Abstract
Among the wide-spectrum contribution of the Rambam – the Maimonides – in philosophy to the word and to Judaism are his ideas on the body and on the soul and on the relations between them. His major approaches in these subjects are the following: 1) The body is the home of the soul, and the soul guides the body. That means the body and the soul are one unit. 2) The soul has five virtual parts. Each part is responsible for another activity in the human being. 3) Except for the treatment of diseases of the body and the soul with drugs, foods, physical exercise, etc., the Rambam believes that maintaining the health – of the body and of the soul – lies first of all, and probably exclusively, in observing the commandments and improving one’s ways, morals and conduct up to their highest levels, toward all of the world’s creatures. 4) The Rambam is of the opinion that one needs to persist in learning the Torah. One should worship God with awe and love and observe good values and virtues. All of these build the frameworks that maintain mental health and strengthen man’s abilities to develop skills for maintaining bodily health. This is so because body and soul are one – which is the basis of the Rambam’s philosophy of health and medicine.
Highlights
Among the wide-spectrum contribution of the Rambam – the Maimonides – in philosophy to the word and to Judaism are his ideas on the body and on the soul and on the relations between them
3) Except for the treatment of diseases of the body and the soul with drugs, foods, physical exercise, etc., the Rambam believes that maintaining the health – of the body and of the soul – lies first of all, and probably exclusively, in observing the commandments and improving one’s ways, morals and conduct up to their highest levels, toward all of the world’s creatures
In-depth examination of this view shows that what the Rambam considers to be the natural faculties of man inside the human soul – as expounded in The Eight Chapters – Chabad considers as the “beastly soul”
Summary
According to the Rambam’s philosophy, the soul is the main component of the human being. The view of the Chasidic Chabad movement (Chabad ()חב"ד, acronym of the words “wisdom, understanding, knowledge”, is a wide-spread Chasidic movement) which is expressed in the book Tanya (the book of Tanya, written by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, is the fundamental, classic work of the Chabad Chasidic philosophy), is that a person has two souls: a “beastly soul” and a “godly soul” The latter expresses the belief that man should wish and strive for love and awe for the Almighty God. In-depth examination of this view shows that what the Rambam considers to be the natural faculties of man inside the human soul – as expounded in The Eight Chapters – Chabad considers as the “beastly soul”. In-depth examination of this view shows that what the Rambam considers to be the natural faculties of man inside the human soul – as expounded in The Eight Chapters – Chabad considers as the “beastly soul” This means that the “godly soul” – which exists according to the Chabad teachings – does not contain what the Rambam calls the natural components of a person’s personality. This is not the place to elaborate on verifying this view on the human soul, but it is appropriate to present it against the Rambam’s view of the soul as being one
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