Maimonides: Life and Thought

by Moshe Halbertal

Maimonides was the greatest Jewish philosopher and legal scholar of the medieval period, a towering figure who has had a profound and lasting influence on Jewish law, philosophy, and religious consciousness. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to his life and work, revealing how his philosophical sensibility and outlook informed his interpretation of Jewish tradition.

Moshe Halbertal vividly describes Maimonides's childhood in Muslim Spain, his family's flight to North Africa to escape persecution, and their eventual resettling in Egypt. He draws on Maimonides's letters and the testimonies of his contemporaries, both Muslims and Jews, to offer new insights into his personality and the circumstances that shaped his thinking. Halbertal then turns to Maimonides's legal and philosophical work, analyzing his three great books - "Commentary on the Mishnah", "Mishneh Torah", and "The Guide of the Perplexed". He discusses Maimonides's battle against all attempts to personify God, his conviction that God's presence in the world is mediated through the natural order rather than through miracles, and his locating of philosophy and science at the summit of the religious life of Torah. Halbertal examines Maimonides's philosophical positions on fundamental questions such as the nature and limits of religious language, creation and nature, prophecy, providence, the problem of evil, and the meaning of the commandments.

A stunning achievement, "Maimonides" offers an unparalleled look at the life and thought of this important Jewish philosopher, scholar, and theologian.

Genres: Philosophy, Biography, Judaism, Religion, Jewish, Nonfiction, History

400 pages, Hardcover

First published November 21, 2013

About the author

Moshe Halbertal (Hebrew: משה הלברטל; born Montevideo, Uruguay, 1958) is an Israeli philosopher, professor, and writer, a noted expert on Maimonides, and co-author of the Israeli Army Code of Ethics. He currently holds positions as Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Gruss Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. In 2021 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society

Reviews

[Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moshe Halbertal's "Maimonides: Life and Thought" is a masterful scholarly study of the Rambam (Maimonides.) I have a passing familiarity with his Mishneh Torah and vague recollections of The Guide for the Perplexed. This book integrates his two great works and some lesser writings into a biographical and cultural context which makes for a complete vision of the man, his time and place, and his ideas.

What is Maimonides good for? Well, if you are trying to sort out the halachic implications of a difficult kashe in gemara, of course you may make reference to the Mishneh Torah. Mishneh Torah was the Rambam's attempt to replace the arguments, and the argumentative method itself, of the Talmud with a brilliantly clear set of rulings for daily life and for approaching God. The effort failed on those terms because it was not accepted by most Jewish communities as a guide to practice. It did however result in the clearest work of halacha that you are ever likely to read, one which is used to this day to understand the Talmud. As an amateur scholar, I refer to it sometimes just to enjoy the Hebrew text.

Or, maybe your problem is reconciling your deep faith in Aristotelian science with your belief in the God of Torah who willfully acts in the world. You know that Aristotle and other philosophers are right, but how can you continue to live as a Jew if this is true? The Guide for the Perplexed is there for you.

But, on the off chance that these are not your most pressing problems, what can we moderns DO with Maimonides?

What I do with him, and with greater knowledge and understanding than I had before I read Halbertal's book, is appreciate that even though the science of Aristotle is no longer recognized as science, the Rambam's effort to reconcile his religious beliefs with a scientific method that was outside of Torah creates a lasting model for Jewish modernity.

Maimonides created a pre-modern but getting-ready-for-modernity vision in Guide for the Perplexed, way back in the 12th century CE. He was able to fit Torah into a larger philosophical architecture, where all previous Jewish thinkers fit philosophy within an architecture of revelation. The Rambam believed that the natural world was the fingerprint of God, understood properly, that is, philosophically, and was therefore just as worthy of study as a path to God as the written and oral Torahs themselves. He believed that there was, and can be, no contradiction between these two seemingly disparate perspectives and labored nobly to demonstrate that this was true.

Understanding the details of this is a complex process which Halbertal walks us through with clarity and precision.

Would that belief still stand up if he were forced to mediate between Torah and science as we moderns understand it? It would be a very different effort. The mind of Maimonides could not yet imagine Newton or Einstein, but I do not think they would have been inimical to his spirit, even if the process of integration would have taken a different color.

There is much more that one can say, but I'll conclude by noting something that Halbertal does not dwell on, but which strikes me once again - Rambam is truly the most Islamic of Jewish thinkers. As I read of Rambam's strong insistence on the supremacy of Moshe's prophecy over all other Jewish prophecy, and on the uniquely elevated status of the Five Books of Moses, the Torah, relative to all other books of Tanaq, and see again how he emphasizes the status of Moshe and Torah to a far greater degree than most other traditional sources, it seems very obvious to me that the Rambam is re-creating or mirroring, to some degree, Islam's prophet and text. For the Rambam, Moshe is Muḥammad (the one true prophet) and Torah is the Quran (the one true text.) I assume that this is a cultural influence, an artifact of a life as a refugee surrounded by Muslim philosophers in a Muslim land. Like his abhorrence of representational language for God as a form of idolatry, so much about Rambam has the flavor of Islam. I find that very interesting.

With Islam, with the Rambam, and, indeed, with that arch opponent of the Rambam and all philosophers, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the avoidance of "idolatry", properly understood, strikes me as about the most central religious issue. It is not only that, but also the meeting place of science and religion, as they converge through negative theology and the process of hypothesis negation, on a shared epistemology. There is a great deal more to say about that too, but I shall heed my own advice and stop before I construct a false image of reality.

[Ari Landa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moshe Halbertall knows and understands Maimonides. There's no question about it. The book fluently expresses Maimonides' philosophical and religious outlook by showing similar idea streams throughout Maimonides three major works (Commentary on Mishnah, Mishnah Torah and The Guide). Halbertall also brilliantly places the works in its historical context, in light of the philisophical and religious thought trends of the day and the historical development of Judaism. He also shows why his philosophy is relevent today.

That said, I do have a few critiques of the book. First, Halbertall gushes too strongly over Maimonides. There are too many luscious and wonderful accolade giving adjectives directed towards Maimonides' thoughts, goals and passages dispersed throughout the book.

Second, I felt that Maimonides philosophy was internally inconsistent in many places and too little attention was given to those inconsistencies. Admittedly, the author did note the presence of conflicting views in the Guide, and it could be argued that the author left off discussing the inconsistencies to the chapters devoted to the Guide. Nonethelss, still, the logical conclusions of those conflicting views weren't "fleshed out" enough. For example, under the "Philosophical view" of The Guide, prophecy is just a higher form of human thought but not a conversation with God. If so, then the Halakha of Mishneh Torah has no relation to revelation at all but is a product of human thought. If so, why would Halakha be binding on followers of Judaism? The author tries to deal with it in other chapters by saying either that the halakha was "accepted" by all of judaism, or that Halakha somehow brings the essence of God to people. But why? and How? Halakha forms the bulk of Jewish orthodoxy life (Maimodides' life) and the ultimate question of "why Halakha?" isn't asked or answered. If Maimonides entertained the possibility that Halakha is born from a philosophical need, then the the rationale why philosophy justifies Halakha should have been more thoroughly discussed. Another example is Maimonides' pitiful explanation of why "evil" exists in a world created by a noble and good God. (Thankfully, Maimonides does deal with the problem of "evil" rather than just ignore it.) And, although the author quickly assert that the passages dealing with the "evil problem" is weak, he then later paradoxically praises Maimonides for brilliantly providing a rationale for the problem of evil--which of course he hadn't.

Third, it is clear from the book that Maimonides tried to reconcile philosophy with faith. He was first and foremost a philosopher, and only second to that a Jewish scholar. He felt Judaism must be defined by philosophical truths. As such Maimonides draws philosophical arguments to show that philosophy does not disprove faith. This is all fine and well , but then the question to be asked is: if philosophy neither proves or disproves faith, and if people should live their life based on philisophical truths, then why must one have faith? Now, understandably, in Maimonidean times the question of why have faith carried less importance than today. Faith was more or less taken for granted. Nonetheless, I thought the author should have spent some time dissecting this issue for modern readers of Maimonides. Would Maimonides still require faith in todays' times? This is the essential question raised by Maimonides works for modern readers and the question isn't asked. In a similar vein, the author could have considered whether Maimonides, as a clear Aristotelian, would maintain the rationally charged Aristotelian viewpoint or would revert to a more platonic (Muslim Sufi styled) perspective in light of the currently apparent falsity of Aristotelian science?

Fourth, I criticize the author for not suggesting that Maimonides had a selfish motive in writing his works. As a famous child prodigy in Andulasia, the young Maimonides was adored. After the Almohad conqest, the Maimon family was forced to flee to a place where the young Maimonides had no fame. Now, it is clear from the book that Maimonides tried to re-fashion judaism in conformance with his philosophical views (and his perceived needs of the community at the time). However, the author doesn't quite suggest that Maimonides bold move was driven by his desire for prominence and power. The author does suggest that Maimonides was motivated by a desire for prominence in his quest for a physician position in the King's Court, and in his long and bitter fued with Egyptian Jewish leadership and with Gaonic Halkhic leadership. So we do have an inkling that Maimonides did in fact covet prominence. However, the relationship between his desire for prominence and his motivation for writing his three major works--which broadly altered the historical course of Judaism, wasn't discussed.

It seemed to me that Maimonides is Halbertall's personal idol. Halbertall being an academic and a religious jew appreciated Maimonides' similar perspective. However, he doesn't adequately question why the two should go together.

As far as Maimonides himself, it's without question that he was a great man and an honest thinker--if not too singularly devoted to rationalistic thought. In his praise, he didn't shy away from intellectual problems and he faced problems between traditional faith and his personal views with religous courage. Many religious folk would have shied away from expressing the more radical positions out of fear of heavenly reproach. Indeed, Maimonides did address this conundrum in his letters. He ultimately justified it by arguing that it would be a shame if his knowledge died with him and by arguing that other scholars in Jewish history had radically altered Judaism out of pressing need. His general religous agnosticism (meaning his view that religious truths could not be proven either way) refelcts his honest thinking. Ultimately, I don't think Maimonides himself was troubled by the question of why faith? because he directly experienced the benefits of the Jewish faith. Nonetheless, the question remains open.

[jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moshe Halbertal marshals an extraordinary command of the library that is Maimonides's literary output (not to mention the still larger library of Jewish texts needed to understand these works) into a fine, readable examination of RAMBAM's complex philosophy. As such, this book is an irreplaceable work of scholarship. Certainly dense -- it could not be otherwise -- Halbertal makes Maimonidies accessible to non-experts and non-philosophers. Yes, the work is a bit too hagiographic, but for the interested still required reading.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

(In reference to Maimonides) “It is no exaggeration to say, the entire history of Jewish intellectual life in the later Middle Ages pivots.” (Spencer, Nick. Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion (p. 73, eBook)

It may be odd to start a review by talking about my own history reading about Maimonides, but I feel presenting my credentials may be warranted...just this time. Early on in my Jewish studies after reading the entirety of the Tanakh (Old Testament) I did the next logical thing by picking up the A Maimonides Reader by Isadore Twersky and then (attempted, poorly) to read “Guide for the Perplexed” which went smoothly in one ear and out the other. But that did not conclude my Rambam studies. Far from it! As noted by Nick Spencer, given how important he is in the history of not just Judaism but philosophy in general, it remains a challenge NOT to encounter him in any books that touch upon these issues. Case in point before I commence reviewing a book that even among the mountain of books about the Rambam stands on its own, I will note it was only a month ago I read Idolatry, also by Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit. In my review for it, I noted it’s uncanny how a seemingly dense academic book focusing first and foremost in idolatry...somehow manages to simplify Guide [for the Perplexed]. That the same author several decades later dedicated an entire book to his life and thought made it a no-brainer to pick up.

The question thus for me and anyone who has a decent amount of familiarity with Maimonides remains paramount and remained my lodestar while reading Maimonides: Life and Thought: “will I learn anything new?”

One of the biggest eye-openers happens early on:

“That treatise (“Mishneh Torah”) was meant to provide a clear, comprehensive, unambiguous, concise, and approachable picture of the entire halakhic system at the very moment this tradition stood on the brink of collapse.” (page 10, eBook)

From other readings, the general gist I have gotten regarding criticism about Mishneh Torah is that while it’s a monumental work, it has questionable value given its lack of citations. This may be true...now. After all, other works have done what it does some say even better. However, at the time Maimonides was alive, Judaism from what he saw was in dire straits. He may have truly believed that if he with his intellect (yes, he definitely was aware he was in a class by himself regardless of our religion’s view on being humble) did not then and there and as fast as possible pen a “Talmud for Dummies” and disseminate to the masses, meaningful Judaism could very conclude with his generation.

As noted in an ellipsis above, Maimonides may have been “...one of the humblest scholars of Spain whose prestige is low in exile.” (page 23 quoting page 95 of “Epistle to Yemen”), but his mark on Yiddishkeit, as we see again and again through this book is truly on another level. One can even say there’s nobody like Moses. Then again, in spite of saying the above, Maimonides also is on record saying: 'To sum it up, I have been in the land of Egypt about thirty years, and all or most of the judges of Alexandria come before me.’” (Iggerot, p. 463). (page 40) Be it the giver of rulings, the decider of halakha, and his unusual (to put it lightly) relationship with love, eros, and God (see Laws Concerning Repentance, 10:3 in Mishneh Torah), he was a man whom one can’t exactly classify. In other words, extremely smart yes, extremely devout yes, but also extremely human as are we all.

Better later than never, but it should be noted that while our book’s subtitle is Life and Thought, this is very light on “Life” and heavy on “Thought”. In other words, what we have is an intellectual biography of the highest order; there are other books on the Rambam and I’m going to assume that at least one is written as a more traditional biography with heavier focus on the man himself, his upbringing, and his work and life situation with less focus on his specific output. This book, however, is not that and anyone who wants a standard biography on Maimonides may want to skip reading it at least until they have the nuts and bolts of his comings and goings etched into their minds.

As noted in the quote that began this review, I conclude with another and sorry, I can’t find out who it originally noted it, but: from Moses to Moses, there was nobody like Moses. But can the same be said for our book by Moshe Halbertal? Interestingly, the 2010’s saw the publication of both this book (in English) in 2014 but four years previously a seemingly even more robust (double the page count) book on Maimonides by David Kraemer was first released. One of these days I will pick up Kraemer’s book for a comparison review. For now though, while Halbertal’s book was light on biography (something I assume the other covers in more detail)—making up only one chapter—for fans of his other works such as Idolatry, you’ll be right at home here as this is a complex yet somehow not too difficult look at the greatest works by one of Judaism’s greatest minds.

4/5

[William Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough introduction to Maimonides' works. Excellently written and organized. This book led me to a greater appreciation of the most influential medieval Jewish philosopher and halakhist. My only complaint is that the book has many small grammatical mistakes/typos in the English translation.

[Ilan Preskovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title suggests, Moshe Halbertal's astonishing book is split between telling the story of Maimonides, based heavily on Maimonides' own published letters and the treasure trove of documents found in the Cairo Genizah, and exploring his three major works - his commentary on the Mishna, Mishne Torah and the Guide for the Perplexed - from a philosophical point of view.

The biographical portion of the book lasts about ninety pages and it paints a sympathetic but far from hagiographic picture of an extraordinary but quite complicated genius who is, arguably, without peer in the history of Jewish thought. Most importantly, though, it places his various works in context; understanding both Maimonides' own circumstances and the state of the Jewish world in the time and places in which Maimonides lived (specifically Spain and Egypt in the 12th century) is crucial to understanding his often jaw-droppingly controversial views on everything from Jewish Law (Halacha) to religious dogma to nothing less than God Himself.

Which, of course, brings us to the works themselves. Instead of simply summarizing these works and treating them as their own separate creations, Halbertal - a professor of law and philosophy - draws a line from the commentary on the Mishna to the Mishne Torah to the Guide for the Perplexed to create a biography; not of Maimonides' life but of his philosophy and the way said philosophy affected everything he ever wrote.

This is especially crucial in the face of the way Maimonides is treated in the modern, traditionally religious Orthodox world. While his Mishne Torah - a work that attempts to summarize and organize the gigantic corpus of Jewish law found in the Talmud - is wholly accepted and learned by untold numbers of religious Jews throughout the world and his commentary on the Mishna has found its way into various modern editions of the Mishna, his purely philosophical, a Guide for the Perplexed is all but entirely ignored by the same people. This isn't exactly too surprising considering how wholly embraced Maimonides has become within mainstream Judaism; something that would be all but impossible if his radical philosophical thoughts were given the same platform as his halachic works in Orthodox schools and yeshivot (Jewish seminaries).

Halbertal, himself a Modern-Orthodox Jewish Israeli, challenges such conventions by giving equal weight to all of Maimonides' works and, crucially, to the wider context in which he lived. Far from coming across as the cuddly establishment figure of modern Orthodoxy, Maimonides is presented in this book as he truly was: a genuine religious revolutionary who upended established beliefs and traditions; effectively rewriting Judaism along the way. This is a man whose books were burned en masse for a century or two after he died and was called a heretic in his time and after. And it wasn't just his philosophical masterwork, the Guide for the Perplexed, that was the cause of such extreme actions.

Even something as seemingly innocuous as his commentary on the Mishna was itself a radical act. Not just because he was one of the very few to go back to this formative text and extract it from the rest of the Talmud, offering his own commentaries on each individual Mishna but because of a little something that he wrote in his introduction to tractate Sanhedrin. It is here that he laid out his (in)famous Thirteen Principals of Faith: thirteen dogmatic beliefs that Maimonides viewed as such foundational beliefs to the Jewish religion that failure to wholly accept so much as one of them would cause a Jew to "be cut off from his people and lose his or her place in the world to come."

These principals met great resistance in their time and for no less than two centuries afterward but have since been embraced by mainstream Judaism and have become, to this day, a frankly cheap way to shut up anyone who dares question Jewish orthodoxy. This is, of course, laughably ironic when taken in the context of Maimonides' overall work. Aside from a number of Maimonides' great contemporaries being highly critical of the very idea of Jewish dogma, let alone these specific thirteen principals, it is highly questionable just to what extent he himself truly believed them - or at least believed them to be as straightforward as he presents them to be.

One of the core concepts that Halbertal keeps coming back to throughout the book is Maimonides' conception of "true beliefs" vs "necessary beliefs": the idea that while some beliefs that he himself espouses are to be taken as the incontrovertible truth (the Unity of God, as the perfect case in point), Maimonides views many beliefs to be not so much true as necessary for the sake of the maintaining societal norms and keeping the Jewish tradition on track. The idea that God gets "angry" and punishes those who transgress his commandments, for example, is not what one would call a "true belief" as at the core of Maimonides' conception of God is the idea that one can ascribe no positive descriptors to God, let alone something like human emotion, but it's a necessary belief that keeps your "average Jew" from abandoning a Torah lifestyle. This distinction is crucial but clearly not always all that easy to spot.

And this, then, brings us to the elitism that Halbertal presents as underlying all of Maimonides' work. As Halbertal proceeds through Maimonides' three major masterpieces, he notes the target audience of each work and, based on Maimonides' own words, the impetus behind each of them. His Thirteen Principals, for example, are a specific reaction to the needs of the less educated Jewish masses of the time to have something to counter the rigidly dogmatic beliefs of Christianity and Islam, while the Mishne Torah, despite being a work of almost unimaginable genius (that, oh yes, was created in teh couple of hours a day that Maimonides had free from his work as one of Egypt's most respected physicians), was created as a panacea for the majority of Jews who didn't have the time, inclination or ability to derive halacha from the Talmud itself.

Contrast this to the Guide for the Perplexed, which Maimonides meant only for the most elite of the Jews of his day; those who were masters of Torah but were also highly educated in philosophy and who might find themselves caught between the two. To ensure this, he wrote the Guide in a way that would throw off a casual reader by seeming, on the surface, to be utterly contradictory, even confused. Halbertal also concludes that though his earlier work was certainly informed by Maimonides' theology, it is, ironically enough, in the esoteric, veiled and deliberately perplexing Guide for the Perplexed where one can truly see Maimonides' unique theology.

It is in this section, despite it being the shortest, that Halbertal truly exceeds as he presents four distinct readings of the Guide: the "conservative", "skeptical", "mystical" and "radical" readings, as he calls them. To even begin to summarize each of these perspectives, let alone the conclusions that are reached through them, in this short review would be an effort in futility. Halbertal's book is brimming with powerful ideas but each page of this section is filled with more revolutionary, iconoclastic, deeply profound and even more deeply unsettling ideas than the rest of the book put together.

It's hard not to wish, in fact, that Halbertal had devoted a whole other book to examing Maimonides' most controversial work but what we do have here is a remarkably lucid and clear explanation of some of the core ideas of the Guide for the Perplexed from these different perspectives. What is revealed in this section, though, often comes across as being the polar opposite of modern, mainstream Orthodox theology. I don't agree with how the Guide has been all but banned by modern Orthodoxy but I do understand it.

The different readings reveal different levels of radicalism but none are more shocking than the reading of the Guide that posits that God interferes almost not at all in the affairs of humanity; that God created the universe to provide everything that is needed and He only intervenes in the lives of the most elevated human beings. Along the way, he also recontextualizes the commandments as nothing but a means to the end of reaching the highest intellectual levels that are reached, primarily, through using science and philosophy to understand God's creation; completely redefines prophecy; utterly rejects sacrifices and, to a lesser degree, prayer as the Ultimate means of serving God; offers deeply chilling solutions to the Problem of Evil and all but entirely writes off miracles. All this from the man who brought dogma to the Jewish religion...

To deal with such lofty, highly controversial ideas, Moshe Halbertal has crafted a book that is careful to quote liberally from Maimonides himself and is written in such a way that the ideas put forth are presented as clearly and as comprehensively as possible. Maimonides: Life and Thought is a difficult, challenging but deeply rewarding masterpiece of scholarly writing that belongs in the library of anyone with an interest in Jewish theology and philosophy - and maybe even in some of those who don't.

[MM · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal and accessible introduction to Maimonides' thought. It explains his rabbinical and philosophical works very lucidly and clearly without sacrificing on too much analytical rigour. Halbertal's main thesis is that there can be at least four readings of Maimonides for the perplexed Jewish person [or human]:

1) skeptical reading-- his apophatic theology entails that God's transcendence and unity requires silence, and that a person returns to action in the world

2) mystical reading-- philosophy is critical of speaking of God, but the philosophical Jew thereby becomes open to direct illumination and interaction with God

3) conservative reading-- Maimonides demonstrates that (Aristotelian) eternal preexistence is not necessarily true; the perplexed person can retain more or less traditional belief in Judaism/the Torah. Divine will creates the natural order with wisdom

4) philosophical reading-- Maimonides reinterprets Judaism's fundamental concepts through wisdom (causal structure of universe) and an eternal preexisting world; the Torah's hidden meanings connect the perplexed person to Greco-Arab philosophy

Halbertal suggests that these readings cannot be refuted, and it is as if:

"Maimonides tacitly addresses the perplexed person as follows: You can maintain your loyalty to Judaism whether you affirm eternal existence or creation in time, and your philosophical inquiry may lead you to mystical experience or back to the world. Your perplexity is not a paralyzing fracture that can be resolved only in an intellectual and spiritual suicide through amputation of an important part of your spirit. Your perplexity, arising from the encounter between Torah and wisdom, opens before you various possibilities for religious existence and meaning." (pp445)

Maimonides' rabbinical writings, meanwhile, link to his philosophy by conceiving as the halakhah as a means to an end: namely, the end of knowing God as He is (unified, incorporeal, etc).

--

Some other quotes I liked:

"Knowledge of the world and God is aimed at relieving us of the burden of fear and freeing us from the grip of the imagination. The stance of knowledge entails the capacity to see the world as it is, independent of its instrumental role. It is therefore the key to love which is defined as a non-instrumental relationship. In grasping the vast beauty and power of the world we learn to perceive it for what it is—a grand manifestation of God’s wisdom in which we humans are one marginal aspect of its design. In internalizing this non instrumental attitude we reconcile ourselves with the world, a world that is suited to our potential as creatures capable of knowledge and capable of transcending the initial grip of fear and the imagination. By integrating this view of the human condition and the nature of genuine human flourishing into the understanding of Judaism, Maimonides constituted science and wisdom as an integral part of the Jewish tradition, which looks toward them and commands that they be studied. The goal of Judaism in communal, and individual life depends on the philosophical ethos being internalized into the tradition’s heart of hearts." (pp448-9)

"The integration of philosophical elements into a halakhic code reflects an attempt to elevate the philosophical religious sensitivity from a personal suggestion, an interpretation of the tradition meant only for the perplexed individual, to a binding halakhah, meant to shape the beliefs and self-perceptions of Jews for all time." (pp450)

"Maimonides, too, believed that observing halakhah would promote prosperity, a well-ordered society, bounty, and health, but he did not think it would be a direct cause of those happy results. Rather, it would promote them because observing halakhah is, in effect, its own reward. But his effort to present Judaism as a religion whose primary goal is to elevate man to the level of existence that lies beyond the basic fears and drives of life ran directly into the contrary tendency, which used religion itself as a means to allay those fears and satisfy those drives." (pp457-8)

"The perplexed who appear after the Guide, in other historical circumstances and different sorts of crises, have learned from Maimonides that whatever the resolution of their existential perplexity, they should never allow it to foreclose human thought and inner integrity. That sort of self-destruction is a price that is never demanded of the believer; indeed, it would diminish his world
and impair what is human about it. In eliminating the distinction between exterior and interior, between what flows from the tradition within and what is external to it, Maimonides transformed
the other voice, the external one, into a powerful opportunity for renewal and for deeper religiosity." (pp457)

[Hassan Zayour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Following the life of one of the greatest Jewish reformists to ever live, Moses Maimonides is considered to be an innovator and traditionalist at the same time. He saw that it was easy to get lost and misguided, and using his logic and reason alone with the help of philosophy, he was capable of reforming the Jewish world into something we never knew before. He was a rationalist, rationalizing everything in his religion and in the Torah, and this book beautifully shows how he managed to do that. The first part of the book talks about Moses the man, how he lived and what happened throughout his tragic life, showing how his genius prevailed in the world and placed him on the shelf of great Jewish figures to ever live. The rest of the book talks about his philosophy and thought, his negative theology, the Mishnah Torah, The Guide For The Perplexed and much more.

[jt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent elucidation of the "life and thought" of the Rambam. After reading, I've grown more convinced of Maimonides' importance, particularly for Medieval Jewry. This text focuses more on Jewish law and theology than the Rambam's place in the history of philosophy.
The book unfortunately contains some sloppy errors. Also – it isn't exactly perfectly accessible to those ignorant of the mechanics of הֲלָכָה‬ (Jewish law derived from the "Oral Torah") and Aristotelian metaphysics/epistemology.

[Bruce Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn’t what I was looking for. Some of the content concerning The Guide for the Perplexed was interesting. I wanted more about different ways to envision God....out of the box thinking. I feel we’re all atheists to certain definitions and believers to others.

[Samuel Fainsod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly researched and documented in the life and social contexts of maimonides although the author takes for granted many interrogatives to his ideas that are quite questionable.

[Juliahoney Kamenker · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was more about his thought than his life would have preferred it the other way around

[Sylvia McIvers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Child Prodigy, Controversial Books, Sultan's Physician.
Maimonides proscribed getting enough sleep for health. Then he wrote that he never had enough sleep. Physician, heal thyself!

The first chapter gives a thorough summary of the era: Fundamentalist Muslims were overwhelming the Muslims living in Northern Africa and Andalusia, destroying the beautiful buildings and killing anyone not fundamental enough. Oh dear, that sounds awfully familiar. So, the Maimon family flees Andalusia, Spain, and wanders around war torn Northern Africa, finally settling in Egypt.

Moses Maimonides (which means Maimon-son) writes several books, which cause an uproar and upheaval in his contemporary Jewish society. Is he awesome or awful? Either way, his contemporaries agree that "From Moses (the lawgiver at Sinai) until Moses (Maimonides), there was no one as Moses." He stopped writing books during middle age, because his duties as a doctor took from dawn to midnight.

The rest of the book explores why he wrote these books, and his probable mindset - based on the introduction to his books and the letters he wrote to friends or colleagues, and the wide difference of his explanations depending on who he was talking to.

Extremely interesting, if rather dry once one gets past the first chapter.

[John Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. A clear and very logically laid out guide to the big ideas in Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed, Mishneh Torah, Book of Commandments and the Commentary on the Mishnah. The biographical stuff is also good and provides an insight into the formation of the subject's worldview. This really is a book of ideas, though. It also does well in explaining what position Maimonides intended his halakhic works to have in Jewish life, and his reconciliation of Aristotelian philosophy with Judaism.

[Andrew Pessin · Rating 5 out of 5]

strangely a bit sloppy in the writing -- but overall an awesome book, deep and thoughtful and extremely helpful to organizing one's thinking about maimonides ... would have liked a little more on the guide and a little less on mishneh torah, perhaps -- or better, keep the mishneh torah material (which was really helpful to a novice on the subject) and add more on the guide -- rarely do i wish a philosophical book were longer, but that's the case here ....!

[Jean Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won't pretend to have understood all of it but this was a fascinating work focused on Mishnah Torah. The author has the ability to walk you through his thought process step by step in understandable language.

[Eliezer Sneiderman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better books on Maimonides. Halbertal looks at the entirety of Rambam's works, not just the guide. He also avoids much of the presentism associated with such analysis.

[Mindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful, readable, provocative summary of Maimonides's life and work.

[Mills College Library]

189 M223Xm 2014

[James Barnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice read

A slower read, but very deep dive into the mind and life of one of our greatest thinkers. I recommend it.

[Eli Mandel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough.