elliot r. wolfson - via negativa in maimonides and its impact on thirteenth century kabbalah

7/28/2019 Elliot R. Wolfson - Via Negativa in Maimonides and Its Impact on Thirteenth Century Kabbalah

1/26

VIA NEGATPVA IN MAIMONIDES

AND ITS IMPACT O N THIRTEENTH-

CENTURY KABBALAH

ELLIOT R. WOLFSON

In this study, I will focus on the role of the via negativa in the thoughtof Maimonides and its impact o n select thirteenth-century Spanish

kabbalists. My remarks will be limited as I will concentrate on thephilosophical and theological issues pertaining to apophatic dis-course as it relates particularly to the ideal of contemplative prayeran d prophetic visualization. Although the scope of this essay is con-stricted - though I must say, ironically enough, it seems no limitcan be imposed on speaking about the unspeakable - t is my hopethat the analysis herein will not only shed new light on the intricaterelationship of Maimonides and kabbalah, bu t perhaps it will opena path to a third way of approaching this relationship by suggest-ing that the affinities between Maimonides and kabbalists are notonly due to the influence of the former on the latter, but they mayalso portend a genuine intellectual and spiritual kinship.l Here it

' For more detailed discussions of this theme, see Alexander Altmann, "Mai-monides' Attitude Toward.Jewish Mysticism," in Studies inJewish Tha gh t, editedby ALfred Jospe (Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 1981) 200-i9i GershomScholem, Ongins ofthe Kabbalah, edited by RJ. Zw i Werblowsky tlanslated by AlanArkush (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987) 377-88,404-14; Moshe Idel,

"Maimonides and Kabbalah," in St die s i n Maimonida, edited by Isadore Twersky(Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1990) 31-79; i d a , "Maimonides' Cfiideofthe Pqblaxedand the Kabbalah," Jewish History 18 (2004): 197-226; Elliot R. Wolfson,

"Beneath the Wings of the Great Eagle: Maimonides and Thirteenthcentury Kab-balah," in Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) - His Relipus, Scientzjic, and PhilosophicalMiirkungsprhichte in Dt~feret~t ultural Contexts, edited by G r g e K. Hasselhoff andOtfried Fraisse (Wfirzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2004) 209-37. See also Reuven Margu-lies, "Maimonides and the Zohur," Sinai 32 (1954): 263-74 (Hebrew ); Shlomo Blick-


2/26


3/26


4/26


5/26


6/26


7/26


8/26


9/26


10/26


11/26


12/26


13/26


14/26


15/26


16/26


17/26


18/26


19/26


20/26


21/26


22/26


23/26


24/26


25/26

of knowledge. The silence of which he speaks, therefore, is reallyi bilit t k F th k bb li t b t t th l dd f


26/26

an inability to know. For the kabbalists, by contrast, the ladder ofknowledge culminates with gnosis rather than ignorance, a gnosisthat is expressed uniquely in the silence of unsaying as opposed tothe muteness of not-speaking, an unsaying that reveals the hiddenin the hiddenness of its revelation. In conclusion, therefore, we can

say that thi rte en thcen tur y kabbalists appropriated from Maimo-nides the metaphysical contention that the ultimate knowledge ofGod consists of knowing that one does not know, but in their casethe not-knowing was understood as a form of knowing, a seeing ofthe unseen in the semblance of an imaginal body configured in theheart of the visionary. Alternatively expressed, the negation of af-firmation implied in the Maimonidean via negativa is transposed

through the kabbalistic ideal of contemplative vision into an affir-mation of negation.

New York University

elliot r. wolfson - via negativa in maimonides and its impact on thirteenth century kabbalah

Documents