Q&A: Divine Providence According to Maimonides and Nachmanides
Divine Providence According to Maimonides and Nachmanides
Question
Hello honorable Rabbi, I wanted to ask something that isn’t clear to me.
I learned Maimonides in the Eight Chapters and in Laws of Repentance, chapter 5, where it seems that there is no individual divine providence over each person in particular at all, but only that He maintains the laws of nature constantly by His will. And I understood similarly from Nachmanides on Job (that only very great righteous people have individual divine providence). But everywhere I try to talk about this or clarify it, nobody seems to know about it!
My question is: are there contradictions in Maimonides or Nachmanides on this, or do people simply not know? (Does the Rabbi know of any research on the subject that one could be referred to?)
Answer
I’m not familiar with any. You can ask people in Jewish thought who deal with these matters. I’m not interested in positions on providence, which are conjectures of the various thinkers, who don’t know any more about it than I do, and I certainly don’t deal with reconciling contradictions in that area.
Discussion on Answer
Someone knowledgeable in Jewish thought. Rabbi Uriel Eitam from the Yeruham yeshiva, for example, deals with this quite a bit. But there are many.
With God’s help, 22 Tevet 5781
Maimonides established divine providence and divine reward for human actions as one of the principles of faith explained in his introduction to his commentary on the chapter Helek.
Maimonides grounds the principle of individual divine providence over all human beings in Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapters 17–19, both on the basis of the sacred writings, which are full of this principle—that the eyes of the Lord are “open upon all the ways of men, to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds”—and on the basis of the compelling justice that one who has understanding and the capacity for choice should bear responsibility and receive recompense for his choices.
He goes on to explain that individual divine providence is given to a person according to the degree of his connection to his Creator. The wicked are punished by a “removal of providence,” which abandons them to the accidents of nature. According to Maimonides, “removal of providence” is one type of punishment for sinners, not the normal state.
In chapter 9 of Laws of Repentance, Maimonides explains that a person’s main reward is spiritual: the refinement of his soul for the eternal life of the World to Come. In this world, a person receives positive incentives for his good deeds in the form of improved “conditions of service” that make it easier for him to attain the completion of his soul’s refinement (and similarly, suffering comes upon the sinner, making it harder for him to refine his soul).
In Laws of Fasts, Maimonides explains that the role of suffering in this world is to serve as a “warning light” signaling to a person that he must examine his ways and repair what needs repair, and therefore a person may not think that suffering comes upon him by chance.
In his commentary to the Mishnah, on “These are the things whose fruits a person enjoys in this world while the principal remains for him in the World to Come” (at the beginning of tractate Peah), Maimonides explains, as in chapter 9 of Laws of Repentance, that the main reward is spiritual reward—the refinement of the soul for the life of the World to Come—but in this world a person receives “fruits,” material reward for the benefit his deeds have brought to others.
You can find additional material in Rabbi Chaim Weisman’s book, Clarifications of Beliefs in Maimonides: Prophecy, Choice, and Providence in Guide for the Perplexed, published by the Har Bracha Institute.
Best regards,
Yaron Fishel Ordner
Thank you very much!
Could you direct me to someone you know?