The Maimonidean Controversy, Part 2

European Jews were not accustomed to contemplating either Arabic philosophy or what they called "Greek wisdom," the works of Aristotle, Plato, etc. Those texts were only slowly transmitting across Europe in the 13th century. They were therefore unprepared for some of the conclusions that Maimonides (seen here as a statue in his hometown of Cordova) came to with his rationalistic-philosophical approach to questions of the divine.

One of the controversies was Maimonides' statement that since God created the laws of Nature, He would not violate them. Therefore, once a body starts to putrefy, bodily resurrection was not to be expected. Instead, there would be a spiritual resurrection, but the body remained corrupted. This did not sit well with some.

But Maimonides' blend of Aristotelianism with Jewish tradition, "reason versus revelation" so to speak, was becoming more widespread at the same time that Christian Europe was asserting itself on the Arabic/Muslim world via the Crusades and the effects of the Reconquista were being felt in the Iberian Peninsula. This was also right at the height of the Albigensian Crusade, with its desire to stamp out any deviation from "accepted religious policy" by any means possible. You had many groups all feeling threatened by "The Other," and wanting to take great lengths to prevent other doctrines from gaining ground.

This is also the time, in 1232, when Yonah Gerondi and others convinced secular (Christian) authorities to round up and burn Maimonides' work in Montpellier, causing the men to be condemned by followers of Maimonides and inspiring secular authorities to later burn several wagonloads of Talmud (and no doubt related Jewish documents).

By 1300, however, men like Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus read and quoted The Guide For the Perplexed. Aquinas was interested in using reason to prove the existence of God, and quoted Maimonides' Guide several times (although Aquinas misunderstood a lot of Maimonides, according to what I see here.)

Being quoted by an eminent theologian of the 14th century helped bring Maimonides into the mainstream without the threat if having his books burned. The influential "Rabbi of Spain," Shlomo ibn Aderet, who was dabbling in the Kabbalah, was more accepting of thoughts outside the mainstream and saw no reason why Maimonides' works ran counter to the collective body of Halakha, Jewish religious law. The modern view coincides with Aderet's, and Maimonides is considered a valuable voice in Jewish thought.

About Halakha: what does it contain? What besides the Torah and Talmud gets counted as important? Since I'm currently interested in this topic myself, I'm going to look into it and get back to you.

Learning a Lesson

Yonah Gerondi had an Italian student in Barcelona named Hillel ben Samuel (c.1220 - c.1295) The grandson of a known Talmudic scholar, Hillel grew up to be a physician and Talmudic scholar himself. While practicing medicine in Rome, he became friends with Maestro Isaac Gajo, the pope's physician.

Hillel was strictly orthodox in his Judaism, proclaiming his absolute belief in the miracles outlined in the Torah and Talmud, despite some of these stories being considered more symbolic by other scholars. He wrote a book that covered the philosophic works of the time from Arabs, Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

He also translated some of the works of Thomas Aquinas into Hebrew, accepting Aquinas' idea of the soul's immortality. He referred to Aquinas as the "the Maimonides of his age."

Hillel had originally been opposed to Maimonides, but changed after he saw his teacher, Gerondi, change his attitude toward Maimonides. Gerondi had been opposed to Maimonides' rationalist approach to religious questions, and had caused the authorities of Paris to round up copies of Maimonides' works and burn them, specifically the Guide for the Perplexed. Gerondi regretted convincing the Christian leaders to take such a bold action against Jewish literature, especially when years later they burned all the copies they could find of the Talmud. Hillel saw Gerondi's regret, and how he radically hanged his attitude toward Maimonides.

Hillel moved to Forli in northern Italy when he was much older. While there he learned that a Tosafist (someone known for writing commentaries on the Talmud), a French Jew named Solomon Petit, was speaking out strongly against Maimonides. Aware of how Gerondi's anti-Maimonidean crusade turned out, Hillel addressed two long letters to his friend Isaac Gajo, explaining what had happened and asking him not to give any support to Petit's complaints.

What was the problem with Maimonides? What was the controversy about? I'll give you a taste of that tomorrow.

Burning the Talmud

Yonah Gerondi, or Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi (c.1200 - 1263), was a 13th century rabbi from Catalonia in Spain. He was a cousin of Nachmanides and one of the teachers of Shlomo ibn Aderet.

He was part of a faction that was opposed to Maimonides, whose Guide for the Perplexed was very popular. The Guide's logical and philosophical examination of concepts such as whether God was corporeal or whether something could be created from nothing contradicted many earlier scholars.

Gerondi organized a victory over Maimonides' teaching by convincing the authorities in Paris to round up any copies of the Guide for the Perplexed and burn them. Unfortunately for Gerondi, this attack on the works of a fellow Jew inspired anger of local Jews against Gerondi. Some years later, on the same public spot where Maimonides' works had been burned, the authorities burned several wagonloads of the Talmud and other works.

Gerondi felt remorse, blaming himself for originally bringing Christian authorities into the philosophic debate between Jews. In the synagogue at Montpellier in France he proclaimed publicly his shame at fighting against Maimonides.

Vowing to do penance by traveling to Israel and prostrating himself on Maimonides' grave, he left France but was stopped at Barcelona and then in Toledo. He stayed in Toledo and became known as a great Talmudic scholar who also frequently quoted Maimonides. He died suddenly in 1263, some said because he never finished his vow to do penance in Israel.

His attitude toward Maimonides and the shift after the burning of the Talmud is told to us by his student, Hillel ben Samuel. Hillel was not only a Talmudic scholar but also a physician. Tomorrow I'll tell you how he learned his lesson from Gerondi's story.

The Rabbi of Spain

Born in 1235 in Barcelona, Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet became known as the Rabbi of Spain because of his reputation for knowledge and wisdom. He had famous teachers: Nachmanides and his cousin, Yonah Gerondi.

Aderet became a banker, but was an expert on the Talmud and was treated as the leader of Spanish Jewry. He was rabbi of the Barcelona Synagogue for 50 years. People came from all over to hear him lecture on the Talmud. His fame spread to the point that questions were sent to him from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Three thousand of these questions and his responses still survive.

He was a great defender of Judaism from external and internal forces. When the Dominican Raymond Martini read the Talmud and found passages that he believed supported Christianity, he also found passages that he said blasphemed. Martini wrote a document condemning the Talmud. Aderet wrote a response to this document. On the other hand, when a Muslim attacked Christian priests for falsifying the Bible, Aderet refuted his statements.

Aderet cared about authenticity, and "pure Judaism." Although he defended Maimonides when he got into trouble with authorities for some of his interpetations, Aderet did not approve of Maimonides' philosophic-rationalistic approach that saw reason as the best tool in understanding the divine rather than faith. In fact, Aderet was part of the beth din (the rabbinical court of law) in Barcelona that forbade men younger then 25 from studying secular philosophy or natural science, lest they be led astray by worldly thinking. (They were allowed to study medicine.) He was quite adamant about avoiding being led astray, writing: 

In that city [Barcelona] are those who write iniquity about the Torah and if there would be a heretic writing books, they should be burnt as if they were the book of sorcerers.

Trying to enforce this ban created much hostility in his final years as rabbi. He was also sympathetic to those who wanted to study Kabbalah. but spoke out against people who took it to an extreme and considered themselves more than just men, namely people like Nissim ben Abraham of Avila and Abulafia.

Aderet died in 1310. Some of his students became famous in their own right. But I want to say something more about one of his teachers, Yonah Gerondi, who got involved in a religious controversy that led to an anti-jewish event I've mentioned before. I'll explain tomorrow.