Maimonides (the Latinised name of Moshe ben Maimon, 1135-1204) was one of the most illustrious figures in Medieval Jewry, if not the most prominent one. Philosopher, jurist, phisician and also religious and lay leader (in Egypt, where the family landed after escaping Andalusia) he personalised in a certain way the platonic ideal of a philosopher-ruler. Few biographies of twelfth century personalities are better documented than his. Besides his major work, The Guide for the Perplexed in Arabic, and the Mishneh Torah (English: Repetition of the Law) in Hebrew, his written legacy includes a handsome series of medical writings, hundreds of Responsa that are answers relating to questions addressed to him concerning daily religious and civil complications. In addition, this treasure-trove contains half a dozen short treatises that Lerner focuses on, which deal with vital issues like that of afterlife, the validity of astrological predictions or the ways to recognise a messianic pretender. A written legacy second to none--some of it even in autograph-- which nevertheless leaves readers thirsty as to what may have been his true, genuine beliefs. Scholars, and among them the very distinguished author of the book before us, still struggle with the great man's art of writing and obtain contradictory results and opinions. Did he, to quote one salient example, really reject the aristotelian idea of the world being internal, contemporary, so to speak, to God Himself, or did he accept wholeheartedly the biblical creatio ex nihilo? And what about miracles--can they really exist? What did he really think about the immortality of the body and the reality of the world to come?
The contribution of Lerner's present study is to be appreciated on two levels. His primary aim is to examine the way in which the illustrious thinker tried to percolate down philosophy to the uninitiated in the public square. But these "small" treatises may go beyond pedagogy or popular preaching and shed light on some of the problems raised when studying his major works, the Guide or the introductory chapter of Mishneh Torah. Of singular importance is this respect is his Treatise on Resurrection. However, before dealing with its intricacies, a word about Lerner's own strategy is in order.
Conversant in Arabic and Jewish philosophy as well as in the teaching of modern enlightenment, Lerner, throughout the book, presents in an analytical approach the thinking of Maimonides. While of the two hundred or so pages of Empire of Light more than a half consist of translations into English of these treatises written in Arabic or in Hebrew, the first half is devoted to this analytical presentation. An analytical presentation to be sure, yet not a critical one. Thus if Maimonides consistantly complains of being surrounded by an ignorant mob and vulgar populace, Lerner takes his word for it. Yet one may doubt the veracity of such statements.
The great man does not seem to take into account the rabbinic renaissance in twelfth-century France and Germany. He treats with unmitigated scorn his rival, the head of the rabbinic academy of Bagdad, the famous Samuel ben Ali (44-5). However, Benjamin of Tudela, the Spanish traveller who visited the region around the year 1165 speaks with much awe of Samuel; for him Samuel is a great luminary, conversant in rabbinics as well as in non-Jewish sciences. As for ignorance and simple- mindedness Maimonides himself describes the perplexed, for whom his Guide was written, as hyper-intellectual Jews who find it difficult to take the biblical narratives at face value.
In what concerns the question of life after death and immortality of the soul--so crucial to any religion--Lerner (50) is ready to admit that Maimonides manifested a "lack of enthusiasm for this subject" and that he simply "failed to make himself understood". (44) However, one must ask whether we have here a simple misunderstanding (47) or whether with Maimonides' irritation and lack of patience we face a more profound quandary: his lack of firm belief in the world to come and in corporeal resurrection. What Empire of Light fails to convey is that a serious controversy arose over this during Maimonides' life. Scholars from Mesopotamia in the east and France in the west suspected that the great man, like some of his contemporaries, was, in this respect, a non-believer. I know of one modern-day student who went overboard and suggested that the Treatise on Resurrection was not a genuine Maimonedean work.
Much has been written on Maimonides and much is being published daily. Lerner's book, the above critique notwistanding, is a most welcome contribution, examining Maimonides' philosophy from an unexpected angle. He makes us reflect again about the thinking of one of the greatest minds Judaism has ever produced.