Maimonides, Spinoza, and Buber Read the Hebrew Bible: The Hermeneutical Keys of Divine “Fire” and “Spirit” (Ruach)

Abstract

In this study I will focus on three seminal thinkers within the philosophical tradition generally and, more particularly, within Jewish thought, not regularly mentioned together owing to the profound historical and intellectual distances between them. However, Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), Benedict de Spinoza (1632–77), and Martin Buber (1878–1965), aside from their common roots in Judaism, shared an abiding interest in the Hebrew Bible, especially in developing hermeneutical approaches that would best meet the challenges posed to it by their respective intellectual and historical contexts. Each was exquisitely attuned to the nuances of biblical Hebrew and each had an overarching concern for establishing a hermeneutic dedicated to communicating the truest sense of the biblical text. Their respective biblical lexicographic projects come into sharper focus when placed in dialogue with one other. This is true especially as Spinoza’s primary critical target in his hermeneutical enterprise is Maimonides, with whom he had more in common than the chronological distance between them of nearly half a millennium would suggest. Buber engages both, explicitly and implicitly, in formulating what he would term an “encounter with,” rather than a simple reading of, the text. The latter is best articulated in a series of studies explicating his approach to the monumental