Studies in Judaism 20

Studies in Judaism 20

Nachmanides, however, in his gentle way, did not mean to storm heaven.

Like R. Akiba, "he entered in peace, and departed in peace." And it was by

this peacefulness of his nature that he gained an influence over posterity

which is equalled only by that of Maimonides. "If he was not a profound

thinker," like the author of the _Guide of the Perplexed_, he had that

which is next best--"he felt profoundly." Some writers of a rather

reactionary character even went so far as to assign to him a higher place

than to Maimonides. This is unjust. What a blank would there have been in

Jewish thought but for Maimonides' great work, on which the noblest

thinkers of Israel fed for centuries! As long as Job and Ecclesiastes hold

their proper place in the Bible, and the Talmud contains hundreds of

passages suggesting difficulties relating to such problems as the creation

of the world, God's exact relation to it, the origin of evil, free will

and predestination, none will persuade me that philosophy does not form an

integral part of Jewish tradition, which, in its historical developments,

took the shape which Maimonides and his successors gave to it. If

Maimonides' _Guide_, which he considered as an interpretation of the Bible

and of many strange sayings in the old Rabbinic homilies in the Talmud, is

Aristotelian in its tone, so is tradition too; even the Talmud in many

places betrays all sorts of foreign influences, and none would think of

declaring it un-Jewish on this ground. I may also remark in passing that

the certainty with which some writers deprecate the aids which religion

may receive from philosophy is a little too hasty. For the question will

always remain, What religion? The religion of R. Moses of Tachau or R.

Joseph Jabez(95) would certainly have been greatly endangered by the

slightest touch of speculation, while that of Bachya,(96) Maimonides,

Jedaiah of Bedres, and Delmedigo undoubtedly received from philosophy its

noblest support, and became intensified by the union.

 

But apart from that consideration, the sphere of the activity of these two

leaders seems to have been so widely different that it is hardly just to

consider them as antagonists, or at least to emphasise the antagonism too

much. Maimonides wrote his chief work, the _Guide_, for the few elect,

who, like Ibn Tibbon(97) for instance, would traverse whole continents if

a single syllogism went wrong. And if he could be of use to one wise man

of this stamp, Maimonides would do so at the risk of "saying things

unsuitable for ten thousand fools." But with Nachmanides, it would seem,

it was these ten thousand who formed the main object of his tender care.

They are, as we have seen, cultivated men, indeed "students," having

enjoyed a proper education; but the happy times of abstract thinking have

gone, and being under a perpetual strain of persecutions and cares, they

long for the Sabbath and Festivals, which would bring them both bodily and

spiritual recreation. They find no fault with religion, a false syllogism

does not jar on their ears; what they are afraid of is that, being engaged

as they are, all the six days of work, in their domestic affairs, religion

may be too good a thing for them. "To appease their minds," to edify them,

to make life more sweet and death less terrible to them, and to show them

that even their weaknesses, as far as they are conditioned by nature, are

not irreconcilable with a holy life, was what Nachmanides strove after.

Now and then he permits them a glance into the mystical world in which he

himself loved to move, but he does not care to stifle their senses into an

idle contemplation, and passes quickly to some more practical application.

To be sure, the tabernacle is nothing but a complete map of the superlunar

world; but nevertheless its rather minute description is meant to teach us

"that God desires us to work."

 

This tendency toward being useful to the great majority of mankind may

account for the want of consistency of which Nachmanides was so often

accused. It is only the logician who can afford to be thoroughgoing in his

theory, and even he would become most absurd and even dangerous but for

the redeeming fact "that men are better than their principles." But with

Nachmanides these "principles" would have proved even more fatal. Could

he, for instance, have upset authority in the face of the ten thousand?

They need to be guided rather than to guide. But he does not want them to

follow either the Gaon or anybody else slavishly, "the gates of wisdom

never having been shut," whilst on the other hand he hints to them that

there is something divine in every man, which places him at least on the

same high level with any authority. Take another instance--his wavering

attitude between the Maimonists and the Anti-Maimonists, for which he was

often censured. Apart from other reasons, to which I have pointed above,

might he not have felt that, in spite of his personal admiration for

Maimonides' genius, he had no right to put himself entirely on the side

where there was little room for the ten thousand who were entrusted to his

guidance, whilst the French Rabbis, with all their prejudices and

intolerance, would never deny their sympathies to simple emotional folk?

 

This tender and absorbing care for the people in general may also account

for the fact that we do not know of a single treatise by Nachmanides of a

purely Cabbalistic character in the style of the _Book of Weight_, by

Moses de Leon, or the _Orchard_, by R. Moses Cordovora, or the _Tree of

Life_ by R. Isaac Loria.(98) The story that attributes to him the

discovery of the _Zohar_ in a cave in Palestine, from whence he sent it to

Catalonia, needs as little refutation as the other story connected with

his conversion to the Cabbalah, which is even more silly and of such a

nature as not to bear repetition. The _Lilac of Mysteries_(99) and other

mystical works passed also for a long time under his name, but their claim

to this honour has been entirely disproved by the bibliographers, and they

rank now among the _pseudepigraphica_. It is true that R. Nissim, of

Gerona, said of Nachmanides that he was too much addicted to the belief in

the Cabbalah, and as a fellow-countryman he may have had some personal

knowledge about the matter. But as far as his writings go, this belief

finds __EXPRESSION__ only in incidental remarks and occasional citations from

the Bahir,(100) which he never thrusts upon the reader. It was chiefly

when philosophy called in question his deep sympathies with even lower

humanity, and threatened to withdraw them from those ennobling influences

under which he wanted to keep them, that he asserted his mystical

theories.

 

Nachmanides' inconsistency has also proved beneficial in another respect.

For mysticism has, by its over-emphasising of the divine in man, shown a

strong tendency to remove God altogether and replace Him by the creature

of His hands. Witness only the theological bubble of Shabbethai

Tsebi--happily it burst quickly enough--which resulted in mere idolatry (in

more polite language, Hero Worship) on the one side, and in the grossest

antinomianism on the other. Nachmanides, however, with a happy

inconsistency, combined with the belief of man's origin in God, a not less

strong conviction of man's liability to sin, of the fact that he _does_

sin--even the patriarchs were not free from it, as we have seen above--and

that this sin _does_ alienate man from God. This healthy control over

man's extravagant idea of his own species was with Nachmanides also a

fruit of the Torah, within the limits of which everything must move, the

mystic and his aspirations included, whilst its fair admixture of 365 _Do

not's_ with 248 _Do's_ preserved him from that "holy doing nothing" which

so many mystics indulged in, and made his a most active life.

 

Much of this activity was displayed in Palestine, "the land to which the

providence of God is especially attached," and which was, as with R. Judah

Hallevi, always "his ideal home." There he not only completed his

_Commentary on the Pentateuch_, but also erected synagogues, and engaged

in organising communities, whose tone he tried to elevate both by his

lectures and by his sermons. His career in Palestine was not a long one,

for he lived there only about three years, and in 1270 he must already

have been dead. A pretty legend narrates that when he emigrated to

Palestine his pupils asked him to give them a sign enabling them to

ascertain the day of his death. He answered them that on that day a rift

in the shape of a lamp would be seen in the tombstone of his mother. After

three years a pupil suddenly noticed this rift, when the mourning over the

Rabbi began. Thus, stone, or anything else earthly, breaks finally, and

the life of the master passes into light.

 

What life meant to him, how deeply he was convinced that there is no other

life but that originating in God, how deeply stirred his soul was by the

consciousness of sin, what agonies the thought of the alienation from God

caused him, how he felt that there is nothing left to him but to throw

himself upon the mercy of God, and how he rejoiced in the hope of a final

reunion with Him--of all these sentiments we find the best __EXPRESSION__ in

the following religious poem, with which this paper may conclude.

Nachmanides composed it in Hebrew, and it is still preserved in some

rituals as a hymn, recited on the Day of Atonement. It is here given in

the English translation of Mrs. Henry Lucas.(101)

 

 

Ere time began, ere age to age had thrilled,

I waited in his storehouse, as he willed;

He gave me being, but, my years fulfilled,

I shall be summoned back before the King.

 

He called the hidden to the light of day,

To right and left, each side the fountain lay,

From out the stream and down the steps, the way

That led me to the garden of the King.

 

Thou gavest me a light my path to guide,

To prove my heart's recesses still untried;

And as I went, thy voice in warning cried:

"Child! fear thou him who is thy God and King!"

 

True weight and measure learned my heart from thee;

If blessings follow, then what joy for me!

If nought but sin, all mine the shame must be,

For that was not determined by the King.

 

I hasten, trembling, to confess the whole

Of my transgressions, ere I reach the goal

Where mine own words must witness 'gainst my soul,

And who dares doubt the writing of the King?

 

Erring, I wandered in the wilderness,

In passion's grave nigh sinking powerless;

Now deeply I repent, in sore distress,

That I kept not the statutes of the King!

 

With worldly longings was my bosom fraught,

Earth's idle toys and follies all I sought;

Ah! when he judges joys so dearly bought,

How greatly shall I fear my Lord and King!

 

Now conscience-stricken, humbled to the dust,

Doubting himself, in thee alone his trust,

He shrinks in terror back, for God is just--

How can a sinner hope to reach the King?

 

Oh, be thy mercy in the balance laid,

To hold thy servant's sins more lightly weighed,

When, his confession penitently made,

He answers for his guilt before the King.

 

Thine is the love, O God, and thine the grace,

That folds the sinner in its mild embrace;

Thine the forgiveness, bridging o'er the space

'Twixt man's works and the task set by the King.

 

Unheeding all my sins, I cling to thee;

I know that mercy shall thy footstool be:

Before I call, oh, do thou answer me,

For nothing dare I claim of thee, my King!