Reading On Maimonides

Volume 3, Number 1

June, 2004

Reading Strauss on Maimonides: A New Approach

Alan Verskin

Strauss’s essay “How to Begin to Study the Guide of the Perplexed”[1] contains his last and probably most developed position on Maimonides’ views on the relation of philosophy to the Law. It is also perhaps one of his most difficult essays to understand as he takes his form of esoteric interpretation to extremes not present in his other works on Maimonides. Focusing largely on this essay, I suggest an approach to reading Strauss on Maimonides.

Strauss’s main contribution to scholarship on Maimonides is his contention that Maimonides is an esoteric writer. Strauss explains the principle behind esoteric writing thus:

Esoteric literature presupposes that there are basic truths which would not be pronounced in public by any decent man, because they would do harm to many people who, having being hurt, would naturally be inclined to hurt in turn him who pronounces the unpleasant truths[2].

As Strauss sees it, Maimonides expresses this problem in Jewish terms by referring to the legal prohibition against disseminating the “secrets of the Law” to the general public. Maimonides cannot simply write a conventional book to convey these truths to the few fit to receive them since to write a book is essentially to give a public teaching[3]. He therefore writes esoterically with the result that his true meaning can only be understood by a small number of talented and careful readers. This esotericism, Strauss says, is achieved in three ways:

First, every word of the Guide is chosen with exceeding care; since very few men are able or willing to read with exceeding care, most men will fail to perceive the secret teaching. Second, Maimonides deliberately contradicts himself, and if a man declares both that a is b and that a is not b, he cannot be said to declare anything. Lastly, the “chapter headings” of the secret teaching are not presented in an orderly fashion but are scattered throughout the book[4].

For Strauss, the method of self-contradiction is of particular importance in Maimonides’ esotericism. Strauss dismisses the claim that “unconscious and unintentional contradictions have crept into the Guide.”[5] He therefore says that the task of the interpreter is to “find out in each case which of the two statements was considered by Maimonides to be true and which he merely used as a means of hiding the truth.”[6] Strauss claims that the key to determining which of two contradictory statements is true is their relative rarity. Thus he says “we may therefore establish the rule that of two contradictory statements in the Guide or in any other work of Maimonides, that statement which occurs least frequently, or even which occurs only once, was considered by him to be true.”[7]

Strauss’s admiration for Maimonides’ esotericism has a bearing on his own writing. He says that, out of respect for Maimonides, “an esoteric interpretation of the Guide seems to be not only advisable, but even necessary”[8] and the result is that his works on Maimonides are themselves written in an esoteric style.[9]

Just as Strauss considered it of vital importance to determine the genre of the works with which he was dealing, so too must one determine the genre of his own works. At first glance, most of his works appear to be historical studies. Philosophy and Law(Philosophie und Gesetz, first published Berlin: Schocken, 1935), perhaps the locus classicus of his own thought, is subtitled “Contributions to the Understanding of Maimonides and His Predecessors” – a subtitle which could comfortably fit an exclusively historical work. This impression is further reinforced by his numerous statements that he is a careful reader whose goal is “to understand the thinkers of the past exactly as they understood themselves.”[10] This kind of historical treatment means that

the seemingly infinite variety of ways in which a given teaching can be understood does not do away with the fact that the originator of the doctrine understood it in one way only, provided he was not confused.[11]

Strauss seems thereby to indicate that his study follows the very highest standards which one would expect from a historical study.

I would suggest, however, that, despite his claims to the contrary, Strauss’s interest in accurate historical interpretation is less than at first appears from his surface meaning and that his focus on the past is for a purpose other than the furthering of historical study. My argument is not uncontroversial. Some scholars, for example Shlomo Pines, have taken up a number of Strauss’s more radical interpretations of Maimonides in apparently purely historical contexts – an indication that they consider them to be an accurate reflection of Maimonides’ actual opinions. Also in opposition to the view which I advance, other scholars regard aspects of Strauss’s interpretation of Maimonides simply as inaccurate historical studies, in other words, they maintain that Strauss made a sincere effort to ascertain what Maimonides really meant but failed. Alfred Ivry, a proponent of this view, argues that Strauss’s historical interpretations of Maimonides are mere “conjecture” and that

upon close examination it would appear that his elaborate attempts to discern the hidden structures of Maimonides’ work are not particularly successful. More to the point, it would seem his analyses of Maimonides’ true teachings are often adventitiously connected to his lexicographical efforts.[12]

In reading Strauss, I think that it is reasonable to apply to his own writings the hermeneutic which he applies to others. If one adopts this approach, then, if any of his interpretations of Maimonides appear to be historically inaccurate, it is reasonable to suspect that Strauss is aware of this and that he is deliberately advancing these views for some ulterior purpose. Rémi Brague seems to give some support to my view when he says, referring to those passages which he believes are not historically accurate, that “the Straussian Maimonides might be, at least in part, a construction and the projection into the past of a personal project.”[13] In other words, it might be better to characterize Strauss’s work as the textual manipulation of historical texts rather than as a historical study. I suggest that it is reasonable to suppose that, as a self-proclaimed esoteric writer, Strauss leaves hints as to the nature of his “personal project” for those who are fit to understand it. Strauss’s textual manipulation perhaps becomes most conspicuous when one considers the nature of this “personal project.”

In Philosophy and Law, Strauss engages in a sustained polemic against Enlightenment Judaism. Although he tacitly agrees with

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