A Brief Introduction to the Eight Chapters Lecture Series
Translation of Or Hasechel Gilyon 1
In this series, we will study Maimonides' "Eight Chapters." These chapters serve as Maimonides' introduction to his commentary on Tractate Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) in his Mishnah commentary. In them, Maimonides presents the fundamental principles of his moral philosophy, upon which he will interpret the chapters of Avot, which consists of the sages' teachings on ethics.
The Goal and the Method
Our goal in these lessons is not merely to hear about Maimonides' opinions, or to recount the disputes between his views and those of other sages, so that we might become wise and learned and know many things.
Our approach is built upon the assumption that there exists a good, ancient, deep and broad way of life—a way that is intelligent and comprehensible, which is also the way of the Torah, or rather the Torah is nothing but an expression or mode of it (as we will study in detail, God willing, in Chapter 2 of the Eight Chapters regarding the relationship between Torah and the general way of life). From this perspective, most of the perplexities that confuse us in our investigations of thought and Torah dissolve, or at least receive a much clearer picture.
This vision of the way has been lost to us over time for many different reasons (which we will endeavor to investigate in what follows), to the point where most of us read the writings of Maimonides or the Zohar and early kabbalists, and interpret their fundamental concepts as completely different concepts barely connected to each other except by sharing a name. This is because we have forgotten their basic modes of thinking.
But the way itself is not lost; it is still good and broad and leads to full and joyful lives. Nor are we compelled, because of the generation we were born into, not to accept its concepts, and its concepts are not distant from our simple, everyday understanding. On the contrary, in many cases we will endeavor to show that precisely the ancient way of thinking is the simple and intuitive one, and the moment we relax our grip on our foundational principles that we hold with excessive dogmatism as inviolable foundational principles, the ways will open before us like the entrance to a great hall.
Maimonides and the Rest of Israel
This way finds very explicit and useful expression, in the Torah and Jewish context, in the writings of Maimonides, and therefore we endeavor to open it through studying his words. Since Maimonides is perceived as deviating from the mainstream, this will help us primarily to leap over our habitual perceptions, for when it is established from the outset that the book we are reading does not say exactly the same thing as what the elementary teacher said, the possibility opens for us to receive something better than that, provided we do not see the teacher as one who says everything we think against the 'elementary school rabbi.'
We do not want to engage in some 'Maimonideanism,' or in matters particular to Maimonides' system, different from the accepted and simple system. On the contrary, we will endeavor to touch precisely upon matters that were fundamentally accepted by all thinkers until recent generations, and we will also endeavor to show that most of the systems known as opposing Maimonides, when they enter into explaining real matters, share most of the deep foundational assumptions (which differ from ours). Indeed, the fact that there are great debates is precisely because they all accept the same foundational principles, for debate cannot exist except upon a shared foundation. We will endeavor to show, for example, how the debate between Maimonides and the kabbalists can only be understood as an internal dispute within the general ancient system.
The Problem with the Usual Method of Learning Based on Authority
One of the great difficulties in understanding most of our ancestors' wisdom—a difficulty that exists even in studying Maimonides in most places—is that they do not customarily begin from the beginning. We usually learn the words of our teachers in the manner of tradition: 'Thus says this holy book.' And at most, we endeavor to understand 'what he said.' And because we learn this way, our teachers also customarily write this way: 'Thus it is because I say it is so.' My intention here is not to judge this form of learning and writing, but to point it out.
Even when we study matters that are supposed to stimulate thought toward a different way of thinking, we are accustomed to reading them as yet another type of authority: 'But Maimonides said otherwise.' And Maimonides' way of writing in most places is indeed that of authority summarizing what emerges from thought, confronting it with other sources and reconciling them. And we, who have never thought for ourselves why one should actually think the first thought that contradicts the plain meaning of the scriptures, for example, have only to choose whether to accept Maimonides' proposal because Maimonides said it, or to reject it because it does not seem to us suitable to our first thought or to the plain meaning of the scriptures.
[The great exception to the learning method I mentioned is the customary in-depth Talmud study, in which one does not learn the words of the commentators only through tradition but also examines whether their words suit the primary sources or the Talmud. However, even this example is quite limited, as we see that when it comes to practical law, most students refrain from holding to their own opinion. And likewise, because even those who are extreme in it do not dare to ask about the Talmud itself why it says something, and it turns out that in the end it is acceptance from authority and not discussion of the reasoning itself.]
Even Maimonides' Authority Will Not Save Us from Our Problem
It is self-evident that if our intention is primarily to practice the ancient mode of thought, in our belief that it will help us even in this time, we will gain no benefit from this manner of learning. Even if we agree to accept everything Maimonides said with complete faith. For what impedes us is not the question of which authority to accept, but our habits of thought that prevent us from entering the aforementioned good way, and as long as we do not train our thoughts to open to the modes of the good way, even if we agree to accept everything Maimonides said, we will be unable to understand almost a word of what he said.
Therefore, for our purpose, there is no counsel but to return to those very first thoughts that Maimonides thought (and in our opinion, all the other sages of previous generations as well), and to endeavor to contemplate with clean and primary contemplation the questions upon which all the ancient mode of thought was based, and thereby to think those same thoughts they thought, and then we will also be able to live the lives they lived, and renew the innovations they innovated, or find new ways within that same framework.
Prioritizing Life Wisdom over All Other Wisdom
Among all types of wisdom and sciences we need, there is one wisdom we need most, and it organizes for us in our actual lives all the other wisdoms. This wisdom is moral wisdom, called ethics in foreign languages. And in the language of the early sages, the wisdom of human perfection, or human happiness. Or the science of good character traits. And when we speak of distancing from modes of thought that enabled the early sages all that wealth we discern in them, we speak primarily of distancing from their way of life wisdom, that is, their wisdom of character traits. For even if man's ultimate purpose is nothing but abstract intellectual contemplation, this very contemplation is itself one of man's acts in his life, and therefore we need clarification about what is good for man to do in his life, and understanding of how to live those contemplative lives that will lead us to that pure wisdom.
In addition to this wisdom being the most necessary, it is also the part of ancient wisdom about which it is easiest to show that it survives well and need not be nullified by the world's changes, for it is easy to see that the renewal of science or technology does not much affect the question of what constitutes the good life. It only adds certain actions or certain knowledge through which we will live the good life, or new particular questions of how to live the good life with this technology and the like. But the very wisdom of the good life has no reason to change because of these innovations. And yet (for reasons we will explain below) precisely in these matters we have most lost the language and the life that the early sages agreed upon. And it is to be hoped that if we succeed in returning it to ourselves, the other gates of ancient wisdom will also open to us, or at least we will draw closer to them.
The Reason for Studying the Eight Chapters Specifically
Therefore, it is proper for us to precede all learning with the study of the Eight Chapters, in which Maimonides explained the type of life he believes is good for us to live. In addition, of all his books, in this book, as is his general way in the Mishnah commentary, Maimonides comes closest to the mode of learning we need, which is the attempt to explain to one who does not yet think these thoughts at all, why he should think them and how he should think them.
In this matter, the Mishnah commentary is distinguished from Maimonides' two other great books, one of which is too simple for this and the other too complex. In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides writes everything as final legal rulings and does not give reasons for matters, and therefore it is insufficient for our purpose. In the Guide for the Perplexed, conversely, he speaks only to one who already knows the philosophical reasons for all the philosophical foundations and deals only with mediating philosophical truths with Torah truths, and therefore it is too complicated for our purpose. Only in his introductions to the Mishnah commentary, which was written as a useful book for the masses of the house of Israel who study Mishnah, and with his desire also to teach them from the truths, does he explain somewhat the very thoughts themselves and explains them to beginners who have not yet learned the roots of wisdom at all.
(And it is also possible that the reason the Mishnah commentary was written in this manner also depends on the stages of our rabbi's thoughts about how he would teach the truth to the house of Israel, as appears at the end of the introduction regarding his return from writing the Book of Prophecy and the Book of Correspondence, that at first he thought he could make this mediation to explain to the masses the wisdoms and interpret them within the sources, and in the end he decided to separate more, that to the masses he would leave the plain meaning of the sources as they are, and to the wise he would speak as they already know the truths, and therefore no place remained for him between them where he would explain the principles of the wisdoms to the masses, except in very specific ways as in the Mishneh Torah)
Our Addition to Maimonides
We will add to Maimonides' explanations in two ways. One is by returning to the sources of the thoughts that Maimonides brings (as he himself noted in his opening here), for in them we will usually discover much more about the reasons and roots of the thoughts and the questions that lead to them, because although he writes here for beginners, his words are still summaries of summaries of great and broad thoughts (as he writes and notes himself), and when we return to their original sources we find the ways to arrive at those same thoughts from the primary beginning of thought.
And the second matter is that we will also need to remove the veil of our prevalent opinions, many of which Maimonides did not need to contend with because in his day even the popular conventions in these matters were closer to his opinions, but we, according to our situation, will need to devote much time to removing the rust of habitual tendencies and the fashions in which we think about the good life, in order to make room for the thoughts of the early sages.
Since our intention is that we ourselves should be able to think the thoughts, we will emphasize much more the questions that lead to them, and the aspects that raising the questions opens before us, rather than the conclusions and final processes. Although it is very difficult to do this in writing, we will endeavor.