After thinking about it for a while, I realized that it would be more interesting to present the topic not as a survey of different views of Maimonides on prayer, but rather a survey of how extreme interpretations on Maimonides can get. When a writer writes so much, as Maimonides did, you're bound to have different views of what he meant and how he held. But it seems that no other author can be claimed by one major scholar as, basically, an atheist, who hid this fact by writing religious books, and by another major scholar as a religious Jew to the max. The reason this is possible for interpreters of Maimonides is because these scholars believe that Maimonides was an esotericist, someone who hides his true opinion in a myriad of other comments and contradictions. In fact, Maimonides describes this method approvingly, as we will see, in his Guide to the Perplexed. Thus, it is up to the reader to figure out Maimonides' "true" opinion, and so one can pick one area of his writings as the main view on the matter, and dismiss others.
As with everything else in Maimonides' thought, prayer has also had this treatment, and it is here I will explicate it.
Maimonides appeared to entertain two incompatible models of prayer in his writings: the laudatory, petitionary prayer of religious passion, as described in the Talmud, and a new conception of the purely contemplative prayer of philosophical inquiry.
These models directly arise from Maimonides’ two seemingly contradictory models of God and His interaction with mankind. In one model, God is a very personal and imminent God, the God of simple religion and of the Bible and Talmud, a God who inspires praise in man, a God who will grant requests should man ask of them, and punish the wicked and reward the righteous. This model of God is fit for prayer, and Maimonides speaks about this model of God in several places, including his Commentary to the Mishnah, his Guide for the Perplexed, and in his Code of Jewish Law. (For examples, see Commenatry to Messechet Berachot (4:2), (4:4), (4:5) see also (9:4), Mesechet Sota (7:5) also Introduction to Commentary on the Mishnah, ed. Y. Kafih (Jerusalem, 1964), 35-36. Also see the Guide, where he writes God punished the people (1:10), where he writes that God became angry in His heart (1:29), where he writes that when one worships idols, he invokes God’s wrath and jealousy (1:36), where Moses prays for forgiveness for the Israelites, and his request was granted (1:54). See his Code of Jewish Law, most obviously in Hilchot Tefillah and Hilchot Berachot)
The other model of God, set forth more obviously in the Guide for the Perplexed (henceforth the Guide), is the absolutely transcendent God, a philosophical God, a completely unfathomable being who cannot be qualified or defined or changed, and is completely outside of human experience. Indeed, according to Maimonides, the only way to talk about this God is to describe him in terms of negative attributes, and never positive ones. This model of God cannot possibly interact with man, cannot be praised by man (for such praise would be limited and necessarily philosophically incoherent), and cannot be changed or moved by petition. Praying to this God for change in this world would be nonsensical. (For all these concepts of God, see the Guide. Negative attributes (1:52), absolute simplicity (1:28), absolute immutability (1:55), absolute incorporeality (1:57), unable to be imagined by the human mind at all (1:51-52), cannot be described in relation to anything (1:52, 56), no emotions (1:55). See Reines’ Maimonides’ True Belief Concerning God for examples of contradictions in the Guide itself to these principles.)1. The Sources
The Babylonian Talmud, Taanit 2a states:
And how do we know that [rain is to be requested] during prayer? – It is taught in a Baraita: “To love the Lord your God and to worship Him with all your heart.” (Deuteronomy 11:13) What is Worship of Heart (avoda sheb’lev)? This must be prayer. And the verse following that reads, “That I will give the rain of your land in its season, the early rain and the late rain.”
We clearly see that the definition of “avoda sheb’lev” as being prayer, in which we request things, in this case, rain for crops. The Talmud sees this as implicit in the words of the Bible, which first mentions serving God with all ones’ heart (prayer), and afterwards mentions that God will grant the request, the rain in its season. Maimonides codifies this in the beginning of Hilchot Tefillah (1:1):
It is a positive commandment to pray every day, as it says: "And you shall worship the Lord your God". From oral tradition we learn that this worship is prayer, as it says "...and to worship Him with all of your heart...", the Rabbis said (Taanit 2a): What sort of worship is there with the heart? - Prayer. The number of [daily] prayer is not mandated by the Torah, nor is the liturgy of prayer mandated by the Torah, nor does prayer have a set time from the Torah.
Maimonides clearly interprets the verse of “avoda sheb’lev” as the Talmud does, to mean prayer. Now we find something interesting. In the Guide, Maimonides mentions this concept of “avoda sheb’lev”, but in quite another context (3:51):
The true worship of God is only possible when correct notions of Him have previously been conceived. When you have arrived by way of intellectual research at a knowledge of God and His works, then commence to devote yourselves to Him, try to approach Him and strengthen the intellect, which is the link that joins you to Him… Thus the Law distinctly states that the highest kind of worship to which we refer in this chapter, is only possible after the acquisition of the knowledge of God. For it is said," To love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut. xi. 13), and, as we have shown several times, man's love of God is identical with His knowledge of Him.
As we saw, the Talmud in Tannit and Maimonides in Hilchot Tefillah both interpret this verse to be referring to prayer, yet now Maimonides defines worship of God as pure meditation, using this exact verse. At this point, we may suggest that Maimonides is setting up a purely meditative conception of prayer, which does not conflict with his formulation of the law in Hilchot Tefillah (because it doesn’t include the Talmud’s connection to requests for rain). An example of this conception of prayer is found in the Guide, (3:32), where Maimonides explains why the ancient Israelites were not commanded to pray as we do today:
It is, namely, impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other: it is therefore according to the nature of man impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed… The Israelites were commanded to devote themselves to His service; "and to serve him with all your heart”…But the custom which was in those days general among all men, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were brought up, consisted in sacrificing animals in those temples which contained certain images, to bow down to those images, and to burn incense before them; religious and ascetic persons were in those days the persons that were devoted to the service in the temples erected to the stars, as has been explained by us. It was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God, as displayed in the whole Creation, that He did not command us to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service; for to obey such a commandment it would have been contrary to the nature of man, who generally cleaves to that to which he is used; it would in those days have made the same impression as a prophet would make at present if he called us to the service of God and told us in His name, that we should not pray to Him, not fast, not seek His help in time of trouble; that we should serve Him in thought, and not by any action.
Here we see that Maimonides is comparing extremes: it would be near-impossible for the ancient Israelites to conceive of worship as prayer without sacrifice, just as much as it would be near-impossible for a prophet to come in our day and claim that worship is to be done with the mind, and with no words at all. By comparing the two, Maimonides seems to be saying that the highest form of worship is meditation, but would not be accepted by the masses, so it is not commanded. This interpretation is a point of contention, as we shall see soon.
Another example is found in the Guide, (1:59), where Maimonides writes of true worship of God- unspoken praise and understanding:
Since it is a well-known fact that even that knowledge of God which is accessible to man cannot be attained except by negations, and that negations do not convey a true idea of the being to which they refer, all people, both of past and present generations, declared that God cannot be the object of human comprehension, that none but Himself comprehends what He is, and that our knowledge consists in knowing that we are unable truly to comprehend Him… The idea is best expressed in the book of Psalms, "Silence is praise to Thee" (lxv. 2). It is a very expressive remark on this subject; for whatever we utter with the intention of extolling and of praising Him, contains something that cannot be applied to God, and includes derogatory expressions; it is therefore more becoming to be silent, and to be content with intellectual reflection, as has been recommended by men of the highest culture, in the words "Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still" (Ps. iv. 4).
This should apply to prayer as well. However, there several problems with attempting to ascribe to Maimonides this conception of purely meditative worship.
One such issue is that there are several places where Maimonides indicates or implies that God responds to prayer. That is clearly not under the framework of meditative contemplation. While Maimonides does not include in Hilchot Tefillah the Talmud’s relationship between prayer and the promise of reward (of which there are many passages in the Talmud indicating such a position), he does seem to take this position in Hilchot Teshuva 2:6, where he follows the Talmud’s assurances that community prayer will be answered if performed correctly:
With respect to a community [in contrast with an individual], whenever its members repent and offer supplications with sincere hearts, they are answered, as it is said, “For what great nation is there that hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God, whensoever we call to Him.”
Another example is in Hilchot Mattanot Aniyyim 10:16, where Maimonides promises that even individuals who are especially worthy receive divine attention:
Whoever feeds the poor and the orphaned at his table – if he calls out to God, He answers him, for it is written, “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord will answer.”
In addition, Maimonides mentions an alternative definition of the word "shema" in the Guide for the Perplexed (1:45):
When, however, according to the literal interpretation the verb appears to have the second signification, it implies that God responded to the prayer of man and fulfilled his wish, or did not respond and did not fulfill his wish:” I will surely hear his cry” (Exod. Xxii. 23):” I will hear, for I am gracious” (ib. 27):” Bow down thine ear, and hear” (2 Kings xix. 16):” But the Lord would not hearken to your voice, nor give ear unto you” (Deut. i. 45):” Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear” (Isa. i. 15):" For I will not hear thee (Jer. vii. 16). There are many instances in which shema' has this sense.
Here, Maimonides defined many verses that use shema in the Bible to refer to God responding to prayer. Once again, we see Maimonides setting up a system of prayer in which we can pray to God, and God will answer our prayers. This is very much the same as what seems to be the Talmud’s (and most religious people's) position on the matter, but it does don’t seem to match up with Maimonides’ conception of meditative worship (or of God, and Divine Providence, which are concepts too lengthy to be discussed here).
Another problem is that Maimonides also accepts the Talmud’s conversion from the biblical form of prayer to a set text. A set text would seem to interfere with a meditative worship, which should be silent praise or contemplation, according to what we have seen in the Guide. The biblical view of prayer seemed to be of an extemporaneous quality, where one expressed one’s own thoughts to God, whenever one felt like it. Abraham prays to God using his own arguments in his attempt to save the city of Sodom. Moses prays to God to heal his sister from leprosy, using the famously short prayer “O God, heal her, I beseech thee.” In contrast, the Talmud set prayer by certain times during the day and night, and says that the Great Assembly composed the prayer called the Amidah, or the Eighteen Blessings. This innovation, accepted by Maimonides, does not conform to his apparent conception of prayer as meditation. Maimonides, in fact, projects onto the original biblical obligation of prayer the need to construct it in the order of “Praise, Petition, and Thanksgiving”, as we see in Hilchot Tefillah, (1:2), when he ostensibly had no need to do so:
[Since we have established in the previous law that prayer is a divine commandment with no specific time for it,] therefore, women and slaves are obligated in prayer because it is a positive commandment that is not caused by time. Rather, the obligation of the commandment is such: That a person should plead and pray every day and tell the praise of God (“Praise”), then ask for his needs by requesting and pleading (“Petition”), and then give praise and thanks to God for the good which He has granted him (“Thanksgiving”), each person according to his ability.
If prayer is meant as a meditation, what is the point of a specific order of expression? Additionally, as we have said, praise of God is inherently nonsensical and can only detract from God, since it necessarily defines him. So how can there be an obligation to praise Him? Similarly, what is the purpose of asking for our needs, when Maimonides clearly states in many places that God cannot be convinced or change his mind?
The following are three different solutions offered by Alvin Reines, Marvin Fox, and Ehud Benor, respectively.
Alvin Reines is most known for his establishment of the Polydox Institute, which believes in individual expression of religion. As we shall see, he takes the position that Maimonides didn't actually believe prayer worked.
Marvin Fox was a professor at Brandeis, and published several books on Maimonides. As we shall see, he believed that Maimonides never could reconcile his belief in Aristotilena philosophy and his belief in Judaism, and thus believed in both.
Lastly, Ehud Benor is an associate professor at Dartmouth, specializing in Jewish studies. He believes that Maimonides understood prayer as subjectively meaningful in the human religious experience, which helps even the philosopher in his religious outlook. Thus, prayer is effective because it's supposed to affect us, but God is still transcendant at the end of the day I think this is the most compelling.
Let's start:2. Reines and the Purely Transcendent God
Alvin J. Reines suggests that Maimonides absolutely rejected the rabbinical view of a qualified-transcendent God, in favor of an absolute transcendence of God, and, thus, prayer is to be purely of a meditative, philosophical quality. What of the many statements of Maimonides in the Guide that indicate his belief in a rabbinical system of a set text, and of reward, punishment, etcetera? Reines believes it is all meant as obfuscation, intended so that the unqualified (read: philosophically uninformed) reader will not know Maimonides’ true beliefs.
Maimonides himself writes in the introduction to the Guide that he has intentionally included contradictions in his Guide, for several reasons. Relevant to us is the fifth and seventh type of contradiction. The fifth type of contradiction is a contradiction that is intended to create a basis of understanding early on in something very difficult to conceive of, by use of an exaggerated example or lax language, in order to set it well in the student’s mind, and then later the teacher can have a chance to explain that difficult concept more fully and accurately. The seventh type of contradiction is one where the teacher wishes to make sure a certain deep concept will only be understood by some, and not by others. He will therefore set the concept in one premise, and later will introduce it later in a contradictory premise, and in this way will conceal the matter so the truly wise will understand. Now, which kind of contradiction was Maimonides employing? Since the concept of God as an absolute transcendent deity is not made as a pre-concept to let us gain knowledge of God as an imminent or a qualified-transcendent deity, the fifth type does not seem to be applicable here. So, it must be the seventh type, in which Maimonides attempted to conceal the fact that he did not believe in a God that influenced the world in any way supernaturally. As Reines writes,3. Marvin Fox and the Balance of Dialectical Tension
It seems clear that Maimonides was attempting to conceal the absolute transcendence concept. For there would be no cause for Maimonides to keep the qualified transcendence view of deity from the multitude, namely, the philosophically untrained rabbis and laypersons who subscribed to Rabbinic Judaism…For Maimonides… prophecy, providence, and soteria as conceived by Rabbinic Judaism are fantasies produced by the imagination, and false. Maimonides holds that prophecy, providence, and soteria are natural events.
For fairly obvious reasons, Maimonides would seek to conceal this. Reines lists three: First, that Maimonides knew he would be accused of heresy by the multitudes of Rabbinic Jews, and wanted to avoid confrontation. Secondly, Maimonides believed that there was a moral imperative to conceal certain truths from the masses, as it would only injure the unsophisticated who would receive it. And lastly, even the sophisticated may be disheartened with some such beliefs (i.e. that God has no possible knowledge of humans), and that other such beliefs (i.e. no reward and punishment) may lead to social disorder.
According to Reines, this mode of religious life, that of pure meditation and philosophical inquiry, was what Maimonides was hinting to in what he calls “remarkable passage” from the Guide (3:32), quoted above, in which Maimonides indicates that prayer is a concession, just as much as sacrifices were a concession to the ancient Israelites in the desert. The other scholars we will discuss find this passage important to their opinions as well.
Reines sees there an allusion that perhaps Maimonides imagined himself similar to the prophet Moses, in that he could not reveal the true religion to the masses who would reject his philosophical religion, for it was all too foreign for them. Thus, Maimonides true belief of pure philosophy was to remain hidden in his works, only for the truly knowledgeable to uncover.
4. Ehud Benor and Prayer as True “Worship of the Heart”
Marvin Fox dismisses Reines’ approach as irresponsible and facile. The “neat and easy” solution of scholars such as that of Reines’, that certain writings were meant for the masses, and certain ones for the philosophically sophisticated, do not take into account Maimonides personal life. Fox cites a letter of Maimonides, in which Maimonides himself describes what he did after a sea voyage he was on that was intended for Palestine from Fez almost sunk in a storm that lasted six days:
It was my vow that I would spend the tenth day of Iyyar [the day of the storm’s end] in solitude, that I would see no man but would for that entire day devote myself to private prayer and study. Just as on that day I found in the stormy sea no one but the Holy One, blessed be He, so would I on the annual day of commemoration see no one unless circumstances forced me to do so.Fox can’t see this as the thinking or practice of a man who believed that prayer is only for the masses. Of course, Reines could answer that perhaps he spent that day every year fasting, in meditation and in study, and not in formal prayer of rabbinical Judaism, for the simple reason of setting an emotional day into a day of intense religious worship. Fox does not understand this story that way, however, and proceeds to provide his own answer: Maimonides maintained both positions, that of conventional worship, and that of philosophical worship, simultaneously, precariously balancing them together in a “severe dialectical tension.” While Maimonides recognized that conventional religious thought was simply incompatible with philosophy, he did not, indeed could not, reject the rabbinical view for the philosophical view. Maimonides believed, writes Fox, that as human beings, we have a higher nature that must be served, knowing that our philosophical knowledge is forever limited in this sense. While a pure, disembodied intellect may be able to worship God without the “necessary beliefs” of religion, we must recognize that we are not, and serve God accordingly:
The philosophic beliefs are necessary for any reflective individual, because they are demonstrated, and thus command our assent. These philosophical beliefs, however, are incomplete – as is the case, for example, with respect to the problem of creation…We can never have total and complete knowledge. We can never avoid the profession of some beliefs that are undemonstrated, and, perhaps, undemonstrable. This is the case not only because our intellect is limited. If this were the sole problem, then we might simply suspend belief and profess agnosticism with respect to such matters… We are, however, not only philosophers. We are human beings. We live in a society that must be ordered. We have a higher nature that must be served… Our hearts long for fellowship with God, and our minds struggle to find evidence of His presence in this world.
Let us remind ourselves of Reines' citation of Maimonides’ “remarkable passage” in the Guide. Reines had interpreted that piece as Maimonides’ hint that the true religious life is that of philosophical meditation, and that prayer is a concession for the masses who can only conceive of worship with words and action, just as sacrifices were a concession for the ancient Israelites who could only conceive of worship as that of sacrifices and incense. On the other hand, Fox calling this passage a “key statement” towards what may be Maimonides’ true position of prayer, interprets this passage as Maimonides telling his reader that the human condition is that we should need to worship God in some way. Even the philosophic man recognizes this. While this is indeed a concession, it is not a concession to primitive understandings, like Reines, but rather it is a concession to the human psyche, that applies always, from Moses to Maimonides. Fox sees this in Maimonides’ words in the Guide (3:44), emphasis mine:
The actions prescribed by them serve to remind us continually of God, and of our duty to fear and to love Him, to keep all His commandments, and to believe concerning God that which every religious person must believe. This class includes the laws of Prayer, Reading of Shema, Grace, and duties connected with these, Blessing of the priests, Tefillin, Mezuzah, Zizit, acquiring a scroll of the Law, and reading in it at certain times. The performance of all these precepts inculcates into our heart useful lessons. All this is clear, and a further explanation is superfluous, as being a mere repetition and nothing else.
Prayer, Fox argues, is a tool towards intellectual and emotional apprehension of God, which applies to everyone under the law, at all times. As opposed to Reines, who sees Maimonides as rejecting the rabbinic model in favor of his own, Fox sees Maimonides as using the rabbinic model as a vehicle for the love of God that fulfills the human need of feeling companionship with God. By praising God with his mouth, the religious man can inculcate within himself a certain love of God. The rabbinic model of praise and requests “only serve as a propaedeutic, a discipline that guides us and prepares us for the life of true worship.” While the model may be lacking in philosophic clarity, it allows us to follow a path that will lead us to proper worship of God, the man who sees God in creation, in his life. While we may seek to find philosophical answers, we must also seek a religious life in tandem with that, even if it is contradictory to it.
Let us review quickly. When faced with two contradictory concepts in Maimonides’ writings about prayer, Reines believes that one or the other must be true, and therefore opines that Maimonides believed his philosophical conception about God and prayer, and not his religious conception. On the other hand, Fox sees Maimonides maintaining both his philosophical beliefs and his religious beliefs at once, in “severe dialectical tension.” Benor, however, attempts to show how Maimonides’ beliefs about prayer are not contradictory at all.
He first points out that scholars such as Reines and Fox are making a mistake when they assume that God is Maimonides’ object of theoretical contemplation. Instead, Benor argues, the object of the religious man’s theoretical contemplation is the world. Maimonides clearly writes in the Guide (1:54) that although one cannot know God, being of an absolute transcendent quality, we learn from Moses’s attempt to gain knowledge of God that one can acquire a valid conception of God through his attributes:
The wisest man, our teacher Moses, asked two things of God, and received a reply respecting both. The one thing he asked was, that God should let him know His true essence: the other, which in fact he asked first, that God should let him know His attributes. In answer to both these petitions God promised that He would let him know all His attributes, and that these were nothing but His actions. He also told him that His true essence could not be perceived, and pointed out a method by which he could obtain the utmost knowledge of God possible for man to acquire… Consider how many excellent ideas found expression in the words, "Show me thy way, that I may know thee." We learn from them that God is known by His attributes, for Moses believed that he knew Him, when he was shown the way of God. The words "That I may find grace in thy sight," imply that he who knows God finds grace in His eyes.Through attempting to understand God’s attributes, one reaches the highest level of philosophical inquiry. Because of God’s absolute transcendence, Benor argues, Maimonides
“…makes it necessary to construct a speculative idea of God that informs our thoughts about God, and prevents perplexities that follow from uncritical understanding of the negative meaning of predicates that are attributed to God. Given these assumptions that can only be explained here but not defended, I believe that Maimonides had sufficient reason to allow the predicate ‘Hearer of Prayer’ to be included in the speculative idea of God that the divine attributes of action construct, an attribution that the benediction formula of prayer inculcates into everyday consciousness.”
Therefore, even though prayer is a paradox in the reality of God’s existence, it is still possible to entertain the concept of God as a hearer of prayer because of a gap in our ability to understand God, and our human need to understand Him in some form, namely in the form of His attributes.
We also have a need for an action to inculcate with ourselves an emotional love of God. Therefore, we construct some action, namely prayer, in which to do that. Benor points out that Maimonides specifies in Hilchot Tefillah (4:16) the need to feel as if one is standing in front of the divine presence, more than any other commandment. This act of standing and cultivating a feeling of awe, respect, fear and love, is a large part of the religious experience.
If this is the purpose of prayer, to cultivate feelings about God in our minds, why does Maimonides construct them with the formula of “Praise, Petition, and Thanksgiving”, as he does in Hilchot Tefillah? Benor contends that Maimonides viewed these all under the general rubric of a complex form of thanksgiving. He proves this from a law in Maimonides’ Hilchot Berachot (1:3):
All blessings, accordingly, fall into three kinds: blessings recited when partaking of material enjoyments, blessings recited when fulfilling religious duties, and blessings of thanksgiving, which have the character of praise, thanksgiving, and supplication, and the purpose of which is that we should always have the Creator in mind and revere Him.From here we see Maimonides explaining the form of thanksgiving as “Praise, Petition, and Thanksgiving”. Taking this into account with what we have seen previously in the Guide, the purpose of this complex form of thanksgiving is to attempt to constantly have God on our minds, as if we are constantly before God. To give some thanksgiving to God, it is necessary to instill an understanding of man’s place in the universe, his utter powerlessness in the universe, and an appreciation of God’s graciousness. This is the essence of praise. Similarly, he needs to constantly remind himself of his mission, and what he needs, “rather than what one happens to want at any given moment.” This is the essence of petition.
Understanding the greatness of God that surpasses all existence, awareness of the ultimate dependence of all that is on the being of God, and acknowledgement of the pure graciousness of the divine sustenance of the universe, are necessary elements of the supreme form of worship, the intellectual love of God. Maimonides brings these three elements to daily prayer through the required three-fold structure. They are represented in prayer in the form of praise, petition, and thanksgiving, and allow the basic element of the contemplative life to be naturally integrated in daily life.Maimonides believed that prayer such as this used to be individualistic expression, says Benor, but as the people became inarticulate in their theological understandings, there was a danger of “inadvertent blasphemy”, of expression about God becoming impure. Therefore, the rabbis of the Talmud stepped in to prevent this, providing a “safe text” in which to articulate these essential characters of prayer.
Interestingly, Benor views Maimonides as taking a cue from Aristotle in his concept of petition in prayer. The Aristotelian conception of valuation is that there is a difference between “considering something good because it happens to be desired, and desiring something because it is what a person of practical wisdom would desire. Learning to desire the good is an essential part of a proper Aristotelian cultivation of human perfection.” Instead of praying because we want something, petition is wanting something because we prayed for it. In this way, we find what is actually valuable in life, and we learn to want for ourselves “the kinds of things that can be thought to have been primordially programmed by God into the general structure of providence. Prayers of this kind are attempts to bring the worshipper’s will into conformity with divine wisdom. Naturally, they neither presuppose nor propose changes in divine will.”
Benor thus rejects Reines and Fox’s assumption that Maimonides’ conceptions of prayer are incompatible. He rejects Reines’ decision of “one or the other”, and the decision of not attempting to truly reconcile the positions. He rejects Fox’s position that prayer is necessarily a concession, and not the perfect form of worship. He, like Reines and Fox, considers the passage in the Guide (3:32) a pivotal consideration in interpreting Maimonides’ true belief of prayer. While Reines believes Maimonides is referring to a concession to the philosophically uninitiated who need prayer, and Fox believes Maimonides is referring to a concession of the human psyche that needs prayer, Benor believes that Maimonides is not referring to a concession at all, but to a process of perfection. Even the most sophisticated philosopher needs to engage in prayer, for the ultimate thanksgiving it provides in its structure. But eventually, the more a man progresses in his ability to articulate his thanks to God, and inculcate within himself a feeling of standing in the presence of God, the more he is able to transcend the rabbinic structure of prayer when he feels the urge, offering his own thanks to God any time of day. This type of thanks is no longer called prayer, says Benor, but “purely intellectual meditation… Sacrifice, prayer, and meditation… create a complex ritual matrix that allows every member of the community to live in the presence of God, and support individualistic contemplative aspirations.”
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