The Good Doctor

AMONG POST-TALMUDIC JEWISH scholars, Moses Maimonides stands alone. His commentaries on the oral law, codification of rabbinic ordinances, and writings incorporating Aristotelian principles into Jewish belief–each a monumental achievement–address the most profound questions faced by modern man and offer fresh insights into the human condition many centuries after they were written.

But Maimonides was much more than a scholar, and in the latest chronicle of his life and work, the physician-author Sherwin Nuland emphasizes his roles as a court physician in 12th-century Egypt, and as a statesman whose authority came to be recognized in Jewish communities throughout the world.

Maimonides is one of the first two volumes–the other is a biography of the biblical David by former poet laureate Robert Pinsky–of an ambitious project of Nextbook and Schocken entitled “Jewish Encounters,” whose subjects range from Yehuda Halevi to Marc Chagall, from messianism to “Jews and power.”

In light of his scholarly output, it is all the more remarkable that the life of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known in Hebrew literature by the acronym “Rambam” and in the West, since the Renaissance, by the Greek name Maimonides, was beset by turbulence, uprootedness, and, in his later years, a physically exhausting workload.

Born in Cordoba under Muslim rule in 1135, the young Moses received tutoring from his father, Rabbi Maimon ben Joseph, a dayyan (judge) of the rabbinical court of Cordoba, as well as from others versed not only in Jewish law but also such secular subjects as philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. The takeover of Cordoba during Moses’ bar mitzvah year by the Almohades, a fanatical Muslim sect that presented non-Muslims with the choice of conversion or death, forced his family to abandon an ancestral home that had produced eight generations of scholars.

The family’s wanderings eventually led it to the North African city of Fez, but continued persecution at the hands of the Almohades forced Maimonides to take a hazardous voyage to Palestine, then in the grip of the Crusades. Ultimately, he settled in Cairo, after a brief stay in Alexandria. (One reason he would give for the need to codify Jewish law would be to make it comprehensible to those Jews perpetually moving from place to place, and therefore unable to take the time to study it.) With the financial support of his half-brother, David, a dealer in precious stones, he was able to spend the next period writing and serving as a leader of Egyptian Jewry.

David’s untimely death at sea while on a business trip removed that source of support. It also delivered a devastating personal blow. Maimonides’ outspoken opposition to the practice of the day–allowing rabbis and scholars to live off community support–led him to pursue the practice of medicine. Eventually, he became one of the physicians of al-Fadil, the vizier of Saladin, who had become the virtual ruler of Egypt.

It was during his years as a physician that Maimonides completed his two most significant works, the Mishneh Torah, an unprecedented codification of Jewish law, and the Guide for the Perplexed, a treatise that made use of scientific and philosophical concepts to explain complicated passages from Biblical and rabbinic literature.

Although these works were vastly different from one another in terms of Maimonides’ objectives and the audience he sought to address, he developed both from the premise that religion can, and should be, informed by rational philosophy. It was his view, in the words of Rabbi David Hartman, that “love and reverential fear of G-d–the two ultimate goals of Judaism–may be realized through knowledge of the natural and divine sciences.” As Maimonides himself expressed it, far from being at odds with faith and belief, “it is through wisdom, in an unrestricted sense, that the rational matter that we receive from the law through tradition is demonstrated.”

These works would not only help establish his reputation but would also make Maimonides a figure of controversy, both during his life and for centuries after his death. While the conflict between tradition and reason did not begin with Maimonides, his writings, which included frequent denunciations of the religious authorities of the day, brought it to the fore. For example, the very notion that one could presume to “codify” the vast oral law of the Talmud was seen as a threat to religious authority by making study of the sacred rabbinic texts superfluous, despite Maimonides’ contention that his intention was, in fact, to stimulate further study.

Maimonides, who wrote with bold self-confidence, was not one to shrink from controversy, and many of the debates he provoked stemmed from allegoric explanations of Talmudic texts and Biblical tales, his conception of the proper understanding of anthropomorphism, attempts to rationalize miracles, and his understanding of central theological concepts such as afterlife and bodily resurrection. In each case, his rational approach would be at odds with more traditional explanations, and would foreshadow later controversies and tensions, particularly in medieval European Jewish communities.

In the Guide, addressed to a single talented student, Maimonides displayed an elitism bordering on arrogance, writing that he “could find no other device by which to teach a demonstrated truth other than by giving satisfaction to a single virtuous man while displeasing ten thousand ignoramuses.” But Maimonides was not indifferent to the masses, and his letters to various Jewish communities, which helped establish his international reputation, displayed a profound empathy for those facing religious oppression.

In his “Epistle on Conversion,” addressed to the community in Morocco, Maimonides delivered a scathing indictment of a distinguished Talmudist (this “ranter of nonsense”) who had ruled that any Jew making a profession of Islam under the most extreme duress would be regarded as committing additional sins with each commandment of Judaism performed. Maimonides was enraged not so much by the requirement of martyrdom, which could have been legitimately argued under Jewish law, but rather the notion that anything short of it would nullify prayers and Jewish practices. Clearly, what was driving Maimonides was not simply a consideration of the law, but more practically, a calculation of what would preserve the community.

The complexity of Maimonides’ life and work poses unusual challenges for the biographer, particularly someone like Nuland, whose background is not in philosophy and who is charged with making that life and work comprehensible to a general audience. (Somewhat disarmingly, he acknowledges this dilemma in his introduction.) One strategy he employs is to play to his strengths by focusing on Maimonides’ medical career, including the 10 volumes that (paralleling his codification of the oral law) “were particularly useful to a physician who was seeking a clearly organized, accessible text written in so practical a way that it could be followed like a manual of patient care.”

Nuland concludes that, in the end, what mattered most about Maimonides’ life was his role as a leader of his community, and his devotion to its preservation and continuity. While Judaism needed to remain distinctive if it was to take its place among the other religious systems of the day, “an attempt must be made to demonstrate its compatibility with the methods and logic of the Aristotelians.”

But while Maimonides’ importance as a historical figure should be appreciated, it is, in the end, his pathbreaking work that must continue to be studied. Those who are troubled by the modern divide between faith and reason, between belief and the scientific method, can find meaningful insights in the work of a man who lived eight centuries ago.

David E. Lowe is vice president for government and external relations at the National Endowment for Democracy.