[Avodah] Rambam on corporeality

[Daniel Eidensohn]

Silverman, Philip B wrote:
> I was wondering where Rabbi Akiva Tatz's position (as described in
> his book WorldMask) fits into all this.
>
> If I understand R' Tatz correctly, he takes the expressions "God's
> hand" and "God's eyes" literally. If there's any metaphor going on,
> it is we humans who have the metaphoric hand and eyes. (Extending
> this thought, I suppose the whole universe would be, in a sense, a
> metaphor.) At the same time, he believes firmly that God is
> completely incorporeal, and that He is absolutely One. I believe he
> holds that the seeming contradiction is above humans to comprehend.
> I don't fully understand this position (and don't know how 'kosher'
> it is), but I was wondering something. Perhaps the "sages (the
> Raavad refers to) who are greater and better than the Rambam who
> hold this ... view" believed not that God was corporeal in any way,
> but rather, believed in the way R' Tatz writes about.
>
> Maybe what I'm doing is trying to defend the honor of these unknown
> sages against the charge of believing in a corporeal God, but my
> main goal is to figure out whether R' Tatz's position is the one the
> Raavad was actually referring to as being mistaken.
>   
Rabbi Tatz is presenting the kabbalistic view that everything is a 
manifestation of some non-physical spiritual reality. Thus our
physical hands correspond in some way to a non-physical spiritual hand. This
is not the view of the Rambam at all. The Ravaad is generally
understood as agreeing with the Rambam that corporality is wrong - but they simply 
disagree as to whether a sincerely observant Jew who takes the 
expressions in the Bible and medrashim literaly is a heretic.

Daniel Eidensohn