Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism
Menachem Kellner
Foreword by Moshe Idel

Publication Details - Reviews - Contents - Author Information

Maimonides' vision of Judaism was deeply elitist, but at the same time profoundly universalistic. He was highly critical of the regnant Jewish culture of his day, which he perceived as so heavily influenced by ancient Jewish mysticism as to be debased. While focusing on that critique, Kellner skillfully and accessibly demonstrates how Maimonides used philosophy in order to purify a corrupted and paganized religion, and to present distinctions fundamental to Judaism as institutional, sociological, and historical, rather than ontological. In Maimonides' hands, metaphysical distinctions are translated into moral challenges.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Menachem Kellner is Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa. He is the author of Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought and Must a Jew Believe Anything? and translator of Isaac Abravanel’s Principles of Faith, all published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. He is also the author of Maimonides on Human Perfection, Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People, and Maimonides on the ‘Decline of the Generations’ and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority. His translations of Gersonides’ Commentary on Song of Songs and Maimonides’ Book of Love appeared in the Yale Judaica Series. Professor Kellner’s critical editions of the original texts of Abravanel’s Principles of Faith and of Gersonides’ Commentary on Song of Songs were published in Hebrew.

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Publication Details - Reviews - Contents - Author Information