Honoring the Divine as Virtue and Practice in Maimonides

IF 0.2 2区 哲学 0 PHILOSOPHY JOURNAL OF JEWISH THOUGHT & PHILOSOPHY Pub Date : 2008-01-01 DOI:10.1163/105369908786611523
Don Seeman
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引用次数: 4

Abstract

Honoring the divine is central to Maimonides' ethical and religious phenomenology. It connotes the recognition of radical divine incommensurability and points to the hard limits of human ability to know God. Yet it also signals the importance of philosophical speculation within those limits, indicating the intellectual and ethical telos of human life. For Maimonides, to honor or show kavod to God is closely related to the meaning of the divine glory (also known as kavod) that Moses demands to see in Exodus 33. Moses' demand to see the kavod is usually interpreted as a quest for some visible sign of God's presence or, at least, for a created light whose existence could testify to the authenticity of Moses' prophecy. Maimonides is alone among early interpreters in treating Exodus 33 as a parable of the philosophical quest to apprehend divine uniqueness, which leads first to negative theology and then to imitatio Dei. This article argues that the theme of divine kavod links Maimonides' philosophical, literary, and even medical concerns with his practical religious teaching, and connects the Guide of the Perplexed with his other legal and interpretive works. Maimonides' consistent fascination with Exodus 33 helps to organize his reflections on human perfection, ethics, and the relationship between idolatry and everyday religious language, distinguishing him from dominant trends in both Judaeo-Arabic and later kabbalistic thought.
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迈蒙尼德对神圣的美德和实践的尊崇
尊敬神是迈蒙尼德伦理和宗教现象学的核心。它暗示了对根本的神圣不可通约性的承认,并指出了人类认识上帝的能力的硬性限制。然而,它也表明了在这些限制范围内哲学思考的重要性,表明了人类生活的智力和伦理目的。对于迈蒙尼德来说,尊敬或向上帝展示kavod与摩西在出埃及记33章中要求看到的神圣荣耀(也被称为kavod)的含义密切相关。摩西要求看到卡沃德通常被解释为寻求一些可见的上帝存在的迹象,或者至少,为一个创造的光,其存在可以证明摩西的预言的真实性。迈蒙尼德是唯一一个将《出埃及记》第33章作为哲学探索的寓言,来理解神的独特性,这首先导致了消极神学,然后是对神的模仿。本文认为,神圣的kavod主题将迈蒙尼德的哲学,文学,甚至医学关注与他的实际宗教教学联系起来,并将《困惑指南》与他的其他法律和解释作品联系起来。迈蒙尼德对《出埃及记》第33章的一贯迷恋有助于组织他对人类完美、伦理、偶像崇拜和日常宗教语言之间关系的思考,使他与犹太-阿拉伯语和后来的卡巴拉思想的主导趋势区别开来。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.40
自引率
25.00%
发文量
12
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