Maimonides by Sherwin B. Nuland

[This is not intended to be a complete book review. Rather I'm hoping to just give you a peek into another time and place and the life of a remarkable man, as presented by Sherwin B. Nuland.]

Our book club was reading Maimonides (2005) for May 4, just after we got back. I've had a copy of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed for years, but could never get more than a few pages into it. But I've always had the sense that this was someone important about whom I needed to know more. So I tested Amazon's ability to deliver to Chiang Mai.

This is not a great book. Nuland wasn't able to get all the pieces of the puzzle together right, so he left some out and forced others into places they didn't quite fit. But since I knew almost nothing about Maimonides, I still got a lot out of it

Who was Maimonides? (all of this according to Nuland)

1138 He was born to a (the?) leading rabbi in Cordoba, Spain under Muslim rule.

Like the inhabitants of all the cities of Andalusia - southernmost Spain - the people of Cordoba were thoroughly Arabized. In dress, language, and popular culture, it was difficult to distinguish one group from another. Jews and Christians wrote Arabic poetry, composed and played Arabic music, and served in the Arabic government, sometimes in high positions. (p. 29)

Many times. like the above quote, I found myself thinking, wow, there are real parallels to the modern day. You could say exactly the same for American Jews in American culture. And then I would stop and wonder whether these similarities were really there or that Nuland had merely written it that way. I don't know enough about this to be sure and he didn't completely convince me.

No Cordoban was more the beneficiary of the atmosphere of tolerance and religious freedom than Rabbi Maimon [the father.] Although the source of his income is uncertain, it is known that he was able to live well, in a comfortable, book-filled house of the Moorish style. (p. 30)

But the good times are about to end. After seven generations of tolerance, a new brand of Islam takes over and the Maimons have to leave. One aspect that was very interesting was that Nuland writes that Maimonides and his family nominally converted to Islam to avoid being slaughtered. And in his writings Maimonides takes on critics of such conversions, strongly defending actions that lead to the survival of Jews.

1148 - the family flees Cordoba for Almeria
1151 - the family leaves Almeria for Fez, Morocco

They seem to have wandered from town to town during the next eight or nine years, unable to leave Spain until 1160, when emigration was permitted following ibn Tumart's death. . .

Incredibly, young Moses [Maimonides] somehow found time to write during the period of restless and often dangerous travel. Initiating a pattern of ceaseless literary activity that would characterize his scholarship for the rest of his life, his rapidly maturing intellect produced a short treatise on the language of logic and metaphysics, commentaries on a few sections of the Bible, and an essay on the Jewish calendar involving rather complex mathematical and astronomical calculations, at the age of not much more than twenty. (p.36)

1160 - To Fez, Morocco

He also began at this time (1158) his first major work, a commentary of the Mishna, which he wrote in Arabic using the Hebrew alphabet. For centuries, rabbis had had to interpret "biblical writ" as Nuland calls it (he too says he was trying to make a book that anyone could understand, but phrases like that left book club members scratching their heads). I understand this to mean that to resolve problems that arose in the Jewish community, they would go to the Torah (the handwritten scrolls that are now referred to as the Old Testament by many) to find the laws that governed the situation. These decisions and the commentary that explained their interpretations were passed on orally.

Around 200 C.E., Judah ha-Nasi, the Patriarch of the Jewish community in the land of Israel, undertook to compile the divergent mass of oral tradition, codifying it into a single consistent text, the Mishnah, meaning "learning by repetition." (p.37)

The Mishnah, in turn, generated centuries of comments, which were written and known as the Gemara.

The separate commu;nities of Palestine and Babylon each produced its own Gemara, which, though based on the same Mishnah, are in fact quite different. (p. 38)

Moses [Maimonides] determined to produce a compendium making use of only the most essential Talmudic precepts, thereby permitting direct access to an understanding of the Mishnah for less learned readers, or for those who simply did not have the time or inclination to wade through the vastly more complicated, abstruse, and disorganized text of the Gemara. (p. 39)

1165 Fled Fez, Morocco for Palestine, which, under Christian rule, proved as dangerous to the Jews as the Arab ruled lands they had fled. So they went on to Alexandria, Egypt (named, after Alexander the Great.)

1168 Published the Commentary on the Mishnah.
1168 Moved once more, this time to Fustat, several miles from Cairo.

By this time, the father had died and Moses was the head of the family. With his younger brother David, Moses had started a gem business. David managed it so that Moses could study. As he became better known, his advice was being sought by Jews throughout the Arab world. Nuland discusses particularly a widely disseminated letter he wrote, in answer to Yemini Jews. He also brokered deals to get back Jews who had been taken prisoner.

1174 Brother David dies on a gem selling trip to India. Moses now must support both his family and David's. He has vowed not to take money for doing God's work (being a rabbi) so he had to find another source of income.

Moses had studied not only religious works, but all the scholarly and scientific works available including medicine. He became a doctor and eventually the doctor to the rulers of Egypt.

His great contributions to medicine, in Nuland's view (Nuland was asked to write the book because he is a doctor) were

• clearly articulating a separation between religion and medicine. The Jewish practice of medicine did not depend on divine intervention, rather it was people's responsibilities to keep themselves healthy and doctors had to learn how to heal the sick.
• using 'modern' philosophy and science in his analysis of religious works as well as medical works
• articulating the importance of mental and spiritual health as well as physical health

As I understood Nuland, while Maimonides was not the first or only one doing these things, he was the first to clearly and strongly write about them in widely read texts. He also strongly criticized some of the masters, such as the Greek doctor Galen, when he found their work not supported by facts.

Nuland's task was difficult. I took lots of notes to keep things straight - like the dates and who was who. I had only the sketchiest knowledge of this significant player of that time and place. I found Nuland's first chapter on Jewish doctors interesting, but it felt very self-congratulatory of all modern Jewish doctors - not only do they save lives but they are doing God's work. Something about how he wrote it irritated me. The final chapter about Maimonides as a doctor seemed to be tacked on at the end, one of those extra pieces he couldn't fit into the main text, and which also repeated things from the earlier chapters. But I did read much of the book on the eight hour flight from Taipei to Anchorage, so it had enough to keep me awake and involved for most of the trip.