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Judaism · Aristotelianism

Maimonides

משה בן מימון · רמב״ם · أبو عمران موسى بن ميمون بن عبيد الله القرطبي

c. 1138 – 1204Historically documented person

Maimonides (Córdoba, c. 1138 – Fustat, 1204), rabbi, philosopher and physician, is the major figure of medieval Jewish thought. Exiled by the Almohads, he settled in Egypt, where he led the community and served as physician to the Ayyubid court. He wrote the Mishneh Torah, a code of the whole of Jewish law; the Guide of the Perplexed, which reconciles the Bible with Aristotelian philosophy; and the Commentary on the Mishnah with the thirteen principles of faith.

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Retrato imaginario de Maimónides (Ugolini, 1744)

Retrato imaginario de Maimónides (Ugolini, 1744) · Public domain

In their words

«The foundation of foundations and the pillar of the sciences is to know that there is a First Being, and that He brings into being all that exists.»

Mishné Torá, Leyes de los fundamentos de la Torá 1:1

Their central idea

The thirteen principles of faith: At the end of the introduction to chapter *Helek*, Maimonides lists thirteen "foundations" (*yesodot*) whose acceptance defines whoever belongs to Israel and has a share in the world to come: God's existence; His unity; His incorporeality; His eternity; that worship is due to Him alone; prophecy; the superiority of Moses's prophecy; the divine origin of the Torah; its immutability; God's knowledge of human deeds; reward and punishment; the coming of the Messiah; and the resurrection of the dead.

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Biography

4 min read

A Cordoban in exile

Moses ben Maimon, whom Jews call Rambam from his initials and the Latin world knew as Maimonides, was born in Córdoba on the eve of Passover in 1138, according to the reckoning most scholars now prefer; an old tradition gives 1135. His father, Maimon, was a rabbinic judge and a disciple of the great Andalusian Talmudists, and the boy grew up in the last splendour of Jewish culture in al-Andalus, with the Hebrew of Scripture and the Arabic of philosophy, medicine and astronomy. In 1148 the Almohads took Córdoba and abolished the tolerance that had protected Jews and Christians; the family set out on a long wandering through al-Andalus and North Africa that brought it around 1160 to Fez, another Almohad city. Whether during those years they lived outwardly as Muslims, as some Arabic writers claimed, is a question historians still debate.

Fustat

In the spring of 1165 the family sailed for Acre, in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem; in the autumn Moses visited Jerusalem and Hebron, and soon afterwards settled in Egypt, first in Alexandria and from 1168 in Fustat, the old capital beside Cairo. There he finished that same year his first great book, the Commentary on the Mishnah, written in Arabic in Hebrew letters, whose introductions contain an ethical treatise, the Eight Chapters, and the famous formulation of the thirteen principles of Jewish faith. Documents from the Cairo Genizah soon show him as a public figure: he organised the ransom of Jews captured by the crusaders at Bilbeis and, at certain periods, served as head of the Jewish community of Egypt.

Letters to distant communities

From Fustat he answered enquiries arriving from the whole Jewish world, from Yemen to Provence. Around 1172 he wrote to the Jews of Yemen, subjected to forced conversions and stirred by a man proclaiming himself the Messiah, an epistle that consoled them, advised them against calculating the date of redemption and unmasked the impostor. To Obadiah, a proselyte who asked whether he might pray saying "God of our fathers", he replied that he might, for Abraham is the father of all who shelter under the wings of the divine Presence. And when in 1191 he was accused of denying the resurrection of the dead, he answered with a treatise affirming it as an article of faith. These letters, partly preserved in the Genizah, reveal the pastor behind the jurist and the philosopher.

The code

The family lived from the trade in precious stones carried on by his younger brother, David. Around 1170 David drowned in the Indian Ocean with everyone's capital; Moses wrote years later that it was the worst blow of his life and that he spent nearly a year ill. He had to earn his living as a physician, and at the same time undertook the work that would make him indispensable: the Mishneh Torah, "repetition of the Law", a code in clear Hebrew that arranges in fourteen books the whole of Jewish law, from the foundations of faith to the laws of kings and of the Messiah, without the discussions of the Talmud. He completed it around 1178. Its ambition (that it should suffice to read the Torah and then this book to know the whole oral law) aroused admiration in the East and severe criticism in Provence, where Abraham ben David of Posquières reproached him for not citing his sources.

The vizier's physician

His fame as a physician brought him into the service of the vizier al-Qadi al-Fadil, Saladin's great chancellor, and later of al-Afdal, the sultan's son, for whom he wrote a Regimen of Health. He composed some ten medical treatises in Arabic, in the tradition of Galen: aphorisms, commentaries on Hippocrates, poisons, asthma, haemorrhoids. In a letter of 1199 to his translator Samuel ibn Tibbon he described his day: the morning at court, the afternoon at home attending a crowd of Jewish and non-Jewish patients until he collapsed with fatigue, and only the Sabbath for teaching his community. He married in Egypt a woman from a family of officials, and in 1186 his son Abraham was born, who would succeed him as physician and as head of the community.

The guide of the perplexed

His philosophical work, the Dalālat al-ḥā'irīn, the Guide of the Perplexed, completed around 1190, is addressed to a disciple, Joseph ben Judah, and to those who, like him, observed the Law and had studied philosophy, and felt bewildered by biblical passages that seem to ascribe to God a body or passions. Maimonides explains those terms as equivocal or metaphorical; he holds that of God we can say only what He is not, and that His attributes describe His actions, not His essence; he debates with Aristotle the eternity of the world and defends creation as the more reasonable position; he gives a natural theory of prophecy and seeks the reasons for the commandments. He wrote with deliberate obscurity, scattering his most delicate theses, so as not to disturb those who were not prepared.

Death and controversies

He died in Fustat on 20 Tevet 4965, 13 December 1204 in the Julian calendar. According to a tradition recorded from the thirteenth century, his body was taken to Tiberias, where his tomb is venerated today. Samuel ibn Tibbon finished the Hebrew translation of the Guide that same year, and his work unleashed in Provence and Catalonia a controversy that for a century pitted defenders and opponents of the study of philosophy against each other; around 1232 his books were even burned in Montpellier. Translated into Latin as Dux neutrorum, the Guide was read by Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart, who cite him as "Rabbi Moyses", and later by Spinoza, who argued against him. In Jewish tradition it was said of him that "from Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses".

Sources: Davidson, Herbert A. Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Oxford/Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2005. · Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008. · Halbertal, Moshe. Maimonides: Life and Thought. Trad. Joel Linsider. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. · Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed. Trad. del árabe por M. Friedländer. 2.ª ed. revisada en un volumen. Londres: George Routledge & Sons, 1904 (Project Gutenberg n.º 73584). · Maimonides, Moses. The Guide of the Perplexed. Trad. Shlomo Pines, con ensayo introductorio de Leo Strauss. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.

Timeline

A life, year by year

Each point is a documented event. Click to read it, with its source and degree of certainty.

  1. c. 1138 · age 0

    Birth

    Born in Córdoba on the eve of Passover (14 Nisan). Most scholars prefer 1138, on the basis of a statement in his own Commentary on the Mishnah; an old tradition gives 30 March 1135.

    Probable

  2. 1148 · age 10

    The Almohads take Córdoba

    The Almohad conquest abolishes the protection of Jews and Christians; Maimon's family leaves the city and wanders through al-Andalus and the Maghreb.

    Documented

  3. c. 1160 · age 22

    In Fez

    The family settles in Fez, under Almohad rule. The Epistle on Apostasy is placed there and, according to Arabic writers, an outward conversion to Islam, now disputed.

    Probable

  4. May 1165 · age 27

    Journey to the Holy Land

    After a stormy crossing he reaches Acre; in the autumn he visits the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, according to a note attributed to his hand.

    Probable

  5. 1168 · age 30

    Commentary on the Mishnah

    Settled in Egypt, he completes the Commentary on the Mishnah in Arabic, with the Eight Chapters and the thirteen principles of faith.

    Documented

  6. c. 1169 · age 31

    Ransom of the Bilbeis captives

    He writes to the Jewish communities of Egypt to raise the ransom of Jews captured by the crusaders at Bilbeis; the autograph letter survives in the Genizah.

    Documented

  7. c. 1170 · age 32

    Death of his brother David

    David, who traded precious stones for the family, drowns in the Indian Ocean; Maimonides spends nearly a year ill and turns to medicine.

    Documented

  8. c. 1172 · age 34

    Epistle to Yemen

    He writes to the Jews of Yemen, persecuted and stirred by a false messiah, a letter of consolation and warning.

    Documented

  9. c. 1178 · age 40

    Mishneh Torah

    Completes the Mishneh Torah, a code of the whole of Jewish law in fourteen books, written in Hebrew.

    Documented

  10. 1186 · age 48

    Birth of his son Abraham

    Abraham ben Moses is born, who will succeed him as court physician and head of the Jewish community of Egypt.

    Documented

  11. c. 1190 · age 52

    Guide of the Perplexed

    Completes the Dalālat al-ḥā'irīn, addressed to his disciple Joseph ben Judah.

    Documented

  12. 1191 · age 53

    Treatise on Resurrection

    Answers those who accused him of denying the resurrection of the dead with the Ma'amar teḥiyyat ha-metim.

    Documented

  13. 1199 · age 61

    Letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon

    Writes to his Hebrew translator with advice on translation and a description of his exhausting day as a physician.

    Documented

  14. December 13, 1204 · age 66

    Death

    Dies in Fustat on 20 Tevet 4965. Tradition, recorded from the thirteenth century, holds that he was buried in Tiberias.

    Documented

  15. 1204

    Hebrew translation of the Guide

    Samuel ibn Tibbon completes the Hebrew translation of the Guide, Moreh nevukhim.

    Documented

  16. c. 1232

    His books burned

    At the height of the Maimonidean controversy, his philosophical works are burned in Montpellier after his opponents denounce them to church authorities.

    Probable

  17. c. 1240

    Dux neutrorum

    The Latin translation of the Guide (Dux neutrorum) appears, to be read by Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart.

    Probable

Works

Essential works

The works without which their legacy cannot be understood.

Written work · 1168

Commentary on the Mishnah (Kitāb al-Sirāj)

كتاب السراج (Kitāb al-Sirāj) / פירוש המשניות

Maimonides' first great book, begun at about twenty-three during the exile and completed in Fustat in 1168. Written in Arabic in Hebrew characters, it is the first complete commentary on the Mishnah: it explains each rule clearly and indicates the legal decision. Its three introductions are independent and highly influential treatises: the general Introduction on the oral tradition and the difference between prophet and sage; the introduction to chapter *Helek* of tractate Sanhedrin, with the thirteen principles of faith; and the *Eight Chapters*, an ethical introduction to tractate *Avot*. It survives partly in autograph (Bodleian, MS. Pococke 295) and circulated in medieval Hebrew translations.

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1 edition

Written work · 1168

Introduction to Perek Helek: the Thirteen Principles of Faith

הקדמה לפרק חלק (שלושה עשר עיקרים)

Eschatological essay introducing the tenth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin ("All Israel have a share in the world to come"). It distinguishes vulgar conceptions of reward from the true happiness of the soul, and concludes with thirteen principles every Jew must believe: God's existence, unity and incorporeality, His eternity, that worship is due to Him alone, prophecy, the primacy of Moses's prophecy, the divine origin of the Torah and its immutability, providence, reward and punishment, the coming of the Messiah and the resurrection. They entered the liturgy as a hymn (*Yigdal*) and a creed (*Ani maamin*) composed by others.

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1 edition · amazon.es

Written work · c. 1178

Mishneh Torah (The Strong Hand)

משנה תורה (Mishneh Torah) / היד החזקה

Complete code of Jewish law in fourteen books (hence the nickname *Yad ha-Hazakah*, "the strong hand", since *yad* equals fourteen), written in clear Mishnaic Hebrew between about 1168 and 1178. It covers everything: the *Book of Knowledge*, with the foundations of faith, ethics and repentance; prayer, the Sabbath and festivals; marriage; food; the Temple and sacrifices; civil and criminal law; and it concludes with the laws of kings and the messianic era. It omits the Talmudic discussions and the sources to give only the decision, which provoked criticism such as the glosses of Abraham ben David of Posquières, printed ever since alongside the text. It became the basis of later codes such as the *Arba'ah Turim* and the *Shulhan Arukh*, and is still studied daily.

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8 editions · amazon.com

The Guide of the Perplexed — Maimonides

Written work · c. 1190

The Guide of the Perplexed

دلالة الحائرين (Dalālat al-ḥā'irīn) / מורה נבוכים

His philosophical work, written in Arabic in Hebrew letters around 1185–1190 for his disciple Joseph ben Judah. In three parts: the first explains biblical terms that seem to attribute to God a body, place or passions, and develops negative theology; the second discusses the proofs of God's existence, creation versus Aristotle's eternity of the world and the nature of prophecy; the third treats Ezekiel's divine chariot, evil, providence, the reasons for the commandments and human perfection, and concludes with the imitation of God's ways. Maimonides warns that he writes with deliberate contradictions to guide only those who are prepared, which has given rise to widely divergent readings. Translated into Hebrew by Samuel ibn Tibbon (1204) and Judah al-Harizi, and into Latin as *Dux neutrorum*, it influenced Christian scholasticism and Spinoza.

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12 editions · amazon.com

Complete works (35)

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Quotations

Quotations located in a specific work. Each carries its provenance and its level of confidence.

The foundation of foundations and the pillar of the sciences is to know that there is a First Being, and that He brings into being all that exists.

יְסוֹד הַיְסוֹדוֹת וְעַמּוּד הַחָכְמוֹת לֵידַע שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁם מָצוּי רִאשׁוֹן. וְהוּא מַמְצִיא כָּל נִמְצָא

VerifiedMishné Torá, Leyes de los fundamentos de la Torá 1:1

1 / 11
Apocryphal quotes or disputed attributions (2)

  • «"It is better to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."»

    A widely quoted paraphrase of negative commandment 290 of the Book of Commandments. The idea is his, but the figure of "a thousand" comes from modern translations of the Arabic original; the medieval Hebrew version consulted (Warsaw, 1883) states the argument without that formula.

  • «"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."»

    A phrase widely circulated online attributed to Maimonides. It has not been located in any of his works.

Last words

There are no verifiable records of their last words.

No reliable account of his last words survives. Arabic chronicles (Ibn al-Qifti, Ibn Abi Usaybi'a) and Jewish sources record his death in Fustat in December 1204 and the public mourning, without attributing a final sentence to him.

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

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What their work answers

Twelve great human questions and what their texts allow us to answer, with references. We never put words in their mouth.

  • What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

    A free Creator of whom one can only say what He is not

    A personal GodStated explicitly

    Maimonides places at the foundation of the whole law the knowledge that there exists a First Being who gives existence to all that exists, and in the Guide of the Perplexed he defends that the world was created by divine will, and does not emanate from God by necessity as the Aristotelians held; he grants that the question cannot be demonstrated, but holds creation to be the more reasonable thesis and the one the Torah requires. This God creates, reveals Himself to the prophets and exercises providence. But Maimonides is also the great master of negative theology: God has no positive attributes, His names describe His actions and not His essence, and everything said to praise Him contains something that diminishes Him, so that silence is most fitting. His God is personal in what He does and unsayable in what He is.

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  • Who am I? Is there a true self?

    What we are is intellect, and only the intellect that knows endures

    A created, immortal soulStated explicitly

    Maimonides opens the Guide of the Perplexed by explaining that the image of God in which man was created is not a bodily shape but his natural form: the intellect. That is what man properly is. In the Mishneh Torah he distinguishes the soul that animates the body, which perishes with it, from the form that knows the separate intelligences, which comes from God and does not die. The world to come consists, for him, in this existence of souls without bodies, like the angels, enjoying the knowledge of God. But that immortality is not received ready-made: it depends on what each person has come to know. The true self is the intellect which, through study and right living, has passed from potentiality to act.

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  • Why do we suffer?

    Most evils we bring on ourselves by desiring the superfluous

    Craving and attachmentStated explicitly

    In the third part of the Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides classifies evils into three species. The first come from matter: man, like everything that is born, falls ill and dies, and to complain of it is to ask to be something else. The second are those some men inflict on others, wars and tyrannies, rarer than they seem. The third, the most numerous, are those each person brings on himself through his vices: excess in food, drink and sex, and above all the desire for the superfluous, which has no limit, whereas what is necessary is little and easily obtained. He has noted earlier that evils are at bottom born of ignorance, a privation of knowledge. The remedy is the middle way and knowledge.

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  • What happens after death?

    The world to come is the intellect's life; resurrection, a principle of faith

    Eternal life and resurrectionStated explicitly

    Maimonides distinguishes three things that tradition confused. The messianic era is a historical time of peace and study, with no alteration of the natural order. The world to come, the ultimate reward, is the soul's existence without a body, like that of the angels, enjoying the knowledge of God: there is no food or drink there, and whoever imagines it as a feast has understood nothing. The resurrection of the dead is among his thirteen principles of faith; accused of denying it because the Mishneh Torah barely mentions it, he wrote a treatise to affirm it, while maintaining that the resurrected will die again and that the final destiny remains the life of the soul. What endures is the intellect that has known God.

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  • How is liberation or salvation attained?

    Ultimate perfection is to know God, and from that knowledge love is born

    Through direct knowledgeStated explicitly

    At the end of the Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides distinguishes four perfections: of possessions, of the body, of the moral virtues and of the intellect. Only the last truly belongs to man and gives him eternal life: to know God as far as possible. The commandments and the virtues are necessary, for they order the body and society and prepare the mind, but they are not the end. In the Mishneh Torah he describes the love of God as the fruit of this knowledge: whoever contemplates the works and creatures and sees in them a wisdom beyond measure at once loves. And knowledge flows into action: whoever knows God seeks to imitate His ways of lovingkindness, judgement and righteousness on earth.

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  • Is a teacher necessary?

    A chain of tradition from Moses, and truth from whoever speaks it

    Community and traditionStated explicitly

    Maimonides opens his Introduction to the Mishnah and the Mishneh Torah by tracing the chain of transmission of the oral law from Moses, generation after generation, down to the sages of the Talmud: Judaism is received within a community and its teachers. For the secrets of the Torah — the work of creation and the work of the chariot — he requires a master: they are transmitted only from mouth to mouth to a wise and able disciple, and the Guide itself is written as a letter to a pupil. But that authority does not replace reason. In the preface to the Eight Chapters he declares that he has taken ideas from ancient and modern philosophers and that one should hear the truth from whoever speaks it. Tradition transmits; the intellect examines.

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  • Is the world real?

    A world created, ordered and good: evil is privation

    A good and real creationStated explicitly

    Maimonides defends in the Guide of the Perplexed that the world was created by God's will and does not exist eternally by necessity, and describes it as an ordered whole, comparable to a single living individual whose parts are related to one another. His acts are neither vain nor arbitrary, though their ultimate ends are not always accessible to us. Evil is not a positive reality created by God but privation: illness is absence of health, ignorance absence of knowledge, and what proceeds from God is only existence, which is a good; hence the Torah declares the work of the six days very good. The world is real, has stable laws, and its study, the science of nature, leads to knowledge and love of its Creator.

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  • What is love?

    To love God like a lover who cannot stop thinking of his beloved

    Longing and unionStated explicitly

    Maimonides, the most rationalist of medieval Jewish thinkers, describes the love of God with the most passionate image. In the Mishneh Torah he says one must love Him with a great and very strong love, until the soul is bound to Him and thinks of Him always, like someone lovesick who cannot turn his thoughts from a woman and thinks of her sitting, standing, eating and drinking. But that love is born of knowledge and is proportional to it: whoever contemplates the creatures and discovers in them a wisdom beyond measure at once loves, and the more he knows, the more he loves. That is why serving God out of love, and not in hope of reward, is the rank of the wise. Love of others is ordered in charity.

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  • Are we free, or is everything determined?

    Every man can be righteous like Moses or wicked like Jeroboam

    Real free willStated explicitly

    Maimonides makes free will a pillar of the Torah. In the laws of repentance in the Mishneh Torah he states that every man has been given the power to choose: if he wishes to incline towards the good way and be righteous, he can; if he wishes to incline towards the evil one and be wicked, he can too. Each can become righteous like Moses or wicked like Jeroboam, and no one compels him or decrees his path. Without that freedom, the commandments, repentance, reward and punishment would be meaningless. That is why he rejects astrology, which in his letter to the sages of Montpellier he calls superstition, and the opinions that make destiny something fixed. He grants that reconciling this freedom with divine knowledge exceeds human understanding.

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  • Why meditate or pray?

    Prayer culminates in continuous intellectual contemplation of God

    Seeing reality as it isStated explicitly

    In chapter 51 of the third part of the Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides describes the worship proper to one who has attained knowledge of God: it is no longer the outward repetition of words but the concentration of the intellect upon Him. He proposes a gradual exercise: begin by reciting the Shema and the prayers with full attention, without being distracted by anything else; then extend that attention to the reading of the Torah and the other commandments; and finally keep one's thought on God even while eating or conversing. Solitude and retreat favour that state. In the Mishneh Torah he rules that prayer without intention is not prayer; the end of worship is to contemplate, not to ask.

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  • Can reason know the ultimate?

    Torah and demonstration cannot contradict each other; if they clash, the text is interpreted

    Scripture and reasoningStated explicitly

    The Guide of the Perplexed was born for the reader who, trained in Torah and in philosophy, feels perplexed by their apparent contradictions. Maimonides holds that revealed truth and demonstrated truth cannot be opposed: when Scripture seems to ascribe a body or passions to God, it must be interpreted, because demonstration proves He has none. But he also marks the limits of reason: there are things the human intellect cannot reach, such as God's essence, and questions it cannot demonstrate, such as the eternity or creation of the world; on these, and only these, prophetic tradition decides. The study of science and philosophy is therefore a religious duty, and the summit of worship is knowledge.

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  • Withdraw from the world or transform it?

    The intellect with God and the body among men, like Moses

    Contemplation in actionStated explicitly

    Maimonides rejects extreme asceticism: in the Mishneh Torah he teaches the middle way and warns against those who deprive themselves of food, abstain from marriage or withdraw to the deserts thinking they thus serve God better. His ideal appears in chapter 51 of the third part of the Guide: the patriarchs and Moses had their intellect always united with God while their bodies were busy with flocks, family and the government of the people. And the Guide ends by asking us to imitate God's ways by practising lovingkindness, judgement and righteousness on earth. He lived it himself: physician at Saladin's court, head of the Jewish community of Egypt and lawgiver, without abandoning contemplation.

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Affinities & tensions

Affinities and tensions

Calculated question by question from their positions. The reason for each agreement or clash, on click.

Anecdotes and stories

Anecdotes and stories

Testimony1165

The storm and the Temple Mount

In the spring of 1165 Maimonides, his father and his brother set sail from Morocco for the Holy Land. A note preserved under his name tells that a week after setting out a storm broke that almost sank the ship, and that he vowed to fast every year on its anniversary and spend it alone, seeing no one, devoted to prayer and study, just as his family was to keep the day of arrival as a feast. They landed at Acre in mid-May. In the autumn he went up to Jerusalem and entered, he says, the "great and holy house" to pray, and days later prayed in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron. He declared those days feasts for himself and his descendants. The account shows a man who, for a rationalist, lived sacred geography intensely.

Origin of the story: The note is known from Eleazar Azikri's quotation of it in Sefer Haredim (Safed, sixteenth century), who says he copied it from a writing of Maimonides; historians accept it with caution.

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Documented1168–1169

The captives of Bilbeis

In 1168 the crusader king Amalric of Jerusalem took the Egyptian town of Bilbeis and carried off prisoners, among them Jews. Newly arrived in Fustat, Maimonides wrote to the Jewish communities of Lower Egypt asking them to raise money for the ransom, in accordance with the commandment to free captives, which rabbinic law places above alms for the poor. He sent envoys and judges to collect and negotiate, and the captives were released. The letter, in his own hand, turned up centuries later among the papers of the Cairo Genizah and is one of the earliest witnesses to his public authority in Egypt.

Origin of the story: Autograph letter from the Cairo Genizah, edited by S. D. Goitein and analysed by Kraemer (2008).

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Documentedc. 1170–1178

The death of David

David, the younger brother, supported the family through the trade in precious stones between Egypt and India. Against the advice of Moses, who had asked him not to go beyond the Red Sea port of Aydhab, he sailed for India and drowned in the ocean with the capital of the family and other partners, leaving a widow and a little daughter. Years later, in a letter to Japheth ben Elijah, judge of Acre, Maimonides wrote that this had been the greatest misfortune of his life: on receiving the news he fell ill and spent about a year in bed, with fever and despair; eight years later he was still in mourning and without consolation, for he had raised that brother on his knees and had been his teacher. To support his family he turned to medicine.

Origin of the story: Maimonides's letter to Japheth ben Elijah, preserved in the epistolary tradition (ed. Shailat) and partly confirmed by a letter from David at Aydhab found in the Genizah.

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Documented1199

The physician's day

Samuel ibn Tibbon, who was translating the *Guide* into Hebrew in Provence, wrote that he wished to travel to Egypt to meet him. Maimonides answered in 1199 that he should not: he would not be able to give him even an hour. He described his day. He lived in Fustat and the sultan resided in Cairo, two Sabbath-journeys away; every morning he went early to the palace, and if anyone of the royal household fell ill he did not leave. He came back at midday, famished, and found the antechambers full of Jews and non-Jews, nobles and common people, judges and officials, awaiting his return. He dismounted, washed, ate the only meal of his day and went out to attend them until nightfall, writing prescriptions lying down from sheer exhaustion. Only on the Sabbath did he receive the community to teach it. The text is the most vivid portrait of him that survives.

Origin of the story: Maimonides's letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon (1199), preserved in Hebrew translation (ed. Shailat, Iggerot).

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Disputedc. 1160–1190

The accusation of apostasy

The thirteenth-century Arab biographer Ibn al-Qifti, who knew his disciple Joseph ben Judah in Aleppo, states that Maimonides had outwardly become a Muslim in the Almohad Maghreb, and that in Egypt an Andalusian jurist, Abu al-Arab ibn Mu'isha, recognised him and denounced him as an apostate from Islam, a capital offence. According to the account, the vizier al-Qadi al-Fadil protected him by declaring that the conversion of one acting under coercion has no legal validity. Historians debate the episode: some find it plausible, since many Jewish families lived thus under the Almohads and the *Epistle on Apostasy* deals with that situation; others think it a slander or a misunderstanding.

Origin of the story: Ibn al-Qifti, Ta'rikh al-hukama' (13th century); discussed by Davidson (2005), Kraemer (2008) and Stroumsa (2009).

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Documented1232–1242

Books on the pyre

Thirty years after his death, the *Guide* and the *Book of Knowledge* of the *Mishneh Torah* divided the Jewish communities of Provence and Catalonia. The opponents, led by Solomon of Montpellier, saw in the allegorical interpretation of the Bible and the study of Greek philosophy a danger to faith; the defenders answered with bans. Around 1232, according to contemporary sources, Maimonides's adversaries turned to the Dominican authorities and his books were publicly burned in Montpellier. A few years later, in Paris, cartloads of Talmud manuscripts were burned. Many Jews saw in that sequence a punishment for having handed their own books over to the Inquisition, and the denunciation remained a stain on those who had promoted it.

Origin of the story: Letters of the Maimonidean controversy and thirteenth-century Jewish chronicles; the link between the 1232 burning and the burning of the Talmuds in Paris is a contemporary interpretation taken up by historians.

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Disputeds. XIII–XVI

The epitaph of Tiberias

A tradition recorded by Gedaliah ibn Yahya in *Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah* (1587) tells that Maimonides's tomb in Tiberias bore the inscription "The choicest of the human race". In the days of the controversy some enemies of his work supposedly changed it to "the excommunicated heretic"; later, repentant, one of his disciples corrected it to read "The choicest of the people of Israel". The story has no documentary support, and even the transfer of his remains from Fustat to Tiberias is not attested by contemporary sources; but it sums up the ambivalence his work aroused for centuries. Today the tomb bears the phrase "From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses".

Origin of the story: Gedaliah ibn Yahya, Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (Venice, 1587). Not confirmed by contemporary sources.

Source: Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.

Teachings

Teachings

The notions that structure their thought, explained in context.

The thirteen principles of faithtrece-principios
At the end of the introduction to chapter *Helek*, Maimonides lists thirteen "foundations" (*yesodot*) whose acceptance defines whoever belongs to Israel and has a share in the world to come: God's existence; His unity; His incorporeality; His eternity; that worship is due to Him alone; prophecy; the superiority of Moses's prophecy; the divine origin of the Torah; its immutability; God's knowledge of human deeds; reward and punishment; the coming of the Messiah; and the resurrection of the dead. It was the first time a rabbinic author had formulated a creed of this kind, and it was debated by Hasdai Crescas, Joseph Albo and Isaac Abravanel, who objected to the number or to the very idea of dogma. Popularised by the hymn *Yigdal* and by the *Ani maamin*, they became the most widespread definition of Jewish orthodoxy.

Commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10; taken up in the Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 3.

Source: Seeskin, Kenneth. «Maimonides». Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (primera publicación 2006; revisión sustancial 2024).

Negative theology and attributes of actionteologia-negativa
In the first part of the *Guide*, Maimonides holds that no positive attribute can be predicated of God without introducing multiplicity into His absolute unity. The essential attributes the Bible applies to Him must be understood as negations (to say He is "living" means He is not dead), and those describing His way of acting ("merciful", "gracious") are attributes of action: they say what God does, not what He is. Each negation brings one a little closer to true knowledge, which consists in knowing what God is not. The conclusion is the praise of silence: the psalm "Silence is praise to Thee". The doctrine influenced Latin theology through Meister Eckhart and Thomas Aquinas, who debated it.

Guide of the Perplexed I, 50–60; sources in kalam and Arabic philosophy (Avicenna).

Source: Seeskin, Kenneth. «Maimonides». Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (primera publicación 2006; revisión sustancial 2024).

The middle wayjusto-medio
Following Aristotelian ethics, Maimonides defines virtue as a disposition equidistant from two extremes: generosity between avarice and prodigality, courage between cowardice and rashness. The *Laws of Dispositions* in the *Mishneh Torah* identify that mean with "the way of the Lord" that Abraham taught his children. To cure a vice, however, he advises going for a time to the opposite extreme, like the physician who straightens a rod by bending it the other way. There are two exceptions where he asks one to depart from the mean: pride, against which one must be very humble, and anger, which must be avoided altogether. Alongside the sage who follows the mean stands the *hasid*, the pious man, who goes beyond the strict measure out of excess of goodness.

Eight Chapters, ch. 4; Mishneh Torah, Laws of Dispositions 1–2.

Source: Mishneh Torah, texto hebreo de la edición Torat Emet (dominio público) en Sefaria.

Prophecyprofecia
Maimonides explains prophecy as an emanation from the Active Intellect descending upon the intellect and imagination of a man perfected morally and intellectually. It is in principle a natural phenomenon, though God may withhold it even from one who is prepared. The degrees of prophecy depend on the proportion between intellect and imagination; that is why prophets speak in parables and images. Moses is the exception: his prophecy did not pass through the imagination, was continuous and produced a perfect law, which guarantees that the Torah will not be replaced. The theory, partly taken from al-Farabi and Avicenna, served both to defend revelation and to naturalise it.

Guide of the Perplexed II, 32–48; Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 7.

Source: Seeskin, Kenneth. «Maimonides». Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (primera publicación 2006; revisión sustancial 2024).

The reasons for the commandmentsrazones-de-los-preceptos
Against those who held that the commandments are decrees without reason, Maimonides affirms in the third part of the *Guide* that all have a purpose: the welfare of the body, that is, just social order, and the welfare of the soul, true opinions. He explains many ritual precepts by their historical context: sacrifices were a concession to a people accustomed to pagan worship, which God channelled toward Himself in order to wean it gradually from idolatry, just as one does not pass at once from slavery to freedom. The historical explanation scandalised many readers and was decisive for modern biblical criticism.

Guide of the Perplexed III, 25–49.

Source: Halbertal, Moshe. Maimonides: Life and Thought. Trad. Joel Linsider. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

Human perfection and imitation of Godimitatio-dei
The *Guide* ends by listing four perfections: of possessions, of the body, moral and intellectual, the last being the only truly human one, which endures after death. But the final chapter adds a turn: whoever has known God as far as possible discovers that He acts on earth with loving-kindness, judgement and righteousness, and then resolves to imitate those ways. The parable of the palace, in the preceding chapter, describes men according to their nearness to the king (with a sentence about distant peoples that is read today as a prejudice of its time) and reserves the nearest place for those who, knowing, keep their thought fixed on God while attending to others.

Guide of the Perplexed III, 51 and 54.

Source: Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed. Trad. del árabe por M. Friedländer. 2.ª ed. revisada en un volumen. Londres: George Routledge & Sons, 1904 (Project Gutenberg n.º 73584).

The eight degrees of charitygrados-de-la-tsedaka
In the *Laws of Gifts to the Poor* Maimonides arranges *tzedakah* (which in Hebrew means both charity and justice) in eight degrees. From lowest to highest: giving grudgingly; giving less than is due but kindly; giving after being asked; giving before being asked; giving without knowing to whom, though the poor man knows who gives; giving knowing to whom without the poor man knowing who; giving with neither knowing the other; and, above all, supporting one who is becoming poor with a gift, a loan, a partnership or work, so that he need depend on no one. The ladder has inspired Jewish philanthropy for centuries.

Mishneh Torah, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 10:7–14.

Source: Mishneh Torah, texto hebreo de la edición Torat Emet (dominio público) en Sefaria.

Videos

Videos

Recordings, interviews and documentaries. Videos play from YouTube; they are not hosted here.

  • Maimónides, entre la filosofía y la medicina | Mariano Gómez Aranda

    Lecture· ES· 53 min

    Fundación Juan MarchOfficial channel

  • MAIMONIDES

    Documentary· ES· 4 min

    PTV Córdoba

  • Conferencia: Maimónides en los documentos de la Genizah por Dr. Mario Eduardo Cohén

    Lecture· ES· 71 min

    Mem Guímel

  • Kenneth Seeskin, "What the Guide of the Perplexed is Really About"

    Lecture· EN· 52 min

    Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish StudiesOfficial channel

  • Maimonides on Monotheism - Prof. Kenneth Seeskin

    Lecture· EN· 51 min

    Institute for Tolerance Studies

  • The Essence of Maimonides: Sherwin B. Nuland (2005)

    Lecture· EN· 67 min

    The 92nd Street Y, New YorkOfficial channel

  • Who Was Moses Maimonides? The Life of the Mind | Dr. Henry Abramson

    Lecture· EN· 57 min

    Henry Abramson

  • Maimonides: The Revered & Controversial Sephardic Rabbi | The Jewish Story | Unpacked

    Documentary· EN· 5 min

    Unpacked

  • Maimonides on Mourning: Jewish Law and Emotion

    Lecture· EN· 80 min

    UC Berkeley School of LawOfficial channel

  • 10 - רמב"ם - חלק א: תולדות חייו וכתביו

    Lecture· HE· 36 min

    The Open University of IsraelOfficial channel

  • Moshe Halbertal: "Maimonides: Life and Thought" Book Launch

    Lecture· HE· 57 min

    NYU School of LawOfficial channel

  • Maïmonide : entre judaïsme, islam et christianisme

    Interview· FR· 30 min

    Storiavoce, un podcast d'Histoire & Civilisations

  • René Levy : si l'Occident avait lu Maïmonide...

    Lecture· FR· 32 min

    AkademOfficial channel

Gallery

Gallery

Images with verified licences. Each keeps its authorship and attribution.

Manuscripts

Manuscripts

Manuscript witnesses and ancient texts, with their custodian and conditions of access.

  • HE · Hebrew · c. 1178

    משנה תורה (ספר המדע וספר אהבה)

    Surviving witness
    Copia egipcia de finales del siglo XII con la nota autógrafa «corregido sobre mi libro, yo, Moisés hijo de Rabí Maimón» (fol. 165r)
    Custodian
    Bodleian Library, Oxford · MS. Huntington 80
    Digitisation
    iiif.biblissima.fr/collections/manifest/de2371fd…

  • AR · Hebrew · c. 1167–1168

    كتاب السراج (פירוש המשניות), סדר נזיקין וקדשים

    Surviving witness
    Borrador autógrafo con correcciones del autor
    Custodian
    Bodleian Library, Oxford · MS. Pococke 295

  • AR · Hebrew · 1168–1204

    קטעי גניזה בכתב ידו של הרמב״ם

    Surviving witness
    Borradores de responsa, cartas y fragmentos de obras halladas en la Genizá de la sinagoga Ben Ezra de Fustat
    Custodian
    Cambridge University Library (colección Taylor-Schechter) y otras bibliotecas
    Digitisation
    cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah…
Manuscripts →

Connections

Connections

Influences, discipleships and affinities. Documented relations are distinguished from similarities identified by analysis.

  • Influenced by

    Aristotle

    The *Guide* relies on Aristotle's physics, metaphysics and ethics; Maimonides regards him as the summit of human knowledge in the sublunar realm, but disagrees with him on the eternity of the world, which he does not consider demonstrated.

    Documented relation

  • Influenced

    Meister Eckhart

    Eckhart frequently cites "Rabbi Moyses" and draws from the *Guide* (in Latin translation) elements of his doctrine of the divine names and of negative theology.

    Documented relation

  • Influenced

    Baruch Spinoza

    Spinoza studied the *Guide* and argued against its method of allegorical interpretation of the Bible in the *Theological-Political Treatise* (ch. 7); the one's critique grew out of reading the other.

    Documented relation

  • Ideas akin to

    Al-Ghazali

    Both lived the tension between Aristotelian philosophy and revelation; Maimonides knew the philosophical and theological literature of Islam, and it has been suggested that the title of the *Guide* echoes an expression used by al-Ghazali. No direct dependence is documented.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Contemporary of

    Ibn Arabi

    Contemporaries born in al-Andalus (Ibn Arabi in Murcia in 1165), they represent two opposite paths of Andalusian thought: Aristotelian rationalism and visionary mysticism. There is no record that they met.

    Documented relation

  • Ideas akin to

    Baal Shem Tov

    Opposite poles of Jewish spirituality in a frequent reading: the intellectualism of the *Guide* and the affective mysticism of Hasidism. Both, however, place cleaving to God at the centre of religious life.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Ideas akin to

    Martin Buber

    Buber opposes to Maimonidean negative theology and intellectualism the personal relation with the eternal Thou; both deny, however, that God can be an object of description.

    Similarity identified by analysis

  • Ideas akin to

    Augustine of Hippo

    Like Augustine in *De doctrina christiana*, Maimonides proposes rules for interpreting figuratively those passages of Scripture that, read literally, would contradict reason or faith.

    Similarity identified by analysis

Linked from other profiles

Sources

Sources

Bibliography and catalogues consulted for this profile.

  1. Davidson, Herbert A. Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Oxford/Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  2. Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds. Nueva York: Doubleday, 2008.
  3. Seeskin, Kenneth. «Maimonides». Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (primera publicación 2006; revisión sustancial 2024).
  4. Halbertal, Moshe. Maimonides: Life and Thought. Trad. Joel Linsider. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
  5. Wikidata, Q127398: «Moshe ben Maimon» (Maimónides), 110 enlaces entre wikis.
  6. Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed. Trad. del árabe por M. Friedländer. 2.ª ed. revisada en un volumen. Londres: George Routledge & Sons, 1904 (Project Gutenberg n.º 73584).
  7. Maimonides, Moses. The Guide of the Perplexed. Trad. Shlomo Pines, con ensayo introductorio de Leo Strauss. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
  8. Mishneh Torah, texto hebreo de la edición Torat Emet (dominio público) en Sefaria.
  9. Stroumsa, Sarah. Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
  10. Gorfinkle, Joseph I. (ed. y trad.). The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics (Shemonah Perakim). Nueva York: Columbia University Press, 1912 (ejemplar digitalizado en Internet Archive).
  11. Wikimedia Commons, categoría «Moshe ben Maimon» y subcategorías (licencias leídas por la API imageinfo).
  12. Bos, Gerrit (ed. y trad.). Maimonides, Medical Aphorisms: A Parallel Arabic-English Edition (The Medical Works of Moses Maimonides). Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2004–2017.
  13. Sefaria: Sefer ha-Mitzvot (Varsovia, 1883), Shemonah Perakim (Wikisource) y Moreh Nevukhim en la traducción hebrea de Samuel ibn Tibbon.
  14. Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Huntington 80 (Mishneh Torah, libros I–II, con certificación autógrafa de Maimónides) y MS. Pococke 295 (Comentario a la Misná, autógrafo); registros de Biblissima y del antiguo portal Maimonides de la Bodleiana.
  15. Twersky, Isadore. Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980.
Rights holder
Dominio público: los textos de Maimónides y sus traducciones medievales. Las ediciones críticas y las traducciones modernas (Pines, Gonzalo Maeso, Munk-Verdier, Weiss-Meiner, Touger, Bos) tienen derechos de sus editores y traductores.

Pending confirmation

What this profile has not yet been able to settle. We would rather say so than fill it in.

  • Confirmar la fecha de muerte de Joseph I. Gorfinkle (n. 1880) para decidir si su traducción de los Ocho capítulos es de dominio público en la UE y en España (registrada con caution: true).
  • Localizar ISBN de una edición española completa de la Mishné Torá (solo hay traducciones parciales registradas) y de la Epístola al Yemen.
  • Verificar en Kraemer (2008) la fecha exacta del rescate de los cautivos de Bilbeis (1168 o 1169) y de la quema de Montpellier (1232 o 1233).
  • Comprobar en Digital Bodleian el enlace estable de MS. Huntington 80 y MS. Pococke 295.
  • Confirmar qué traducción hebrea de la Epístola al Yemen reproduce Wikisource (Nahum ha-Ma'aravi u otra).
  • Buscar vídeos en alemán (televisión pública) y en árabe sobre Maimónides; no se han encontrado en canales solventes.
  • Las fichas de los tratados médicos menores no tienen ediciones con ISBN verificadas (Rosner, Maimonides Research Institute; Bos, BYU Press): completar con el catálogo de BYU Press.

Researched on 2026-10-25