The Riddle at the End of the Guide for the Perplexed

Something very odd happens in the very last chapter of Maimonides’ Guide which remains an elusive puzzle even today, 800 years on.

Maimonides, in Guide 3.51, lays out in stunning detail, the pinnacle of religious worship and human striving, culminating in an immortal union with the divine, what he calls the ‘kiss of death,’ the peak of his mystical journey.

However, the Guide does not end with that peak of religious experience and erotic mystical ecstasy, nor with the striving to know (and unite with) God intellectually, neither does it in the depths of silent praise in which nothing at all can be said of God. But it ends instead with a final beautiful idea which combines all three.

Join us as we take a final journey through the final chapter of the magnificent Guide, to see Maimonides final teaching to the perplexed, to make sense of his ultimate word to the seeker.

Check out the rest of our Maimonides series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_7jcKJs6iwXUKaVOvNJWr5DSLPTYV0j9

00:00 Intro

01:13 Rationalist and Mystic

02:00 Bad Mysticism

03:08 Knowledge of God as the Pinnacle

03:36 The Four Perfections

05:43 Maimonides the Arch-Rationalist

06:27 A Different Ending – Ethics

08:02 Actions of Attributes, not Essence

08:41 Imitato Dei, 1.54

11:42 Imitato Dei in Halacha

13:04 Compassion, even to a Slave

15:19 Mysticism tho…

20:04 Resolution

18:41 Why we do this

22:53 Technical Again

24:16 Concluding Prayer

25:11 Afterthought

27:25 Thank you

Sources and Further Reading

• Jonathan Gorsky, “Maimonides Spirituality: Intellectual Mysticism and the Love of God,” in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Mystical Perspectives on the Love of God, S. T. Hidden (ed), 2004

• Julius Guttmann, “Introduction” in Maimonides, The Guide of The Perplexed, An Abridged Edition, East and West Library New York, 1947

• Shlomo Pines, "The Limits of Human Knowledge According to Alfarabi, Ibn Bajja, and Maimonides," Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 1, ed. I. Twersky, 1979

• Joseph Citron, Maimonides and Mysticism, unpublished

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