Customer Reviews

Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)

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This superb work is not merely a collection of the late Marvin Fox's essays on Maimonides: it is a synthetic, tightly-knit work that connects, as the title suggests, the themes of 1) how to read Maimonides; 2) the Rambam's theory of being; and 3) his ethical theory. This last subject is somewhat of a misnomer, as Fox insists that Maimonides HAS no ethical theory per se: Fox believes that Maimonides held that there is no such thing as moral reasoning. Instead, moral values must come from God. This is a minority viewpoint among Maimonides scholars, but if Fox is not totally persuasive on it, he makes a plausible case.

And he does so--as he does in all of these essays--with a writing style that is fluid, graceful, and above all, clear without being simplistic. Reading Fox on Maimonides is to be in the presence of a great teacher discussing a great thinker.

Fox is particularly compelling in his discussion of Maimonides' view of reason. The popular view is that Maimonides was a thorough-going rationalist, insisting that reason and faith were completely compatible. Fox shows that this is not true: instead, Maimonides held a complex and tension-filled view of reason and faith existing in separate spheres. Yet Maimonides also realized that separating these spheres was anything but easy.

Fox' close reading of the first two chapters of the Guide of the Perplexed is alone worth the price of admission. I read this book shortly after Kenneth Seeskin's Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed, and while I liked Seeskin's treatment, Fox's is truly the gold standard. Isadore Twersky's classic work on the Mishnah Torah is also recommended, but is much denser and longer.

Of course, to some extent that is the price one pays (and the benefit one gets) from interacting with the Rambam. The only way to begin to understand Maimonides is to read him. Before reading Fox, I read the Guide myself, cover to cover, and perhaps understood 20% of it. Maimonides himself probably would not have approved of modern readers simply diving in, but in our age, with a dearth of great teachers accessible to an educated readership, that is the only way. Studying Maimonides is a lifelong occupation: Fox's book is a crucial step on that road.