Lecture by Moshe Idel"Maimonides: From Mysticism to Scepticism"

8 February 2017

The lecture will first deal with an early passage by Maimonides, found in his commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin, dealing with the post-mortem union of the human intellect with the angelic world, which reflects the impact of the rational mysticism of Avicenna. This passage was accurately translated from Arabic into Hebrew by Nahmanides, which puts into relief aspects that correspond with his understanding of Kabbalah.

Then, following the lead of Leo Strauss and Shlomo Pines, Idel will briefly discuss the sceptical aspects of the late Maimonides, in the Guide for the Perplexed, concerning his attitude to the Hebrew language and the limits of human speculation, and finally he will discuss a passage from the Guide dealing with the manner in which the secrets of the Torah should be extracted from the biblical text, and compare it to Abraham Abulafia’s ecstatic Kabbalah.

8 February 2017, 18:00 at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies (Seminar Room 5060)