ABSTRACT
The clear voices and perceptive interpretations of Meiri and Abba Mari are representative of the conflicts and tensions that animated Languedocian Jewish culture at the dawn of the fourteenth century. Languedocian scholars were responsible for a thriving network of learning that connected the Jewish communities in the cities and larger towns of Languedoc, Roussillon, and Provence. The remarkable philosophic sophistication of the broader Jewish community in Languedoc is reflected in the Talmudic and scriptural exegeses of a wide range of scholars, from those who wholly embraced the philosophic tradition to those who took an extremely cautious stand in relation to it. Jewish scholars with a variety of interests and inclinations were at work concurrently in Languedoc: a small, elite cluster of scholars labored, through their translations and commentaries, to move toward the frontiers of knowledge in a wide range of fields, from logic and mathematics to astronomy and metaphysics; other Languedocian Jewish scholars pursued disciplines—from liturgical poetry to travel writing—that did not put them in direct contact with the Greco-Arabic philosophic tradition. Nevertheless, the deep roots of philosophic translation, interpretation, and inquiry in Languedoc after Maimonides marked metaphysics as the pinnacle of the curriculum in the Jewish community. The fact that so many in Languedoc were delving into this lofty realm troubled some, especially Abba Mari, who agreed with Meiri on so many issues concerning the relationship philosophic investigation and faith. Abba Mari was of the opinion that some teachers within his community had taken philosophy far beyond its proper bounds in the breadth of their audience as well as in the character of their interpretations. Indeed, he believed that as esoteric knowledge, philosophy ought to remain the occupation of a chosen few.
