Thread by @rabbisacks

Here is a thread from my Covenant & Conversation essay on #Naso called "Sages and Saints". You can read it in full here: bit.ly/2F9WIWe and download the accompanying Family Edition here: bit.ly/2KfGu27. #ShabbatShalom

There is a remarkable insight from #Maimonides into the nature of the moral life as understood by #Judaism. What he saw is that there isn't a single model of the virtuous #life, but two, calling them respectively the way of the #saint (chassid) and the way of the #sage (chacham).

The saint is a person of extremes. Maimonides defines chessed as extreme behaviour – good behaviour, to be sure, but conduct in excess of what strict justice requires.

The sage is a different kind of person altogether. He or she follows the “golden mean,” the way of moderation and balance. He or she finds the middle ground between cowardice and recklessness, and thus acquires the virtue of #courage.

He or she avoids miserliness in one direction, prodigality in the other, and instead chooses the middle way of generosity. The sage knows the twin dangers of too much and too little, excess and deficiency. He or she weighs the conflicting pressures and avoids the extremes.

These are not just two types of person but two ways of understanding the moral life itself. Is the aim of the #moral #life to achieve personal perfection? Or is it to create gracious relationships and a decent, just, compassionate society?

The intuitive answer of most people would be to say: both. What makes Maimonides so acute a thinker is that he realises that you cannot have both – that they are in fact different enterprises.

We are called on by #God to live in the #world, not escape from it; in society not seclusion; to strive to create a balance among the conflicting pressures on us, not to focus on some while neglecting the others.

Saints are supremely virtuous people, considered as individuals. Yet you cannot build a society out of saints alone. You also need sages if you seek to perfect society.