The Eight Chapters - Chapter Three (Part 2)

Posted by Aryeh

"The Eight Chapters"

Shmoneh Perakim

Chapter Three (Part 2)

We live in a cynical, distrusting age in which everything is suspect and little seems assured. Let anyone in authority say something -- nearly anything -- and he or she is immediately open to question. Yet we're usually quick to see a doctor if we're ill, and while we might ask for a second opinion or challenge particulars, as a rule we succumb to a doctor's advice in the end.

Now, what doctors do, at bottom, is determine just what's wrong, tell us how to treat it, and advise us about changes we might have to make in the future. The doctor might, for example, warn us not to eat this or that or to avoid doing certain things that we'd like to go on with, or to do or ingest things we'd rather not. And while we might cringe or avoid following orders at first, when we do though, we (generally) find ourselves feeling better and are glad we assented.

In much the same way then we're counseled to go to a sage -- a healer of the Spirit -- when our Spirit is unwell and our very being is off-kilter; when as we said above, we "imagine sweet things to be bitter, and bitter things to be sweet", i.e., when we make poor ethical and spiritual choices, and "imagine bad ... to be good, and good ... to be bad".

Along the same lines as the above instance, a sage will then determine just what's wrong in our Spirits, tell us how to treat it, and advise us about changes we'd need to make on whole other levels. And we'd be wise to acquiesce.

But sometimes we just don't know when our Spirit is off, or we refuse to submit to treatment since we'd have to change one way or another, and our inner-inertia gets the best of us. We're warned here though that while we might think at least we wouldn't have affected our health and well-being, in truth spiritual mediocrity can be fatal, too! And that in the end we'll be glad we decided to heed a sage's warning.

By Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

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About this blog

We’re presented here with a beguiling statement of purpose:
These eight chapters serve as an introduction to a work so full of meaning and so challenging for most that we could hardly plumb its depths without these introductory chapters. It’s as if Rambam were promising to take us through a room so dark and even so daunting, that we’d have to use a very powerful and precise light to see our way through it. Thus, he must first teach us the workings of the special lamp itself before we could even attempt to traverse.

As we’ll see, though, it isn’t clear from the outset just who can be considered pious. In fact, the ideas we might have of what piety is all about are going to be challenged. What makes a person a prophet will also be confronted. Because while we might have our impressions, we really don’t know, and we either under- or overestimate the prophet’s “otherworldliness.”

We’ll notice, too, that Rambam mentions two concepts here that are very foreign to the modern mind: “perfection” and “true good fortune.” How can a person ever be “perfect”? Can one ever be partly perfect and otherwise imperfect? And what is “true good fortune”?

Finally, Rambam humbly refuses to take credit for what he will be saying, for one reason or another, and claims only to be a conduit of others’ wisdom. What we have here, then, is the promise of guidance through layer upon layer of revelation into the human heart, soul, and mind, and a look beyond the ordinary into self-perfection, piety, and prophecy.