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Aaron ben Elijah lays great stress upon what he considers an important difference of opinion between the Rabbanites and the Karaites concerning the nature and purpose of divine punishment.
We have traced objectively and with greater or less detail the rationalistic movement in mediæval Jewry from its beginnings in the ninth and tenth centuries in Babylon among the Karaites and Rabbanites to its decline in Spain and south France in the fifteenth century.
In fact they are ignorant persons, and do not know what logic is and how it is to be used. Before giving our own views of the nature and existence of God, we must refute the objectionable doctrines of these people. Joseph al-Basir in a work of his called "Mansuri" casts it up to the Rabbanites that in believing that God descends and ascends they are not true worshippers of God.
Nevertheless some Rabbanites adopted the views of the philosophers, though believing in the Bible. This is a mistake, for even the Christians rejected the views of the philosophers. Here we see clearly the difference in general attitude between Aaron ben Elijah and Maimonides. The latter has no use whatsoever for the Muʿtazila.
The Rabbanites take it for granted that good is good inherently, and God desires and commands it because it is identical with his wisdom and his will. Freedom of man does follow as a corollary from the justice of God and it is also taught in the Bible and the Talmud. The very fact of the existence of a divine law and commandments shows that man has freedom.
The Rabbanites scarcely ever mention them. Aaron ben Elijah enumerates six views on the nature of evil, with all of which except the last he disagrees. The opinion named above that an act is made good or bad by being commanded or prohibited, he refutes as follows: Such a view removes the very foundation of good and bad.
It embraced the extremes of all but sacrificing one of the two systems of doctrine to the other, and it counted among its votaries those who honestly endeavored to give each claim its due. The system of Judaism was the same for all throughout the period of our investigation, excepting only the difference between Karaites and Rabbanites.
Our taste in poetry and grammar is no longer the same, but the polemic and apologetic writings of those days, called forth by the discussions between Rabbanites and Karaites and by the constant attacks of Christianity, are still of uncommon interest. Specimens of the former kind are the polemics of Moses of Shavli, which caused consternation in the camp of the Karaites.
Karaism was only a sect and never showed after the days of Saadia anything like the life and enthusiastic activity of the great body of Rabbanite Judaism, which formed the great majority of the Jewish people. The Karaites had their important men in Halaka as well as in religious philosophy and Biblical exegesis. But they cannot be compared to the great men among the Rabbanites.
You have said to me 'Our religion united us before it divided us it made us a people before it made Rabbanites and Karaites. I mean to try what can be done with that union I mean to work in your spirit. Failure will not be ignoble, but it would be ignoble for me not to try."
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