Rambam and Ramban - Two Opinions on Spirituality - No Compromises Possible.

My post on the Avot keeping Mitzvot generated interesting comments and email exchanges and debates on the topic itself but also went into a wide area of other related issues. I see that I touched a nerve and there is a need for clarification (including for myself). I will try to segregate the different topics raised and organize my posts, addressing each one individually.

In this post I want to reiterate a very important point that, I notice, is not always clear in people’s mind. There are two basic schools of thought in Judaism that seem to go back all the way to the times of the Tannaim. I will call them the rational and the mystical. The mystical approach is not necessarily Kabalistic but rather has a different understanding of nature than the rational one. The Kabbalists developed their ideas based on this mystical understanding of nature. There is a tendency of mixing the two approaches trying to find justifications on how both are correct. The fact is that each position is distinctly different from the other and there is no possibility of reconciling them with each other. Each position sees the other as incorrect and one has to choose which approach is the correct one and follow it to its conclusions. There are no compromises.

Rambam represents the rational position and Ramban the mystical. These two great thinkers, and their respective school of followers, were interested in Truth and were uncompromising in their opinions. We can however try to understand the basis for the conviction of each of them and decide which one seems to be closer to our personal Truth.

The starting point of both positions is the same – the Torah is Torat Chaim – a teaching that deals with our life, our existence. As such, it has to be cognizant of reality and it interprets it. This nonsense that real Metziut does not exist outside the Torah, that the literal interpretation of a statement tells us how things are in reality against all our perception and senses, to me is Kefirah [as in MN 1:36 - "by Kefirah (Pines : infidelity) I mean the belief that a thing is different from what it really is"]. It is the argument put forth by small minds that fear facing reality. I think I saw reported in the name of RYBS that if one believes the Torah is divine it was given by the same God that created the world. Science and Torah are therefore perforce compatible. The Torah is HKBH teaching us how to interpret our scientific reality so that we can find Him through it.

Rabbi Buchman in his article in Hakirah 2, “U-Madua Lo Yeresem” http://hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Buchman.pdf, addresses the issue of how both positions of the Rishonim were based on their understanding of science and nature, at length. I would like to share an interesting interpretation of a natural phenomenon put forth by both camps that crystallizes how each understood nature differently. The great pupil of Ramban, Rashba (Rabbeinu Shlomo ben Aderet 1235 – 1310) writes in a responsa: (1:414)

כי באמת הדברים הפועלים בסגלה אין פעולתם בפלא מהם אלא בטבע מסגל, רצוני לומר בטבע לא ישיגנו עיון החכמים ואפילו החכם שבחכמים לרוב העלם הטבע ההוא מכלל המין האנושי מצד שהוא אדם, כסגלת אבן השואבת שהברזל קופץ עליה ויותר מזה מורגל בירדי הים באניות תוחבין מחט בחתיכת עץ צף על פני המים ומראין לו אבן וישוט על פני המים עד שיפנה אל פני הסדן ושם ינוח - ולא ישיג עיון טבע זה כל חכם שבחכמים אלו של חכמת הטבע. ואם כן אף כל המינין בעלי הסגולות בטבע הם פועלים כסמים והמסעדים ואין בהם משום דרכי האמורי כמו שאין בדברים המפורסמים המועילים לפי העיון הטבעי של אלו החכמים

Rashba was asked if someone is allowed to use a metal medallion with a lion drawn on it as a cure for an illness. He discusses what is considered magic and what is natural. He argues that there must be a supernatural element to nature for we see that a magnet attracts metal from afar. Furthermore, mariners stick a needle into a piece of wood that floats on water and is controlled from a distance by a stone that directs it toward the tiller. (I am not sure exactly what this last method is). Being that this cannot be a physical force, we clearly see that nature functions in the supernatural realm. He therefore concludes that amulets, charms and other such methods are natural powers (segulot) although no one can really ever apprehend those powers and how they work.

Rashba was following in the footsteps of Ramban and brought empirical proof for the existence of the supernatural from what we now know is magnetism. He therefore concluded that magic is real but forbidden under certain circumstances but permissible when used as medicine. (Anyone interested in a fascinating debate on the subject of amulets between Rashba and R. Abba Mari, Rashba’s interlocutor and partner on the ban on philosophy in 13th century Provence, can find it in Minhat Kenaot printed at the end of the Dimitrowsky edition of Shut Harashba.)That was the basis for Ramban’s argument in Devarim 18:9 –

רמב"ן פרשת שפטים

ורבים יתחסדו בנחשים לומר שאין בהם אמת כלל, כי מי יגיד לעורב ולעגור מה יהיה. ואנחנו לא נוכל להכחיש דברים יתפרסמו לעיני רואים.

(יג) וטעם תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך - שנייחד לבבנו אליו לבדו, ונאמין שהוא לבדו עושה כל והוא היודע אמתת כל עתיד, וממנו לבדו נדרוש העתידות, מנביאיו או מאנשי חסידיו רצוני לומר אורים ותומים. ולא נדרוש מהוברי שמים ולא מזולתם

Referring to Rambam, Ramban writes that many are too extreme when it comes to magic saying that there is no truth in them, for who would tell a bird what the future brings? [He explained earlier that part of magic is to listen to the sound of birds and if one knows the code, one can read the future from them]. But we cannot deny things that are empirically seen by all. [IOW magic is a science that all can verify! As Rashba later explained “magnetism” for one.]

(13) - The meaning of “be whole with your God” is that we should concentrate our minds on God only, and believe that He alone creates everything and He knows the true future. We should therefore turn only to God’s prophets or His devotees i.e. the Urim and Tumim, and we should not turn to the stargazers.

According to Ramban although there is some truth in soothsayers and magic, they are not as good as prophets are. Although they are useful, the Torah forbids turning to them. We are commanded to choose prophecy over magic although both work, albeit there is an additional bonus, prophecy always works while magic is sometimes inconsistent. As he expands in that same commentary, it is inconsistent as God can overrule the spiritual powers.

Rambam on the other hand writes in Hil Avodah Zara (11:16) –

[טז] ודברים האלו--כולן, דברי שקר וכזב הן; והן שהטעו בהן עובדי עבודה זרה הקדמונים לגויי הארצות, כדי שיינהו אחריהן.
יח כל המאמין בדברים אלו, וכיוצא בהן, ומחשב בליבו שהן אמת ודברי חכמה, אבל התורה אסרה אותן--אינו אלא מן הסכלים ומחסרי הדעת, ובכלל הנשים והקטנים שאין דעתן שלמה. אבל בעלי החכמה ותמימי הדעת, יידעו בראיות ברורות--שכל אלו הדברים שאסרה תורה, אינן דברי חכמה, אלא תוהו והבל שנמשכו בהן חסרי הדעת, ונטשו כל דרכי האמת בגללן. ומפני זה אמרה תורה, כשהזהירה על כל אלו ההבלים, "תמים תהיה, עם ה' אלוהיך"


All these things [magic, soothsaying etc…] are falsity and lies. They are the means that the idol worshipers of old used to fool the people so that they should follow them.

All those who believe in these and other similar things, thinking that they are true and scientific and still forbidden by the Torah – is foolish and mindless like women and children who have not developed their intellect. Those who have knowledge and developed intellects know empirically that whatever the Torah forbids is not science but nonsense that attracted the mindless people who have abandoned the true paths for them. That is why the Torah forbade these nonsensical things saying, “Be whole with your God”.

Rambam is uncompromising in opposing Ramban’s position adamantly disagreeing with his approach. The Torah would never forbid a scientific truth. What about Rashba’s proof for the existence of the magical and the supernatural? Isn’t that existence of magnets an irrefutable proof? In MN 2:12 in a discussion about the existence of a First Cause, Rambam argues that no movement is possible without a Prime Mover.

“In Physics it has been shown that a body in acting upon another body must either directly be in contact with it, or indirectly through the medium of other bodies. E.g., a body that has been heated has been in contact with fire, or the air that surrounds the body has been heated by the fire, and has communicated the heat to the body; the immediate cause of the heat in this body is the corporeal substance of the heated air. The magnet attracts iron from a distance through a certain force communicated to the air round the iron. The magnet does therefore not act at all distances, just as fire does not act at every distance, but only as long as the air between the fire and the object is affected by the fire. When the air is no longer affected by the fire which is under a piece of wax, the latter does not melt. The same is the case with magnetism.”

Rambam acknowledges that we do not understand how magnetism works. However, it clearly is not a supernatural event but rather a physical phenomenon that has yet to be explained. Proof is that it is dependent on how close the object is to the magnet. Spiritual entities do not take up space and thus are not distance dependent. Rambam’s world has no spiritual powers. There is the physical world in all its variety and then there is HKBH. Any other understanding is nonsense and “is foolish and mindless like women and children who have not developed their intellect” - אינו אלא מן הסכלים ומחסרי הדעת, ובכלל הנשים והקטנים שאין דעתן שלמה.

No compromises! Rambam was clearly aware of the other opinions and that some theologians and Rabbis of his time believed in them. He ridicules some of the Kabalistic literature by name. He refers to the sefer Shiur Komah in one of his letters as heresy. Ramban at the same time did not compromise either. He clearly knew what Rambam was saying but as he could not agree with him, he rejected his position. Ramban had his own explanation for how magnets work and what spirits are. (He held that spirits had a physical component, and is an intermediate stage between physicality and transcendence – but that is for another discussion.) Followers of each school took their opinion to its own conclusions. Mixing the two together does not make sense and is illogical.

Although the two schools disagreed with each other, they treated each other with respect. As long as they both agreed that God is transcendent and negated any corporeality to Him, the issue of spiritualism was not a central dogma that would make the other school heresy. I will address this issue in another post.