History of the Rambam | Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

well uh today uh Tuesday February 4th uh the year is sponsored am I uh is time ready yeah is sponsored by Brenda Brer in memory of g b whose yard site is the sixth of shat today and a Rua for scho ra thank you very much Torah May It Be and okay so as I said last week um we're going to kind of do a new topic although it's not totally a new because we talk about the rambam a lot and that is we're going to be looking at uh the rambam's letters and the rambam's introductions these are very very interesting parts of the rambam's Legacy that are sometimes uh under reported or under represented uh everyone knows the ROM's famous works uh say again didn't hear you I didn't hear you sources um okay you could have the sources I mean there are hundred hundreds of pages but uh okay all right I'll see what I can do I mean uh you know it's like saying if I if I would be giving a Shar on on the mishna Torah can we have those sources well the Mish Torah is 14 volumes uh the letters and the introductions are around three or four volumes but okay I'll I'll see uh what I'm able to uh to to replicate um now today uh I'm going to start more more or less with a biography uh just so you'll have a basic sense of the rambam's life uh the rambam uh is of course an an abbreviation for rabi mosha Ben maon his father was myON uh and according to some traditions although this is not mentioned by the rambam himself the rambam's goes all the way back to as they say the rambam never says that anywhere but but some later tried to trace him uh in that in that way uh the name that he is often given by later authorities which maybe you've seen is the Great Eagle it's not clear why this became the to the rambam as far as I know other rabbis were not referred to by that appellation but often the rambam is called um his greatness was in three different areas uh he was of course great as one of the greatest halakic Scholars that we ever had in terms of the halaka uh he was one of the greatest religious philosophers we ever had in terms of theology philosophy logic and the like and what maybe is least important for us today he was indeed one of the greatest Physicians medical doctors of the Middle Ages uh people don't realize he wrote quite a few books in Arabic on medicine he wrote about asthma he wrote about hepatitis he wrote about diets now granted a lot of what he says in the medical area might not be that relevant today but surprisingly a lot is ramban was one of the first who talked about the importance of diets and the importance of exercise and the importance of prevention of health problems rather than dealing with it afterwards like Benjamin Franklin said anoun an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure the ramban was one of the first to emphasize that so although some of the specific medical techniques might not be necessarily that applicable today in light of science but a lot of the foundation of what he wrote is still uh very very uh much the uh much the case in fact I think there's a diet book out there I think called the rambam's diet or something where someone tried to create a modern weight loss program say again yeah right but also also the recommendations of what to eat the fruits and the vegetables and and the like so somebody tried to create what the Raa that I'm not aware of I I'll I'll try to I'll try to check into it um but uh okay be it as a n so in effect the ramban effectively U was a trifecta meaning to say he had he was uh at the top of the the uh pyramid in three different areas the Haka the philosophy and even in medicine uh at the time uh his life was not a life that was free of controversy there were many many controversies he faced both in terms of antagonism and even danger with the umoto uh various Muslim sects which I'll get into and controversies that he faced within the Jewish people in which uh there were Jewish rabbis who accused him of being a heretic and the like and they even spread a rumor and most say it is a rumor that the rambam himself uh had externally converted to Islam uh in order to keep his professional affiliations or or whatever it is again the rambam denied it and I think we can assume it was a slander but it was a story that was spread and again I'll get I'll I'll get into the controversies about his books there was a major controversy regarding the guide to the perplex and there was a controversy not quite as strident even about the mishna Torah his codification of of Jewish law and this was a controversy in which many many different re shown and were involved uh and it lasted for around a hundred years after the rambam's death meaning it was not resolved till a long time uh later uh in fact let me just digress a little bit to talk about an event that happened much much later um I think I had mentioned maybe two weeks ago when we were talking about Pon Shu the ransoming of cffs and the hostage deal so I had mentioned to you the story of of Mayor of ruttenberg who was in the 1200s where he had been kidnapped and held for ransom and he issued a that the kahila was not allowed to pay the excessive Ransom that the kidnappers were demanding actually it wasn't kidnapped it was like the Duke of the area but just took a Drew and held him for ransom and even though some reine him take the position that the rule of the mishna that you do not pay excessive ransom for hostages lest you encourage hostage taking uh so there are some that say this does not apply to the great rabbis great but marami Rittenberg disagreed with that and he maintained that he should not be ransomed and you'll recall that he actually stayed in that state in that prison state for more than seven years till he finally died and even then they did not want to release the body until a ransom was paid at that point his t r AER the rush felt he was no longer bound by his re's ruling and a ransom was raised by a private individual who stipulated that he that he would do this on the condition that he'd be buried when he dies next to the marami Rutenberg now that was one part of the story but then I mentioned another story about marami Rutenberg which is relevant here which is not connected to this story and that is one of the kenos of Tisha that we read towards the end of K is not about the B mikdash but it was written by Mami Rutenberg to commemorate the burning of 24 wagon loads of the Babylonian talet in front of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris where the pope had condemned because of the lialis reports of apostate jeice that the talwood was anti-christian and it was derogatory ET so 20 this is before printing remember so 24 wagon loads imagine how many manuscripts of the tal a handwritten manuscripts were condemned to be burnt in Paris in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral now remember how many years ago did Notre Dame have a major fire they just so some people pointed out that that may have been God's delayed retribution for the burning of the burning of the Talma and this virtually destroyed Li Tor in France you know France no never became a makum Torah again but prior to that event the bosos France Russia you mean France was the main M Torah in the world that kind of just destroyed it and maram Rittenberg wrote a Kina wrote a lamentation about the burning of the Torah now it is said at the time although this is not mentioned in the particular sh meaning Again by the way stylistically Mami Rittenberg was imitating a much earlier K by RI about erel wrote a beautiful moving poem about how much he yearns to come to ER Israel and to kiss the ground kiss the stones of course there is a legend we don't know if it's true that he actually came to AR Israel and outside the gates of yah he was killed by an Arab on Horseback it was such a tradition at least I think most historians say he died on the way to Eric Israel and he actually died in Alexandria but be it as it mayali is a poetic rendition of the love for ER Isel that a Jew has marami Rutenberg sh again without a a PowerPoint I can't go over the style but stylistically it is written in the very same poetic form using a lot of the same terms of Rudy there's no question about R Rittenberg borrowed from Yehuda Ley but instead of writing a song about erra it is a song about the yearning of the Jew to be connected to Torah so it's very interesting that we have two poems stylistically almost the same almost the same one about love of er Israel and the other is love of Torah as if these are the two pillars that has to animate our Jewish identity uh so be it as it may there's an aspect of the burning of the talud that is not recorded in Mami renberg's Kina and that is that around 50 years before this event there had been a public burning in the same place of copies of the rambam's mor guide to their perplexed which was condemned by many many Jewish communities as ABI corus as Kira because the rambam was dealing with Aristotle and the like now contrary to what people think though this book burning was never done by Jews meaning Jewish communities condemned the moruk they did not actually burn the book but what happened was once the Catholics who were looking for some excuse to destroy Jewish learning saw that even the Jews you know didn't uh like the marim it was the Catholic church that did burn it but the impetus to the burning was the Jewish opposition to the mo because in point of fact there's a lot of stuff in the morim that Catholics could live with Thomas aquinus cites the guide to the perplexed Etc so it was thought by the gdm of the time that God was essentially punishing the Jewish people by saying you didn't have covero with the teachings of the ram I will take away from you even the tment and the the gum of the time identified the gazer of the SAT as a divine retribution for the of the ra and he lived later he lived in the 1700s but he records a tradition you know R Yona of Gand R Yona was from Spain he was a a nephew of the ramban and raoa wrote many many but one of his most famous is sha the gates of repentance which is a mad about how to do Chua it's still widely studied as a must saor especially in El and R but the whole year it's a one should do chuba the whole year so one shouldn't just think oh I I only do chuba stuff before ran it's a it's a book on CH but the records a tradition that rabenu y as a young man had been involved in the anti- ramam agitation and then he was a witness to the burning of the talmud in Paris and he realized that this was divine retribution for disrespecting the rambam so he resolved to do Chua and he wanted to do it in two ways one was to teach people how to do Chua so that way he could make a kesem to bring people to Chua and the other way was he wanted to go to the grave of the Raba and ask forgiveness you know this is the in the r the Raab himself brings the that if you sinned against somebody and you have to ask their forgiveness but they died so you should bring a minion to their K and ask m to the MCE with a minion so ra wanted to go to the rambam's K which as we know is in Taria we'll talk about why is he buried there he didn't live there and he wanted to be once again like reviewed much earlier died on the way he never reached ER Israel but this was Shah chuba the Genesis of Shah chuba was his desire to do Chua for being POA in the cavote of the rambam so the rambam did not have an easy life as I say he was attacked by um he faced many many dangers we'll get to that in a moment externally from Islamic Fanatics and he faced a lot of criticism from Jewish people uh during his life life and even even after his life some of his letters were actually written to defend himself against charges of AB corsus one of the letters we're going to look at is called a letter about resurrection of the dead and the rambam was accused of not believing in physical resurrection and only talking about the surviving of the soul and not the return of the body and uh of course it's interesting that the the rambam's 13 principles of Faith the 13th principle of faith is physical Resurrection so the rambon was accused of not believing in his own fundamental principles of faith and the rambam wrote a very long letter to explain what his position was and that in fact he does believe in it and even though he doesn't mention it a lot he gave reasons why he doesn't talk about a lot it is it is true that when the rambam talks abouta he always talks about the soul not the body so the ram explains why he did that we'll get into that a little a little later okay so now just a few dates I don't want to overwhelm you with with a lot of dates the rambam was born P wow very inconvenient uh time to be born uh but it is recorded he was born ARA pesak in Cordova Spain so the rambam was did not live most of his life in Spain most of his life was in Egypt but the rambam in fact was born in Spain which at the time this was not Christian Spain ramban in the Next Generation lived in Christian Spain the rambam was born when Spain was still under Islamic control uh and that is why the rambam always refers to himself as Moshe myi in those days Sardi did not just refer to H you know Morocco Tunisia s was a very specific Appalachian of Spain s mosha benon of Spain he was very proud of his because he had long generations of rabbis who were in Spain during the Golden Age of Spain who were who were rabim his own father was a d done in Spain and the rambam considered that to be uh something he was very very proud of of his now what happened was this the rambam was born the particular year was 1135 again this is Islamic Spain and in 1148 so the Raman was what 13 13 years old uh there was what you might call a a civil war Within Islamic groups within Spain and a fanatic fanatical Muslim sect from North Africa called the aloads if that is the right pronunciation conquered from the more moderate Islamic faction and they immediately instituted extreme religious persecution against non-muslims now that would have included Christians as well but they were very almost no Christians in Spain in Islamic Spain but there were many many Jews and essentially the almohads ended what you might call the Golden Age although you know people sometimes make a mistake people sometimes think oh the Golden Age of Spain you know lasted until the Spanish expulsion in 1492 well it last maybe on and off but the true unbroken golden age of Spain ended with the almohads in 1148 and because of this religious persecution in which quite literally you either accept Muhammad or you get killed the rambam's family left Spain for a period of an 11year exile wandering from country to Country to Country seeking some type of Refuge where they could practice the Torah in a good way now these experiences you know occurred around an 11-year period from the time the rambam was 13 so for those 11 years wandering around and this had a as you might expect a very powerful influence on his view of the world years later when the rambam wrote great public letters that we'll look at to communities that were facing religious persecution and the rambam gave them guidance and the r gave them one of the points the ramb makes more than once is if you can he gave different hatm for you know you could publicly be this and privately be that and he gave very lenient positions but he always ended it by saying the most important thing is try to get out of there leave even if you have to lose all your possessions even if you leave in poverty go to a place where you are able to keep the Torah and again this is born out of the rambam's own experience now during those 11 years they lived in a number of places uh Morocco Fez again these were all Islamic but not under the almohad so things were a little better uh they spent time in Fez capital of morocca they even spent around a year in AR isra when the rambam was like 15 or 16 and uh the rambam read that he was Z as a 15 or 16 year old to Davin at the cootel of Mari now then you understand the cuto didn't look like it looked today it was a tiny little stretch of wall that may maybe was five feet high Etc and and he had such Joy he said he cried and he mourned over theb B mikash but he had such Joy at being able to doin in the Mak mikdash that he was mael that the anniversary of that date would remain a yam in his family for the rest of their lives and that became a private family yum the day that we were Z to be at the at the kais now there is another reference in a letter of the rambam which the rambam mentions daving in a b conet in proximity to the harab it itself now this is actually very this is actually utilized a lot in the present controversy as you know I'm not going to take sides this but as you know there's a huge huge if uh religious Jews are allowed to enter the of the harabas the problem is that man everybody is T we've come in contact with a dead person we've been in in the cemetery once you are a t met you remain a T May met forever and ever and ever until you are sprinkled with the ashes of the par aduma uh that's nothing yeah that that's that's a different concept that that is not that is spiritual cabalistic r evil spirits so you can get rid of the evil spirit but you cannot get rid of the Tuma uh the only way you can get rid of the Tuma is by the the ashes of paruma plus going to the Mikvah Mikvah we have but we don't have paruma so since we don't have paruma yet yet it is impossible to become toor from tat and the Torah says a person that is T is not allowed to enter what is called the site of the temple now all of that is p that's obvious the m is which parts of the harats have the status meaning even the people who go to the harabas understand very well there are many areas you can't go and indeed they will instruct their Tom them not to go to certain areas those who don't go to the haray say we're not sure or it's too dangerous too I don't mean dangerous in but Hally too dangerous it's like saying a Minefield you know somebody tells you there are live mines in this floor they say but listen as long as you stay within an inch of this table you're fine don't worry about it well you know most of us would not be so comfortable with that way so they say listen to say you can walk here can't walk here too dangerous all right I'm not interested in resolving this m other than to say most of the world takes a stricter position on it much of thei world is more lenient on it they even considered a Mitzvah but there are switch overs on both sides there are that go there you don't go so I don't mean to make this Universal but approximately that's kind of the that's kind of the breakdown now the only reason I'm bringing this up is not because I want to address controversies I had enough controversy with last week uh but I'm bringing it up because one of the interesting sources that comes up in this debate is this letter of the Ramba where the rambam mentions uh that he visited a bait knesset on harab and he daved in that bait knesset and if that means there was a bait knesset on the harab and the rambam course the rambam was not a Pake then but still I mean the rambam went apparently his father probably gave him permission maybe his father went as well so this would indicate that at least in the time of the Ramba which didn't have paruma then either there was Kar so who are we to be more M than that uh so other people say again if you go back to the letter itself maybe I'll try to unearth that letter in in our discussion they say it's a little equivocal does he mean on the harab it does he mean near the harab it again people try to fool around with the exact language of the words and it's especially tricky a little bit because the rambam's letters were usually written in Arabic not Hebrew so whatever text you read is a translation and translations know words near on can easily be mistaken in Translation but it is an important text that letter of the rambam is actually a major of course it's not a halakic letter he doesn't go over the halakic analysis but he's reporting a fact and that factoid uh is obviously going to be very relevant on the particular issue um but the rambam lived with his family in ER Israel for only one year because what happened was the almohad influence was spreading from Spain to Morocco to ER Israel and essentially his family is just running ahead of the threat it's like a virus like a cancer that keeps on spreading and every time this fanatical group takes takes over they got to run some Jews stayed and did convert indeed that was a problem but the ROM family would would go on Etc so at that point uh they came to Egypt so they came to Egypt uh around 1166 so again I don't want to overwhelm you with dates he was born 1135 came to Egypt uh 1166 so around around was around 30 31 years old his father was still alive but his father died shortly after they came to M right so the rabab made all of these moves with his at least with his father I don't really know about the Rab's mother we don't unfortunately we literally have like no information uh so much about the females uh in the uh in the family okay I didn't hear you what well I you know I'm giving a shair right so you know you know only Hashem only Hashem could say Hashem could say God could say two words at the same time uh but a human being can only say one word at the same time so I will be saying things but I couldn't say everything okay yeah yeah only saw like a small part of yeah does that mean that oh yes very very very definitely um remember the cootel was I mean before 1967 we've done a lot since 1967 um first of all there are many many layers that still have not been on earth right this the cotel was a huge which is not I mean you all know this the cotel is not the wall of the basa mikdash and it's not even the wall of the courtyard of the basa mikdash it is the outermost wall of the Temple Mount now what Herod did was Herod raised the ground level of the temple Plaza and he evened it out so he needed a huge retaining wall to hold back the dirt because he raised the level of the ground so the Cotto was a huge is a huge retaining wall that goes many many many many many layers now what happened was over hundreds of years the Hotel was a garbage heat people dumped garbage garbage garbage garbage garbage ta all the way up and even prior to 1967 that the height of the Cotto at least above ground was far far far smaller than it is today so the rambam's time may have been five feet uh five feet above the ground and there was no big Plaza either just a little bit of sh and if you look listen if you look at pictures look at pictures from uh the 19th century by the way another thing you say I don't want to get into that issue is uh there was noita I mean men and women were D I'm talking about really from you have pictures of old yusi sadikin and old Yushi reiton not modern people and they were just doing side by side there had been no no M and the Koto uh in those in those days but don't tell women of the wall uh about about about that um okay um Al righty um so at this point uh they come to MIT now let me point out that when the rambam was around 20 years old meaning he's still wandering around with his parents he began to began to write the first of his great books that is a commentary on the six orders of the mission it took him around 10 years to write so he completed it it shortly after they got to Egypt but he mainly wrote it in the years of wandering the years of Exile that itself was quite remarkable difficult conditions wandering around Etc but the rambam had the presence of mind to write the parish mishas now the parish mishna is very significant although today we have many many commentaries on the missner this was the first commentary written on the entire mishna uh the rambam wrote it in Arabic although he later expressed regret bit but he thought Arabic in his world was the spoken language it was translated into Hebrew by the iban tibon family they were the rambam's authorized translators they translated all of the rambam's works and the Parish of mishas is actually printed in every standard if you take a just take a take AAR so after the M they will have the commentary of the rambam on the mishna now the standard translation is the IB tibon translation it's well known that the IB tibon translations are often very very hard to read They're written stylistically in a very difficult some say over literal in other words that it's an attempt to do a word for word Hebrew to Arabic which is awkward and r in in recent years did new translations from the Arabic Etc so there are different versions of translations but nevertheless the parish MN of the rambam was completed was written between the age of 20 and 30 the rambam completed the pish mishas at the age of 30 yeah yeah yeah so of course you're 100% correct the gamarra itself is a commentary on the mission but uh it's more of an episodic commentary meaning the following there are many many many many things in the gamar that are not about the mission separate questions separate discussions a so with the ram the ram of course his primary source was the gar itself uh but the rambam had to kind of extract from very long Meandering discussions what exactly applies and especially the gumar itself will have arguments over how to interpret the mishna the rambam would pick the shot that fit in the best way and I should also say that the rambam's commentary includes tractates for which there is no gamor such as Tyrus purities and and the like now the Parish mishas of the rambam which he completed by 30 and then was circulated manuscript the rambam Contin to revise over his entire life which means there were I mean again in those days you can imagine when an author revised his work it was very very strange because you know you didn't have internet you didn't have emails people got manuscripts and then he did another manuscript and some people only got the first version they didn't get the second or third version but in point of Truth the Parish of mishas of the ram went through several mad and some people only had access to some Mah and some had access to different Maduras and the rambam changed his mind on a lot of issues so there are contradictions so you see sometimes that somebody would ask the rambam well here you said this and here you said this and the r would say Ah that's my second edition you didn't say you know you didn't get the second edition very very difficult but uh the point was that even after the rambam wrote a book and completed a book he continued to revisit this is dark oel Torah so it's a little confusing uh for some M we have the first edition and some we have the second edition when the printers put it together because how did the printers what did the printers have so that's why if you look at more modern additions like rapak uh you'll be able to they separate it out a little bit they even have different type faces which is very useful um so this is Darko Shela you know if you're a if you're like a swarmm collector like I am I don't collect manuscripts I like I buy a lot ofm uh it is it is frustrating in a way when you buy a safer then next year the author comes out with a second edition or a third edition and you know should I buy another one or you know listen I bought the first edition already it would be nice I mean they don't do it for if if they would could publish like a um a booklet just containing the the changes of the second edition but usually that's not the way SP work usually they reprint the whole safer so you already have 95% but the question is for the 5% should you buy it again yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but but but for the author it wouldn't be that difficult it would be difficult for yeah for for for a consumer uh but authors could do it but as I say that's a bit of a take of sometimes I buy a repeat and sometimes I just say I already have it so I'm not gonna spend the money okay but this is the Parish of mishna okay um now at this point the rambam's father died uh and uh it was a very very big tragedy to the rambam but shortly thereafter there was another tragedy as someone was mentioned the rambam had a younger brother were not aware of other siblings we know the rambam and the rambam had a brother David than my and David Ben myON was a jewel Merchant you would buy and sell sell precious stones and he was in the diamond diamond business Ruby business whatever the precious stones were and uh he was the one that supported the family and enabled the rambam his older brother to spend his life primarily in learning the rambam was not a doctor then the ROM was you might call a Colo person now this itself raises an interesting issue because the rambam writes in the mishna Torah a book that was written later the rambam seems to take a very very very strong anti- cololo position rambam says anyone who gets money who takes money for Torah study is desecrating God's name is not living the way Hashem wants him to live Hashem wants him to have a parasa to have an outside job and he points out Hillel was a wood cutter other great rabbis were blacksmiths or tailor Sandler of Y and the shoe maker and this is the dere of Torah in which you combine economic parasa with learning of Torah and the rambam is very very much against the idea of people who take money for Torah learn now let me point out that right off the bat all the commentaries you know try to qualify the r oh this can't be Etc and they come up with an idea that in the ROM's time people were great enough that they could combine their working and their Torah but today the generations have become so bad that you have to all right whatever I don't want to go into the post justifications for that but the question I just want to raise is that the rambam himself until the tragedy that happened to his brother I'll get to in a moment was in fact supported by by his brother in his Torah study so apparently the rambam would differentiate between communal support demands on the community and inra family support meaning the rambam says there's nothing wrong if you have a family that wants to support you in your learning the Seder that's within your family your family can support you that's their you s would be a good example uh the rambam was against making demands on the community the rambam was against telling the community you have to support me but the rambam himself was supported by his brother dbid and as the rambam describes the sa pavid very much wanted to support the R so what happened in 1171 get the date here they came came to MIM 1166 the r was around 30 so when the rambam was around 35 36 years old his younger brother died in a shipwreck his younger brother was going on the Indian Ocean to try to procure jewels in India he was actually going going to India and uh truth is the rambam asked him not to go the rambam had a premonition that this was a d ous Voyage this was beyond the normal route that D had taken and the ram said please don't go it's it's s indeed the ram had either rodes or a premonition or whatever it was and uh RAB David drowned in a shipwreck and leaving an almana A young Widow and a daughter that the ram kind of adopted the daughter so the tradition that the ramam had a daughter is probably referring to raising the child of his brother and let me just read you the words of the rambam wrote upon the death of his daughter I'm an English translation here this was a letter I'm sorry the death of his brother rather this was a letter discovered in the chyoa says the greatest Misfortune that has befallen me during my entire life worse than anything else was the demise of the saint may his memory be blessed who drowned in the Indian Sea and left with me a little daughter and a Widow on the day I received that terrible news I fell ill I remained in bed for about a year suffering from fever and depression and almost given up eight years have passed so he he wrote this eight years after the death of his brother I am still mourning and unable to accept consolation how should I console myself he grew up on my knees this his younger brother he was my brother he was my students now remember obviously the rambam lost his father again I I don't know about his mother he lost his father and that was devastating but you know that's that is the normal way of life uh losing his younger brother was in devastating devastating tragedy imagine being so depressed you couldn't get out of bed for a year is is the rambam speaking absolutely literally I mean what you know I don't know I don't know exactly how absolutely literal this was this was 1171 Rama was around 3536 his brother was around five years five years younger younger than him yeah now in addition to the great awesome tragedy of losing his beloved brother and leaving a widow and a child as an orphan it happened to be that this wiped out the rambam financially yeah the rambam doesn't emphasize it so much that's not the thing that he's feeling but it destroyed his entire economic base because the entire family fortune went down into the ocean and that meant that the rambam's life of uninterrupted study had to end and that is when the ran became a doctor now in those days becoming a doctor didn't take as long as today you didn't have to go to medical school for four years and then two or three years of residencies and the like but uh he had appren ship Etc and the ramam did become a a a a doctor and he he became a very eminent doctor he was not a quack he was not a fly by night uh anything the rambam took on he mastered and as I had mentioned over the course of his life the next the years he wrote books on medicine and he was considered to be an authority and not only that uh but he was honored as an appointment of the physician to the Calif the ramam is living now in Kirra and the Jewish part of Cairo was called fat so that's why the rambam always describes himself as living in fat uh he became a number of roles he became the the rav of fat which is one position he became a political position called the nagid of mitzraim nagid is kind of the political leader who dealt with the ciff and Etc uh and uh he became the physician to Saladin again uh in Egypt the the the Islamic uh regime was moderate and not oppressive the almohads did not get to Egypt they did allow Jewish people to practice their religion and the ROM was appointed to be the physician in the king's court in the uh or the um the the Cal's court and uh he writes that that was quite a quite a very difficult position because they were around um over a hundred people they had to treat you know all the wives all the kids all the staff Etc and the rambam in a letter describes how exhausting his day was he says he goes to the Palace early in the morning he is there the entire day until night he says he does not have anything to eat I'm not sure I obvious cautious but I'm not sure why he couldn't round bag it but whatever it is it says he ate nothing of the whole day he says when he would come home after Sunset there would be a line of lines of people waiting to talk to him some were there for Medical Treatments Jewish people who wanted to be treated some were there for some were there for teda rambam was actually very involved in charity distribution some were there for personal problems and the rambam would beg them please give me 15 minutes so I could have something to to eat and he would uh take something for 15 minutes then he would he said he would deal with his uh people that were waiting for him up to two or three hours into the night and only after that schedule was he able to learn and able to write so the Parish of mishna was already written but if you're talking about the mishna Torah the 14 volume compendium these were the conditions under which the rambam wrote it over a period of 20 years during his stay in Egypt he wrote it it was like a post midnight compilation how many hours did he work again we don't have you know well this is so interesting the ramban makes two points about how you should arrange your schedule and it's absolutely clear he did not live by either of his points it's almost like a dream number one he describes when he describes the idea that you have to combine your toorah with a parasa so the rambam gives the famous example that the person who devotes himself three hours a day to AA and then is able to learn nine hours a day so this is called the rambam's balay r it uh can do parosa for three hours a day now part of the defensive col is hey if you can get a job like the rambam go ahead and do it today you know it's not been the rambam obviously devoted much more than that the other thing that the rambam did not live by is the ramam gives the medical advice of sleeping eight hours a day now the rambam obviously again he didn't he doesn't tell us how much he slept but it was very very very little and I have to say because this was very very sobering uh the rambam died I mean just ahead of rambam died at the age of 68 the rambam did not you know did not live to a real real real old age yeah may maybe so maybe so uh oh oh yes the rambam married the rambam had children the rambam yeah yeah yeah yeah I'll get to that the rambam had children and grandchildren Etc uh I just want to say that Rashi too died around six even even younger and when you contemplate especially when you're past that age and you you contemplate what Rashi and the Raam accomplished uh it's very very very very humbling humbling so to speak you know uh so but so the rabam again I mean in those days it wasn't dying young but but it also wasn't dying old I mean many people did live longer than that um okay now yeah just St the rabom did did Mar of course in fact the rambam had two wives one wife died in the lifetime of the rambam uh as far as we know the rambam only had one child who became a great in his own right this is rabi Abraham Ben Haram and RAB abam succeeded his father as nagid of MIT as well and that actually remained to his son as well for around four generations then it then it it switched ramam was a very Fierce defender of his father as you could imagine uh and when people would attack or criticize his father's teachings Raam would always write the defenses so I'm talking about I don't mean just pmic I mean you know talmudic proofs Etc he would engage in all sorts of talmudic discussions and philosophical discussions to defend his father's position in addition ra wrote a very very beautiful thoughtful work on mus and moral character development which is called the book that is sufficient to know how to serve that uh it's been recently translated in English you can get a a sense of it it's kind of like a in a shorter a shorter form this is RA R Ram now some report the rambam had a daughter but as I say that may be uh a confusion with his raising his brother's daughter raising his his niece okay uh we'll stop here we'll continue next week take care