If Rabbi Wolicki were to look at Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed Section
3 Chapter 32 he will see that Rambam says that the purpose of commanding
sacrifices was to wean the people off pagan sacrifice which was the norm
then. Indeed objective reading of this chapter will provide a rationale
for other "problematic" issues such as Eved Canaani. He doesn't need to
say specifically that sacrifices may outlive their purpose neither does he
need to deal with issues that trouble us much more than then. It does not
take either genius or perversity to read between his lines. He certainly
does give rational arguments for these commandments, shvartz oif veiss.
Maimonides does indeed speak/write on two different levels. Philosophy is
not for everyone and his Guide is designed for the few rationalists
schooled in Aristotle. His halachic works and many of his epistles are
written for the mass of the Jewish people who then as now did not get
college degrees in Philosophic method. And it makes sense. No two minds
think alike whilst basic behavior is pretty universal. We no longer
believe that logic is the only cognitive discipline. We have moved on and
in intellectual ways I conjecture Rambam would have approved of. It is sad
that too many of our committed Jews still think the world of philosophy
has not changed since his (or Descartes) days.
Jeremy Rosen
