Rambam’s Letters (Pt VI) | Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz | June 3rd 2025

fall asleep on you. Uh if you fall asleep on me, that's understandable. Uh anyway, um we're going to do start our letter number two of the Rambam. Uh the Rambam, just to tell you, uh has many many letters, some of which are very personal, and I I want to go over them too eventually because the personal letters are quite interesting. But there are three major public letters that the Rambam wrote to be disseminated in a community. Uh we have looked at the first letter and the first letter you'll recall is mamar has two names. Mammar keshashem oresis hashmad. Mar kdeshashem just means an essay about the sanctification of god's name. And the other title is a letter regarding forced conversion. Uh those titles were not given uh by the ram himself. Those were titles that the translators of the letters because letters were written in Arab. Hebrew letters but Arabic language. Uh the letters were eventually translated into Hebrew and the translators uh different translators gave different titles uh to the letter. Uh and that dealt or mammashem which we looked at for a few weeks dealt with martyrdom and the duty to give up your life for the sanctification of God's name. And the Rambam ultimately took a lenience position regarding the particulars of that conversion. We we went over that last week. But you will recall the two pieces of advice that the Rambam gives. Uh the first piece of advice is that even if you're not able to keep all of the Torah, you must keep whatever you keep and never have the attitude that you're so far gone that your mitzvot don't count. And the second piece of advice that he gave was get out of there as soon as you can. And uh a Jew is obligated to escape hostile spiritual conditions even if it means it would be a danger to relocate. And certainly if it means you'll lose all of your wealth. Again, if you think about uh Germany, you know, a lot of Jews didn't want to leave Germany uh where they were somewhat prosperous, at least initially, because they were afraid they would lose all of their wealth. And we know uh again I can't blame them because once again, nobody expected. In fact, just as a little aside, I saw the most amazing letter, you know, one of the great Gdole of the last generation who was a very interesting guttle. is a very fascinating English biography about him was Rabil Yakov Weinberg uh who uh learned was a very close talmmet of the altar of Sodka. He was raised in the Eastern European Torah only tradition and then he went to Germany to get a degree in philosophy. uh he either had a doctorate or some we're not exactly sure if he actually got the doctorate but it certainly was all virtually a doctorate and he became eventually the recctor the dean of the Hildashimer Seminary in Berlin that tried to integrate limudora with academic understandings which was very very controversial in the Eastern European millu from which he came and then uh he was in the wars ghetto during the holocaust and uh he did he did quite a lot to help people but hashem he survived the wars ghetto and then he moved to Switzerland where for the last 20 years of his life he lived a very very quiet life even though he was a world famous gone he never became a roshiva he never took on any position and he used to say upon himself it was kind of a tragic life he got divorced as a very young man he never remarried there were many many tragic tragic elements in his life. Uh but also he was tragic because he had kind of a multiple identity that was not fully accepted. He said people offered him jobs in Erit Israel. They offered him jobs in America. He just stayed in Switzerland where he didn't really have too much to do. He wrote and he said that the karedi world does not accept me because of my academic credentials and the academic world does not accept me because of my religious credentials. He felt he did not belong to any world and because of that he remained in somewhat isolation. Again there's a lot of tragic elements to Rabyak of Weineberg. This famous book of respons is called the surid Aish. Uh in fact there's an interesting story even about his uh funeral. uh and that is he was going to be buried he died around I think maybe the very ear maybe 1960 or the very early 1960s and he was going to be buried in the Sanhedrin betaim I think next to Barilan you know prominent Zionist etc and in the middle of the funeral his old from Satka the Rashivas of came and they actually it's hard to imagine this they actually kidnapped the body. They took the body and they said, "We're burying him and hares him next to the altar of Slobatka because that's his true home." His true spiritual home is with uh the altar, the altar of of of Slabka. And um I thought this may have been above a but I heard from that he was at and he actually saw this happen. So in many ways was was kind of a um conflicted complicated person who was trying to live in both worlds and never felt uh fully accepted uh in those in those worlds. Um and then know then he died and then uh you know like like many people there's kind of a little bit of a rehabilitation now he's more accepted uh just like the Ram Khal the Ram Khal himself uh was very very controversial in his lifetime but uh after he died he became a little bit more uh more accepted um you know I'm sorry I've lost track why why did why did I brought I brought up three H because of something here anyone remembers why I was He's from Europe. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. So I I wanted to mention that he was director of the Hilda Shimemer seminary in Berlin and in 1933 which is when Hitler became a chancellor of Germany and that's when they began there was no holocaust then but you know Hitler had written what he wrote in mine camp so Hitler's overall agenda was known and there began to be the Nuremberg laws various anti-semitic laws. So he wrote a letter to the chancellor Adolf Hitler Hitler signed by a lot of rabbis saying we know of course that you had to be kind of radical in your campaign speeches just to get votes of the anti-semmites but we also are very very confident uh that this is not your true feelings and we can meet together and work out a way in which Jews can live in Germany. after all we have been in Germany for 1,000 years. We've contributed so much to the society. Uh and he requested a meeting of between Hitler and uh various rabbis so we could work things out in anti-semitism. Uh uh the um Mark Shapiro who wrote the biography of Iliaak of Weineberg kind of notes lonically uh there was never this letter was never responded to. There was never a response to this particular letter. Uh the point that I'm making is that I'm not I'm not going to blame people who who stayed in Germany because they thought things would get better. Even the Swedes who was a God of the Torah mameish believed that things would be better. But still the Rambam makes the point that when you live in an environment where you cannot keep the Torah, you have to get out. Right? So those were the points uh in the myime. Uh once again, number one, you didn't have to give your life in order uh to avoid professing faith. Number two, you're still Jewish. Whatever mitzvah you do count. Number three, get out of there if you can, even if it involves danger and certainly if it involves losing your money, because frankly, there are things that are more important than money and possessions. And that is the ability of keeping the Torah. Now the Rambam wrote this letter you'll recall at the age of 27 and um his famous works including the commentary to the mission had not yet been published and yet somehow he was known. It's again it's hard for me to imagine in a time before there was internet before there was telephone before there was email uh how a person you know gets a reputation beyond his immediate city especially if he doesn't even have works that were circulated in manuscript and yet even at the age of 27 the Rambam was quite famous now unfortunately Islamic persecutions resurfaced in many many countries over and over and over again. Different rulers, different kings, different circumstances, and sometimes different severities. The particular schmad that the Rambam dealt with in Egger Tashmad was the mildest of the mildest, which gave the Rambam a lot of leeway. That's simply, you know, you get stopped by some juvenile lining who puts a knife to your throat and says, "Say these words or I'll kill you." And you just had to say the words. Then you went home and put on fill in and and then made chabas and everything else. So it was shad but it was a very mild. However, in other Islamic countries it was quite uh worse. You had to worship, you had to go to mosques, you had to go to different prayers uh etc. And they monitored you about keeping mitzvot. And this is what the Rambam dealt with around 10 years later uh in a uh letter that he received from the Yemenite community in Tman. Now remember if you can imagine a map uh Mitsraim and Tman are not next door. There is a considerable distance between them and the Rambam was approached by the elders of Tman to help them through a very very difficult Islamic schmat and here the Rambam wrote a letter and this letter is known as either Earrett Tman or once again the uh translators who translated the letter from Arabic gave the letter another name and that's called the opening like just like the city the opening of hope the beginning of hope and although and I'm sorry although uh eeran and hashmad which are separated by about 12 years so by the time the Rambam writes eeran he is a very very famous figure he is very very very wellknown known very honored uh what considered to be one of the leading rabbis in the world uh at the time uh but although he's dealing with very much of the same themes uh he really addresses it from a very different vantage point he does not discuss the duties of martyrdom he does not discuss giving your life this is largely a letter of encouragement of not losing faith of understanding that God loves the Jewish people and understanding that in a sense being persecuted and standing up to persecution is a badge of honor and distinction and it shows how special and esteemed you are in God's eyes and only the righteous will be able to stand up to these things and this is when a person is tested and it's very much is a mamar of although there are many many things in it but it's a mamar of of comfort of of assuring people that God will never abandon you and although there will be difficult difficult times you hold on tight now obviously individual people are going to suffer but but in terms of ami Israel ami is and uh tman is a letter that you could certainly read today, not just for its academic content, but to simply give oneself as we go through dark times and difficult times. And the Rambam says that Hashem will never abandon the Jewish people. And he he quotes many many verses to that effect. And he says this is part of the birth pains of Mashiach. This is part of the great great struggles that we go through. Just as human birth requires a great deal of pain, so to the spiritual birth requires and this is part of the the Mashiach. Now there are many other things in the letter which I'll get to in a moment but primarily the Rambam sees himself not so much to Pascan but he sees himself as someone whose job is to comfort to give strength to tell people to be courageous and to consider themselves especially righteous and beloved by God because of their willingness to hold on and the Rambam does not sherk from a little bit of flattery. He talks about um how ancient the Emmonite community was, how righteous it was, how charitable it was. And he says, "Look at your background. Look at your history. Look at where you've come from. And hold on to the traditions that you've gotten from your forefathers and eventually all of this will pass." This will pass. the nature of Shenib again he points out uh the litany of all of the bad guys whether it's parrot cisar hmon all of the great nations that have tried to destroy the Jewish people have simply disappeared actually it's very reminiscent you know it's very very similar there's a famous letter you can google this that Mark Twain wrote of all people Mark Twain was not Jewish. Uh Samuel Clemens, his pen name was Mark Twain. I think I mentioned before that I have a little bit of a cesher to Mark Twain because although he was born in Missouri, he spent his uh later adult years in Hartford, Connecticut, where I grew up. And in Hartford, there is something called the Mark Twain House, which is his house, and it's become a museum. So this was the site of innumerable class trips when I was growing up. So I spent many many hours in the Mark Twain house. Uh and at some point Mark Twain was accused of being anti-Semitic. So he wrote a long letter which was published in Harper's Magazine. It's interesting. Harper's magazine is still around, but it was a magazine that you know 150 years old. It was around in the 19th century. Uh and uh the long letter is uh was some of it was like you know some of my best friends are Jewish type of thing you know who knows whether he was anti-Semitic or not. Uh but be it as it may he writes about the miraculous nature of the Jew that every world power tried to destroy us and those world powers are long gone. the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the ancient Greeks, the Roman the Roman empires, they are all all gone. But the one that survives is the Jew who manages to survive, manages to flourish, manages to contribute. Well, the truth is um this is Mark Twain and of course he was a wonderful English writer. But the truth is this is exactly what the Rambam says. I don't know if the if Mark Twain had access to a translation of Eigger Tman, but this is what the Rambam is is is saying and again it's it's a wonderful thing because you see the care and concern and compassion and the feeling that he has for people who are suffering and how he tries to build them up and how he tries to say it's not going to last. You'll get over this. Things will get better. Hashem will not forget you. Because you have to understand that the consequence of these persecutions was both external and internal. Let me explain what I mean. Externally, people were giving in because they were threatened with death if they don't. That's one aspect of it. But internally, there were people that were saying, "If God is letting this happen to us, he doesn't care anymore. He's forgotten about us. What's the point of staying with this if God himself doesn't care? That's an internal problem. In other words, it's not just externally we were being persecuted. People were giving up hope in in two and in two different ways. One was if this is happening to us, God doesn't care. And then in another direction they were saying if Islam is so powerful and of course and people could say the same thing about Christianity in Europe then maybe it's true maybe God did right what is the claim of both Islam and Christianity. They don't deny the siatic revelation they say God gave the Torah to the Jews at Mount Si. They don't deny it. They accept that part of the Bible. But they say that God abrogated his covenant with the Jews and he made new choices, a new revelation either through Jesus or through Muhammad. And what do people think? If people see that in Europe, let's say Christian Europe, Christianity is growing and growing and growing and growing and growing and they see in the Islamic countries, Islam is growing and growing and growing and growing. So the internal problem that they have is not simply giving into persecution. The internal problem they have is you know maybe Islam is right. Maybe God did reject the Jewish people. Maybe God did supersede the covenant. Maybe they're right. How could you explain the growth not just in numbers of adherence but in political power? So the Rambam has to address the idea that the Torah these are things that he said later in his 13 principles of faith. The Torah does not change. The Torah is immutable. Remember minai. Remember standing at harina and saying nasma rem right we just celebrated it yesterday. remember all of these things. Remember your past. remember God's promises and remember and he quotes so many verses in Yeshua the seven of comfort and specifically he quotes this verse or these verses Zion the Jewish people says God has abandoned me and Hashem has forgotten And the answer is can a mother forget her child may ben bit can she stop having compassion for that which came out of her body doesn't happen. Then it goes on, and even if it would happen that a mother would forget her child, I will not forget you. And the Rambam brings these verses. He wants them to hear. And in fact, uh, in some ways there's almost a redundancy. The the Rambam likes to write very in very short uh very abbreviated. In fact, the Rambam often talks about the fact that he's not interested in increasing the size of a bookshelf. Uh he just wants to say what he needs to say. But initi is it is a bit verbose but it's verbose for a reason. Everything the Rambam did he did for a reason and that is it is the nature of comfort that you need to repeat it over and over and over again. We see this in in itself. If you look at the seven of comfort called the shiva that we read after tish. So you know you ask somebody what is the first Torah about? Just summarize it in a sentence. He says, "Oh, uh, God loves us and he wants to redeem us." Okay. Then you ask next week, "What's next week of Torah about?" Um, God loves us and he wants to redeem us. Okay? Then the third week, in other words, it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And the reader might be impatient like, "Why is God saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over again?" So the malim heroically tries to show that right the malim has a famous shittita that there is no such thing as biblical synonyms that even if God seems to be saying the same thing over and over and over again each word is different and the malam tries to show in his commentary this word is this word is that but I tell you I actually have a different approach that's rooted in the rad and that says there's nothing wrong with repetition when people have a broken heart. In in other words, you can't approach comfort like like you're an analytical brisker going through a gamarra says, "Well, why did Hashem have to say I love you again? He already said I love you in the last bus." Why is there a need to repeat? I don't think that's the right approach here. You got to repeat because people need to be built up. You can't ask a question know why did you know let's say a child well I tell you a little story you know they say that everybody remembers as a traumatic event in life the first time they were separated from their parents first time they got lost and I and I remember that I was uh with my mother-in-law Shalam um in a big department store and I wandered off to look at the toy department yes because the toys were there big big toy department and my mother was walking just a few feet away and I looked and for a second I lost her. I was like five. I lost her. I didn't know. And in just like you know five or 10 seconds and oh yeah I'm abandoned. You know I'm going to be an orphan. Who's going to take me in? Where am I going to go? I was neurotic even then you know uh whatever. And of course uh we were reunited after a few seconds and she was hugging me. I love I was crying. He said I love you. I love you. I love you. So, what am I going to say? Why did you have to say I love you a third time? You already said it twice. That's not how it works. You got to have common sense here. Someone needs to be comforted again and again and again and again. The Jewish people were so devastated from gulos. The nvi has to comfort us again and again. And this is exactly what the ram is doing. I'll I'll concede to you that uh in the eggerman there is a considerable amount of verbosity in repeating the message over and over and over again. But that's because people have to hear it over and over and over again. Something may enter your head but it takes a while till it enters your heart till you're able to act upon it till it actually comforts you. And once again, I think it's part of the psychological genius of the Ramba that he understands what it means to be demoralized. It's not just the threat of death that is hanging over them. It is the threat that their whole lives are no longer worth anything. That God doesn't care and maybe the Christians are right or in this case the Muslims are right. And the Rambam needs to reassure them over and over again of Akishu's love. Now, there's a lot of other stuff in the letter I'll get to, but I just want to point out that the Rambam says at the end of the letter that he wants this letter to be read publicly in Schuls and in places of gathering. And he says he wrote it in Arabic. So even people who didn't know Lasha he he mentions women and children that's that's another issue the RAB sometimes uses women and children as a as a an expression for the ignorant okay that's a a separate issue I don't want to talk about now but he makes the point he wants people to hear it and he says he knows he may get in trouble because there's a lot of defamatory references to Islam in the letter and it may get back to Egypt and he may get in trouble but he says it is worthwhile And you should know that this letter made such a powerful impression on the Jews of Yemen that they actually incorporated the Rambam's name in their kadesh. What do we say in Kadesh? Kadesh is in Aramaic. So we say may God's name may God's name be magnified and sanctified. speaking to the congregation in your life will be yon in your days and in the lifetime of all of Israel may God's name be sanctified that's really a prayer for mashiach so the yeite of the kadesh as long as the raom was alive no longer today in your days and in your lifetime and may the mashiach come in the lifetime of Ra Mosha bin M and again that dropped out when the Rambam was nifer but that was uh he revived the life of that community uh to give them the strength to go on and eventually the Schmad did get nullified just as the Rambam said it would get nullified and as you know the Emmanite community became an exemplar of great great devotion and rel religiosity. Of course, trag quite tragically in very modern times with their coming to Eric Israel. There was also a schmod of sorts which is a tragedy that is still being sorted out uh with the ammonite children that were taken from their families in the early years of the state. Uh but putting that incident aside, the Tonyim from Tman were very very very very devout. In fact um back in 1948 uh many of them I mean know they were living kind of a primitive life. I mean many were learned but they were not technologically advanced. They were very simple people in that way. So they had never heard of airplanes, never seen airplanes. But when the airplanes in 1948 came to take them to Israel, so they said this is the fulfillment of the verse. I will carry you on the wings of eagles and I will bring you to me. And they said this is God's fulfillment. Truth is that's that's actually a very logical statement. Obviously the Torah is not going to talk about I'll send airplanes for you. that wouldn't be understood. The Torah has to use terminology that would be understood by people at the time. But in terms of what it ultimately means, you know, indeed, uh that's very logical that the conve uh were the uh were the airplanes and and the like. And uh the strength of the Emmonite communities over hundreds and hundreds of years came largely from the egger tan that the Rambam sent them. So the particular value of this letter for that community was quite literally uh incalculable. It it mameish again it was sent in the 1100s the 12th century and it sustained them for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of of of years. Of course Yemenites had another controversy that's quite interesting uh way after the Rambam and that is the acceptance of the zor. This is actually a very very very interesting thing. We know generally that swardim as a whole and again tonim are technically not swardim but we kind of lump them together. Sardim as a whole are usually very cababalistically inclined. They incorporate the zoa. I I don't mean that the average you know actually knows the zo probably not but still uh they're cababalistic in their practices in their orientations. They will read zor even if they don't understand what the zor says. uh and many tonim are the same. But there was a group of tonim who refused to accept the authority of the zohor and they broke away uh actually they they claimed they were the older tradition of tman uh but they broke away from the uh cababalistic orientation of the tonim and that same group by the way didn't even accept the of kairo they looked at the ram's mishna as the only source of that they followed and uh among them was actually some some famous Yemenite rabbis including Rav Yoseph Kapak uh was uh one of the great great uh Tmani leaders. He was a man of peace. So he didn't make mlo but but he was he was of the movement that did not accept uh the zor at all. So this is a very interesting maklo because there are many that say he who does not accept the zor is an apicorus and there are others who say they say he who accepts the zor is an apicorus. They consider they consider the zoor itself to be a a heretical work because of the doctrine of the 10 spheros they claim was a multiplicity in the nature of God and they said you weren't allowed to uh to even believe it. So it wasn't just a question people think oh was the zora written by Shiman Bayai or Mosha de Leon that that's an authorship question rather the the darim the the the name of that Yemenite group they took the position that the zor was a heretical work that you were not even allowed to study because of its multiplicity so that's another mloas within the tmani community uh most do subscribe to the zor but there's still a few hold out uh Rafkopak's family and and and and and the like. Okay. So uh so that's kind of the basic purpose of Egaritan and therefore it is a little different than my Keshashem. The Mime was about the duty of martyrdom. This is and comfort and holding on and to look at your persecution as a badge of pride. And the Rambam then discusses a little bit of the history of anti-semitism up to his time, of course there have been quite a few additional parts of the story that came after the Rambam. But he basically says that ever since the Jewish people were given the Torah, again he bases this on Khaz, we got the Torah at Hari. Now Kazal say why why is Hari called Sai? Because it has many names. is also called. So sai kazal say is connected to the word sena because sin and sin and sak are interchangeable letters not in modern Hebrew but in lash to Torah. So as a result uh hari is called saii that because of the Torah ya s leolam the nations of the world hate us because of the Torah. That's an interesting idea. The idea is that the Torah created morality. The Torah created conscience. The Torah created accountability. The Torah taught that just because you have the power to do things doesn't mean you have the right to do things. And the nations of the world hated that idea because they didn't want any limit. Now remember the nations of the world also worshiped gods. They were pagans. But those pagans did not impose any limitation. Zeus did not care if you were moral or charitable or kind or compassionate because that was hardly a description of Zeus himself. Right? So they added religion. In other words, religion was like your mafia protection guy. You'd pay uh pay this powerful god to protect you. But there was no implication for how you lived your life. Judaism created, Torah created a moral constraint on the power of man and therefore it was a source of hatred. Hatred against the Jews that bear that Torah. Now, fascinatingly, what the Rambam says is the source of this hatred of Jews was said by none other, I hate to quote him as a source, by Adolf Hitler, you makimo in mine cuff, you know, in a very pathological way and please please forgive me if this is hurtful or offensive. uh Hitler was in fact a very perceptive student of Judaism. He understood exactly what Judaism was and he hated it and wanted to destroy it. But he understood. He said Jews created the idea of conscience. Jews created the idea of moral restraint. Hitler then concluded that this has been destructive because it limits human power. It limits our ability to do what we want to do. It is therefore this is false conclusion a destructive force that we must eradicate by getting rid of every last Jew. So this is exactly what Khazal said the Torah brought hatred of the Jew into the world. Just as we say in modern speech, those who are anti-Israel, anti-Zionist are anti-Jewish. So, taking it a little further to this tradition, those who are anti-Semitic are anti- Torah. They're anti- what the Torah represents. Now, I have to admit there is a question that bothers me a little bit because I seem to hear two different models of why God has anti- allows anti-semitism in the world. And they seem to be a little contradictory. On one hand, we just have the idea that I just said that anti-semitism is hatred of what the Torah represents. But then we have another idea that anti-semitism comes into the world because Jews wander away from the Torah and they want to assimilate and they want to become like the nations of the world. So God sends as it were rejection from those nations so that we will turn to Torah. So, is anti-semitism spiritually a hatred of Torah or is it a punishment or a warning or a message because Jews are wandering away from the Torah? Both themes are stated in different places, including the Torah itself, but it's hard to see that they're fully consistent. Also there are other contradictions there. There are anti-semites who say the Jews rule the world. They have all the money. They have all the power and on the other hand they're rats. They're vermin. They're lowest of the low. So yeah, that's how the world lives. Well, yeah. I I mean if you look at Christian anti-semitism, you actually see mamas a contradiction. Mash a theological contradiction. On one hand, Christianity says or said, I'm not going to deal with the the present situation said that the fact that the Jews were exiled, the fact that the Jews were hated, the fact that the Jews are persecuted, the fact that the Jews are poor and impoverished, that's a sign that God has rejected them. And that's exactly what the Ammonite Jews are feeling then in the Rambam's case. Meaning we're looking at the loneliness of the Jew as proof that God rejects them. That's been a standard Christian claim. And then we have the opposite. We hate the Jews because they control the banks and they control the economic system and everything that happens in the world, you know. So on one hand the Jews are hated because they're lowly and inferior. Then the Jews are hated because they're rich, wealthy, powerful and control everything. Now they tell a joke, you know, it's an interesting thing that um Jews have had always a sense of humor to get through life even in very difficult times. So we actually have as strange as it is Holocaust humor a little bit. Again, I you know, this is from the people who went through the situation. That's that's why I could say it's not, God forbid, somebody else making a joke of it that this goes back uh to the the early 30s after 1933, but before there were concentration camps, but there were the Nermberg laws. There was anti-semitic decrees. Uh Jews were losing their businesses. Things were starting crystal. Now, things well, that was later, but things were starting to happen even before there was extermination. And uh the infamous Nazi paper was their sturmer which was just filled with hatred of Jews every every line. So a guy's on a bus, a Jewish guy's on a bus and he sees his friend on the bus and his friend is reading the Nazi paper. So he says to his friend, "What are you doing? You're reading a paper that's calling for the death of Jews and the hatred of Jews. Why are you reading the paper?" He says, 'You know, we're going through very hard times now. Uh, we're losing our property, losing our money, there's persecution, there's anti-semitism, there's riots against us in the streets. Every day is bad news. But I pick up the Nazi paper and I read Jews control the banks, Jews have wealth. Uh, says I want to get a little good news once in a while, right? So I read the anti-semitic paper because then I get good news about how powerful and rich the Jewish people are. So you're 100% right. Uh I guess anti-semitism doesn't need internal logic and they can go with with opposite ideas. But the Rambam goes with the idea that the hatred of the Jew is a hatred of the Torah because of the spiritual message the Torah represents. And therefore from the beginning of time kings have tried kings and governments have tried to dissuade us. And the Rambam says there were three different strategies that were used different times different places. The first strategy was physical compulsion meaning abandon your Torah or we will kill you. right? Physical compulsion and that gets into martyrdom and the like. The second approach that different cultures used was attempts at logical reputation. In other words, to try to undermine belief in God intellectually by books of philosophy, by atheism, etc. or even by history by basically saying, "Hey, if God loved you, why why are you treat why are you being treated this way?" In other words, not trying to get you away from Judaism by compulsion, but to get you away by logical argument, uh, to either deny a creator, deny a Torah, or to make the argument that God has rejected you because of the way you're living. Right? So that's argumentation. Now the Rambam notes sometimes method one was coupled with method two. Sometimes they existed separately. Then the Ramba mentions a third way in which Jews would be confused and that is by the invention of alternative faith systems that seem to mimic Judaism in some way but are ultimately based on totally different premises. And here he uses both Christianity and Islam as two examples of faith systems that on some level do resemble Judaism. They have mitzvos and a veros. They have reward and punishment systems. They have a lot of overlap with what's in the Torah. And as a result, many Jews could be led astray by basically saying this may be a new and improved type of Judaism. So we have these three overlapping methodologies, the physical coercion, the philosophical disputation, and the creation of alternative faith systems that might convince a person is a new and improved transformation of the Torah. In other words, the Torah itself was changed to uh be improved in in various ways. And the Rambam uses some very striking language. First of all, I want to point out whenever he refers to Muhammad throughout this letter, he calls him Hamashuga. That's the only way he calls him in the insane person. Now again I I can't read the original Arabic so I'm not sure if the translator did that or the Rambam did that but he calls him a mishuga haz uh he talks about yesu anotri Jesus of Nazareth and the mashuga haz different times both tried to create so with Jesus he makes an interesting point now again did the Rambam fully know the history of Christianity I I'm not sure he did so the truth of the matter is I don't automatically accept the Rambam's historical reconstruction of Christianity as 100% accurate. But the Rambam says the man called Yeshuani, which is Jesus of Nater of Nazareth. He says claims to be a prophet of God. He claimed to be a Mashiach of God. The Rambam says he was executed by the sages as a false prophet. Now you should know that itself is a really really interesting thing. Uh if you read the accounts in the Christian Bible of the execution of Jesus, uh the accounts normally uh say that he was executed by the Romans based on the accusations of Jewish people. And the Romans executed him not for religious reasons. The Romans executed him because if he was claiming to be a Moshiach, he might lead a revolt against Rome and we have to get rid of him as a political matter. Uh the Romans were always on tenser hooks, you know. Uh they say the scariest time if you were a Roman a soldier, the scariest day of the year was Era of Pesak because imagine you're this Roman soldier and you have hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jews coming to Jerusalem to bring a carbon pesak. And if you're a Roman soldier, you know that every single one of these millions of people hates my guts and will be happy to kill me. And then on Araf Pesak comes this guy riding on a donkey who is acknowledged, you know, as the Messiah, the Messiah, the redeemer. Well, the Romans can't tolerate that. The Romans, get rid of this guy right away. So with the Romans, it was not a big religious deal. It was simply a matter of getting rid of them as soon as they could. And the Rambam But the Rambam actually says that Yoshka was executed by the Jews themselves as a nishak. So go figure. Christians have been accusing Jews of deocide for thousands of years. The Catholic Church finally exonerated us uh fairly recently, but it turns out that they were right all along. Basically we did kill him uh because he was a ny shecker. We did kill him and we had the right to kill him according to now the Rambam then says and this part is true that uh Jesus did not intend to create a new religion. Jesus is not the inventor of Christianity. Jesus's claim was he was a prophet of God. His claim was he was the Messiah. He was the Messiah of God. Now the Rambam does say that Yashka did claim that the mitzvot of the Torah were no longer binding. Now that itself may be an open question, but he did not intend to create a new religion. The actual inventor of Christianity as a separate faith system was Paul. Paul who was also Jewish. Paul and Paul never even knew Jesus. Paul had this vision supposedly of Yashka on the famous road to Damascus uh and the like. So the Rambam says uh Yeshua Anotui did not intend to create a new religion that was created by disciples later but he did intend to be a false prophet and wean people away from the mitzvot. and Muhammad as well. The Mishuga Muhammad uh claimed to have new revelations that superseded the the the Torah. The Rambam says about both of these religious systems that although they bear an external resemblance to many many facets of Judaism, they are as similar to Judaism as a monkey imitating a human being. A monkey can do many things that human beings do and it looks the same but of course it's fundamentally different. He uses two Michelum. One is a monkey imitating human being and the other is a statue resembling a human being. The statue looks just like a human being. You know might be theoretically or we might say a movie image might look like a human being but it's not the same. the pineot the internal aspect is totally is totally not uh not the same. Now again let me just remind you in the Mishna Torah the Rambam does assign a positive role to both Christianity and Islam as a way of weaning the world away from degenerate paganism towards a greater sense of morality. So although he decries them as false beliefs, he sees them as representing a progress in the evolution of a moral consciousness towards monotheism. Now you might say, well that's very isn't that so different than calling it a monkey. But but again you have to understand that a lot of things depend on the audience that you're addressing. Meaning when the Rambam is discussing something abstractly like in the Mishna Torah, the Rambam will concede that Christianity and Islam have have have had positive impact in the world on some level. But here he's talking to demoralized people who want to abandon Judaism because they see greater value in these other religions. So here the Rambam has to move in the opposite direction to kind of denigrate what these other religions are and that they should not be taken so seriously. So the fact that rhetorically the Rambam switches tones is not really that difficult because depending on what your purpose is in your communication that will determine your tone. Here the Rambam is very very denigrating of these other religions simply because he needs to pull all stops out to prevent Jews from uh from going uh from going over. Okay. So I just want to end with this idea that Eger Tman is actually dealing with a triple threat. I didn't mention all of the threats. One is the threat of the forced conversions which in turn have both an external aspect of coercion and an internal aspect of demoralization. That's threat number one which has two components. Threat number two was a Jewish apostate to Islam, we haven't spoken about this yet, actually circulated a book trying to prove from the Torah itself that Muhammad is God's successor to Moshe. And this is coming from a Jew and people are reading this book and looking at the philosophical and textual arguments. So that's a second threat which we didn't talk about today. we'll talk about next week. The third threat is kind of the opposite and that's a whole other theme of this letter and that is in the middle of all of this mess comes a guy who claims to be Mashiach to redeem the Jewish people. So we get into false messianism and the Ram has to put out that fire because false messianism could be absolutely catastrophic. So the triple threat, the coercion, the conversion which is both coercive and demoralizing, the philosophical anti-Jewish arguments in which the Torah itself is said to be a source for Muhammad. And then the third issue is the false mashiach in Yemen that could wreck a lot of havoc on the Jewish people. The Rambam is concerned not only with the extra demoralization that's going to cause if it turns out that he's false but the fact that the very safety of the community is at issue here because a guy shows up Mashiach and Jews join him and they try to rebel against the government the you know the government may just massacre them and the like. So the Rambam suggests on the false Mashiach, the Rambam suggests throw the guy in jail, publicize that he's crazy and only when it's well known that he's crazy, then you can let him out because then the government won't pay attention to him and they just know he's another mishuga. But until it is a well-known public fact that he's a mishuga, uh just keep him behind bars so he's not going to be a danger. But again, we'll talk about that because the Rambam does digress into astrology, which is something else he talks about. What are the signs of Mashiach? How do you know if somebody is a true Messiah, a false Mashiach? Right? So, there's a lot of interesting things that come out in this letter. So, God willing, we'll hopefully finish it next week. Be well. Thank you.