Studies in Judaism 19

Studies in Judaism 19

The position of the rest of humanity is also determined by their relation

to the Torah. "It is," Nachmanides tells us, "a main principle to know

that all that man contrives to possess of knowledge and wisdom is only the

fruits of the Torah or the fruits of its fruits. But for this knowledge

there would be no difference between man and the lower animated species.

The existence of the civilised nations of the world does not disprove this

rule both Christians and Mahometans being also the heirs of the Torah. For

when the Romans gained strength over Israel they made them translate the

Torah which they studied, and they even accommodated some of their laws

and institutions to those of the Bible." Those nations, however, who live

far away from the centre of the world (the Holy Land) and never come into

contact with Israel are outside the pale of civilisation, and can hardly

be ranked together with the human species. "They are the isles afar off,

that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory."

 

What Nachmanides meant by maintaining that all knowledge and wisdom were

"the fruits of the Torah, or the fruits of these fruits," will be best

seen from his _Commentary on the Pentateuch_. I have already made use of

this Commentary in the preceding quotations, but, being the greatest of

the works of Nachmanides, it calls for some special attention by itself.

Its general purpose is edification, or as he says, "to appease the mind of

the students (labouring under persecution and troubles) when they read the

portion on Sabbaths and festivals, and to attract their heart by simple

explanations and sweet words." The explanations occupy a considerable

space. As Dr. Perles has shown in his able essay on this work of

Nachmanides, our author neglected no resource of philology or archćology

accessible in his age which could contribute to establish the "simple

explanations" on a sound scientific basis. The prominent feature of this

Commentary, however, is the "sweet words." Indeed, how sweet and soothing

to his contemporaries must have been such words as we read at the end of

the "Song of Moses" (Deut. xxxii.): "And behold there is nothing

conditional in this Song. It is a charter testifying that we shall have to

suffer heavily for our sins, but that, nevertheless, God will not destroy

us, being reconciled to us (though we shall have no merits), and forgiving

our sins for his name's sake alone.... And so our Rabbis said, Great is

this song, embracing as it does both the past (of Israel) and the future,

this world and the world to come.... And if this song were the composition

of a mere astrologer we should be constrained to believe in it,

considering that all its words were fulfilled. How much more have we to

hope with all our hearts and to trust to the word of God, through the

mouth of his prophet Moses, the faithful in all his house, like unto whom

there was none, whether before him or after him." A part of these sweet

words may also be seen in the numerous passages in which he attempts to

account for various laws, and to detect their underlying principles.

 

For though "the Torah is the __EXPRESSION__ of God's simple and absolute will,

which man has to follow without any consideration of reward," still this

will is not arbitrary, and even that class of laws which are called

_chukkim_(89) (which means, according to some Jewish commentators,

motiveless decrees) have their good reasons, notwithstanding that they are

unfathomable to us. "They are all meant for the good of man, either to

keep aloof from us something hurtful, or to educate us in goodness, or to

remove from us an evil belief and to make us know his name. This is what

they (the Rabbis) meant by saying that commandments have a purifying

purpose, namely, that man being purified and tried by them becomes as one

without alloy of bad thoughts and unworthy qualities." Indeed, the soul of

man is so sensitive to every impurity that it suffers a sort of infection

even by an unintentional sin. Hence the injunction to bring a _Korban_

(sacrifice) even in this case; the effect of the _Korban_, as its

etymology (_Karab_)(90) indicates, is to bring man back to God, or rather

to facilitate this approach. All this again is, as Nachmanides points out,

only an affluence from God's mercy and love to mankind. God derives no

benefit from it. "If he be righteous what can he give thee?" And even

those laws and institutions which are intended to commemorate God's

wonders and the creation of the world (for instance, the Passover festival

and the Sabbath) are not meant for His glorification, or, as Heine

maliciously expressed it:--

 

 

Der Weltkapellenmeister hier oben

Er selbst sogar hört gerne loben

Gleichfalls seine Werke....

 

 

"For all the honour (we give to Him), and the praising of His work are

counted by Him less than nothing and as vanity to Him." What He desires is

that we may know the truth, and be confirmed in it, for this makes us

worthy of finding in Him "our Protector and King."

 

The lessons which Nachmanides draws from the various Biblical narratives

also belong to these "sweet words." They are mostly of a typical

character. For, true as all the stories in the scriptures are, "the whole

Torah is," as he tells us (with allusion to Gen. v. 1.), "the book of the

generations of Adam," or, as we should say, a history of humanity written

in advance. Thus the account of the six days of the creation is turned

into a prophecy of the most important events which would occur during the

succeeding six thousand years, whilst the Sabbath is a forecast of the

millennium in the seventh thousand, which will be the day of the Lord.

Jacob and Esau are, as in the old Rabbinic homilies generally, the

prototypes of Israel and Rome; and so is the battle of Moses and Joshua

with Amalek indicative of the war which Elijah and the Messiah the son of

Joseph will wage against Edom (the prototype of Rome), before the Redeemer

from the house of David will appear.(91) Sometimes these stories convey

both a moral and a pre-justification of what was destined to happen to

Israel. So Nachmanides' remarks with reference to Sarah's treatment of

Hagar (Gen. xvi. 6): "Our mother Sarah sinned greatly by inflicting this

pain on Hagar, as did also Abraham, who allowed such a thing to pass; but

God saw her affliction and rewarded her by a son (the ancestor of a wild

race), who would inflict on the seed of Abraham and Sarah every sort of

oppression." In this he alluded to the Islamic empires. Nor does he

approve of Abraham's conduct on the occasion of his coming to Egypt, when

he asked Sarah to pass as his sister (Gen. xii.). "Unintentionally,"

Nachmanides says, "Abraham, under the fear of being murdered, committed a

great sin when he exposed his virtuous wife to such a temptation. For he

ought to have trusted that God would save both him and his wife.... It is

on account of this deed that his children had to suffer exile under the

rule of Pharaoh. There, where the sin was committed, also the judgment

took place." It is also worth noticing that, in opposition to Maimonides,

he allows no apology for the attack of Simeon and Levi on the population

of Shechem (Gen. xxxiv. 25). It is true that they were idolaters, immoral,

and steeped in every abomination; but Jacob and his sons were not

commissioned with executing justice on them. The people of Shechem trusted

their word, therefore they ought to have spared them. Hence Jacob's

protest, and his curse against their wrath, which would have been quite

unjustified had he looked on the action of his sons as a good work.

 

Besides these typical meanings, the matters of the Torah have also their

symbolical importance, which places them almost above the sphere of human

conception; they are neither exactly what they seem to be nor entirely

what their name implies, but a reflex from things unseen, which makes any

human interference both preposterous and dangerous. Of "the things

_called_ Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge," Nachmanides tells us that

their mystery is very great, reaching into higher worlds. Otherwise, why

should God, who is good and the dispenser of good, have prevented Adam

from eating the fruit (of the latter), whilst in another place he says:

"And if thou wilt be worthy, and understand the mystery of the word

_Bereshith_(92) (with which the Torah begins), thou wilt see that in truth

the scripture, though apparently speaking of matters here below (on

earth), is always pointing to things above (heaven);" for "every glory and

every wonder, and every deep mystery, and all beautiful wisdom are hidden

in the Torah, sealed up in her treasures."

 

It is very characteristic of the bent of Nachmanides' mind, that he is

perhaps the first Jewish writer who mentions the apocryphal book _The

Wisdom of Solomon_, which he knew from a Syriac version, and which he

believed to be genuine. And when we read there (vii. 7-25), "Wherefore I

prayed and understanding was given to me. I called upon God and the spirit

of wisdom came upon me.... For God has given me unmistakable knowledge to

know how the world was made, and the operations of the planets. The

beginning, ending, and midst of the times, the alterations and the

turnings of the sun, the changes of the seasons, the natures of the living

creatures and the furies of the wild beasts, the force of the spirits and

the reasonings of men, the diversities of plants and the virtues of the

roots. All such things that are either secret or manifest, them I

knew"--the wise king was, according to Nachmanides (who quotes the passages

which I have just cited), speaking of the Torah, which is identical with

this wisdom, a wisdom which existed before the creation, and by which God

planned the world. Hence it bears the impression of all the universe,

whilst on the other hand when it is said, "The king brought me into his

chambers," those secret recesses of the Torah are meant in which all the

great mysteries relating to Creation and to the Chariot (Ezekiel i.) are

hidden.

 

We must content ourselves with these few sparks struck from the glowing

fires of these inner compartments, which, imperfectly luminous as my

treatment has left them, may yet shed some light on the personality of

Nachmanides, which is the main object of this essay. But I do not propose

to accompany the mystic into the "chambers of the king," lest we may soon

get into a labyrinth of obscure terms and strange ways of thinking for

which the Ariadne thread is still wanting. We might also be confronted by

the Fifty Gates of Understanding, the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, and the

Two Hundred and Thirty-One Permutations or Ciphers of the Alphabet, the

key to which I do not hold. It is also questionable whether it would

always be worth while to seek for it. When one, for instance, sees such a

heaping on of nouns (with some Cabbalists) as the Land of Life, the Land

of Promise, the Lord of the World, the Foundation Stone, Zion, Mother,

Daughter, Sister, the Congregation of Israel, the Twin Roes, the Bride,

Blue, End, Oral Law, Sea, Wisdom, etc., meant to represent the same thing

or attribute, and to pass one into another, one cannot possibly help

feeling some suspicion that one stands before a conglomerate of words run

riot, over which the writer had lost all control.

 

Indeed Nachmanides himself, in the preface to the above-mentioned

Commentary, gives us the kind advice not to meditate, or rather brood,

over the mystical hints which are scattered over this work, "speculation

being (in such matters) folly, and reasoning over them fraught with

danger." Indeed, the danger is obvious. I have, to give one or two

instances, already alluded to the theory which accepts the Torah or the

Wisdom as an agent in the creation of the world. But the mystic pushes

further, and asks for the Primal Being to which this Wisdom owes its

origin. The answer given is from the great Nothing, as it is written, And

the Wisdom shall be found from Nothing.(93) What is intended by this, if

it means anything, is probably to divest the first cause of every possible

quality which by its very qualifying nature must be limiting and

exclusive. Hence, God becomes the Unknowable. But suppose a metaphysical

Hamlet, who, handling words indelicately, should impetuously exclaim, To

be or not to be, that is the question?--into what abyss of utter negations

would he drag all those who despair, by his terrible Nothing.

 

On the other hand, into what gross anthropomorphisms may we be drawn by

roughly handling certain metaphors which some Cabbalists have employed in

their struggling after an adequate __EXPRESSION__ of God's manifestations in

His attribute of love, if we forget for a single moment that they are only

figures of speech, but liable to get defiled by the slightest touch of an

unchaste thought.

 

But the greater the dangers that beset the path of mysticism, the deeper

the interest which we feel in the mystic. In connection with the above-

mentioned warning, Nachmanides cites the words from the scriptures, "But

let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord,

lest he break forth upon them" (Exod. xix. 24). Nevertheless, when we read

in the Talmud the famous story of the four Rabbis(94) who went up into the

_Pardes_, or Garden of Mystical Contemplation, we do not withhold our

sympathy, either from Ben Azzai, who shot a glance and died, or from Ben

Zoma, who shot a glance and was struck (in his mind). Nay, we feel the

greatest admiration for these daring spirits, who, in their passionate

attempt to "break through" the veil before the Infinite, hazarded their

lives, and even that which is dearer than life, their minds, for a single

glance. And did R. Meir deny his sympathies even to Other One or Elisha

ben Abuyah, who "cut down the plants"? He is said to have heard a voice

from heaven, "Return, oh backsliding children, except Other One," which

prevented his repentance. Poor fallen Acher, he mistook hell for heaven.

But do not the struggle and despair which led to this unfortunate confusion rather plead for our commiseration?