S7, E15 The Guide of the Perplexed, Rambam’s Messianic Vision (03): Torah and the Parable Without a Meaning

00:00 The project of the Guide is the rectification of the challenges associated with prophecy

2:30 The need for the Torah to be unlocked

12:00 King Solomon was a Messianic figure who commenced the unlocking of the Torah, which was then completed by Rabbi Akiva

20:45 The innovation in the Torah which is itself rooted in the Torah: Rambam's rereading of the Torah's mission to uproot idolatry and his application of its teaching to God's incorporeality

36:30 The Oral Torah can undermine the surface-level meaning of the Written Torah

40:45 How Moshe both did and didn't wage war against the erroneous belief in the corporeality of God

44:00 It takes much knowledge to know that knowledge is limited

48:45 How Rabbi Akiva's new teaching about parables improved on King Solomon's teaching about parables

51:00 The endless sea and the infinitude of wisdom: The meaning of the parable of water is that we can’t know the true meaning of the parable of water

54:30 The purpose of parables is not to explain something but rather to make an abstract truth attractive to the body

1:01:15 Rabbi Akiva's teaching about the water that has no end; how he faced endless waves and how Rabbi Meir faced endless waves

1:12:30 Two kinds of parables

1:15:30 What will be treated of in the next lecture