Duties of the Heart

A guide to the inner life written in Judaeo-Arabic by Baḥya ibn Paqūda, a judge in Muslim Spain, and translated into Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon in 1161. Baḥya observes that religious duties are of two kinds: duties of the limbs, outward acts such as prayer and fasting, and duties of the heart, inner attitudes such as belief, trust and love. The second, he complains, are widely neglected, though the first depend on them. The book is arranged in ten gates. The first proves God's unity with philosophical arguments, and the second calls for reflection on the wisdom shown in creation. The following gates treat the service of God, trust in God, sincerity of purpose, humility, repentance, self-examination and moderate abstinence from worldly pleasure, ending with the love of God as the highest stage. Baḥya draws freely on Islamic, especially Sufi, devotional writing as well as on Jewish sources.

It is the classic of Jewish devotional ethics, still widely studied, and a clear guide to the idea that inner intention and trust matter as much as outward observance.