[Avodah] rationalism and mysticism

[Micha Berger]

IIUC, all this started because I suggested in response to RETurkel that
the Rambam's shitah on magic was not based on his Aristotilianism.
This got a little befuddled because we have different definitions of
"magic".

Yes, Aristotle denied the possibility of violating the laws of nature. I
do not believe the Rambam found this compelling, because we do not find
a quote from the Rambam similar to the Ralbag's that the miracles of
Yetzi'as Mitzrayim were in consonance with nature. So, even if I were
thinking of magic in that sense of the word, it would not have been
compelling to connect the Rambam's denial of the reality of magic to
Aristotle.

However, WRT kishuf, the Torah's examples are things like ov and
yid'oni. Which actually are not in violation of the laws of nature as
then understood. Newton's notion of a clockworks universe didn't exist
yet. Aristotle's physics centers around intellects imparting impetus.
(A concept similar to momentum but not conserved.) And he believed in
intellects that were disconnected from anything physical.

Which is what I was thinking of when I wrote about the Rambam's position
being as likely caused by a mesorah about ov and yid'oni etc... being
slight of hand than by any reinterpretation forced by fitting the Torah
to Aristotilian beliefs.



I think that there is a similar confusion caused by the word "mysticism".

In its broadest sense, anyone who believes in a Borei and mal'akhim
believes in mysticism. But I'm sure that's not what is being debated here.

To me, the word means belief in an Intimate G-d, and centering one's
religiosity on the attempt to experience Him. (I realize that that's
Gnosticism in particular; however, it is the mental image I associate
with the word "mystic".)

The Rambam believed in an Atzilus model of creation, as per Moreh III:51,
as already noted in this thread. See also Yesodei haTorah 2:5, where
mal'akhim are described as stages in a process of atzilus (not the word
used, but seems to fit). To quote myself from
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol12/v12n082.shtml
> Averroes (ibn Rushd), who translated Aristotle's works, mistook
> Plotinus's Enneads (the works that started neo-Platonism) to be
> Aristo's, and ... includes them in [his] translation. Therefore,
> everyone who got Aristotle via the Arabic had strong neo-Platonic
> influences. Including the Rambam, as we see in YhT 1 and 2, when the
> Rambam writes of Hashem as Mamtzi (rather than using the lashon of
> "Borei"), and speaks of each madreigah of mal'achim are mamtzi those
> "below" them (in 2:5, already discussed in this thread). It's a model
> of emanation, as per Plato [except with the addition of involving
> Divine Will -micha 7-Oct-2007], but modified to have these "quantum
> leaps" that RMLevin wrote of, thereby allowing for specific nivra'im
> interposed between us and HQBH, not to mention countable olamos rather
> than a continuum of them.

Also, in Moreh I:69 we find the Rambam explaining how the notion of Hashem
as Cause is the same as that of Agens. In it he shows that atzilus and
a more "manufacture" based model really describe the same thing.

YhT 2:5 is an overview of the same conception of reality as that found
in Heichalos literature.

So, I would think the Rambam did believe in what most of us think call
mysticism. But I threw in one more clause in defining a mystic. The Rambam
doesn't tell one to base their avodah Hashem on the search of climbing
through these heichalos to reach the Borei/Mamtzi. It's a feature of
the Rambam's hashkafah, but not the central feature.

Gut Voch!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Take time,
micha at aishdas.org        be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org   unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm