In this transcription, Scott Alexander provides an overview of Chapter 8 of Volume 2 of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. He discusses the ancient belief in the music of the spheres and how Maimonides rejected this idea. Alexander contrasts opinion with knowledge, highlighting Maimonides' criticism of uncritical adoption of religious tradition. He also explores the Pythagorean belief in the music of the spheres and how it connected mathematical proportions to musical notes. The Pythagorean opinion faced challenges regarding why these sounds were not heard. Alexander mentions Johannes Kepler's endorsement of the idea that the music of the spheres could be appreciated by those with higher consciousness. He also discusses the belief in loud sounds of heavenly bodies among rabbis and provides examples from Talmudic texts. Both Maimonides and Aristotle rejected the theories of heavenly sounds.
Hi, this is Scott Alexander, and I'm doing a voiceover here, which is an essay explaining Chapter 8 of Volume 2 of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. It's from my book, which is called The Guide, an explanatory commentary on each chapter of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed by Scott Michael Alexander. I should say before I get going here that I do have a way of footnoting my ideas. I use, I put my notes in smaller type, 9 point type, usually in parentheses.
That does not read well on a voiceover. I'm just going to make glancing references to those notes. They do need to be there for both legal reasons and to show that I actually have a reason for saying the things I'm saying. I expect that you will look at the written version of this chapter essay and read the notes there. As I come to them, I will indicate just briefly what's in each one of them. The chapter, Chapter 8 from Volume 2 of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, I've titled Maimonides Rejects the Music of the Spheres, and I begin with an overview.
Before the great paradigm shift of the 16th century's Copernican revolution, from a geocentric cosmos of surrounding spheres to a heliocentric system of planets, there was a prior cosmological revolution from ancient pre-Aristotelian views. Maimonides addressed this ancient paradigm shift, specifically in the context of the biblical and Pythagorean portrayals of the heavens, by focusing on one particular problem which unlocked the constellation of issues that confront religion in its eternal duet with science, the problem of the so-called music of the spheres.
My next section is entitled Opinion vs. Knowledge. I start with a quote from the chapter. In Pinnus' translation, the reference is there. One of the ancient opinions that were widespread among the philosophers and the general run of people consists in the belief that the motion of the spheres produces very fearful and mighty sounds. I write, it is a conceit of the philosophers that the task of philosophy is the replacement of opinion about the nature of things with the knowledge of those things.
That is an idea taken from Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? See my note. Maimonides similarly contrasted the opinion of the crowd with true knowledge concerning the things of religion. Maimonides had expressed this in Arabic terminology as the problem of taqlid, the uncritical adoption of traditional opinion in religion. It meant the acceptance of doctrinal authority without questioning its scriptural basis or rationale. See my chapter essay on Guide 133. Taqlid could also mean that those who had not studied these fundamental roots must follow the guidance of those who had.
Taqlid demanded literalism, bilay kaifah, without asking how, especially regarding Quranic anthropomorphism. Something like this occurred even among rabbis who were criticized by Rabbi Bakhia ibn Bakuda writing around 1040 of the Common Era, writing in Arabic well before Maimonides time. I asked one of those who are thought to be Torah scholars some of the questions on the science of the inner life, and he answered me that relying on tradition can substitute for independent thought in all these matters.
My comment, this suggests some rabbinic acceptance of taqlid in its strongest version. Rabbi Bakhia rejected this. My answer to him was that this is acceptable only in the case of children and uneducated men who, because of limited perception and comprehension, cannot reason on their own. But whoever has the intellectual capacity to verify what he receives from tradition and yet is prevented from doing so by his own laziness or because he takes lightly God's commandments and Torah, he will be punished for this and held accountable for negligence.
This is from Duties of the Heart, Khovod Halavovot, translation by Daniel Haberman from Feldheim, and I give the reference material for that in my note. What is striking about Maimonides' opening paragraph in our chapter, Guided the Perplexed, chapter 8, volume 2, is that he pointedly includes the philosophers with the uncritical herd who accepted the, quote, ancient opinion that the motion of the spheres produces very fearful and mighty sounds. By this remark, he registered the persistent belief among Gentile scholars down to Johannes Kepler in the Renaissance that planetary motion produces loud sounds.
The Pythagoreans among them believed that those sounds were harmonious. But why should we hear anything? Just as arrows shot on earth make a whizzing sound, we should also hear the sound of the speeding planets. Maimonides wrote, they observed how little objects produced by rapid motion a loud, shrilling and terrifying noise, and concluded that this must, to a far greater degree, be the case with the bodies of the sun, the moon, and the stars, considering their greatness and their velocity.
I now have a note in which I suggest that Maimonides' account here is following Aristotle's account in On the Heavens, I give the reference. I give some references also for my claim that Maimonides similarly contrasts opinion with knowledge. Regarding the harmony of the Pythagoreans, I put in etymological information about the word harmony and where it comes from. Also regarding opinions, I put in etymological information regarding the term opinions and what Maimonides means by the term. My next section is called The Music of the Pythagoreans.
The music that the Pythagoreans believed, the reason that the Pythagoreans believed that these loud noises were musical was that they connected the mathematical proportions between the orbits of the planetary bodies to the pitches of musical notes, which, they explained, were in inverse proportion to the length of the string producing them. I have here, speaking of the length of the string, a plate by Robert Flood from 1617 from a book, part of the title is De Metaphysical Macrocosmos, or two, in which he has a string being tightened by the hand of God, which indicates the various notes, the various spheres in our universe and how they relate to each other.
As a nice and artistic illustration of the concept I'm trying to explain, the Pythagoreans musica universalis. The Pythagoreans musica universalis express the universal proportionality of planets, sounds, geometric shapes, and numbers in the macrocosm of our universe and the microcosm of our own world. The Pythagorean opinion was not without problems. Why can't we hear these sounds? The Pythagoreans felt called upon to produce an answer even to the point of manufacturing excuses and I quote Rabbi Evan Schmuel's contemporary commentary where he uses the phrase Terutzim min hamuchan, which essentially means they manufactured excuses.
Maimonides noted this, quote, they also explain why these mighty and tremendous sounds are not heard by us. They had two lines of argument, though we cannot hear the music of the spheres, some pneumatic souls such as Pythagoras himself were said to be able to hear them, an idea that was endorsed by Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher who lived from 1571 to 1630 writing in various places, but principally in Harmoniki Mundi 1619. Kepler argued that although this music was not audible, it could be appreciated by those who had reached higher consciousness.
The second argument was that we are from birth so inured to the sounds that we cannot distinguish them just as children of blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and grain millers were thought to subconsciously cancel the background noise, referring to Aristotle there. The opinion of the crowds and the philosophers about the loud and terrifying sounds of heavenly bodies was reflected in the thought of the rabbis of the Talmud in Midrash. The rabbis did not, however, embrace the Pythagorean description of musical qualities to these cacophonies, kikua, in Rabbi Ibn Tibben's onomatopoetic translation.
Maimonides comments, this belief in the loud sounds of the planets is also widespread in our nation, thus our sages described the greatness of sound produced by the sun in the daily circuit in its orbit. He had in mind the Talmud Yoma 20b, which has this passage, Rabbi Levy, who was a third generation Amorah who lived from 290 to about 320 of the common era, said, why is a person's voice not heard during the day in the same manner that it is during the night? It's due to the fact that the sound of the sphere of the sun, the Galgal Hama, traversing the sky, generates noise like the noise generated by a carpenter sawing cedars, and that noise drowns out other sounds.
Were it not for the sound of the sphere of the sun, the sound of the bustle of the crowds of Rome would be heard throughout the world, and were it not for the sound of the bustle of the crowds of Rome, the sound of the sun's sphere would be heard throughout the world. And the sages taught, three sounds travel from the end of the world to its other end, the sound of the sphere of the sun, the sound of the bustle of the crowds of Rome, and the sound of the soul at the moment that it leaves the body, which should be audible throughout the world.
This is from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz's translation, I have the information on that in my note. The parallel text in Midrash B'reish Yitraba is chapter 6, verse 7, part 7, and I do note that in my note that Rabbi Levy used the vocabulary of spheres, the Gilgalim, Galgalim, inappositely, where he plainly meant that this, quote, sphere, was a firmament in or around which the sun moves, see below where I explain all this, and also Mishneh Torah Yisodeh 3.1, where Maimonides collapsed the distinction.
My next section reads, Aristotle rejects the music, and there's a plate showing the Aristotelian system there, you should see it. These theories of sounds of heavenly bodies, both of the rabbis and of the Pythagoreans, were rejected by Aristotle as well as Maimonides. An underlying cosmological dispute was behind the argument, their argument. Maimonides explained, quote, you shouldn't find it blameworthy that the opinion of Aristotle disagrees with that of the sages, may their memory be blessed. As to this point, for this opinion I mean to say the one according to which the heavenly bodies produce sounds is consequent upon their belief in a fixed sphere and in stars that return.
That's from the Pinnus translation, which does note its source in Pesachem 94b, where Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi held that the stars rotate independently of any sphere, which was rejected by his successor several generations later, Rabbi Achar bar Yaakov. Aristotle argued that we don't hear the sounds because there are no sounds. The planets could not produce sound since they do not move, they are fixed to their respective spheres. Since the spheres surround and move with each other, they do not generate the mutual friction that produces sound.
The fact of heavenly silence was itself proof for his paradigm of a universe of rotating concentric crystalline spheres. He wrote, this is a long quote, It is clear that the theory that the movement of the stars produces a harmony, i.e., that the sounds they make are concordant, in spite of the grace and originality with which it has been stated, is nevertheless untrue. But as we said before, melodious and poetical as the theory is, it cannot be a true account of the facts.
There is not only the absurdity of our hearing nothing, the ground of which they try to remove, but also the fact that no effect other than sensitive is produced upon us. Excessive noises, we know, shatter the solid bodies even of inanimate things. The noise of thunder, for instance, splits rocks, and the strongest of bodies. But if the moving bodies are so great, and the sound which penetrates to us is proportionate to their size, that sound must reach us in an intensity many times that of thunder, and the force of its action must be immense.
Indeed, the reason why we do not hear and also show in our bodies the effects of violent forces easily given, it is that there is no noise. But not only is the explanation evident, it is also a corroboration of the truth of the views which we have advanced. Noises which are themselves in motion produce noise and friction, but those which are attached or fixed to a moving body as the parts to a ship can no more create noise than a ship on a river moving with the stream.
But sound is only caused when a moving body is enclosed in an unmoved body, and cannot be caused by one enclosed in and continuous with a moving body which creates no friction. Since therefore this effect is evidently not produced, since there is no noise, it follows that none of them can move with the motion either of animate nature or of constraint, that is to say, of forced motion. It is as though nature had foreseen the result, that if their movement were other than it is, nothing on this earth could maintain its character since everything would be shattered.
That the stars are attached to their moving sphere and are not self-moved has now been explained. In my note I give the reference to Aristotle for this, and I also direct your attention to compare this to Plato's Myth of Air in the Republic 617C-617D, which has the same idea in, sort of the same idea of the music of the spheres in a metaphorical package. Maimonides, the next section is called The Rabbis Concede to Aristotle. Maimonides wrote that you should not find it blameworthy, Moser be-Enecha, that the opinion of Aristotle disagrees with that of the rabbinic sages.
This is strong language. Rabbi Eben-Shmuel explained, it should not be strange to you, Tamua be-Enecha, that precisely on this point Aristotle's opinion differs from that of the rabbis, inasmuch as in all other details concerning the spheres, his opinion agreed with their opinion. That's my translation from Rabbi Eben-Shmuel's commentary, and I give the references. But Rabbi Eben-Shmuel strayed beyond the text. He meant by his note to call attention to prior chapters in Volume 2 of the Guide, especially the introduction to Volume 2, read together with chapters 2, chapter 4, chapter 5, all in Volume 2, as support for his contention that in all other details concerning the spheres, Aristotle's opinion agreed with the rabbi's opinion.
In those chapters, however, the most that Maimonides tried to show was that the Aristotelian theory of a geocentric universe surrounded by concentric living and intelligent spheres was consistent with views expressed in the Talmud and Midrash. Nonetheless, why, on the specific issue of the music of the spheres, did they so radically disagree? Why did the rabbis think that the hurtling planets make loud and terrifying noises, while Aristotle insisted that the lack of such noise was proof of his spherical cosmology? In other words, if they agreed with Aristotle, as Maimonides claimed, that the motion of the universe was due to the action of intelligent spheres rotating the earth, why did they disagree with him on this specific point? The answer is that Maimonides introduced the issue of planetary motion here for the first time.
Up until now, Maimonides had not discussed whether the rabbis had accepted Aristotle's underlying doctrine that the spheres moved and the planets were stationary. I now have a note in which I give references in support of my claim that no prior direct discussion of planetary motion occurs in the guide before we get to chapter 8 of volume 2. The next subsection on ancient rabbinic cosmology features two plates, two ancient, very artistic plates, one of which is meant to show the firmament and the biblical idea of the skies from 1475, and then it's followed with another plate, a more technical description of the Jewish view, the Hebrew conception of the universe, from an older document prepared in 1913.
I write, The rabbis had a different system. In the language of the Torah and of the rabbis, the heavens were a firmament. This firmament was firm, that is to say, it was fixed, and the planets, including the sun, moved independently in and around those heavens. The firmament was described as a dome, a kippah, and not a sphere. To quote from one of my sources, see note below, Moshe Simon Shoshan, their cosmos was, therefore, hemispherical, not spherical.
Even when the rabbis began to call the dome a sphere, they still regarded it, at least for a while, as a fixed firmament. My mononies explain the rabbis' view. For this opinion, I mean to say the one according to which the heavenly bodies produce sounds is consequent upon the belief in a fixed sphere and in stars that return, in other words, in stars that rotate. This fixed sphere was the firmament. The rabbis and the Pythagorean philosophers believed both that the planetary bodies must make loud noises due to the friction produced by their size and speed within or around the fixed sphere slash dome.
This was due to their shared doctrinal commitment to the idea that the planets are self-moving. What happened next was noteworthy. The rabbis convert to the view of the Aristotelian astronomers in the Talmud, Pesachem 94b. My mononies describe what happened. The theory of the music of the spheres is connected with the theory of the motion of the stars in a fixed sphere, and our sages have, in this astronomical question, abandoned their own theory in favor of the theory of others, that is, the Aristotelians, that the spheres rotate and the stars are fixed.
Thus, it is distinctly stated, quote, the wise men of other nations have defeated the wise men of Israel. It is quite right that our sages have abandoned their own theory. My mononies attributed this concession to the rabbi's intellectual integrity. They recognized that in matters of science, proof reigns supreme over traditional opinion. This is correct for everyone who argues in speculative matters, does this according to the conclusions to which he was led by his speculation. Hence the conclusion whose demonstration, i.e.
proof, is correct is to be believed, shanit kayyemah. I next have a long footnote in which I justify the use of the terms by my mononies, speculative matters and proof. I also explain the term belief, which is essentially the Arabic etiqad, and what that etiqad is. I then discuss the etymological background of the term firmament, quoting from a couple of sources, one of them by Rabbi Natan Slifkin, which I will have occasion to refer to, and also Moshe Simon Shoshan's paper.
You can see those references in that footnote. I also refer to Kuhn's Copernican Revolution, which is very important for the chapter. I also note in that long note that this passage, that Maimonides quotes from Talmud Pesachim 94b, that the wise men of other nations have defeated the wise men of Israel, does not reflect our current readings in our current Talmuds, and I have a note on the history of the debate over Maimonides' use of that phrase.
Specifically in this long note, I explain the actual cosmological debate on page 94b, and I'll go through this briefly. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the author of the Mishnah, Rebbe, had argued in Pesachim 94b that the failure to find the constellation Ursa Major in the southern hemisphere, or Scorpio in the northern hemisphere, showed that they move independently in their respective spheres. Like Homer said, Ursa Major ever circles where it is and never bathes in ocean waves. His argument was that since the general motion of the heavens as we look at it, it moves in the night sky along the ecliptic, inclined across the equator at a 23 degree angle.
He follows that if those stars in the constellation Ursa Major, or Scorpio, were affixed to such a moving sphere, they should have been seen outside their usual hemisphere. But they are not, and this supported the rabbinic hypothesis of a fixed heavenly dome with moving planets that move independently. However, Rabbi Acha Bar-Yakov rejected this idea and claimed that these constellations were moving on small spheres, like epicycle spheres, always in position with respect to the equator, apparently vindicating the moving sphere hypothesis of the Gentile philosophers.
They also argued on that page where the sun went at night. And at the end of that discussion, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, representing the rabbis, conceded that the Hellenic sphere hypothesis was more accurate than the model of the sun moving independently around or through a fixed dome. Slifkin's article referred to previously surveys the plethora of rabbinic opinions generated by these twin debates down to the 18th century, culminating with the Vilna Gaon, who lived from 1720 to 1797.
My next section reads, who was right and why? Give me a second here. What came of this theoretical blow up? Who was right about the sounds of the spheres? Aristotle was right for the wrong reasons, and the original opinion of the Tanaitic rabbis was wrong for the right reasons. After accepting Aristotle's view, the rabbis' opinion, including Maimonides' opinion, was like Aristotle's, right for the wrong reasons. The entire episode is a cautionary tale about the entanglement of religion in scientific paradigm shifts.
No one came out looking good. I will explain below, and I refer the reader in my note to the works of Thomas Kuhn on the subject of the paradigm shift. My next section is the collapse of the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian spheres and the consequences for Judaism, and there's a plate showing the Aristotelian Ptolemaic spherology as it developed, at least by the early Middle Ages, showing its striking lack of economy, which comes from a quote which I'll read shortly from Thomas Kuhn.
I write, Aristotle was right that we do not hear the sounds of the heavenly bodies or the music of the spheres because there are no sounds and there is no music. He attributed this silence to his cosmology of a geocentric universe of silently rotating concentric spheres, but he was wrong. Since the 16th century, we have known that there are no such spheres, and this fact has been confirmed through extensive astronomical observation and our own travels in outer space.
And then I have a note explaining how Copernicus' ideas were taken up by Tycho Brahe and Kepler in order to prove that there were no spheres, nor could there be any spheres, to explain the motions of the planets. Thomas Kuhn eloquently explained why these ideas were held for so long, and I have a long quote from him. The Copernican revolution was an incredibly long time coming. For almost 1,800 years from the time of Apollonius and Hipparchus until the birth of Copernicus, the conception of compounded circular orbits within an earth-centered universe dominated every technically developed attack upon the problem of the planets, and there were a great many such attacks before Copernicus.
Despite its slight but recognized inaccuracy and its striking lack of economy, the developed Ptolemaic system had an immense lifespan, and the longevity of this magnificent but clearly imperfect system poses a pair of closely related puzzles. How did the theory gain so tight a grip on the imagination of the astronomers? And once gained, how was the psychological grip of this traditional approach to a traditional problem released? Or to put the same question more directly, why was the Copernican revolution so long Why was the Copernican revolution so delayed? And how did it come to pass at all? A scientist must believe in his system before he will trust it as a guide to fruitful investigations of the unknown, but the scientist pays a price for this commitment to a particular alternative.
He may make mistakes. A single observation incompatible with his theory demonstrates that he has been employing the wrong theory all along. His conceptual scheme must then be abandoned and replaced. That, in outline, is the logical structure of the scientific revolution. Nonetheless, as we have already begun to discover, observation is never absolutely incompatible with the conceptual scheme. Thus, the emphasis on logical incompatibility disguises an essential problem. How can a conceptual scheme that one generation admiringly describes as subtle, flexible, and complex become for a later generation merely obscure, ambiguous, and cumbersome? A conviction of this sort is difficult to break, particularly once it has been embodied in the practice of a whole generation of astronomers who transmit it to their successors through their teaching and writing.
This is the bandwagon effect in the realm of scientific ideas. The geocentric spheres provided a fruitful guide to the solution of problems outside as well as inside astronomy. By the end of the fourth century, before the common era, it had been applied by the Greeks not only to the problem of the planets, but also to terrestrial problems like the fall of a leaf and the flight of an arrow, and to spiritual problems like the relation of man to his gods.
The astronomer could no longer upset this universe without overturning physics and religion as well. This long quote is from the Copernican Revolution, pages 74 through 77. Parts of it have been cut by me. And so, when Rabbi Acha bar Yaakov, a third generation Amorah who lived around 290-320 of the common era, used the spherical paradigm to defeat the wise men of Israel in Maimonides' version of Pesach of 94b, and when Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi conceded the point, they committed the wise men of Israel to a paradigm that had no basis in fact.
And similarly, Maimonides confirmed this now entrenched error in Jewish thought. His case was by no means unusual. The rabbis took an interest in astronomy since it was needed for calendrical computation, especially the need to determine the new moon, and they wanted to remain up to date in astronomy. Rabbi Gamliel, first century common era, owned some sort of telescope according to Aruvin 43b. Ptolemy's Almagest, written in the second century of the common era, was a massive work of Hellenic astronomy which prevailed over Western astronomy for 1400 years, and Jews were crucial to the translation project that popularized Ptolemaic cosmology in the Middle Ages.
Jews employed in the Toledo school of translators, as well as the famous Thibonide family of translators in France, translated ancient and modern astronomical documents into Hebrew and Latin from Arabic, including from ancient Greek works, helping to create the so-called Renaissance of the twelfth century. Maimonides testified that he studied with famous astronomers in Andalusia in chapter 9, the next chapter in the guide. Many rabbis published commentaries on the Almagest of Ptolemy beginning as early as the thirteenth century.
A shortened version of the Almagest was written by Rabbi Chaim Vital well after Copernicus. He lived from 1542 to 1620. Jews also compiled astronomical tables based on the Hellenic paradigm, some of which Maimonides relied on, as did Rabbi Yehuda Halevi in the twelfth century, and Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra who lived from 1092 to 1167. The Raalbag, Rabbi Levi ben Gershom, who lived from 1288 to 1344, compiled astronomical tables based on ancient sources, but still within the spherical paradigm.
He was the first to write a description of the Jacob's staff, a predecessor of the sextant, which itself was, the Jacob's staff was invented by Yaakov ben Makir, who was a Tibanid. Rabbi Yomtov Lipman Heller, the Tosfus Yomtov, who lived 1579 to 1654, argued that every Jew from youth had a duty to study astronomy. There is a quote from David Fishman's essay, which I give a reference to, Rabbi Moshe Isserles and the study of science among Polish rabbis.
He wrote, quote, a dozen Hebrew works on astronomy were composed in Poland between 1550 and 1648. We can well imagine the catastrophic effect of the Copernican revolution on these layers of Jewish thought, especially as we can identify major Maimonideans and other rabbinic figures who opposed it even after Copernicus. Therefore Kuhn wrote, the astronomer may on occasion destroy, for reasons lying entirely within his specialty, a worldview that had previously made the universe meaningful for the members of a whole civilization, specialist and non-specialist alike.
That's from page 7 of his Copernican revolution. The title of my next subsection is The Kabbalistic Spheres. Based on all of this, the sudden growth of published Jewish mysticism in the 13th century, according to Rabbi Gershom Scholem and major trends in Jewish mysticism, I give the references, Yet sudden growth appears in a new light. Far from a retreat into obscurantism, Kabbalah saved Jewish thought from its over-identification with the going scientific model. Just observe the linguistic change in this era where the word for spheres, spherot, loses identification with astronomy and becomes the stages of the manifestation of divine thought.
Professor J.H. Chayes in Spheres, Spherot, and the Imaginal Astronomical Discourse of Classical Kabbalah, that was Spheres, Spherot, and the Imaginal Astronomical Discourse of Classical Kabbalah, and I give the references below, wrote, Gershom Scholem famously insisted that the term sephira is not connected with the Greek sphere, but as early as the Sefer HaBachir, it is related to the Hebrew sapir, sapphire, for it is the radiance of God which is like that of the sapphire, quoting from Sefer HaBachir.
Even if Scholem's etymology is correct, the astronomical association is not so easily avoided as the spheres were understood to be made of transparent crystalline substance known as sapphire. He writes in conclusion, for Kabbalists, if not for philologists, the spherote spheres connection was always crystalline sphere, and I give etymological references below that. There's a plate here from 1888, a table of the sephiroths, as he calls them, described in circles, which goes through the usual pattern, crown, wisdom, understanding, strength, mercy, duty, victory, glory, the kingdom, but instead of having these titles in Hebrew plastered across a stick-finger man, here they're placed on a kind of a sphere, like the Aristotelian sphere table that we had before.
Debatable etymology aside, in the Jewish mind these spheroth displaced the spheres. That helps explain why Judaism survived the great Copernican paradigm shift to a solar-centric, sphere-free universe. The transformation to the Kabbalistic perspective was epitomized in the new orientation of major 13th century Maimonideans. Rabbi Abraham Abu Laffeyah, who lived from 1240 to after 1292, deemed himself a disciple and promoter of Maimonidean thought. His ecstatic Kabbalah was, in his mind, the working out of the implications of Maimonides' thought.
Similarly, Rabbi Moshe Deleon, who lived about 1240 to 1305, a close reader of the Guide who published the Zohar, became, by contrast, a theosophic Kabbalist. See Gershom Scholem's book, Kabbalah, under the titles Deleon and Abu Laffeyah. While we do not know what level of discomfort any of these figures felt with the paradigm of the spheres at this stage of its history, we do know that already in Maimonides' Guide we start to see, in Jewish thought, criticism of core aspects of that cosmology.
See especially Guide Volume 2, Chapter 24. My next section is titled Why No Music? Aristotle and his many followers were wrong to make the celestial spheres a vindication for their doctrine of the spheres. But even so, since we now know that the planets move as planets, why don't we hear their heavenly music? Aristotle was right to attribute production of noise to friction. He wrote, quote, Sound is caused when a moving body is enclosed in an unmoved body and cannot be caused by one enclosed in, and continuous with, a moving body which creates no friction.
Aristotle referred here to his doctrine of partial motion, which Maimonides summarized in his Proposition 4 from the introduction to Volume 2 of the Guide, quote, Partial motion is like a nail in a boat. The nail moves with the boat. When the whole moves, every part moves, end of quote. Thus, since the stars are fixed in the Aristotelian stellar sphere, their movement is only partial motion as they are born silently across the sky. In Aristotle's words, bodies which are themselves in motion produce noise and friction, but those which are attached or fixed to a moving body as the parts to a ship can no more create noise than a ship on a river moving with the stream.
But by the same argument, one might say it would be observed that on a large vessel the motion of mast and poop should make a great noise, and the like might be said of the movement of the vessel itself, carried by the moving ocean. But sound cannot be caused by a body enclosed in and continuous with a moving body and creating no friction. I give the citation to Aristotle's De Quello in my note. While all this is true, the application of his doctrine of partial motion to the cosmology of the spheres is hopelessly false.
All that can be savaged is the attribution of noise to friction. The reason that we don't hear the planetary bodies whizzing through space, despite their great size and speed, is because space is a nearly frictionless environment. Moreover, even if those motions produced some slight noise, at our great distance from those bodies we could not hear it. The moon is 239,000 miles from the earth, a staggering number compared to the earth's diameter, which is only 7,926 miles.
No matter how much noise the crowds make in Rome, Beijing, or for that matter in the next town over from you, you would not hear it. That's why Aristotle, Maimonides, and the rabbis who adopted the cosmology of the rotating spheres were right that there was neither celestial cacophony nor music, but were nonetheless wrong to ascribe that silence to the partial motion of the spheres. Why was Rabbi Levi's account of the sun's clamorous journey wrong for the right reasons? The rabbinic explanation that we should hear the sun because of the friction of its moving body was correct.
The rabbis could not have known that the environment of space was largely frictionless. Nonetheless, by accepting Aristotle's spherology, they lurched to the wrong explanation. Some 16th century rabbis criticized this turn. The Yashur Mikandia, Rabbi Yosef del Medico, who lived from 1591 to 1655, in his book to which I give the reference, Safer Aleem, was explicit in his critique of the rabbis. And by the life of my head, the sages of Israel did not act appropriately when they abandoned their opinion with regard to the sphere being fixed and the constellations revolving and accepted the opinion of the Gentiles.
For in our time, most scholars have disqualified that which they accepted and have adopted that which they negated. Rabbi Dovid Gans, G-A-N-S, known as the Tzemach Dovid, who lived from 1541 to 1613, put aside his own opposition to the newly minted Copernican system, testifying that both Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, the two famous astronomers, told him that the rabbis were right in the first place when they rejected the moving spheres in favor of the moving planets and should never have conceded to the Gentiles.
And I have a somewhat longer note showing that quotation from Rabbi Gans, and who explained that he remained an adherent of the Ptolemaic system despite studying with Copernicus successors, Tycho Brahe and Kepler, at their observatory and having been commissioned to do some work for them. Nonetheless, he derided the Copernican system as being essentially Pythagorean, and this is not in my paper, I would say that he had some reason to do that. My next section is the rabbinic commitment to truth.
How could the rabbis justify abandoning a cosmological account based on divine inspiration in favor of doctrines of the Hellenic school of astronomy? Maimonides terse statement at the end of our chapter provides that justification. For everyone who argues in speculative matters does this according to the conclusions to which he was led by his speculation. Hence, the conclusion whose demonstration is correct is believed. In other words, the rabbis were non-dogmatic in that they accepted proof despite its conflict with tradition.
One source for this approach was the missionary tractate Pirkei Avot, chapters of the fathers, composed in the 3rd century Common Era, Pirkei Avot 5, Mishnah 7, taught, quote, a wise man is not hasty to answer. He asks what is relevant, and he answers to the point. And he speaks of the first point first, and of the last point last. And concerning that which he has not heard, he says, I haven't heard. And he concedes to the truth.
He is mode al haemet, he concedes to the truth. The translation is by Joshua Culp from Sepharia. Maimonides wrote a commentary on this tractate where he addressed this teaching, and here's a quote from that. It's from Parish al Hamishnah, a commentary on the Mishnah, Avot, translation is by the Sepharia community. The wise man is not stubborn, but when he hears the truth, he concedes to it. And even about that which he is able to refute, and to disagree with, and to misconstrue, he does not want to do this.
And this is his saying, and he concedes to the truth. And all of these are the opposite with the unformed person, since he is not complete as we have explained, and he has not reached this level. Similarly, Pirkei Avot chapter 4, Mishnah 1, has the Tanah ben Zoma, who lived in the first and second centuries of the common era, say, who is wise? The one who learns from every person, as it is said, from all who taught me have I gained understanding.
This is from Psalms 119.99. This is reflected in the previously quoted statement of Rabbi Bachi Ibn Bakuda that whoever has the intellectual capacity to verify what he receives from tradition, and yet is prevented from doing so by his own laziness, or because he takes lightly God's commandments and Torah, will be punished for this and held accountable for his negligence. The Talmud, Shabbat 75a, suggests that this is true even if we must gain such wisdom from Gentiles.
Thus, calendrical calculation is so important that a rabbinic expert must not set aside his Hellenic astronomical knowledge out of fear of its pagan origin. Maimonides wrote his Responsa 61, expanding the point. Here is my translation of both the question and the answer of that Responsa question. Where the Talmud says, someone who knows how to compute cosmic cycles and planetary courses, but does not make these computations, one may hold no discussion with him, of him Scripture says they regard not the work of the Lord, neither have they considered the operation of his hands, from Shabbat 75a in the Steinsaltz translation, quoting Isaiah 5.12.
How should we think about this? Does it make a difference whether we should consider that this is or is not a commandment? Does it make a difference whether we should consider whether this is or is not a commandment? This question was prompted by the term commandment in the following passage. How do we know that one is commanded to compute cosmic cycles and planetary courses? The answer from Rambam reads, when it says someone who knows how to compute cosmic cycles and planetary courses, this would include knowledge of astronomy, intercalation, and mathematics in all of their details.
And when it says someone who knows, but does not make these computations, it refers to someone who has the ability to do so. These disciplines are keys of wisdom, and the text indicates someone who knows their axioms and does not put them to use to make these computations. Question is, in such a case, what would be the benefit of this knowledge? Already Rabbi Mayer, in the Beresa, proclaimed, contemplate God's works through which you can recognize he who spoke and the world came to be.
Maimonides meant that he was prepared to give the Talmud's limited authorization of Hellenic learning a broad reading. We are to contemplate God's works in earthy nature and the heavenly cosmos. If we fail, we have lost an opportunity to acknowledge divine power. Maimonides also wrote, in Guide Chapter 76 of Volume 1, of the need to seek truth over dogma, quote, if you wish to go in search of truth, cast aside your passions, your tradition, and your fondness of things you have been accustomed to cherish, if you wish to guard yourself against error.
Rabbi Shem Tov provided an expansive interpretation to Maimonides' statement, I give the reference in the text, and this is my translation of Rabbi Shem Tov. Maimonides demanded that you seek truth, abandoning passionate desires, especially desires for those things you considered great when you grew up, for there is nothing so injurious as that to which we have become accustomed. The seeker should not turn to received opinion, for it is easy to accept, requiring no thought. You should have no inclination but to know truth qua truth, inclining neither to passion nor to opinions merely accepted from childhood.
This is exactly what Rambam ruled in the Mishneh Torah, he'll quote Kiddush HaKodesh, Chapter 17, Verse 24, Mishneh 24, and this is from Rabbi Tauger's translation, quote, the rationales for all these astronomical slash calendrical calculations and the reasons why this number is added, why that subtraction is made, and how all these concepts are known and the proofs for each of these principles are the subject of the wisdom of astronomy and geometry concerning which the Greeks wrote many books.
These texts are presently in the hands of the sages. The texts themselves, written by the sages of Israel in the age of the prophets from the tribe of Yasaskar, have not been transmitted to us. Nonetheless, since these concepts can be proven in an unshakeable manner, leaving no room for question, the identity of the author, be he prophet or Gentile, is of no concern. For a manner whose rationale has been revealed and has proven truthful in an unshakeable manner, we do not rely on the personal authority of the individual who made these statements or taught these concepts, but on the proofs he presented and the reasons he made known.
My next section, follow the science? This translation from the Mishneh Torah above is by Rabbi Eliyahu Tauger, who registered his discomfort with the results of Maimonides' follow the science prescription in his note to this passage. The context of this commentary is not a proper place for a full discussion of Rambam's perspective on the supposed conflicts between science and the Torah. It must be noted, however, that the statements made here, emphasizing the importance of the empirical evidence of science, should not be interpreted by us indicating that the perspective science adopts at any given time should be accepted in place of the Torah's teachings.
End of passage. Maimonides was not insensitive to such concerns. He adopted an arm's-length attitude toward the legacies of Hellenic and Arabic astronomy in Guide Chapter 24 in Volume 2, which reads, this is a long quote, Consider, therefore, how many difficulties arise if we accept the theory which Aristotle expounds in physics. These difficulties do not concern the astronomer, for he does not profess to tell us the existing properties of the spheres, but only to suggest, whether correctly or not, a theory in which the motion of the stars is circular and uniform, and yet in agreement with our observation.
But of the things in the heavens man knows nothing except a few mathematical calculations, and you see how far these go. I say in the word of the poet, The heavens are the Lord's, but the earth he hath given to the sons of man. That's from Psalm 115, verse 16. That is to say, God alone has a perfect and true knowledge of the heavens, their nature, their essence, their form, their motions, and their causes. But he gave man power to know the things which are under the heavens.
Here is man's world, here is his own, into which he has been placed, and of which he himself is a portion. This is, in reality, the truth. For the facts which we require in proving the existence of heavenly beings are withheld from us, the heavens are too far from us, and too exalted in place and rank. God's faculties are too deficient to comprehend even the general proof the heavens contain for the existence of him who set them in motion.
It is, in fact, ignorance and a kind of madness to weary our minds with finding out things which are beyond our reach, without having the means of approaching them. We must content ourselves with that which is within our reach, and that which cannot be approached by logical inference, let us leave to him who has been endowed with that great and divine influence. This is all I can say on this question another person may perhaps be able to establish by proof what appears doubtful to me.
It is on account of my great love of truth that I have shown my embarrassment in these matters, and I have not heard, nor do I know, that any of these theories have been established by proof. End of passage. My next section, the last section, I title with the Hebrew term Kli Chemda, which I'll explain in the course of the section. Rabbi Narboni, that's the name we give to Rabbi Moshe ben Joshua, who lived about 1300 until about 1362 and was a major commentary on the Guide, commenting on the last sentences of our chapter, asserted that the rabbis have an especially positive attitude toward the demonstration of proof in those areas that could be reached by proof.
He wrote in commentary, quote, as Rambam wrote here, everyone who argues in speculative matters does this according to the conclusions to which he was led by his speculation. Why? Because proof is speech that is uniquely appreciated by the sages. My translation from Rabbi Narboni's commentary, on page 28A of his commentary, and Locke. Rabbi Shem Tov derived sublime illumination from Rabbi Narboni's statement, expanding it in an unexpected direction. He wrote, the gifts of prophecy are not superior to those of scholarship in the realm of scholarship, because in this regard the scholar is superior to the prophet, as scholars do not find anything useful other than what has been validated by another's proof.
You should recognize that this dictum of Maimonides is more precious than any other desirable instrument, kli chemda, from which will be clarified many things for those who desire to attain pardes, that is to say paradise. My translation. The reference to kli chemda comes from Pirkei Avot, chapter 3, Mishnah 14, especially beloved are men for it was made known to them that the desirable instrument, the kli chemda, with which the world had been created, was given to them.
I'm going to now read the whole passage in Pirkei Avot with just one cut, because I think it'll give you a better idea of what we're trying to get at. Quote, Rabbi Akiva used to say, beloved is man for he was created in the image of God. Especially beloved is he for it was made known to him that he had been created in the image of God, as it is said, for in the image of God he made man.
Beloved are Israel in that a precious vessel, the kli chemda, was given to them. Especially beloved are they for it was made known to them that the desirable instrument, the kli chemda, with which the world had been created, was given to them. Rabbi Shemtov meant that the kli chemda is the act of intellect. The state that men achieve when they actualize their potential knowledge concerning the things of religion. Their potential knowledge, including raw opinion, was located in their potential intellect.
See my chapter essay on guide 168 for an explanation of all these terms. Rabbi Shemtov wants us to think back to the first chapter in the guide where Maimonides established that the act of intellect is the link between man and God. Man achieves his active intellect when he replaces mere opinion with truth. And truth is truth no matter whether it is contemplated on earth or in heaven. Rabbi Narboni let us know that this is the direction we should pursue by dropping hints.
He began his commentary on guide chapter 8, volume 2, our chapter, in this way. Maimonides at guide volume 2 chapter 10 confirmed the reality of the separate intellect as one of the four causes of the movements of the sphere, comparing them to the four wings of the coyote. That is, the ancient doctrine of the sounds of the spheres was introduced in the accounts of the prophets of the Mesa Merkava as the sound of the wings of the coyote.
By this deeply coded statement, Rabbi Narboni refers to Ezekiel, who in chapter 1, verse 24, stated, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of God. And in chapter 10, verse 5, the prophet wrote, and the sound of the cherubim's wings as the voice of God Almighty when he speaketh. He also meant to point us, Narboni meant to point us to Maimonides' announcement of universal fourness in chapter 10 of volume 2 of the guide.
And I quote from Pinnus' translation, I give the reference, it is likewise possible that the arrangement of the universe should be as follows. The spheres are four, the elements moved by the spheres are four, and the forces proceeding from the spheres into that which exists in general are four, as we have made clear. Similarly, the causes of every motion belonging to the sphere are four. Number one, the shape of the sphere, I mean to say, its sphericity.
Number two, its soul. Number three, its intellect through which it has conceptions, as we have explained. And finally, number four, the separate intellect, which is its beloved. Understand this well. By now we should recognize that when Maimonides makes gnomic, that's G-N-O-M-I-C, statements like quote, understand this well, he points us in the direction of the mystical subjects of Misa Bereshit and Misa Merkava, the account of creation and the account of providence, those subjects which the second Mishnah in Hagiga ruled could not be taught openly in public.
We should therefore expect that his treatment of such issues would be presented in coded language. Maimonides, in chapter 10 of volume two of the guide, explained each of those four causes of spherical motion that I mentioned, but we will just look at his explanation of the last one, the separate intellect. The separate intellect, the Seychel Hanivdal of the living spheres, corresponds to our own active intellect. Maimonides wrote, there must indubitably be something inciting to motion, namely, a conceiving and a desire for that which has been conceived, as we have mentioned.
This can only come about through an intellect. Thus, there must indubitably be a certain being of which a conception is made, and for which there is desire, as we have explained. There must be some cause for the motion of the spheres, and as it does not consist in the fear of that which is injurious or the desire of that which is profitable, because injury and profit do not concern the spheres, it must be found in the notion which the spheres form of a certain being, and in the desire, the erotic desire, to approach that being, the Eros.
This formation of a notion demands, in the first place, that the spheres possess intellect. It demands further that something exists which corresponds to that notion of the desired being, and which the spheres desire to approach. End of passage. In other words, the love that the sphere has for its separate intellect, and that the separate intellect has for God, impels its sphere's motion of rotation. For Rabbi Narboni, the sound of the four wings was the prophet Ezekiel's symbolic key to the four causes of heavenly motion, in particular to the motion impelled by the erotic attraction of the separate intellect to the divine intellect, producing an angelic sound sensed by the divinely inspired.
When the rabbis accepted the doctrine of the living spheres, they grasped the Kli Chemda, that is to say, the Eros of the sphere's separate intellect toward God, the erotic drive of the spheres toward God in the macrocosm, toward which our act of intellect's yearning corresponds in the microcosm. See Regarding Macrocosm and Microcosm, my chapter essay on chapter 72 of volume one. And I conclude the essay with this short paragraph. It is in Jewish mysticism, in the Sephirotic doctrines of the Kabbalah, that Judaism was able to maintain its orientation to the motion of that intellectual Eros without sacrificing it on the altar of the doctrine of corporeal spheres, the scientific philosophical idolatry of the ancient world.
Thank you very much for listening. I would say that all this material is copyright by me, copyright 2023 and 2024. Scott Michael Alexander, no copying or use permitted without express written permission of the author. You may contact me with comments, questions or criticism at scottmalexander at rcn.com. I give that also at the end of the printed version of this in case you have forgotten it. See Maimonides hyphen guide for further chapters of my book, The Guide, an explanatory commentary on each chapter of Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed now finished through volume two, chapter eight.
Thank you once again very much for listening.
