But what of all the anthropomorphic terms that we encounter in Jewish sacred texts? What of "Adonai’s rod and staff . . ." or the Creator who "reaches out a hand . . ."? There are thousands of passages like this in the Torah, in the Talmud, in Midrash, and in our liturgy. Maimonides’ response is that these are allegorical passages, designed to ease the transition of the Jewish people from idolatry to monotheism. Even the famous description of man’s creation b’tselem Elohim (in the image of God) is meant metaphorically. God created out of free will and we are granted the ability to reason and a free will of our own, but there is no "family resemblance."
The way that we come to know God and the world is through a combination of revelation and reason. Prophecy, for example, is not merely a gift from God processed through the human imagination. According to Maimonides, prophecy also requires perfection of wisdom and morality as well as a developed imagination. And that gift from God is passed through the mediation of the Active Intellect (a "rational emanation" of the presence of the Almighty in the world), so reason must always play a part.
Indeed, reason must play a role in the love of God, Maimonides holds. It is in large part through the intellect that we attain religious and spiritual goals. By the same token, he says, the sacred writings of Judaism are truthful and do not require us to accept anything that cannot be proven by reason. Where they appear otherwise, we are to read them as allegory. For this reason, study of Torah is one way of achieving greater knowledge of God, engaging the intellect in the search. Faith and reason are not enemies but, in Maimonides’ thought, essential to each other if we are to understand God.