Bahya ibn Paquda

Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda (also: Bahya ibn Paquda ) was an important representative of Jewish philosophy. He lived in the second half of the 11th century and wrote the first Jewish system of ethics " duties of the heart."

Life and work

Little is known of his life, except for the fact that he lived in Muslim Spain, probably in Zaragoza. He was known as a writer of Pijjutim; about 20 liturgical poems that are written partly in metric regular shape, wearing his signature. However, his major work is Kitāb al - Hidaya ila al - Fara'id Qulūb. It was written around 1080 and translated in 1161 by Judah ibn Tibbon into Hebrew under the title Chowot ha - Lewawot ( " duties of the heart "). This version quickly became popular and had on the subsequent Jewish literature major influence. Joseph Kimchi also translated a part of the work, but his version was unpopular and has not been printed until today. The Hebrew translation of Ibn Tibbon was repeatedly summarized and in turn translated into several languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Yiddish, English, French and German ( " Textbook of Duties of the Heart ", translated by M. Stern, 1856) The book of Bahya is the first major work on Jewish ethics. It is based on numerous non-Jewish sources, including Islamic mysticism, Arabic Neoplatonism and perhaps hermetic writings.

In the introduction to his work Bahya distinguishes the religious commandments between "duties of the members of the body ", ie ritual commandments, such as observance of the Sabbath, prayer and charity, as well as the other " duties of the heart", ie Commandments, which presuppose a belief in the existence and unity of God. This includes trust in God, love and reverence for God, repentance, and the prohibition to take revenge and grudges. Bahya explained that he had written his book, because the duties of the human inner life of his predecessors had been neglected. So " duties of the heart " as an additional counterweight to the halachic compilations of his predecessors and contemporaries can be viewed.

The structure of " Duties of the Heart" follows the works of Islamic mysticism, which the reader about various ascending levels of the human inner life (see nafs ) will lead to spiritual perfection and union with God. The book is divided into ten chapters, which are called here Scha'arim ( "gates" ):

In line with Platonic doctrines explained Bahya, that the human soul, of divine origin, is placed on the divine decision to go into the body, where it is in danger of forgetting their origin and task. To achieve the goal of union with God, the soul receives help from the intellect and the revealed law. To illustrate this point, Bahya used to distinguish the Mutacilits between rational and traditional commandments.

The Neoplatonic treatise Kitāb al - Maani Nafs ( " On the Nature the soul "), which was published in 1907 by Ignaz Goldziher, comes not, as was sometimes assumed, called by Bahya ibn Pakuda, but by an unknown contemporaries, the pseudo - Bahya will.