Mosaic Metaphysics

        

By: Jonathan Seidel

From Moses to Moses: dogma vs dogma-less    

Maimonides and Mendelssohn are the opposites of one another. Both sought to ground Judaism in law but one chose to espouse a creedal structure while the other mitigated its historicity. The necessity of a Jewish theology rests on a foundation of religious expression. The rise of metaphysical speculation inspired Maimonides and the downfall of metaphysical speculation inspired Mendelssohn. 

Maimonides first mentions the creed in his commentary to the Mishnah. His model pointed to thirteen central aspects of Judaism. These were the eternal matters always applicable. They are the foundation of religiosity. Ironically, though we read his principles charted numerically the original formation is listed at the end of the first chapter following an extended theological digest. Even the principles themselves are poetically expansive. Their compartmentalisation into one sentence summaries excuses his ranting. It also misconstrues his context and his intent. His creed is a tangential explanation of divine mastery. The first principle we note is God is the creator of everything in the past present and future. In his commentary he adds the philosophical discussion emulating the inconceivability of the lack of God leading to the lack of existence is a falsehood. God is beyond and is self sufficient and is the root of all life’s survival. He concludes this principle by citing a biblical text to authenticate. Maimonides grounded Judaism in a certain dogmas that were more  than statements. He elaborated on their significance in positing their philosophical voice. Philosophical thinking enjoined theology.    

His commentary of the Mishnah lays out the principles numerically aligned. They are extensively discussed but are translated differently in his code. The first few points are dedicated to resembling the first principle. There are a few additional extras with quotes from Jeremiah and Exodus. The biblical quotations are prophetically embraced. The principles are unified. God as the creator is linked to God who is the only. Within this praise he espouses God’s greatness and power as the transition from his existence to his oneness. The theological structure is an expanded version as more than a listing of creedal elements. The legal codes aspires to contain an introductory section of reiterating the principles in the matrix of religious conviction. Further, the opening to the Mishnah Torah is not about belief but about the core of wisdom. There is no term belief in the entire intro. Maimonides presents these principles as proven wisdom of the world. The codex was to educate the layman. The halakhic code necessarily required a theological exposition to advise and inspire the average individual.     

In the Guide it is not compiled in a standard list but is presented periodically. The principles are intertextually proscribed so divine creation is mixed with divine corporeality. The philosophical treatise intentionally avoids a categorical creedal system, instead opting for a philosophical tangent. Book one of the guide is tailored to the first few principles explored more deeply. A majority of the chapters are interpreting words and their source. Maligning anthropomorphic terminology, he spent much of this section figuratively explaining these terms. Chapters 35 and 36 take a breather from the linguistic analysis and dive into a theological resurrection of his earlier works. It quickly lists the principles in a lump of divine supremacy and greatness. He explains the philosophical backing for his existence, oneness and incorporeality. This is not popular wisdom but for the intellectually stimulated to comprehend these elements on a larger scale. It is the basis of his negative theology. His commentary-like philosophical work explains intellectually how the doctrines fit into the realistic plane of existence. By demonstrating the metaphorical nature of the biblical text to educate only the learned individual. The philosopher does not need the divided categories for his limited capacity. The goal is to combine them all into a well felt belief in God’s grace. 

Contrary to Maimonides’ creedal model, Mendelssohn’s ‘dogma-less’ Judaism is misconstrued. The historical representation thus fits with the enlightenment’s rejection of christianised dogmatism. Mendelssohn does not mention dogma anywhere in his writings. His preoccupation with a legal foundation proposed revealed legislation. This is not a thorough orthoprax model mitigating the dogmatic criteria but instead the law subverting theology. Theology is secondary to the centrepiece of law. Law is interconnected with the ritual landscape. The ritual law revealed at Sinai presented universal principles. Revelation was not solely Jewish law but also Jewish theology. The principles are attached to the legal transmission from God to man. Reason is not dislocated from revelation. Even such a grand event fascinated an intellectual spirit of universality and rationality. Ritual and dogma are symbiotically related, intertwined in the service of Judaism. 

He did not accept christianised forms of dogma. Such doctrines are divinely commanded known only through revelation and confirmed by the clergy. Judaism is not a divine doctrinal model but a rationally comprehended system. Its universal appearance diametrically opposes any christian ideology. The divine is conceived by the finite but not compelled. The rational aspect is foreign to the christian claim. The dogma is a belief that is warranted by the people but not coerced. In doing so, he bases his position in the biblical text. The autonomous intellectual understanding of the divine nature is the Jewish pride of resisting the clerical celestial for the law. The legal and historical facility was Jewish while the the universal is the immanent. Mendelssohn focused phenomenologically from the perspective of the believer that certainty justifies the doctrine over belief. Theology was an intellectualised deduction over a faith article. The rationality voids the heteronomous belief for autonomous representation. 

Mendelssohn’s model contrasted with Maimonides. Though eventually accepted and articulated into the ani maamin principles, the medieval scholars disputed Maimonides uniformity. Maimonides delegated who is considered a Jew while Mendelssohn sought to understand Judaism as a whole. There are central tenants of Judaism but they are more than mere statements. Judaism is a lifestyle. The tenants are rationally conceived into a model framework to live by. He incorporated the noahide laws as one such aspect of universalistic rationality. Mendelssohn supplied a rational basis to the supernal character of religiosity. Rationality was directly related to the Jewish feature. Theology eschewed an inconceivable matrix and logically could be comprehended.