Interiority and Law: Bahya ibn Paquda and the Concept of Inner Commandments

Interiority and Law offers a groundbreaking reassessment of Baḥya ibn Paquda's Guide to the Duties of the Hearts, presenting it as a revolutionary intervention in Jewish law. Michaelis explores Baḥya's concept of inner commandments and his mystical model of proximity to God, demonstrating how he established a new legal formation focused on human interiority. This work contributes to conversations in the history of religion, Jewish studies, and medieval studies on interiority and mysticism, revealing Baḥya as a revolutionary and demanding thinker of Jewish law.

Format: Hardback
Length: 222 pages
Publication date: 19 December 2023
Publisher: Stanford University Press

Rewritten text:

Interiority and Law presents a groundbreaking reassessment of a medieval Jewish classic, Baḥya ibn Paquda's Guide to the Duties of the Hearts. Michaelis reads this work anew as a revolutionary intervention in Jewish law, or halakha. Overturning perceptions of Baḥya as the shaper of an ethical-religious form of life that exceeds halakha, Michaelis offers a pioneering historical and conceptual analysis of the category of inner commandments developed by Baḥya.

Interiority and Law reveals that Baḥya's main effort revolved around establishing a new legal formation—namely, the duties of the hearts—which would deal entirely with human interiority. Michaelis takes up the implications of Baḥya's radical innovation, examining his unique mystical model of proximity to God, which he based on an increasingly growing fulfillment of the inner commandments. With an integrative approach that puts Baḥya in dialogue with other medieval Muslim and Jewish religious thinkers, this work offers a fresh perspective on our understanding of the interconnectedness of the dynamic, neighboring religious traditions of Judaism and Islam.

Contributing to conversations in the history of religion, Jewish studies, and medieval studies on interiority and mysticism, this book reveals Baḥya as a revolutionary and demanding thinker of Jewish law.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781503636613