On 4th October Wotton’s Society hosted Rabbi Joseph Dweck, who came to deliver a lecture on Maimonides and his works.
Rabbi Dweck began his talk by going over Maimonides’ biography, including his upbringing in Cordova Spain, in the 12th century, as well as his forced departure from the region at the age of 20 after the institution of a new intolerant government. Then the philosopher’s huge importance in Judaism was discussed, particularly the fact that his work made the Talmud and the Torah more accessible to the average population by proving a clear interpretation of the two texts.
Then Rabbi Dweck went on to analyse extracts from Maimonides’s most important work, “Mishneh Torah,” in which the Torah was reviewed, and hence the nature of God, as well as the nature of the humans’ relationship with him. During his analysis Rabbi Dweck specifically focuses on the notion of God as a “Primal Being” from which multiple ideas stemmed including those of disproving the problem of infinite regress, as well as the fact that Maimonides believed that a person’s love for God stems from a person’s knowledge of God, hence meaning that the former is proportional to the latter.
Rabbi Dweck concluded his talk with a Q&A, during which concepts like the problem of Evil were discussed, with the Rabbi suggesting that evil is the consequence of a void of the ”Primal Being.”
We would like to thank Rabbi Dweck for delivering such a thought provoking lecture.
