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Updated: May 15, 2025
For while there too we do not find any connected account of God, of the world and of man, Israeli's general attitude can be gathered from the manner in which he explains some important concepts.
It would be useless for us here to reproduce the contents of Israeli's two treatises, which would be more appropriate for a history of mediæval science. A brief résumé will show the correctness of this view. He begins with an Aristotelian definition of element, analyzes it into its parts and comes to the conclusion that the elements are the four well-known ones, fire, air, water, earth.
The latter, indeed, in a letter which he wrote to Samuel Ibn Tibbon, the translator of the "Guide of the Perplexed," expresses himself in terms little flattering concerning Israeli's worth as a philosopher. He is a mere physician, Maimonides says, and his treatises on the Elements, and on Definitions consist of windy imaginings and empty talk.
The main problem, therefore, of Jewish philosophy is not touched upon in Israeli's works, and no wonder Maimonides had no use for them. For the purely scientific questions treated by Israeli could in Maimonides's day be studied to much better advantage in the works of the great Arabian Aristotelians, Al Farabi and Avicenna, compared to whom Israeli was mediocre.
But if he indulges his animal pleasures and desires and they become strengthened, he will become subject to agencies which will lead him astray from the duties he owes to God, from fear of him and from prayer at the prescribed time. We look in vain in Israeli's two treatises for a discussion of the existence and nature of God. But how did the creation proceed?
Possibly the example of Islam was lacking in Israeli's environment, as he does not seem to be acquainted with the theories and discussions of the Mutakallimun, and draws his information from Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic sources. Saadia was in the very midst of Arab speculation as is evident from the composition of his chef d'œuvre, "Emunot ve-Deot," Beliefs and Opinions.
The first and second divisions in Israeli's account correspond to Aristotle's active and passive intellects respectively. The third class in Israeli represents the process of realization of the potential or passive intellect through the sense stimuli on the one hand and the influence of the active intellect on the other.
Let us follow Israeli further in his account of the nature of these substances. The Intelligence is that which proceeds immediately from the divine light without any immediate agency. It represents the permanent ideas and principles species in Israeli's terminology which are not subject to change or dissolution.
But in reality, as we have seen, his ideas of the cosmic process are far enough removed from the orthodox doctrine of creation as it appears in Bible and Talmud. Incidentally we learn also something of Israeli's ideas of God's relation to mankind, of his commandments, and of prophecy. God created the world, he tells us, because of his goodness. He wanted to benefit his creatures.
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