Yehuda Halper on Guiding Readers to "The Guide of the Perplexed"
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 ā¢ 620 Ratings
šļø 8 February 2024
ā±ļø 50 minutes
šļø Recording | iTunes | RSS
š§¾ļø Download transcript
Summary
This week, the Tikvah Podcast atĀ MosaicĀ returns to the towering intellectual and religious sage of medieval Judaism, Moses Maimonides, the Rambam. In two previous conversations about his work, the professor of Judaism Yehuda Halper and podcast host Jonathan Silver focused on MaimonidesāsĀ Mishneh Torah, his code of law.
This week, the two turn from theĀ Mishneh TorahĀ to Maimonidesās philosophical magnum opus,Ā Moreh ha Nevukhim, known in English asĀ The Guide of the Perplexed. Whereas theĀ Mishneh TorahĀ leaves one with the impression that philosophy and law can be reconciled within the covenantal structure of an observant Jewish life, the emphasis inĀ The Guide of the PerplexedĀ is on the tensions, difficulties, and apparent contradictions between philosophy and law.
TheĀ GuideĀ is one of the great books of Jewish philosophy, and it requires some preliminary introduction before anyone can seriously engage its questions. So this discussion is an orientation to the kind of study, the kind of person, and the kind of life that theĀ GuideĀ is written to instruct.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This week we return to the towering intellectual and religious sage of medieval Judaism, |
| 0:12.9 | Moses Maimonides, the Rambam. |
| 0:15.3 | In our previous two conversations about his work with the Barilan University professor |
| 0:20.0 | Yehuda helper, we have focused on Maimonides |
| 0:22.6 | Mishna Torah, his code of law. Among readers of Maimonides, there is sometimes a view that a |
| 0:28.7 | cordon sanitaire can be drawn between his pious legal writing and his rather more philosophical writing. |
| 0:34.9 | But I think as we've seen, even the Rambam of the Mishnah Torah is fully |
| 0:38.8 | alive to the role of reason and the special exercise of our intellectual faculties that, for him, |
| 0:45.1 | make us more fully human. Both in our discussion of the section on Hilhot Talmud Torah, |
| 0:50.4 | laws pertaining to the study of Torah, and also in our discussion of Hilchot de Ote, laws pertaining |
| 0:55.5 | to character traits, Maimonides' legal writing is replete with philosophical and scientific allusions. |
| 1:02.3 | This week, we're turning from the Mishnahe Torah to Maimonides' philosophical magnum opus, |
| 1:07.6 | Mouche, the guide of the perplexed. Whereas I think something like science and |
| 1:13.3 | philosophy is present in Maimonides' legal writing, and of course it's not only present, but |
| 1:19.0 | explored in very great depth here, there is an important difference in emphasis. I think it's fair |
| 1:24.9 | to say that reading the Mishnah Torah leaves one with the suggestion that philosophy and law can be reconciled within the covenantal structure of an observant Jewish life. But the emphasis in the guide of the perplexed is on the tensions, difficulties, and apparent contradictions between philosophy and law. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, |
| 1:45.8 | Jonathan Silver. This week, Professor Halper joins me once again for a preliminary discussion of the |
| 1:52.2 | guide of the perplexed. I want to emphasize something that Yehuda says in the course of our conversation. |
| 1:58.0 | This is one of the great and deep books of Jewish philosophy, and all of what |
| 2:02.5 | we're going to discuss has to do with the preliminary studies that are necessary before one can |
| 2:08.4 | seriously engage the questions of the book. So our conversation is not a comprehensive |
| 2:14.0 | commentary or interpretation or summary of the philosophical arguments that reside |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright Ā© Tapesearch 2025.