Chukim and Rambam's Reason For Shiluach Haken

I have had many discussions about the concept of chukim in the Torah. Inevitably, someone will say, "A chok is a mitzva that makes no logical sense." I've even heard, "The chukim teach you that there is no reason for any mitzva." I usually ask about whether not murdering makes sense, or I mention the argument whether the arayot are chukim, and that usually makes them change their tune. But while I disagree with this answer, and I believe the many rishonim who wrote books which gave reasons for the commandments disagreed with it, there is many sources that seem to lend this support the concept in the Talmud, for example Berachot 33b:

מתני' האומר על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך ועל טוב יזכר שמך מודים מודים משתקין אותו: גמ' ...על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך מ"ט פליגי בה תרי אמוראי במערבא רבי יוסי בר אבין ורבי יוסי בר זבידא חד אמר מפני שמטיל קנאה במעשה בראשית וחד אמר מפני שעושה מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא רחמים ואינן אלא גזרות

Mishna: If one [in prayer] says, "Your mercy reaches to the bird's nest",  "Your name should be remembered for the good things," or "We acknowledge , We acknowledge " he is silenced.

Gemara: ...  "Your mercy reaches to the bird's nest" - Why [is it forbidden to say]? Two amaraim argued in the West, one Rabbi Yossi Bar Avin, the other Rabbi Yossi bar Zvida. One said, "Because it places jealousy into the natural world [that God only has mercy for the bird]." The other one said, "Because he presents the measures taken by the Holy One, blessed be He, as springing from compassion, whereas they are but decrees."

Thus, at least according to one opinion in the Talmud, there is no reason that we are allowed to posit for the commandment to send away the mother bird.

(As an aside, while we're on the topic, Rav Reuven Margolios has a fantastic book which is dedicated to figuring out all the "one said this... one said that..." of the Talmud, called Shem Olam. I think it goes without saying that such a project, before the age of computers (and even were it so), bespeaks a great deal towards Rav Reuven's genius. Since we have a "one said... one said..." we might as well use it. 
The same argument pops up in Yerushalmi Berachot 5:3, where it says "Rabbi Yossi (and when it says just Rabbi Yossi, it means Rabbi Yossi bar Zvida, see Yerushalmi Challah 1:1 and Bavli Menachot 70a) says in the name Rabbi Simone, 'It is like setting a limit on God's mercy [that it only extends to birds but not other creatures].' Rabbi Yossi bey R' Bon [similar to "Bar Avin"], 'Because he presents the measures taken by the Holy One, blessed be He, as springing from compassion..." See also Yerushalmi Megillah 4:10.)

(Another interesting aside is the grammatical mistake that is often made when pronouncing "shiluach haken" as "shiluach hakan". This mistake stems from the use of the phrase "kan tzipur", with a patach, which is meant to show possession. So people started to call it "shiluach hakan". I laughed out loud in the seforim store when I found an entire book devoted to the mitzva called "A Practical Guide to the Mitzva of Shiluach HaKan." !!! To their credit, pretty early on in the book they explain the grammatical situation, and say that they asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who advised they go against the grammar, and go for common usage. Interesting, but I can't fathom that logic.)

The Rambam in the Guide for the Perplexed (3:48) goes explicitly against the second opinion here:

This is also the reason for the commandment to let [the mother] go from the nest. For in general the eggs over which the bird has sat and the young that need their mother are not fit to be eaten. If then the mother is let go and escapes of her own accord, she will not be pained by seeing that the young are taken away. In most cases this will lead to people leaving everything alone, for what may be taken is in most cases not fit to be eaten. If the Law takes into consideration these pains of the soul in the case of beast and birds, what will be the case with regard to the individuals of the human species as a whole? You must not allege as an objection against me the dictum of [the Sages], may their memory be blessed: He who says: Thy mercy extends to young birds, and so on... For this is one of the two opinions mentioned by us — I mean the opinion of those who think that there is no reason for the Law except only the will [of God] but as for us, we follow only the second opinion. (Pines Translation, v.II, p.600)

Thus, the reason for sending away the mother bird is truly compassion, and Rambam feels no qualms disagreeing with an opinion in the Talmud over another. It thus came as quite the surprise to me to find that the Rambam, in including the law into Hilchot Tefilla 9:7, had this to say:

מי שאמר בתחנונים מי שריחם על קן ציפור שלא ליקח האם על הבנים או שלא לשחוט אותו ואת בנו ביום אחד ירחם עלינו וכיוצא בענין זה משתקין אותו. מפני שמצות אלו גזרת הכתוב הן ואינן רחמים. שאילו היו מפני רחמים לא היה מתיר לנו שחיטה כל עיקר. 

One who says in his supplicatory prayers: "May He who showed mercy on a bird's nest prohibiting the taking of the mother together with the chicks, or the slaughter of an animal and its calf on the same day, also show mercy on us," or [makes other] similar statements should be silenced, because these mitzvot are God's decrees and not of mercy. Were they of mercy, He would not permit us to slaughter at all.

I had given hope in reconciling such a huge contradiction in the Rambam's thought, and chalked it up to the fact that the Rambam probably wrote the Guide much later than the Yad, and so might have changed his mind. Indeed, Tosaoft Yom Tov on Mishna Berachot 4:9 suggests this exactly for a different contradiction in the Rambam. Alternatively, I thought, his different objectives with both books allowed him to state different things at different times, but I thought that that had much wider implications than I was willing to commit to, although the Ben Yedid suggests something very similar to that. Recently, I came across an article by Roslyn Weiss on this topic, and she has a footnote devoted to previous answers to this question, which I will post here:

See the commentaries of Shem-Tov and Narboni on the Guide of the Perplexed, 3.48; Maharal of Prague, Sefer tiferet yisra'el (Bene-Brak, 1980), chapter 6; Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (New Haven, 1980), pp. 356-514; Jacob Levinger, "Abstinence from Alcohol in the Guide of the Perplexed," [Hebrew] Bar Ilan University Annual: Decennial Volume (1955-65): 299-305.

When I came home from a year in Israel for summer, Parshat Chukat came up, and I was looking at the bookshelf in the den for something to read, spying my father's old Frameworks books by Rabbi Matis Weinberg. They're very large, somewhat long, but it is nice to read the poetic language he writes in, and so I started to go through them. Well, he raises this very question, and makes three distinctions when one tries to understand the commandments:

1) The reason for the mitzva - i.e. what caused God to give it.

2) The purpose of the mitzva - i.e. what God meant to accomplish through it

3) The connotations of the mitzva - i.e. what it teaches and implies

These are very important categories to put taamei hamitzvot in, and might even have a nafka mina in what it means to be "doresh taamah d'krah".

The Rambam explains in a few places how to understand chukim in the Yad, for example Hilchot Me'ilah 8:8, or Hilchot Temura 4:13. It would see that the Rambam felt that the chukim should be contemplated, and we should assign explanations to them. This very much sounds like number 3, the connotations of a mitzva.

We cannot claim that God's mercy applies to the bird's nest, because we don't know. But certainly we can take away lessons, moral guidance, even if we don't understand their true meaning. And therefore the Rambam could say in the Guide that it teaches us that if we have kindness to animals, certainly to other humans.

This is slightly different than my good friend, Adam Friedmann's take on the issue of Rambam and reasons for mitzvot, after I misquoted him, as I am wont to do:

I did say that the RAMBAM in Meilah taken in isolation seemed to imply that there are certain mitzvot with no reason. However when taken together with his approach in the Moreh where he claims reasons for mitzvot quite confidently one might conclude that the RAMBAM held of stratified meanings of mitzvot where one can know A meaning which is correct in a sense but not THE meaning.

Looking back at Meilah now I realize I was completely wrong. The RAMBAM there does not posit that there are mitzvot with no reasons. Nor does he write that we should come up with systems of understanding which we know to be false. Rather he paskens an obligation to understand the laws of the Torah to their fullest:

ראוי לאדם להתבונן במשפטי התורה הקדושה ולידע סוף ענינם כפי כחו

Then he writes:

ודבר שלא ימצא לו טעם ולא ידע לו עילה אל יהי קל בעיניו

The RAMBAM uses two terms to describe the “reasons” of mitzvot טעם and עילה. A quick Davka search reveals that these refer to two different sorts of rationales. טעם seems to a be a cause which relates directly to the effect. The practical purpose for חז"ל to impose a two day Yom-Tov in ארץ ישראל is a טעם (Hilchot Shvitat Yom Tov 1:21). עילה is a much less common word in the RAMBAM. It appears to imply an underlying motive for an action which is not directly related to the action itself. Thus the עילה is accomplished by the action but דרך אגב. For example the potential unsavory reasons for a person to convert to Judaism (i.e. marriage, money etc.) are an עילה (Isurei Bia 13:14, 14:1. See also Tmidin U’Musafin 7:11).

Thus the RAMBAM refers here to two separate levels of potential meaning in mitzvot, one which is very clear, and one in which a motive is perceived which is accomplished indirectly by doing the mitzvah. In no way however is this statement an indication that there is no meaning at all. In the continuation of the RAMBAM he mentions that the reasons of the חוקים are not known:

והחוקים הן המצות שאין טעמן ידוע

However, they do have reasons and אין ידוע does not necessarily mean they cannot be known. Though the חז"ל which the RAMBAM quotes next might seem to indicate otherwise:
אמרו חכמים חוקים חקתי לך ואין לך רשות להרהר בהן

That is still up for debate I suppose. There are also further דיוקים to be made in this RAMBAM, but they are not as related. Overall, if one were to conclude from this Halacha that the pursuit of a rational/philosophical view of Torah is impossible, or even unnecessary they would certainly be תופסין טפל ומשליכין עיקר. The whole point of this RAMBAM is to emphasize the importance of pursuing the meaning of Torah DESPITE the difficulty of its attainment. Having said this the RAMBAM does seem to concede, here and in other places, that certain facts within Torah are beyond the range of rational discussion. Rav Soloveitchik discussed this concept in several places most beautifully in ובקשתם משם in the first few chapters. (Yes Adrian, even Rav Kook admits to teleological suspension of natural ethics in Torah. See Drasha 22 of Midbar Shur). These warrant a separate discussion. However, what is clear is that “being in the system” is a prerequisite to the ultimate search for philosophic truth through the lens of Torah as concluded להלכה by the RAMBAM, not an excuse to give up on such a search.

I could talk a bit about how I think this applies to understanding why anything happens in the world, especially catastrophes, but maybe I'll hold that to another time.

Two Types of Religious Personalities - Rav Kook's Ain Ayah

Rav Kook's Ain Ayah is an interesting commentary on the aggadata of the Talmud, because he makes no attempt (in my mind) to truly interpret the aggadata as it was intended, but rather to show how we can derive moral instruction from it. Plus, his writing is actually riveting. I like how Marc Shapiro put it on Seforimblog:

For those who have never read R. Kook and don’t understand why there is such excitement every time a new collection is published, I suggest you do the following: Take one of the volumes and sit with it for an hour, just going through it, page after page. Odds are that you will be hooked. The originality that you find, and the power of his writing, is just breathtaking. It is impossible not to sense the power of his spirit, and it draws you in.

Besides for that, his high-minded ideas make for a thought provoking discussion. I believe this is great classroom fodder for teachers. Sometime my chavruta and I would start just one line, have an argument for the next two hours about something it brought up, and then find ourselves 2 hours later still only at the first line.

I discussed a bit in a previous post Maimonides view of God, and whether he believed in a personal God, a transcendental God, or something else. Related to that, an interesting aggadata in Talmud Berachot 48a caught my eye, and I thought it might have something to do with this topic. As I suspected, Rav Kook has a fascinating piece on this, and I want to write it out.

אמר רב נחמן קטן היודע למי מברכין מזמנין עליו אביי ורבא הוו יתבי קמיה דרבה אמר להו רבה למי מברכין אמרי ליה לרחמנא ורחמנא היכא יתיב רבא אחוי לשמי טללא אביי נפק לברא אחוי כלפי שמיא אמר להו רבה תרווייכו רבנן הויתו היינו דאמרי אינשי בוצין בוצין מקטפיה ידיע

R. Nahman said: A boy [not yet 13] who knows to Whom one blesses may be counted for zimmun. Abaye and Raba were once sitting in the presence of Rabbah. Said Rabbah to them: To whom are we blessing? They replied: To the All-Merciful One. And where does the All-Merciful abide? Raba pointed to the roof; Abaye went outside and pointed to the sky. Said Rabbah to them: Both of you will become Rabbis. This is the popular saying: Every pumpkin can be told from its stalk.

What about their answers were so noteworthy that Rabbah saw them as budding rabbis? 

Meharsha suggests that they really had no clue what Rabbah was asking of them, they just repeated what their father and teachers taught them, a sign that they could repeat what they learned, even if they didn't understand something. His evidence is from the fact that they couldn't even say it, they had to show it to him, like their teachers taught them.

I found a commentary I know nothing about called "Ein Yisrael" by R. Yisroel Isser Shapira, in which he says a very intriguing understanding of this aggadata. He says that Rava pointed to the ceiling to point out that the question is ridiculous, God doesn't "abide" anywhere, and so he pointed to the ceiling, sarcastically. Abaye responded by saying that we can say that God is in heaven, as it says "The heavens declare the glory of God..." (Psalm 19:). Even if we can't hear what they're saying, we can look at the heavens and feel the glory of God. Rabbah felt that was the makings of a deep argument, and he knew they would be rabbis one day.

Rav Kook has a different idea, and everything that follows is my interpretation of his beautiful piece on this.

There is a natural inclination towards seeking knowledge of God, and there are different ways that people have gone about doing it. Some have come to know God through definitions and measurements. For example, it might be by examining the physical world, clarifying the properties of everything, seeing how everything fits into categories and definitions; one comes to appreciate a kind of unity in the world. The same kind of person studies the Torah, create categories and figure out its halachic system, and through that he cleaves to God and knows His name.

But there are also some people with whom seeking logic and definitions are not enough for them, they want to think ideas loftier than that, with a kind of higher sense. They don't limit themselves to specificity within definitions. They want to reach higher than what can be expressed, they want to speak in the language of feeling, the heart's language. Through this lofty inner sense, though, they recognize that there's a need, an obligation towards the perfection of humanity. They come to realize that humanity's perfection comes through them upholding definite definitions, meaning the Torah's halacha.

Similar to this is how the Rambam in the Guide for the Perplexed (1:15) explained the angels in Yaakov's dream, which were going up and down the ladder. For while those angels (prophets) were rising up, the lofty ideals of the heart getting them closer and closer to God as He is, yet they still had to go down, to guide the political leaders, a limitation.

Therefore, Rava pointed to the roof. He was a person who found God in the details, whose inclination was towards diligence and industry in the confines of the particular. This manifested itself even in his youth, to find peace of mind in the shade of the tent, to use this to bring himself towards a higher purpose.

But Abaye, though he was broad-minded, his inner understanding reaching higher than any confine, though it was against his inner nature to attempt to express an answer to a question like "Where does God abide?", he went outside and pointed to the heavens, pointed to somewhere vast, an endlessness.

"This is the popular saying: Every pumpkin can be told from its stalk." - For one's psychological makeup is already present in his youth, so much so that others can already see which path would be best for him to go down to fully develop his passions.

The sages say (Rosh Hashana 18b), "Rava learned Torah for 40 years, while Abaye learned Torah and performed acts of kindness for 60 years." For, someone whose high-minded spirit lifts him to yearn for his purpose in life, he cannot imprison his passion to only one means of fulfillment; he'll seek any way, any fulfilling goal, to pursue his purpose. It's not his character to hold back, he can't stop himself from helping others, to go to people, as part of his perfection.

But Rava found "his delight in the law of God" (Psalms 1:2). It would be impossible for him to separate himself from his love of Torah, which continually thrived. Only in it did he find happiness, his purpose, lifting him in its holiness. Someone like this, who walks down the path of definitions and limitations, practical wisdom comes easy for him. He merited that in his arguments with Abaye, the halacha would be more according him. Rabbi Meir did not merit that the halacha should go according to him for this reason, for although he was considered the greatest of his generation, (Eruvin 13b) "his colleagues could not fathom the depths of his mind." He was not focused on the practical aspects, instead his mind was lofty and reaching great heights, higher than his colleagues. [See my understanding of that gemara here]

Though both these paths are valid and good, considered paths of life and holiness, a person who is the type to definitions and restrictions, where practicality comes easily to him, it is better that the halacha be set according to him. Perhaps this is why the prophets did not set halacha through prophecy, but rather a concrete type of wisdom, through the way of the Torah.

[Me:] This distinction in religious approaches also was the main break between the Chassidim, who emphasized feeling, and the Misnagdim, who emphasized the law. I want to return to this at some point.

-------------------
8/1/16

I read a poem today that may complicate the neat categories which Rav Kook delineates. The mathematician, the scientist, Rav Kook believes they find God in the confines of the particular. But what if the spirituality in measuring the horizons actually broadens them, removes their veneer, reaches through to the infinite?

Geometry, by Rita Dove

I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.

As the walls clear themselves of everything
but transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open

And above the windows have hinged into butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they've intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven.

The Extremes of Esoteric Interpretations of Maimonides: Maimonides' View of Prayer

I wrote an essay in a day for a class I took in Medieval Jewish Intellectual History with Rabbi David Horwitz. The topic I decided to write about for the class was about Maimonides' view on prayer, which I found was quite the argument among Maimonidean scholars. I could have picked many different opinions, but I chose three that I thought stood out as the most different from each other.

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,

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.

 3. Marvin Fox and the Balance of Dialectical Tension

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.

 4. Ehud Benor and Prayer as True “Worship of the Heart”

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.”

Is There a Type of Post-Modernism In The Talmud?

I came across a page of aggadata in Talmud Eruvin that made me think of postmodern philosophy. The way I understand the concept of postmodernism is the assumption that our reality is a product of subjective thought, it is a construct humans create, and that we can't truly know objective reality. And so, postmodernism is skeptical of claims that something or concept can apply for all time, or for all places, because everyone's experience is different in different cultures and places. But it also is a humbling experience, because the belief is that we can't truly know anything. (I started to wear glasses again after wearing contacts for a long time for this reason - to remind myself that without these artificial glasses, I can't see anything. I hope it humbles me.)

Anyhow, this would contradict the main claims of many religions, that God truly exists, or that a lawbook can apply for eternity. But there were a select few religious Jewish thinkers who took to the idea, yet maintained an Orthodox outlook.

Rav Kook writes in one of his notebooks that this kind of concept can be seen in the Bible itself, when Moses asks God to "Show me your ways..." and God says, "You cannot see me and live." Instead, God shows him His back, that we can only use subjective knowledge to arrive at God. Meaning, if God is true reality, then we can never know Him truly, but only through our own subjective experience of Him. This subjective truth, in turn, is informed by the most basic of emotions and feelings that guide us to the truth, before guile and cruel calculations. This is why Rav Kook thinks ethics are most felt among the non-intellectuals, and he relates this to the Adam and Eve story. Perhaps I will write more about this concept in Rav Kook's thought in a later post.

But I have also seen this kind of thing in the Talmud, and I'd like to show that in an aggadat in Eruvin 13b, translation from here:

א"ר אחא בר חנינא גלוי וידוע לפני מי שאמר והיה העולם שאין בדורו של רבי מאיר כמותו ומפני מה לא קבעו הלכה כמותו שלא יכלו חביריו לעמוד על סוף דעתו שהוא אומר על טמא טהור ומראה לו פנים על טהור טמא ומראה לו פנים

 R. Aha b. Hanina said: It is revealed and known before Him Who spoke and the world came into existence, that in the generation of R. Meir there was none equal to him. Then why was not the halachah fixed in agreement with his views? Because his colleagues could not fathom the depths of his mind, for he would declare the ritually unclean to be clean and supply plausible proof, and the ritually clean to be unclean and also supply plausible proof.

תנא לא ר"מ שמו אלא רבי נהוראי שמו ולמה נקרא שמו ר"מ שהוא מאיר עיני חכמים בהלכה ולא נהוראי שמו אלא רבי נחמיה שמו ואמרי לה רבי אלעזר בן ערך שמו ולמה נקרא שמו נהוראי שמנהיר עיני חכמים בהלכה

 One taught: His name was not R. Meir but R. Nehorai. Then why was he called ‘R. Meir’? Because he "enlightened" - "me-ir" the Sages in the halachah. His name in fact was not even Nehorai but R. Nehemiah or, as others say: His name was R. Eleazar b. Arak. Then why was he called ‘Nehorai’? Because he enlightened the Sages in the halachah.

אמר רבי האי דמחדדנא מחבראי דחזיתיה לר' מאיר מאחוריה ואילו חזיתיה מקמיה הוה מחדדנא טפי דכתיב והיו עיניך רואות את מוריך

Rabbi declared: The only reason why I am keener than my colleagues is that I saw the back of R. Meir, but had I had a front view of him I would have been keener still, for it is written in Scripture: But thine eyes shall see thy teacher.

א"ר אבהו א"ר יוחנן תלמיד היה לו לר"מ וסומכוס שמו שהיה אומר על כל דבר ודבר של טומאה ארבעים ושמונה טעמי טומאה ועל כל דבר ודבר של טהרה ארבעים ושמונה טעמי טהרה

R. Abbahu stated in the name of R. Johanan: R. Meir had a disciple of the name of Sumchus who, for every rule concerning ritual uncleanness, supplied forty-eight reasons in support of its uncleanness, and for every rule concerning ritual cleanness, forty-eight reasons in support of its cleanness.

תנא תלמיד ותיק היה ביבנה שהיה מטהר את השרץ במאה וחמשים טעמים אמר רבינא אני אדון ואטהרנו ומה נחש שממית ומרבה טומאה טהור שרץ שאין ממית ומרבה טומאה לא כ"ש ולא היא מעשה קוץ בעלמא קעביד

One taught: There was an assiduous student at Yavneh who by a hundred and fifty reasons proved that a [dead] creeping thing was pure. Said Rabina: I also could by logical argument prove it to be clean. If a snake that kills [man and beast] and thus causes much uncleanness, is itself ritually clean, how much more should a creeping thing, which does not kill [either man or beast] and consequently causes no uncleanness, be ritually clean. This, however, is no argument, since [the snake] is merely acting like a thorn.

א"ר אבא אמר שמואל שלש שנים נחלקו ב"ש וב"ה הללו אומרים הלכה כמותנו והללו אומרים הלכה כמותנו א] יצאה בת קול ואמרה אלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים הן והלכה כב"ה וכי מאחר שאלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים מפני מה זכו ב"ה לקבוע הלכה כמותן מפני שנוחין ועלובין היו ושונין דבריהן ודברי ב"ש ולא עוד אלא שמקדימין דברי ב"ש לדבריהן כאותה ששנינו מי שהיה ראשו ורובו בסוכה ושלחנו בתוך הבית בית שמאי פוסלין וב"ה מכשירין אמרו ב"ה לב"ש לא כך היה מעשה שהלכו זקני ב"ש וזקני ב"ה לבקר את ר' יוחנן בן החורנית ומצאוהו יושב ראשו ורובו בסוכה ושלחנו בתוך הבית אמרו להן בית שמאי (אי) משם ראיה אף הן אמרו לו אם כך היית נוהג לא קיימת מצות סוכה מימיך ללמדך שכל המשפיל עצמו הקב"ה מגביהו וכל המגביה עצמו הקב"ה משפילו כל המחזר על הגדולה גדולה בורחת ממנו וכל הבורח מן הגדולה גדולה מחזרת אחריו וכל הדוחק את השעה שעה דוחקתו וכל הנדחה מפני שעה שעה עומדת לו ת"ר שתי שנים ומחצה נחלקו ב"ש וב"ה הללו אומרים נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא יותר משנברא והללו אומרים נוח לו לאדם שנברא יותר משלא נברא נמנו וגמרו נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא יותר משנברא עכשיו שנברא יפשפש במעשיו ואמרי לה ימשמש במעשיו

R. Abba stated in the name of Samuel: For three years there was a dispute between Beth Shammai and Beth Hillel, the former asserting, ‘The halachah is in agreement with our views’ and the latter contending, ‘The halachah is in agreement with our views’. Then a heavenly voice issued announcing, ‘Both are the words of the living God, but the halachah is in agreement with the rulings of Beth Hillel’. Once both are the 'words of the living God’ why did Beth Hillel merit to have the halachah side with their rulings? Because they were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of Beth Shammai, and were even so as to mention the postion of Beth Shammai before theirs. This may be seen from what we have learnt: If a man had his head and the greater part of his body within the sukkah but his table in the house, Beth Shammai ruled [that the booth was] invalid but Beth Hillel ruled that it was valid. Said Beth Hillel to Beth Shammai, ‘Did it not so happen that the elders of Beth Shammai and the elders of Beth Hillel went on a visit to R. Johanan b. Hahoranith and found him sitting with his head and greater part of his body within the sukkah while his table was in the house?’ Beth Shammai replied: We indeed prove [our postion from that] because they indeed told him, ‘If you have always acted in this manner you have never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah’). This teaches you that him who humbles himself, the Holy One, blessed be He, raises up, and him who exalts himself, the Holy One, blessed be He, humbles; from him who seeks greatness, greatness flees, but him who flees from greatness, greatness follows; he who forces time is forced back by time but he who yields to time finds time standing at his side.

Notice the progression here - from various statements of why Rabbi Meir was so great, to why others were great through him, to other rabbinical students who had similar abilities, to why we often hold like Bet Hillel - because they recognized that there is truth to both sides.

For Rabbi Meir, it deterred the rabbis from establishing his views as the law, because they never knew how he actually felt about an issue. He never truly held one way or another, but entertained all kinds of possibilities. Yet, he was considered the greatest in his generation for  it.

For Rabbi Yehuda, it sharpened his abilities, even if he concluded one way or another. It is interesting that  Rabbi Yehuda believes this knowledge was gained from looking at Rabbi Meir's back, perhaps a reference to Moses asking to see God, and only getting to see His back, as explained by Rav Kook.

Rabbi Meir was so good at seeing both sides, that he had a student who was able to give 48 reasons why for every rule of impurity, it is actually considered pure.

The next story is about a rabbinical student in Yavneh who was able to up the ante to 150 reasons why the most paradigm example of an animal that gives off impurity, a sheretz, is actually pure. Tosafot cannot understand how this could be done with a biblically mandated assertion of impurity, and proceeds to explain how the Talmud is referring to some rabbinical-level states of impurity. But we know that one can reinterpret any verse in the Torah to mean what we want - whether it is doresh taamah d'krah, or gezeira shava, or any other exegetical device. When we have a Sanhedrin, maybe that theory would be put to action, but any good rabbinical student can flip a law to mean its exact opposite meaning, and that's what this student did.

Now we come to a story about Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel that seems to have nothing to do with what preceded it. Yet there is something very familiar with Bet Hillel's approach - seeing the other side, something that Rabbi Meir was able to do as well. It wasn't just humility that allowed them to do that, but genuine understanding of the issues, and how there are multiple truths at play, that both sides have their own truth to them. What is different is that the rabbis were never really sure what Rabbi Meir held, while Bet Hillel truly picked a side and held to it. What made Bet Hillel great was their ability to see both, yet hold by their own opinion.

This is why we have a strange adage at the end. I can understand that one who humbles himself will be great, and if understood my way, means that greatness comes from being a master at both sides, being humble in the pursuit of truth, and picking one to go with. But what does it mean, "one who yields to time finds time at his side"? I believe it means, in a postmodern spin, that the more we recognize that truth changes through time, and we yeild to that conclusion, we will find that time is our friend, standing at our side.

I had a close rebbe who I learned postmodernism and Judaism with, mostly focusing on Rav Shagar's Kelim Shevurim. This rebbe believed that postmodernism is the key to Jewish continuity. It answers all questions with, "This is how I see things", and isn't bothered with how others see things.

If we can recognize that people change, our relationship to the world of ideas and society changes, we can be the most progressive people on the planet. As Jews, we recognize that our philosophy and goals must change with how we, the masses, see things as important. Halacha, hopefully, will get us to a place where we can finally reform it, with the establishment of the central court of the Sanhedrin, bimheira biyameinu. We can be great. We need to realize that.

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Judging Others Favorably - Applicable To Biblical Figures As Well?

There is an interesting piece of aggadata in Talmud Shabbat 127b, which has 3 seemingly random stories about how it is important to judge others favorably. My chavruta and I came up with a pretty cool interpretation of it, but we were stymied at the last story, so I'm hoping to just get the thoughts down and maybe someone will figure it out. Anyway, here is the aggadata:

ת"ר הדן חבירו לכף זכות דנין אותו לזכות ומעשה באדם אחד שירד מגליל העליון ונשכר אצל בעה"ב אחד בדרום שלש שנים ערב יוה"כ אמר לו תן לי שכרי ואלך ואזון את אשתי ובני אמר לו אין לי מעות אמר לו תן לי פירות אמר לו אין לי תן לי קרקע אין לי תן לי בהמה אין לי תן לי כרים וכסתות אין לי הפשיל כליו לאחוריו והלך לביתו בפחי נפש לאחר הרגל נטל בעה"ב שכרו בידו ועמו משוי ג' חמורים אחד של מאכל ואחד של משתה ואחד של מיני מגדים והלך לו לביתו אחר שאכלו ושתו נתן לו שכרו אמר לו בשעה שאמרת לי תן לי שכרי ואמרתי אין לי מעות במה חשדתני אמרתי שמא פרקמטיא בזול נזדמנה לך ולקחת בהן ובשעה שאמרת לי תן לי בהמה ואמרתי אין לי בהמה במה חשדתני אמרתי שמא מושכרת ביד אחרים בשעה שאמרת לי תן לי קרקע ואמרתי לך אין לי קרקע במה חשדתני אמרתי שמא מוחכרת ביד אחרים היא ובשעה שאמרתי לך אין לי פירות במה חשדתני אמרתי שמא אינן מעושרות ובשעה שאמרתי לך אין לי כרים וכסתות במה חשדתני אמרתי שמא הקדיש כל נכסיו לשמים א"ל העבודה כך היה הדרתי כל נכסי בשביל הורקנוס בני שלא עסק בתורה וכשבאתי אצל חבירי בדרום התירו לי כל נדרי ואתה כשם שדנתני לזכות המקום ידין אותך לזכות

Our Rabbis taught: He who judges his neighbor in the scale of merit is himself judged favorably. Thus a story is told of a certain man who descended from Upper Galilee and was hired for work by a businessman in the South for three years. On the eve of the Day of Atonement  he requested him, 'Give me my wages that I may go and support my wife and children.'

'I have no money,' answered he.

'Give me produce,' he demanded;

'I have none,' he replied.

'Give me land.' — 'I have none.' 'Give me cattle.' — 'I have none. 'Give me pillows and bedding.' — 'I have none.' [So] he slung his things behind him and went home with a sorrowful heart.  After the Festival his employer took his wages in his hand together with three laden donkeys, one bearing food, another drink, and the third various sweet meats, and went to his house. After they had eaten and drunk, he gave him his wages. Said he to him, 'When you asked me, "Give me my wages," and I answered you, "I have no money," of what did you suspect of me?'

'I thought, Perhaps you came across cheap merchandise and had purchased it using that.'

'And when you requested me, "Give me cattle," and I answered, "I have no cattle," of what did you suspect me?'

'I thought, they may be hired to others.'

'When you asked me, "Give me land," and I told you, "I have no land," of what did you suspect me?' 'I thought, perhaps it is leased to others.' 'And when I told you, "I have no produce," of what did you suspect me?' 'I thought, Perhaps they are not tithed.' 'And when I told you, "I have no pillows or bedding," of what did you suspect me?' 'I thought, perhaps he has sanctified all his property to Heaven.' 'By the [Temple] service!' exclaimed he, 'it was even so; I vowed away all my property because of my son Hyrcanus, who would not occupy himself with the Torah, but when I went to my companions in the South they absolved me of all my vows. And as for you, just as you judged me favorably, so may the Omnipresent judge you favorably.' 

ת"ר מעשה בחסיד אחד שפדה ריבה אחת בת ישראל ולמלון השכיבה תחת מרגלותיו למחר ירד וטבל ושנה לתלמידיו ואמר ( להן) בשעה שהשכבתיה תחת מרגלותי במה חשדתוני אמרנו שמא יש בנו תלמיד שאינו בדוק לרבי בשעה שירדתי וטבלתי במה חשדתוני אמרנו שמא מפני טורח הדרך אירע קרי לרבי אמר להם העבודה כך היה ואתם כשם שדנתוני לכף זכות המקום ידין אתכם לכף זכות

Our Rabbis taught: It happened that a certain pious man ransomed an Israelite maiden [from captivity]; at the inn he made her lie at his feet. On the morrow he went down, had a ritual bath, and learnt with his disciples. Said he to them, 'When I made her lie at my feet, of what did you suspect me?' 'We thought, perhaps there is a disciple amongst us who[se character] is not clearly known  to our Master.'  'When I descended and had a ritual bath, of what did you suspect me?' 'We thought, perhaps through the fatigue of the journey the Master was visited by nocturnal pollution.' 'By the [Temple] Service!' exclaimed he to them, 'it was even so. And just as you judged me favorably, so may the Omnipresent judge you favorably.' 

תנו רבנן פעם אחת הוצרך דבר אחד לתלמידי חכמים אצל מטרוניתא אחת שכל גדולי רומי מצויין אצלה אמרו מי ילך אמר להם ר' יהושע אני אלך הלך רבי יהושע ותלמידיו כיון שהגיע לפתח ביתה חלץ תפיליו ברחוק ארבע אמות ונכנס ונעל הדלת בפניהן אחר שיצא ירד וטבל ושנה לתלמידיו ואמר (להן) בשעה שחלצתי תפילין במה חשדתוני אמרנו כסבור רבי לא יכנסו דברי קדושה במקום טומאה בשעה שנעלתי במה חשדתוני אמרנו שמא דבר מלכות יש בינו לבינה בשעה שירדתי וטבלתי במה חשדתוני אמרנו שמא ניתזה צינורא מפיה על בגדיו של רבי אמר להם העבודה כך היה ואתם כשם שדנתוני לזכות המקום ידין אתכם לזכות:

Our Rabbis taught: The scholars were once in need of something from a noblewoman where all the great men of Rome were to be found. Said they, 'Who will go?' 'I will go,' replied R. Joshua. So R. Joshua and his disciples went. When he reached the door of her house, he removed his tefillin at a distance of four cubits, entered, and shut the door in front of them. After he came out he descended, had a ritual bath, and learnt with his disciples. Said he to them, 'When I removed my tefillin, of what did you suspect me?' 'We thought, our Master reasons, "Let not sacred words enter a place of uncleanness".' 'When I shut [the door], of what did you suspect me?' 'We thought, perhaps he has [to discuss] an affair of State with her.' 'When I descended and had a ritual bath, of what did you suspect me?' 'We thought, perhaps some spittle spurted from her mouth upon the Rabbi's garments [rendering you impure].'  'By the [Temple] Service!' exclaimed he to them', 'it was even so; and just as you judged me favorably, so may the Omnipresent judge you favorably.' 

Some weird stories, to be sure. In all these cases, the evidence was pretty damning, and yet the people still judged them favorably because it was possible they were doing the right thing. 

Look at this progression, as well. It goes from a regular business person, to a "pious man", to Rabbi Joshua, who was meeting with a noblewoman. People higher and higher up on the Jewish religious pole. It's possible that the point of this progression is that one of ever increasing chiddush, that each one is more surprising than the next.  For a business person to withhold wages is bad, but there's still room to think he's doing it for a reason. It's easier to give him the benefit of the doubt. But someone who is considered pious, why should I judge him favorably when he should be more careful about how he acts? And even more so, when someone with a high profile like Rabbi Joshua, if he acts in such a suspicious manner, is it fair to say that he has probably good reasons for his actions? We see the state of affairs today, the higher they are, the less people treat their reputations with respect. It's a chiddush to expect that we should judge them favorably. Yet we are asked to.

This leads up to a most interesting question. What about Biblical characters whom we often think are the good guys. Yaakov, David, Solomon, all do some things that look pretty bad, and the rabbis in the midrash and Talmud jump over themselves to defend their honor. Why? If the authors of their stories were making them seem evil, who are we to stop propagating that conception? The answer is that its a huge chiddush, but we are asked to because that is a good trait to have. We judge people favorably, whether they be the lowest of the low or the highest of the high. It is equal judgement for all - a love for all.

In fact, I believe there are some Biblical allusions to the stories themselves here, making me think the rabbis were alluding to this very idea. 

Let us start with the second story, the one with the chassid who makes a girl lay down under his feet. This is a play on the story of Ruth, where in 3:14, she lays down under his feet, and Boaz tries to sneak her out so nobody suspects anything. She describes herself as a maidservant to Boaz, see 2:13. Boaz is considered the ultimate giver, a compassionate person who fed the poor, a person who does chessed, and that is the play on the word chassid.

When reading that section of the Ruth story, one is struck by the sexuality it embodies. She basically tries to seduce Boaz, and it's unclear whether he was seduced in the end. And then he tries to sneak her out! Very sketchy, but the rabbis want us to know that we must judge them favorably.

That seems the most obvious to me.

What about the other stories? I can suggest one for the first, but I don't think it really holds up to scrutiny. It might be that the lowly businessman who withholds wages from his religious worker refers to Laban withholding wages from Jacob in Genesis 30:25-36. Laban decides not to pay Jacob for all his work, but Jacob wants to leave. The story in the Talmud says that the Galilean wanted to support his wife and children, saying "And I will go and feed my find and children", and Jacob says to Laban, "Give me my wife and children... and I will go." The worker was from the Galilee, perhaps a reference to specifically Bilhah's children, Dan and Naftali, whose tribes eventually settled in the Galilee. Bilhah's connection to Laban, according to Midrash Rabab, Genesis 74:13, is that Laban is her father. The fact that the worker worked specifically for three years can mean that he was a hired worker, which represents Jacob's work-status as well. Lastly, in the story, the businessman finally comes with donkeys and merchandise, something that is described about Jacob's haul, see Genesis 30:43.

Does this mean we should be looking at even Laban more favorably? Jacob complains that his wages were changed 10 times over the course of his stay with Laban. But Laban did not do this, it was Jacob's idea! Thus, even Laban, just a lowly guy, is judged favorably.

I would love to have it that Jacob is the one who should be judged favorably for basically stealing all of Laban's flock, but I can't seem to really get it to fit.

The last one, I'm truly stuck on. I think this might be a reference to Joshua and Rahab, how Joshua sent two spies to a prostitute, and what happened there. Maybe. Or perhaps how Hoshea was asked to marry a prostitute. Alternatively, it could refer to David and Bathsheba, which looked quite illicit.

The Nature of Impurity

I had a professor for Classical Jewish History, Prof. Yaakov Elman, who felt that some rabbis in the Talmudic age understood the nature of impurity in the Bible as completely institutional, as opposed to ontological. Meaning, the reason we have rules regarding what is pure and impure is only insofar as it relates to the Temple, but not because it has an actual basis in reality. If true, this would accord with how man see the Rambam's view of tumaah, see Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism by Menachem Kellner. See for yourself the medrash Prof. Elman based this on:

שאל עובד כוכבים אחד את רבן יוחנן בן זכאי אילין עובדייא דאתון עבדין נראין כמין כשפים אתם מביאים פרה ושורפין אותה וכותשין אותה ונוטלין את אפרה ואחד מכם מטמא למת מזין עליו ב' וג' טיפין ואתם אומרים לו טהרת אמר לו לא נכנסה בך רוח תזזית מימיך אמר לו לאו ראית אדם שנכנסה בו רוח תזזית אמר לו הן א"ל ומה אתם עושין לו אמר לו מביאין עיקרין ומעשנין תחתיו ומרביצים עליה מים והיא בורחת א"ל ישמעו אזניך מה שאתה מוצא מפיך כך הרוח הזו רוח טומאה דכתיב (זכריה יג, ב): "וגם את הנביאים ואת רוח הטומאה אעביר מן הארץ" מזין עליו מי נדה והוא בורח לאחר שיצא אמרו לו תלמידיו רבינו לזה דחית בקנה לנו מה אתה אומר אמר להם חייכם לא המת מטמא ולא המים מטהרין אלא אמר הקב"ה חקה חקקתי גזירה גזרתי אי אתה רשאי לעבור על גזרתי דכתיב "זאת חוקת התורה".

(Bamidbar Rabbah 19:8)
Translation goes like this:

A non-Jew once asked Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai, "These things you do seem like witchcraft... You bring a cow, burn it, crumble it, take its ashes, and if one of you is impure by a dead body, you sprinkle him with two or three drops, and then you say say he's purified!"

[Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai] said to him, "Has a restless spirit (Jastrow identifies it as epilepsy or insanity) ever entered you?"

"No."

"Have you ever seen someone who had a restless spirit enter him?"

"Yes."

"What do you do for him?"

"We bring roots for him and smoke them under him, and we sprinkle water on him. And [the spirit] runs away."

"Hear with your ears what's coming out of your mouth! This is such a spirit, a spirit of impurity! As it says (Zachariah 13:2) 'and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.' We sprinkle him with water for impurity."

After he left, our rabbi's students said, "You pushed him off with a reed. What will you say to us?"

He said to them, "By your lives, a dead person doesn't make things impure, and the water doesn't make things pure. Rather, God said, 'I have engraved a rule, I have decreed a decree, and you have no permission to transgress what I decreed,' ("חקה חקקתי גזירה גזרתי") as it says "This is a chok (rule) of the Torah."

 Then, the medrash goes on with another story, which indeed offers a purpose for the Red Heifer, and is in fact the one quoted by Rashi:

מפני מה כל הקרבנות זכרים וזו נקבה א"ר איבו משל לבן שפחה שטינף פלטין של מלך אמר המלך תבא אמו ותקנח את הצואה כך אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא תבא פרה ותכפר על מעשה העגל:

"Why are all other sacrifices male, but this one is female? Rabbi Avo said, It is akin to a maidservant's son who defecated in the palace of the king. The king said, "The mother should come and clean up the mess." So was God saying, "Let the cow come and atone for the sin of the golden calf."

What is the connection between the two? They are in the same section, does that mean they are connected thematically? I think so.

The broader idea between the two, I believe, is an approach to Jewish law in general. The law requires a regimented lifestyle, and tons of rules and regulations. To what end is all of this?

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai first offers the "non-Jewish" approach. That is the one where the rules are an actual response to reality. A woman in niddah is contaminated, she needs to immerse to wash it away. A man touched a dead animal, he is contaminated, he needs to immerse to wash it away. This is because they actually have some kind of spirit of impurity on them, as Zachariah seems to say, and this immersion will heal them.

But his students knew he was just "answering a fool according to his folly", "educating the child according to his way." He was pushing him away with a reed, something that seems strong, but easily bends if you want it to. They wanted to know, what is the real answer?

He answers that the source of all rules, including the seemingly most mentioned and most important, tumaah and taharah, are because God said so. That's it. They don't have to serve any purpose beyond that.

The next medrash believes the same thing, but goes further.

Rules are there to fix what was broken with the Israelites at the mountain. They did not yet have very many rules. There had to set the months, to eat the pascal lamb, keep the Sabbath, and don't have any other gods before Me, etc. And they still managed to screw it up.  But God was saying to them, rules will fix your outlook, will make you better people, and God-oriented, God-driven. By doing these laws, letting them invade every aspect of your lives, your Judaism becomes more real, and stronger. Religious life, God, it's in the details.

What was Moshe's sin at the rock? Rambam, Ramban, Ritva... and Me

Although I am not a fan of DovBear's blog and its accompanying snarkiness, I am a fan of position summaries on a given issue, and he has a great one on Moshe's sin at the rock at Mei Mariva, found here, and some links to Rabbi Waxman's blog. He ends off with the verse in Psalms which seems to indicate that Moshe's sin was anger (like that of the Rambam), without mentioning Rabbi Waxman's Meiri on the issue, which can see it both ways. We shall see that both the Ramban and the Ritva address that verse in their discussion of the issue.

I'd like to go in more depth about the Rambam's position, and the Ramban's rejoinder, through ( and this is something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere) the Ritva's defense of the Rambam.

First, the Rambam, from the 4th chapter of the introduction to his commentary on Pirkei Avot, translation found here, with minor language updates and simplifications by me:

You should also know that God said to our teacher Moses, the master of former and later ages, "Because you have not confided in me, to sanctify me" (Numbers 20:12), "because you rebelled against my order at the waters of Meribah" (Numbers 20:24), "because you did not sanctify me" (Deuteronomy 32:51). All this (God said) although the sin of Moses was only that he departed from the moral mean of patience to the extreme of wrath when he exclaimed,"Hear now ye rebels" etc., yet for this God found fault with him that such a man as he should show anger in the presence of the entire community of Israel, where wrath is unbecoming. This was a profanation of God's name, because men imitated the words and conduct of Moses, hoping thereby to attain temporal and eternal happiness. How could he, then, allow his wrath free play, since it is a bad characteristic, arising,as we have shown, from an evil psychological condition? The divine words, "You have rebelled against My word" (Numbers 27:14) are, however, to be explained as follows. Moses was not speaking to ignorant and vicious people, but to an assembly, the most insignificant of whose women, as the sages put it, were on a plane with Ezekiel, the son of Buzi. So, when Moses said or did anything, they subjected his words or actions to the most searching examination. Therefore, when they saw that he was becoming angry, they said, "He has no moral imperfection! He must know that God is angry with us for demanding water, and that we have stirred up the wrath of God, for otherwise he would not be angry with us". However, we do not find that when God spoke to Moses about this matter, He was angry, but on the contrary, said, "Take the staff . . . and give drink to the congregation and their cattle".

[Me:] It seems to me that, according to the Rambam, while the sin of Moses certainly was his mistake in becoming angry, it was also the result of the anger, which was a public "profanation of God's name", because someone who is considered worthy of imitation can't make mistakes like that.

We have, indeed, digressed from the subject of this chapter, but have, I hope, satisfactorily solved one of the most difficult passages of Scripture concerning which there has been much arguing in the attempt to state exactly what the sin was which Moses committed. Let what others have said be compared with our opinion, and the truth will surely prevail.

Let's take him up on that.

Time for the Ramban, a little translation, a lot of summarization because it's long:

He has added nonsense upon nonsense!

1) The verse states, "You have rebelled against My word..." meaning they [Moses and Aaron] actually transgressed God's word!

2) It says, "You did not believe in me..."  [meaning their sin was explicitly] that they [Moses and Aaron] lacked belief in God.

3) It should have counted it as a sin against Moses when he got angry at the commanders of the army for no reason, [referring to Numbers 31:14].

4) There's no indication in the verses that Moses got angry. "Hear now ye rebels..." only indicates rebuke, just like "You have been rebels against God since the day I knew you..." (Deuteronomy 9:24).

5) Aaron never got angry, in all his days [and not in this story. Why then is Aaron punished also?]

6) How is it possible that God was not angry at the Israelites? God got angry at them when they complained about being in the desert, when they said they would rather be in Egypt and enslaved than be a nation of God. Surely this is a worse sin, where they complained even more vociferously!

7) Moses said [in Deuteronomy 1:37], "God became angry at me as well because of you..." Not only does this prove that God got angry, it shows that the people actually sinned.

8) As for what the Rambam said that obviously God didn't get angry with them because he grants them their wish, know that God provided for them, even though they sinned, for "He is merciful, forgives sin, and does not awaken his entire wrath..." and therefore did not mention their sin, He just granted their wish. In fact, we see that God does get angry when they complain, even if He doesn't mention it, [see (Exodus 27:5-6)].

9) Furthermore, God got angry at Korach and the spies, and it mentions before their punishment that "God's glory" was present. We see this here, at Mei Mariva, see Numbers 17:6, indicating that God was indeed angry.

10) Psalms 106:32 explicitly states: "And they provoked anger at Mei Mariva..." indicating that God got angry.

The best answer, which also good at pushing away objections, is that of Rabbeinu Chananel, who says that Moses and Aaron's sin was saying, "Shall we bring forth water..." making it seem that God was not the benefactor of the water, which could have been a great sanctification of God's name. They had made sure the people knew that God was the benefactor on every other occasion, but not here... When it says "You trespassed against Me (Deuteronomy 32:51), it uses the word "me'ilah", a form that is used when someone makes use of something holy, and they had usurped God's glory. When it says "You rebelled against me..." (Numbers 27:14), it might mean that God intended for them to sanctify His name and speak to the rock, and they rebelled against His word. Alternatively, it could mean that "you rebelled" - "maritem" might be translated as "you switched" [like from the word "temurah"], and it means "You changed My words for your own..." When it says, "You did not believe in Me..." it could mean in the hifil, "You did not cause them [the Israelites] to believe in me...]

The Ramban goes on, but more relevant to us is the litany of questions the Ramban asks on the Rambam, which I think I got all of, making a pretty compelling case that, 1) Moses actually did something specifically wrong, and its unclear he got angry in the first place 2) Aaron was somehow involved and was equally culpable, but he's not mentioned as doing so, nor does it make sense that he got angry 3) God did in fact get angry, and the problem of the people was not that they falsely thought He was angry through Moses, because He was.

Now the Ritva attempts the defend the Rambam in his book dedicated to this topic, called Sefer HaZikaron. What's so interesting about the Ritva is that he is a student of a student of the Ramban, so he comes from a similar school of thought, and probably agreed with the Ramban. Yet, he writes, that while the Ramban has made a strong argument, "we can still find solutions." And so he begins:

God forbid that all of this was hidden from the Rambam.  

[Response to 4):] When our rabbi, Ramban, argued that there is no explicit verse that Moses got angry, it may be true that the Torah doesn't say it, but our sages do (see Sifri Matot 31:21), and the Rambam identified that moment as when he said, "Hear now ye rebels..." The Ramban's objection that this statement, "Here now ye rebels..." was just Moses' rebuke, but not anger, like "You were rebels...." in Deuteronomy is easily answered. While they have the same language, they were not said in the same context, and our sages in the Sifri saw this one as in anger, and not the other. "You were rebels..." is not seen as angry in context, but "Hear now ye rebels..." surely is, which was stated with a "heh hakriah" - "a letter connoting an announcing", and a "heh hatimihah" - "a letter connoting incredulity". The experts in logic have shown that one's voice can change one sentence to its exact opposite meaning. When one says to his fellow, "You did well!" it could mean two extremes in context. Even our sages have realized this, as they have said, (Bava Kama 93a) "Sometimes, 'yes' means 'no', and sometimes 'no' means 'yes'." The Rambam, did not innovate [this aspect of Moses' sin]. What he innovated was that this anger was the thing that sealed his fate, [not allowing him to go into the holy land].

[Response to 1):] The Ramban objected that the fact it says "You have rebelled against My word..." means that Moses actually did something wrong. The Rambam already addressed this. Why add more to what he already said? [Meaning, Moses rebelled against God's word by becoming angry instead of speaking nicely and making a sanctification of God's name.]

[Response to 2):] The Ramban objected that the fact it says "You did not believe in me..." means that there was some lack of faith in God on Moses' part. As is well known, the Rambam interprets Moses' request of God, to "Show me your ways..." (Exodus 33:13) as referring to the way of God's attributes. He states in the Guide for the Perplexed that Moses wanted to lead the Israelites with attributes similar to God's and how He acts in the world, and God showed them to him, which included "slow to anger", meaning to be long in patience with the wicked, and not be easily angered. When Moses failed to use this attribute at this time, it meant he did not truly have faith in this matter, for the belief is tied to the action.

[Response to 3):] The Ramban objected that Moses wasn't called to task when he most obviously got angry at the commanders in the army. If Moses got angry at that time, he was rightfully angry, for they had left the women alive, the very people who caused the Israelites "to go against God through the matter of Pe'or" (Numbers 31:16). With regard to pagan worship, his anger was appropriate.

[Response to 6, 7, 8, 9):] When the Rambam said that God did not get angry, he wasn't saying that there was no wrongdoing on Israel's part. God forbid. No, he was saying that they sinned, but for this particular sin, God was not angry with them.

[Response to 10):] The Ramban objected that the verse in Psalms explicitly states that "They provoked anger at Mei Mariva...", referring to God's anger. But perhaps the Rambam believed that that referred to Moses' anger. Even though the end of that verse refers to Moses by name, making it seem that the first part was not referring to him, we find that this type of thing happens in many other places, such as "And she saw him, the child..." (Exodus 2:6).

[Response to 5):] It seems certain that according to the Rambam, Aaron also got angry, and he sinned, but Scripture focuses only on Moses for he was the greater of the two, as David says there "They provoked anger at Mei Mariva, which was bad for Moses because of them." It wasn't only bad for Moses, it was bad for Aaron as well! Moses also spoke for the both of them when he said "Will we truly get water from a rock for you?" True, Aaron was never angry... except for this incident. This is the opinion of the Guide, the Rambam.

There is an extra answer that the Ritva gives, but I could not find the objection in the Ramban that was addressing, so i diod not include it. In all, the Ritva answers all of ther Ramban's objections, and ends off with:

I know that the Ramban has accepted the kabbalistic understanding of the sin, but there are 70 faces to the Torah, and these and those are the words of the living God.

However, response to number 2 is pretty tricky. What was his disbelief in God? From the fact that he didn't actually emulate God after expressing that he wanted to. Couldn't this apply to any sin? That is, if belief is tied to action, when I do a wrong action, am I really saying I don't believe in God?

Additionally, his response about God's anger is somewhat tendentious. Really, you believe the Rambam was saying that God did get angry, but not here in this story? What was different about those places to here?

I believe that the Rambam's true answer is that Moses' sin was that he accidentally taught the people that God experiences emotions, when He doesn't, according to the Rambam (Guide 1:55):

Whenever any one of His actions is perceived by us, we ascribe to God that emotion which is the source of the act when performed by ourselves, and call Him by an epithet which is formed from the verb expressing that emotion... His actions towards mankind also include great calamities, which overtake individuals and bring death to them, or affect whole families and even entire regions, spread death, destroy generation after generation, and spare nothing whatsoever... Whenever such evils are caused by us to any person, they originate in great anger, violent jealousy, or a desire for revenge. God is therefore called, because of these acts, "jealous," "revengeful," "wrathful," and "keeping anger" (Nah. i. 2) that is to say, He performs acts similar to those which, when performed by us, originate in certain psychical dispositions, in jealousy, desire for retaliation, revenge, or anger: they are in accordance with the guilt of those who are to be punished, and not the result of any emotion: for He is above all defect! 

By being a person who represents God, he made it seem that God experiences human emotion. Yes, God is described as being wrathful and angry. But that is only it appears to the human mind, in how His external actions affect the people. He "gets angry" many times, but never did Moses make the people think that that was human-like emotion! God is no Greek myth, says the Rambam, and Moses failed in his leadership to make sure they knew this when they would go into the Holy Land, where they would be judged for their good and bad. If they thought God was truly angry, or truly sad, their religion would continue to be a primitive, sacrificial cult that attempts to "please the gods". Thus, Moses was barred from entry into the Holy Land, so he could no longer remind the people of God's "angry" human-like emotions. And thus, they could see that God interacts with them as they interact with Him, and He does not react out of some emotional state of imperfection.

To the Rambam, theological truth is of utmost importance, and Moses failed. This could also be why Moses' prayers did not work to assuage God, even though he was the most powerful man when it came to interacting with the Creator. Prayer is a powerful thing, and it effects within us a sense of taking responsibility for our actions, and repenting, but it could not help Moses. For all the repenting he did for the sin, how could God grant his wish? Wouldn't it just look like God is angry one day, and pleased the next? The people would never learn their lesson. And so, Moses could never go to the land he had brought the people out for.

Update: I see now that Rabbi David Horwitz, a rosh yeshiva at YU and one of my professors for Jewish history, has said something very similar to what I wrote above. Oy I can't catch a break on originality.

Edit: Possible answers include Maimonides' understanding that one can act angry for pedagogical purpose, also kapach uses the language of "enraged", not just plain anger.