Jews & Gentiles:The Radical View of R. Menachem Ha-MeiriLower Merion Synagogue - Shavuot 5777

Meiri, Chibur HaTeshuvah

But my intention in this chapter is only to caution the sinner not to give up on repentance, whether by failing to believe in it or by fearing that it will not be accepted because of the multitude of his sins. Both of those foreign and evil notions will lead their adherents to hold fast to their wickedness. For the belief in the benefits of repentance, as described by the rabbi, the guide of righteousness [i.e. Maimonides] in one of his chapters, is among the factors without which people possessed of religion cannot get along…. But by believing in the benefits of repentance and the damage caused by its absence, he will be strengthened in the true knowledge that God, may He be blessed, oversees our ways and has the power to punish us and cause us loss if we disobey Him and to do well by us if we serve Him; and he will then strive to mend his ways.

R' Yosef ibn Kaspi, Sefer HaMusar, p.67

My son, there are two types among our people who adopt contemporary traits. Do not walk their path and let your foot avoid their ways. The first type are the philosophizers among our people who have not served their full apprenticeship… yet cast scorn on the words of our sages of blessed memory and treat casually the commandments that call for action (mitsvot ma`asiyyot) … I swear by the Eternal, that Aristotle and his associates and students all caution us to observe everything in the Torah and in the words of the prophets and especially to be careful with respect to the commandments calling for action. As Plato said: “Put to death one who has no religion.”

Essay on Repentance, pp. 255–256

It is well known that in ancient times, false ideas were widespread, for they believed only in what was perceived by the senses or was self-evident or axiomatic; and this is the view attributed to generation of the Tower of Babel.48 Because they did not conceive of the existence of anything non-corporeal (nifrad, nivdal), they denied the existence of God and instead worshipped the heavenly objects. Were they to see a ladder standing on the ground with its top reaching heavenward, they would not see the Lord of Hosts standing upon it, and they would not believe in His sancta. This is what the sages of blessed memory meant when they said that the intention of the Tower builders was to place an idol at its top with a sword in its hand to kill Him, as it were, for “killing” is the sages’ way of portraying the absence of existence of something real…. It is an allegory meaning that the Babel generation lacked any notion of the existence of things that were neither perceived by the senses nor self-evident. However one who inquires (ba`al mehqar) will exert the effort to believe in what reasoning generates and proves, and will thereby come to a belief in some of the firm bases of the Torah, such as the existence of God and all non-corporeal objects.

Commentary on Psalms, p. 47

For beliefs must be arrived at through one of four ways: sense perception, self-evident claims, or received tradition [sic]. In ancient times, there were flawed opinions that believed only in what could be perceived through the senses or what was axiomatically self-evident … and they accordingly denied the existence of God or anything noncorporeal as well as all the disciplines of religion; [only] a few such continue to inhabit some remote places. However the philosopher exerts through inquiry the effort to believe in what comes to him through syllogism and proof. Even so, man’s beliefs could not be perfected until the Torah came. One who accepts it takes on the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and believes, in addition to the foregoing, in everything that the ways of religion require him to believe in a comprehensive way that lacks nothing.

Professor Moshe Halbertal,

"Ones Possessed of Religion”:

Religious Tolerance in The Teachings of The Me’iri

As is evident from the foregoing passages, these nations are situated at the first stage of cognition, where there is no belief in the existence of any independent non-corporeal entity. As the Me’iri puts it, they deny “the existence of anything non-corporeal.” The stage going beyond beliefs dependent on sense perception begins with the rational philosopher who comes to recognize the existence of an independent, non-corporeal transcendental cause and therefore believes in the existence of God. The ancient nations were fetishists who failed to recognize the existence of a transcendent, non-corporeal cause in the universe. That is, they lacked a concept of God.

In Aristotelian terms that the Me’iri employs elsewhere, the ancient nations’ physics reached the realm of the spheres, but they failed to recognize the realm of the noncorporeal forms and the first cause. In portraying the beliefs of the ancient nations that deny the existence of anything non-corporeal, the Me’iri occasionally uses an allegorical understanding of the story of the Tower of Babel, at whose summit the builders placed an idol brandishing a sword, and he contrasts it with Jacob’s ladder. Like the tower, the ladder describes the levels of existence; but unlike the fetishists of the Babel generation, Jacob saw God standing atop the ladder. The distinction between pagans and monotheists here is the distinction between materialist worldview and a metaphysical outlook that acknowledges the existence of non-corporeal forms. On the basis of this conception of idolatry, the Me’iri determined that idolatry has departed the world, since all [contemporary] religions recognize the existence of a non-material, transcendental cause that exercises providence and recompense. The distinction between paganism and its negation lies neither in the details of the various religions’ concepts of God’s unity, nor in the difference between polytheism and pure monotheism. Were that the distinction, Christianity would be considered an idolatrous religion. It is because the Me’iri identifies the ancient nations with materialism and fetishism that he can determine with certainty that Christianity is not an idolatrous religion, since it too recognizes a transcendental, non-material cause. The Me’iri then argues that the idolatrous nations, which deny the non-corporeal and lack any concept of God, lack as well any fear of God that forms the basis for “the restrictions of religion.”