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The Book of Abraham

Rabbi Shimon ben ema Duran and the School of Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi
by Seth (Avi) Kadish


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Copyright 2011 by Seth (Avi) Kadish Some rights reserved Open Content License CC BY-SA 3.0

Original version: Ph.D. dissertation University of Haifa Faculty of the Humanities Department of Jewish History January, 2006 Revised online publication 2011 ' " Rationalist Judaism Blog http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/

To my wife Sheri (Shoshana), for your love, patience, and support. Completing this book, like everything I have done since our aliyah, is only due to the fact that you enabled me to do it. Whatever we have accomplished, we have done together.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Duran, Crescas, and the School of Gerondi Chapter 2. The Book of Abraham Chapter 3. Principles of the Torah Chapter 4. The Torah Encyclopedia Chapter 5. Creation and Miracles Chapter 6. The Philosophy of Prayer in the School of Gerondi Chapter 7. Afterword: An Open Torah Appendix A: An Explanatory Outline of Magen Avot Appendix B: An Explanatory Outline of Magen Avot III:4 on the Resurrection of the Dead Bibliography

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Professor Menachem Kellner, who supervised the writing of this book (in its initial form as my doctoral dissertation) with infinite patience, support, and goodwill. I thank him for allowing me to fulfill both get yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend (Avot 1:6) in my relationship with one and the same person. Without his confidence in my abilities, and his help in so many areas (both academic and otherwise), the original dissertation upon which this book is based could not have been completed. I look forward to many more years of fruitful contact and wish Menachem many years of health, of positive and productive endeavors, and of naat ru'ah from his family. The University of Haifa granted me financial support during the 5761-5763 academic years, for which I am grateful. Since my research was funded both by the Israeli public and by a generous philanthropist (who supports advanced scholarship at the university), it is appropriate that this book be made freely available to the public under an open content license. Rabbi Natan Slifkin has generously offered his personal website as the central place to publish and publicize this book online, make it freely available to the public, and provide a forum for productive discussion. Support from my familymy wife Sheri (Shoshana), and my children David Zvi and Ezra Shmuelwas most important of all. Thank you for your patience, and for the hundreds of hours you let me devote to research and writing. During the years that I spent on research and writing, when our children were still small, Sheri very often insisted that this project be at the top of our familys priority list, and that is what ultimately allowed me to finish the original dissertation. I hope the result justifies the time and resources that went into writing it. As the original dissertation was dedicated to her, so too is this online publication which commenced on our wedding anniversary, .' " "

Greatest of them all was the eminent Rabbi, our master Maimonides, who through his giant intellect and complete mastery of the Talmud and his broad mind, engaged the books and treatises of the philosophers; they tempted him and he succumbed. Based upon their feeble assumptions he built pillars and foundations for the secrets of the Torah, in the book he called The Guide to the Perplexed. But although the Rabbi's intention in doing so was pleasing, renegade servants have risen in our day who have turned the words of the living God into heresy, blemished the holy offerings, and in the Rabbi's words they find lies instead of beauty... And the root of the matter is that to this day no one has refuted the rational proofs of the Greek, who has dimmed the sight of Israel in our time... Although the words of our Master the Rabbi, even his common conversation, are pleasant and beloved to us, the truth is beloved even more... (Rabbi asdai Crescas, Introduction to Or Hashem, c. 1405-10) Book 11. I further addedpraise be added to His praises, thanks to the blessed God who added to my days!and I wrote a book which I called Or haayyim (The Light of Life), full of refutations to a book written by Rabbi asdai son of Judah of Saragosa in Aragon. It has fifty-five chapters... The author called his book Or Hashem (The Light of the Lord). And when I wrote this book it was over six months since I began the seventy-sixth year of my life. I finished writing it on the 25th day of Elul in the year the kindnesses of David (96), which is also the year of the faithful (196), at the portion for it is your life and the length of your days (Niavim, 5196)... Book 12. I have further merited that the Lord lengthen my life to this day, when I am seventy-seven years old, close to the end of that seventh year... I further added two essays which I called `Anakim: the first one is refutations to the book Or Hashem written by Rabbi asdai Crescas of blessed memory, and I called the second essay Maamar ha-Yiud le-Shimon ibn ema (The Treatise on Unity by Shimon ibn ema), with yet additional refutations of the book Or Hashem; and then two more treatises on this matter... (Rabbi Shimon ben ema Duran, personal bibliographical notes, 1435-7)

Introduction

Rabbi Shimon ben ema Duran (Spain and Algiers, 1361-1444) was one of the most prolific Jewish philosophers in the late middle ages, as well as an extremely influential halakhist. 1 Despite his influence and enormous output, little attention has been paid to his philosophical writing, and he has been characterized as an eclectic philosopher rather than an original thinker. 2 The one aspect of his thought that has long fascinated scholars, and for which any originality has been attributed to him, is his theory that the Torah is based upon three principles: God, relevation, and providence. Duran publicized this view two decades earlier than his better-known younger contemporary, Rabbi Yosef Albo, and a number of important studies have been devoted to the topic.3 But scholarship on any other aspect of his thought has been limited to a characterization of his eclecticism through identifying his literary sources and examining how he chose among them.4 No study of Duran has significantly compared any aspect of his philosophic literary output (aside from his views on principles5) to that of his contemporaries. This is surprising, considering his connection to two very important thinkers: He was personally acquainted with the eras most unique intellectual figure, Rabbi asdai Crescas,6 and he referred to Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi 7 (Ran)who was Crescas teacher and a highly original thinker in his own rightas the teacher of my teachers, from whose waters we drink. 8 Nor has the full scope of Duran's philosophical writing been adequately surveyed; this is especially true of the unique and sometimes perplexing structure,
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Relevant biographical and bibliographical data will be explored in chapter 1. See the comments in Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism, trans. David W. Silverman (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), pp. 242-247; and the methodological questions posed by Nahum Arieli in his Ph.D. dissertation, Mishnato ha-Pilosofit shel R. Shimon ben ema Duran ha-Rashba (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1976), pp. 10 ff. The most important studies of Ikkarim relevant to Duran are: Julius Guttman, Le-eker Mekorotav shel Sefer haIkkarim in Sefer Zikkaron le-Asher Gulack ule-Shmuel Klein (Jerusalem, 1942); Solomon Spiro, The Principles of Judaism According to Rabbi Simon ben ema Duran, Ph.D. diss. (NY: Yeshiva University, 1970); Sara KleinBraslavy, Terumato shel Rabbenu Nissim Gerundi le-`Iuvan shel Torot ha-`Ikkarim shel asdai Crescas ve-shel Yosef Albo, Eshel Beer Sheva 2 (5740), pp. 177-197; Menachem Kellner, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought (London: Oxford University Press, 1986). The latter includes translations of relevant texts by Duran; the original texts with notes may be found in the Hebrew version: Torat ha-`Ikkarim ba-Pilosofia ha-Yehudit Bimei ha-Benayyim (Jerusalem: Zionist Federation, 1991). Arieli, above n. 2. Guttmann and Spiro, above n. 3. Spain, d. 1410/11 (winter of 5171). Duran's relationship to Crescas will be explored and documented in chapter 1. Spain, 1315/20-1376 (hereafter: Gerondi). The latter date was considered uncertain until recently, but it is now known that Gerondi died on the ninth of Shevat, 5136 (1376). See Feldman, Shut ha-Ran p. 22 and his introduction to Derashot ha-Ran ha-Shalem (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2003), p. 16. Durans relationship to Gerondi and his students will be explored and documented in chapter 1. Tashba II:283 (end). The expression occurs several times in rabbinic literature (e.g. regarding Rabbi Joshua in Bamidbar Rabbah 14 and Avot de-Rabbi Natan A chapter 18).

organization, and content of Magen Avot,9 his main work of interest to medieval Jewish philosophy, and how these unusual features contribute to his stated goals for that work. This book will show that the significance of Duran as a Jewish philosopher lies not in his eclectic conclusions on specific topics, but rather in his unique reaction to the full corpus of Aristotelianism, and in the special position he occupied among his intellectual contemporaries, the students of Gerondi. In terms of his reaction to Aristotelianism, we will show that each aspect of the unusual structure, organization and content of his main philosophical work, Magen Avot, derives from Duran's desire that it facilitate what he thought of as the path of the patriarch Abraham: He designed Magen Avot to be a vast compendium of knowledge, one that allowed its reader to study the detailed argumentation and conclusions of rational inquiry in a wide spectrum of sciences and to show that, when properly conducted, they are in accordance with the views of the Torah and azal in all of their myriad particulars. In many cases, the tools he employed to achieve this goal are based on earlier suggestions by Maimonides, whose system he saw himself as implementing and even improving upon. As for the school of Gerondi, we will identify several crucial characteristics that Duran shared with this group, chief among them what might be loosely described as adherence to an "Open Torah." By this we mean that although Gerondi and his students considered the sum of conclusions of no body of knowledge outside the rabbinic tradition to be binding, at the same time they made enormous efforts to study other intellectual traditions in great depth, to learn and teach the truths they contained, and to apply those truths to their understanding of the Torah. We will show exactly how Duran's Magen Avot as the Book of Abraham is a unique expression of this Open Torah attitude by comparing and constrasting it to the works of his contemporaries. Overall, study of Durans philosophical output, with relevant comparisons to that of Gerondi and his other students, will show that they all shared certain basic ideas and tendencies, but that at times they pursued Gerondis intellectual legacy in dissimilar and even contradictory ways. Duran will be shown to be the member of this school who had the greatest loyalty to the prevailing intellectual culture and to the legacy of Maimonides, and as such the polar opposite of Rabbi asdai Crescas. These two complementary goalsreading Duran with an eye to reconciling the structure and content of Magen Avot with its declared methodology, and comparing his approach to that of his contemporariesdetermine the organization of this book. Each chapter furthers one or both of these two complementary goals, and the sequence of chapters reflects the structure of Magen Avot as far as possible.
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Detailed bibliographical information on Magen Avot and the rest of Duran's literary output is provided in chapter 1.

Chapter 1. Duran, Crescas, and the School of Gerondi

Rabbi Shimon ben ema Duran1 Shimon ben ema Duran lived the first part of his life on the island of Majorca, born to a family of wealthy immigrants from Provence.2 Majorca boasted a thriving Jewish community; its educated class included men who were at once outstanding halakhists and experts in geography and astronomy (and who made use of the latter expertise in the service of Mediterranean sailors). One of these scholars was Rabbi Ephraim Vidal, a student of Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi, who became Durans most important teacher. The young Duran received an intensive rabbinic education, supplemented by the study of a vast range of disciplines 3 including mathematics, logic, astronomy, history, grammar, languages,4 biology and medicine. Duran also lived in Aragon during his Spanish period, 5 where he became acquainted with the rabbinic leader of the generation, Rabbi asdai Crescas,6 who was one of Gerondi's most beloved
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The most important work on the life and times of Duran is Isidore Epstein, The Responsa of Rabbi Simon B. ema Duran as a Source of the History of the Jews in North Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1930). Epstein writes that the book is to be regarded as a sequel to his previous work: The Responsa of Rabbi Solomon b. Adreth of Barcelona as a Source of the History of the Jews of Spain (Routledge, 1925). This earlier work provides useful background on the Spanish rabbinate, and on the cultural and intellectual environment in which Duran was raised. As Epstein remarks: Although there is a gap of about eighty years between the two periods, there is no break in the story. The conditions so minutely described in the first book, which closes with the year 1310, remained the dominant characteristics of the Jewish religious and social life in Spain till the year 1391, when the so called golden age came to an end, and when our story, with its scene shifted elsewhere [i.e. to North Africa, S.K.], begins. Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth (Rashba, c. 1235-1310) was an important source for Duran in his halakhic writings, especially in his commentary to Berakhot. Note that the gap of about eighty years referred to by Epstein is what divides the two great batei midrash in the era of Christian Spain: the earlier school of Nahmanides and his students (including Rashba), versus the later school of Gerondi and his students (including Duran). We will compare these two schools later on in this chapter. Epstein's two books on responsa were republished together in a single volume under the title Studies in the Communal Life of the Jews of Spain: As Reflected in the Responsa of Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth and Rabbi Simon ben ema Duran (New York: Hermon Press, 1968). Another good biography of Duran, sometimes drawing on additional source material not utilized by Epstein, is found in Moshe Katans comprehensive introduction to his new edition of Sefer ha-Tashba: Teshuvot Rabbi Shim`on bar ema Duran (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim, 5758) pp. 19-59; hereafter: Tashba. My brief biographical remarks here are mostly based on Epstein and Katan, but the selection, presentation, and emphasis are mine; I have supplemented their material with data from other sources where appropriate. For other helpful information, also see Abraham M. Hershman, Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet and his Times (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1943). Through his ancestors in Provence he was related to Gersonides (1288-1344), as he mentioned in his writings. Duran testified to the range of his studies in Tashba, II:52. Epstein (p. 6 n. 23) writes that Duran shows a knowledge of French but unfortunately doesnt cite proof of this. On Arabic and Latin, see below. Aragon was the home of his father-in-law, Rabbi Jonah de Maistre of Teruel in Aragon; a descendant of Nahmanides (1194-1270) and of Rabbenu Jonah Gerondi (1180-1263) and a teacher (along with asdai Crescas) of Joseph Albo. De Maistre was martyred along with many family members in the violent persecutions of 1391. Duran refers to his teacher, Rabbi Ephraim Vidal, as ha-kadosh (e.g. in Tashba I:163) apparently because he too was murdered in that terrible year (cf. Epstein, p. 5 and Katan, p. 21). Duran cites him in connection with certain halakhic matters (Tashba III:14, 30), but not on philosophy (cf. Arieli, p.

students.7 During Duran's time in Spain he supplemented his inherited fortune with income earned as a physician,8 preferring not to take a salary as a rabbi.9 In the wake of the anti-Jewish riots of 1391, Duran fled to Algiers. What little of his Spanish fortune that wasnt plundered, was spent in bribing the authorities to spare him from forced baptism. In Algiers he was forced to perform rabbinic duties for a salary, as dayyan on the court of Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet Perfet (known as Rivash, 1326-1407), himself a refugee from Barcelona and the very closest student of Gerondi.10 Upon the death of Perfet, Duran succeeded him as Chief Rabbi of Algiers. His relationship with Perfet was mostly one of mutual courtesy and deep respect, but there was occasional friction between the two. In the midst of their greatest controversy, over the legitimacy of the kings appointment of Perfet as Chief Rabbi with exclusive authority but little accountability, Duran took great pains for the argument to remain a principled and respectful one; and when the all-exclusive powers of the appointment were rescinded, Duran withheld publication of his responsum on the matter in deference to Perfet. Only in one specific legal matter did Duran intrude upon the authority of Perfet, causing the latter great distress. Duran later regretted his conduct in that matter, calling his own behavior childish, in that I acted brazenly towards one so eminent in wisdom and old age.11 But this one incident is outweighed by the overwhelming evidence of mutual respect and admiration to be found in the responsa of both Perfet and Duran.12
18). Towards the end of Durans life, decades after the death of Crescas, the former wrote a series of works to refute the latters criticism of Aristotle and Maimonides, but these have not survived. These will be described later in this chapter, and discussed in greater depth in chapter 3. For asdai Crescas' close relationship with Gerondi, with Gerondi's son Rabbi Reuben (the two were called "brothers"), and the possibility that Gerondi was married to his sister, see Warren Zev Harvey, Rabbi Hisdai Crescas (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 2010), p. 17 (Hebrew). Crescas also called Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet Perfet (Rivash), the closest student of Gerondi, his "brother." Actually an uman, meaning an operating surgeon as opposed to a regular physician (Epstein, p. 8 n. 33). See the autobiographical comments in Magen Avot on Avot 4:5, and Duran's halakhic responsum on the matter in Tashba I:142-148. The third member of the court was Rabbi Isaac Bonastruc, yet another student of Gerondi. Tashba I:58. The relationship between the two men has fascinated historians. For the sources of my summary here, see Epstein, pp. 20-27; Hershman, pp. 44-54, 222-3, 248-50. Epstein and Hershman weigh the evidence somewhat differently in their respective evaluations of Durans personality: Hershman writes, Duran was aggressive, self-assertive, ever ready to intrude his views and obtrude his personality and authority upon Perfet. But the patient Perfet put up with his younger rival. Only on one occasion was his patience exhausted... This is the only case in which he speaks bitterly of Duran. Otherwise, he afforded him ample opportunity for the display of his authority. He consulted him on important questions and deferred to his views in various instances (pp. 53-4). Contrast Epsteins description of the relations between the two: That these were somewhat strained at one time there is no gainsaying... But this incident is no evidence of a standing feud between the two, because the cordial and intimate relations that subsisted between Duran and Barfat, testified by a number of incidents referred to in the Responsa, dispose of such assertions... It is further evidence that Simon did acknowledge Barfats authority, upheld it when slighted, even unintentionally, and that he was submissive to him even when he happened to disagree with him... Moreover, it is known that Simon Duran would refrain from expressing his views on questions that came under Barfats jurisdiction, although these were submitted to him... (pp. 23-26). In general, the responsa lead Epstein to conclude that Duran was a kindly, lovable personality, free from arrogance and self-conceit... a peace-

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Duran lived in Algiers for more than half a century, and was involved in making halakhic judgements throughout.13 During his lifetime, halakhists in Algiers and throughout North Africa esteemed him for his brilliant scholarship, and regularly sought his guidance, even during the lifetime of Perfet. In centuries to come, the Jews of Algeria considered his decisions binding, even when they differed from the Shulan Arukh. Indeed, Rabbi Joseph Karo himself ruled according to the decisions of Duran whenever he cited them.14 Durans son Solomon was also a renowned halakhist,15 and for centuries to come the Duran family produced a long dynasty of influential North African rabbis.16 In terms of his personal history, it is clear that the major event shaping Durans life was the calamity of 1391, which resulted in his exile from Spain. It is also obvious that the major impact his life had on others was through his halakhic research and decision-making. However, as Duran himself saw it, the true story of his life was the story of his books, a vast collection of encyclopedic works on halakhah, philosophy, and exegesis. He thus saw fit to list his writings in a bibliographical autobiography,17 chronologically listing fourteen18 books he authored at various stages of his life. All of his writings, in each and every field, exhibit astonishing mastery of the entire corpus of knowledge extant in the literature of his predecessors. And this included not only
loving man... However, beneath his lovable and unassuming personality there lay concealed a strong, fearless, and resolute character, and it was that happy blending that served him in good stead when he was called upon to take the spiritual charge of Chief Rabbinate in succession to Barfat... (pp. 33-4). A crucial topic Duran was forced to deal with on a halakhic level, which is also of major historical importance, was the reintegration of anusim (Jews who who had accepted baptism under threat of violence, especially in wake of the violence in 1391) back into the Jewish community. On this see Katan, pp. 26-27. One of Duran's responsa on this topic has become important in contemporary debates regarding conversion to Judaism, for the clear distinction that it draws between communal sanction against apostates and sinners versus their status as Jews. In Tashba III:47 he wrote: "A convert who reverted to his sinful ways immediately after his conversion, and worshipped idols and publicly violated the Sabbath just as he did before his conversion, he is a heretic and a rebel who is not called 'your brother' as I wrote above. But he is nevertheless considered an Israelite apostate and his act of marriage is binding..." For this responsum in the context of the contemporary debate, see Marc B. Shapiro, "Responses to Comments and Elaborations of Previous Posts III", Seforim Blog, August 29, 2008. But the author of the Shulan Arukh (1488-1575) only had access to a condensed version of Tashba, bequeathed to him by his teacher Rabbi Jacob Beirav. The rabbis of Algeria argue that, had he access to the full version, he would have followed Duran in every case. See Katan, pp. 38-40. Most important are his responsa: Sefer ha-Rashbash (=Teshuvot Rabbi Shlomoh ben Shimon), ed. Moshe Sobel (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim, 5746). Often printed as the first of three appendices (Ha-ut ha-Meshulash) to Tashba (all three additions are collectively called the "fourth part" after Duran's own three parts). Ibid., pp. 37-38. Durans distant descendants were influential in first publishing his works, sometimes centuries after they were first written. Some of the rabbinic family eventually branched off to Italy. A careful edition of this list with very helpful bibliographical comments may be found in Katan, pp. 49-53. The list has been republished several times by bibliographers (who added parenthesis with the dates of printed editions), but Katan's notes are the most comprehensive. The number includes, however, books which are actually parts of even larger works, as well single books which are collections of a number of shorter works. Thus books 5, 6, and 7 are the three parts of Tashba; book 8 includes the three philosophic parts of Magen Avot, while part four of Magen Avot is listed separately as book 9. On the other hand, book 10 is a collection of a number of smaller works (kundrisin). Duran writes that he added iggerot or kundrisin as appendices to books 10, 12, and 14; furthermore, for each book beginning with book 10 he notes that because God blessed him with more years, he added yet another book. In other words, Duran continually updated his bibliographical autobiography until the end of his life.

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Jewish writings, but also the works of non-Jewish scholars. He preferred to study from Hebrew translations, but he also read Arabic19 and probably Latin.20 The content and context of his books reflect the story and meaning of his life. Duran wrote his first work during his Spanish period: iddushei ha-Rashba on tractate Berakhot,21 which is the most comprehensive analysis of that tractate by any medieval talmudist. According to Yisrael Ta-Shma, Duran reveals himself in this commentary as the last of the great Spanish scholars who still saw himself as part of the authoritative chain of the students of Nahmanides and Rashba, who studies their Torah but at the same time refines it with his own contributions.22 This was to be his only full-length commentary to a halakhic tractate. 23 But more so than his talmudic commentaries, his most influential halakhic work by far was Tashba, the collection in three volumes of his more than 800 responsa. These responsa are of great importance to halakhic study (beyond their concrete historical impact on the lives of Jews) because they are characterized by an encyclopedic exposition of the broad range of extant opinions on each topic,
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Durans polemical work, Keshet u-Magen, is both anti-Islamic and anti-Christian; this naturally raises the question of whether he read Arabic and Latin. On Arabic, see the introduction to Prosper Murcianos edition of this work (Simon ben ema Duran, Keshet U-Magen: A Critical Edition, Ph.D. diss., [New York University, 1975], p. xlv), where he writes: According to the authorities I consulted in this field, namely Professor Paul (sic) Hyman from Columbia University and Yeshiva University who is very familiar with Judeo-Arabic philosophy, he told me that Duran did not know Arabic. M. Perlmann is of the same opinion. Professor Hyman feels that Duran knew Arabic philosophy either from Hebrew translations... or he learned them orally as it was customary to study in the Sephardic academies. He lived in such a milieu and acquired this knowledge the way it was taught in Judeo-Arab Centers. Murciano apparently consulted with Professor Arthur (not Paul) Hyman. Hymans opinion on the matter is a very reasonable one based on the general content of Durans writings, in which he frequently quotes from the Hebrew translations of Arabic works by both Jewish and non-Jewish authors. I too would have accepted Hymans opinion, had my attention not been called to one clear piece of evidence proving the opposite: in Tashba I:136 Duran mentions that he searched for certain information in the commentary on the Mishnah which Maimonides wrote in Arabic, called Al-Siraj and then proceeds to cite the original. It thus appears that Duran preferred to use Hebrew translations when they were available, but was also able to read Arabic when needed. Arieli agrees without this evidence (p. 4). I was first made aware of this information by Rabbi Eliyahu Zini, in the introduction to his critical edition of Magen Avot on Tractate Avot (Jerusalem: Erez, 2000), p. 22. Epstein (p. 6 n. 23) notes it as well. But the strongest evidence of all, which to the best of my knowledge has never been cited before, is found in two passages in Magen Avot II:3 where Duran consults the Arabic original of the Guide and suggests corrections to the translations of Samuel ibn Tibbon (Magen Avot 28a:45-49 and 29a:6-7). Also see 51b:8-9. See Arieli, p. 4; Spiro, p. 8 n. 14; cf. passages in Keshet u-Magen where Duran accuses Jerome of distorting the Hebrew text in his Latin translation, and lists examples. Book 1 of Duran's bibliographical list. Specifically designated as a commentary on the Halakhot of Alfasi; nevertheless, the work also deals with halakhic matters not cited in Alfasi, as well as some comments on aggadot. The latter include criticism of rationalistic interpretations for aggadot. Ha-Sifrut ha-Parshanit la-Talmud be-Europa uve-afon Afrika, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Magnes: 2000), pp. 92-93. Aside from his very complete commentary on Mishnah Avot (book 9; see below). Narrower commentaries include two collections of pesakim on tractate Niddah (book 2 and part of book 10); a short commentary on Eduyot, and on Mishnah Kinnim, and a summary of the halakhot of Rosh Hashanah (all listed as parts of book 10, which is a collection of separate essays; I did as the sages of Israel did for the twelve minor prophets, which are short books, so they combined them into one book). Of the two collections on Niddah, only one still exists (Livorno, 1745; republished with an introduction and notes Jerusalem, 1967), which is apparently the latter one (the former seems to have been a complete halakhic digest on the tractate, though not a full commentary, while the latter is labeled remazim, meaning a summary or an outline). The commentary on Eduyot is lost. The commentary on Kinnim (a tractate posing difficult problems in arithmetic) and the summary of halakhot of Rosh Hashanah, have been republished in a single volume by Rabbi Eliyahu Zini (Haifa, 5748).

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accompanied by balanced analysis. The final decisions reveal a careful, conservative sense of judgment. Another important halakhic work is Durans classification of the 613 commandments, written in the form of a commentary on Ibn Gabirols Azharot, and consequently entitled Zohar haRakia`.24 Duran also wrote a number of other shorter halakhic works 25 and commentaries on parts of the liturgy.26 His first work of major interest to the study of medieval Jewish philosophy was a set of chapters on providence, which he wrote as an introduction to Ohev Mishpat (a comprehensive commentary on the biblical book of Job that he penned in 1405). 27 His most important, surviving philosophical work consists of the first three parts of a massive work called Magen Avot,28 on (1)
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Book 4. First edition Constantinople, 1615; edited and republished by Rabbi M. M. Kasher (Jerusalem, 5737) with notes by important talmudists; new corrected edition by Feldheim publishers (Jerusalem, 5764). A commentary on Eizehu Mekoman (a chapter of mishnah [Zevahim 5] recited in the daily liturgy) and on Rabbi Yishmaels baraita (with his thirteen hermeneutic principles, which immediately follows in the liturgy) is included among the essays collected in book 10. Book 13, Yavin Shemuah, is on the laws of ritual slaughter and examination of the lungs of animals (Livorno, 1744); book 14, Maamar Hame, is on the laws of Passover, and includes a commentary on the Haggadah called Maamar Afikoman; an appendix Tiferet Yisrael is on determining the lunar month. Maamar Hame and Tiferet Yisrael were published in the same volume as Yavin Shemuah, and the Haggadah commentary was republished with notes in Haggadah shel Pesa Torat Hayyim (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kuk, 1998). The editor of Durans Haggadah commentary in the latter edition writes that he was forced to rely on the first printed edition for most of the text, since the single surviving manuscript (Amsterdam, Ets Haim 47 D 34) is largely illegible; thus, he was only able to use the ms. for a small part of the haggadah commentary. However, the JNUL Manuscript Institute also lists Ms. New York JTS RAB 509, which the editor appears to have missed. Book 10 also included commentaries on various types of piyyutim, along with original compositions by Duran himself (some of these have been printed in scattered volumes, listed in Katan, p. 52 n. 358). In a larger sense, Duran purposely chose to write most of his important exegetical works on texts that were part of his liturgy, as he explicitly states in the introduction to his commentary on Avot (see below): The custom is to read this tractate in synagogues and in study halls... therefore, we have decided to write a commentary on it, just as we have written commentaries on the book of Job... and on the Azharot... these two books have become well-known, for the custom is to read the book of Job and the Azharot, each in its appointed time... According to Rabbi Zini, the custom of North African Jews, especially in Algeria, is to read Job between Shavuot and Tish`a be-Av, and to read it yet again after the Kinnot on Tish`a be-Av (p. 39 n. 217). Durans liturgical commentaries may thus be said to include his commentary on Avot (and by extension the entire Magen Avot!), on Job (see next note), on Ibn Gabirols Azharot, on the Passover Haggadah, on Eizehu Mekoman and Rabbi Yishmaels baraita, and his lost commentary on the Torah. Every one of these works explains the text at hand in great depth. Clearly, the major impetus for much of Durans writing was that he wanted educated Jews to have a rich appreciation for the texts they recited in the synagogue. Book 3. First edition: Venice, 1589; printed together with the commentary Mishpat edek by Rabbi Ovadia Seforno (Italy, 1470-1550). The commentary on Job itself is a comprehensive digest of medieval Jewish exegesis. Book 8. The philosophic part of Magen Avot was printed in Livorno, 1785, in an edition whose aesthetics are poor but whose accuracy is reasonable. I am grateful to Rabbi Eliyahu Zini for providing me with a digital version of the first half of the text (folios 1-48) based on the printed version. Rabbi Zini is currently preparing a critical edition based on mss. The philosophical part of Magen Avot has reached us in nine partial or complete manuscripts dating from the 15-16th centuries (see bibliography), a modest but significant number. All but two are in Spanish scripts. The single manuscript that can be dated precisely is in a Spanish script, and was completed in 1559 (ms Paris Heb. 739). This manuscript is not just the only nearly complete manuscript that includes all four parts of Magen Avot (i.e. including the commentary on Avot), but is also, as we shall see in chapter 2, the manuscript upon which the Livorno edition was based. As we shall see in chapter 2, the Livorno edition is a faithful replica, and its mild inaccuracies derive from its source. In his critical edition of Duran's commentary on Avot (Haifa: Erez, 5760), Rabbi Zini has noted (p. 18) similarities between this manuscript and the Livorno edition published by Rabbi Yonah Duran, a descendant of the

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God, (2) prophecy, (3) providence and resurrection. 29 The fourth and final part of Magen Avot, which Duran considered the most important, is an encyclopedic commentary on tractate Avot.30 Towards the end of his life he added what were apparently voluminous works of philosophical import, all of which are unfortunately lost: In 1436 (his 75 th year) he wrote Or haHayyim31 to defend Aristotle and Maimonides from Crescas refutation of their philosophy in his Or Hashem. At age 77 he wrote what was apparently a full-length commentary on the Torah in the form of notes (hagahot) to the commentary of Gersonides (our relative). 32 That same year he

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author, in 1762 (the commentary on Avot was published before the philosophical part). In his critical edition, Rabbi Zini sometimes gave preference to the Livorno edition because it is reasonable to assume that the manuscript available to the descendants of the author was one of the better ones (p. 20). This is likely true, but what we note in chapter 2 also makes it entirely possible that the philosophical part and the commentary on Avot were both published in Livorno from the very same manuscript. The polemical chapter of Magen Avot (Part II chapter 4) is omitted from most manuscripts of the philosophical part. It was first printed incompletely; the anti-Christological half of it appeared alone, entitled Setirat Emunat ha-Noerim (Constantinople, 1710). The first full edition including its argumentation against both Christianity and Islam (Leghorn, 1790) also included anti-Christological passages from Magen Avot Part I that were omitted from the Livorno, 1785 edition (folios 26-27). It this edition it is entitled Keshet U-Magen and is joined to the related polemic Milhemet Mivah by Duran's son Solomon, who is also responsible for the commonly used title of his father's work. A critical edition of Keshet U-Magen was prepared by Prosper Murciano (above, n. 26). The three part division corresponding to God, prophecy, and providence (including resurrection) reflects Durans classification of Maimonides thirteen principles of the Torah. Albo, who used the same three-part division as the structural principle for his Sefer ha-Ikkarim, apparently borrowed the idea from Duran. See the studies cited earlier in the introduction. Book 9. The fate of Magen Avot Part IV, the commentary on tractate Avot, was the reverse of the philosophical part: It survives in just three separate manuscripts, but was first published before the philosophical part (Livorno, 1762) and twice subsequently before the 20th century (Leipzig, 1855; Vienna, 1863), during which it appeared in numerous editions. A critical edition edited by Rabbi Eliyahu Zini appeared in 2000 (above, n. 36). Book 11. Book 12. His son Rabbi Solomon mentioned the work as his commentary on the Torah, which he called Livyat en (Responsa, no. 57) implying that it stands on its own as a commentary. The title is taken from Proverbs 1:9 ("For they are a graceful wreath upon your head, a necklace about your throat"). The one surviving fragment of this commentary (on Genesis 18:32, cited by the editor of Hadar Zekenim from a manuscript of Livyat Hen that was in his possession, in a parenthetical addition to the Tosafot on Vayera) is an exegetical discussion that doesnt deal with Gersonides directly, but implicitly rejects his interpretation. In another place (Responsa, no. 466) Rabbi Solomon called his fathers work The book Livyat en which he composed to criticize [le-hasig `al] the commentary written by his relative, the great scholar Rabbi Levi of blessed memory. Similarly, Duran himself listed his commentary in the context of works that are meant to defend both Maimonides and Gersonides from Crescas. Thus it is unclear whether the work was meant to defend Gersonides, to reject his interpretations, or (as I myself suspect) to write a supercommentary with an eclectic orientation towareds Gersonides own commentary, which would be similar to what he does in his other writings.

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added four more essays33 devoted to disproving Crescas. In addition, his halakhic and exegetical works also at times betray the influence of medieval science34 and philosophy.35

Crescas and Duran: A Comparison The subject of our study is Duran. But in order to understand both the context of his thought and why it merits study, we must also introduce his better-known elder colleague, Rabbi asdai Crescas. Modern scholarship has long been fascinated by Crescas, viewing him as the pivotal figure in medieval Jewish philosophy who brought the Maimonidean era to a close. If Maimonides was the central figure in Jewish Aristotelianism, then Crescas became the spokesman for a new period in which no aspect of the Aristotelian universe was any longer beyond question. 36 Scholars are nevertheless aware that, despite the conceptual importance of Crescas thought, the historical impact of his ideas cannot be compared to that of Maimonides.37 Some have gone so far as to suggest that Crescas was more than just a harbinger among the Jews, but that he was both the wellspring of a new stream in Jewish thought and at the same time one of the very first creators of modern philosophy and science.38 But in his introduction to Crescas'
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In his bibliographical additions to book 12 he entitles the first two of these essays `Anakim (meaning necklaces based upon Proverbs 1:9) and then proceeds to describe each of them separately: the first is refutations of Crescas, and the second is the Treatise on Unity of Shimon ibn ema, which is also refutations of Or Hashem (by its title seemingly aimed directly at the first part of Or Hashem on the existence of God, his unity, attributes, and incorporeality, but which also contains Crescas' entire critique of Aristotelian science). The last two of the four essays are simply two more essays on this matter. He seems to have regarded at least the first two of these four essays as appendices to his Torah commentary Livyat en, which is apparent from the origins of the titles taken from the same verse, which beyond sympathy for Gersonides' philosophical exegesis might even hint at defense of his Aristotelianism from the likes of Crescas. In parts of this book, we will use the terms science and philosophy somewhat loosely because of stylistic considerations. By philosophy we mean what Duran and his contemporaries would have called rational investigation, while science will usually refer more specifically to explanations of concrete phenomena in the sublunar world. Several examples of the latter usage will be for the results of observation during the dissection of animals, especially as known from the works of Galen. Until now, all discussions of Duran's philosophy have been almost entirely limited to his two main philosophical tracts: Magen Avot Parts I-III and the set of introductory chapters to Ohev Mishpat. But his other writings have been mostly been ignored. This book will note a number of relevant passages and parallels in Durans non-philosophical works. For typical evaluations of Crescas importance by modern scholars, it is enough to consult some of the standard handbooks: Guttmann, pp. 224-227; Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Philadelphia: JPS, 1940), p. 389; Colette Sirat, Hagut Pilosofit Bimei ha-Benayyim (Jerusalem: Keter, 1975), p. 407. As Aviezer Ravitzky has remarked, Needless to say, the primary consideration which moves a scholar to study a certain philosophical text is its intrinsic significance, its standard of argumentation, its originality, the profundity of its interpretation of classical Jewish sources, and the like... When it deals with Crescas, scholarship has preferred the philosophical criterion over the historical criterion of socio-cultural impact. See On the Study of Medieval Jewish Philosophy in History and Faith: Studies in Jewish Philosophy (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1996), pp. 11-12; originally appeared in Hebrew as: Al Heker ha-Pilosofia ha-Yehudit Bimei ha-Benayyim in Al Da`at ha-Makom: Mehkarim be-Hagut ha-Yehudit uve-Toledoteha (Jerusalem: Keter, 1991), pp.129-141. Symcha Bunim Urbach, Mishnato ha-Pilosofit shel Rabbi asdai Crescas, [=Amudei ha-Mahashava ha-Yisraelit,

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Critique of Aristotle, Harry Austryn Wolfson refused to take Crescas quite that far. Two elements, said Wolfson, limited Crescas' otherwise revolutionary criticism of Aristotle: one, that his negative criticism offered no alternative model; and second, that his criticism was nearly all conceptual, but rarely tried to show that Aristotle was empirically inadequate. Had Crescas not just cast doubt on conceptual reason, but also tried to control reason with facts, he would have set a created a revolutionary new model (that of modern science). But the time for this, though drawing near, had not yet come.39 Eliezer Schweid's view of Crescas is even more cautious. 40 According to Schweid, Crescas stopped short of a revolution in philosophy because of his religious motivation for attacking Aristotle. His goal was not to build a new philosophical system, but to free the Torah from the bonds of Aristotelian philosophy by destroying rational certainty. His conservative theology 41 thus gave birth to a purely critical philosophy. In a more recent description of Crescas' place in the history of science (in a chapter provocatively entitled "Revolutionary of the New Science") Warren Zev Harvey emphasizes the extraordinary and positive steps forward that Crescas took, as well as their limitations. In terms of Crescas' religious motivation, Harvey describes him as a striking example of a thinker who possessed full self-awareness of his non-scientific motivations and was completely open about them, but at the very same time allowed nothing to compromise the intellectual integrity of his work: "Crescas sought no easy victory over Aristotle. He was only interested in a fair fight. He wanted to criticise the very best in Aristotelian science, and that is why before he attacked the 26 Aristotelian axioms he made efforts to strengthen them as much as possible... Crescas didn't make due with the words of Aristotle and his students. In many places he even improved the old Aristotelian arguments, and at times he added new arguments."42 In other words, a negative motivation provedwhen combined with superb talent and enormous integrityto be exactly what was needed to help push science forward. Furthermore, it is
Part III], (Jerusalem: Torah Education Department, 5721), pp. 9-12. For Urbachs detailed evaluation of Crescas originality, in light of the sources he drew upon, see pp. 381-409. Crescas Critique of Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), pp. 124-127. Eliezer Schweid, Ha-Teologyah shel Rabbi asdai Crescas, first published as an introduction to the limited facsimile edition of the first printed version of Crescas Or Hashem (Ferrara, 1555) by Makor (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 7. For direct criticism by Schweid of Urbachs evaluation of Crescas influence and importance, see his review of Urbachs book in Kiryat Sefer 37 (1961-2), pp. 424-32, where he claims that Urbach went too far in his evaluation of Crescas as a revolutionary thinker. The distinction between theology and philosophy is of course a modern one, but we are using theology loosely in our current discussion in the same sense as Eliezer Schweid. In other places we will occasionally use it to distinguish ideas that Duran or others ascribe to the Torah as opposed to rational investigation. Harvey, Rabbi Hisdai Crescas, p. 55. That Crescas presented Aristotelianism in the strongest way possible, giving it all of the serious attention that it fully deserved, as the prelude to criticism that would undermine it in fundamental ways, is a vivid reminder of the talmudic maxim that the school of Hillel would first present the positions of the school of Shammai before stating their own views (Eruvin 13b).

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not true at all that Crescas' philosophy was purely critical. On the contrary, Or Hashem is full of positive, revolutionary concepts meant to replace those of Aristotle, among them the eternity of space and of time, the possibility of many worlds (or an infinity of worlds) both across space and throughout time, the principle of deterministic causation, and the possibility of a vacuum (empty space). What Crescas' did not do was best expressed by Wolfson: The model was still missing. While he was able to offer some extraordinarily positive and valuable new ideas, Crescas was incapable of providing a new, comprehensive model of the universe. And what prevented him from doing so was not his motivation, but rather his lack of an empirical thrust, because both his criticisms and his new ideas were almost entirely conceptual. In the centuries to come, Copernican cosmology and the deterministic physics of Newton were based first and foremost on the careful observation of physical phenomenon. In short, Crescas was an important member of a small group of men who were the first to challenge the core of dogmatic Aristotelianism and offer conceptual alternatives to it. These men did not create modern science, but they took crucial steps forward that made the scientific revolution possible in generations to come. For Crescas in particular, important parts of Or Hashem were later translated into Latin and published, making them available to the scientists and philosophers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Crescas' physics also had a profound influence on Spinoza, who read Or Hashem in Hebrew in his youth.43 Having described his unique contributions, we can now return to his contemporaries to see how they dealt with his ideas. Crescas was the prominent Spanish rabbinic leader in his day, and a highly respected halakhist.44 His basic approach was, presumably, acceptable to his colleagues. 45 And his skill as a philosopher was nothing short of brilliant. These facts make it all the more striking that his originality found limited reception among Jews in his own time and in subsequent generations. Schweid discusses several factors that may account for Crescas lack of influence, but the following is the most important for our purposes:

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Ibid., p. 54. Though he was never able to carry out his plan to summarize all of Jewish law in a work that would supersede Maimonides Mishneh Torah. This is certainly true regarding the basic motivations for his critique of Aristotelianism. But on certain issues he did take positions counter to what was previously accepted in Jewish thought, such as his opinion that the world was created ex nihilo, but not in time, and his theory on the relationship between free-will and divine foreknowledge. For a discussion of the former see Urbach, pp. 192-196 and Schweid, pp. 40-46. On free-will, see Urbach, pp. 281 ff.; Schweid, pp. 55-59; Seymour Feldman, Crescas theological determinism Daat 9 (1982), pp. 3-28; Michael Zvi Nehorai, Determinism and Ethics in the Teachings of Rav asdai Crescas and Rav Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook in Freedom and Moral Responsibility (College Park: University Presses of Maryland, 1997), pp. 205-215.

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His goal as a conservative theologian was to reinstate the authority of the Torah. But on his way to back up the Torah's authority, he revealed such a radically critical attitude towards the theological and philosophic thought that had been accepted in recent generations, that he seemed an anomaly even to those who had conservative tendencies that were, seemingly, similar to his own.46 Schweid adds the following incisive comments about conservative theologians such as these: The courage to follow a very consistent and radical methodology, showing thought that is consistently loyal to its inner logic, is essentially opposed to traditionalism, even when its conclusions match the tradition and serve to back up its authority. Consider: Traditionalism at its roots reflects a bias towards conformity, in every area of thought and action. It is loyal to what is agreed upon and accepted by the majority. How does it resolve the contradictions found among those accepted ideas? Not by methodological synthesis, but through a compromise that bypasses the extremes, blurs the differences, and combines various unlike things, all according to an outside, authoritarian principle, which offers a modus vivendi among the views that have won general acceptance in a certain generation. We find that in Crescas' generation the eclectic tendency increased, and it is this that was able to exert direct influence on the wider community of Torah scholars and educated men. Even Crescas' own views, in whatever measure they reached this audience, did not spread from their primary source but from a secondary one: from Rabbi Yosef Albo's book Sefer ha-Ikkarim, which added what he learned from his teacher Crescas (in a blunted, lukewarm presentation) to the corpus of ideas that he found in the works of Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, and others. What this means is that in his criticism of the physics and theology accepted in his time, Crescas presented himself as a true nonconformist and an original philosopher, but with this very approach he stepped out of the bounds of spiritual preparedness of most of his contemporaries.47 Schweid's chosen example of a conservative eclectic here is Albo, and for good reason: it is striking that Crescas' very own student presented his teacher's radical, brilliant new views as simply another variation on the ideas of his predecessors.48
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Schweid, p. 5. Ibid., pp. 5-6. For another evaluation besides of Crescas place in the history of philosophy, see Shlomo Pines, Scholasticism after Thomas Aquinas and the Teachings of asdai Crescas and his Predecessors in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 82-109. Reprinted in Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 404-446. One possible example of Albos lukewarm attitude towards his teachers theories is regarding the eternity of time (Ikkarim II:18), and has been discussed at length by Wolfson (pp. 651-8; 663-4): Did time exist before creation? Maimonides held that it did not, that there can only be imaginary time where there is no physical motion. Crescas counters that even without physical motion, time is true because it can be measured by conceptual motion; there is order and succession in a thinking mind (perhaps the mind of God) even in a duration lacking any physical motion. Time, for Crescas, is duration, and only its measurability depends on physical motion. Albo accepted his teachers view that duration existed before creation, but countered that such pure duration is not true time. He then concluded by interpreting a midrash (Bereshit Rabbah 3:7) to mean that time only followed upon the creation of the celestial spheres; but unmeasured time is really only imaginary, thus reverting to Maimonides position in principle. For another example, see Albos blunt dismissal of his teachers solution to the problem of determinism in Ikkarim IV:1. Nevertheless, Schweids description of Albo may exaggerate the situation, because the root of the problem

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Nevertheless, Duran would have been a stronger example for Schweids purposes. He too was a conservative eclectic unwilling to accept Crescas' radical new views, but unlike Albo, his relationship to Crescas was that of a scholar to an admired elder colleague, not a student to his teacher. As a writer of philosophy, he was also much closer to Crescas than to Albo: His philosophical expertise was greater than Albo's, while his abilities as a popularizer were less (both like Crescas). Duran also more closely resembled Crescas as a prominent halakhist, even though his literary success in the field was far greater: He was fortunate enough to see several important halakhic works to their completion, something that Crescas was unable to do. His halakhic works made Duran influential long after his own lifetime. Furthermore, Duran clearly recognized (unlike Albo) the extent to which the radical ideas in Crescas Or Hashem threatened the intellectual status quo. The book called Or ha-Hayyim, which Duran wrote in his old age in order to refute Crescas, was apparently quite thorough (no less than 55 chapters49); and as we mentioned above,50 that book was followed a year later by four more treatises (iggerot) all devoted to the very same goal. It is our misfortune that all of these polemical tracts are lost. But the very fact that he wrote them helps justify our characterization of Duran as the conservative antithesis of Crescas. Unlike Crescas, scholars have long regarded Duran as an eclectic philosopher. (In fact, no other word is used more often to describe him.) When reading him we find that he chose his conclusions from among his literary sources for each issue that he dealt with, and at times combined elements from more than one of them. It is hard to tell whether there is some overall methodology to account for his specific choices.51 Seemingly, there is no better representative of the
may lie less in Albos intellectual attitudes and more in the programmatic structure of his book. The first part of Crescas Or Hashem is built as a rebuttal of Aristotle: Part I, Section A presents the arguments and proofs supporting Aristotelian physics and metaphysics; Section B refutes them one by one; Section C explains Crescas alternative metaphysics. But Albos Sefer ha-Ikkarim has no such goal; it is designed solely to identify the Ikkarim, and then survey the various opinions on each Ikkar and its related topics. It has no polemical section comparable to the first part of Or Hashem, nor would such a section fit into the books plan. This is why it seems that he added what he learned from his teacher Crescas... to the corpus of ideas that he found in the works of earlier thinkers. Nor is the presentation always halfhearted, as a rule. In several places, Albo first cites the view of the philosophers, and contrasts it with that of more recent authorities (i.e. Crescas) who reject the philosophical view. These juxtapositions make it clear that the debate is not just about the details, but about an entire world view. Finally, it is worth noting Wolfsons suspicion, based on a number of hints in Sefer ha-Ikkarim, that the book doesnt borrow directly from Crescas Or Hashem, but rather that it provides a faint echo of the class room discussion of Crescas lectures on philosophy (p. 30). Thus, even if Schweid is correct that Sefer ha-Ikkarim doesnt do justice to Crescas philosophy in the final and permanent form it took at the end of his life, it may indeed do justice to the intellectual mood in his yeshivah as he worked out his ideas with his students. She`arim, meaning chapters or sections; if Durans other writings may serve as evidence, then each and any of these may have been quite long. See the notes on book 11 and the additions to book 12. This is the central problem to which Arieli devoted his dissertation (Introduction, n. 2). He concluded that Duran was a severe critic of Maimonides who held that rational investigation has no intrinsic value, despite the deep admiration that he sometimes exhibits for it, and that he was heavily influenced by kabbalah (pp. 5-7). Durans overall methodology was to take the best from the theories of each of his predecessors, fill in that which they left incomplete, and reject damaging conclusions that were in conflict with the tradition (pp. 20-22).

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kind of traditionalism described by Schweid than Duran. If Crescas was a conservative theologian with a markedly unconventional philosophic attitude, then Duran represented a conservative type that shared the overall theological categories, but wanted no part of the anti-Aristotelian revolution. In this sense, the two are mirror images of each other. The deep contrast between the two men is in their contradictory appraisals of Aristotelianism. But what of problems posed by the Torah, such as prophecy and providence, or the question of philosophic exegesis for the Bible and rabbinic literature? Scholars neglected Crescas theology for most of the past century, 52 but it was precisely here, as Schweid points out, that his originality bore fruit in a positive way. Crescas was interested not in building a new philosophic model to replace the one he destroyed, but in rebuilding the Torah free of rationalistic constraints. In fact, he freely employed Aristotelian terminology in his exegesis, free to do so because although he eliminated philosophic certainty, this in no way precluded the use of its concepts whenever they seemed true in the light of tradition, or able to shed new light on tradition. In recent years, scholars have examined his theology more closely.53 However, when comparing Crescas to Duran, it is specifically in the area of theology that extra methodological care is called for. Although Crescas' severe critique of Aristotelianism was entirely new in Jewish thought, his theology builds upon the work of others. For Duran, the case must be stated in opposite terms: Although the philosophy he presented was old in that it mostly restated the arguments he found in his literary sources, his theology had the potential for much that was new, no less so than for Crescas. This is especially true for one major element that scholars have long noted, but never explored: Duran's massive program to interpret biblical and rabbinic sources according to his theological and philosophical positions. In this, his project was far more ambitious than that of Maimonides, for whom aggadot that cannot be reconciled with reason are not binding. Duran, on the contrary, made a huge effort to show that even contradictory aggadic positions each reflect different aspects of philosophical truth. But at the very same time his exegesis was highly conservative, managing to reconcile philosophic interpretations with peshat in unique

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Throughout this book, but especially in chapters 2 and 4, we will see that Duran had a far more positive attitude towards rational investigation than Arieli would have it, and considered himself a true Maimonidean in certain ways. In addition, we will see that despite a few exceptions, the kabbalistic influence on Magen Avot is not overly significant. It seems that the brilliance of exhibited by Wolfson in Crescas Critique of Aristotle quickly set the standard for excellence in medieval Jewish philosophy, becoming a veritable role-model for all further research, and also the standard work on Crescas. But because it dealt only with the critique of Aristotle, other parts of Crescas thought were less studied afterwards. Such as Schweid and Aviezer Ravitzky, Derashat ha-Pesa le-Rabbi asdai Crescas u-Mehkarim be-Mishnato haPilosofit (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences, 1989).

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ways.54 Crescas, too, engaged in philosophical exegesis, as did his students, 55 but on a quantitative level no contemporary did so nearly to the extent of Duran.

1.4 Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi and his Students A comparison of Crescas and Duran yields both strong similarities and profound differences. But the question goes beyond these two specific personalities, because Crescas and Duran were both deeply influenced by a profound teacher of religious philosophy, himself widely acknowledged by scholars as a highly original thinker, and who, like both Crescas and Duran, attempted to limit the "jurisdiction" of Aristotelian thought. Not only this, but his philosophy was written entirely in the form of exegesis. The figure we are speaking of is Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi; Crescas studied under him directly, while Duran venerated him as "the teacher of my teachers". The career of Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi (Ran) marks a major shift in three central areas of Spanish-Jewish scholarship: halakhah, kabbalah, and philosophy. To begin with, in the field of halakhah, the writings of Gerondi make him the greatest heir to the school of Nahmanides and his students,56 specifically to their monumental novellae on the Talmud 57 and their halakhic responsa, which culminated in the comprehensive scholarship found in the voluminous writings of Rashba. 58 Gerondi continued their tradition of iddushim and teshuvot in his halakhic writings, but with one marked difference: In their halakhic decision-making, Nahmanides and his students tended to treat
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This is especially true of his commentary on Job, Ohev Mishpat. Duran managed to take the philosophical debate (which he assumes took place among Job and his counterparts) and make it into an outgrowth of the emotional remarks by the participants. In other words: the verses themselves deal with personal feelings and attitudes (which are easy to regard as peshat), but a definite philosophy, for the most part discussed separately, lies behind those feelings and attitudes for each participant in the books debate. Robert Eisen's study of Ohev Mishpat also shows that Duran was the most conservative exegete of Job among the medieval Jewish philosophers (personal correspondence, and now see: The Book of Job in Medieval Jewish Philosophy [Oxford University Press, 2004]). Crescas exegesis of azal has been studied by Natan Ophir, Rabbi asdai Crescas ke-Parshan Pilosofi leMaamarei azal, Ph.D. diss. (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1994). Other than Albo's book, the material by Crescas students that has survived is all in the form of philosophic exegesis or derashot. An excellent descriptive survey of Nahmanides and his students, in terms of their halakhic writings, may be found in Ta-Shma (pp. 29-78). Although Gerondi was probably born too late (c. 1315-20) to have studied directly under the students of Nahmanides, he was the last writer to produce commentaries on much of the Talmud in the style and spirit of their school (pp. 85-89). More precisely, for many or most of these works, on the Halakhot of Alfasi. The major figures in this school were: Nahmanides himself (c. 1195-1270) and his two major students, Rabbi Aharon Halevi (Raah, c. 1230-1300) and Rabbi Shelomoh ben Adreth (Rashba, c. 1235-1310). Of the two, Rashba is more important simply because of the vast scope of his writings. Rabbi Yom Tov ibn Ishbili (Ritba, c. 1250-1320) studied under both Raah and Rashba, though he considered the former his most important teacher. He too composed voluminous novellae on the Talmud, which comprise the last major halakhic works by a direct heir to Nahmanides. In terms of his thought, it is noteworthy that although Ritbas sympathies were closer to the kabbalists, he nevertheless composed a short book called Sefer Zikkaron to defend Maimonides Guide from the criticisms of Nahmanides. He even suggested that Nahmanides enthusiasm for kabbalah may have led him to exaggerate his criticisms. A sign of things to come?

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Maimonides as one source among many others, while Gerondi made a conscious effort to bolster the authority of the Mishneh Torah.59 This revival of Maimonides halakhic authority is all the more interesting, because it was accompanied by a positive reappraisal of his philosophy as well, as we shall soon see. In kabbalah the shift was even more severe. Kabbalah filled the inner life of Nahmanides and his students,60 and was at the root of the roles they played in the Maimonidean controversies, 61 which culminated in Rashba's famous ban. 62 Given this background, Gerondis well-known statement that Nahmanides ascribed undue importance to the kabbalah63 marks a clear and radical departure from his predecessors.64
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Rabbi Joseph Karo apparently recognized this, to the extent that in his introduction to Beit Yosef he declared that he would interpret difficult points in the Rambam according to the Maggid Mishneh and Gerondi, thus equating Gerondi with the Maggid Mishnah as a commentary on Maimonides (!). Rabbi Vidal of Tolosa (c. 1360), author of the Maggid Mishneh, was a colleague of Gerondi. On the special place Maimonides occupied in Gerondis halakhic writings, see Mark Washofsky, The Commentary of R. Nissim b. Reuven Gerondi to the Halakhot of Alfasi: A Study in Halakhic History, HUCA 60 (1989): 191-258; this originally appeared in a shorter version as Rabbenu Nissim ben Reuven Gerondi u-Mishneh Torah la-Rambam, Divrei ha-Congress ha-Olami 64 (3:1, 1989): 187-194. A comprehensive analysis of this topic may be found in Moshe Halbertal's recent book, `Al Derekh ha-Emet: HaRamban vi-Yeiratah shel Masoret (Jerusalem: Hartman Institute, 2006), which deals with the interplay between Nahmanides' kabbalistic convictions and his role as an expositor of the exoteric Torah. Ibid., pp. 334-352. We will return to this topic and to Halbertal's evaluation of Nahmanides and his students in the final chapter of this book. For basic background, see Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. I (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1978), pp. 289-305. For a rich cultural analysis, see Moshe Halbertal, Bein Torah le-Hokhmah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001). Cited by his student Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet in Shut ha-Rivash, no. 157: And Ive told you what my master and teacher, Rabbenu Nissim of blessed memory, confided in me: That Nahmanides of blessed memory immersed himself far too much in his kabbalistic belief. The passage continues, For this reason I do not immerse myself in that wisdom, because I have not received it from a kabbalistic scholar. And though I have seen explanations of Nahmanides secrets, they too fail to reveal the roots of that wisdom; rather, they reveal one cubit only to cover several more, and are likely to lead one to err. So I have chosen not to involve myself in esoteric matters. It is unclear whether the last part of the citation is from Gerondi, or whether they are Perfet speaking for himself. Leon Feldman considers the entire passage to be Gerondi; see his introduction to Perush ha-Ran al ha-Torah, (Jerusalem: Makhon Shalem, 1968), p. 69. Zeev Harvey cites Feldman, but reads the last part as the words of Perfet; see Yesodot Kabbaliim be-Sefer Or Hashem le-R. asdai Crescas, Mehkarei Yerushalayim be-Mahashevet Yisrael 2 (5743), p. 108. My own initial reading of the primary source before I became aware of the problem was the same as Harveys. It remains an open question whether Gerondi opposed kabbalah altogether, but understated his views for fear of controversy, or whether he meant exactly what he said: that kabbalah can be taken too far, and that Nahmanides unfortunately did so (this presumably includes his students as well). In view of the other harsh antikabbalistic remarks cited by Perfet in this responsum, it is tempting to accept the former possibility, thus portraying Gerondi as a vehement anti-kabbalist. But a study of the overall openness of Gerondi and his students to all sources of knowledge (including kabbalah), as long as they are not taken too far, may strengthen support for the latter view, which takes Gerondi precisely at his word. It must be admitted that Perfet records other views far more critical of kabbalah than the one he records in the name of Gerondi. Nevertheless, if we take him too at his exact word, he also stopped short of disqualifying kabbalah altogether. To put this departure in perspective, consider the attitude of the school of Nahmanides to the rabbinic Maimonideans of Provence, as described by Moshe Halbertal in his Bein Torah le-Hokhmah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 5760), pp. 17, 219-222. Even if we ignore the fierce battleground of kabbalah versus philosophy, and focus on the seemingly neutral area of halakhah, we find that Nahmanides and his students maintain complete and utter silence regarding all Provencal halakhic views expressed after the period of (non-Maimonidean) scholars such as Raavad and Ba`al haMaor. Halbertal maintains that such perfect silence can be explained only as a result of a vast, insurmountable cultural gap between the contemporaneous schools in Spain and southern France.

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In philosophy there was a shift in attitude, complemented by an even greater shift in emphasis. Unlike the school of Nahmanides, Gerondi was an admirer of Maimonides philosophic enterprise. Nonetheless, he was a hesitant admirer; though he had high regard for philosophic achievements, he denied their absolute validity in all areas, especially areas that encroached on tradition. This denial may reflect limited internalization and acceptance of the sort of criticism offered by Nahmanides and Rashba. Nevertheless, this hesitancy is not fully realized in practice, for Gerondi happily employs philosophic concepts and reasoning throughout his Derashot.65 He did not scorn philosophy in general, and certainly was no partner to the idea of banning it.66 In modern scholarship, far more attention has been paid to the philosophy of Gerondi's students than to Gerondi himself. In consequence, the scholarly effort to identify the sources of Gerondis students has overlooked their teacher. That this constitutes a methodological error is clear, because even a cursory examination shows that Gerondi had a powerful influence on his students. In the introduction to his first edition of Derashot ha-Ran, Leon Feldman collected examples of Crescas' borrowing from Gerondi's ideas in his discussions of a dozen central issues. He cites five similar examples for Albo, but points out that when scholars looked for the sources of Albo's statements they stopped with Crescas, never bothering to take one step further back for an examination of Gerondi.67 Regarding Duran, Feldman writes: "It is difficult to determine whether Rabbi Shimon ben ema Duran was influenced by Gerondi in his book Magen Avot. It seems to me that Duran did not see the Derashot, even though he was [Gerondi's] student, and was close to his school of thought and to his many students personally. This phenomenon remains to be tested and determined."68 Feldman thus notes that Duran was "close" to Gerondi's "school of thought." Though he leaves the boundaries of this school undefined, some acquaintance with the writings of Gerondi and

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The departure of Gerondi (and his students) from the school of Nahmanides can be better appreciated when we realize that for them, the cultural gap with Provence was not quite so vast. Had the cultural tradition of the Provencal rationalists not been cut off by persecution, it is likely that they would have found in the school of Gerondi, as opposed to the school of Nahmanides, the possibility of true dialogue (though certainly not full agreement). We will use Derashot ha-Ran ha-Shalem, ed. Aryeh (Leon) Feldman (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 2001), supplemented occasionally by Feldmans introduction to his first edition (Jerusalem: Makhon Shalem, 1973); we will often simply refer to the work simply as the Derashot. My summary here of Gerondis attitude towards kabbalah and philosophy is based upon impressions from my own reading, especially of his Derashot. These impressions fully agree with the (flowery) description in Feldmans introduction to Perush ha-Ran, pp. 68-69. Above, n. 68, pp. 42-43. On the influence of Gerondis Derashot in general, see Feldmans first edition, pp. 41-45; second edition, pp. 36-40. First edition, p. 45. This book will not find any evidence of direct borrowing from the Derashot by Duran in any of the topics it explores. But other, broader influences are undeniable.

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his first two generations of students69 allows us to make a preliminary list of several points that characterize them jointly, as well as some of the ways in which they differ amongst themselves: 1) As we have already noted, the members of this group all used philosophy widely, even within exegetical works. At the very same time, all of them equally denied that the entire Aristotelian corpus can be absolutely proven; on the contrary, they all considered the Torah a surer and more comprehensive source of knowledge than rational inquiry. They all equally rejected intellectual perfection as the purpose of the Torah or the goal of man, 70 and refused to interpret the Torah naturalistically. However, they differed amongst themselves on the extent to which philosophic investigation has achieved certainty. It was Crescas, of course, who presented a radical new approach to this last problem by denying any philosophic certainty at all. Though Gerondi, in terms of his halakhic works, was the last successor to Nahmanides, Rashba, and Ritva, neither he nor any of his students seem to have honored Rashbas ban to any degree at all. On the contrary, they seem to have ignored it entirely. Not only were they themselves

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This general category is meant to include figures such as Gerondi, Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet Perfet (Rivash), Rabbi asdai Crescas, Duran, Rabbi Yosef Albo, and other students of Crescas whose writings have survived in manuscript (R. Zerahia Halevi, R. Matityahu Hayitzhari, R. Yosef ben David, R. Avraham bar Yehudah). To these may now be added R. Yosef Havivah, author of Nimmukei Yosef on Alfasis Halakhot and a student of both Gerondi and Crescas, who has been proven to be the true author of the Perush al ha-Torah le-Rabbenu Yosef ben David miSaragosa edited and published by Leon Feldman (Jerusalem: Makhon Shalem, 1973). For the proof see Ta-Shma, p. 91. The characteristics we will enumerate here actually go beyond the first two generations of Gerondis students. For instance, Abravanel and Arama both share them (see chapter 8). Thus, if we may indeed speak of Gerondis school of thought, then that school of thought remained the prevalent outlook among Spanish scholars all the way until the expulsion, and even beyond. For some remarks on this, see the final chapter of this book. Scholars typically use the word intellectualism for the attitude that the most important part of man is his rational soul or intellect upon which immortality is dependent. All else that is not pure thought acquires what value it has from the relation it bears to thought. In this way were judged those divisions of Judaism that concerned ceremony and ethical practice. Their value consisted in their function of promoting the ends of the reason. In Jewish intellectualism, Maimonides and Gersonides were the great peaks that stood out above the rest of those who held this attitude. Such is Isaac Husiks description of this outlook and of the term scholars use for it (pp. 388-389); similarly see Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1964), pp. 250-252. Since the members of our group unanimously and explicitly reject this attitude, their approach may be correctly described as anti-intellectualism, as Sara Klein-Braslavy has called Gerondi; see R. Nissim ben Reuben de Gerone devant la philosophie de son temps (Ph. D. dissertation, Sorbonne, 1972). p. viii. Nevertheless, though the term is technically correct, it is also misleading. For though Gerondis school clearly opposes intellectualism, it has enormous respect for the intellect. Though it rejects the hierarchy of values posited by Maimonides and Gersonides, it accepts much of the content of their thought. The intellectual world of Gerondi and his students is largely built upon the writings of Maimonides and Gersonides. For more on this, see the final chapter of this book. It is especially important to emphasize this distinction when we consider the historical context in which our group lived. I agree with Ravitzky (History and Faith, p. 21) that the history of medieval Jewish philosophy ought not be reduced to the study of the historical and cultural circumstances of the philosopher. Nevertheless, the traumatic violence in Spain at the time directly affected every one of the men discussed here in terrible ways, including the loss of personal fortune, imprisonment, exile, and the murder of loved ones. It is tempting to claim that in times like these, Jews tended to look inwards, and thus to explain the antiintellectualism of our group as a function of their dire circumstances. But this explanation is dubious: In this book we will find that the level of openness among members of this group was quite remarkable, all the more so given the times in which they lived. What we actually have here is a unique balance, of which Duran is an exceptional example, as we shall see in the coming chapters.

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all highly educated philosophically (which the ban might arguably have allowed), but they taught and wrote philosophy for the public at large.71 All members of this group saw the philosophic enterprise as a useful tool with which to understand the Bible and rabbinic literature in general, though they rejected the radical reinterpretation of the Torah in philosophic terms. All of them made an effort to show that the sources of tradition can often (though not always) be understood best using philosophic concepts. And many of them (including Gerondi and some of Crescas' students) wrote their philosophy as biblical commentary. 2) All the members of the group used astrology widely as an exegetical and theological tool. But some them also gave a hearing to the view that rejects the truth of astrology.72 3) All the members of this group limited their use of kabbalah. Some used it more, some less or not at all, but for all of them its use was dwarfed in comparison to philosophy. 73 And even when it was used, it was often couched in philosophic terms. However, when it comes to direct statements about kabbalah, members of the group disagreed: Their attitudes ranged from rejection or hesitation to outright admiration. For those who did admire kabbalah and made use of it, one gets the preliminary impression that they were using basic ideas acquired from the study of books or from occasional, informal instruction. Passion for kabbalah and serious immersion in its study seem to be entirely lacking.74
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As Wolfson has noted, The period which witnessed the rise of opposition to philosophy among Jews was also the period of the greatest philosophic activity among them (p. 31). A comparative study of Gerondi and his students may help us to better understand and evaluate why this paradoxical generalization rings true. This is the fourth of Crescas open questions in Part IV of Or Hashem. Also see Albo in Sefer ha-Ikkarim, Part IV, Chapter 4 (the first opinion, that of the philosopher). For studies on the status of astrology in medieval Jewish philosophy, see: Gad Freudenthal, "Maimonides' Stance on Astrology in Context: Cosmology, Physics, Medicine, and Providence" in Samuel Kottek and Fred Rosner, eds., Moses Maimonides -- Physician, Scientist, and Philosopher (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1993), pp. 7790; Haim Kreisel, "Maimonides' Approach to Astrology," Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies 2 (1994): 25-32; Haim Kreisel, Maimonides' Political Thought: Studies in Ethics, Law, and the Human Ideal (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999); Tzvi Langermann, "Maimonides' Repudiation of Astrology," Maimonidean Studies 2 (1991): 123-158; Ralph Lerner, "Maimonides' Letter on Astrology," History of Religions 8 (1968): 143-158; Dov Schwartz, Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1999); Dov Schwartz, "Magic, Experimental Science and Scientific Method in Maimonides' Teachings" in Aviezer Ravitzky, ed., Joseph Baruch Sermonetta Memorial Volume of Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 14 (1998): 25-46; Joseph Stern, "The Fall and Rise of Myth in Ritual: Maimonides vs. Nahmanides on the uqqim, Astrology, and the War Against Idolatry," Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997): 185-263. This point is inadequately emphasized at times, or unfairly forgotten, because of the superlatives with which some members of the group praise kabbalah (cf. Arieli, pp. 5-7). I believe that this has made it hard for scholars to recognize that limited kabbalah unites the group far more than contradictory statements about kabbalah divide it. As far as I know, I am the first to stress this as one of the defining characteristics of a specific school. It is perplexing that the writings of those who expressed admiration for kabbalah are far less colored by kabbalah than we might expect based on their expressions. One possible explanation is based on the historical context: The members of this group were deeply involved (though often against their will) in debates against the Church and in writing polemical tracts. It may be that they limited their use of kabbalah because philosophy proved a surer polemical tool against Christianity, while kabbalah sometimes proved to be a two-edged sword. On kabbalah during this period, see: Zeev Harvey, Yesodot Kabbaliim be-Sefer Or Hashem le-R. asdai Crescas, Mekarei Yerushalayim be-Mahashevet Yisrael 2 (5743), pp. 75-109; Shaul Regev, Ha-Mahashava he-

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As a member of this group, we may say the following about Duran: His philosophic exegesis constituted a massive project, to the extent that even though his Torah commentary is lost to us, parts of it can be reconstructed through the hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of interpretations he offered in his other writings.75 Duran made extensive use of the full range of scientific and philosophic knowledge available in his day, and showed obvious admiration for what he considered its myriad achievements (in this he differs from Crescas), even though he strongly challenged its validity in certain areas (as did the others in the group). In its sheer volume, Duran's philosophic writing is far greater than that of any other member of the group. Only two others, Crescas and Albo, wrote full-length philosophical works, but they are dwarfed in size by Magen Avot (not to mention Ohev Mishpat and the other lost philosophical works of Duran). It is striking that the structure of all of the surviving76 full-length books is based upon classifications of the principles of the Torah, a unique phenomenon that we will study in detail, showing that it derives from preoccupation with a problem that was crucial to Gerondi and his students. These books are also revealing not just in their content, but also in their very structure, and we will show that the unusual arrangement of Magen Avot is the most revealing of all.77 Like the rest of the group, astrology was an important tool for him; he left its validity unquestioned. As for kabbalah, Duran uses it more frequently and more openly than do the rest, and makes some very positive statements about it (as do some of the others). But it was still haphazard, occasional use, and cannot in any way be compared to his use of philosophy. Risking generalization, we might say that Duran is the most thoroughly eclectic of the entire group, in terms of his essentially positive attitude towards every body of knowledge he knew (rational investigation,

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Razyonal-Mystit be-Hagut ha-Yehudit ba-Meah ha-15, Mehkarei Yerushalayim be-Mahashevet Yisrael 5 (5746), pp. 155-189; idem., Ta`amei Mitzvat ha-Yibbum - Bein Pilosofia le-Kabbalah, Daat 28 (5752), pp. 65-86; Dov Schwartz, Maga`im bein Pilosofia le-Mystika Yehudit be-Reshit ha-Meah ha-15, Daat 29 (5752), pp. 41-67; Boaz Hoss, Al Ma`mad ha-kabbalah be-Sefarad le-Ahar Pera`ot KNA [1391], Pe`amim 56 (5753), pp. 20-32. My thanks to Professor Mordecai Pachter for initially calling these articles to my attention when I began my research. Rabbi Eliyahu Zini first pointed this out to me when I expressed my regret at the loss of the commentary. It is quite possible, of course, that some of Duran's lost philosophical essays dealt with the principles of the Torah as well, or were even structured based upon them. The philosophical part of Magen Avot is very difficult to read. This is not only because of the poor aesthetics of the printed edition, but also because of severe imbalances in the books very structure, which were (as we shall show) consciously created by the author himself. In the Livorno edition, the three philosophic sections are printed on 100 folios. But the very last chapter of the final section begins on folio 34b, making it alone a full two-thirds of the entire book! This means that there is no clear plan organizing most of the book, at least not one that is evident to the reader at the outset. To complicate matters further, this extremely long chapter contains lengthy essays based upon the scientific works of Averroes, huge digressions that make it hard for the reader to keep the overall context of the books argument in mind. Severe digressions from the book's simple plan occur in many of its 13 chapters. For these reasons we will devote special attention to the organization of the book, and especially to methodological statements by Duran concerning his plan for the book.

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astrology, kabbalah),78 and his making effective use of all of them with relatively less hesitation than some of his contemporaries. If we may characterize the school of Gerondi as adhering to an Open Torah, i.e. an autonomous Torah that stands on its own merit, but at the same time encourages a Jew to learn and accept the truth from any outside source that can teach it, then within this school Duran was perhaps the most open of all.

1.5 Methodological Points If we may indeed speak of a "school" of Gerondi, and of Duran as occupying a specific place within that school, it becomes appropriate to raise certain methodological points that have been made by Aviezer Ravitzky in his description of current research on the thought of Rabbi asdai Crescas, and of the possibilities for further investigation. 79 First and foremost, on the factual level, we now know that Eliezer Schweid was at best only partially correct about Crescas' lack of influence in his own era. As Ravitzky describes, the works of students (mostly in manuscript form) as opposed to the central texts of Jewish philosophers (long studied by scholars in their printed versions) can help us answer an important historical question: "Was the philosophic enterprise always only the portion of the few, or did it also penetrate the synagogue, the yeshivah, the public at large?"80 In the case of Crescas, this question can now be answered in favor of penetration.81 But moving from the historical level to the conceptual level, there is even more to be learned from previously unknown works by students: What kind of texts can an interpretation use in addition to the very texts which contain the interpreted teaching? Does interpretation take into its purview only the sources of a teaching, trying to rethink it in the light of these sources, or should an interpretation also take into account different types of texts, namely those which were developed in response to, were influenced by, or were critical of the teaching and revealed new ways of reading it? For when we assert that a certain text was influenced by another, or that a certain concept is based upon another one, we are not only interpreting the latter text or idea, but in a way we are interpreting the original source as well. We learn about the various logical possibilities inherent in it, we learn about the ways it anticipates development in various directions.82
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To these may be added, as we will see especially in chapter 4 ("The Torah Encyclopedia"), the observation of nature and the dissection of animals, especially as found in the works of Galen. Ravitzky, History and Faith, pp. 3-21. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 19-21. To this should be added that in his introduction to Or Hashem, Crescas emphasized more than once that his philosophical work was the product of interaction and discussion with his colleagues. Ibid., p. 13. In the same volume, Ravitzky details the development of Gerondis political theory. The original Hebrew version is Mishpat ha-Melekh: Hagut Politit be-Shilhei Yemei ha-Benayyim in Al Da`at ha-Makom, pp.

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Study of Duran with appropriate comparisons to his contemporaries will show that he and Crescas were able to take Gerondis basic approach in two opposite directions, by developing the logical possibilities inherent within it in two different ways.

1.6 Conclusion The significance of Duran as a Jewish philosopher lies not in his eclectic conclusions on specific topics, but in the unique position he occupied among his intellectual contemporaries, the students of Gerondi. As a member of this group, Duran was the one scholar who seems to have had the most consistently positive attitude of all towards every system of knowledge available to him in the literary sources of his time. Subsequent chapters of this book will show this to be so through a careful reading of Duran, paying special attention to his methodological statements and to the structure and organization of his writing.83 Significant comparisons to his contemporaries will at the same time place him firmly within the school of Gerondi regarding a number of crucial characteristics. To read Duran with an eye towards reconciling the structure and organization of Magen Avot to its declared goals, and to compare him to his contemporaries, are the dual goals for subsequent chapters of this book, and each chapter will implement one or both of them. While this chapter introduced Duran in the context of his contemporaries, two subsequent chapters will focus on Magen Avot as a book whose declared goals (chapter 2) and idiosyncratic organization (chapter 4) both reflect Duran's unique implementation of the shared idea of an "Open Torah." Each of these two chapters will deal with concrete units of Magen Avot: Chapter 2 ("The Book of Abraham") analyzes Durans introduction to Magen Avot as well as Part I (on God). Chapter 4 ("The Torah Encyclopedia") continues with the next two parts of Magen Avot, namely Part II on prophecy, which is the first example of difficult structural imbalances that are highly revealing about Durans purposes, and then Part III on providence and resurrection, in which those structural imbalancs become so severe that the formal division of the book into 13 chapters (matching Maimonides' 13 principles) becomes lost entirely. Our analysis of these two parts of Magen Avot will show how and
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105-125. It is hoped that a side-benefit of the close attention we will pay to structure and organization of Magen Avot will be to help open up the book to modern readers, for whom it largely remains closed despite the previous scholarship on it. It is my subjective view that no other book equals Magen Avot as a general reflection of how the overall corpus of Aristotle and Averroes was studied and understood by late medieval Jews, and of how they struggled with that legacy when it seemed to them to be in conflict with their understanding of the Torah. It this sense it can serve the modern reader as an introduction to medieval science. Such use would fit in squarely with the intentions of its author, as we shall see in the next chapter.

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why Duran turned his book into a massive compendium of knowledge that encompassed both cosmology (Part II) and the life-sciences (Part III:4, "the first topic"). Chapter 3 ("Books of Principles") is a prerequisite to chapter 4. It introduces the idea of derivative principles of the Torah that was discussed by Duran in Ohev Mishpat; Duran's implementation of this concept in Magen Avot puts him squarely into the discussion of principles of the Torah by Gerondi and his students, a topic which was a major preoccupation shared by the entire school. Clarifying Duran's concept of derivative principles and how he later applied it in Magen Avot is critical to making sense of Magen Avot Part III, which will be a large part of our goal in chapter 4. Chapter 5 ("Creation and Miracles") deals with the rest of Magen Avot Part III (III:1-3 and "the second topic" of III:4), which is primarily concerned with the notion of a volitional God (an idea stressed equally by all the members of Gerondi's school). A crucial example of this problem is in the divine response to prayer, and the question of whether that phenomenon implies not only divine volition but even a change in Gods will. The question of prayer, about which Duran himself offers only brief (if nevertheless clear) comments, was expanded on widely by Gerondi and other members of his school, and their views are compared in chapter 6 ("The Philosophy of Prayer"). Here, too, we will see that there are differences in emphasis within the school, despite shared ideas. Chapter 7 ("An Open Torah") offers concluding remarks on Durans vision for Magen Avot, his place in the school of Gerondi, and that school's lasting influence upon subsequent generations in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and beyond.

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