Q&A: A Question on Maimonides
A Question on Maimonides
Question
When Maimonides, in Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, chapter 4, law 13, speaks about the pardes, does he mean plain meaning, hint, homiletic interpretation, and secret? (That is, the different kinds of Torah and different perspectives.) And when he cites at the end of the law the words of the Sages, who say that the Account of the Chariot is a great matter, does he mean physics and metaphysics? And the Talmudic text is called a small matter because there the goal is only to issue Jewish law and know how to act? Whereas the laws by which the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, and the wondrous world itself, are a more exalted matter. Is that the plain meaning in Maimonides?
Answer
No. That acronym is just a popular saying. Pardes is not an acronym.
He writes that it means physics and metaphysics. What is the question?
Discussion on Answer
That does seem to be his view.
By the way, Maimonides is only quoting the words of the Sages:
“Even though the Sages called these matters a small thing—for the Sages said: A great thing is the Account of the Chariot, and a small thing is the discussions of Abaye and Rava.”
Not merely quoting at all. He interprets it as physics and metaphysics.
I mean that they call the Account of the Chariot a great thing and Talmudic discussions a small thing. Separately from that, he probably also agrees with them because of that, or maybe not—I don’t know.
Does Maimonides see the study of the Talmudic text as only a means of arriving at the analysis of Jewish law, and not as something valuable in itself? Whereas study of the Account of the Chariot—that is, the laws and how they operate—is something of higher value, because it is, so to speak, the very lifeblood of things?