The guide for the perplexed · Moses Maimonides
CHAPTER LI
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked” (ibid. vers. 7, 8). The author then continues his description of the divine defence and shelter, and shows the cause of this great protection, saying that such a man is well guarded “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name” (ibid. ver. 14). We have shown in previous chapters that by the “knowledge of God’s name,” the knowledge of God is meant. The above passage may therefore be paraphrased as follows: “This man is well guarded, because he hath known me, and then (bi chashak) loved me.” You know the difference between the two Hebrew terms that signify “to love,” ahab and ḥashak. When a man’s love is so intense that his thought is exclusively engaged with the object of his love, it is expressed in Hebrew by the term ḥashak.
The philosophers have already explained how the bodily forces of man in his youth prevent the development of moral principles. In a greater measure this is the case as regards the purity of thought which man attains through the perfection of those ideas that lead him to an intense love of God. Man can by no means attain this so long as his bodily humours are hot. The more the forces of his body are weakened, and the fire of passion quenched, in the same measure does man’s intellect increase in strength and light; his knowledge becomes purer, and he is happy with his knowledge. When this perfect man is stricken in age and is near death, his knowledge mightily increases, his joy in that knowledge grows greater, and his love for the object of his knowledge more intense, and it is in this great delight that the soul separates from the body. To this state our Sages referred, when in reference to the death of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, they said that death was in these three cases nothing but a kiss. They say thus: We learn from the words, “And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab by the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. xxxiv. 5), that his death was a kiss.
The same expression is used of Aaron: “And Aaron the priest went up into Mount Hor ... by the mouth of the Lord, and died there” (Num. xxxiii. 38). Our Sages said that the same was the case with Miriam; but the phrase “by the mouth of the Lord” is not employed, because it was not considered appropriate to use these words in the description of her death as she was a female. The meaning of this saying is that these three died in the midst of the pleasure derived from the knowledge of God and their great love for Him. When our Sages figuratively call the knowledge of God united with intense love for Him a kiss, they follow the well-known poetical diction “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” (Song i. 2). This kind of death, which in truth is deliverance from death, has been ascribed by our Sages to none but to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. The other prophets and pious men are beneath that degree; but their knowledge of God is strengthened when death approaches. Of them Scripture says, “Thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward” (Isa. lviii. 8). The intellect of these men remains then constantly in the same condition, since the obstacle is removed that at times has intervened between the intellect and the object of its action; it continues for ever in that great delight, which is not like bodily pleasure. We have explained this in our work, and others have explained it before us. Try to understand this chapter, endeavour with all your might to spend more and more time in communion with God, or in the attempt to approach Him; and to reduce the hours which you spend in other occupations, and during which you are not striving to come nearer unto Him. This instruction suffices for the object of this treatise.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.