In the conventional view, the great rabbi and philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) was the archetypal rationalist, whose theology stands in stark contrast to that of the mystics who preceded and followed him. Yet, argues David Fried, while Maimonides’ thinking cannot accommodate the existence of a mystical universe mediating between God and physical reality—a core doctrine of Kabbalah—it nevertheless has a deeply mystical strain in its focus on achieving union with the Divine, the ultimate goal of all mysticism. Fried draws on a passage near the end of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed outlining seven levels of human perfection to make his point:

Human perfection, [for Maimonides], begins with the intellectual knowledge of God, but the higher goal is not the knowledge itself but the experience of love and awe brought about by meditation and reflection upon that knowledge. . . .

The sixth [of Maimonides’ seven levels of perfection] is that attained by individuals who have mastered the study of metaphysics, [whom] Maimonides exhorts to strive for the ultimate achievement in human perfection. . . . [T]he path that Maimonides advises to ascend from the sixth level to the seventh is clearly meditative, a training of the mind to dwell exclusively on God and not merely intellectual study. . . .

[According to Maimonides’] general theory of knowledge. An intellect that is not actively cognizing is merely a potential intellect. However, when one actively cognizes the form or essence of a thing, the form enters one’s mind . . . and “in such a case the intellect is not a thing distinct from the thing comprehended.” . . .

We can now apply Maimonides’ general theory of knowledge to [his seven levels of perfection]. The intellect that understands the idea of God, but is not actively cognizing it, knows it only in potential. True knowledge occurs only during the moments when one is actively cognizing. It further follows that just as when we cognize the form of a tree our intellect becomes identical with the form of the tree, so too when cognizing the idea of God, our intellect becomes identical with Him. What more powerful expression of mystical union with the Divine could there be?

Additionally, there is a key difference between cognizing trees and cognizing God. Obviously, when cognizing the form of a tree, our intellect does not become a tree, for a physical tree is not the same as the ideal or form of the tree. Physical objects consist of matter that can reflect form only to greater or lesser degrees. God, on the other hand, does not consist of matter, and therefore the idea of God is not separate from the essence of God, as Maimonides explains [on two separate occasions], “He is the knower; He is the known; and He is the knowledge itself.”

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.