Notes on the Wandering Mind 3: The (Wandering) Hero's Journey
“When this great one was weaned, he began to wander in his mind…”
– Maimonides on Abraham
True, Abraham didn’t just wander in his mind…he wandered in the world. But are the two really separable?
“When this great one was weaned, he began to wander in his mind…”
Maimonides, the medieval philosopher-rabbi regarded as one of the all-time important thinkers of Jewish tradition, created an origin story for Abraham (his self-reported favorite forefather; he named his only son after him) heavily inflected by his other hero, Aristotle. In many ways it is a singular synthesis which only could have been written by Maimonides, and bears little resemblance to Abraham’s portrayal in other rabbinic texts. In it, Abraham finds his way to monotheism – against all prior conditioning and education, against all current knowledge and norms – by way of rigorous rationalism, philosophical speculation pursued single-mindedly over decades. (The modern Maimonidean Rabbi David Hartman z”l, with whom I coauthored a good book, described Maimonides’ own primary religious mode as “philosophic quest”; see Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest.)
His signature Aristotelian emphasis notwithstanding, Maimonides is aligned with other rabbinic accounts in one critical detail: he too attributes the divine decision to draw Abraham close as a function of Abraham’s own prior, passionate wandering in search of questions he refuses to let go of, no matter the consequences. For Maimonides, too, Abraham arrives at his Godly call to wander almost organically, as a reward for – or perhaps simply a cosmic wink of encouragement to continue – a life of wandering he had initiated independently and pursued for so long on his own:
When this great one was weaned, he began to wander in his mind: though he was a child, he began to think [incessantly] throughout the day and night, wondering: How is it possible for the sphere to continue to revolve without having anyone controlling it? Who is causing it to revolve? Surely, it does not cause itself to revolve.
He had no teacher, nor was there anyone to inform him. Rather, he was mired in Ur Kasdim among the foolish idolaters. His father, mother, and all the people [around him] were idol worshipers, and he would worship with them. [However,] his heart was exploring and [gaining] understanding.
Ultimately, he appreciated the way of truth and understood the path of righteousness through his accurate comprehension. He realized that there was one God who controlled the sphere, that He created everything, and that there is no other God among all the other entities. He knew that the entire world was making a mistake. What caused them to err was their service of the stars and images, which made them lose awareness of the truth.
Abraham was forty years old when he became aware of his Creator. When he recognized and knew Him, he began to formulate replies to the inhabitants of Ur Kasdim and debate with them, telling them that they were not following a proper path.
He broke their idols and began to teach the people that it is fitting to serve only the God of the world. To Him [alone] is it fitting to bow down, sacrifice, and offer libations, so that the people of future [generations] would recognize Him. [Conversely,] it is fitting to destroy and break all the images, lest all the people err concerning them, like those people who thought that there are no other gods besides these [images].
When he overcame them through the strength of his arguments, the king desired to kill him. He was [saved through] a miracle and left for Charan. [There,] he began to call in a loud voice to all people and inform them that there is one God in the entire world and it is proper to serve Him. He would go out and call to the people, gathering them in city after city and country after country, until he came to the land of Canaan - proclaiming [God's existence the entire time] - as [Genesis 21:33] states: "And He called there in the name of the Lord, the eternal God."
When the people would gather around him and ask him about his statements, he would explain [them] to each one of them according to their understanding, until they turned to the path of truth. Ultimately, thousands and myriads gathered around him. (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Avodah Zarah, Chapter 1:4)
It is eye-opening to notice what Maimonides considers a story of wandering. There is the familiar element of leaving the familiar. Even while still physically among his family, going through the motions of his home culture, young Abraham as envisioned by Maimonides begins an internal process of dissociating from them.
There is also the commonality of a totally open-ended exploration in which the destination is unknown, and no outcomes are off-limits.
What distinguishes Abraham’s Maimonidean wandering from more conventional associations with the term – desultory, abject, a form of being lost (eg the dictionary definition and Moshe Bar quote cited above) – is his sustained focus, intense passion, and all-consuming commitment.
The opposite of aimless or in any way unintentional, Abraham’s wandering is driven by a relentless commitment to deepening his understanding, which in turn drives him further and further from everything associated with home. The more clarity he achieves, the more isolated – and eventually combative – he becomes. This puts him in mortal danger, which he can only escape through further wandering…which becomes increasingly constructive as he brings others into conversation and community around the profound insights he’s accrued along the way.
For Maimonides, wandering – embodied by Abraham – is the single-minded commitment to a question and willingness to venture open-endedly into whatever reality that journey carries you towards. It is both predicated on and driven by, interestingly, a kind of radical self-acceptance: the total belief in one’s inner voice absent any external guidance or corroboration, in the face of inevitable isolation and punishment for wandering outside of society’s sanctioned narratives and norms.