Discourse on: The Law of the Eternal Is Perfect [Paperback]

Nachmanides (Author), Charles B. Chavel (Translator)

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Language Notes

Text: English, Hebrew (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 115 pages
• Publisher: Shilo Pub House (August 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 088328023X
• ISBN-13: 978-0883280232
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,597,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a look inside the 13th century, February 6, 2005

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Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Discourse on: The Law of the Eternal Is Perfect (Paperback)

On August 4, 1263, a Christian king decided to visit a synagogue in Spain to persuade its membership to convert to Christianity. After the king left, Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides), one of Spain's leading Torah commentators, delived a long talk in response. This book is as close as we will come to a transcript of that talk.

Nachmanides did not organize this talk in any systematic way as far as I could tell. Instead, he discussed a wide variety of Torah topics, creating a kind of Nachmanides anthology.
A few points that grabbed me:

1. When discussing the response of Egyptian magicians to the Ten Plagues, Nachmanides writes that Egyptian magicians' inability to duplicate the plague of gnats "seemed to be difficult to comprehend until I spoke with craftsmen of demonology" (p. 18) and that he learned that "masters of the incanations" can create small creatures "with numerous magic formulas by command of the king of the demons." (Id.) In attacking Greek philosophical wisdom, he states that Aristotle declared "that there are no such things as demons and deeds of sorcery, for the world is subject only to natural law. But it is universally well known that this is not so." (Id.) I was surprised to learn that as late as the 13th century, people as sophisticated as Nachmanides still believed in demons!

2. Similarly, Nachmanides justified the Jewish prohibition on sex with menstruating women on the ground that according to the Midrash, "a child born from a menstruant will be a leper" (p. 81)- obviously not a theory supported by modern science.

3. Nachmanides frequently discussed (sometimes agreeing with, sometimes disagreeing with) great scholars of recent prior generations, such as Maimonides and Ibn Ezra. I didn't realize that these commentators were so widely known shortly after their lifetimes.

4. Of course, Nachmanides' discourse is full of substantive Torah knowledge as well. He discusses the differences not just between Jewish and Christian concepts of the Ten Commandments, but also that even gentile scholars are divided as to their meaning, pointing out that "Some divide the verse, Thou shalt have no other gods, into two commandments, while the consensus of their paltry scholars is to divide Thou shalt not covet into two." (p. 36). Nachmanides (writing 700-odd years before Judge Roy Moore) illustrates the problem with posting the 10 Commandments everywhere: who decides which version to pick?

5. In some ways, Nachmanides is actually more modern than other commentators who are sometimes described as more rationalist and less mystical in orientation. While Maimonides believed that the Earth (being part of Divine creation and thus perfect) would last forever, Nachmanides narrowly interprets scriptural passages supporting that view, and suggests that the Earth can be destroyed like any other Divine creation (p. 60)- a view in keeping with modern science.

6. One very interesting part of Nachmanides' talk is his attempt to explain the Golden Calf story in the Torah. How could people be dumb enough to think of a metal object as a deity? Nachmanides suggests the following scenario: the Hebrews thought Moses was lost in the mountains, so they created an image that, like Moses, would be a kind of intermediary between them and God. Aaron goes along, and declares "a feast to the Eternal" to ensure that the Hebrews know they are not actually worshipping the Calf. Most Hebrews continue to think this way even after the calf is built and sacrificed to- but as the situation gets out of hand, a few idiots confuse the calf with the Deity. This interpretation explains why a few thousand Hebrews are slaughtered in the ensuing chaos, while the rest are punished more subtly- the people who actually worshipped the calf get the most serious punishment, while the people who merely embarrassed themselves by treating the calf as a "Moses substitute" just get a tongue-lashing.