Chovot HaLevavot or The Duties of the Hearts (Arabic: كتاب الهداية إلى فرائض القلوب, romanized: Kitāb al-Hidāyat ilá Farāʾiḍ al-Qulūb; Hebrew: חובות הלבבות, romanized: Ḥoḇāḇoṯ hal-Leḇāḇoṯ), is the primary work of the Jewish scholar Bahya ibn Paquda, a rabbi believed to have lived in the Taifa of Zaragoza in al-Andalus in the eleventh century.
The essence of all spirituality is the recognition of God as the one Maker and designer of all things; Bahya makes the "Sha'ar HaYihud" (Gate of the Divine Unity) the first and foremost section.
[1] Bahya held that it is not sufficient to accept this belief without thinking, as the child does, or because the fathers have taught so, as do the blind believers in tradition, who have no opinion of their own and are led by others.
Nor should the belief in God be such as might in any way be liable to be understood in a human anthropomorphic sense, but it should rest on conviction, which is the result of the most comprehensive knowledge and research.
Unfamiliar with Avicenna's works, which replaced Neoplatonic mysticism with clear Aristotelian thought, Bahya, like many Arab philosophers before him, bases his arguments upon Creation.
He starts from the following three premises: The world is beautifully arranged and furnished like a great house, of which the sky forms the ceiling, the earth the floor, the stars the lamps.
Just as each of the five senses has its natural limitations—the sound that is heard by the ear, for instance, not being perceptible to the eye—so human reason has limits regarding the comprehension of God.
In nature, likewise, the consideration of the sublimity of the heavens and the motion of all things, the interchange of light and darkness, the variety of colour in the realm of Creation, the awe with which the sight of living man inspires the brute, the wonderful fertility of each grain of corn in the soil, the large supply of those elements that are essential to organic life, such as air and water, and the lesser frequency of those things that form the objects of industry and commerce in the shape of nourishment and clothing—all these and similar observations tend to fill man's Soul with gratitude and praise for the providential love and wisdom of the Creator.
Every benefit received by man, says Bahya, will evoke his thankfulness in the same measure as intentions of doing good prompt it, though a portion of self-love be mingled with it, as is the case with what the parent does for his child, which is but part of himself, and upon which his hope for the future is built; still more so with what the master does for his slave, who is his property.
[1] Worship of God in obedience to halakha, Jewish law, is certainly of unmistakable value since it asserts the higher claims of human life against the lower desires awakened and fostered by the animal man.
Yet it is not the highest mode of worship, as it may be prompted by fear of divine punishment or a desire for reward, or it may be altogether formal, external, and void of that spirit which steels the Soul against every temptation and trial.
[1] A lengthy dialogue follows between the Soul and the Intellect on Worship and the relation of Free Will to Divine Predestination; Bahya insists on human reason as the supreme ruler of action and inclination, constituting the power of self-determination as man's privilege.
[1] Another subject of the dialogue is the physiology and psychology of man, with special regard to the contrasts of joy and grief, fear and hope, fortitude and cowardice, shamefulness and rudeness, anger and mildness, compassion and disrespect, pride and modesty, love and hatred, generosity and miserliness, idleness and industry.
[1] Particularly, does God provide for man in a manner that unfolds his faculties more and more by new wants and cares, trials and hardships that test and strengthen his powers of body and Soul?
Confidence in God, however, should not prevent man from seeking the means of livelihood by pursuing a trade, nor must it lead him to expose his life to perils.
All that the world offers will disappoint man in the end; for this reason, the Saints and the Prophets of old often fled their family circles and comfortable homes to lead a life of seclusion devoted to God only.
[1] Bahya here dwells at length on the hope of immortality, which, in contradistinction to the popular belief in bodily resurrection, he finds intentionally alluded to only here and there in the Scriptures.
"[1] The following "gate", entitled Shaar Heshbon HaNefesh, Gate of Self-Examination, contains an appeal to take as serious view as possible of life, its obligations and opportunities for the Soul's perfection to attain to a state of purity in which is unfolded the higher faculty of the Soul, which beholds the deeper mysteries of God, the sublime wisdom and beauty of a higher world inaccessible to other men.
[1] According to Bahya, the object of religious practise is the exercise of self-control, curbing passion, and placing at the service of the Most High of all personal possessions and all the organs of life.
This is explained as the soul's longing, amid all the attractions and enjoyments that bind it to the earth, for the fountain of its life, in which it finds joy and peace, even though the greatest pains and suffering are imposed on it.