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

Interiority and Law presents a groundbreaking reassessment of a medieval Jewish classic, Baya 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 Baya 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 Baya. Interiority and Law reveals that Baya's main effort revolved around establishing a new legal formationnamely, the duties of the heartswhich would deal entirely with human interiority. Michaelis takes up the implications of Baya'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 Baya 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 Baya as a revolutionary and demanding thinker of Jewish law.