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January 7, 2005
The yahrzeit of Rambam
A man of medicine and mishnah, his influence lives.
DAVE GORDON
For a doctor, it is appropriate that hospitals have been named
after him. For a man of great learning, that a university has been
named after him. Maimonides has been given these honors and more
– his influence has spanned 800 years and garnered admiration
worldwide. His 800th yahrzeit was Jan. 1.
Maimonides was the first person to write a well-organized code of
all Jewish law, the Mishnah Torah. He produced one of the great
philosophic statements of Judaism, The Guide to the Perplexed,
and published a commentary on the entire Mishnah. In addition, he
served as physician to the sultan of Egypt and wrote numerous books
on medicine. When not writing or serving the sultan, Maimonides
acted as leader of Cairo's Jewish community.
Maimonides was born on erev Pesach in 1135 (4895 in the Hebrew calendar)
in the city of Cordova, in southern Spain. He came from a family
of great Torah scholars that extended back to King David. Maimonides'
full name was (Rabbi) Moses ben Maimon, which was turned into the
now familiar acronym Rambam.
To avoid persecution by the Muslim sect Almohades – which gave
Jews and Christians the choice of conversion to Islam or death –
Rambam fled with his family, first to Morocco and later to what
is now Israel.
At 23, he began writing an explanation on the Shisha Sidrei Mishnah
which he called the Sefer Ha'Orah, but which has become known as
the Pirush HaMishnah l'Rambam, taking seven years to complete.
At the time, Israel was under Christian rule and had no more than
a thousand Jewish families. Rambam remained there for a few years,
but, in 1166, he left for Egypt and settled in the city of Forstat,
a major centre of Torah. There, he suffered great personal tragedy,
as his wife, two children and his father all died within a short
period.
He hoped to continue his studies while in Egypt but, when his brother
David, a jewellery merchant, perished in the Indian Ocean with much
of the family's fortune, he had to begin earning money practising
medicine.
Rambam's reputation as a great doctor spread and he was hired to
be the personal physician of Saladin, the Egyptian ruler. While
this may have solved his financial worries, it left him with little
time to do much else.
Yet, despite all his many responsibilities, he found the time to
write his halachic masterpiece called the Mishnah Torah or the Yad
HaChazaka. The word yad, numerically equivalent to 14, is
the number of main headings into which this work is divided. He
started writing it in 1171, at the age of 36, and finished it 10
years later. Rambam believed people needed a simple guide in practical
halachah. This work contained no sources, arguments or proofs, but
gives the halachah to follow in specific cases. He wrote it in Hebrew
and divided it into different sections so that anyone could easily
find the topics and answers. These rulings also cover laws that
will be needed in the time of the rebuilt Third Temple (something
that another much-referenced compendium of law, the Shulchan Aruch,
omitted).
Unfortunately, the Rambam's work did not endear him to many traditional
Jews of the time, who feared that people would rely on his code
and no longer study the Talmud. Despite this sometimes intense opposition,
the Mishnah Torah became a standard reference guide to Jewish practice.
But Maimonides continued to be a controversial figure. Three leading
rabbis in France denounced his books to the Dominicans, who headed
the French Inquisition. The inquisitors were only too happy to burn
the books. Eight years later, when the Dominicans started burning
all Jewish holy books in France, one of Rambam's critics, Jonah
Gerondi, concluded that God was punishing him and French Jewry for
their unjust condemnation of Maimonides. In light of it all, Maimonides
remained a hero throughout most of the Jewish world.
Maimonides also formulated a credo of Judaism expressed in 13 articles
of faith, a popular reworking of which (the Yigdal prayer) appears
in most siddurim (prayer books). Among other things, this
credo affirms belief in the oneness of God, the Divine origins of
the Torah and the afterlife.
Rambam's final resting place is in the city of Teverya, Israel.
Fourteen marble pillars stand along the pathway leading to his gravesite,
representing the 14 main headings of the Mishnah Torah.
Dave Gordon is a freelance writer living in Toronto.
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