  4. “The Reason for the Table and Shewbread”  This short treatise was occasioned by a statement in Guide of the Perplexed 3:45. There Maimonides says that, although he can explain most aspects of the sacrificial cult, he cannot explain the reason for the table and shewbread. Ibn Tibbon thus takes up this challenge from the Master. He explains that the table and shewbread, and the very sensuous sacrificial cult in general, serves as a lesson in theology. In particular, the gross anthropomorphic representations, in Ibn Tibbon’s opinion, expose the absurdity of conceiving God as a body, with all the body’s concomitant needs and relations. In other words, the temple and tabernacle, working as a reductio ad absurdum of sorts, helped to spread the true belief in monotheism.