Friday 5 June 2020

Rambam’s Secret Wager



I am going to make a suggestion which is my interpretation of things, and might upset some hardcore Rabbanites. However,  pursuant to a previous article published here


there seems to be a recurring pattern of statements, and hints that even in his legal writings, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon was alluding to something outside of his rabbinical beliefs.

Whilst Rambam is quite harsh at those who deny the oral law, or rabbinic injunctions,  he makes a point of emphasising that adding to the Torah is forbidden, and those who claim that rabbinic injunctions are from the Torah are guilty of adding.
He opens several of his chapters by distinguishing the Torah Law from what is rabbinic. In this area, I might disagree with his classification of what Torah law is, but it is still an important observation to note his distinctions.

Moving from his so called “Mishneh Torah”  to his philosophical magnum opus,  the Guide for the Perplexed, here there appear many allusions and hints at certain secret doctrines and ideologies that are too dangerous for him to state explicitly. Thus on the topic of  Lex Talionis - an eye for an eye  - he interprets it in a way that is contrary to the rabbinic version, and congruent with the Karaite or plain reading of the Torah,  i.e. that it really was a physical eye for an eye, as opposed to financial compensation.  The same also goes for Shaatnez of the high priest’s tunic.  In his Guide he points out that idolaters would wear a tunic made of shaatnez as part of their idolatry.  This statement would also be going against the Rabbinic claim that the Torah command the High priest to wear a wool and linen mix in the Temple – which is a total lie.

Some rabbis make the statement that they agree with the Rambam’s halacha, but don’t accept his philosophy. However, even within his halacha, there are already some rudimentary allusions to his disapproval of certain Talmudic claims.  Notwithstanding this,  we are speaking of the man and not of later rabbis with less capacity of logical thought.

I would therefore wish to put forward that Maimonides is indeed making a secret wager, something akin to Pascal’s wager.  He is, in his final years of life, writing an alternative religious theology to that which he has lived most of his life as a rabbi and leader. An alternative to the fame and authority his name conjures up for countless generations to follow.  He has reached a point where his time on Earth is winnowing, and he believes he will be giving account to his Master at the great bet Din in the Sky.  He is just now writing his secret wager, which he will use as evidence, should be brought task for spreading what he has realised could be pure fantasy – the claim that an Oral Torah was given in addition to the Written One.