Kenneth Seeskin

Monotheism is usually considered Judaism's greatest contribution to world culture, but it is far from clear what monotheism is. This work examines the notion that monotheism is not so much a claim about the number of God as a claim about the nature of God. Seeskin argues that the idea of a God who is separate from his creation and unique is not just an abstraction but a suitable basis for worship. He examines this conclusion in the contexts of prayer, creation, sabbath observance, repentance, religious freedom, and love of God. Maimonides plays a central role in the argument both because of his importance to Jewish self-understanding and because he deals with the question of how philosophic ideas are embodied in religious ritual.

One aim of this series is to dispel the intimidation readers feel when faced with the work of difficult and challenging thinkers. Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides (1138-1204), represents the high point of Jewish rationalism in the middle ages. He played a pivotal role in the transition of philosophy from the Islamic East to the Christian West. His greatest philosophical work, The Guide of the Perplexed, had a decisive impact on all subsequent Jewish thought and is still the subject of intense scholarly debate. An enigmatic figure, Maimonides continues to defy simple attempts at classification. The twelve essays in this volume offer a lucid and comprehensive treatment of his life and thought. They cover the sources on which Maimonides drew, his contributions to philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, and Bible commentary, as well as his esoteric writing style and influence on later thinkers.

This paper examines erotic love from two perspectives: that offered by Diotima in the Symposium and that offered by the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3. In the first, love for another person is based on an appraisal of their desirable qualities. As such, it is eventually transcended as the lover comes to realize that more value can be found in institutions, the sciences, and eventually the form of Beauty. In the second, love describes the basic human need for partnership. Even in paradise, when Adam is still innocent and has a direct relationship with God, God recognizes that: «It is not good for man to be alone». The kind of love envisioned here cannot be replaced by a move toward transcendence. In a famous study of the Symposium, Martha Nussbaum argued that the lesson of the dialogue is that a person cannot have it both ways: either one becomes romantically attached to another person or he sees in that person a representation of something higher. I submit that we have no choice try to have it both ways: admitting the need for partnership and transcendence simultaneously