Moses son of Maimon, called Maimonides or Maimuni and also Rambam, born in Cordova, Spain, in 1135, was the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages and a renowned physician. He is the author of a number of classic works of Jewish faith and philosophy, among them the Mishneh Torah, a codification of Jewish law; the Thirteen Articles of the Jewish faith; and the great philosophical treatise, The Guide of the Perplexed (Moreh Nebukim).
But Maimonides was also a prodigious letter-writer, receiving and answering queries from Jews the world over; the great intellectual authority he exercised over the Jewry of his day was owing as much to his indefatigable epistolary labors as to his books. Maimonides’ skill in answering learned and legal questions was unsurpassed; some of his Responsa (as such replies are called) have the character of a whole treatise. However, he was no dry-as-dust scholar in his correspondence, but a warm and personal voice that comforted, strengthened, and exalted the spirits of the Jews to whom he wrote. “Through him letter-writing became a source of inspiration for the Jewish people, of assistance in their spiritual need,” writes Franz Kohler in the introduction to his recently published A Treasury of Jewish Letters.
The letter given here is to the Provencal scholar Samuel ibn Tibbon, who was preparing a translation into Hebrew of the Arabic text of T¾e Guide of the Perplexed and asked Maimonides’ help on certain knotty points. Maimonides’ reply is full of charm and candor, telling us something not only about the physician, grammarian, and philosopher, but also the man.
This letter is taken from A Treasury of Jewish Letters, edited by Franz Kohler and published by Farrar, Straus and Young; it is with the kind permission of the publishers that we print it here.—Ed.
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[Cairo, 30 September 1199]
“A man shall be commended according to his wisdom” [Prov. 12:8]. All the letters of the worthy scholar and excellent sage, R. Samuel son of the learned R. Judah ibn Tibbon, the Sephardi, have duly reached me, Moses the son of Maimon, the Sephardi. Already many years ago the fame of die honored prince, the wise R. Judah, your father, had reached me; I have heard of his great learning and the elegance of his style, both in Arabic and Hebrew, through well-known and learned men of Granada, the sons of Alfakhar, and the aged R. Ibn Mosca. Also one of the learned men of Toledo came here and told me of his reputation. Likewise when the honored R. Meir, a disciple of R. Abraham, the son of R. David, the great Rabbi of Posquières, who had studied under the learned R. Abraham ibn Ezra, came to me, he [R. Meir] spoke concerning your father, and gave me an account of the works on grammar and other sciences he had translated. I did not, however, know that he had left a son. But when your letters in Hebrew and Arabic reached me, and I learned from them your clearness of mind and elegance of composition; when I read your remarks both on those passages in my magnum opus, the Moreh Nebukim, concerning the right signification of which you entertain doubt, and on those in which you have discovered errors made by the transcriber, then I said with the ancient poet:
Had they known his parentage, they would
Say
The father’s excellence has passed over to
his son.
Blessed be He who has bestowed His favor on your learned father and granted him such a son; and indeed not to him alone but to all wise men. For, in truth, unto us all a child has been born, unto us all a son has been given. This offspring of the righteous is a tree of life, a delight of our eyes and pleasant to look upon. I have already tasted of his fruit, and lo, it was sweet in my mouth even as honey [Ezek. 3:3].
All your questions were just, and all your conjectures with respect to the omission of a word, or words, were correct. At the end of this epistle, I explain everything in Arabic, and give you all the information you desire, and mention the works you should study or neglect. You are thoroughly fitted for the task of translation, because the Creator has given you an intelligent mind to “understand parables and their interpretation, the words of the wise and their difficult sayings.” I discern from your remarks that you have thoroughly mastered the subject, and that its inmost meaning has become clear to you. I shall explain to you in Hebrew how you shall manage with the entire translation. “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; be wise my son, and my heart also will rejoice” [Prov. 9:9].
Be assured that, when I saw the beauty of your style and noted the penetration of your intellect and that your lips utter knowledge clearly, I greatly rejoiced. I was surprised indeed to discover such talents, such a thirst for knowledge, such an acquaintance with Arabic (which I believe to be a partially corrupt dialect of Hebrew) displayed by one who has been born among “stammerers.” I also admired your familiarity with the niceties of that language in abstruse subjects; this is indeed like a tender plant springing out of a dry ground. May the Lord enlighten your eyes with the light of His law, so that you may be of those that love Him, who are even as the sun when he goes forth in his strength. Amen.
The letters of your esteemed college, which God grant may ever increase in dignity and learning, reached me. I have carefully examined all the passages concerning the translation of which you entertain any doubt, and have looked into all those passages in which the transcriber has made any mistake, and into the various preliminary Propositions and Chapters which were not perfectly clear to you, and of which you sought elucidation.
Let me premise one rule. Whoever wishes to translate, and aims at rendering each word literally, and at the same time adheres slavishly to the order of words and sentences in the original, will meet with much difficulty; his rendering will be faulty and untrustworthy. This is not the right method. The translator should first try to grasp the sense of the passage thoroughly, and then state the author’s intention with perfect clearness in the other language. This, however, cannot be done without changing the order of words, putting many words for one, or vice versa, and adding or taking away words, so that the subject may be perfectly intelligible in the language into which he translates. This method was followed by Honein Is’hak with the works of Galen, and by his son Is’hak with the works of Aristotle. It is for this reason that all their versions are so peculiarly lucid, and therefore we should study them to the exclusion of all others. Your distinguished college ought to adopt this rule in all the translations undertaken for those honored men and the heads of the congregation. And may God grant that the spread of knowledge among the other communities of Israel be promoted by such works.
I now proceed to reply to your questions seriatim, to explain all those points which need explanation, to give the correct reading according to which you may amend the faults in your copy, arranged in the order of your epistle and embracing the three books of my work. [Here follow various explanations which refer to the most difficult portion of the Guide.]
God knows that, in order to write this to you, I have escaped to a secluded spot, where people would not think to find me, sometimes leaning for support against the wall, sometimes lying down on account of my excessive weakness, for I have grown old and feeble.
But with respect to your wish to come here to me, I cannot but say how greatly your visit would delight me, for I truly long to commune with you, and would anticipate our meeting with even greater joy than you. Yet I must advise you not to expose yourself to the perils of the voyage, for, beyond seeing me, and my doing all I could to honor you, you would not derive any advantage from your visit. Do not expect to be able to confer with me on any scientific subject for even one hour, either by day or by night. For the following is my daily occupation:
I dwell at Mizr [Fostat] and the Sultan resides at Kahira [Cairo]; these two places are two Sabbath days’ journey distant from each other. My duties to the Sultan are very heavy. I am obliged to visit him every day, early in the morning; and when he or any of his children, or any of the inmates of his harem, are indisposed, I dare not quit Kahira, but must stay during the greater part of the day in the palace. It also frequently happens that one or two royal officers fall sick, and I must attend to their healing. Hence, as a rule, I repair to Kahira very early in the day, and even if nothing unusual happens, I do not return to Mizr until the afternoon. Then I am almost dying with hunger. . . . I find the antechambers filled with people, both Jews and Gentiles, nobles and common people, judges and bailiffs, friends and foes—a mixed multitude who await the time of my return.
I dismount from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients, and entreat them to bear with me while I partake of some slight refreshment, the only meal I take in the twenty-four hours. Then I go forth to attend to my patients, and write prescriptions and directions for their various ailments. Patients go in and out until nightfall, and sometimes even, I solemnly assure you, until two hours or more in the night.
I converse with and prescribe for them while lying down from sheer fatigue; and when night falls, I am so exhausted that I can scarcely speak.
In consequence of this, no Israelite can have any private interview with me, except on the Sabbath. On that day the whole congregation, or at least the majority of the members, come to me after the morning service, when I instruct them as to their proceedings during the whole week; we study together a little until noon, when they depart. Some of them return, and read with me after the afternoon service until evening prayers. In this manner I spend that day. I have here related to you only a part of what you would see if you were to visit me.
Now, when you have completed for our brethren the translation you have commenced, I beg that you will come to me, but not with the hope of deriving any advantage from your visit as regards your studies; for my time is, as I have shown you, excessively occupied.
Be careful not to study the works of Aristotle except with the help of his commentators, the commentary of Alexander, Themistius or Ibn Roshd.
As a general rule I may tell you, study only the works on logic composed by the learned Abunazar Alfarabi, for everything he has written is as fine flour. A man may indeed gain knowledge from his writings because he was a distinguished philosopher. So also Abubekr ben Alsaig was a great philosopher; all his writings are plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.
The writings of Aristotle are the foundations upon which all these philosophical works are based, and, as I have said above, they can only be understood by the help of their commentaries.
But other works besides those here enumerated, such as the writings of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Hermes, and Porphyrius, all belong to ancient philosophy; it is not right to waste time upon them. He, Aristotle, indeed arrived at the highest summit of knowledge to which man can ascend, unless the emanation of the Divine Spirit be vouchsafed to him, so that he attain the stage of prophecy, above which there is no higher stage. And the works of Ibn Sina, although they contain searching investigations and subtle thoughts, do not come up to the writings of Alfarabi. Still, they are useful, and it is right that you should study them diligently. I have now indicated to you the works you should study, and to which you should devote your mind.
May your happiness, my son and pupil, increase, and salvation be granted to our afflicted people.
Written by Moses, the son of Maimon, the Sephardi, on the 8th of Tishri 1511, according to the Seleucid era.
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