Vayera (Rambam)

“Abraham my Lover”

This week’s Torah portion continues with the story of Abraham, culminating in the story of the Akedah—the Binding of Isaac. Maimonides discuses this perplexing chapter in Book III, Chapter 24 of the Guide for the Perplexed:

As for the story of Abraham at the Binding, it contains two great notions that are fundamental principles of the Law. One of these notions consists in our being informed of the limit of love for God, may He be exalted, and fear of Him—that is, up to what limits they must reach. For in this story he was ordered to do something that bears no comparison either with sacrifice of property or with sacrifice of life. In truth it is the most extraordinary thing that could happen in the world, such a thing that one would not imagine that human nature was capable of it. Here there is a sterile [i.e., childless] man having an exceeding desire for a son, possessed of great property and commanding respect, and having the wish that this progeny should become a religious community. When son comes to him after his having lost hope, how great will be his attachment to him and love for him!

However, because of his fear of Him, who should be exalted, and because of his love to carry out His command, he holds this beloved son as little, gives up all his hopes regarding him. and hastens to slaughter him after a journey of days. For if he had chosen to so this immediately, as soon as the order came to him, it would have been act of stupefaction and disturbance in the absence of exhaustive reflection. But his doing it days after the command had come to him shows that the act sprang from thought, correct understanding, consideration of the truth of His command, may He be exalted, love of Him, and fear of him. No other circumstance should be put forward, nor should one opt for the notion that he was in a state of passion.

For Abraham our Father did not hasten to slaughter Isaac because he was afraid that God would kill him or make him poor, but solely because of what is incumbent upon the Adamites [i.e., sons of Adam]—namely, to love Him and fear Him, may He be exalted—and not, as we have explained In several passages, for any hope of reward or for fear of punishment… Know that this notion is corroborated and explained in the Torah, in which it is mentioned that the final end of the whole of the Torah, including its commandments, prohibitions, promises, and narratives, is one thing only—namely, fear of Him, may He be exalted…. (from Shlomo Pines’ translation from the Arabic, Chicago 1967, pp. 500-501)

For many moderns, the difficulty in the story of the Akedah is first and foremost moral and theological—indeed, it is widely regarded as the most difficult chapter in the entire Tanakh. We have been raised upon Kierkegaard’s description of it as the “theological suspension of the ethical”; upon the paradoxical and absurd proposition that the same God who but a few chapters earlier declares that Abraham was chosen “to do righteousness and justice” should demand of him such a monstrous act; and his celebration of Abraham as a “knight of faith” for his willingness to go through with it, despite its contradicting everything he had ever thought and felt about God. Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s insistence that this chapter is diametrically opposed to humanism, and that any attempt to harmonize human needs and values with service of the Divine is incorrect, is in a similar spirit.

But it is important to remember that such concern about the moral paradox of the Akedah is largely a modern one. Rambam here seems very much in line with a string current in Jewish tradition, found in perhaps a consensus of the midrash and the medieval exegetes, which is in a sense rather straightforward and simple: the Akedah was a testing of Abraham, a proving of his mettle, to determine whether or not his love for and fear of God were unconditional. As Rambam explains a bit earlier in the same chapter of the Guide:

The aim and meaning of all the trials mentioned in the Torah is to let people know what they ought to do or what they must believe. Accordingly the notion of a trial consists as it were in a certain act being done, the purpose being not the accomplishment of that particular act, but the latter’s being a model to be imitated and followed…

Hence, once Abraham had bound Isaac and was ready to offer him, the actual act of slaughter was superfluous, and the substitute ram suddenly appeared—for God doesn’t really want human sacrifice. But the important point in any event is not the ethical one, but the conflict between Abraham’s personal wishes and plans and emotions as a human being and especially as a father, and the call to put all that aside for the sake of God.

The two central concepts here are love and fear: the two central religious emotions which we have already seen in the very beginning of the Yad. It is interesting that Maimonides here uses the term “Adamites” to refer to those commanded concerning this, as if to say that, even prior to the Noahide laws, all human beings are required to love and fear God.

The second notion Rambam derives from the Binding of Isaac (in the next section of the text, which we will not bring here) is the idea of prophecy, and that Abraham believed the truth of the command to offer his son because it came to him in a prophetic vision. Interestingly, there are some midrashim which state that his Evil Urge tempted him, trying to convince him that the voice that had commanded him was really that of the Devil—or, as we would doubtless say today, that of his own twisted subconscious.

Thus, we see here that Abraham is presented as a paradigm for the love of God. More generally, we may see that, for Maimonides, Abraham was one of the two central, paradigmatic figures in Jewish religious life. The other, Moses, is the prophet par excellence, the vehicle by whom the Torah was brought to Israel, the first and foremost exemplary teacher of Torah. Abraham is something else: Rambam constantly refers to him as the “lover of God,” or, in the words of Isaiah 41:8, “Abraham my lover” (Avraham ohavi). He is the God-intoxicated man, the one who discovers the most basic religious truths all by himself, after years of thinking and pondering and reflecting, the great iconoclast who spreads knowledge of the One God to all mankind.

The nature of the love of God, and its Abrahamic essence, are succinctly presented in Sefer ha-Mitzvot, Positive Commandment No. 3:

Mitzvah #3, is that which He has commanded us concerning His love, may He be exalted. Namely, that we should think and contemplate His commandments and sayings and actions, until we apprehend Him and enjoy his apprehension in the epitome of pleasure. And this is the love that is required.

In the language of the Sifre [an ancient, classical midrash from the tannaitic age] : “Since it says, ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ [Deut 6:5], do I not know how on is to love the Omnipresent? The Torah says, ‘and these things which I command you this day shall be upon your heart’ [v. 6]—that through this means you shall know He who spoke and the world was.

Now we have made it clear that by means of contemplation you shall attain apprehension, and arrive at pleasure, and the love will come of necessity. And we have already explained that this commandment also includes that we should call all human beings to His service and to believe in Him. For just as when you love a certain person, you relate and increase his praises, and call upon other people to love him. So, by way of analogy, when you love Him in truth, and achieve apprehension of His true existence, you shall certainly call upon the fools and ignorant people to know with a clear knowledge that which you know.

And to quote the language of the Sifre: “’You shall love the Lord’—cause Him to be beloved by all humanity, like Abraham our Father of whom it is said, ‘and the souls which he made in Haran’ [Gen 12:5]: that is to say, just as Abraham, because he loved Him—as Scripture testifies, ‘Abraham my beloved’ [Isa 41:8], and this, by dint of the power of his apprehension—called upon other people to belief in the Name, and this because of his great love; so too shall you love Him and call other people to Him.

Rambam here outlines a four-stage process: contemplation (of God’s greatness as reflected in the cosmos, etc., as outlined in Yesodei ha-Torah 2; see HY V: Bereshit); apprehension of the Divine (as a result of these intellectual means); pleasure; and love. The first two stages are more or less expected stages of any philosophical approach to God: reflection or contemplation (I’m not sure whether this is identical to meditation, of the type associated with mysticism; at first blush, it seems far more intellective and dispassionate), followed by apprehension and understanding, the gaining of cognitive knowledge. But then he turns to speak of pleasure, which can only be the sublime spiritual pleasure of closeness to God, that which Hasidism would call devequt; which is in turn followed by feelings of love. This passage seems to embody the very essence of what medieval men called amor dei intellectualis: the intellectual love of God. The intellectual process of contemplation, of engaging in a chain of thought leading to clear knowledge of Gods’ existence, in turn produces a profound emotional response: of pleasure, nay, of ecstatic rapture, followed by love, meaning the desire to draw ever closer to the object of one’s love. Thus, the intellectual philosopher here is no distant, cold observer, unmoved and uninvolved, but whose involvement in his quest is profoundly emotional. Thus, while Maimonides was not necessarily a Kabbalist (although there are some very erudite, highly respected scholars who suggest that he had a connection to Kabbalah as well), it is difficult to deny that he was in some sense a mystic.

Regarding the four-stage scheme mentioned above, I am reminded of a question I was once asked: “How does one give spirituality to those that don’t feel it?” In principle, this question is based on a conceptual error. There is much talk today about spirituality, and of people seeking spiritual experience. A recent newspaper report about American Jewry mentions how many young people are disenchanted with most synagogues because they want “to have a spiritual experience,” and how, e.g., B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan, whose Friday night service includes singing, meditation, dancing, and a general feeling of ecstasy, is packed with thousands of young West Siders. Similar phenomena can be observed here in Israel, and indeed right in my own neighborhood in Jerusalem. While these shuls are certainly doing wonderful things, it seems clear from this Rambam that these are only the most preliminary steps. Song, dance, guided mediatation, can open up the individual to the possibility of spirituality; ultimately, spirituality is not something that one can “get” like a product or commodity, but rather the result of an inner process.

The nature of love of God is discussed more fully in the final chapter of Sefer ha-Mada. Here, too, Abraham serves as a kind paradigm for the love of God. Hilkhot Teshuvah, Ch. 10:

2. One who serves [God] out of love engages in Torah and in mitzvot, and walks in the paths of wisdom: not because of any thing in the world, not because of fear of evil [that may accrue to him otherwise], nor in order to receive [lit., inherit] benefit, but he does the truth because it is the truth—and in the end, the good shall come because of it.

And this is a very high level, which not even every sage merits. And this is the level of Abraham our father, whom the Holy One blessed be He called his lover, because he served only out of [unadulterated] love. And it is this level that the Holy One blessed be He commanded us through Moses, as is said, “and you shall love the Lord your God” [Deut 6:5]. And when a person loves God with proper love, he immediately performs all of the mitzvot with love.

3. And how ought this love to be? One should love God with an exceedingly great and very intense love, to the point that his soul is utterly bound up in the love of God, and he thinks of Him constantly, like one who is sick with love, whose mind is never free of the love of that woman, but who thinks of her constantly, whether he is sitting or standing or while he is eating and drinking. More so than this shall be the love of God in the heart of those that love Him, thinking of it constantly, as we have been commanded, “with all your heart and all your soul” [Deut 6:5]. And that is what Solomon said, by way of metaphor, “for I am love sick” [Cant 5:8]. And all of the Song of Songs is a parable for this matter.

Here, we have a description of rapturous, passionate, all-consuming love, love that can only be compared to the love between a man and woman. The lyrical love portrayed in Song of Songs is the ultimate paradigm for the love of God.

A basic question: What is love? On the one hand, love is the desire to be close to the other person, the feeling of pleasure derived from merely looking at that person or being in his/her presence; or love as shared pleasure, as epitomized in sexual love. On the other hand, love is giving, is generosity, is selfless caring for the welfare of the other—as best epitomized, perhaps, in parental love. In the Greco-Christian tradition, these two aspects are expressed by the words eros and charitas. It is interesting that Rambam identifies the love of God with both types. In the above passage from the Mishneh Torah, it is the ecstatic, rapturous type of the Song of Songs. In Sefer ha-Mitzvot, there is the stage of pleasure that leads to love, but there is also the missionary motif: one who loves God praises Him to others, wishes to share his knowledge with others, and to “make Him beloved by all humanity.” A far cry from the exclusivity of romantic, Shir ha-Shirim love!

I find Rambam’s mention of “lovesickness” interesting. Most psychologists and marriage counselors today would say that, at best, love sickness is a stage to be passed through—hardly an emotion to serve as the basis for a lasting relationship. I remember suffering such love-sickness when I was about 19; it is difficult to imagine such a preoccupation much beyond that age. (In any event, it is difficult in our cultural milieu to imagine anyone dying for love, like Goethe’s young Werther. Perhaps we are too cynical and jaded, too sated with easy and casual consummations.)

We shall continue this chapter of Rambam , discussing the relationship among philosophy, love of God, and Talmud Torah, at a later date.