Kabbalah and Plato

Rambam quotes a Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer several times in the Moreh with wonderment and dedicates the whole Chapter 26 in the second part of the Moreh in trying to explain it. (See also in 2:30 where he refers to it in passing).

“IN the famous chapters known as the Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer, I find R. Eliezer the Great saying something more extraordinary than I have ever seen in the utterances of any believer in the Law of Moses. I mean the following passage:" Whence were the heavens created? He took part of the light of His garment, stretched it like a cloth, and thus the heavens were extending continually, as it is said: He covereth Himself with light as with a garment, He stretcheth the heavens like a curtain" (Ps. civ. 2)." Whence was the earth created? He took of the snow under the throne of glory, and threw it; according to the words: He saith to the snow, Be thou earth" (job xxxvii. 6). These are the words given there; and I, in my surprise, ask, What was the belief of this sage ? Did he think that nothing can be produced from nothing, and that a substance must have existed of which the things were formed? And did he for this reason ask whence were the heavens and the earth created? What has he gained by the answer? We might ask him, whence was the light of His garment created? Or the snow under the throne of His glory? Or the throne of glory itself? If the terms" the light of His garment" and" the throne of glory" mean something eternal, they must be rejected; the words would imply an admission of the Eternity of the Universe, though only in the form taught by Plato… In short, it is a passage that greatly confuses the notions of all intelligent and religious persons. I am unable to explain it sufficiently. I quoted it in order that you may not be misled by it.”

What we are discussing is Creation. There are three basic schools of thought as to creation according to Rambam. Aristotles believed the universe as we know it existed eternally parallel with God. Plato believed that God created the universe at some point in time from a substance that existed eternally parallel with God. The Torah according to Rambam teaches that, God created everything from total nothingness, in time. (I will discuss this at length as I go along.)

Rambam cannot accept R.Eliezer’s statement because it seems to imply that he held like Plato and not according to Torah. He tries to kvetch a pshat into it but does not really accept it because four chapters on, in 2:30, he refers back to R. Eliezer as Platonic. He therefore dismisses R. Eliezer as he did in this quote and there again:

“The above saying is, in my opinion, certainly of the same character as that of R. Eliezer," Whence were the heavens created," etc., (chap. xxvi.). In short, in these questions, do not take notice of the utterances of any person. I told you that the foundation of our faith is the belief that God created the Universe from nothing; that time did not exist previously, but was created: for it depends on the motion of the sphere and the sphere has been created.”

Now let us see how the Mekubalim read R.Eliezer. In Kitvei Haramban R. Chavel has a Pirush on Shir Hashirim that had been attributed to Ramban but Chavel shows that it is from Rabbi Azriel a Chaver of Ramban. On Shir Hashirim 3:9 he quotes R.Eliezer and comments; (my translation)-

“This is according to the opinion of Plato who says that it is an impossibility for the Creator to create something from nothingness, because there is a matter that exists [eternally] which is metaphorically, like the raw material for an artist or like iron to the smith to create whatever he wishes, so too the Creator blessed be He, creates from a matter heaven and earth and sometimes He will create other things. (I am not sure what he means with the latter). Do not wonder and argue that this sets limits to the Creator’s omnipotence by saying that He cannot create something from nothingness. It is the same as Him not being able to create incongruous things, for example a rectangle whose side is the same length as the diagonal, and to gather two opposites at the same time.”

He goes on to show that Shlomo Hamelech had the same opinion. There is nothing wrong with this opinion and as Rambam says it can accommodate the whole religion, but that is not what he believes nor what the Torah teaches. (I am simplifying to stay on subject). Rambam goes to great length to dissuade us from this opinion and shows that Shlomo Hamelech was not Platonic.

Ramban in Chumash is very cagey and the Ritva in his Sefer Hazikaron comments on it and is baffled (see Ramban on Breishit 1:1 – 1:8 (where he addresses R. Eliezer creating more confusion). Clearly Mekubalim were not as convinced as Rambam that God created everything from nothingness in time – in time being the key word. This position led to the development of the later theories of Tzimtzum and Tehiru which were the key to Arizal’s Kabbalah.

The point I am trying to make is that although the accepted opinion in the Orthodox community is that Kabbalah is Kodesh Kadashim and anyone that doubts it is suspect, it is a great distortion of the truth. If anything Kabbalah stands on wobbly legs and the burden of proof is on it to show that it is legitimate. The argument that so many great people believed it as authentic has no value, just as the numbers of his opponents did not dissuade Elijah at Har Hacarmel. There are very many theories of why this has been accepted by so many great Jewish thinkers. One of those is the article by rabbi Buchman in Hakirah which is a must read - U-madua lo Yeresem -
http://hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Buchman.pdf .