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INTRODUCTION

A PORTRAIT OF
THE ARTIST

he premise of Maimonides’ code of law, Mishneh torah, is that a human

T being’s purpose is to know God. It opens with the recognition of God’s
existence; it closes with Isaiah’s messianic promise: ‘For the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.’1 That is the ultimate
aim of all the ritual and civil laws that it prescribes. This book’s theme is that
Mishneh torah’s form is true to its aim; Maimonides shapes the law’s prescrip-
tions for action into an object of contemplation, a work of art itself designed
to convey the knowledge of God.
Many have remarked on Mishneh torah’s artistic qualities; their views
will be surveyed shortly. Such qualities have largely been seen, however, as an
accident of the order and clarity that Maimonides produced out of the unruly
mass of rabbinic legal literature in composing the first complete code of Jew-
ish law. The contention in this study is that the art is of the essence, so that
the code’s form is a key to understanding it.

The Cosmic Model

Mishneh torah is one of the most closely scrutinized texts in the Jewish canon,2
yet its most basic formal features have eluded explanation. Why does it have
fourteen books? Why are the books ordered as they are?

1
‘Laws of Kings and Their Wars’, 12: 5, quoting Isa. 9: 9. In fact, Maimonides asserted early on in
his career that the knowledge of God was the purpose of human life. In the introduction to the
Commentary on the Mishnah, he states that human physical existence is meant to serve the develop-
ment of the intellect, and that all intellectual disciplines serve the crowning purpose of acquiring
knowledge of God (Commentary on the Mishnah, Order Zera’im, 22). What knowledge of God can
consist of will be discussed in due course.
2
Mishneh torah attracted intense scholarly and general interest as soon as it appeared, in late 1177
or early 1178 (see Davidson, Moses Maimonides, 203–6), and the intensity has never waned. On the
phenomenon of its instant accession to canonic status, see Ben-Sasson, ‘Canon Formation’ (Heb.).
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These features do seem to call for explanation, if only because of the way
that the author draws attention to them. ‘And I saw fit to divide this composi-
tion into fourteen books’, he announces in his introduction to the work,
prompting one to ask, ‘Why that number and no other?’ Did the command-
ments of the law just happen to fall into fourteen major categories, or was the
number perhaps premeditated?
There follows a scheme of the fourteen books, with a synopsis of each.
The scheme was not obvious. In the introduction to The Book of the Com-
mandments, an annotated listing of the Torah’s 613 commandments compiled
in preparation for writing Mishneh torah,3 Maimonides discusses his plans for
a code, and confides: ‘I turned over in my mind how this composition should
be divided and how its sections should be ordered.’ In the end, he tells us, he
settled on a method of classification by topic. This is one respect in which
Maimonides declared his model to be the Mishnah, yet his code deviates
from the mishnaic order.4 As we shall see later on, he read significance into
that order, which makes it likely that his own is also significant.
Among less tangible reasons to wonder about form in Mishneh torah is its
sheer elegance of expression and arrangement, giving the impression of an
author fashioning his work with attention to every element, and indicating a
sensibility that one is inclined to credit with awareness of form’s possibilities.
The credit is not misplaced. In fact, the questions about structure raised
above, which might seem peripheral in comparison with Mishneh torah’s legal
and historical importance, will turn out not to be peripheral at all: answering
them can take us to the centre of Maimonides’ vision.
Mishneh torah has the form of a microcosm. That proposition represents
the backbone of this study. The form is a projection of the outline of the
structure and dynamics of the universe found in chapters 2 to 4 of the work’s
first section, ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’. This cosmology is a
For summaries of contemporary responses to it, both adulatory and critical, see Twersky, Introduction
to the Code, 102–8, 518–26; Davidson, Moses Maimonides, 263–85. The key to Frankel’s edition of
Mishneh torah lists some 1,600 works that comment upon or discuss it. The Halacha Brura and Birur
Halacha Institute’s ‘Index to Commentaries on Rambam’s Mishneh Torah’ (<www.halachabrura.org/
e-mavorambam.htm>) cites ‘about 3,000 books’. These figures are only for the rabbinic works, and
do not take into account the vast academic literature.
3
By tradition the Torah contains 248 positive commandments and 365 negative ones, giving a
total of 613—see BT Mak. 23b.
4
Here I follow Shamma Friedman (‘Organizational Pattern of Mishneh Torah’ and ‘Mishneh
Torah: The Great Composition’), who interprets Maimonides’ remarks in the introduction to the Book
of the Commandments on the organization of Mishneh torah as meaning that he adopted the method of
the Mishnah, although not its actual order. See also Twersky, Introduction to the Code, 238–45.
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blend of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ideas deriving from the Islamic philo-
sophers that Maimonides read and admired.5 The ostensible reason for the
outline is that Maimonides determines that there are commandments to love
and fear God, and that the way to fulfil them is through studying God’s
works.6 A concise (though, as we shall discover, very precise) account of
God’s works is therefore in order. But at the same time as it seeks to induce
love and awe, and stimulate further study that will magnify those feelings,
this account is also the blueprint for Mishneh torah itself.
The plan’s proportions hinge on the numbers ten and four. The Mai-
monidean universe divides between what lies from the Moon upwards, and
what lies below it. Below the Moon, in the centre, are the four forms, or ele-
ments, of matter (earth, water, air, and fire) that combine, separate, and
recombine in various proportions, producing the variety of mineral, veg-
etable, and animal existence, in a perpetual process of generation and decay.7
Surrounding this are nine nested spheres that carry the stars and planets, the
Sun, and the Moon itself,8 all composed of a fine substance not subject to
change or decay.9 More rarefied still are the angels, or separate intellects in
philosophical language, which have no material substance at all. There are
ten of these: nine cause the rotations of the spheres,10 while the tenth and
lowest-ranking, the ishim, also known as the agent intellect, projects forms
onto earthly matter, each combination of elements being, as it were, stamped
with the form it is capable of receiving,11 and radiates theoretical knowledge,
to be received by human minds primed to do so.12 These two functions are
essentially the same: what we have knowledge of is forms.
Correspondingly, Mishneh torah is divided between ten books that deal
with commandments bein adam lamakom (between man and God), or ritual
law, and four books that deal with commandments bein adam lah.avero
(between man and his fellow), or civil law.13 The proposition is that the first
5
For a brief account of this world picture, see Appendix II.
6
‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 2: 1–2.
7 8 9
Ibid. 3: 10–4: 5. Ibid. 3: 1. Ibid. 2: 3.
10
At least according to Guide ii. 10 (p. 271); in Mishneh torah itself only the rotation of the outer-
most sphere is mentioned as causing the motions of the rest of the system.
11
‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 4: 6.
12
‘The tenth intellect is the Active Intellect, whose existence is indicated by the facts that our intel-
lects pass from potentiality into actuality and that the forms of the existents that are subject to gener-
ation and corruption are actualized after they have been in their matter only in potential’ (Guide ii. 4
(p. 257)). (The agent intellect is also known as the active intellect.) For an outline of the background
to Maimonides’ cosmology and his treatment of the agent intellect, see Appendix II.2.
13
See Mishnah Yoma 8: 9.
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ten books with their exalted themes are parallel to the ten orders of angels,
or to the nine spheres plus the agent intellect, and, like them, are ordered
hierarchically, while the more mundane last four books are parallel to the
four elements of matter.
Clearly this needs considerable amplification and detailed proof, but it
at least begins to look as though Maimonides designed Mishneh torah as a
microcosm, so that ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’ not only sets out
the basic theological and moral principles underlying his code of law, but also
contains the code’s underlying principle of organization.
A principle of organization, though, does not make a work of art, or tele-
phone directories would be masterpieces. What distinguishes art is that the
principle (together with other formal aspects, such as, in the case of literary
art, style and tone) contributes towards the work’s meaning and embodies its
values. Besides, in a writer of Maimonides’ calibre, a mere numerical trick
would be disappointing. The task therefore will be to demonstrate that the
microcosmic structure is not just an antecedent principle, a frame onto which
the books of Mishneh torah are bolted, and not merely decorative either,
but that it grows from within, from Maimonides’ conception of his subject,
the commandments, so that the outward form is expressive of an inward
significance.
The microcosmic form of Mishneh torah will be interpreted on two planes:
a philosophical plane of ideas and an experiential plane.
Maimonides’ universe has an Aristotelian superstructure and a Neo-
platonic infrastructure. The same will be shown to apply to Mishneh torah.
On the plane of ideas, this coherent architecture enables us to relate the parts
to each other and to the whole, and thereby to apprehend links and patterns
that may not be obvious in the halakhic material itself. In the most general
terms, the relationship between Mishneh torah’s form and its content symbol-
izes the very relationship between philosophy and halakhah.
Philosophy, for these purposes, means physics and metaphysics. As far as
Maimonides is concerned, these subjects are the content of Jewish esoteric
lore. In his Commentary on the Mishnah he identifies one branch of that
lore, ma’aseh bereshit (the account of the beginning),14 with physics, and the
other, ma’aseh merkavah (the account of the chariot),15 with metaphysics.16
In Mishneh torah the first two chapters of ‘Laws of the Foundations of the
14
i.e. the exposition of the Creation story in the opening chapters of Genesis.
15
i.e. the exposition of the visions in Ezek. 1 and 10.
16
The identification is made in the commentary on Mishnah H . ag. 2: 1. This mishnah places restric-
tions on the teaching of ma’aseh bereshit and ma’aseh merkavah. See also Guide i, Introduction (p. 6).
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Torah’, concerning God and the angels, are summed up as being about
ma’aseh merkavah,17 while the next two chapters, concerning the heavenly
spheres and the elements, are stated to be about ma’aseh bereshit.18
In ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 4: 13, Maimonides describes
the arcane, theoretical subjects of ma’aseh bereshit and ma’aseh merkavah
(collectively known as pardes) as ‘a great thing’, and halakhah, the practical
side of Torah which is understandable by all, as ‘a small thing’.19
So Mishneh torah’s microcosmic form is the ‘great thing’ encompassing
and supporting the ‘small thing’, the details of halakhah that make up its con-
tent. Maimonides tells us explicitly that philosophy is nobler than halakhah,
and that creating the conditions for philosophical enlightenment is the end of
halakhah.20 Through the structure of Mishneh torah he conveys an additional
dimension of the relationship: philosophy emerges as the matrix of halakhah;
in Aristotelian terms, its formal cause.
This inverts the accepted view of the order of priority between philosophy
and halakhah in Mishneh torah. That the work has philosophical aspects is
very clear. Maimonides himself draws attention to one radical philosophical
assumption in it when he writes: ‘you will always find that whenever, in what
I have written in books of jurisprudence, I happen to mention the founda-
tions and start upon establishing the existence of the deity, I establish it by
discourses that adopt the way of the doctrine of the eternity of the world’.21
That is to say, in setting out to prove the existence of God, even in a work of
Jewish law, Maimonides starts from the philosophers’ more problematic
notion of a steady-state universe (in which he says he does not believe) rather
than from the religious position that the universe was created, for if the proof
stands for a steady-state universe, then it is all the more valid for a created
one. The opening of his most important book of jurisprudence, Mishneh
torah, duly refers to a First Being that ‘brings into existence all that exists’, not
a God who created the world ‘in the beginning’; there is no beginning here.22
17
‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 2: 11. Note that in the exposition of the vision of Ezekiel
in Guide iii. 1–7 (pp. 417–30), ma’aseh merkavah seems more identified with superlunary physics than
with metaphysics. See Freudenthal, ‘Four Observations’ (Heb.).
18 19
‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 4: 10. This is based on BT Suk. 28a.
20
This is how Maimonides interprets the rabbinic dictum that ‘God has nothing in this world
except the four cubits of halakhah’ (BT Ber. 8a) in the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah
(Order Zera’im, 21–4). It is also the gist of ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 4: 13, and the
essence of Maimonides’ conception of the days of the messiah in ‘Laws of Kings and Their Wars’, 12,
21
and is stated clearly in Guide iii. 27. Guide i. 71 (p. 182).
22
‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 1: 1. On the duality of this opening, apparently making a
religious statement while actually making a philosophical one, see Kellner, ‘Literary Character’.
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A little further on he argues for the existence of a God of limitless power on

the grounds that ‘the sphere revolves constantly’,23 without end, and again,
apparently, without a beginning.
Maimonides’ interpreters too have commented on Mishneh torah’s philo-
sophical significance. But when Isadore Twersky, for example, describes it as
a ‘fusion of halakhah and philosophy’,24 he means that it constantly brings out
the morally and intellectually elevating character of halakhah; in his reading,
philosophy remains within the framework of halakhah, whereas the upshot of
the formal analysis offered here is that the fusion ultimately takes place in the
relationship between content and form, and from that point of view, the rela-
tionship is the other way round: Mishneh torah presents halakhah within a
framework of philosophy, reflecting the Islamic philosophers’ notion of reli-
gion as philosophy in popular form.25
This shift in perspective yields substantial gains. We shall find that it
makes several puzzling features of Mishneh torah fall into place. It will also
entail a rethinking of the relationship between Mishneh torah and The Guide of
the Perplexed, Maimonides’ other masterpiece. The greatest gain, though, is
that the law is validated as it is explicated. The inference, via the ancient idea
of man as microcosm, is that the commandments of the Torah are designed to
perfect human beings by bringing the individual human personality, and the
entire state, into line with the ideal order of the cosmos.26 Mishneh torah offers
something more than instrumental value, more than serving as a prelude to
philosophy, as the commandments’ purpose. It proposes that through fulfil-
ment of the commandments we can join the great array of stars and spheres in
the praise and glorification of God.

23
‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, 1: 5.
24
Twersky, Maimonides Reader, 18. See also id., Introduction to the Code, 48.
25
See Berman, ‘Ethical Views of Maimonides’; Pessin, ‘Influence of Islamic Thought on Mai-
monides’.
26
The idea of a parallel between nature and the commandments is to be distinguished from the
idea of natural law. The latter is the notion that there is a law that is the product of universal, innate,
practical human reason. The parallel suggested here implies rather the opposite: a law that is the
product of supreme, and hard-won, understanding of physics and metaphysics, and with a transcen-
dent aim. David Novak, who sees natural law as an element in Maimonides’ legal method, ultimately
concedes that ‘despite the many specific things we can learn from Maimonides in connection with our
search for natural law materials, I think his overall theory has insurmountable difficulties for us’
(Novak, Natural Law, 137). See also Fox, ‘Maimonides and Aquinas on Natural Law’, and Hyman,
‘Divine Law and Human Reason’. Hyman tends more towards the idea that Maimonides did coun-
tenance some kind of natural law. Hadad, ‘Nature and Torah in Maimonides’ (Heb.), makes a dis-
tinction similar to the one made here.
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This is wonderful design. It proves to be a way of importing philosophical

ideas into Mishneh torah without in the least disturbing the clear exposition
of the law. It is not quite enough, however, to earn art’s highest accolades.
Mishneh torah’s true artistic quality lies beyond the encryption of ideas in
formal patterns. Its meaning is something that cannot be stated, but only ges-
tured towards.27 It is the product of a mind fixed upon God and seeks to com-
municate the love of God. Just as, as a code of law, it is completed through
action, as a work of art, it is completed in the imagination. Mishneh torah
achieves more than the syncretic reconciliation of the Torah with the philoso-
phy and science of a particular age. The artistic bonding of its form and con-
tent gives it the power to transcend the time and place of its creation, to effect
not only an ordering of halakhah, but a reordering of the sensibilities of the
reader, and to plant in him or her the germ of its inspiration.

Aggadah in Mishneh Torah

The Greeks and Arabs do not have Mishneh torah’s form all to themselves.
In his introduction, Maimonides famously states: ‘I have entitled this work
Mishneh torah, for the reason that a person, who reads first the Written
Law and then this compilation, will know from it the whole of the Oral Law,
without having occasion to consult any other book between them.’28
It is mainly the second part of this statement, the claim that Mishneh torah
renders study of the Talmud redundant, that has attracted attention—even
hostile attention.29 But it is also intriguing to ponder just what Maimon-
ides meant by the first part. For while it is clearly desirable for a Jew to be
27
Compare Halbertal’s comment on the Guide: ‘The distinction between political esotericism and
essential esotericism engenders different understandings of the biblical text. Political-social esoteri-
cism understands Scriptural parables as allegory, whose hidden contents may be expressed in direct
conceptual language. Essential esotericism sees the Scriptural parable as symbol rather than allegory.
The symbol does not hide contents that could otherwise be expressed directly through concepts, but
points and directs us to what cannot be expressed directly. Under this conception, the esoteric struc-
ture of language is not the result of a strategy adopted by philosophy in its relation toward society, but
is part of the essence of the philosophical realm’ (Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, 57). See also
Y. Lorberbaum, ‘Maimonides’ Conception of Parables’ (Heb.).
28
Introduction and Book of Knowledge, trans. Hyamson, 4b.
29
Maimonides found himself forced to deny, in a letter to R. Pinhas the judge, that he really meant
to eliminate study of the Talmud. See Letters, ed. Shailat (Heb.), 438–9. According to Ta-Shma, R.
Pinhas had an Ashkenazi perspective, in which study of Talmud was central, whereas against the back-
ground of contemporary methods of study in Spain and in the East, which tended to focus on para-
phrastic commentaries rather than on the Talmud itself, Maimonides’ claim for Mishneh torah was not
extraordinary—see Ta-Shma, ‘Maimonides’ Position on Talmud Study’ (Heb.).