Inside ArtScroll - Season 4 Episode 6: Rabbi Shnayor Burton – Kisvei HaRambam

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to inside art scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Schneer Burton a valued writer and contributor to many arts grow misora projects and notably and more recently Kisve Haram. Thank you Reneer for being here. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. I must open by saying that we are oldim. I'm very proud whenever your name comes up in the arts school offices or anywhere else where people see your names in the various I always say we were classmates not that I did anything to contribute to your success but uh I would say years ago if someone had had to pick out someone from our sheer who would be doing what you're doing I would say that you would be the perfect candidate. So thank you. Thank you. It's a true and pleasure to do such special important work and rewarding work. Yes, it's very rewarding and uh we'll get into what you've done but is very fortunate to have you as a as a member of the team of and working on on various projects. Now before we get into the haram which you contributed so significantly to what other projects have you worked on for uh misora? So the first time I got involved in working for arts was on the druss which was the first project in this series of focusing on that are fundamental tok of the shim. So drashes Iran which was Yehuda Kilsonhuda's first work here with arts school umhuda invited me to join then on that project as a reader to review the work the draran work from there I started with the draran that project then we completed the dash zaran and we moved on now to kas ramb from there I got involved in the um the inyakov and the zera shimshin um those have been the ongoing projects that I've been working on for art school. I was going to ask you how you got in the door because there are many aspiring kim many capable people who may want to write for art school but from speaking to the experts like Rabbi Danziger and Rabbi Sber and all the other phenomen phenomenal Rabbi Herzka the phenomenal Tamid Kamim and Rabbi Misels you know they tell me that yeah many people submit uh you know samples manuscripts and things like that but they actually get through the door is no simple matter. So, how did how did that process play? Well, like I said, it was great for me. I was lucky I got invited in to get involved with the dresser. Um, that was like a side project for me and sort of for them. I was just involved partially at that point, but once I got involved with art school, I guess they liked what I did and then I, you know, they put me on these other project more work. Yeah. So, well, talk about the evolution of this volume before this safer that we're talking about. There's no actual safer called Ramba, right? I think it's important to point out that this is a compilation of writings of the famous right and um how did you decide what to include in this volume? Right. So Rambam is selected writings of the Rambam. We selected certain writings and we made a made one volume of what's going to be at least two volumes perhaps three of a series. Um what we selected is the writings of the Rambam that are about not matters of matters of the fundamentals of faith. Specifically in this volume um what we focused on are the Rambam's writings that relate to mainly amuna the fundamentals of ammuna. So the Rambam besides for being the great halist and writing of Mishna Tyra he also wrote a lot about what we call the fundamentals of the faith. Muna in fact the Rambam writes in his purish on Mishnay in one place he writes that there's nothing more important to him than to talk about these these topics which he felt were underexplored or underdeveloped in his time that people maybe take for granted and don't really work out what theists are what are the fundamentals of Yiddish so he felt it was very important to write about and he wrote so much about it um what we did is we selected many of those writings And that brings us to this work today. I could tell you about what we put in here. Sure. So um one of the main things we have in this work is the in the in the introduction to that's where the Mishna says all have and these are the ones who don't have a and it talks about so the Ram says okay this is the opportunity to talk about reward and punishment because the mission is talking about the ultimate reward and the Ram sees it as again his mission to correct certain errors that he felt people were making about reward and punishment and the true nature of reward and punishment. and how the world to come is actually the perfection of humanity and the purpose of while people think of it more as as reward and people focus on the wrong things in reward they focus on they focus on so the Ram wants to teach us what's really about what the is what the ultimate goal is what is about and then relatedly while the mish says that don't have so says okay now's the time to tell you what makes someone a min what makes someone not be cursed so this is something that some people might be more familiar with it from Because there he gives the list. These people are called a men. These people are called. But here is where he says okay these are the fundamentals of faith. The 13 principles of faith famous 13 principles of faith of the rabb. This is where the rabb develops him and says here's what makes a person either is and then he's vouched as the says or he's beyond the pale. He's a if he doesn't believe one of these 13 things. So here the RAM goes into into um an explanation of what the fundamentals in the RAM's opinion what the fundamentals of Yishkai truly are. So that's obviously just tremendously important. So we put that in. And then we also have um a few other writings of the Rambam that are related to that. For example, he has an essay about um which we included here. The 13th principle of faith is the belief in. So that's related. And the other thing here is the essay about um astrology. Rama wrote a letter where he explains that he believes astrology has no basis unlike other Ram's opinion but that's also very much related. So what's beautiful about this volume besides for how important each of these subjects are is that I feel it really comes together to present a reader with an overview of the Rambam's basic ashk you know what is Judaism right the most fundamental things of Judaism. Now you referenced the yudg which is one one of the topics covered in in the cafer and I think it's elementary to point out that um the anims that we have which many of the uninitiated or people are not so familiar may believe were written by the ram because that's somehow how how you know it's it's referred to as the we mix up the yud and really they're two separate things the yudgum were authored by by the Rambam and the Anims which very much parallel the Yudgikim were written by someone else. We we don't know who that person was right talk about that. So we don't know who wrote them. It's an adaptation of the malikim. But what you'll find if you actually learn the rim from their source from the you'll find is that the anim doesn't always capture more often than not does not capture the full nuance and range of what the Ram was trying to do. So inim is wonderful and people are so familiar with it and say and and they say them but if you want to really understand the you have to go back to the source and what we found I mean I sort of knew this but preparing this work together through Bhuda we saw how there's so many times and and Bhuda did a great job of pointing this out you know okay here's a place where this is not represented in the text of the anim and this idea that the says over here maybe it's a little different the way the anim presents it so if you really want to get to okay what are my 13 principles of faith that are so important then you have to learn this and what's so interesting is that the Ram writes and we know how careful the Ram was about every word always but here he seems to have been super careful because he writes at the end of the mikram he says if you think you understand this from reading it one or 10 times you're fooling yourself okay so this is after the spelled it out and he says you can read this you can read it 10 times and you still don't get it so he's inviting us to to chew this over. And this is to the RAM this is basically the most important 13 things that a Jew has to know. So that's why I'm so proud of this. We're so proud of this work because I feel like we put out something that's that's super important and super fundamental. Right. And unfortunately it didn't get enough attention, right? It's it's almost surprising that it hasn't been done on this level beforehand. Right. like it's something so so fundamental and and who bigger than the Rambam to think that it hasn't been done till now. So really in that sense I don't think it's an overstatement to say that it's it's a groundbreaking work. I think so. Right. Yeah. I think we I think we've done something very important that needed to be done and hopefully will open up this study to people who otherwise may have not engaged with it. I mean, you know, the Pnayas is also not such an easy read in in the Hebrew, right? Partially because it's a translation, which you want to get into in a moment about that. Yeah. Um, the the other components of this volume, there's this the letter to Iben Jabril. Jabar, right? So, well, Jabar, Jab, I didn't know him personally, so I'm not sure how to pronounce his name, but yeah. So, that's a beautiful letter. I knew I was going to butcher it. That's a beautiful, very beautiful letter. this fellow who writes to the Rambam and he call he says I'm an Amoritz he says I don't even read Hebrew and I'm I'm trying to understand your works I learned your tyran he asks him for some guidance and the Rambam with such ana responds to him and says first of all he says I love you very much he says if you're learning Tyra it doesn't matter what language you're learning it in he says read it in Arabic Hebrew it doesn't matter the main thing is the content and if if you're trying to learn to you're great And then he gives him some guidance and he also tells him some things about Alhaba that relate relate to this to the rest of the book. So that's a beautiful letter. Um and then we also have excerpts from and so places in the places in the with treats of these same topics. So we put them in the we have these um at the end the appendices. Um as a rule with the Rambam he never talks about something only once. If he talks about something here, he talks about it in Mishna and you'll find him and different places I'm sure also right so of course we did a lot of work I know you did that a lot of a lot of comparisons in the in the Rambam's references to these various topics in the different places right so all the way at the end of the book we have this chart where we show the parallels to the mukim is much more advanced safer right and um if someone wants to do further study and see how these where they're treated of the mukim so we have that chart at the end do you have plans eventually to you mentioned additional volumes. Do you have plans to include let's say the Rambams and Praim in subsequent volumes? Is that the vision? Well, so for the next volume we're talking about at least we're starting that and probably the intro to which for our viewers addresses. So that's the Rama's introduction to Perky and it's really the Ram's it's Rabam psychology Ram's understanding of the soul. What is the soul? What's a human being and what does the Torah want from what does the Torah see as being the perfect character and how does the Torah work to form that? also talks about Nva because Rammon stands the perfection of the of human character and how that reaches to Nva. So there's really it's a very important uh fundamental work of the Rams and it's actually a great introduction to the Rams thinking in general because a lot of times we get in the Rambam we get his conclusions but in the pro you see development like the background you know okay what does he think of but okay but that's the next volume right that's in the future to the is is a mystical work it's an esoteric work so it's a it's a work that the rama wrote it's not for the masses and um to go ahead and translate it you know we have no plans to do that as of now It's it's not would not be a simple undertaking. Now you referenced something before which may be the most fascinating thing that I'd like to discuss today and that is that the Rambam all his writings both his works and his ashkafic works which which which are revolutionary and think about the hundreds perhaps thousands of works that have been written based on the Ramom over the years. It's really unbelievable what a what a fundamental uh kind of framework the Rambam gave us to work with. But they were all written in the jargon the vernacular of his day which was Arabic. Well to correct you the Mishna Tyra with the work was written in Hebrew. Okay. Okay. But yeah besides for the work for theim and some of these essays were written in Judeo Arabic which means Arabic and Hebrew characters. By the way the letter about astrology was written in Hebrew. Interesting. Yeah. And that's because his recipients were non-Arabic speakers. Uh-huh. So when he was writing to people from the province from Lenel, he wrote to them in Hebrew. Of course, we know the Ram was a master Hebrew. He wrote the But yeah, he wrote he wrote his other works in the Arabic. And what's interesting about that letter of the Jabar letter, he asked him whether he would translate the Mishna which you ordered in Hebrew to Arabic. And Ram says, "No, I can't do that. I really regret I wish I would translate the PN back into Hebrew, right? Or not back into Hebrew and don't ask me to do that for you." So it's interesting. The Raam never tells us why he wrote in Arabic. Even his Pishnay he wrote in Arabic. So that's a it's a work that's made you know to learn Mishnay. I mean you know it's not today these kinds of things not so common for a God of the Rambam statue. Imagine a god today writing hashkafic work in in in English. I mean it just it's just an eye opener right. But what's interesting is it's not just not only the Rambam wrote in Judeo Arabic but so many fundamental works were written in in Arabic right um to name a few there are more uh and the to mention was written in Arabic so here we were working with a work that was originally written in Arabic now neither myself nor Behuda nor Bill nor anyone else on the our experts. I should mention that's Rebudson the main hall Danziger with whom you worked extensively project. Were there was there anyone else before we got back to the uh there were various other people on the project introduction but the main Rabie Huda was the main he did all the work of the writing and then the reviewing was me and Ravilla mostly. Okay. So I'm somewhat familiar with Judeo Arabic, which is I knew you're multilingual, but Arabic, you know, I didn't know. So I don't know if I would put that in my multilingual, but I am familiar enough. And the reason why I started studying Arabic is because the reaim wrote in Arabic and I I love the Ram so much. And for me to read the Ram in translation, I have to read it in the original. So I got to a point where I could read I read Pishnas in the Arabic. Did did you actually study the language? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that is that comp comparable to contemporary Arabic? So Okay. So it depends. There's literary Arabic and there's there's written and written Arabic and there's spoken Arabic and there's different dialects. So it sort of gets complicated. Yeah. Okay. But I don't even know that much because I don't really study it in in the in the modern vernacular. You know, you know this form of Arabic and how do you teach that to yourself? Is it just by comparing the Hebrew edition to the Arabic edition? Is that Well, that that's one of the ways I do it. But there's also I've studied studied Arabic books, modern Arab books books, too. Yeah. So, but um you could learn a lot from just from doing that work from sitting with you know if you're learning a book bean if you're learning a safer bian and you're sitting there with with the two texts side by side which that exists in some of the additions then you could learn a lot if you you know if you look back and forth if you do that regularly. So um because the Rambam wrote these fundamental works in Arabic and you know we know that the Rambam is so careful with every word he's so media he selects he chooses this word and the way he writes and you know that when you read his everyone knows that when you read the Mishay which was written in Hebrew everyone knows you got madak the ra to read it well right but then when it comes to the Arabic well it's a we're reading it in translation so I mentioned earlier part of what makes the the I think part of what makes the ikrim part of what made that they were neglected and maybe didn't get the had studied the Ram would have wanted them to get was that they were only available in translation. Uhhuh. And for a long time the translation was was was a hard was a difficult translation. What I mean for a long time is because only recently we have a few excellent quality translations of of of the Arabic. You're saying translation into that happened the last 100 years. We have of kapak and reason of korak of some some excellent translations but till then we're working with other translations which were depending on who did them sometimes clunkier than others and hard to read and that's why I think the pure in general the work of mishn which is full of gems if you know how to read it but then they were reading it in difficult translations but recently there's better translations so studying the original Arabic text did you find uh inconsistencies or or or anomalies in in the way it was translated and things like that well yes you some sometimes notice things that you know why the Ram use this word or sometimes very interestingly sometimes you'll notice why did he say this word in Arabic and notes because imagine you're writing in English right of course for the technical Torah terms right but then sometimes the Rambam will use a word in Arabic why had to use that word and sometimes he's not consistent about that yeah so if you look for that there's a lot to see there and we were working primarily with the Hebrew translations and like I said now we have a number of excellent translations so it's not necessary to go back to the original to understand what the problem is saying but it's helpful. Mhm. So when it came let's say tokim actual those 13 I went through word by word the Arabic you know to go yeah to to see if I found anything and yes you sometimes do say hey how come they translated like this and something to think about and you know and many times in the footnotes you point you point that out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Um here's this word and then also what's available and there's so much available these days. One of the great things is there are databases where you can search for um Judeo-Arabic terms. This is the Freeberg Genea manuscript project and on that website they have a Judeo-Arabic database. So you can put in a word in Judea Arabic. So it means I'll put in Jabar let's say right and and I'll write in olive bun gimal gimmel with a with a stress. Okay. because it's jabar. Don't don't don't say gabar. And then they'll show me if that appears anywhere else in all these works we mentioned and tens more that we never even heard of. Wow. Some of them weren't even translated. So if you're familiar enough with the Arabic, which I am, I can use that to say, look, look how maybe the Rama himself used this word. M there's actually an example of that is maybe there's a there's a there's a raging debate in some circles going on for uh really hundreds of years talks about something called in Arabic wordak whatever means it means something like either faith or belief or knowledge and there's a big question does the rabb want you to believe things or does it want you to know things because the rama was a proponent of studying um the Torah and studying Ashkafa based on philosophy and logic understanding understanding and then when he says in He uses this word you know you're supposed to know something. So okay what does he mean by that? What does he or this this Arabic word and by using this database by searching for it you can find other places where he uses it and get a sense in that context you can understand what he means right and I discovered actually that he sometimes uses it for people who hold beliefs that are untrue that same word which means it can't mean knowledge as in certainty right because you can't be certain you can't know something that's not true. So that kind of thing which Rahuda does point out very often in the footnotes and um we were able to use use the original that's interesting to to get to the true meaning. Yeah. Now you you mentioned that you love the Rambam and I you shared with me that you own I think seven or eight uh different volumes versions of the editions of the maybe nine but maybe nine. Yeah. So we have the Arabic one and couple of English ones and numerous Hebrew ones. Hebrew ones. So you you know you really it's it's it's a passion of yours. So you you were really a natural a natural candidate to to be involved in this project. It was almost like a dream come true. It's my favorite. I I just it's so exciting to sit there and work on the Rambam and to say you know okay what does this word mean? Why is he using this word and not that word? And then like I said before he he always does things in more than one place. So some of the excitement was like soothing to find out okay where else in the kiss realm does this and I remember when um when also he said he at one point he said you know we have to find out where else he talks about this because there's always going to be someplace else and that became like a key to figuring out the true intention because as much as I mean like I said he says you could read it 10 times and understand it right so you can imagine how much work we had to do sure we had to figure out what he really means to our best the best of our ability and then explain that and sometimes distill that. What's amazing about this is you can get you can have like a footnote or just a term we used and but the background that went into that the discussion that went into figuring out okay you know what did the RAM really mean over here and then how do we say that in one sentence or less um I think people who do the kind of work in working at the Rambam will be able to detect the the amount of scholarship and work that went into what we did. Yeah. And I have to ask you, I mean, you went to well-known yeshivists, very mainstream yeshivists. You grew up in the very mainstream system. By by all accounts, this type of analysis and study of the Rambam is not really incorporated into the traditional study, right? I mean, um, at what point did you did you find that you had this interest in it? And then did you have a rebby or someone who who you modeled yourself self after or was it just a you know a discovery of your own? It was sort of a discovery of my own to be honest. Yeah. In fact um when I discovered the mim I was maybe low 20s and I was wondering how could this have been such a secret. I loved it so much but like I said it's it's a mysterious work. It's an asteric work. It really is not for everyone the the depths of of the ramb certainly not the uh the murder of but yeah I discovered it. Of course, you know, like many things, once you discover it, you'll find a lot of people are doing it. And but it's it's different than than what I um typically was done was to focus on yeshiva. I think an important point to make is and this is something that I spoke to you uh uh about before and that is that despite the the scholarship that went into this and despite the intricacies of breaking down the Rambam's writings and all that I I think it's important to point out that this is a work that's really for everyone. Yeah. opening it up, it's it's very non-threatening, very easy to read. The the both the text itself, which is elucidated, and the commentary, your notes on bottom are very easy to comprehend. Talk about that because you you you put heart and soul into this together with Rabbiuda Kilson, Rabbi Danzigan, this team of scholars. Um it's really a work that very very many people, men and women, and even younger, you know, Lim could really benefit from. Yes, the Rahman was a master at being methodical um which people probably know from his works and what he does over here says he he has a mission. So he starts of let's talk about the intro to okay he says I want to teach you about reward and punishment and here's what people think some people think this he gives you five people five types of people or what they five opinions here's where they fall short and here's what I think about those five things where do they fit into the Torah okay now let me tell you about now let me tell you through the 13 principles and I'll explain each of them separately so the Rama makes it so easy in fact sometimes it's deceptively simple because Rama then makes it so easy and you get to the end and you say, "Okay, I read it." But then he says, "No, read it 10 more times." And then you still don't understand it, but you will think you understood it because it really is flows and and and you see what the Ra's getting at. I I like the point that you brought out which I noticed also that the Rambam will very he won't just state the facts and tell you what you should know and believe. He'll refute the the points that are that are erroneous. You know in in yeshiva language we'll say he bs different things which is really a very human element in the Rambam's writings of the way he writes he he'll go into our minds lest you think this you should know that that's incorrect he's leading you somewhere he's teaching you right and he doesn't he won't just say something because it occurred to him whatever he says is a reason he's trying he's very much aware of the fact that he's trying to to bring you somewhere you as his student he's trying to get you to a point and he'll tell you what he thinks you need to know to get there nothing more, nothing less. So it's really, you know, you can go on this journey with the Rambam and learn something. So I think what's so beautiful about this and uh maybe it's a cliche, but in this case it's very true. Beginners can and should learn so much from this and that's why I think it's so wonderful what we did because we opened up this study to beginners. But I think also advanced even people are very familiar with RAM will learn a lot from this because of all that background that I was telling you about which sometimes comes up explicitly and sometimes it's implicit you know like oh we explained it well. So I think it's wonderful. Yeah. But I think definitely it's an accessible work. The Rama wrote it to be accessible. There are in fact instances where we can see that the Rama avoided a topic that he may have gone into in the vimim related to something that he discusses in in in these works because that's more advanced. Ram is very much aware of that and he writes about that in the you know there's something for the basic study and there's more advanced study and not not everything's for everyone. There's there are secrets of the Torah the things that are Torah that are really advanced and you have to be on the level to understand and he's not going to go into them. And we sort of did the same thing even when there's fundamentals of faith. I mean he talks about the nature of Hashem what we have to think about Hashem. Of course that can quickly get into very deep esoteric things but the Ramom seems to have studiously avoided certain things that may bear on that and we did the same thing you know we said okay look at the more but we're but we're making this we tried to be faithful to the Ramom's intention here which is to write a work for the for for everyone this is not the Rambam's secret you know esoteric works that are only for very advanced now I want to ask you something I I noticed something in the introductory remarks which I think were were written by Rabbi Danziger, he says something here interesting about you. I wanted your insight. Okay. He he's talking about uh your contribution uh about Rabbi Burton. His in-depth annotated reviews of many chapters are valuable unpublished resources in their own right. Yes. Talk about that. Obviously you you submitted many comments, many insights, many additions which are actually not in this volume I guess because they were beyond the scope of this of this work but what exactly was meant by that okay so we have this wonderful bish going on right does his work I look at it I comment Rabilla gets involved and there's so much shakai there's a lot of back and forth there's there's okay well the ra says that but what about the over there and how come he uses this word that word what could it questions and uh so I think at one point said you know all this material this could be its own safe and it really could be like you know on the Rambam so if you're going to take a Rambam we're familiar with the Rambam in Mish right so imagine you you put out a Rambam here's the Ram says here's the meaning how do you know that's the meaning you could have gone through a whole or till you decide what the meaning is so that's the background so even though as you said it didn't get into It sort of did because this is what informed what informed it. Yes. It could inform comment and then you know that this is the background that you're not seeing. I I should mention just uh that you are swarm of of your own inesh uh various works on on different topics. Could we anticipate your own safer uh containing these components that maybe didn't make it in here or you know perhaps perhaps there's there's there's a lot of great things to do. We can't do everything, right? It's only c certain number of hours in the day. That's it. That's it. In in working on this on this uh phenomenal safer, is there anything eyeopening, an anomaly, something the Rambam sheared that you that just blew you away that maybe you never knew before? Interesting question. There's probably so many different things. Um what's so fascinating about the Rambam is that he's so fundamental. He's the Rambam. He wrote the Yimik, right? And yet there's so much that he says which to him was basic that's not so well known. So it's a very interesting thing. He is he's the one of the greatest teachers of Kai Israel. Right from Misha to Misha there was no one like Misha. And yet you could you can read the safer and you'll you'll learn things that you never knew. Um to pick out one is is is going to be difficult for me. Um nothing in particular is coming to mind and I'm afraid of uh if I pick one I'm you know I should have done something else. Yeah, just it's just chalk full of of kadusha. I mean his treatment of hab I think will be eye opening to people. How the Ram thinks about Habbo. Um how the Ram is very much focused on on a person perfecting his mind, his intellect. The Ram considers the intellect to be the true you, the true person and that all Torah and mitzvah ultimately are supposed to perfect the intellect. So his concept of Mahaba follows that. I actually think that's a topic that people find fascinating because people don't always know what is what is what is Mashiach are they one and the same are they different right so it's really something that so that's something Ram goes through is the v the stages and Buda did at the end we have these great appendices where where unim also whereas lined up the different uh shittas you know okay here's the ram but then there's the ram thinks about it differently so these are just such fundamental topics and you can get a great education on these things that everyone has to know about, right? Sure. That is it's so accessible. It's wonderful. So the the the greater Torah world is grateful to you and these team this team of of outstanding who have done a yman's job putting this together. Um we encourage people to read it like you said because it's it's so fundamental. This is not really it's not really an extra the No, it's not. That's what's so amazing. These are ideas and ideals that that that form the foundation of our faith. I mean, nothing less. No, it's like you said, it's like this has been waiting to be done. And I think, if I may say so myself, we did a worldass job of of bringing out these these fundamental things that everyone should be reading. Well, and I don't say this lightly, but this is a work that it's no question that who have looked at this volume agree with that that assessment. Um, and so, you know, we'll continue to benefit from this and we look forward to continuing to benefiting from your contributions both within the world of arts goal and beyond. And uh, thank you so much for coming down today to speak. Great pleasure. A great pleasure to to contribute in this way and I look forward to to further contributing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. [Music]