Sheleimut HaAdam (Human Perfection)

The Maimonidean doctrine of human perfection (Guide for the Perplexed III:54): a graded taxonomy of four perfections -- possessions (kinyan), bodily constitution, moral virtues (middot), and the true and final perfection, intellectual apprehension of metaphysical truth and knowledge of God (hasagat ha-ma'alot ha-sikhliyot) -- the last being man's ultimate telos (ha-takhlit ha-acharonah) and his alone. Guide III:54:12-13 crowns intellectual apprehension with the imitatio-Dei of chesed, mishpat and tzedakah 'in the earth', a much-debated re-integration of the practical. Distinct from de-ot (the moral mean, which is the THIRD perfection only), from sechel-nirdaf (the identification of the acquired intellect with Olam HaBa, under which the eschatological cash-out of the fourth perfection is treated), and from yedi-at-hashem (the halachic obligation to know God).