Maimonides, Between Philosophy and Halakhah : Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's Lectures on the Guide of the Perplexed

This is the first and only comprehensive study of the philosophy of Maimonides by the noted 20th-century rabbinic scholar and thinker, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Based on a complete set of notes, taken by Rabbi Gerald (Yaakov) Homnick, on R. Soloveitchik s lectures on Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed at the Bernard Revel Graduate School, and edited by the noted scholar Lawrence Kaplan, this work constitutes a major contribution to our knowledge of both Maimonides and Soloveitchik. In these lectures Soloveitchik emerges as a major commentator on the Guide. In a wide-ranging analysis he eloquently and incisively explores such diverse topics in Maimonides philosophy as his views on prophecy, the knowledge of and approach to God normative, intellectual, and experiential; divine knowledge; human ethics and moral excellence; the divine creative act; imitation of God; and the love and fear of God. He also undertakes an extensive and penetrating comparison and contrast of Maimonides and Aristotle s philosophical views. Over the course of these lectures develops a very profound and challenging overall approach to and interpretation of the Guide s central and critical issue: the relationship between philosophy and divine law. This work sheds a bright light on the thought of both Maimonides and Soloveitchik two great philosophers and rabbinic scholars."