Influence

The influence of Maimonides on the future development of Judaism is incalculable. No spiritual leader of the Jewish people in the post-Talmudic period has exercised such an influence both in his own and subsequent generations. Despite the vehement opposition which greeted his philosophical views the breach was healed. It is significant that when Solomon Luria strongly criticized Moses Isserles for his devotion to Greek philosophy, Isserles answered that his sole source was Maimonides' Guide, thus giving it the cachet of acceptability (Responsa, Isserles 7). It was probably due to his unrivaled eminence as Talmudist and codifier that many of his views were finally accepted. They were very radical at the time. To give but one example, the now universally accepted doctrine of the incorporeality of God was by no means accepted as fundamental before him and was probably an advanced view held by a small group of thinkers and philosophers. Even Abraham ben David of PosquiIres protested the statement of Maimonides that anyone who maintains the corporeality of God is a sectarian: " Why does he call him a sectarian? Many greater and better than he accepted this idea [of the corporeality of God] basing themselves on Scripture" (Hilchot Teshuvah 3: 7).

Maimonides is regarded as the supreme rationalist, and the title given by Ahad Ha-Am to his essay on him, " Shilton ha-Sechhel" (" The Rule of Reason", in: Ha-Shilo'ach, 15 (1905), 291–319) included in his collected works, Al Parashat Derachim (1921), has become almost standard in referring to him, and so long as one confines oneself to his three great works, the commentary on the Mishna, the Mishneh Torah, and the Guide, a case can be made out for this view.

In the Mishneh Torah Maimonides rigidly confines himself to a codification of Jewish law, refraining almost entirely from allowing his personal views to obtrude. Where he does advance his own view to which he can find no Talmudic authority, he is careful, as he explicitly states in a letter to Jonathan of Lunel, to introduce it with the words " it appears to me" (cf. Yad, Sanhedrin 4: 11). From his knowledge of medicine he was aware that certain disabilities in animals which in the time of the Talmud were regarded as fatal were susceptible to cure, while some which were not so regarded were in fact fatal, yet he lays it down that the Talmudic view must be applied (Shehitah 10: 12 and 13).

Among the few exceptions the most striking is his outburst against belief in witchcraft and enchantment. After faithfully giving in their minutest details the Talmudic description of, and laws concerning, these practices, he adds: " All these and similar matters are lies and falsehood... it is not fitting for Jews, who are intelligent and wise, to be attracted by them or believe that they are effective... whosoever believes in them, and that they are true, only that the Bible has forbidden them, belongs to the category of fools and ignoramuses and is in the class of immature women and children" (Avodat Kochhavim 11: 16). In his work on the calendar included in the Mishneh Torah (Hilchot Kiddush ha-Chodesh) he maintains vigorously that one should have recourse to works written by non-Jewish astronomers (11: 1–6). At the end of Hilchhot Temurah, he defends the search after reasons for the Biblical commandments (4: 13).

In the Guide he allows himself more freedom, but the main difference between the two works lies in their different purpose and aim. The Mishneh Torah was written for the believing Jew untroubled by the apparent contradictions between revealed law and current philosophy, and its aim was to tell him how he should conduct himself in his desire to live according to the law. The Guide, as its name conveys, was designed for those whose faith had been weakened by these doctrines and its aim was to tell him why he should adhere to traditional Judaism. This helps to explain the contradictions between the two.

In both works one sees only the unemotional man of intellect. It is in his letters that Maimonides emerges as the warm human being, his heart open to the suffering of his people, and expressing and responding to both affection and hostility. It comes almost as a shock to read in his letter to Japheth ben Ali, when he informs him of the death of his brother David, that he remonstrates with him for not sending a letter of condolence to him on the death of his father which took place 11 years earlier though he had received innumerable such messages from all over the Jewish world, repeating the complaint twice. The letter was written eight years after his brother's death, yet he writes, " I still mourn, and there is no comfort... Whenever I come across his handwriting or one of his books, my heart goes faint within me, and my grief reawakens" and in that letter he continues that he will never forget those days which he passed in Eretz Israel with his correspondent (Kobler 192–3).

The personal human element is equally to the fore in the above-quoted letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon, while his letter-responsum to Obadiah the Proselyte reveals Maimonides' spirit to the full. It was surely only to his intimate disciple that he could open his heart and declare, " when I see no other way of teaching a well-established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools, I choose to address myself to the one man and take no notice whatsoever of the condemnation of the multitude" (Introduction to the Guide). On the other hand Maimonides is almost virulent in his opposition to songs and music: " song and music are all forbidden, even if unaccompanied by words... there is no difference between listening to songs, or string music, or melodies without words, everything which conduces to the rejoicing of the soul and emotion is forbidden." It is immaterial whether they are in Arabic or in Hebrew. " A person who listens to foolish songs with musical accompaniment is guilty of three transgressions, listening to folly, listening to song, and listening to instrumental music. If the songs are sung with accompaniment of drinking, there is a fourth transgression, if the singer is a woman there is a fifth." The references in the Geonic sources to singing are only to liturgical hymns. Despite this last permission he was opposed to the insertion of Piyyutim in the prayers. If the ignorant insist on them and their ways prevail, they should be said before the Shema, the beginning of the essential service.

No praise can be too high for the outer form of his works, both in language and logical method. The Mishneh Torah was the only work that he wrote in Hebrew, and the language is superb, clear, and succinct. He regretted that he did not prepare Hebrew versions of his other works. In answer to Joseph ben Gabir's request written in 1191 that he translate the work into Arabic, not only does he state that it would thereby lose its specific character, but that he would have liked to translate his works written in Arabic into Hebrew, and when the Rabbis of Lunel asked him to translate the Guide into Hebrew, he stated that he wished he were young enough to do so (ibid., 216).

The Mishneh Torah is a model of logical sequence and studied method, each chapter and each paragraph coming in natural sequence to its preceding one. More impressive is the fact that in his earliest work one can so clearly discern the seeds of the later, so that it can confidently be stated that his whole subsequent system and ideas were already formulated in his mind when he wrote it. The Shemonah Perakim which form the introduction to his commentary on Avot is almost a draft of the first portion of Sefer Madda, the first book of the Mishneh Torah. When attacked on his views on resurrection he pointed out that he had included it in the Thirteen Principles that he evolved in his commentary to the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin. The radical view found in the very last chapter of the Mishneh Torah that the messianic age is nothing more than the attainment of political independence in Israel is stated in detail in that same excursus, and his original view on the possibility of the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin, which he carefully puts forward as his own (" it appears to me") and which he qualifies by the statement " but the matter must be weighed up" (Sanhedrin 4: 11), is already expressed in his commentary on the Mishna (Sanhedrin 1: 1).