As for those who say that no end is intended in any of the acts of God, they wTere led | to this by necessity, namely, by considering the totality of what exists in accordance with their opinion. For they say: What is the end of the existence of the w orld as a whole? Hence they assert of necessity what everyone asserts wrho maintains that the world was created in time: He willed it so, there being no other cause. Thereupon they proceed to apply this assertion to all the particular things in the world. They go so far as not to concede that the hole in the uvea and the transparency of the cornea exist for the sake of letting the visual spirit pass so that it might apprehend, and do not even regard this at all as a cause of sight. According to them it was not for the sake of sight that this membrane wras perforated and the one above it made transparent, but He willed it so, even though sight would be possible if things were otherwise. We have some texts whose external sense might be fancied to suggest this meaning at the first glance. For instance his saying: Whatsoever the Lord willed, that hath He done, and so onf and for instance 3. Ps. 135:6.
56Z? ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 25 5° 5 his saying: And what His soul desireth, even that He doethf and for instance his saying: And who may say unto him, What doest thou P5 The meaning of these texts and of others of the same kind is that the things willed by God are necessarily accomplished, there being no obstacle to hinder the carrying- out of His volition; but that He, may He be exalted, wills only what is possible, and not everything that is possible, but only that which is required by His wisdom to be such. Similarly no obstacle intervenes between Him, may He be exalted, and the exceedingly excellent action that He wishes to accomplish, and nothing can hinder it. This is the opinion of all those that adhere to the Law and also the opinion of the philosophers, and it is also our own opinion. For while we believe that the world has been produced in time, none of our scholars and none of our men of knowledge believe that this came about through the will and nothing else. For they say that His wisdom, may He be exalted — the apprehension of which is beyond us — obligatorily necessitated the existence of this world as a whole at the moment when it came into existence, and that | the selfsame immutable wisdom necessitated nonexistence before the world came into existence. You will find this notion frequently repeated by the Sages when they interpret the verse:6 He hath made every thing beautiful in its time? All this was meant to avoid that which should be avoided: namely, the thought that the agent8 may accomplish an act whereby he does not aim at any end at all. Such is the belief of the multitude of the men of knowledge in our Law, and this was explicitly stated by our prophets: namely, that the particulars of natural acts are all well arranged and ordered and bound up with one another, all of them being causes and effects; and that none of them is futile or frivolous or vain, being acts of perfect wisdom, as it says: How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all.9 And it is said: And all His works are done in faithfulness.10 And it is said: The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, and so on.11 This opinion occurs frequently; and the opposite ought not to be believed. Philosophic speculation similarly requires that there should not be anything futile, frivolous, or vain in all the acts of nature, and all the more in the nature of the spheres, for they are better arranged and ordered because of the nobility of their matter.
Know that the majority of the false imaginings that call forth perplexity in the quest for the end of the existence of the world as a whole or the end of every part of it have as their root an error of man about himself and his 7. Cf. Genesis Rabbah, IX; Midrash Qoheleth, 3:11.
21 8. I.e., in this context, God.
imagining that all that exists exists because of himself alone, as well as ignorance of the nature of inferior matter and ignorance of what is primarily intended — namely, the bringing into being of everything whose existence is possible, existence being indubitably a good. It is because of this error and of the ignorance of these two notions that the doubts and the per¬ plexity arise, so that some of God’s actions are imagined to be frivolous, others futile, and others vain. Know that those who | put up with this incongruity so that His acts, may He be exalted, became in their opinion like futile acts that aim at no end at all, abhorred making His acts consequent upon wisdom in order that this should not pass into the assertion maintaining the eternity of the world 5 accordingly they shut the door upon this opinion. However, I have already made known to you the opinion of our Law about this and the fact that this opinion ought to be believed. For there is no incongruity in our saying that the existence and nonexistence of all these acts are consequent upon His wisdom, may He be exalted 5 we, however, are ignorant of many of the ways in which wisdom is found in His works. It is upon this opinion that the whole of the Torah of Moses our Master is founded; it opens with it: And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good,12 and it concludes with it: The Rock, His work is perfect, and so on.13 Know this. If you consider this opinion and the philosophic opinion, reflecting upon all the preceding chapters in this Treatise that are connected with this notion, you will not find any difference between them regarding any of the particulars of everything that exists.14 You will find no difference other than that which we have explained: namely, that they regard the world as eternal and we regard it as produced in time. Understand this.
CHAPTER 26 Just as there is disagreement among the men of speculation among the adherents of Law whether His works, may He be exalted, are consequent upon wisdom or upon the will alone without being intended toward any end at all, there is also the same disagreement among them regarding our Laws, which He has given to us. Thus there are people who do not seek for them | any cause at all, saying that all Laws are consequent upon the will alone. There are also people who say that every commandment and prohibition in 12. Gen. 1: 31.
13. Deut. 32: 4.
14. Literally: of existence.
5 8a ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 26 J07 these Laws is consequent upon wisdom and aims at some end, and that all Laws have causes and were given in view of some utility. It is, however, the doctrine of all of us — both of the multitude and of the elite — that all the Laws have a cause, though we ignore the causes for some of them and we do not know the manner in which they conform to wisdom. With regard to this the texts of the Book are clear: righteous statutes [, huqqim ] and judgments The judgments of the Lord are true, they are righteous altogether } About the statutes designated as huqqim 5 — for instance those concern¬ ing the mingled stuff, meat in milk, and the sending of the goaf* — [the Sages], may their memory be blessed, make literally the following statement: Things which I have prescribed for you, about which you have not the permission to think, which are criticized by Satan and refuted by the Gentiles.5 They are not believed by the multitude of the Sages to be things for which there is no cause at all and for which one must not seek an end. For this would lead, according to what we have explained, to their being considered as futile actions. On the contrary, the multitude of the Sages believe that there indubitably is a cause for them — I mean to say a useful end — but that it is hidden from us either because of the incapacity of our intellects or the deficiency of our knowledge. Consequently there is, in their opinion, a cause for all the commandments; I mean to say that any particular commandment or prohibition has a useful end. In the case of some of them, it is clear to us in what way they are useful — as in the case of the prohibition of killing and stealing. In the case of others, their utility is not clear — as in the case of the interdiction of the first products 6 [of trees] and of [sowing] the vineyard with diverse seeds J Those commandments whose utility is clear to the multitude are called mishpatim [ judgments ], and those whose utility is not clear to the multitude are called huqqim [statutes']. They8 always say with regard to the verse: For it is no vain thing9 — And if it is vain, it is because of youf° mean¬ ing that this legislation is not | a vain matter without a useful end and that if it seems to you that this is the case with regard to some of the command¬ ments, the deficiency resides in your apprehension. You already know the tradition that is widespread among us according to which the causes for all the commandments, with the exception of that concerning the red heifer, 3. This Hebrew term is sometimes interpreted as designating those religious laws that have no (or no obvious) explanation in terms of human reason. Cf. below in this chapter.
6. Literally: foreskin. Cf. Lev. 19:25. 7. Cf. Deut. 2219.
8. I.e., the talmudic Sages. 9. Deut. 32:47.
508 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 26 [ 586 were known to Solomon?* and also their dictum12 that God hid the causes for the commandments in order that they should not be held in little esteem, as happened to Solomon with regard to the three commandments whose causes are made clear.15 All their dicta proceed according to this principle, and the texts of the [scriptural] books indicate it. However, I found in Bereshith Rabbah a text of the Sages, may their memory be blessed, from which it appears when one first reflects on it that some of the commandments have no other cause than merely to prescribe a law, without there having been in view in them any other end or any real utility. This is their dictum in that passage:14 What does it matter to the Holy One, blessed be He, that animals are slaughtered by cutting their neck in front or in the back? Say therefore that the command¬ ments were only given in order to purify the people. For it is said: The word of the Lord is purified,15 Though this dictum is very strange and has no parallel in their other dicta, I have interpreted it, as you will hear, in such a manner that we shall not abandon the views of all their dicta and we shall not dis¬ agree with a universally agreed upon principle, namely, that one should seek in all the Laws an end that is useful in regard to being: For it is no vain thing?6 He says: I said not unto the seed of Jacob: Seek ye Me for nothing $ I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right?1 What everyone endowed with a sound intellect ought to believe on this subject is what I shall set forth to you: The generalities of the command¬ ments necessarily have a cause and have been given because of a certain utility; their details are that in regard to which it was said of the com¬ mandments that they were given merely for the sake of commanding something. | For instance the killing of animals because of the necessity of having good food is manifestly useful, as we shall make clear.18 But the prescription that they should be killed through having the upper and not the lower part of their throat cut, and having their esophagus and windpipe severed at one particular place is, like other prescriptions of the same kind, imposed with a view to purifying the people. The same thing is made clear to you through their example: Slaughtered by cutting their neck in front or in the back. I have mentioned this example to you merely because one finds in their text, may their memory be blessed: Slaughtered by cutting their neck in front or in the back. However, if one studies the truth of the matter, one finds it to be as follows: As necessity occasions the eating of animals, the 11. Cf. Midrash Qoheleth, 7:23. 12. Cf. B.T., Sanhedrin, 21b.
13. Cf. Deut. 17: 16—17. 14. Genesis Rabbah, XLIV ab init.
15. Ps. 18: 31.
59 a ] The Guide of the Perplexed III -26 jop commandment was intended to bring about the easiest death in an easy manner, For beheading would only be possible with the help of a sword or something similar, whereas a throat can be cut with anything. In order that death should come about more easily, the condition was imposed that the knife should be sharp. The true reality of particulars of commandments is illustrated by the sacrifices. The offering of sacrifices has in itself a great and manifest utility, as I shall make clear.19 But no cause will ever be found for the fact that one particular sacrifice consists in a lamb and another in a ram and that the number of the victims should be one particular number. Accordingly, in my opinion, all those who occupy themselves with finding causes for something of these particulars are stricken with a prolonged mad¬ ness in the course of which they do not put an end to an incongruity, but rather increase the number of incongruities. Those who imagine that a cause may be found for suchlike things are as far from truth as those who imagine that the generalities of a commandment are not designed with a view to some real utility.
Know that wisdom rendered it necessary — or, if you will, say that necessity occasioned — that there should be particulars for which no cause can be found 5 it was, as it were, impossible in regard to the Law that there should be nothing of this class in it. In such a case the impossibility is due to the circumstances that when you ask why a lamb should be prescribed and not a ram, the same question would have to be asked if a ram had been prescribed | instead of a lamb. But one particular species had necessarily to be chosen. The same holds for your asking why seven lambs and not eight have been prescribed. For a similar question would have been put if eight or ten or twenty had been prescribed. However, one particular number had necessarily to be chosen. This resembles the nature of the possible, for it is certain that one of the possibilities will come to pass. And no question should be put why one particular possibility and not another comes to pass, for a similar question would become necessary if another possibility instead of this particular one had come to pass. Know this notion and grasp it. The constant statements of [the Sages] to the effect that there are causes for all the commandments, as well as the opinion that the causes were known to Solomon, have in view the utility of a given commandment in a genera] way, not an examination of its particulars.
This being so, I have seen fit to divide the six hundred and thirteen com¬ mandments into a number of classes, every one of which comprises a number of commandments belonging to one kind or akin in meaning. I shall inform 19. Cf. Ill 46.
510 The Guide of the Perplexed III ■ 27 [ 596 you of the cause of every one of these classes, and I shall show their utility about which there can be no doubt and to which there can be no objection. Then I shall return to each of the commandments comprised in the class in question and I shall explain to you the cause of it, so that only very few commandments will remain whose cause has not been clear to me up to now. Some of the particulars of, and conditions for, some of the commandments have also become clear to me, and it is possible to give their causes. You will hear all this. However, I shall not be able to clarify to you all this giving of causes before I set before you, as a preliminary, a number of chapters in which I will include premises that are useful as an introduction for the pur¬ pose I have in mind. These are the chapters with which I will begin now. | CHAPTER 27 The Law as a whole aims at tw'o things: the welfare of the soul and the welfare of the body. As for the welfare of the soul, it consists in the multitude’s acquiring correct opinions corresponding to their respective capacity. Therefore some of them [namely, the opinions] are set forth explicitly and some of them are set forth in parables. For it is not within the nature of the common multitude that its capacity should suffice for appre¬ hending that subject matter as it is. As for the welfare of the body, it comes about by the improvement of their wrays of living one with another. This is achieved through two things. One of them is the abolition of their wronging each other. This is tantamount to every individual among the people not being permitted to act according to his will and up to the limits of his power, but being forced to do that which is useful to the whole. The second thing consists in the acquisition by every human individual of moral qualities that are useful for life in society so that the affairs of the city may be ordered. Know that as between these two aims, one is indubitably greater in nobility, namely, the welfare of the soul — I mean the procuring of correct opinions — while the second aim — I mean the welfare of the body — is prior in nature and time. The latter aim consists in the governance of the city and the well¬ being of the states of all its people according to their capacity. This second aim is the more certain one, and it is the one regarding which every effort has been made precisely to expound it and all its particulars. For the first aim can only be achieved after achieving this second one. For it has already 6o6 ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 27 j// been demonstrated that man has two perfections: a first perfection, which is the perfection of the body, and an ultimate perfection, which is the perfec¬ tion of the soul. The first perfection | consists in being healthy and in the very best bodily state, and this is only possible through his finding the things necessary for him whenever he seeks them. These are his food and all the other things needed for the governance of his body, such as a shelter, bath¬ ing, and so forth. This cannot be achieved in any way by one isolated indi¬ vidual. For an individual can only attain all this through a political association, it being already known that man is political by nature. His ultimate perfec¬ tion is to become rational in actu, I mean to have an intellect in actu; this would consist in his knowing everything concerning all the beings that it is within the capacity of man to know in accordance with his ultimate perfec¬ tion. It is clear that to this ultimate perfection there do not belong either actions or moral qualities and that it consists only of opinions toward which speculation has led and that investigation has rendered compulsory. It is also clear that this noble and ultimate perfection can only be achieved after the first perfection has been achieved. For a man cannot represent to himself an intelligible even when taught to understand it and all the more cannot become aware of it of his own accord, if he is in pain or is very hungry or is thirsty or is hot or is very cold. But once the first perfection has been achieved it is possible to achieve the ultimate, which is indubitably more noble and is the only cause of permanent preservation.
The true Law then, which as we have already made clear1 is unique — namely, the Law of Moses our Master — has come to bring us both perfec¬ tions, I mean the welfare of the states of people in their relations with one another through the abolition of reciprocal wrongdoing and through the acquisition of a noble and excellent character. In this way the preservation of the population of the country and their permanent existence in the same order become possible, so that | every one of them achieves his first perfec¬ tion; I mean also the soundness of the beliefs and the giving of correct opinions through which ultimate perfection is achieved. The letter of the Torah speaks of both perfections and informs us that the end of this Law in its entirety is the achievement of these two perfections. For He, may He be exalted, says: And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes \huqqim\, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.2 Here He puts the ultimate perfection first because of its nobility; for, as we have explained, it is the ultimate end. It is referred to in the dictum: For our good always. You know already what [the Sages], ^j2 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 28 f 6i« may their memory be blessed, have said interpreting His dictum, may He be exalted: That it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days} They said: That it may be well with thee in a world in which everything is well and that thou mayest prolong thy days in a world the whole of which is long.* Similarly the intention of His dictum here, For our good always, is this same notion: I mean the attainment of a world in which everything is well and [the whole of which is] long. And this is perpetual preservation. On the other hand, His dictum, That He might preserve us alive, as it is at this day, refers to the first and corporeal preservation, which lasts for a certain duration and which can only be well ordered through political association, as we have explained.
CHAPTER 28 A mong the things to which your attention ought to be directed is that you should know that in regard to the correct opinions through which the ultimate perfection may be obtained, the Law has communicated only their end and made a call to believe in them in a summary way — that is, to believe in the existence of the deity, may He be exalted, His unity, His knowledge, His power, His will, and His eternity. All these points are ultimate ends, which can be made clear | in detail and through definitions only after one knows many opinions. In the same way the Law also makes a call to adopt certain beliefs, belief in which is necessary for the sake of political welfare. Such, for instance, is our belief that He, may He be exalted, is violently angry with those who disobey Him and that it is therefore necessary to fear Him and to dread Him and to take care not to disobey. With regard to all the other correct opinions concerning the whole of being — opinions that con¬ stitute the numerous kinds of all the theoretical sciences through which the opinions forming the ultimate end are validated — the Law, albeit it does not make a call to direct attention toward them in detail as it does with regard to [the opinions forming ultimate ends], does do this in summary fashion by saying: To love the Lord A You know how this is confirmed in the dictum regarding love: With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might } We have already explained in Mishneh Torah 5 that this love be¬ comes valid only through the apprehension of the whole of being as it is 616] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 28 JJj and through the consideration of His wisdom as it is manifested in it. We have also mentioned there the fact that the Sages, may their memory be blessed, call attention to this notion.
What results from what we have now stated as a premise regarding this subject is that whenever a commandment, be it a prescription or a prohibi¬ tion, requires abolishing reciprocal wrongdoing, or urging to a noble moral quality leading to a good social relationship, or communicating a correct opinion that ought to be believed either on account of itself or because it is necessary for the abolition of reciprocal wrongdoing or for the acquisition of a noble moral quality, such a commandment has a clear cause and is of a manifest utility. No question concerning the end need be posed with regard to such commandments. For no one was ever so perplexed for a day as to ask why we were commanded by the Law’ that God is one, or why we were forbidden | to kill and to steal, or why we w’ere forbidden to exercise ven¬ geance and retaliation, or w’hy we were ordered to love each other. The matters about which people are perplexed and opinions disagree — so that some say that there is no utility in them at all except the fact of mere com¬ mand, whereas others say that there is a utility in them that is hidden from us — are the commandments from whose external meaning it does not appear that they are useful according to one of the three notions we have mentioned: I mean to say that they neither communicate an opinion nor inculcate a noble quality nor abolish reciprocal wrongdoing. Apparently these command¬ ments are not related to the welfare of the soul, as they do not communicate a belief, or to the welfare of the body, as they do not communicate rules use¬ ful for the governance of the city or for the governance of the household. Such, for instance, are the prohibitions of the mingled stuff, of the mingling [of diverse species], and of meat in milk* and the commandment concerning the covering of blood, the heifer whose neck was broken, and the firstling of an ass,5 and others of the same kind. However, you will hear my explanation for all of them and my exposition of the correct and demonstrated causes for them all with the sole exception — as I have mentioned to you — of details and particular commandments. I shall explain that all these and others of the