TWO MORE STIMULATING CHAPTERS

Rambam has already told us that he believes the purpose of the Law (that is, the Torah) is to create perfection of the body and perfection of the soul. In this chapter, he goes through several other (subsidiary) purposes of mitsvot, and our job will be to see what he means, and the extent to which we accept what he says.

THE PROBLEM OF DESIRE

The first purpose Rambam mentions—as a general principle of the Torah—is the need to leave all desires altogether, to the extent possible. He focuses mostly on eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse as the loci where desire expresses itself, and thinks that we should avoid these desires to the extent possible. Only the ignorant (Rambam’s view) engage in pleasure for its own sake; doing so takes a person away from speculation, meaning thinking about the significant areas of life, leads to corruption of the body (because excessive indulging of appetite takes away a person’s health), premature death, sorrow, and so on.

To lead us away from these desires, Rambam says, God graciously gave us commandments whose sole purpose was that. He then offers as an example the halakhah of ben sorer u-moreh, the rebellious son. The Torah includes in the parents’ complaint about their uncontrollable son the comment that he is zolel ve-sovei, a glutton and a drunkard. Rambam takes that to mean that these two attributes are themselves problematic, since the indulging of one’s lusts necessarily leads to other problems. The Torah, to guard against that certain future, ordained stoning the son before it got any worse.

IS THIS REALLY RAMBAM’S VIEW?

The problem with Rambam’s statement—although at first reading, it fits in with an ascetic strand in medieval Jewish thought generally—is that it seems overly denigrating of desire, given other statements of Rambam’s. On Yom Tov, for example, Rambam ordains that men should eat meat and drink wine, since that is the clearest source of simhah for them. Creating simhat Yom Tov, then, crucially depends on using one’s desires for food and drink. Similarly, intercourse is mandated between husband and wife on a regular basis, a mandate Rambam never gives any indication that he is reducing. His comments here, then, need explanation at least.

The key lies in differentiating indulging one’s desires from using one’s desires to achieve other, higher ends. Desire in and of itself is a bad thing, to be completely avoided (in Rambam’s terms) to the extent that it has become an end of its own. It is never proper, in Rambam’s view, to eat a steak just because it looks juicy and well prepared. Eating a steak under those circumstances is simply giving in to one’s desires.

However, when a Yom Tov (or other occasion that calls for simhah from a Torah perspective—which could easily include, in my view, wedding anniversaries, birthdays, etc.) comes around, and the person wishes to unleash his feelings of joy and jubilation, Rambam recognizes that including the physical in that process will enhance the simhah experience.

LIMITING INTERCOURSE

Similarly, I believe, for intercourse. At the top of page 533, Rambam is more explicit about the need to limit intercourse, saying that a person should make it as infrequent as possible. While he will return to this topic in chapter 49 (when he is explaining the laws of forbidden relations, etc.), he says here that God’s prohibiting the Jews from having intercourse for 3 days before the giving of the Torah support his view. There, the Torah says "sanctify yourselves" and it means refrain from intercourse, so that Rambam believes the word "sanctify" (such as ve-hitqadishtem, you shall make yourselves holy) means refrain from intercourse.

Rambam seems to believe that any act of intercourse is a concession to one’s physicality, and should therefore be limited as much as possible. Even in those stark terms, however, I would point out that Rambam still recognizes that such activity would generally be a regular part of one’s life. Some examples: partners in a marriage are required to satisfy their spouses in this area, so if one partner engages in intercourse primarily to satisfy and please the other, that would not count (in Rambam’s terms) as indulging a desire. Procreation is another obvious reason for intercourse. A third possibility (as Rabad suggests in his Ba`alei haNefesh; while Rambam didn’t know that work, there’s no reason to think that he disagreed) is that a person wishes to calm his physical urges to free his mind for more important matters. This would parallel a person eating only to quell hunger, thus allowing himself to study Torah more fruitfully.

Rambam will return to the topic in that later chapter, so we will wait until then to explore whether his view might not ignore other positive religious elements in the act of intercourse between husband and wife.

DOCILITY

Rambam lists as a second goal of the Law the creation of gentleness and docility. That is, he thinks that people should learn to be obedient and acquiescent, which is how he characterizes the value in the Jews’ saying na`aseh ve-nishma. In other words, to be a true oved(et) Hashem requires the readiness to yield to God’s Will, a character trait the mitsvot help instill.

OUTWARD CLEANING

Rambam then lists cleaning one’s clothes and body—removing dirt from oneself—as one of the purposes of the Law. He spends the rest of the chapter stressing, however, that that is a less general value than cleansing oneself internally, with verses to support his contention. In his explanation of a verse from Yeshaya, Rambam suggests that those who are outwardly clean, but spend all their time in eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse (presumably, any combination of the three bothers him if it’s to the exclusion of positive religious activities), are missing the point. Rambam says that’s a mistake in the order—one should first focus on internal purification.

CHAPTER 34

In this chapter, Rambam makes a statement that is quite controversial in its possible ramifications. Rambam points out that the Laws of the Torah pay attention to the majority of cases, not to isolated and rare instances. That means, he says, that the purpose of the Law might not be achieved in every individual’s case, but that as long as the Law serves its appropriate purpose for the majority of cases, that is all we can expect of it. Since the Torah was given for eternity, with the same rules applying in all the various times and places of history, we only need to explain it in a way that covers the majority.

DOES THE LAW REMAIN RELEVANT FOR PHILOSOPHERS?

This chapter (along with other indications) has suggested to some that Rambam believed that many of the Laws of the Torah were no longer relevant for those who had already developed to a fairly high intellectual/spiritual level. In its more extreme expressions, these people thought Rambam would have been theoretically happy with a person who simply meditated about God all day (as we saw Rambam mention in chapter 32), without performing any mitsvot. The only reason that is not possible is that the Torah was given generally, and couldn’t make exceptions for philosophers.