Meet Maimonides

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Moses Maimonides is the subject of the most recent publication in a new series called Jewish Encounters. Under the general editorship of Jonathan Rosen, Jewish Encounters is "a project devoted to the promotion of Jewish literature, culture and ideas." Written by skilled writers who are not necessarily experts, the books are very readable and informative, with minimal academic language or statistics to bog them down.

Author and physician Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, who teaches surgery, bioethics and medical history at Yale University, wrote Maimonides. He does an excellent job of capturing the essence of his subject, physician and scholar Maimonides (1138-1204), giving readers an idea of how Maimonides lived, what inspired him, what challenges he faced and the highlights of some of his work.

Maimonides was a doctor and theologian, whose reputation has endured for centuries. While some researchers have glorified Maimonides – his medical expertise, for example –- Nuland is more pragmatic. He says Maimonides likely had a great bedside manner, aided by his strong ethics and spiritual insight, but that he was an average doctor in most ways. Maimonides may have challenged some of the prevailing medical notions at the time, but he was not an innovator; experimentation was not highly valued in the Middle Ages and Maimonides did not buck the trend.

Maimonides was also a Jewish legal authority, philosopher and communal leader. Nuland gives some – but not enough – detail on Maimonides' most well-known contributions to Jewish thought. Nuland argues that Maimonides is not an icon because of his Judaic works, "certainly not [because of] The Guide for the Perplexed, so much of which is virtually incomprehensible to all but knowledgeable scholars. Rather, it is the iconic memory of a man whose life was devoted to the continuity of the Jewish people."

In addition to describing Maimonides' life in particular, Nuland provides an idea of what Jewish life in general would have been like in medieval Islam. It seems to have alternated between humanity and generosity (under the Saladin, who Maimonides served in Egypt) and extreme persecution.

There are a number of statements in Maimonides with which readers may take issue but, in general, it is a concise, well-written biography of one of the most influential Jews who ever lived. For anyone wanting more information, Nuland provides several sources in the bibliographical notes.

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