An anxious preoccupation with the intellectual traits of common folk is evident in many a work by a medieval Mediterranean thinker, including texts ostensibly focused on metaphysics.1 One need not go further than the introduction to these works before coming across a reference to the “multitude.” These thinkers were not the first to ponder an intellectual dimension to social stratification. While Pericles had sought to broaden public participation in government, Plato, writing a generation later under the cloud of the “democratic” execution of Socrates, bemoaned the beastly attitudes of the multitude.2 A continent away, Confucius likewise advocated social coherence through hierarchy, unruffled by unmanageable women and contentious “little people.”3 For such thinkers, how and what common folk might think was relevant only to the extent that it was related to questions of social order, or could inform the benevolence incumbent upon those who knew better. And, as Plato suggested, if circulating a contrived myth of origin could further those ends, it was simply prudent policy.4
But medieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish thinkers found themselves in quite a different position. They would have to account for a shared eccentricity: the tendency of their scriptures to elevate common folk to uncommon prominence, particularly as mediators of revelation. Unlike the more typical association of group identities with extraordinary figures and wondrous quests, Tanakh, New Testament, and Quranic texts tell of a God intent upon engaging all-too-human human beings, absent any indication of their having sought such an encounter or having prepared for one. Tanakh in particular emphasizes revelatory events experienced by large groups of women, men, and children alike.5 This legacy would press Jewish thinkers, as they speculated about the mind and its functions, to address the possibility that any human being, for no other reason than that they are human, is equipped to encounter and engage what is ultimately true.
Works by Mediterranean Jewish intellectuals are laden with these tensions, reflected in the ways they employed terms associated with the undistinguished masses. This article surveys Maimonides’ use of two such Arabic terms, al-jumhur (الجمهور or אלג׳מהור) and al-ʿawam (العوام or אלעואם), along with related forms.6 To provide some literary context for Maimonides’ usage, references by three other prominent medieval Mediterranean Jewish thinkers, Saadia al-Fayumi (Gaon), Bahya ibn Paquda, and Yehuda Halevi are also briefly discussed. All four thinkers wrote major works in Judeo-Arabic, which facilitates comparison of terminology.7
As philosophical orientations rooted in classical Greek sources moved through medieval intellectual circles, Jewish thinkers, along with their Christian and Muslim counterparts, were challenged not only by the intellectual import of the various systems, but also by their presumed social corollaries. When and how they used particular terms may help us to better understand their reactions to these challenges, beyond what they may have asserted explicitly about common folk. What their use of the terms denoted in particular contexts warrants consideration, along with references that appear redundant or otherwise unnecessary, and repeated associations and cumulative connotations. In tracing a given thinker’s usage, it will also be important to consider whether it suggests a gap between what he was in fact inclined to believe about common folk and what he believed he was bound, or expected, to affirm.
Saadia al-Fayumi (Gaon) (882–942 CE)
In his Kitab al-Huruf, Saadia Gaon’s contemporary Abu Nasr al-Farabi offered a descending scale of human acumen, concluding: “Religion, when adapted to humanness, always comes after philosophy, since it aims simply to instruct al-jumhur in theoretical and practical matters that stem from philosophy in such a way as to enable them to understand them by persuasion or imaginative presentation, or both.”8 Al-Farabi’s characterization of popular religion as an accommodation to the intellectual inadequacies of the masses is rooted in the classical Greek texts he championed. Although well acquainted with the sources that inspired al-Farabi, Saadia would challenge these premises, emphasizing instead the biblical focus on lived experience.
Saadia reached the highest echelons of Jewish institutional life, but unlike many prominent medieval Jewish figures, he may have grown up in a village, the child of working-class parents.9 In combination with his reading of biblical sources, this background perhaps influenced his thinking about intellect and hierarchies. In the introduction to his best-known work, הנבחר באמונות ובדעות/אלמכ׳תאר פי אלאמאנאת ואלאעתקאדאת, he notes that the ʿawam who dismiss philosophical inquiry as a high road to heresy are also purveyors of absurd folk beliefs: “only those of the ʿawam see it this way…as is said of some of the ʿawam of our people (אמתנא, amtana), that they think the moon is swallowed by some sort of sea creature, and that is its missing portion….”10 Given the derogatory overtones of ʿawam in Saadia’s day, such an aside could well have preceded an intellectual scale of competence akin to al-Farabi’s.11 Notably, however, Saadia goes on instead to assert that the Tanakh’s emphasis on sensory experience in its accounts of revelation, witnessed by women, men, and children, was not to be understood as a condescending literary device for the edification of the public at large. Rather, it conveyed the primacy of “what has been seen by our eyes and heard by our ears”:
And even if we sufficiently extend our rational analysis to its completion, it does not matter, and anyone who falls short due to some obstacle is not left without religion (din). Even women and children, and one who is not adept at analysis, have a full and coherent religious faith, because all people (כל אלנאס/kul al-nas) are equal when it comes to sensory derived knowledge. Praise to the Wise Guide! And that is why you will often find in the Torah that children and women are included with the fathers when signs and proofs are mentioned.12
Through the balance of the work Saadia affirms the clarifying role that rational analysis can play in Jewish life and makes numerous references to ignorant people (ג׳אהל, jahil) in doing so, but never in connection with al-jumhur or al-ʿamah. In a metaphorical passage at the opening of section 5, אלעאמה, al-ʿammah and אלעאמי, al-ʿammi refer to someone unskilled in a particular craft, and in this sense indicative of all people when it comes to examining a soul, a craft in which God alone is expert. Here, too, neither the metaphorical usage nor its correlate comes with demeaning connotations.13
This inclusive sensibility is also evidenced in Saadia’s Tafsir, a Judeo-Arabic interpretive translation of the Tanakh. In general, the Tafsir reflects a preference for Arabic words that sound similar to the original Hebrew.14 However, ʿawam is consistently avoided as a translation of the Hebrew ʿam. Instead, terms such as קום, qaum; שעב, shaʿb; and אמה, umma are employed.15 It seems likely that this avoidance of ʿawam was prompted by its condescending connotations. While al-ʿawam is used specifically in Emunot vedeot in connection with nonsensical folk beliefs, qaum and umma are the preferred terms in that work as well. Saadia did resort to insulting language regarding individuals with whom he clashed, but not in reference to broad swaths of the population.
It is commonly observed that Saadia Gaon was the first rabbinic figure to achieve lasting prominence not only as a halakhist and exegete but also in philology and philosophy. Often characterized as a Jewish “kalamist,” he affirmed, in Alexander Altmann’s words, not a philosophical system of autonomous reason “but an exercise in theology anchored in a religious tradition”—a method for corroborating revealed doctrine, and a tool for defending Jewish thought and practice.16 Common folk might not be skilled in the use of these tools, but that did not mean that their awareness of God’s presence and purposes was thereby deficient. The covenant of Israel was rooted in the whole people’s existential heritage. Philosophy, at best, refined the terms of that heritage. If al-Farabi found a modicum of common ground in a descending staircase of reason, Saadia countered with ascending emanations of shared experience, the biblical narrative serving as a check on presumptions about “the masses” characteristic of the philosophical sources that led to medieval rationalism.
Bahya ibn Paquda (ca. 1050–ca. 1120 CE)
Almost nothing is now known of Bahya ibn Paquda’s life, although he commonly bears the title hadayan. The primary theme of his חובות הלבבות (Duties of the Heart), the development of deep personal piety, suggests Sufi influences. The writings of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, whose renown would stem primarily from his vociferous rejection at midlife of earlier philosophical inclinations, appear to have been one source of this influence.17 However, al-Ghazali’s تهافت الفلاسفة, Tahafut al-falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers) begins with an attack not on rationalist philosophy, but on elitist philosophers: “I have seen a group who, seeing themselves as distinguished from their fellows by their greater perceptiveness and intelligence…they hold themselves above helping the masses (الجماهير, al-jamahir, plural) and the common people (الدهماء, ad-dahma)…. When I perceived this vein of nonsense throbbing in these fools, I took it upon myself to write this book.”18 But if al-Ghazali influenced ibn Paquda regarding the importance of not holding oneself “above helping al-jamahir,” it did not lead to a comparable disdain for arrogant philosophers or philosophy. On the contrary, neither intellectuals nor common folk are explicitly disparaged in Hovot halivavot. The book is amply laced with philosophical passages, enlisted to buttress its devotional focus, along with an al-Farabi-like treatment of biblical imagery as an accommodation for the theologically unsophisticated, but references to al-jumhur and אלעאמה, al-ʿammah although sometimes ambiguous, never devolve into scorn.19
That the introduction closes with praise for Saadia (the only such accolade in the introduction) is telling in this regard. Following a parable on varying degrees of intellectual comprehension, he concludes: “be aided in your grasp of [the Torah] by reading the books of the Gaon, Rabeinu Saadia—may remembering him be a blessing—for they enlighten the mind, and sharpen understanding, and guide the simple-minded, and awaken the lethargic.”20
Ibn Paquda’s recommendation of Saadia’s writings suggests that he shared Saadia’s understanding of a complementary relationship between revelatory events and correct reasoning. In the first chapter of Hovot halivavot, in reference to the need to attune how one conveys “matters of the heart” to the competencies of the learner, he employs the expression “the foolish ignoramous” (الجاهل الغبئ, al-jahl al-ghabi) but not al-jumhur or al-ʿawam. When, in connection with biblical metaphors, he references aljumhur in the following paragraph, the context suggests relatively benign connotations. The uses of such metaphors, he observes, are “in keeping with the understanding of al-jumhur (حسب افهام الجمهور, hasb afham al-jumhur) and in terms that al‘ammah use when speaking to one another.”21 Between the two passages he inserts an allegory in which the abundance of such metaphors is likened to ensuring that farm animals receive sufficient feed. The imagery is condescending, although it could be seen in light of the biblical association of shepherding with benevolent leadership, which came with comparable connotations. In a later passage on levels at which the Torah can be engaged, from minimal to most admirable, he concludes that the ten tiers, taken together, constitute “the great majority of the people” (اكثر جمهور الامه, akutr jumhur al-uma).22 If he had intended negative connotations for the accompanying reference to “jumhur” or umah, one would expect the phrase to reference only the lower levels rather than all ten. The description of the lowest category includes a number of disparaging terms but no reference to al-jumhur. Such ambiguities could be attributed simply to inconsistency or ambivalence. Alternatively, assuming the book was intended for a relatively broad readership, ambiguous terminology might reflect a measure of caution.23 But it is equally plausible that, for ibn Paquda, “those who cannot grasp what is ultimately true” was not a definitive characteristic of “the jumhur” of his fellow Jews.
Yehuda Halevi (ca. 1080–ca. 1140 CE)
Yehuda Halevi’sאלחגה ואלדליל פי נצר אלדין אלדליל, al-ḥujja wal-dalil fi naṣr al-din al-thalil (Argument and Proof in Defense of the Despised Religion, or Sefer haKuzari) would prove the most durable of medieval Jewish works directed against a rationalist demotion of al-jumhur. Notwithstanding his ample connections to elite social and intellectual circles, Halevi’s defense of the “despised religion (din),” a refutation of the accusation that the Jewish people had become an artifact of a bygone era, is concomitantly a defense of the despised common folk among its adherents.24 The first reference to al-jumhur occurs in the opening sentence of the introduction, in Halevi’s own voice, prior to imagined exchanges between the king of Khazaria and a “philosopher,” a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew: “I’ve been asked about my position regarding the charges and responses the philosophers have brought against us, and by people of various doctrines, and those of the sectarians [var. Karaites] who oppose al-jumhur.”25 Avraham Zifroni understood the last words of the passage to mean “those who disagree with what is accepted by the Jewish people as a whole (kelal Yisraʾel).”26 If so, the mention of al-jumhur, although seemingly incidental, presages what follows. In offering the historical experience of the Jewish people as their “defense,” Halevi makes clear that he is speaking of the whole people.
The term al-jumhur (or al-jamahir) appears an additional thirty-nine times in Sefer haKuzari, and never derisively. The closest Halevi comes to implying a negative connotation occurs in a passage in which the ḥaver, the Jewish representative, remarks that it might not be productive to explain all biblical metaphors to al-jumhur (book 3, section 73), but the comment comes without slight. On the contrary, it is clear from the balance of references that being included in the jumhur of the Israelites and their Jewish descendants is a sign of distinction. Before the appearance of the ḥaver, both the Christian and the Muslim emphasize the public nature of the wonders experienced by the biblical Israelites, the Christian affirming: “[God] dwells among those who please him, from among al-jamahir. And the general principle: Whatever one finds in the Torah and books of Israel cannot be doubted, as they have been published, and preserved and revealed among the mass multitudes (אלגמאהיר אלעט׳אם, al-jamahir al-ʿidham).”27 When the ḥaver is summoned, he need only reiterate what has proven so convincing to Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike, concluding:
And so, He begins his words to the jumhur of Israel (לגמהור בני אסראיל, ljumhur benei Israel) with “I am the Eternal God who took you out of the land of Egypt.” He doesn’t say, “I created the world, and I created you.” So too I began with you, King of the Khazars, when you asked me about my faith, and I responded in terms of what is incumbent upon me and incumbent upon the whole people of Israel, as this position was made clear to them with their own eyes, then leading to an ongoing tradition which is the equivalent of being an eyewitness.28
In the one instance al-ʿamah and al-jumhur are juxtaposed in the Kuzari, the resulting expression indicates the “general public,” without any associated deprecation.29
In part 4 of the Kuzari, the ḥaver critiques displacement of the biblical emphasis on the divine-human encounter by speculative analysis. Such an approach, he argues, leads to a cold and ultimately ineffectual abstraction of both God and human beings. Those truly faithful to Torah are comforted by biblical texts despite their plain language and rugged similes, “not placing their trust in philosophers, with their eloquence and fine treatises, and what they conclude by way of proofs. Even so, al-jamahir do not follow them, in as much as souls can, as it were, be inspired with the truth, as it is said, ‘Truths are recognized.’”30 While Saadia contended that common folk tended to dismiss philosophical discourse as sophisticated apostacy, Halevi argues that common Jews simply are not impressed by philosophers, as they can intuit in a far more intimate way what lofty philosophical arguments can only suggest.
Halevi’s emphasis on experience, like Saadia’s, aligned with biblical connotations of “knowing” as engaging not only the mind but also the person. However, he went on to argue that not only were the experiences of biblical Israelites unique, but the Jewish people were as well, as heirs to the “divine thing” received by Abraham and inherited by “the jumhur of his descendants.”31 Jews by descent were distinguished from other peoples by their singular lineage: “See how אלאמר אלאלאהי, al-amr ilahi (“the divine thing”) lodged in Abraham, and then in the jumhur of his chosen elect (צפותה, tsafwata), and in the holy land, leading the umma, step by step, as He watched over His seed so that not a single one would be lost.”32 Halevi repeatedly describes the Jewish jumhur in terms of collective commonalities, but in this and related passages, it is at the same time deemed a jumhur that embodies a distinguished status not assigned to other peoples; a jumhur that is both inclusive, and elite.33
Maimonides (1138–1204 CE)
Halevi’s insistence that the Jewish story was centered on the people as a whole stood in stark contrast to Maimonides’ perspective a generation later. While Halevi resolutely defended a unique vocation for the Jewish multitude, Maimonides would repeatedly discount the religious testimony of common folk.
Hierarchies figure prominently in Maimonides’ writings, although he clearly did not conflate intellectual preeminence with social indifference.34 He made this plain in a letter to Shmuel ibn Tibbon regarding his daily schedule, and in the uncharacteristically passionate aside in his Mishneh Torah that “If a poor person asks for something from you and you have nothing at hand to give, then you comfort the person with words…. And woe to anyone who would insult a poor person—woe to them!”35 Nor did he laud, as did Plato and Aristotle, the intellectual advantages of leisure (scholé) enjoyed by those who could rely on the labor of others, or disparage working for a living,36 though in a letter to Yosef ben Yehuda (ibn Shimon), written in his fifties, he wove together mention of the medical care he provided the lowly ʿawam of Cairo with regret that the time thus expended could otherwise be devoted to study.37
Maimonides’ prioritizing of communal schools among essential Jewish institutions also reflects a more complex understanding of the needs and potential of society at large,38 but it was, even so, inclusivity constricted by common hierarchical prejudices, as he stopped short of including girls.39 A more equitable position was by no means unimaginable. His Cordoban contemporary Abu al-Walid ibn Rushd, whom he highly respected, contended that it was a foolish waste of potential to exclude women from public life, but nothing comparable appears in Maimonides’ writings.40
Isadore Twersky observed that the Mishneh Torah exhibits a “definite elitist ethos,” keyed to intellect, but in noting Maimonides’ use of various demeaning terms for nonintellectuals, he does not comment on the absence in the Mishneh Torah, unlike elsewhere in his writings, of insulting references specifically linked to “hehamon.”41 In the introduction and conclusion of Sefer haMitsvot, a kind of preface to the work, Maimonides does refer to hehamon in connection with lack of learning, but the references are free of explicit disdain. The resulting impression, as in his Shemonah peraqim (the introduction to tractate Avot in his Mishnah commentary), is of an intellectual hierarchy that does not directly correspond to social coordinates. By contrast, the first of many pointed comments regarding al-jumhur in his Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nevukhim), written with a much narrower range of readers in mind, occurs in the opening hundred words:
The primary subject of this work: to clarify subjects related to terms appearing in the prophetic books. Among these terms are homonyms. The simpletons take them as meaning only some of the things to which the homonym refers. Also: metaphors. Once again, they grasp them in light of their most immediate inference. And this work is not intended to explain them all to the multitude ללג׳מהור), liljumhur), nor to beginners in analysis, nor to those who have only done analysis of Torah wisdom, i.e., talmudic study of it, for the subject of this work is entirely of a particular sort: “true knowledge of the Torah” (עלם אלשריעה עלי אלחקיקה, ʿilm al-shariʿa ʿale al-hakikah). 42
Maimonides was writing for an exceedingly limited readership that he could presume did not see itself as among the jumhur to whom he refers, a jumhur that included those whose learning was limited to classical Jewish sources.43 This being the case, he here indicates a much more pronounced gap between the unlearned, the traditionally learned, and the truly knowledgeable than he does in his Mishneh Torah. The reference, so early in the introduction to the Guide, is striking, but the next uses of jumhur, a little further into the introduction, are even more so. Beyond the concern Maimonides shared with al-Farabi that foundational concepts be appropriately communicated to those unequipped for philosophical analysis lay great uneasiness with the possible effects of miscommunication, reflected in a mix of recommendations for accommodating common folk, along with the need to simply conceal some things from them. Speaking of the allusive and patchy structure of the Guide, he comments: “For my intention—that the truths shine through and then disappear—so as to not go against the divine intent, with which it is improper to differ, that these particular truths be inconceivable to the masses of people (ג׳מהור אלנאס, jumhur al-nas).”44 Building on the metaphor of lightning, a momentary bit of light for some but a near continuous flashing for Moses, he concludes that when it comes to the common crowd (ג׳מהור אלעאמה, jumhur al-ʿammah) in the words of Psalm 83:5, “They won’t know, they won’t understand, they will walk in darkness.”45 While juxtaposition of al-jumhur and al-ʿamah in Halevi’s Kuzari came with no accompanying deprecation, here the proximity of the terms would appear to make what follows all the more explicit. It was not only prudent, Maimonides suggests, to direct such people away from reasoning they could not properly comprehend, but one conformed to divine intent in doing so, evidenced by the deficient intellectual skills of the great majority of people.46 This assertion, in turn, leads to a passage on biblical imagery and metaphors, where his disdain is extended to those who misinterpret such references, including “an ignoramous from among the common rabbis (ג׳אהל מן ג׳מהור אלרבאנין, jahil min jumhur al-rabanin).” Jumhur would seem entirely superfluous to the characterization of such figures, but it is in keeping with Maimonides’ habitually negative use of the term.47 Similarly, near the close of the introduction, he comments that among the reasons one might find apparent inconsistencies in the text that followed is that discretion required that he first approach a given issue on the basis of certain premises and then, elsewhere in the text, on the basis of other, contradictory premises. However, “it is necessary that aljumhur be prevented from sensing any bit of contradiction, and that the author therefore devise a strategy to completely disguise the matter.”48 Here again, reference to al-jumhur, linked to the need for deception, appears gratuitously demeaning, when a more specific reference to readers unprepared to grapple with what was intended would have sufficed.
While Saadia saw the providence of a “Wise Guide” at work in having provided all people (kul alnas) sensory access to revelatory events, halfway through part 1 of the Guide Maimonides returns to the theme of why it is inappropriate to introduce some people to a philosophical understanding of ultimate truths. In building his case, he references a Mishnah on personal qualities necessary for study of “the Chariot,” which is commonly understood as mystical lore but which he identified as metaphysics, and concludes: “This being the case, how then could one involve the masses of people (ג׳מהור אלנאס, jumhur al-nas), children, and women in these matters? …For these reasons, these matters are very appropriate for an elite individual, and not for aljumhur, and should be kept from the beginner…as one would prevent a little child from taking coarse foods and carrying weights.”49
The second section of the Guide deals in similar terms with the prerequisite role of character and intellectual development in prophecy, contrary to
the opinion of the ignorant jumhur (ג׳מהור אלג׳אהליה, jumhur aljahilia)—and some of the common folk (ʿawam) of our Torah also believe it—that God, Who is blessed, selects any person God wants from among the people, inspires him with the spirit of prophecy, and sends the person off. It makes no difference to them whether that person is wise or stupid, old or young, provided he be somewhat good and of proper moral character.50
Rather, he will argue, the biblical text, properly understood, indicates that what other Israelites experienced at Mount Sinai as sensory phenomena, Moses engaged intellectually, a paradigmatic illustration of the divide between conventional thinking and “true knowledge of Torah.”51 After reiterating that the biblical text distinguishes between what passed “before the eyes of all Israel” and what Moses perceived, he adds: “and so too Elijah on Mt. Carmel, in the presence of the ‘little people’ (נזר מן אלנאס, nazr min al-nas).”52 A bit further on, commenting on the possibility that a person prepared and qualified for prophecy might nevertheless seek to suppress prophetic inspiration, he cites Amos 3:8 (“The Eternal One, God, spoke—how can one not prophesy?”), but makes no mention of Amos’s insistence that he was not a prophet but a common laborer seized by a calling (Amos 7:14).53
Like ibn Sina, Maimonides maintained that, given the great range of intellectual competence in populations, shared obligatory practices, even though they were understood from differing perspectives, played an important role in maintaining communal common ground, reinforced by the study of traditional sources. However, this common ground did not extend to philosophical argumentation. One was even less equipped to think philosophically using common intellect, he argued, than to practice medicine, his other field of expertise.54 Inasmuch as most people were not prepared to understand “true knowledge of Torah,” he was untroubled by the need to compose the Guide in such a way as to deflect all but a relative few, despite the personal consequences:
I am the kind person who, when dealing with a difficult subject and little leeway, and having a strategy for teaching a truth that comes with a demonstration that is only appropriate for one outstanding person, rather than appropriate for ten thousand ignoramuses, chooses to tell it directly to that person, while remaining indifferent to the insults of the majority of people (אלכלק אלכתיר, al-khalq al-katir).55
Already in his Mishnah commentary, composed in his early adult years, he had taken the position that highly abstract formulations of foundational truths must not be imposed on, or even offered to those not ready to understand them: “just a tiny bit of it will be understood by al-jumhur, and when the ignoramus hears these things it will undermine that person’s faith, as it will seem that they contradict the truth, when in fact it is the truth.”56 Indications of this concern are pervasive in the Guide.
As has been noted, Maimonides also used al-jumhur in reference to those with at least a modicum of Jewish learning, as he does, for example, in the reference to “common rabbis” (ג׳מהור אלרבאנין) in the introduction to the Guide,57 along with his clarification of ג׳מהור אהל אלשריעה, jumhur ahl al-shariʿa in the parable of the “King in His Palace” near the close of section 3: “I mean ʿamei haarets engaged in the mitsvot.”58 Thus the Guide begins and ends with demeaning references to al-jumhur—namely, the great majority of Jews, including those “unlearned” beyond the study of Tanakh and traditional rabbinic sources.
Maimonides’ מקאלה פי תחית המתים (Treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead), written in his fifties, is also laced with disparaging references to al-jumhur, one of which includes an adjectival form of the word. Following a critique of the notion held by the “ignorant” (אלג׳האל, al-juhal) that created beings such as angels are embodied, he derides those who hold such opinions:
And if it is not enough for such a fool to leave the matter in doubt and not decide one way or the other, but holds instead to his ראיה אלג׳מהורי-type of perspective, and belittles our perspective and insults us for seeing the angels and those of the world to come as separated from and devoid of the material…59
Context suggests that his use of the adjective ג׳מהורי, jumhuri connotes a combination of social status and state of mind, somewhere between “popular” and “vulgar.” Deficient reasoning could be attributed to “some,” or “those,” “the ignorant” or “unlearned,” but here as elsewhere Maimonides associates the shortcoming with al-jumhur. This tone is also evident in a nearby passage in which he offers the assurance that there was nothing in the Treatise not already stated in the Mishnah commentary and the Guide, although the present work included stylistic accommodations for al-jumhur, along with children (the Finkel text reads here “אלג׳האל, al-juhal”) and women.60 The Treatise concludes with an apology and explanation to אהל אלעלם, ahl al-ʿilm (“knowledgeable people”) that its pedantic tendencies are, once again, an accommodation to al-jumhur, who are its intended readership. How that readership would not be offended by the inclusion of such references is unclear, unless it was assumed that the text would be editorially channeled through such “knowledgeable people.”
Along with ibn Sina, ibn Paquda, Halevi, and ibn Rushd, Maimonides maintained that there was little to be gained from exposing the intellectually unprepared to potentially alienating abstract interpretations of scriptural passages.61 But was he convinced that the socio-intellectual divide was irreversible? In his Mishnah commentary he links the lamentable intellectual limitations of al-jumhur to a set of tenets, his thirteen “Fundamentals.” In forging an intellectual connection to these principles, despite its deficiencies, one secured a “share in the world to come,” and they must therefore be affirmed.62 This recourse to formulations that emphasized the rewards gained through fidelity to the principles they conveyed could be understood as simply one more expression of disdain, but nearby text includes an intriguing twist. Preceding the Thirteen Fundamentals, Maimonides offers a sketch of cognitive moral development that appears to be universal, like the modern taxonomies to which his stages bear a striking similarity.63 Juxtaposition of an obligatory creed to a set of universal developmental stages, culminating in rational acumen, although once again hierarchical, could be seen as indicating that the intellectual deficiencies of the masses were largely a matter of circumstance and condition, not inherent character, inasmuch as one can grow and learn beyond immature forms of reasoning:
And so, that it might become a matter of faith, they allowed that al-jumhur do the mitsvot in the hope of receiving a reward, and shunning the transgressions out of fear of punishment, and they encouraged them in this way, and affirmed their intentions, until they might grasp what can be grasped, and know the truth. What is the sure way in this regard? It’s like how a child is treated when studying, as I’ve noted metaphorically… al-jumhur lose nothing at all by doing the mitsvot out of fear of punishment and hope of a reward. Rather, they are simply not fully developed, and this being the case, it is a good thing through the competence, habit, and effort that it takes to fulfill the Torah that they are inspired to know the truth.64
Similarly, in the Guide, his endorsement of dogmatic formulations for al-jumhur is paired with the need to realize the potential of youth through education:
Rather, just as one must educate youth and simplify for al-jumhur that God (Be Blessed!) is one and there is no need to be in service to any other, so too one should pass along to them as a matter of tradition that God is not a body and is totally unlike any of His creations in any respect, and that His existence is unlike their existence, and that “living” in his case is unlike…and that His wisdom is unlike…and that the distinction between Him and them is not only a matter of degree.65
Such references to al-jumhur alongside maturing youth are intriguing, but come up short of a complete analogy. In the passage above, for example, dogmatics would appear to play an educational role with youth, but is said to “simplify” truths for al-jumhur.
Sarah Strousma has suggested that proposing a catechetic set of tenets was perhaps influenced by Almohad sponsorship of comparable dogmatic statements and concludes that Maimonides would come to play in this regard “the role assigned to the ruler according to the Platonic philosophical tradition: the role of the lawgiver who builds a virtuous city, the one who guides his flock toward true beliefs.”66 If so, disparaging references to the unlearned and not-learned-enough might reflect something of the on-the-job training of an urbane philosopher king of proud and prominent lineage.67 But the fact that comparable references appear in his Mishnah commentary, completed before his first appointment as rais al-Yahud, suggests deeper roots.68 Nor is his terminology inherently rabbinic. Rather, in keeping with Strousma’s metaphor, Maimonides’ references to al-jumhur and al-ʿammah would seem to echo references to the polloi in the classical Greek sources he read in Arabic translation.
Maimonides wrote occasionally of his need to contain an inclination toward self-importance, although he framed the issue in terms of a personal struggle with presumptuousness rather than unjustified assumptions about “common folk.”69 However, even in such contexts, he could not help but note their presence. Perhaps Strousma’s analogy pertains here as well. In a letter to Yosef ben Yehudah, once again dealing with criticism of his work, he insisted that he would respond to any slights with utmost humility, followed by the aside that “he” (the critic, or perhaps “it,” the criticism) nevertheless was likely to “do me [us] great damage among the hamon.”70
This tendency is also evident in his description to Yosef ben Yehudah of how his medical practice deprived him of time for study:
I want you to know that I’ve become very famous in the field of medicine among the elites, e.g., the head kadis, the emirs and the court of al-Fadl and others among the leaders of the state, people from whom I receive nothing. As for the common people (al-ʿawam), I am way above them and they have no way to reach me, so that’s how I always waste the day in Cairo, visiting the sick.71
It was unnecessary in this context to distinguish between the elites that brought him renown and “plain folk” who simply brought him troubles that ate away at his day, but such was his inclination. Yet, although he was put out by the demands put on him by a needy al-ʿawam, he nevertheless complied.
The rabbinic emphasis on acquired competencies has always come with the risk of alienating those who see themselves, or are seen by others, as incompetent. The foundational distinction Maimonides drew between those who could and those who could not properly understand “the true knowledge of the Torah” amplified this risk.72 His inclination to characterize the people he encountered in socially stratified terms reinforced this tendency, making the last lines of Mishneh Torah, in reference to the reign of the messiah, all the more noteworthy:
In those times there will be no famine or war there; no envy or rivalry, for goodness will be prevalent, and comforts will be as common as dust. And the whole world will be wholly occupied with knowing God, And so the people Israel will be great hakhamim, knowing the obscure things, and coming to a knowledge of their Creator, to the extent possible for a person. As it is said, “for the Earth will be filled with knowledge of God, as does water cover the sea.”73
The assertion in the introduction to the Guide that God intends that certain truths remain incomprehensible to al-jumhur notwithstanding, the close of the Mishneh Torah could be taken, once again, to indicate that the inability of the greater portion of humanity to flourish intellectually is largely a result of human designs. It could be inferred that the resulting conditions will be remedied only on the far side of a messianic divide, but the passage, which includes no references to upper and lower intellectual strata, only to the people as a whole, can also be understood as asserting that pervasive “knowledge of God” is possible whenever conditions conducive to human development are realized. Guide 3:27, set among chapters replete with references to al-jumhur, jumhur al-hakhamim, and al-jumhur al-ʿammah74 complements this position. It begins by recommending, once again, that al-jumhur be provided suitable tenets, constructed of a mixture of the explicit and the metaphorical, as it is not in the nature of al-jumhur al-ʿammah to tolerate a straightforward rendering of such things. But this is followed by the assertion that if the intellectual development of every member of the populace (כל ואחד מנהם, kul wahad minhum) is to proceed, a social order conducive to meeting their basic needs must first be established.75
Saadia had been careful to speak of common folk in ways that did not presume an associated inability to perceive and respond to God’s presence. Ibn Paquda’s inclusion of all Jews in al-jumhur, from the most intellectually adept to the least sophisticated, struck a similarly inclusive note, while Halevi adamantly exalted the Jewish jumhur. Maimonides’ terminology stands apart from these predecessors in this regard. This distinction is epitomized in the fact that Halevi used al-jumhur to indicate the people as a whole, as Zifroni suggests and references confirm, while Maimonides’ usage consistently connoted a baser portion of the populace. Nevertheless, envisioning the amelioration of social conditions that impede intellectual development as a primary characteristic of the messianic era, in effect rendering his own use of al-jumhur and al-ʿammah obsolete, suggests his awareness that their negative connotations could not ultimately be reconciled with “true knowledge of the Torah.”76
Conclusion
Commenting on the awkward intrusion of revelation on medieval philosophy, Lev Shestov concludes: “And indeed, the Bible was brought to the world by simple, ignorant people who were absolutely incapable of defending it by the methods which learned people use to attack it.”77 Plato and Aristotle might have mentioned hoi polloi when discussing politics, but the thoughts of medieval Mediterranean Jewish intellectuals turned to common folk not only as a political concern, but also as they reflected on thinking, knowing, experience, providence, and revelation.
The convergence of adjacent societies around the Mediterranean primed intellectuals for the possibility that rationalism offered a precise, transcendent language for communication across broad cultural divides about the most important subjects. It was a powerful vision, but the language they labored to articulate would prove an Esperanto-like dialect: a universal language, comprehensible to a few. Maimonides’ writings spiral around this conundrum.
In the ensuing centuries, resistance to “aristocratic religion” continued to agitate traditions leading back to groups of ʿIvrim, rough-hewn Galileans, and nomadic ʿaʿrab.78 Inequities born of class and caste, patronage, lineage, and gender have repeatedly spawned tensions. Amidst these clashes, the question “What can common folk possibly know about God and the world, and how could they know it?” has persisted. In more recent times we hear it in John Calvin’s retort that, when it came to knowledge of God, those who were otherwise most ingenious were “blinder than moles,” in Blaise Pascal’s affirmation of “The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, not the God of the philosophers or the scholars,” and in the disjunct between Karl Marx’s eschatological mission of the proletariat and Frederick Engels’s scrapping of common sense for “science.”79 Such tensions have persisted among Jews as well, evident in clashes between the worldly maskil and enthused ḥasid, in the relatively recent popularization of kelal Yisraʾel to indicate Jewish life as defined by broad inclusivity, along with criticism of the term as a “battering ram…to level down values and undermine all criteria of judgment,” and in the ironic penname “Aḥad Haʿam.”80
In the beginning, amid a bric-a-brac of divine hierarchies, the God of Abraham stood apart, without family or noble companions, lone and alone, except for human friends. Even the most prominent of these human companions came without credentials. As medieval Jewish intellectuals pondered, “What do we know about knowing?,” the question, “Why do our scriptures say that God chose to be known by, and through such people?” was never far from their thoughts. Neither the question, nor the people.
1* Personal note: When my father used the Yiddish expression proste mensch, he intended it as a compliment. It was only as an adult that I learned that the phrase was typically understood as a slight. I dedicate this study to my father.
Regarding the term “Mediterranean,” see S. Strousma, Maimonides in His World (Princeton University Press, 2009), 3–6.
2 Plato, Republic VI.492–93 and Letters VII.341–44.
3 Y. Pines, “Confucius’ Elitism: The Concepts of Junzi and Xiaoren Revisited,” in A Concise Companion to Confucius, ed. P. Goldin (Wiley, 2017), 164.
4 See, e.g., Plato, Republic III.414.
5 E.g., the ten plagues, the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, the revelation at Mount Sinai, and Elijah’s vanquishing of the priests of Baal. Rabbinic shaping of the Passover celebration can also be seen in this light, i.e., as an experiential recapitulation of the miracle of liberation of a whole people, celebrated in homes, without need of religious functionaries or exceptional competence.
6 The word jumhur suggests “multitude,” “masses,” “crowd,” while the word ʿawam inclines toward “commonplace,” “general,” “the people”; cf. colloquial amkha in Yiddish.
7 Arabic manuscripts of the period were commonly written with Hebrew letters, but there is some question regarding the original orthography of Saadia Gaon’s Al-mukhtar fi al-amanat wa-al-ʿatiqadat (Emunot vedeot) and Bahya ibn Paquda’s Al-hidayah ila faraʾid al-qulub (Hovot halivavot).
8 Al-Huruf, 108, https://archive.org/details/KitabAlHurufBookOfLettersAlFarabi/page/n31/mode/2up.
9 Biblical sources are laced with misgivings about cities (the first city in the Tanakh is founded by Cain), while rabbinic usage of ʿam haʾarets (“people of the country[side]”) to indicate people unschooled in rabbinic ways reflects a more conventional urbanity, along with the Low German etymology of “boor,” Old English origin of “churl,” Old Arabic usage of ʿaʿrab, Old French “villian,” Old English “heathen,” and the Latin root of “pagan” and “peasant.” Regarding the possibility that Saadia came from a working class family, see H. Malter, Saadia Gaon, His Life and Works (Hermon, 1969), 25–28.
10 Y. Kafih, ed. and trans., Hanivhar beʾemunot uvideot. Lerabeinu Saadia ben Yoseif Fayumi (Dror, 1970), 23.
11 Note the comments on the connotations of עואם in Kafih, Hanivhar, 23. n. 80. Regarding עואם אמתנא, ʿawam amtana, Kafih notes that, while he translated the phrase as המוני אומתינו, hamonei umatenu, ibn Tibbon chose עמי הארץ שבעירינו, ʿamei haarets shebiʿireinu (n. 81).
12 Kafih, Hanivhar, 28. All translations are mine unless otherwise specified.
13 Kafih translates the terms into Hebrew using forms of המון, hammon, while ibn Tibbon used forms of פתי, peti, “simpleton.” Near the close of section 5, Henry Malter translates אלוצ׳יע, al-wadhiʿa (“lowly”) as “plebeian,” while in an earlier passage in the section on those who would deny a foundational principle, Alexander Altmann translates קום, qaum as “the multitude”; see Malter, Saadia Gaon, 220, and Altmann’s translation of an abridged version of the Guide in Three Jewish Philosophers (Atheneum, 1969), 132. Both translations are problematic. Malter seems to overlook the fact that Saadia was referencing a talmudic comment about a dal (i.e., an indigent person; see Kafih, 189 n. 18), while the Arabic qaum is better understood as referring to a particular group of people.
14 Malter, Saadiah Gaon, 145.
15 See Tafsir Exodus 1:9 and Deuteronomy 33:22 for qaum; Numbers 23:9, 24 for shaʿb; and Numbers 11:29 for umma.
16 A. Altmann, Essays in Jewish Intellectual History (Brandeis University Press, 1981), 37.
17 I. Husik, A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy (Atheneum, 1973), 80.
18 Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers/Tahafut al-falasifah, A parallel English-Arabic text translated, introduced, and annotated by Michael E. Marmura (Bringham Young University Press, 2000) introduction. The translation here is by the author.
19 Although manuscript evidence is lacking, Y. Kafih, trans. and ed., Torat hovot halivavot (Akiva Yosef, 1973), 8, https://tablet.otzar.org/#/book/14197/p/-1/t/1/fs/0/start/0/end/0/c argued that the original manuscript was undoubtedly composed in Hebrew lettering, which he employs in the reconstructed Judeo-Arabic text accompanying his translation. Nonetheless, given that the earliest extant manuscripts are in standard Arabic script, citations in this section are as well.
20 The Arabic text employed by A. S. Yahuda ʿl-hidāja ʿilā farā’iḍ al-qulūb des Bachja ibn Jōsēf ibn Paqūda, aus Andalusien (Brill, 1912) differs somewhat from the ibn Tibbon translation cited here, but conveys the same appreciation of Saadia’s work. Kafih, Torat hovot halivavot 4:6 includes a passage from a liturgical baqashah composed by Saadia, although he is not identified as the author; see Malter, Saadia Gaon, 154.
21 Kafih, Torat hovot halivavot, 1:10. The references to الجمهور, al-jumhur and العامة, al-ʿammah are found in the Oxford manuscript of the text and are included in ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation. Ibn Tibbon translates العامة, al-ʿammah as benei adam (“people”).
22 Kafih, Torat hovot halivavot 3:4.
23 Regarding the general character of the work and its intended readership, see J. Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (Schocken, 1973), 117–24.
24 Traces of al-Ghazali’s influence have also been noted in Halevi’s writings; see Husik, History, 151–53 and Guttmann, Philosophies, 136–62.
25 A. Zifroni, ed., Sefer haKuzari (Schocken, 1967), I:1.
26 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari, I:1, editor’s note.
27 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari I:4.
28 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari I:25. In his commentary on Exodus 20:1, Abraham ibn Ezra adds: “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi asked me why it says ‘I am the Eternal One, Your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt’ and does not say ‘I made the sky and the Earth, and I made you.” Similar to the ḥaver’s comment, Ibn Ezra observes that the signs leading to the liberation from slavery and the revelation at Mount Sinai were equally accessible to “the wise and not wise, adults and children” and thus a proper complement to a philosophical understanding of “I am haShem your God.”
29 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari 3:63. Ibn Tibbon translates al-ʿamah here as ʿam haarets.
30 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari 4:17. For “truths are recognized,” see b. Sotah 9b.
31 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari 4:3.
32 Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari 2:50. Ibn Tibbon translates בגמהור צפותה, bejumhur tsafwata as behamon segulato. See also Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari 1:27. For a Jewish exclusivist but non-racist reading of the reference to “black and white” in the passage,” see D. Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy Sufi Language of Religious Experience (SUNY Press, 2000), 35–37. In his poetic tribute to Natan ben Shmuel of Fustat, Halevi says that in a burst of renewed vitality, “I mixed in with the mix [of people]” (vehitʿaravti et haʿeirev). The reference comes with no associated slight.
33 Micah Goodman, “Vehamaskilim yavinu. Keriah hadashah bisefer hakuzari,” Shalom Hartman Institute, https://heb.hartman.org.il/and-the-educated-will-understand-a-new-reading-in-the-book-of-khazari/ references this issue in making a somewhat tenuous argument for not presuming that the ḥaver always expresses Halevi’s own perspective.
34 See, e.g., the disturbing parable of the king in his palace and the four levels of human fulfillment at the close of Guide for the Perplexed, III:51, 54. Also, his reading of the Passover Haggadah’s instruction that one “show oneself” rather than the more familiar “see oneself” as having been freed, along with the suggestion that someone currently in a servile position be used to demonstrate to a child the significance of liberation, with the explanation “My child, we were all slaves, like that servant woman or like that servant man, in Egypt, and on this night the Holy One who is blessed rescued us and liberated us” (Mishneh Torah, Halakhah of Ḥamets and Matsah 7:2).
35 Mishneh Torah, Halakhah of Giving to the Poor 10:5:שאל העני ממך ואין בידך כלום ליתן לו פייסהו בדברים... ואוי למי שהכלים את העני – אוי לו. For the letter to ibn Tibbon, see (קובץ תשובות הרמב״ם ואגרותיו (לפסיא, 1859, https://www.daat.ac.il/daat/vl/rambamuvno/rambamuvno18.pdf, 9 (page 28 in the printed text). See also D. Z. Baneth, Igrot haRambam (Magnes, 1985), 68–69. In the letter to ibn Tibbon, Maimonides distinguishes between the “important” and “unimportant” among his daily visitors.
36 See Moritz Vermehren’s emendation of σπουδῆ to σχολῆ in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics H. Rackham, trans., (Loeb, 1975) X.vii.6–7, and Rackham’s parallel English note. The Greek σχολή is the source of “school” and “scholar” in European languages.
37 See below, page 30. The comment comes shortly after recommending (perhaps with a touch of sarcasm) that his correspondent would do better to pursue a manual trade than become financially dependent on the Ras al-Galut (see below, n. 71). Regarding the eclectic character of the letter, Baneth (Igrot, 31–49) favored the argument that the extant versions contain passages from several different letters. Regarding earning a living, in his Mishnah commentary Maimonides once again associates having a source of income with independence from patronage. In commenting on Hillel’s “Don’t say ‘when I have the leisure I’ll study’—you may never have the leisure” (m. Avot 2:2), which may allude to then-current attitudes about leisure befitting an intellectual, he simply counsels that one set aside fixed times for study.
38 Mishneh Torah, Halachah of Torah Study chapter 2 and Halachah of Prayer 11:14–15.
39 Mishneh Torah, Halachah of Torah Study 1. His justification for allowing girls and women to go without a formal Jewish education rested on the assumption that female cognition was “poor” and not suited for study.
40 N. Harhash, “Ibn Rushd’s Views on Women,” unpublished manuscript, https://www.academia.edu/12102310/Ibn_Rushds_Views_on_Women.
41 I. Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (Yale, 1980) 468–71. The Mishneh Torah was written in Hebrew.
42 Guide, introduction, opening passage.
43 See n. 57 below.
44 Guide, introduction.
45 Guide, introduction. The reference to lightning is ironic, given the biblical insistence that all the people experienced the sounds and the flaming flashes at Sinai (Exodus 20:15). Ibn Tibbon translates ג׳מהור אלעאמה as hamon haʿam.
46 Y. ibn Shmuel Kaufman, Sefer moreh nevukhim (Shvil, 1935) 14, rephrased the passage: “Inasmuch as God created various creatures who conceive of God from different perspectives and different levels of conceptualization, and even among human beings there are different conceptual levels, we would argue that God’s intention was to not be conceived of by each and every one.”
47 Freidlander’s incorrect translation, “ill-informed theologian,” clearly reflects discomfort with the implications of the phrase; see Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedlander, (Routledge, 1904), 5.
48 Guide, concluding portion of the introduction.
49 Guide, I:34.
50 Guide, II:32 (S. Munk. ed., Le guide des egarés [Paris, 1856–66)]). Referencing both al-jumhur and “al-ʿawam of our Torah” raises the possibility that at least some references to אלג׳מהורbe understood as referring to non-Jews as well. See also Strousma, Maimonides, 93 n. 44 on Maimonides’ use of the expression “אלג׳אהליה ג׳מהור, jumhur al-jahilia” (“the ignorant masses”). While noting that אלג׳אהליה has been read by some as pejorative, she does not comment on negative connotations extending to jumhur. By contrast, commenting on the collective purposes of law as compared to the individual focus of medicine, Maimonides employs the expression אלעאמה אלאכתריה, al-ʿammah al-aktariya (“the majority of the ʿammah”) rather than al-jumhur in regard to the “common good”; see Guide, III:34.
51 Guide, II:33.
52 Guide, II:35.
53 Guide, II:37.
54 Guide, I:34.
55 Guide, introduction. See Strousma, Maimonides, 74–75.
56 Mishnah commentary, Hagigah 2:1; cf. “Seventh Letter of Plato,” 341–344.
57 Yehudah ibn Tibbon, translator of Emunot vedeot, Ḥovot halivavot, and Sefer haKuzari, and his son Shmuel, translator of Moreh nevukhim, typically translated al-jumhur as hehamon. Eight centuries later, connotations of hehamon still caused discomfort. In his translation of the Guide, Yosef Kafih, ed. Rabeinu Mosheh ben Maimon (Mossad haRav Kook, 1977) translated ג׳מהור אלרבאנין as tsibbur harabanim, commenting: “jumhur—a big group, a large community. And I could not translate it as hamon lest it be taken, as is the widespread understanding of hamoni, as someone who is not learned, while in this case our Rav [Maimonides] refers to those who know the laws of sukkah and lulav, and perhaps the four bailees, ‘and they are both dimwitted and foolish,’ as is well known.” The ironic and sarcastic concluding phrase comes from Jeremiah 10:8, referring there to the “the sages of the nations” and their vacuous teachings; see http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/more/a1-2.htm#2, section I, n. 60.
58 Guide, III:51.
59 Kafih, ed., Rabeinu Mosheh ben Maimon, 77.
60 Kafih, Rabeinu, 81. In the next paragraph, אלמלה (“populace”) would appear to have more neutral connotations.
61 See, e.g., ibn Rushd’s comments in his Al-Kashf ʿan Manahij al-Adilla fi ʿAqaid al-Milla, III:377.
62 Abraham ben David’s interjection that Maimonides’ reference to minim (“schismatics”) in connection with his tenet of divine formlessness fits a number of people who were in fact “greater and better than him” (Hasagot haravad, Halakhah of Repentence 3:7) suggests his exasperation with Maimonides the dogmatist as much as with the dogma.
63 On medieval Jewish thinkers and a developmental approach to moral judgment, see E. Schwartz, Moral Development: A Practical Guide for Jewish Teachers (Alternatives in Religious Education, 1983), 8–15.
64 Mishnah commentary, Sanhedrin 10:1.
65 Guide, 1:35.
66 Strousma, Maimonides, 76. See also M. Kellner, “Heresy and the Nature of Faith in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” Jewish Quarterly Review 77, no. 4 (1987), 299–318.
67 For a disparaging comment about villagers who cannot appreciate the advantages of city life, see Guide, 1:31.
68 Having served as rais al-Yahud, Maimonides counseled Yosef ben Yehudah not only that positions of public authority may expose one to violent, negative responses from the government but also that attending to the preferences of the public and seeking their admiration was inevitably corrupting; see Baneth, Igrot, 93–94.
69 See, e.g., Baneth, Igrot, 88-89. Abdul Latif al-Baghdadi, after meeting Maimonides, noted both exceptional qualities and elitist inclinations; see J. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Great Minds (Doubleday, 2008), 208–10.
70 Baneth, Igrot, 89. The letter was presumably written in Arabic, but there is no extant Arabic text.
71 Baneth, Igrot, 69. A few lines earlier Baneth translates talaf as ibud, and here as mekhaleh.
72 Guide, introduction, opening passage.
73 Mishnah commentary on Sanhedrin 10:1 includes similar reflections.
74 In Guide, III:26, אלג׳מהור ואלכ׳ואץ is translated by Shmuel ibn Tibbon as hehamon vehasegulot “the multitude and the distinguished,” while Ibn Tibbon’s father, in keeping with the tone of the Kuzari, translated גמהור צפותה (Zifroni, Sefer haKuzari II:50) as hamon segulato (“his distinguished multitude”).
75 Y. Lebowitz, Emunah, historiah, veʿarakhim (Akademon, 2002) 95 comments on this strand of Maimonides’ writings: “the messianic era is not a necessary condition for the complete realization of human potential; ‘the exceptional individual’ having been formed having intelligence and free choice, is able—with great effort—to arrive at this completeness on one’s own, under existing conditions, but his realistic understanding led Rambam to recognize that this is not currently possible for hehamon and so the redemption is required in order to make possible collective tikkun for the people of Israel (and humanity)” (translation mine).
76 Spinoza’s comments on the vulgus in the introduction to the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus are reminiscent of references to al-jumhur and al-ʿammah in the introduction to the Guide. Spinoza was quite familiar with Maimonides’ writings, but his bitter disavowal of any residual Jewish ties, followed by a life on the edge of other communities, offers an illuminating contrast to Maimonides’ inability to simply write off the common folk to whom he remained bonded. For Spinoza references, see L. Feuer, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (Beacon, 1958), 80–88.
77 L. Sheshtov, Athens and Jersualem (Ohio University Press, 1966), 315.
78 For the expression “aristocratic religion,” see Y. Dan, Toledot sifrut haderush vehamusar (Keter, 1975), 61.
79 See, respectively, Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.18. The Pascal quote comes from the note discovered at his death sewn into his coat; see B. Pascal, Oeuvres complètes (Seuil, 1960), 618; see also F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Kerr, 1908), 80–81.
80 The irony is all the more apparent in light of Aḥad Haʿam’s tribute to Maimonides, Shilton haSekhel; see Aḥad Haʿam, ʿAl parashat haderakhim, ed. Y. Frankel (Dvir, 1965), 2:195. See also the comments on Aḥad Haʿam’s identification with Maimonides’ understanding of the relationship between a “spiritual center” and “the average Jew” in S. J. Zipperstein, Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha-am and the Origins of Zionism (University of California Press, 1993), 253–57. On kelal Yisraʾel, see J. Krasner, The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education (Brandeis, 2011), 325–26.