David Wolpe: evaluation

Transcript context

…I actually have a question about Maimonides, and your view of the evolution of Jewish thought. Two things. One, do you think there was something lost, something important that was lost in Maimonides’s codification of the Law, that we don’t have access to anymore today because of that development? And then, how much of the work of Maimonides changed the course of Jewish thought in a way that maybe wouldn’t have happened anyway with the advent of modernity? I would say, in answer to the first one, what did we lose with Maimonides’s aggregation of Jewish law with the Mishneh Torah? What Maimonides wanted to do was take all of this messy giant Talmudic and other tradition and make it simple. And one of the things that he did that he later said he regretted but didn’t have the chance to fix was, he didn’t add footnotes. So we don’t know. Scholars have spent generations trying to reconstruct the sources of Maimonides. That’s a lot that was lost because, among other things, he might’ve been basing it on readings and manuscripts that we don’t have. And also, any time you have a fixed law, you rigidify the practices of communities because then people say, “Well, it’s not in the book, so you can’t do it.” So yes, a lot was lost, but I think probably more was gained. In terms of whether he changed the course of Jewish history, I think you almost can’t say no because Maimonides is probably the single most important figure in Judaism. Certainly post-Talmud, he is the single most important figure. And what he changed — which some people like and some don’t — is, he made people who are Jewish rationalists comfortable and people who are not Jewish rationalists forced to argue that it was OK not to be rationalistic. That to think of God as omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent like you do in a philosophy class is not the only way to think about God. And that’s why the Hasidim needed to reinvigorate the Jewish tradition in a sense. So, on balance: glad we had him. Next question.…

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