The Jewish Exile—A Jewish Averroistic Response to Maimonides

Abstract

Jewish exile is traditionally perceived as a divine punishment resulting from the Jews’ disobedience to God’s will. Even Maimonides and the Jewish rationalists who attempted to naturalize this traditional view did not break from the classical paradigm of the Jewish exile resulting from the Jewish people’s transgression. According to Maimonides’ view, the Jews were exiled from their homeland because they engaged in astrological practices, which, in his view, are forbidden by Jewish law. As a consequence, they failed to develop proper military strategies. In this paper I wish to present Isaac Polqar’s naturalistic view, which deviates from the naturalistic explanation provided by Maimonides and others. According to Polqar the Jews were exiled from their land because they strictly obeyed God’s commandments. Observing these commandments resulted in the Jews behaving ethically towards others and among themselves. The nations, on the other hand, were not bound by God’s commandments, and therefore lacked norms that would prevent them from treating others in an unethical manner. Given their ethical code, the Jews were a particularly easy target for the nations who, unconstrained by ethical considerations, could conquer, oppress, and exile them.