The ‘Great Thing’ and the ‘Small Thing’

Abstract

This chapter examines what the idea of man as microcosm means for the place of the commandments in Maimonides' scheme of things. Mishneh torah's microcosmic form reflects the various parallels that Maimonides draws more or less explicitly in The Guide of the Perplexed between the laws of nature and the law of the Torah: both are perfect; both are permanent; both are accessible to reason. It implies the Torah's derivation from nature via the uniquely comprehensive prophecy of Moses, who understood God's governance of the world more perfectly than anyone before or since and translated this understanding into a system of laws. Despite Maimonides' programmatic remarks about ease of reference and so forth, the classification of the commandments in Mishneh torah is above all a rationalization of the commandments. Through its form, Mishneh torah presents them sub specie aeternitatis: they condense the rationality of the cosmos. Its treatment is to be distinguished from mystical interpretations that link the commandments to a supernal domain rather than to nature.