The Real Life of the Rambam | Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz | February 24th 2026

No, it is uh it is amazing. You know the old saying, it's a French uh proverb. I don't know the French, but the more things change, the more they remain the same. Uh next week, we will be celebrating um our defeat of an enemy that emerged from Persia. And uh right now we're confronting the threat from Iran. And we hope that uh porum will occur once again in in one way or the other. and we should be in Nissel. Somehow Persia always seems to reemerge no matter what the galot is. So they're always around and hashem they too will be will be defeated. Um hope everybody is well and uh you just heard a wonderful shiran for him. So I'm not going to repeat it. So I'm just going to go back to our letter and uh this is a very interesting letter. Uh this is the letter that the Rambam writes to Rav Iben Tibon. Just to remind you, we talked about it this end of last class. Um, the Ibon Iben Tibbon family, this is an Arabic name, Iben Tibbon, uh, were the most famous translators of Jewish Arabic into Lashan Hakodesh. And this was extremely important because although Arabic was the language of the Islamic world, it was not the language of the European world. So the Jews who lived in Germany, Poland, uh, Russia, Lithuania, whatever it would be, they would not have had access to these unless they were Bashon Hakodesh. And the Iben Tibbon family were the ones who translated a lot of the Arabic literature. Uh there's a whole bunch of them, five, five or even more than that. But the two that are most famous are Rab Yehuda Iben Tibon and his son Rav Iben Tibbon. Uh Yehuda Iben Tibbon uh was born in Spain when it was under Islamic control and that's why Arabic was his native language. But he relocated because of the Islamic persecutions. He relo relocated to France to Provence in southern France and that is where he raised his son Rabbi Ibon and his son learned Arabic as well as many other things uh from his father Rab Yehuda Iben Tibon it's very clear from the letter we'll see that the Rambam never met him and indeed he did not translate any of the Rambam's books but Rhuda Ibon has a triple header uh three very very significant for him are his translations. One is the salivos duties of the heart. Uh the other is vidote that is uh ravaj. Why is my mind blanking out? Everyone remember I mentioned what the third one was. >> Oh the ker the ker. That's correct. So the all come from uh the Rambam in his letter to says that I've heard so many wonderful things about your father. Your father truly was a great man who made Torah accessible in many many ways and Baruk Hashem God gave him the greatest blessing of all to have a son who follows in the ways of his father. So it's very clear from the letter that the Rambam had never met Tibon but he does express his great admiration for his achievement. Now Derek Agav it is interesting uh that the Rambam mentions that he had heard about Reuda Tibon um from a rabbi a Rebi Mayor who's otherwise not identified but what's interesting is the Ramba mentions three of the teachers of Rebi Mayor to kind of bolster Rabbi Mayor's credibility as a reporter. Uh he mentions uh Mayor when Mayor who otherwise is not identified the the very precious camel Rabagas that he had learned he had been a disciple of the great Rabb the great rabbi in Pascera it's a French I'm not sure how you pronounce it now this is none other. This is very interesting. This is a pretty rare reference of the Rambam to the rivet. Rab Ben Davidid was the great critic of the Rambam. He went through every single line of the Mishna Torah and he critiqued it and the Rambam makes reference that this Rabbi mayor was a disciple of the great Rabbi Rabi Abram Benovid in France. So the Rambam spoke highly of the Ravid which I thought was interesting. Uh the rabbi did not always reciprocate the favor. And then he mentions another teacher that Raber had theel Ravakov. Rabi Mayor was a disciple of the rivet. And Rabi Mayor was a disciple of Raviakov. I see that some identify this as none other than Rabenu Tam Rashi's grandson who was the guttle in France. And the third is Adel Rab Iben Ezra. So it's interesting that the Rambam is mentioning three near contemporaries uh in terms of this Rabbi Mayor who apparently had a very eclectic education. Uh he had studied Torah with the Rid and with Rabenuam and uh even with the Eben the Iban Ezra again people make a mistake just to be clear I'm sure you know this some people read the name Abraham Ben Ezra as if Ezra was his father. In fact, no. Iben, it's Iben Ezra. Iben Ezra was the family name. Uh Ezra was not his father. Okay. But be it as it may, uh the Rambam says that he heard all about Raud Tibon from this Rabbi Mayor and he's also seen the work. I think I had mentioned to you that the Kosabavos was the Rambam's father's favorite saver, although the Rambam's father probably read it in the Arabic original. And he expresses uh again the idea the very very beautiful idea that the greatest treasure that a parent can have if the parent is a parent of accomplishment is that their child should equal or even surpass the accomplishments of the parent and the Rambam says that I see that you are a person that is walking in the ways of your parents. Now again uh keep in mind that one of the downsides of the letters of the Rambam is we have the Rambam's responses to letters. We don't have the actual letter that was sent to the Rambam. But basically ibon is engaged and in translating the murinim from Arabic into uh into Hebrew and uh the Hebrew language itself although it's lashesh was not necessarily that well suited for abstract philosophical terminologies. Hebrew in fact at least biblical Hebrew and even rabbitic Hebrew maybe even more so is not an abstract language. It's a very very tangible language. It deals with actions. It deals with things. It does not deal with philosophical speculation. That that itself I think might be very interesting. Perhaps >> [snorts] >> uh Kazal did not regard philosophical speculation as that important or that vital or perhaps even dangerous. But whatever it was, Iben Tibon Tibon had some problems kind of taking the Rambam. In fact, that's why the Rambam wrote it in Arabic. But taking the Rambam's philosophical terms and trying to translate them into Hebrew. And as I say, there were a bunch of problems had. One was not clearly understanding the Rambam's point. Meaning, what do you mean A B C D? Second, even if I know what you mean, how would you express it in Hebrew? So, keep in mind that Iban has two different sets of problems that he's presenting the Rambam. One is a problem of understanding the Rambam's ideas. The other is what would the Rambam suggest would be the appropriate Hebrew equivalents uh for these Arabic terms. And there's actually a long list. You actually see from the Rambam's response how many different questions were asked and occasionally uh the Rambam would actually say that your question is a very good question because you are reading from a corrupted manuscript which did not actually express uh what I wrote and the Rambam goes through it and I had mentioned last week that the Rambam also expressed a very important philosophy of translation which is still relevant today. uh and that is the translator should not translate literally. The translator should not follow the word order of the original language. Every language has a different syntax. Every language has a different word order. If you translate something very very literally, it's going to be distorted. It's not going to make sense. It's not going to be readable. And therefore the Rambam actually supports the idea of what you might call paraphrase translation which some say is not a translation in which you be sure that you understand the meaning of what is being said and then you translate it into the way you would express it in the language that you're translating it into. Now again uh there are people who are very much against that idea uh because that's not a translation that is simply the translator's understanding of the content. But the Rambam seems to say that intelligibility is very very important. Uh and therefore exact word for word literal translation should be sacrificed in order to make the message more meaningful and more understandable. But the Rambam says of course it does require somebody who really really really understands what the underlying idea is otherwise you're simply not getting not getting the meaning uh that was that was intended. So that itself is a very very interesting um observation and again until we go through the actual morim going through the actual translation choices uh is really is really out of context meaning what is this word in chapter 25 of so I'm not going to go over the the actual list but there's like a hundred different uh corrections or additions. So in many many ways I'm not sure if we would call the Rambam a co-ransator but the Rambam was very very actively involved in uh the translation process of the morim at the invitation of Rabi ibon. I should also mention that he translated other things of the Rambam of a philosophical nature. uh he is the translator of the great introduction of the Rambam to Perkovos that is called Shimona Praim the eight chapters and I hope we will actually get to get to the eight chapters because remember this course is officially called letters and introductions so I have not forgotten the introductions that are coming down the coming down the pike uh and it's interesting that Ibenton not only translated the Ramb Praim but he wrote a very brilliant philosophical introduction. So when you learn the introduction to an introduction. So when you learn the praim one of the things you learn is not only the Rambam which is the Ibuntone translation you learn the Ibuntone essay which is an introduction to the Rambams. So again, you know, people think, "Oh, he's only a translator." The truth is that both Yehudon and Shalbone were also authors of original works in their own right. Uh so they were great uh scholars, very conversant with sciences as well, medicine. Uh but I think it's fair to say that they are most famous for the translation activity. meaning u if you would ask me uh where I you could find um Ravul Iban Tibon's own works uh you will not find them in a B knesset or a B medish you can go to national library or Hebrew university you can get them there um but as I say the fame is is from the translation which again was very significant because remember this essentially unlocked and then theot and the morim father they unlocked these treasures to European jewelry to Ashkanazic jewelry who otherwise would not have been familiar uh with the Arabic. Uh now do remember that the Rambam did express regret towards the end of his life although not in this letter that not about the but he expressed at the safer and the commentary on the Mishna he says he wished he would have written it in Hebrew because those were Torah works and he felt that he should have written it. He opted for translation to make it accessible to his communities but he said he should have had a broader vision. On the other hand, I don't believe he ever expressed any regret that the morim was in Arabic and probably because the Rambam felt that philosophical concepts could be better expressed in Arabic than in lones. So he was happy to have a translation but he also wanted an Arabic uh original. Now I had mentioned again forgive me for repeating I am going to get to something new in a moment that the IBON translations to this very day are a little bit controversial because in spite of the Rambam statement don't be literal in spite of that uh literalness is exactly what the Tibbone translations try to do. They try to be as close to both word order and uh and uh literal meaning as is possible. And as a result, as the Rambam predicted, as the Rambam himself warned him, uh that's going to sacrifice intelligibility uh because of your commitment to an exact accuracy in translation. And as a result, there have been uh a number of modern translations of Morvim uh both in English, in fact a very uh recent English translation came out recently, but also in Hebrew. There are modern Hebrew translations from the Arabic text. Uh, Professor Mikail Schwarz, uh, who teaches somewhere in Israel, I don't remember, maybe Hebrew University, uh, produced a a beautiful Hebrew translation, much more readable a few years ago. Earlier than that was Rav Yoseph Kapak, who was a very, very uh, well-known Yemenite RAV. He was on the USM based in uh actually he comes from his family is a bit controversial because you know in Yemen there was a great great split in the 19th century and maybe even the 18th century regarding the acceptability of the zoor. You know when we think of and we think of generally no they seem to be very aduk to the zo they seem to be very very connected to the zoa but in fact there was a whole movement in Yemen uh which they considered the zo to be a abicorus uh they considered the zo to be duality because it talks about 10 spheros 10 different dimensions of god and uh the only books they regarded as authoritative were the ramboms books not even the puscan director from the Rambam Rav Kapak's grandfather was the leader of that movement uh in the 19th century and I'm not sure what R Kapak himself held but this is very controversial because you know that the mainstream I mean I see this even in Arsame I mean a lot of rabbis tell their students if you don't accept sanctity of the zor you are a heretic you are an aorus you don't have a share in the world to come hasten to add I I do not believe that's true. Although I believe in the Zo, but it's not an article of faith. Uh but this Yemenite group actually took the position that if you believe in the Zo, you're an Apicorus because the Zo seems to talk about multiplicity or duality within God. So Raf Kapak uh had that problem with his family. I mean the family was very controversial. But one of the things Raf Kapak did was because growing up in Tman, uh they had learned all of the Rambam's Arabic writings in the original Arabic. I mean the Mishna Torah was in Hebrew, but they had learned the commentary to the Mishna, the Morinham in Arabic. So he and of course the letters which were Arabic, he re-ransated in modern flowing Hebrew uh all of the Arabic works of the Rambam. So you actually have a choice. You have for the morim you have Dr. Rik Schwarz, you have Kapak. You have another translation which is actually pretty easy to read translation from somebody called Iben Shuel. I don't know who he was, but this goes back to the 1940s, uh, I think. Uh, and then in English, you also have translations. Now, some of the translations are from the Iben Tibbon translation. Not every English translator knew Arabic. So, that was just a translation from the Iben Tibon Hebrew. Others a bit more scholarly actually made original original English translations from the Arabic itself. So you actually have a big choice. Uh but Ibent Tibbon was the pioneer. By the way, he is even the translator of the letter written to him. This letter that the Rambam wrote in Arabic to Iben Tiban was translated by Rul. gets a little I I guess you'd be a little self-conscious when you're translating these words about how great you are right says [laughter] but you know I guess it was good for well okay I don't want I don't want to speculate but the truth of the matter is translation was a competitive business and in fact Iben Tibon even at the time was not the only translator of the guide to the perplex there were other people who were translating it you didn't even need author's permission in those days. There weren't really copyright laws. I wanted to translate, I translate. And the point is though that letters like this are the best advertising says, "Hey, I got authorization from the author himself, the Ramba." So, uh, it's not I'm not I'm not being facitious when I'm saying that these letters were pro used in a promotional way to kind of drive out competing translations and indeed that is the case. Uh, that although we do we actually do have alternative translations from the time of ibon we actually do have them but they are not commonly used. used the Ibent T-Bone translation and as well as the newer translations but from that time the Iban Tibbone translation became the only one that essentially circulated throughout throughout Europe. So uh in a sense uh these were uh these were good advertisements. uh he also was the translator of Earrett the Rambam's long treatise or long letter on resurrection of the dead that we looked at that is Rafiot's translation. Okay. Uh so the last part of the letter though is very very interesting from a personal level and that is Tibon would very much like a personal visit. He said, "I would like to come from France to visit you so we could meet in person and discuss things." Remember those days, no telephone, no email, certainly no WhatsApp. Uh if you weren't together, the only way of communicating was by letter. And just imagine how long that took. I mean it's an amazing thing when Liberty writes his questions and sends them you know it might be two months until the Rambam gets them and it might be two or three months until Liberty bone gets it back. I we we have no idea I mean we don't think about this sometimes how long communications took in those days although although you know the I did hear that the ancient Persian postal service was faster than the modern Israeli one. Uh you know the post office was invented by Persian. One of the one of the contributions of the Persian Empire was to create a very very swift way of delivering mail. of >> that's correct and before you see this already in the migilla but this was the system Heroditus the great Greek historian uh memorializes the the creation of the Persian postal service and even that those famous words that the US post office which isn't true for them but neither rain nor whatever it is shall deter us from our rounds that that is Heroditus description of the Persian postal service so I actually read this is quite serious this is not just Porium Joe that they they actually have statistics the average amount of time it took for letters to be delivered in the Persian Empire and the imag amount of time it takes for letters to be delivered here in Israel and they determined that they were faster in Persia. Okay. But that may have been a unique system but generally speaking uh today you have alter but today you have alternatives. Yeah the post the post is slow but you know you have phone you have email you have WhatsApp you have a million things. In those days you didn't. So things are very slow. So it makes sense that Liberton says, "Hey, why can't we have a meeting? I'm willing to make a trip." The trip itself is a long trip France, you know, uh to to Egypt. Uh but let's have a meeting. I'd love to meet you. I'd love to uh honor you, etc. So this letter is not only a listing of corrections or questions. It is a request for a pagisha. So the Rambam is very very very polite but more or less he says please don't show up. I don't have the time to to meet with you. Although he does it in a very very nice way. So I just want to read a little bit of the the excerpts from this because it does give you um a sense of the Rambam's uh schedule. Just find it here. Sorry, one second. the yum. Now again remember this is Ibon's translation of the Arabic that which you mentioned that you would like to come and visit. Of course you're welcome. We'd be very happy to see you. I'm yearning to see you. Again, I'm not entirely sure, but okay. I will be so happy to see your face. More than you're happy to see me. I will be happy to see you. Even though I am concerned that it might be a dangerous trip, a sea voyage, and a difficult land voyage, but still I'd love to see you. However, I want to tell you and I want to give you some advice. Do not put yourself in danger to make the trip. Ira, you will get no benefit from coming to me other than seeing my face. Meaning we're not going to have any discussion. We're not going to have any time to talk uh etc. And you will not be able to if you think there'll be some benefit in increasing wisdom or even to have private time with me even for one hour in the day or the night. Abandon all hope. It is it is impossible. I want to tell you my schedule. I live in Mitra. Now Mitam here means Cairo. Cairo itself was called Mitam. And remember technically the the old Jewish section of Cairo where the Rambam lived was called Fust. So Mitam is Fed in Cairo. Hamel omeahira uh the king or the uh >> what was it? What was it? >> No, it wasn't the fire. No, no. What did they call the Islamic guy? I don't remember. >> The califf. Yeah, the califf was in Cairo proper. Um so it's not so far but but ride by donkey. The distance between where I live and the and the califf's palace is the distance of two Shabbat's boundaries. Now, a Shabbat boundary we're allowed to walk is 2,000 Amote, which is approximately a kilometer. So 4,000 amote we will say is 2 kilometers. Okay, it's not a huge huge trip. But the Rambam says that I have I am the physician to the califf and to his court and every single day I have to look at scores of different people, his cabinet members, his government officials, his family, the king himself. And um I spend uh the whole morning into the afternoon being a doctor. So I'll make up approximate numbers. So I got to go there early in the morning and I don't leave the palace till midafter afternoon. So he's not there the whole day but his whole morning and and early first by the afternoon is taken up. And then I come home. And when I come home, I have not eaten anything all day. And when I come home, there's a long line of people waiting to see me. Some of them are patients for medical care. Some of them are people with shos questions. Some of them are people who want saddaka or they need me to help them in some way. And it's a whole line of people. And I have not eaten anything all day. and I beg their forgiveness as I go into a private room. I lie down on a couch and I have my only meal of the day. And then I am with these patients and other people till nightfall and sometimes two hours into the night as late as 2 hours into the night and then I have to study medicine because a good doctor you know needs to read up. >> [snorts] >> I mean there weren't new journals in those days but whatever uh cif rafua whether it's hypocrisies or galen or the Arabic works because a good doctor has to read up and the Rambam says I have basically no time to even learn Torah or to be oake inma like philosophy I'm kind of busy with medicine and the like and it's only on Shabbat where I learn with my congregation And uh we learn after davening for a few hours then we go home for the meal and then a few people come back for ma and I learn with them until nightfall. He says and that is my week and that is my life and I just don't think I will be able to see you at all. Now there is a little bit of a mlo among historians. Is this okay? Is this really the Rambam schedule? Uh, was it that bad or the Rambam was busy and he didn't want visitors that he, you know, so he's kind of maybe making it a little worse than it really is. Uh, but the Rambam does say that he literally uh has no time uh for people to visit him. Uh, and uh, he says he only learns Torah and Shabbat. Now, I I do want to point out that the Rambam wrote the Mishna Torah. Forget about the morning for a moment. Over 10 years and he did it at night after this schedule. So you see what a monumental achievement it is to be able to focus and concentrate. And obviously the Rambam did not follow his own advice where the Rambam writes in the Mishna Torah that a person should have eight hours of sleep every night. the Rambam surely did not have eight hours of of sleep. Uh so this is uh the very interesting part of the letter and as far as I know Raful Ibon never visited the Rambam after getting this letter he realized he would not be able to uh discuss things with the Rambam in the way that he wanted to be able to uh do so. Okay. Now the last part of the letter is is also very interesting. It actually is a reading list. Uh the Rambam tells of Schmo Ibent Tibon which philosophical works are proper for you to read to understand things and which philosophical works are superficial or inaccurate and to be avoided. Now the Rambam does say in fact in fact this letter is the source of a quote that I know you've heard of. uh the Rambam had great admiration for Aristotle and it is said in the name of the Rambam that the Rambam maintained that Aristotle reached the highest level of human wisdom that a person could have short of actual divine prophecy. That statement which I'm I'm sure you may have heard over the years is in this letter and this is where he says it. He says Aristotle is the greatest level of course it's not Torah. Torah is another another thing but in terms of human the Rambam considered Aristotle to be the greatest of the great. But remember that the Rambam did not know Greek and the Rambam did not read Aristotle in Greek. The Rambam read Aristotle in medieval Arabic translations with commentators. Meaning just as Laabio we have mforchim on ksh and the like Aristotle had mour people wrote commentaries [clears throat] on Aristotle and the Rambam talks about which translations of Aristotle are the good ones [snorts] and which commentaries which before should you learn when you're going through uh Aristotle and he goes to specific names and he mentions that certain translators are no good because they were physicians although the Ramba was a physician they were physicians not philosophers so they did not fully understand the content of it and he actually gives them a reading list and he says what books to avoid what books uh not to avoid uh and he said he knows even Tibon is a conscientious student who will want to master philosophy this is actually one of the issues to this very day to this very day one of the challenges that people have in learning Morinim is that the morinim is a response to a lot of philosophical literature. He's trying to answer questions that arise from that literature. So if you're not familiar with that literature, you don't really know what the Rambam is trying to say. So, in a sense, you almost need a six-month course in Aristotle before you begin the morim because the morim is essentially a commentary and a response and a partial reputation of a lot of aristoilian premises. But the Rambam does not fully address the arisatilian premises because he assumes that the reader already knows it. The morim was not written for a simple person. The morim was written for people who were philosophically very very sophisticated and saw certain conflicts between rational philosophy and received tradition and the Rambam attempts to reconcile those different conflicts. But if you don't know what the secular philosophy says uh you would not really fully understand the Rambam. So that's really a problem. In fact, uh Harry Wilson who himself is a fascinating fascinating person. I let me digress for 2 minutes and talk about Harry Wolson. Uh Harry Wilson who died I don't know in the 1970s maybe. It was a while ago. Uh he uh was a European Jew who actually went to the great yeshivas. He went to Slobatka. He was a tom of Slobatka. But eventually he came to America and he went off the Derek as we say and he became a professor at Harvard University and he was like the world's experts [snorts] in um in medieval philosophy especially Jewish but really all philosophy uh Pho the Rambam the Kuzari and it's interesting that although he was not religious at all and in fact he never married either so there was certain loneliness in him but he took the habits of the yeshiva and he applied it to his secular philosophical studies. Meaning he was a masid. He would work on philosophy 18 hours a day. I mean he absorbed that type of mentality in which he just not I'm not going to say went crazy but was a masid. He learned let's sayim and kuzer as many hours as the learned gamorra. Again, it never translated into religion per se. And his his his whole history is very very interesting. Why he never married, the loneliness of the person, almost the obsession of his work habits and the great struggles because when he was hired in Harvard, uh there was a lot of opposition to hiring a Jew. This was the height of real real real anti-semitism. and he broke through a very very uh thick ceiling to become what he became. But at the other hand, he always had very tragically he always had this sense of inferiority of not being accepted. He so much wanted to be accepted in the world of Harvard and he was one of the great scholars of the world but he was never fully accepted. Again, there's a whole tragic story about it. the loneliness and even the guilt of breaking with tradition because he had grown up in such a religious environment. There are Bradbury if you're interested. But I'm bringing him up because he once said he once said if you want to understand a philosopher oh Spinosa was his other one. In fact he was very like he was very much like Spinosa in a sense. Spinosa also was grew up in a religious family and totally rejected it. So Spinosa was almost Wolfson's role model and uh so it was Spinosa that he had his greatest expertise in. But Wolson once remarked and I think he's right, if you want to understand a philosopher, you have to read every single book that this philosopher read. So as a result when he would do review levy or he would do the Rambam or he would do Spininoza part of his techn was to try to compile every single work that these thinkers have read and then understand how they are responding to these particular works. Now for most of us this would be a herself. I mean we would have to do it. I mean that's why he was working 18 hours a day on this stuff because he was not just doing morim he was reading every single book that the Rambam read in writing the morim. So and of course he was doing it for other philosophers as well. So you understand that that would be quite a quite a difficult quite a difficult endeavor. Um and uh but in a way though Wolson's observations is is uh are confirmed by the Rambam's reading list because the Rambam is saying if you really if you really want to understand the Bim you have to read these different books that will enlighten you as to arisatilian uh philosophy. uh in this way I just want to point out uh you know when the Rambam lived uh Islamic culture was much on much much higher level than Europe than uh European culture. Uh Europe was going through it was the middle ages but it was known as the part of the middle ages that were the dark ages. Uh Christian Europe was very very primitive. Uh most people were illiterate. most people didn't know how to read and uh it were it was the uh Islamic culture that preserved the ancient Greek philosophies in translation Aristotle Plato and the like and only when we came to the Renaissance uh did those works permeate European culture. So it is very interesting in fact Bernard Lewis I'm not sure if he's still alive but he was considered to be uh is he did he die recently? Okay. He was considered to be um the greatest expert of on Islam in the west. Uh wrote a famous book something like uh what ever happened or something like that. In other words, he basically dealts with a very interesting question or what went wrong. Like in the middle ages, Islamic culture was the highest most sophisticated culture in the world both in terms of philosophy, mathematics, science, poetry, literature and Christian Europe were basically primitive other than the Jewish communities. That's why if you were a printer in Christian Europe, you printed Jewish books. Guys like Bombberg and the like when they uh invested in a printing press shortly after Gutenberg invented the printing press, they didn't print books for Goyam. They printed books for Jews. Why? Because Goyam didn't read. You wouldn't make any money uh printing books for non-Jews. So Christian Europe was basically very very primitive. Islamic countries were highly sophisticated and then there [clears throat] seems to have been a reversal of sorts and that's what professor Lewis was trying to address like what went wrong or what happened why was there a change in the culture it's very very notable very very pronounced kind of the shift between uh Islamic civilization and what you call Christian or western civilization and why that change happens because in the Rambam time it was absolutely the opposite that uh the Rambam's milu was much more sophisticated and ariodite than uh than Christian Europe. Uh Dramam also has an interesting thing about Plato. Uh because Iben Tibbon asked him well you know Aristotle had a rebi Aristotle's rebby was Plato what about Plato? So the Rambam didn't like Plato the Rambam said listen uh he applied the that's a statement that says the son is better than the father and he says everything you need to know is an Irish title. Don't bother with Plato. Plato is too poetic. Plato is too obscure. You know, Plato has a certain mysticism about it. In fact, Cabala is sometimes called neoplatinism. uh kind of uh because once again Plato differed between uh form and substance that every physical thing is just a representation of some ideal form that in heaven there's an ideal spiritual table and this is only an imperfect representation that became the phrase the moral uses so much and surah is form is substance and sura is form now people think that's a Jewish moral expression. No, it's it's it's a platonic expression. And sura is simply the translation of the platonic dichotomy between form and substance. So it is absolutely a term that is borrowed from Greek philosophy. Although the Maharal popularized it in Jewish thought, but the Rambam does as well. But still uh the Rambam says Plato is too enigmatic. There are too many parables in it. whatever you need to know go to aris aris title. Okay. So that is kind of the Iban Tibon letter uh that I wanted to to share with you and again it gives us uh an interesting insight into the schedule of the Rambam and well I guess you know it can give uh well I can I can get comfort from it and the like sometimes person feels overwhelmed the scheduling he said listen some people had it worse. Okay. Uh now what I want to do just for the last few minutes is I actually want to go backwards and I apologize for being a little out of order with this but there was one final point I I forgot to mention which is really a very technical point but I think it's worthwhile. Uh do you remember that we had uh we had been examining before this the Rambam's correspondence kind of lovehate relationship with Rapinha Sadayian. Rapinhazian uh was a dian not in Cairo, not in Fustat but in Alexandria and um he [clears throat] would ask the Rambam different questions and he sometimes felt the Rambam did not answer him properly or the Rambam treated him with disrespect and uh they went back and forth on different things. uh but I do want to mention one very interesting question that was brought up in that correspondence which is a technical question but it's worthwhile to address a little bit and that is we know uh if you ever learned the first Mishna in Masaka's Kadushian it says a woman can actually be married in one of three ways although today we only do one of these ways. Method number one is by giving her an object of value and declaring harat makudes today. That's how it's done. And the object of value today is universally a ring. But it doesn't have to be a ring. A man could marry a woman uh with a lollipop uh with a piece of gum. The only condition is it'd be worth a proud which essentially is a very very small uh something equivalent to a penny. Right? A ring is a min. Uh but so that's called kadushe kesf. That is marriage through the giving of value. A second way a woman could be married is by giving her a document aar that simply says hurryately. Of course, it has to be done in front of two witnesses. I've never heard of anyone marrying a woman this way, but this is called kusheshar. Now the third way of marriage is by actually having mar marital intercourse which they're not married yet but you marry a man marries by having consensual god forbid not rape of course consensual sexual intercourse with the mutual the mutual intention that this is being done for marriage. This is called kushe bia. Now the Gomorrah already says that kidushia is not proper at all for a very simple reason because since you're not even married until the bia is completed. So essentially a man is having beia with an unmarried woman. In other words, the whole thing is not good because yeah, you're marrying her through the bea, but that means the the act of bea itself is with is outside of marriage. So the gammor already says that it's forbidden to do that. But if it was done, it can make kaduc. Now again, I do I do want to emphasize we are not talking about rape and we're not even talking about consensual relations. [snorts] If if if if people are living out of wedlock, that does not make them married. Okay? We are not saying every time people live out of wedlock they become married. We are talking about that quite literally this was set up to be yet it sounds so strange to our ears that the marriage is going to be effected through intercourse again I've never heard that I've never seen that and the garra says it is prohibited as a practical matter the only way we marry today is kadushf Yes. Yes. So what do you do with the adim? So the is you have to have which is another reason why it's kind of horrendous. The same way we have outside of the room which of course is not consummation. It's just but technically again it sounds it sounds very coarse. A man would say he's going to have relations with this woman in order to marry her and the of will be the adim on that type of consummation. Okay. So the Rambam says a very strange thing in safer and he says the only kadushin [clears throat] that is Torah kaducian is kaducian of bia intercourse which we don't do and kaducian oftar which we also don't do but kadushe that we do do. The Rambam says is only now the words here are extremely important. Me sof. Now the phrase dray from the words of the scribes is commonly used to mean it's a rabbitic marriage. It's not a marriage minor. Wow, that will be news to the married people in the audience think well your marriage my marriage now of course I mean if the marriage was consummated that might be be on the other hand there are no witnesses to that so to speak so if you're relying on the ring the Rambam says deop which is commonly translated midra Ana. So asked a pretty good question. He says, "Are you telling me is mid?" So that means the woman's not married. She could commit adultery and there's no no sin that's involved. Now, in order to understand, I may have to carry this over next week because it is an interesting point. Let me give you some back. I do have to give you some background. How do we know? What is the derivation? Right. We have three ways of marriage. How do you know? Yeah. >> No. >> No. Uh thetar is something that you have never seen. I have never seen. It is a document that says I am marrying you with this document. Uh the cuba is not that. The Kuba says we have gotten married and these are our obligations. So the cuba is not I mean you could write the kuba to be a kaducar but it is not written as kaduca. Okay. So let's go over derivations a little bit because in order to understand what the Rambam is saying because the answer is a little complicated and also the point the Rambam is going to make is dra sofim is not synonymous with duraban although it often is used in that way. Okay, but let's go over derivation is the only one that is explicit in the Torah because the Torah says in paras when a man marries a woman and has relations with her. So, and then actually that's written by get and then if if if they're not happy, he gives her a get. But it prefaces it. That's how we know. How do we know? We knowar because in that same para it mentions that after the woman gets a get receives a get she leaves she leaves her first husband and she marries another man. So this is called a heesh. A hekeh means juxiposition of two terms that are in immediate proximity. Vata is divorce is marriage. So this is called makish. Makish we compare kadush to divorce. [snorts] We know for sure that divorce is affected by a written document that is called a get that's in the so the same way divorce is affected by a written document marriage may be affected by a written document. So kadushia is explicit in the Torah. Kadushar is makish. Makish we compare juxtapose marriage. You see is going out which is divorce because of the words. By the way, this is also an answer to the uh the order of the Talmud. Um you know, in the order of the Talmud and the Mishna, Makas gin is learned before mus kaducian. Kaducian comes after gin. And people say how why why should that be? Oh, so the humorous answer that they give, don't tell my wife, uh it's just a joke they say and that is Hashem wants to give you the rafu before the Maka. Okay, but okay, but the real reason is that the organization of the Mishna follows the puk. When the puk describes marriage, it describes marriage after divorce. she leaves and she gets married. So in the Torah itself in that formulation the get is before the marriage and therefore the order of the Mishna mirrors and echoes the viata leish. Okay. So I gave you the derivation for kushia. I gave you the derivation for kadushe star and we don't do either of those. What is the derivation of kaducim? And the answer is this is one of the 13 principles of interpretation called gizer shava. Gazerra Shva is a rabbitic tool of exeism interpretation. When the same word is used in two contexts, you can compare them. Marriage is described as when a man takes a woman. And it says when buy the field of I have given money take the money. So the he not the ger is just like the word refer to the giving of money or value refers to the giving of this is called in the gar language the word from the field of and this gives rise to numerous feminist debates which are not really true and that is oh the rabbis say a woman is compared to a field. I'm sure you've heard that argument and now you know now you know what it's based on because the whole makur of kaducv is a gazer shava but you understand the gazer shva is not dealing with characterizations here the issue is not oh just like that was a field the woman is a field that's not what's going on this is a technical legal interpretive tool that the kenyan for kaducian is money because the same word ka is used there as is used by marriage. It is not describing what a woman is. It is simply legitimating kushv. Now based on this we see that all three methods have derivations from the kish. Beia is explicit. Star is the juxiposition the heesh of the kf is gazer sha. And yet the Rambam says bia andar are called the orita kf is midre sof. So raisins has a very legitimate question. In what way is kaduc inferior? It also has a derivation from the biblical text. And how can you say that the marriage that all of us do all of us do all of us get married by kidush kesv how can you say it's there only a rabbitic marriage it's not a tora marriage and the like I'm sorry was there a last question uh >> oh yes beautiful forced to look at the marriage of the first Jewish marriage with the same love that born that person even after she died with that same love. Yeah, that is that yeah that is a very very beautiful thought because it's really reminding you that the gazer sha is not only on the narrow issue of kvf but it's kind of linking all marriage I'm just repeating what you said linking all marriage to the relationship of abra and surah and that that's a beautiful point that's that's a tremendously good nice corrective to the idea of a woman is a field which people always always bring up okay so this is the wa this is the background So next week um even though it's a technical point I want to deal with the Rambam's answer to it because it is a very very important distinction that he makes. Okay, you have a good week. Oh uh um sorry next week is purim. Wow wow wow wow wow. Okay, you should have a joyous joyous freakapurim and again may whether you're keeping it on uh Tuesday or or Wednesday and of Yeshua Angola.