Maimonidean

The line of Rambam and his family — reason, evidence, accommodation.

Rambam Was a Hasid

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Rambam, Maimonides, Abu Imran, or the Ra”m ba”r Maza”l, as he was variously known, was not just a legal scholar and judge, not just a doctor and a philosopher, but a contemplative mystic on the path of prophecy, not just practicing conceptual-emotional quietude through meditative prayer but actively living a life of self-abnegation, service, and the disciplined cultivation of virtue.

In short, it would be safe to say that Rambam was a Hasid.

It is hard to define what exactly Hasidism is.

The simple, popular definition is “piety.”

But piety tends to carry a rather narrow, religious meaning, that fails to capture or convey either the breadth or depth of Hasidism or things identifiable as Hasidic.

What can we say about Hasidism?

It is related to human development, to the balancing of psycho-somatic forces and the realization of human psycho-spiritual potential. It is related to the revelatory construction of the divine image in the human being and its attunement to the divine pathos in the world. It is related to the integration of heaven and earth, the perfection of the individual human and the entirety of creation as micro- and macrocosms of each other, the orbital harmony of souls dancing and singing praises of the Creator who loves all. It is related to love and to the transformation of a scared, savage animal into a compassionate being in love with humanity, the creation, and the Creator.

Within and beyond the stabilizing framework of the text and law, Hasidism exists as an active reading of the signs of divine love in the daily and mortal stories of our lives. The material of Hasidism can take any form but is often comprised of songs and stories and shocking intellectual-emotional prods to reconsider, reinvigorate, and reconstruct the world we live in. Its flavor, melody, and intoxicating scent come from the unique conditions in which Hasidism arises anew in every generation and in every community, adapting to the specific psycho-spiritual (but also socio-political!) needs of every time, place, and people. Hasidism reaches every person on their level and slowly lures them into different ways of feeling, thinking, speaking, and acting.

Every Hasid follows the same path to truly knowing their Creator – yet each Hasid travels the path differently, according to their own condition and the condition of their community.

Rambam, having absorbed the cultural and spiritual heritage of Andalus, was well-equipped not just to develop his own private practice as a Hasid but to guide the Jewish community of Egypt in his day (and much of the Jewish world) in the ways of Hasidism.

It is well-known but perhaps often overlooked that Rambam named the first three books of his magnum opus, the books of Knowledge, Love, and Times. The significance of setting these themes as the starting point for Maimonidean halakhic study and practice is profound: the entire system of law is cast as a path towards the Hasidic goals of True Knowledge and Love of God, structured by and filtered through the shifting conditions of the time cycles we inhabit in this earthly existence. It is of further note that in recording as settled law in the Book of Love the prayer practices of the ancient rabbis – including the full washing of face, hands of feet in preparation for prayer, meditating before prayer, kneeling and prostrating during prayer, among other things – Rambam was directing all those who sought his guidance to pray in a way that was decidedly Hasidic.

In his Guide (Signpost) for the Perplexed (Facing Diverging Paths), Rambam functions as a guide for the Hasid facing the limitations not just of his worldview but his mode of thinking, and seeking True Knowledge of his Creator. Addressing himself to the rational reader standing on the cusp of the transrational, Rambam drew on the terminology, ideas, writings, and contemplative practices of not just rabbinic Hasidim but Hasidim of the nations (known generally as Sufis), such as Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn Sina (who also transmitted many of the Neoaristotelian ideas and concepts Rambam saw as aligned with the rabbinic tradition), in slowly deconstructing the reader’s way of thinking about God, religion, language, truth, and power, and leading the attentive reader, by means of signs and hints and prods, to a new of thinking and practicing religion authentically, virtuously, and meditatively, setting them on the path to prophecy.

Once again, in this most well-known of Rambam’s works, his approach and guidance can be seen as decidedly Hasidic.

Unfortunately, as academics have methodological trouble studying and writing about phenomena that lack precise labels and definitions, little has been written about Rambam, Hasidism, and Sufism. Much more has been written about Rambam’s son, R Abraham Maimuni, and his (supposedly innovative) ideas and practices that are more easily identifiable as (and explicitly labeled) “Hasidic/Sufi.”

Starting with Rambam’s own son, generations of Maimonidean Hasidim studied, practiced, and taught the legal path of Rambam alongside what they likewise represented as his Hasidic path – expressing and elaborating on that path in an idiom shared with Sufis – without experiencing any form of conflict within their practice. It is highly unlikely that this intergenerational Hasidism originates in a rupture with Rambam’s teachings and practice – but rather, especially in light of the above, was a continuation of his work.

My hope is that this exceedingly short description of Hasidism and some Hasidic aspects of Rambam’s work will provide both greater understanding of the psycho-spiritual mode and aims of Maimonideanism as well as the roots, context, and ideas behind the Maimuni family’s Hasidism.

May our service and our love only be enhanced by our ever-deepening awareness of our service and our love.

Why Aren’t We Doing This

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From his Islamic context, R Abraham b haRambam drew the obvious conclusion – if our traditional laws describe ideas and prescribe practices, and it’s accepted in the prevailing milieu to discuss those ideas and do those practices, then why aren’t we?

Food for thought from the modern Middle East.

Rambam Before His Son

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As someone approaching the subject from the Maimonidean angle, it amazes me how people attribute innovations to Rambam’s son that are actually earlier described in Rambam’s works, and much of which is first mentioned in the classical rabbinic literature.

Many things that they attribute to Islamic Sufi influence are clearly revivals of the documented earlier Jewish practice, for those who are familiar with the MT laws of prayer and the Guide’s chapters on prayer and contemplative meditation.

Which is not to say that there were no Islamic Sufi influences on Rambam or his son. The Sufi literature that Rambam read in Andalus is well-documented, as are its influences on his thought. Similarly, his son was no stranger to quoting the Quran alongside the Tenakh, along with the relevant insights of well- and lesser-known Islamic Sufis. But these influences supplement and adorn a Jewish core of theory and praxis inherited from the rabbis of the Talmud and the Geonim, and, as Rambam and his son would have it, ultimately from the nebiim.

Benevolent Sensitivity

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Jewish Religion: A Rough Sketch

At the heart of our practices, theories, and forms lies חסידות, a word translated variously as piety, loving-kindness, and mysticism.

For reasons that I hope will become clear, I prefer the somewhat clunky translation “benevolent sensitivity.”

The first usage of חסיד in the Torah is in Moshe rabbenu’s blessing of the tribe of Lewi: “Your tummim and urim [priestly oracle] to your Hassid” – a reference to the tribe’s general role, and the specific responsibility of the descendants of Aharon haKohen, in the guidance of Jewish religion, both in the central nexus of the Qodesh (al Quds) and scattered throughout the cities and communities of the nation.

Moshe was the rabban of all nebiim but we see that traditions, praxis, and concepts were transmitted, developed, and shared in the context of the Levitic activity, especially at the Qodesh. Ruwwah haQodesh – the psycho-spiritual experiential mode associated with this activity – was established as the preliminary to full nebua. From these circles emerged many of the nebiim that contributed to our textual and spiritual heritage.

But why Hassid?

I believe that the path of Israelite religion, as actively taught and developed by the nebiim especially of the tribe of Lewi, is one of cultivation of benevolent sensitivity, to one’s self – one’s nature and needs, to one’s fellows – their natures and needs, and to one’s God – and the nature and needs of the divine pathos, as R Heschel z”l described it, within the creation.

This path of cultivation brings the human being from raw animalistic potential to actualized psycho-spiritual resonance with the divine. It is the revelation and the attunement of the divine image in which all human beings were created, and it is the generative process that lies at the heart of all religions, including Islam, in the context of which it is called التصوف‎ the tasawwuf, Sufism.

Rambam, the last and greatest of the Geonim, drew upon the Sufi discourse and works of his Mediterranean milieu in formulating his exploration of nebua in his famous Guide. It may be justly said that the entire project of the Guide is the cultivation of a cognitive and intellectual sensitivity to the divine as an active alternative to the barren and often irrational quagmire of theology.

Rambam’s son, R Abraham Maimuni, overtly recognized the Islamic Sufis as contemporary adherents to the same Way of the ancient nebiim and publicly taught a form of practice that harmonized with theirs. Subsequent generations of the Maimuni family developed the Sufi themes of
Maimonideanism, both in writing and in practice, all with the aim of cultivating the self along the way of the nabi, as described above.

While the Maimuni Sufism did not directly survive the vicissitudes of history in a region ravaged by competing empires, it later contributed (along with the broader Sufi influence) to the development of the kabbalistic circles around the Mediterranean, which in turn resulted in the emergence of European Hassidism. And of course Rambam’s legacy, in the widespread impact of both his Guide and his legal rulings, definitively shaped the חסידות that came after him, both in illumination and in shadow.

It is only natural that Religionists – Sufis of whatever community – should work together to heal a world in desperate need of Religion, of “benevolent sensitivity.”

It is my hope that on this festival of Sukkoth, in which we continue the theme of unity with creation in worship of our Creator with an expansive hope for all the world’s families to join us in celebration of our Creator’s goodness, we will merit to traverse the bridges our ancestors and prophets built before us and between us, and bring the world to a more perfected state both in justice and in awareness of the divine.

Sophists and Philosophers

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In a world where we have Gedolé haTorah and Talmidé Hakhamim, we don’t need to make saints of master debaters (sophists), we need to collectively relearn how to think from the masters of wisdom (philosophers).

Jewish Is Modern

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“To be Jewish is to be modern, and vice versa.”
– R. José Faur z”l

Understood correctly, Jewish ideas are at the forefront of human development and are produced by a forward-thinking, pro-social outlook that sees law as an instrument of social perfection, both directly and by creating the conditions in which individual spiritual perfection can be obtained. Jewish civilization is nomocratic and egalitarian, based on reason and conscience, and founded upon the principles of social autonomy, rights, and responsibilities.

This naturally aligns with social progress and the concerns of political progressives.

There is also a strong conservative dimension to Jewish culture and society – after all, we are the people of tradition. But the essentially progressive nature of Judaism gets underplayed, misunderstood, and distorted in today’s discourse.

Forbidden War

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I would like to suggest a new halakhic category of war.

We are familiar with:
– Mandatory war (מלחמת מצווה) – with the aim of clear self-defense (still applicable) or of defeating the violently oppressive nations identified in the law (no longer applicable).
– Discretionary war (מלחמת רשות) – with the aim of expanding the political jurisdiction of the Torah (only applicable with an active National Court).

To these I would add:
– Forbidden war (מלחמת איסור) – with any aim other than the above two.

I believe this third category of war is implicit in the biblical precept of “You will not murder” (לא תרצח) and is not explicit in the halakhic literature or discourse primarily because historical and material circumstances did not previously allow for the conditions in which it would need to be so pressingly articulated, and secondarily because it took millennia for humanity itself to recognize war as the (necessary?) evil it is and for this moral growth to natively and organically develop within the Israelite psyche.

However, we find ourselves in the present circumstances, and I believe the hour requires us to include the category of “forbidden war” in our halakhic calculus.

The Covenant of Fragments

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The Covenant of Fragments: Towards a Jewish Theology of Religions

Introduction

The religious history of humanity is marked by astonishing diversity. Across continents, cultures, and centuries, peoples have devised systems of law, worship, myth, and wisdom to grapple with the great questions: mortality, suffering, justice, transcendence. The world’s religions vary: some aspire to universal dominion, others remain bound to particular peoples and lands; some emphasize law, others wisdom, others compassion, others ritual.

Judaism’s claim is that all of these belong, in one way or another, within the horizon of the berith Noah—the covenant established with Noah after the flood (Genesis 9:1–17) and reaffirmed at Sinai. In rabbinic teaching, this covenant entails seven commandments binding upon all humanity: justice, prohibition of idolatry, blasphemy, murder, theft, sexual immorality, and cruelty to animals (Sanhedrin 56a–57a). Maimonides codifies these as the minimal universal law (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 9–10).

This covenant is universal but not homogenizing. It binds every people under God, yet does not erase their distinctions. Israel is bound to 613 commandments; the nations to seven. As the Talmud says, “The righteous of the nations have a share in the world to come” (Sanhedrin 105a). Thus the Noahide covenant underwrites pluralism: not only between Israel and the nations, but among the nations themselves. Every people may develop its own culture, law, and wisdom, provided the universal covenantal floor of justice and reverence is upheld.

From this standpoint, Judaism can articulate a theology of religions: the religions of humanity are fragments of the covenant. They testify to real insights—universality, cosmic order, compassion, community—but in partial form. Judaism honors these fragments, answers their counterclaims, and situates them within the whole.

The Witness of Universality

Christianity and Islam testify that God’s truth is not tribal but for all humanity. Christianity universalized the biblical God through the Church; Islam proclaimed the Qur’an as God’s final word, binding all people to submission (islām). Both developed complex legal systems—canon law and shari‘a—that ordered vast civilizations.

However, they insist that unity requires uniformity. If God is one, should not humanity be one faith, one church, one umma? Israel’s particularity is either absorbed (as in Christian supersession) or abrogated (as in Islamic submission).

The Noahide covenant affirms universality while sustaining distinction. At Sinai, Israel was bound by 613 commandments, the nations by seven. Both stand under God, but not under identical law. This is not relativism but structured pluralism. As Maimonides wrote, the Noahide laws “were commanded to Adam, and renewed through Noah… and Moshe was commanded from Sinai to compel all the world to accept them” (Hilkhot Melakhim 9:1). Christianity and Islam preserve the prophetic address of God to humanity, but they flatten the plurality that covenant requires. The Noahide covenant honors their universal reach while reminding them that true universality is plural, not uniform.

The Witness of Cosmic Order

Other Asian traditions testify to cosmic order. Hinduism speaks of dharma, Taoism of the Tao, Confucianism of li—the law of being, the rhythm of nature, the propriety of society. These traditions perceive the world itself as ordered and human conduct as accountable to that order.

Therefore, they might say: if the cosmos itself is law, why add covenant? Why not rest in alignment with dharma or Tao, without reference to revelation?

Cosmic order is indeed real, but absent covenantal accountability it risks ossification. Dharma has legitimated caste hierarchies that deny justice. Li and Tao can sanctify harmony at the expense of the vulnerable. The Noahide covenant affirms the intuition that creation is ordered, but insists that order be measured by justice. It honors the wisdom of Asia while binding it to the Creator’s command that all human beings stand equal before Him.

The Witness of Compassion and Liberation

Buddhism—and in another register Stoicism and similar philosophies—testifies to discipline and compassion. Buddhism diagnoses suffering (dukkha) and prescribes the Eightfold Path: right conduct, right speech, right mindfulness. It cultivates compassion (karuṇā) and equanimity. Stoicism, in its way, teaches freedom from passion and rational acceptance of fate. These traditions elevate human ethical discipline to remarkable heights.

They argue that compassion does not require command. Why bind liberation to law when it can be cultivated through practice and wisdom?

However, compassion without covenant risks drifting into sentiment or detachment. It can cultivate self-perfection while neglecting justice for others. The Noahide covenant honors the Buddhist and Stoic discipline of compassion but binds it to command: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6). Law ensures that compassion is not merely personal discipline but universal responsibility.

The Witness of Spirit and Community

Indigenous religions testify to the sacredness of land, ancestors, and community. African religions, Native American traditions, Shinto—all perceive the world as relational, charged with spirit, woven through with obligations across generations. They embody horizontality and belonging.

They argue that local spirit suffices. Why impose universality when meaning is given in clan, ancestor, and land?

Local bonds are sacred, but fragment humanity if left alone. Worse, intermediaries—spirits, ancestors, idols—can displace the One Creator. The Noahide covenant affirms the communal intuition but lifts it into universality: one Creator, one human family, one law of justice. In this way, indigenous traditions are dignified as fragments of covenantal truth, not dismissed as error.

The Witness of the Whole

Judaism integrates the fragments. It embodies:

– Law: Israel bound by 613, nations by 7.

– History: Covenant revealed in time, through Sinai and exile.

– Cosmos: Torah as chokhma, “the Lord by wisdom founded the earth” (Proverbs 3:19).

– Spirit: Prophecy as divine-human dialogue.

Judaism’s role is not to abolish the wisdom of nations but to gather it. Each fragment—universality, cosmic order, compassion, community—is honored as testimony, but shown its measure in covenant.

Dialogic Gnosis and Self-Perfection

Prophecy is the hinge. Its essential contribution to religion is dialogic gnosis: the encounter in which the human intellect and imagination are addressed by God and respond. Prophecy is not passive reception but dialogue, fusing divine address with human comprehension. As Maimonides describes, prophecy is the perfection of the intellect and imagination elevated by divine overflow (shefaʿ elohi) (Guide of the Perplexed II:36–48).

Religion, conversely, contributes to prophecy by cultivating intellectual and psychological self-perfection. The prophet does not emerge in a vacuum. Maimonides insists that a prophet must be wise, morally disciplined, and of sound mind (Yesodei ha-Torah 7:1). Religion supplies the ethical, intellectual, and communal structures that prepare the soul for prophecy.

Thus prophecy and religion form a reciprocity:

– Religion prepares the human for prophecy.

– Prophecy raises religion into divine dialogue.

This framework clarifies the role of other religions. Put reductively for the sake of brief illustration:

– Christianity and Islam: preserve prophetic address but risk neglecting the human work of self-perfection in interpreting it.

– Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism: cultivate self-perfection but often without dialogic gnosis.

– Buddhism and Stoicism: refine discipline but risk dissolving dialogue into silence.

– Indigenous systems: glimpse relational gnosis but without intellectual refinement to discern true prophecy.

The Noahide covenant insists on both poles: self-perfection and dialogic gnosis, justice and wisdom, community and address.

Conclusion

Every religion testifies. Christianity and Islam to universality; Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism to cosmic order; Buddhism and Stoicism to compassion and discipline; indigenous systems to community and spirit. Judaism testifies to the whole: the covenant that integrates them all.

The Noahide covenant, reaffirmed at Sinai, honors the wisdom of the nations while binding them to justice and the Creator. It is universal without erasing difference. It dignifies fragments without letting them drift into distortion. And prophecy, understood as dialogic gnosis grounded in self-perfection, explains why covenant alone integrates the fragments: God addresses, humanity prepares, dialogue is sustained, and justice is secured.

Thus Judaism’s theology of religions is neither exclusivist nor relativist. It is covenantal. All peoples are included, none erased, each measured. In this way, the world’s religions are not rivals but testimonies—fragments which, gathered under the Noahide covenant, form a harmony pointing toward the wholeness of God’s purpose in creation and history.

Istanis and Orientation

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After considering recent literature reviews of peer-reviewed studies, my understanding that the consensus of the best scientific findings available regarding sexual orientation is that it is a combination of attraction and behavior, and is biologically-based with psychological next-order correspondences, stimuli, and effects, has been reinforced.

This does not mean much regarding a specific biblically-prohibited act (whose definition, I would note, is subject to the formulation of a national court). But regarding the associated rabbinic prohibitions, this may mean that a gay man may be exempt from those which cause him distress due to their conflict with his specific biological and psychological needs.

In this way (and I hope this is not inadvertently offensive to my gay friends – if it is, I will re-evaluate the approach), a gay Jewish man may find himself in a legal situation akin to that of an istanis, the most famous case of which is Rabban Gamliel himself, who exempted himself from rabbinic prohibitions related to mourning due to their conflict with his biological-psychological needs.

I hope to flesh this out with a more thorough treatment of the classical sources regarding both the rabbinic prohibitions relevant to gay men and the legal definition, concept, and status of the istanis, but I just wanted to share some thoughts that have coalesced in the wake of several conversations that ensued from my post about gay rabbis (which itself was only brought about by the divine providence of two things being juxtaposed in my experience last week).

Gay Rabbis

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I’m honestly confused by the opposition to gay rabbis.

To my limited knowledge as someone who is not gay, it would seem obvious that being gay – or even being in a gay marriage – does not necessarily mean that one does something that is clearly prohibited by our law (at the present time).

Where is the presumption of good faith? Why don’t we extend it to a gay rabbi?

By the same token, being gay is just one aspect of someone’s sexuality that even while it informs many parts of their life certainly doesn’t define the totality of who they are as a person.

Why reduce a gay rabbi to their sexuality? Do we do that with non-gay rabbis? Why can’t a gay rabbi be viewed in the same light that acknowledges their full being and behavior, as their hetero colleagues?

It just seems like a double-standard that, while it can play to popular interpretations of certain texts, traditions, and laws, ultimately fails to explain why some people should be judged differently than others.

As a (neo 😬)maimonidean, I’m just really unpersuaded by the opposition.