One of the great debates about Moses Maimonides’ philosophical magnum opus, the Guide of the Perplexed, concerns the degree to which it should be taken at face value. Was Maimonides a true believer in a synthesis of reason and revealed religion, or was a he a skeptic who, between the lines, hid his belief in an impersonal and purely philosophical God? In a recent study, Moshe Halbertal delves into this question; Daniel Davies draws his own conclusions:

Despite Halbertal’s claim to present the opinions of other scholars rather than his own, he follows the line that the variety of interpretations may themselves reveal the secret message. On this reading, Maimonides did not teach any particular doctrine but presented alternative possible solutions to questions that admit of no definite answer. The different answers are so diverse that a coherent reading of the Guide is “doomed to failure.”

Maybe the works of all or most great philosophers contain inconsistencies, and Maimonides would be no exception. But Halbertal presents too little evidence to establish his claim that these inconsistencies constitute the ultimate secret of the Guide. Such a reading might, however, make Maimonides appealing to today’s readers, and it points to another important and brilliant aspect of the Guide: its pedagogical excellence. Maimonides designed this single text to address students of different levels, and it continues to speak to modern readers with diverse interests from different religious traditions.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.