Aftermath of the Controversy

The tension between rationalists and antirationalists never abated throughout the Middle Ages. Among the beleaguered Jews of 15th-century Christian Spain, Maimonidean rationalism was seen by many as the root cause of the misfortunes and the reason for apostasy. On the other hand a man like Abraham Bibago, throughout his Derech Emunah, defended rationalism, not only as being justified but as the very essence of Judaism. Proudly calling himself " a pupil of Maimonides, " he believed that the Jewish people is the bearer of reason — weak in this world as reason is weak against the unreasonable passions. Generalizing the traditional rationalistic view, he stated:

The reasonable creature having reason has to study the sciences, and being a believer, he will study Torah and acquire faith and its roots and dogmas. The first study will be a kind of carrier and vessel to bear the second study. In the same way that life is an assumption and carrier by which humanity and speech are carried, so through the form of reason—by whose accomplishment one studies and acquires the sciences—Torah study will be assumed and carried. Thus faith will be complete and without doubt, and the one attitude [faith], will not conflict with the other [philosophy]. Therefore did the sage say, 'Reason and faith are two lights.' To solve all doubts we must explain that 'Greek wisdom' cannot be the above-mentioned wisdom of reason belonging to man insofar as he is a man. Hence it is a human wisdom and not a Greek one. The wisdom called [by Talmudic sages] 'Greek wisdom, ' must be something peculiar to the Greeks and not to another nation.”

That views like this were acceptable also among 16th-century Ashkenazi Jewry is proved by the fact that the Sefer ha-Miknah by Joseph ben Gershom of Rosheim is in reality a kind of synopsis of Bibago's Derech Emunah. In Renaissance Italy Yechiel ben Samuel of Pisa wrote a detailed treatise (Minchat Kena'ot) against rationalism, while the life and works of many of his contemporaries and countrymen constituted a clear espousal of it. In Poland-Lithuania in the 16th-17th centuries the tension between Maimonideans and anti-Maimonideans likewise continued, as evidenced, for example, by the dispute between Moses Isserles and Solomon ben Yechiel Luria (see Moses Isserles, Responsa, nos. 687, and see also his Torat ha-Olah).

The problems of the synthesis between Judaism and other cultures, of the proper content of Jewish education, and of the right way to God — through reason or through mystic union — has remained, though formulations and expressions have changed considerably. The old hierarchical basis of Jewish leadership, wholeheartedly hated by Maimonides, has disappeared, but the leadership of the individual scholar, even after Maimonides, retained many hierarchical and sacral elements. The Mishneh Torah did not supersede the Talmud, and Maimonides' aristocratic opposition to monetary support for Torah study failed completely. So strong was his personality, however, that most of his opponents made great efforts to say that they opposed not Maimonides himself but some element of his teaching or, better still, some misguided interpretation or citation of his work. The Maimonidean controversy is both very specifically at the heart of Jewish culture and, at the same time, part or a set of problems central to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity alike.