constantly controlling every minuscule aspect of existence). It doesn’t take long for Ibn Tibbon to realise that Maimonides view(s) on Providence is (are) a veritable theological battlefield. According to Professor Charles Raffel of Yeshiva University:
“The critical point which Ibn Tibbon uncovers is that Maimonides' theory of providence is multidimensional” (Raffel 1987:34).
How multidimensional might Maimonides’ view of Providence be? Professor Alvin Reines notes:
“Maimonides' theory of providence differs essentially from providence as traditionally understood; and…Maimonides will deliberately obscure his discussion of providence to conceal it from the unqualified reader” (Reines1972:3).
Maimonides often contrasts the traditional view, or what he calls "our [traditional] opinion," with his personal ideas, "what I myself believe." This distinction between "I" and "we" seems to be “consistently maintained in the discussion of providence” (Raffel 1987:36-7).
Shmuel Ibn Tibbon’s schema
According to Fraenkel, Ibn Tibbon was not just a technical translator, but an interpreter whose larger project was to promote and justify the study of Maimonidean philosophy to a more religious, conservative European audience, wary of perceived doctrinal threats from philosophy.
“[Ibn Tibbon’s] presentation of Maimonides as a cultural hero who rescued the true essence of Judaism, which had gradually fallen into oblivion after the period of the Talmud, bears witness to this project” (Fraenkel 2007:33).
In Ibn Tibbon’s other writings, besides his translation of the Guide, he builds on Maimonides' use of Proverbs 25:11, where “settings of silver” can produce “apples of gold.” In other words, the seemingly mundane Torah, the common “settings of silver,” hides “apples of gold,” which represent deeper Maimonidean philosophical insights lost to rabbinic Judaism since the Talmudic period. Ibn Tibbon maintains that the Jewish philosophical tradition began with Moses, and then vanished, with some resurgence scattered throughout the Talmudic period. It then disappeared again for some time and then emerged later more fully with Maimonides. According to Ibn Tibbon:
“The sages…of the Mishnah and the Talmud also wrote down hints and riddles, scattered and dispersed in their midrashim, that pertain to the subjects of wisdom and ethics. Each one [wrote] according to the wisdom he possessed in these [philosophical] subjects and his ability to apply the art of concealment” (Ibn Tibbon, Perush Kohelet, 20-21).
This is striking, because according to Ibn Tibbon, those particular sages who continued this philosophical approach had to hide and conceal their views and veil them in their Talmudic texts. This means that philosophy could not be discussed openly and had to be encoded within the Talmudic corpus through “hints and riddles.” Ibn Tibbon explains:
“After the sages of the Talmud, however, only very few were stirred to compose a book or write a word about these [philosophic] sciences; the composing of books about legal judgments and what is forbidden and permitted [Halacha] was sufficient for them’ (Ibn Tibbon, Perush Kohelet, 20-21).
This continued for some time despite the development of a
huge body of Talmudic literature spanning the Savoraic and Gaonic
rabbinic periods until Maimonides appeared in the twelfth century—some seven centuries after the official close of the Talmudic
period around 500 CE—to revive and systematise this concealed philosophical
heritage. Thus, according to Ibn Tibbon, while we had amassed an
impressive body of Talmudic literature:
We can now understand why Fraenkel stresses that Ibn Tibbon’s project was not merely translative, but interpretive and apologetic for a new culture of Jews in Christian Europe. He was trying to persuade a conservative audience that philosophy had always been an, albeit hidden, part of Judaism. It also made authoritative sense that the same rabbi, Maimonides, hailed as the authority in Halacha, was tasked with restoring ancient, hidden Jewish philosophical wisdom.
Ibn Tibbon’s methodology
Shmuel Ibn Tibbon frames himself as the authorised transmitter of Maimonidean philosophy and presents himself as Maimonides’ faithful disciple, with the authority to speak on behalf of his master:
“[F]or from his [Maimonides] waters I drink and make others drink” (Ibn Tibbon, Perush Kohelet, 39).
Significantly, Ibn Tibbon titled one of his works Maamar Yikavu haMayim (An Essay on the Gathering of the Waters), in keeping with "let the waters be gathered in one place" (Genesis 1:9). He considered his own writings to be the place, and he was the man, to gather and disseminate Maimonidean philosophy.
As mentioned, Ibn Tibbon was translating for Jews of Christian Europe. He claimed that Maimonides had written his Guide for the Perplexed to expose the “secrets of the Torah” specifically for Jews of the Muslim world. However, now, just a short time later, the Jews of Christian Europe:
“who understand [Maimonides’ philosophical hints and] indications, had become very few…[While philosophy and the sciences had become] widespread among the nations [of Christian Europe], under the rule of which I live” (Ibn Tibbon, Maamar Yikavu haMayim, 22, 175).
Ibn Tibbon considered his work to serve as an updated Guide for the perplexed Jews in Christian Europe, and that is why he took upon himself the task of “enlightening the eyes of the intellectuals” and adapting it to the circumstances of his time and place (Fraenkel 2007:35).
This means that Ibn Tibbon adopted two complementary methodologies. In one respect, he translated the Arabic Guide into Hebrew; in others, in works like Perush Kohelet and Maamar Yikavu haMayim, he adapted the Guide to better suit the cultural settings of Christian Europe. Yet even while acting as a cautious, precise translator, he occasionally wove in interpretive comments that shaped how his readers understood the text.
Disciple or dissenter?
Fraenkel (2007:35) notes that Shmuel Ibn Tibbon never openly promotes himself as a thinker in his own right because he is either translating or explaining. He writes that he is only concerned with “what appeared to me from his [Maimonides’] books to be his opinion on these matters” (Ibn Tibbon, Perush Kohelet, 39).
However—and this is where this study takes an interesting turn—concealed behind his misleading image as a faithful disciple, he deals with ideas that Maimonides never, or only rarely, discussed. He also challenges and disagrees with Maimonides on many issues, including Divine Providence, prophecy, cosmology, ethics and political philosophy. These points of dissension are not found in his translation of the Guide but in his Perush Kohelet and Maamar Yikavu haMayim. Nevertheless, his assumed facade as a faithful disciple has been perpetuated for centuries because previous scholars have hardly noted his criticisms of Maimonides (Fraenkel 2007:36).
We shall explore some instances of Ibn Tibbon’s divergence from Maimonides’ ideology:
Providence (Hashgacha)
Maimonides’ writings on Divine Providence are somewhat ambivalent.[1] In the Guide (III:17-18), Maimonides writes that Providence is proportional to the person’s intellectual perfection, referred to generally as Providence according to the intellect.
Leo Strauss (1899-1973)
Some scholars, like Leo Strauss (1935), suggest that Maimonides may have written about Providence according to the intellect only for a public audience, but that he personally held that Providence did not even extend to those with perfected intellects. In Strauss’ interpretation, Maimonides privately held—though did not state outright—that even the perfected intellect is not the object of special, personal Divine Providence, but rather participates in the natural causation and intelligible order of the cosmos.
Aristotle (384-322) and Maimonides (1138-1204)
According to Raffel:
“Aristotle had been presented by Maimonides…as denying individual providence in the sublunar [earthly] sphere, but admitting a secondary ‘kind of providence’ to the species of man and other animals. While Maimonides castigates Aristotle's denial of individual providence, the majority of scholars [see: Kotzk Blog: 571) Did Maimonides believe the universe was created or eternal?] see in Maimonides' own opinion, ‘providence according to the intellect, an affinity to Aristotle which Maimonides is not willing to admit openly. The most radical claim, namely, that Maimonides' view is Aristotle's view (and is in agreement with the hidden view of the Torah), was offered by Joseph Ibn Caspi” (Raffel 1987:27).
R. Yosef Ibn Caspi (1280-1345)
Leo Strauss’ scholarly claim—that Maimonides wrote about Providence according to the intellect in the Guide, only to appease the masses, but privately aligned himself with Aristotle—had in fact been anticipated six hundred years earlier by R. Yosef Ibn Caspi, the eminent Jewish philosopher of fourteenth‑century Provence and Spain,
Professor of Jewish philosophy, Norbert Samuelson explains this multi-tiered radical view of Ibn Caspi's as follows:
“Maimonides' real view agrees with that of Aristotle, the view of both agrees with the hidden meaning of the Torah, and the explicit or overt meaning of the Torah, which is the belief of the Jewish masses [in Providence], is never affirmed to be a dogma or root belief of rabbinic Judaism” (Samuelson 1976:108).
Ibn Caspi’s radical interpretation extends not just to Maimonides’ alleged view on Providence, but also to two other major theories in the Guide, creation and prophecy! In other words, on the three issues, Ibn Caspi held that Maimonides wrote one thing in the Guide to appease the masses but privately held very different opinions.
It is fascinating to see that Samuelson (a scholar) is hesitant to accept all three radical interpretations of Ibn Caspi (a classical medieval Jewish philosopher), but instead writes:
"I am certain that he is right about [only about the one] the issue of divine providence" (Samuelson 1976:108).
Shmuel Ibn Tibbon
Raffel draws our attention to a letter Shmuel Ibn Tibbon sent to Maimonides in 1199.
“While still involved in translating the Guide, Samuel Ibn Tibbon wrote Maimonides seeking clarification of a troubling point within the theory of providence… Unfortunately, no answer by Maimonides has survived, and Ibn Tibbon's letter serves now, not as an introduction to Maimonides' definitive response, but as a tentative interpretation of Maimonides' theory of providence” (Raffel 1987:30).
Ibn Tibbon offers his interpretation of Maimonides’ view on Providence, which paradoxically seems closer to modern scholars, like Leo Strauss—and anticipated by Ibn Caspi—that Providence according to the intellect, was only for a public audience, but not Maimonides' preferred opinion.[2] It is interesting to see that the notion of different public and private expressions of one’s views was not unique to Maimonides:
“Maimonides' account of providence parallels Plato's account. Both state a public doctrine which affirms God's justice in rewarding and punishing all human behavior, and a private doctrine which restricts divine providence to an intellectual elite” (Raffel 1987:28).
Ibn Tibbon’s threefold softening of the Guide
Ibn Tibbon’s representation of Maimonides effectively constitutes a sustained threefold softening of the Guide’s philosophical elitism.
Firstly, on Providence, he broadens Maimonides’ strict dependence on philosophical perfection by insisting that ordinary moral and religious life can qualify for Divine Providence.
Secondly, on the ultimate human purpose, he resists Maimonides’ view that human flourishing is limited to intellectual apprehension alone and instead affirms that Torah observance, ritual, and ethical practice are its ultimate fulfilment.[3] Here again, Ibn Tibbon apologetically broadens the classical Maimonidean depiction of the ultimate human goal with a more inclusive, balanced approach. The prime goal of humankind is not just intellect, but history, Torah observance, ritual and moral practices. This is the second time Ibn Tibbon diverges from his master by presenting and reframing the Maimonidean doctrine as more accessible to the people, and less elitist.
Thirdly, on the idea of a hidden philosophy in Torah perceivable only by an intellectual elite, Ibn Tibbon democratises philosophical knowledge by treating Torah in its plain sense as a vehicle of philosophical wisdom, making philosophical insight available through ordinary religious study rather than exclusive, philosophical training.[4]
These three moves may be considered apologetic and directed specifically to an audience of Jews living in Christian Europe. Shmuel Ibn Tibbon is not just Maimonides’ translator, but a thinker and dissenter who used Maimonides as a springboard for his own vision of Judaism. He intentionally reframed Maimonides so that common Jewish tradition, study and practice would not be deemed inferior to philosophy.
Observation
If this is correct, then Shmuel Ibn Tibbon may have been responsible for the shift away from the Maimonidean quest to restore the lost, elusive and hidden philosophical secrets of Torah that Moses and the early Talmudic sages allegedly knew—to an acceptance of Torah as we know it, sufficient and true in itself, without resorting to external philosophical truths.
It is a striking irony that the Zohar emerged in Christian
Spain around 1290—barely sixty years after Ibn Tibbon’s passing—as a mystical
counterpart to precisely what Maimonides had sought: access to the deeper,
hidden and original (albeit this time, mystical) secrets allegedly possessed by
Moses and the Talmudic sages before being subsumed by a common and
mundane Torah of the masses.
Bibliography
Fraenkel, Carlos, 2007, ‘Beyond the Faithful Disciple:
Samuel ibn Tibbon's Criticism of Maimonides’, in Maimonides after 800 Years:
Essays on Maimonides and His Influence, edited by Jay M. Harris, Harvard
University Press.
Raffel, Charles, M.,
1987, ‘Providence as Consequent upon the Intellect: Maimonides' Theory of
Providence’, AJS Review, vol. 12, no. 1, 25-71.
Reines, Alvin, J., 1972, ‘Maimonides' Concepts of
Providence and Theodicy’, Hebrew Union College Annual, vol. 43, 169-205.
Samuelson, Norbert, 1976, “Review of Studies in
Joseph Ibn Caspi by Barry Mesch”, Journal of the History of Philosophy,
vol. 14, no.1, 105-109.
Strauss, Leo, 1935, ‘Quelques remarques sur la Science
Politique de Maimonide et de Farabi’, Revue des etudes juives, 1-37.
[1] In the Guide II:48, Maimonides implies strong support for Providence in nature itself, expressly writing that all:
“natural things, which always follow their course, such as the melting of the snow when the air becomes warm and waves being stirred…when the wind blows, it says He sendeth his word forth His word and melteth them; For He commanded and raised, and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves” (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, II:48 [Pines, 1963, 410]).
[2] There is, however, a difference between them. Strauss softened Maimonides by claiming Maimonides did not privately believe intellectuals were subject to Providence. This way, he limited and reduced Providence to a natural order that resembles chance. Ibn Tibbon, on the other hand, softened Maimonides by broadening Providence to include those who were not elite intellectuals, but still led good, moral and religious lives. Ibn Tibbon’s tone was apologetic. He wanted to reassure a Jewish audience in Christian Europe that Providence is accessible through religion and morality, not just intellectual perfection. Either way, both Strauss and Ibn Tibbon softened and diverged from Maimonides stated and classical view of Providence as pertinent only to intellectual groups of society.
[3] In a similar manner, Ibn Tibbon breaks with being a faithful interpreter of Maimonides again, by his divergence from Maimonides stated view that the ultimate human goal is intellectual perfection through philosophy:
“[It is] not based on philosophical demonstrations…but on [H]is interventions in the history of Israel to which the stories in the Torah bear witness. It is a belief based on ‘tradition,’ not on ‘true knowledge’…[which is] inaccessible to the ‘multitude’…[because] by nature most human beings are unable to achieve scientific [=philosophical] knowledge of God” (Fraenkel 2007:51).
[4] Ibn Tibbon’s third major divergence from Maimonides is a deliberate democratisation of philosophy. Maimonides maintained that philosophical truth is the hidden core of Torah, accessible only to an intellectual elite trained in philosophy. On the other hand, the commandments’ simple and plain meanings suffice for the masses.
Ibn Tibbon challenges Maimonides, who famously opens his Mishneh Torah by claiming it is a positive commandment to know of God’s existence and attain demonstrative knowledge of God.[4] Ibn Tibbon, however, pushes back hard against this. He argues that such a commandment cannot apply universally, because most people are incapable of philosophical knowledge of God. To impose it on “everyone, including women,” would be meaningless, since the majority cannot fulfil it.
Instead, Ibn Tibbon reinterprets this as not referring to Maimonides’ philosophical God of nature proven by demonstration, but to the pragmatic God of history. For him, the Torah requires belief in God, grounded in tradition and communal memory, not philosophical understanding.
Ibn Tibbon rejects Maimonides’ insistence that Torah
itself embodies philosophical wisdom. He downplays the need for specialised,
external philosophical training and presents ordinary Torah study and practice
as a legitimate vehicle for religious and traditional ‘philosophical’ insight.
By doing so, Ibn Tibbon continues to sidestep Maimonides’ elitist model and
insists that Jewish tradition contains a sustaining indigenous philosophy
available to the masses, not just a narrow class of intellectual specialists.
