"The Great Eagle" * soared above the generations of Torah scholars who preceded him. Not only a prodigious genius, he was a compassionate leader of the Jewish people.
Maimonides is known in the world of Jewish tradition as the Rambam.*
This is an acronym from the first Hebrew letters of his name and
his father's
Rabbi Maimon was a judge for a Jewish court, and Maimonides traced his father's descent from six judges and sages. According to his grandson, Rabbi David, they were descendants of Rabbi Judah the Prince.
As a young man, Maimonides composed, in the Arabic of the Jews around him, an explanation of the Mishnah * which, translated into Hebrew, is appended today to most copies of the Talmud.* In this commentary, he explains the Thirteen Principles of Faith in detail. This first of his famous compositions, the Commentary on the Mishnah, may have been published under the Arabic title Book of Illumination.* Until the 16th century, about 95% of the world's Jews lived in Muslim lands, although many did not speak Arabic. (By 1700, the balance would shift. Increasingly, the majority of Jews would be living in Christian Europe.)
Maimonides' reputation as a Torah scholar reached Jewish communities in Europe as soon as he finished the Commentary on the Mishnah. Soon, requests came in for a translation into Hebrew – the international language of Jews – for people who did not understand the Arabic language.
Shortly after this time (publishing the Commentary on the
Mishnah), Maimonides began to lay the groundwork for his
expansive composition – the Mishneh
Torah,* called in English Maimonides' Code.*
Before beginning this monumental task of codifying all the
material of the Oral Tradition, Maimonides composed the Book of the Commandments *
for himself * in Arabic. Here, at about the age of
This wasn't the first arrangement of what a Torah scholar saw fit to enumerate. But according to his own scholarship, Maimonides' enumeration was not entirely the same as earlier scholars. Furthermore, he gathered together similar and related commandments which would serve as the scheme for presenting the commandments in the Mishneh Torah. See an example of the list of commandments that are thoroughly covered in the section called "The Fundamental Laws of the Torah" in The Book of Knowledge.*
The sum of 613 commandments is mentioned in the Talmud, and even before the Talmud, but the Talmud does not explicitly display the principles and rules as to which Scriptural laws should be counted as full commandments and which are considered details of the counted laws.
Other Torah scholars before Maimonides and since have proposed different schemes. None of the schemes is "wrong." Scholars who had mastered the Talmud saw elements from different angles. They also saw a world around them that presented unique circumstances.
Many scholars since Maimonides have used his scheme, though, as a starting point. Also, many Torah scholars prefer Maimonides' enumeration because it is accompanied by the thoroughly developed Mishneh Torah (Code).
Composing the Mishneh Torah began once the groundwork had been established in the Book of the Commandments. Whereas Maimonides in his Book of the Commandments briefly explains each commandment and its source in Scripture, for his Code he only uses the list as titles for each of the 613 commandments and places this list at the beginning.
Maimonides devoted ten years * of intensive labor to distill
all aspects of the entire Oral Tradition, which includes the
entire Talmud and some of the Midrash,* into one
Composed in simple, straight-forward Hebrew, this
The codifying task was enormous, but Moses Maimonides excelled as a codifier of Torah Law. He writes (in his own words) ". . . I studied all the works that preceded me and compiled the resulting decisions . . . in clear language and a concise style so that the entire Oral Law will be systematically arranged for everyone. . . . Young and old will find all the laws accessible so that no one will need to resort to any other book on any matter of Torah Law. . . . Therefore I have called this work Mishneh Torah (Second Law to the Torah), for a person should first read the Written Torah and then read this code. From it he will know the entire Oral Tradition without the need to consult any other book in the interim . . ." (freely translated from the introduction to Maimonides' Code).
The outlook of Maimonides' Code can be described as utopian – covering every commandment with all their details as they will be followed again in the Messianic Age. In this sense, being utopian, it shares a similarity with the Mishnah. The Mishnah in its time covered every topic of Jewish observance and attitude. As more severe vicissitudes prevailed after the Mishnah was closed at the end of the second century ce,* wisdom and understanding diminished. Already one thousand years before Maimonides, the Roman Empire was growing ever stronger, and Jews were wandering farther afield in Asia, Europe, and North Africa. The general situation of Jews during Maimonides' time was worsening. The Mishnah was not sufficient even with Maimonides careful commentary.
Whereas the earliest compilation of the Oral Tradition, the
Mishnah, is relatively brief and strictly organized, the Talmud is
neither. As an elaboration on the Mishnah, discussions in
the Talmud flow freely from one topic to another without any
index. (Later generations would supply
While it seems that the Talmud is not strictly organized (as I just wrote), the deep structure is carefully organized. However, this deep structure is not especially apparent to a student of the Mishnah. Furthermore, to determine just one law, one must often track down every place where the subject is mentioned in the oral recollections of the Talmud, which is comparable to the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica.*
The Talmud was finally closed toward the end of the fifth century ce. Thereafter, no one could dispute the Talmud, not even Maimonides. To the extent that different opinions arose, the reason was how each scholar who had mastered the Talmud saw its content from a different angle.
The fourth composition that Maimonides is especially known for is the Guide for the Perplexed. * After finishing his Code, he set out to present the philosophy of Judaism in the Arabic language of the Jews at that time. Nevertheless, he wrote if for the intellectual elite. In the Guide, we find Jewish doctrine and practice from a philosophical and mystical view. Although Jewish intellectuals were well-versed in Greek and Arab philosophy, they were confused about the meaning of Scripture, especially the underlying levels of the Torah's logic and philosophy which seem to contradict human reason.
Hebrew manuscript translations of the Guide appeared in Europe shortly after the original had become popular among Jews in Muslim lands. Latin versions were printed in 1520 and 1629.
Modern translations have appeared in most European languages. Friedländer's English edition is generally found in American public library systems.
Rabbi Moses was born in the city of Cordoba (Córdoba), Moorish Spain, on a Sabbath (Saturday), the eve of Passover, 14 Nissan * 4895 (March 1135).* Muslim populations of North Africa – Moors * – had conquered most of Christian Spain and established Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula during the 8th century. Cordoba was the capital city of Andalusia (as Muslim Iberia was called) in southern Spain and ruled by the tolerant Almoravid Muslim dynasty. The city was affluent and a cultural and political center. With power born from affluence, Cordoba distanced itself from the Arab caliphate in Baghdad. Andalusians began to organize themselves as an Emirate and then as a rival, barely Arabized Caliphate.
During Maimonides' early life, Muslims in Iberia had established
a congenial atmosphere for Jewish life to prosper, both
religiously and economically. It's not unusual to call the
11th and the early 12th centuries a Golden Age for Jews, even for
Small Christian kingdoms only ruled in the far northern region of the Iberian peninsula until they eventually pushed Islam southward and then out of Iberia. This push of reconquering Spain for Christianity – the Reconquista * – intensified from the 15th through the 17th century when remaining Muslims were forced to embrace Christianity.
When Moses was close to thirteen years old, Almohads, fanatical zealots from Morocco's Atlas Mountains, swooped down to conquer Morocco and to begin an invasion of Andalusia. They fought and ruled by the cries of "No church and no synagogue!" and "Death to the infidels." Moses was thirteen (1148) when the city of Cordoba fell into Almohad hands.
Under this new rule, Jews were persecuted and none dared openly to practice their faith. More often than not, Jews fled northward into Christian Spain and Southern France.* However, Rabbi Maimon and his family fled to southern Spain where the Almohad conquest had not yet reached. Then they fled to Muslim North Africa for an opportunity to escape persecution. Eventually, the family settled in Fez (today's Morocco) – about 1160 – for about five years. It's not impossible that Rabbi Maimon's family passed themselves off as Muslims.*
During these wanderings, Rabbi Moses began working on the first
of his major compositions, his Commentary on the Mishnah.
He worked on it for seven years – from the age of
In the face of forced conversion to Islam, Maimonides' family escaped and sailed to the Holy Land where they hoped to settle. The trip was stormy and dangerous, but the family finally reached the port of Acco (Acre – on the bay across from today's port of Haifa, Israel). Maimonides was still writing his Commentary on the Mishnah during this entire time despite the tribulations.
From Acco, Maimonides, his father, and his brother visited Jerusalem and then the holy Machpelah Cave (on the edge of today's Hebron, Israel). This is the cave that Abraham had bought for burying Sarah.* The Patriarchs and three of the four Matriarchs * are buried there.
The Jewish community of Acco was small and poor – about 200 families. Maimonides was offered the position of chief rabbi, but he declined. It seemed unlikely that he and his family could support themselves in a Jewish community that was on the verge of destitution.
Maimonides and his family relocated to Alexandria, Egypt, where a
larger, more prosperous and more prestigious Jewish community
lived. Jews enjoyed a measure of autonomy over community
affairs everywhere in Egypt. The
Rabbi Maimon passed away in Alexandria, having lived long enough to see his family begin new lives as they settled down in Egypt. In Maimonides' Commentary on the Mishnah, he writes that he finished its composition in Egypt.* It follows that the family had reached Egypt by 1165 when Maimonides was thirty years old. The family soon left Alexandria and settled in the Jewish community in Fostat (Fustat) * Egypt, (Old Cairo), where tolerance allowed Jewish life to flourish openly. The level of Jewish education and observance was also higher in Fostat than in Alexandria. This is to say that in Fostat the family was to become immersed in an atmosphere healthier for the soul.
Maimonides' brother David supported the family by earning a living as a trader of gems. Maimonides himself became a silent partner; he did not want to be compensated for his knowledge of the Torah. According to Maimonides, a Torah scholar is supposed to share his knowledge, not to sell it.
Rabbi Moses was now the educational head of his family – his younger brother David, and those whose name we do not know. David soon expanded his support of the family by engaging in the international gem trade, but he died at a young age, drowning during a storm in the Indian Ocean on a business voyage. David left behind a widow and a daughter, the widow's sister, and Maimonides' own sister.
Soon after the appearance of his Commentary on the Mishnah, perhaps by 1168 or so, Maimonides was appointed chief rabbi of Cairo and nagid of Egyptian Jews based on his extraordinary mastery of Jewish Law and Tradition. I wrote above about the next stage of Maimonides' Torah life after his Commentary on the Mishnah.
Without his brother, Maimonides needed to become the bread winner for his family. He turned to the practice of medicine. He had already become an experienced physician.
Maimonides may have studied medicine with his father, and medical treatises were also available. Furthermore, Maimonides' path from Spain to Egypt had intersected with Muslim and Jewish scholars and experts from whom he may have learned to practice medicine. In addition, Muslims and Jews in Andalusia during the Golden Age had translated and copied Greek volumes, from both masters of medicine and of philosophy.
Meanwhile, the Muslim warrior Saladin arrived in Egypt * to help the Fatimid rulers resist the Crusaders (around 1169). He was appointed vizier but then overthrew the rulers and founded the Ayyubid * dynasty in 1171. As sultan, Saladin moved his capital to Damascus to fight the Crusaders but then back to Cairo in 1176.
Saladin practiced the restraint and mercy of traditional Islam * to the peoples of the book – Jews and Christians. Both groups were indeed treated as second class citizens in line with normative Islam, but their disability was primarily remedied by the poll tax for "protection" – the jizia.*
Word reached the rulers of Egypt that not only was Maimonides Chief Rabbi of Egypt, but that he was also a highly regarded physician. He was appointed personal physician to the vizier * in 1183. By this time, Maimonides had most likely finished the first edition of his Code. When we compare Yemenite manuscripts of the Code with European editions, it seems, though, that a revised edition reached the Jewish community of Yemen. This is not an issue of translation since Maimonides wrote his Code in Hebrew.
Maimonides also began to correspond extensively with Jewish
communities throughout the
It is hard to date the years during which Maimonides composed his
Code. However, in one of the chapters *
where he explains calculation of the Jewish calendar, Maimonides
uses the year 4930 a.m. *
(1170 ce) for
calculating the seasons of the year according to the sun.
Two chapters later,* he writes that "this year is 4938 a.m." (1178 ce), a basis for
calculating each successive new moon, each month beginning when
the new moon is first spotted. He was
Later generations agree that Maimonides finished writing the primary version of his Code after ten years of work. If he started to organize the Book of the Commandments shortly after he finished writing the Commentary on the Mishnah, he would have been ready to start writing the Code a couple of years later. Given that Maimonides was appointed nagid of Egyptian Jews in 1168 and that around this time he started to practice medicine in order to support his family, it seems difficult to believe that he also began writing the Code in 1170 as some traditional historians want us to believe. On the other hand, Maimonides composed his Commentary on the Mishnah during seven years of persecutions and upheaval. He was able to study the Torah intensively despite serious distractions.
Mostly, traditional historians assign the year 1176 as the time when Maimonides began to compose the Code. At about the same time, Saladin returned to Cairo, and his sultanate settled down. I don't believe that it is unreasonable to associate a new stage in Maimonides' life with the new political climate. It also seems to me that the next stage in Maimonides' life would have begun when his son, Abraham, was born in 1185. We see here a window of about ten years, perhaps devoted to the intensive labor of systematically arranging the entire Oral Tradition into the Mishneh Torah.
The reader of these pages has probably heard the name of Maimonides in connection with hospitals. This is because Rabbi Moses Maimonides continued to be a practicing physician during his later years of his life in Egypt. He embarked upon composing the Code during this time while occupied as court physician and healer to his own neighbors. He established for himself a considerable medical reputation that has lasted until today. He studied the Arab and Jewish medicine of his time. From his practice, he acquired bedside experience and observations. As time went on, Maimonides undertook medical writing. It seems that ten small books on medicine have survived until today.
Maimonides began mentoring one young physician in particular, Joseph ibn Aknin (son of Judah), starting about a year before Maimonides' only son, Abraham, was born (c.1185 when Maimonides was about 50 years old). Leon B. Stitskin has published a letter to ibn Aknin dated 1191 when ibn Iknin was no longer in Egypt. Maimonides presented his finished Guide for the Perplexed as a letter to ibn Aknin. This suggests that Maimonides was composing this fourth famous composition around this time.
As before, he received requests from Europe that the Guide be translated into
Hebrew. He was inundated with responsibilities so he himself could
not translate it. A few years later, rabbis from Provence asked
for an Arabic copy and engaged the scholar Samuel ibn Tibbon to do
the translating. Rabbi Samuel's father was also a
Rabbi Moses Maimonides passed away on 20 Tevet * 4965 a.m.* (Winter 1204/05) and was buried in the Galilee, Israel, near Tiberias.
Maimonides - my MAHN ih deez
1135-1204/05 - see When Was Maimonides Born?
"The Great Eagle" - "the philosopher who rose to great heights and whose vision covered an extensive range" (Angel, p. xi).
Later scholars applied this title, two or three generations after
Maimonides' death. See Deuteronomy 32:11 and Ezekiel
17:3. "The idea was that the great eagle, with its enormous
wings, soars in the heights of heaven and carries fledglings on
its wings. The Great Eagle suddenly appeared in
Rambam - RAHM bahm; The name Moses in English comes
to us from the original Hebrew name Moshe
Maimon - MY muhn, my MOHN
Mishnah - mish NAH, MISH nuh; A written set of Divine instructions, advice, and rules for living a Jewish life according to G-d's Covenant with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. The Mishnah is an organized compendium of Divine regulations and statutes by subject matter as they have been sifted from the Oral Tradition that accompanies the Bible – the Written Tradition. The Mishnah contains the details of:
(in no particular order)
The Mishnah is the oldest written effort by Jews since the canon
of the Bible was closed around the year 300 bce * (before the
common era). Rabbi Judah the Prince (President of the
Sanhedrin)
(The Sanhedrin was the Jewish Supreme Court and highest Torah Academy during the period from when the Second Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem through the completion of the Mishnah. The Sanhedrin disbanded several generations later, about 350 years after the destruction of the Temple.)
The word 'Mishnah' comes from the verse in Scripture, "Teach them diligently to your children [and to your students]" – diligent teaching in the sense of "impressing sharply." Therefore, the word 'Mishnah' means both 'repeater' and 'sharpener'. It's not likely to be unrelated to the Hebrew word shen, tooth. Studying the Mishnah is like "sinking your teeth into the content of the Torah." It contains 523 chapters organized into six volumes ("orders").
Not to be confused with Maimonides' Mishneh [Torah].
(Rabbi Judah the Prince may have been born as early as 131 ce. In the Jewish tradition, some say that he lived for 100 years.)
Talmud - The last deliberations and reasoning of the Sages in the academies of Babylonia. The Talmud was in written form and closed around the year 500 ce.
The Sages of the Talmud discuss justice, morals, ethics, repentance, philosophy, theology, ritual, worship, commerce, industry, finance, marriage, divorce, property, inheritance, legal procedure, penal la, and the welfare of society. The Mishnah addresses these topics (as I listed just before this in an abbreviated list), and the Mishnah is the starting point for the discussions in the Talmud.
After the era of the Talmud, compositions illuminating elements of the Talmud had accumulated. Besides Maimonides, two Sages examined all available teachings and reworked them for rulings about Jewish life in the Diaspora.
The earliest was Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi
Maimonides' Code is the second pillar. Only Maimonides' Code, though, has a utopian component – the ideal Jewish life when it is possible to observe all 613 commandments such as those concerning the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
The third pillar is Rabbeinu Asher ben Yehiel
Note how each of these pillars of authority lived during three successive generations.
Book of Illumination -
Mishneh Torah - mish NEH toh RAH, MISH neh TOH ruh; "Secondary to the Torah" or "Review of the Torah."
Code - A complete set of rulings for living a life according to the Torah, both the Written and the Oral Torah.
The Book of the Commandments - The title in
Arabic is Kitab
for himself - as he writes. Once Maimonides had identified his list of commandments with a source and an explanation for each of them, he published the Book of the Commandments in Arabic. Then he sorted the commands into fourteen general categories which he would develop into the fourteen books of the Mishneh Torah – the Code. Then he further sorted them into groupings of laws – subjects – to place in each book. Finally, he divided each grouping/topic into chapters containing as many rulings as needed to thoroughly form a complete treatment of each topic.
My estimate is that the fourteen books contain 1,008 chapters of individual laws – halachot ("ways" of Jewish life in the Covenant) besides a long introduction.
As an example, the first of the fourteen books is The Book of Knowledge. Within this book are five groupings of laws:
This book's name, Knowledge, reflects the subject
of knowing
Another appellation for the Mishneh Torah is Yad
HaChazaka (YAHD hah khah zah KAH) – literally "The
Strong Hand." This name contains several references.
Two references are to the last verses in the Five Books of
Moses: "No prophet is ever to rise among the Israelites like
Also, when reading the Torah in a congregation, after the last verse everyone recites the Hebrew words for: "Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!" (from Nuland, page 109) The name 'Moses' is the fourth word before the end of the Torah, before reciting "Be strong!"
Furthermore, the Hebrew word for 'hand' hints at the fourteen books of the Code. This word is spelled 'yod' 'dalet'. When these two letters are used as numerals, their sum is 'fourteen' – fourteen books.
613 precepts - 248 positive (what we should do) and 365 negative (what we should refrain from doing). Six hundred thirteen corresponds to seven less than the letters of the Ten Commandments.
The Book of Knowledge - The first of the fourteen books that make up the Mishneh Torah
ten years - for the
primary edition of the Code. Maimonides
continued to revise the Code – or parts of
it – during later years of his life. Yemenite Jews
seem to have received revised parts of the original
manuscript. They took these manuscripts with them when the
last of them left Yemen in
Midrash - mid RAHSH, MID rahsh; Interpretations that are like sermons – lessons derived from Scripture to teach moral lessons and piety.
his third major composition - Commentary on the Mishnah and Book of the Commandments and then the Mishneh Torah (Code).
the same stature as Maimonides - as far as codifying Jewish Law.
ce - the 'Common Era'; This abbreviation could also be interpreted as the 'Christian Era'. 'ad' in Latin refers to anno domini which means "year of the lord." 'Lord', here, refers to Jesus as lord, and his birth as the beginning of an era. Jews and people of other faiths, not believing in Christian doctrine, are reluctant to use an expression – here it is an abbreviation – which is not part of their belief system. This counting, though, has become virtually universal as a matter of convenience and uniformity. This is indeed a "common" era, so common that it is the one system of dating which is recognized everywhere in the world. Although this dating system is recognized everywhere as a matter of convention, it originated as the era by which Christians count – the 'Christian Era'.
bce - 'Before the Common Era'.
comparable to the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica - If someone studies both sides of a page every day, they will finish studying the entire Talmud in about seven years.
Guide for the Perplexed - Moreh
Nevuchim in Hebrew;
Nissan - NEES ahn; in the spring – counted as
the first month of the year; Rosh Hashanah, the first days
of the seventh month (Tishrei), is the beginning of the year of
judgment for the coming year. Observance of Rosh Hashanah is
according to Leviticus
1135 -See "Was Maimonides born in 1135 or 1138?"
Moors - from Mauretania, the name of the Roman province in North Africa east and west of the Strait of Gibraltar; roughly today's Morocco.
Reconquista - Spanish for "reconquering."
Southern France - Languedoc, the region of France on the Mediterranean Sea adjacent to Iberia – the kingdom of Aragon. The cities Narbonne and Montpellier are the primary cities in this region. The Sages of Lunel, a town not far east of Montpellier, asked Maimonides to translate his Arabic texts into Hebrew.
Southern France - Also Provence, the region of today's France on the Mediterranean farther east. Provence was then ruled as part of the Holy Roman Empire. France would not acquire this region for several centuries. Marseilles has been the primary city of the region since ancient times.
passed themselves off as Muslims - in a life or death
situation. Muslim men are circumcised like Jews. The
Muslim diet is like the Jewish diet – abstention from
pork, for example. Muslims do not place statues or pictures in
mosques. The first part of their watchword – shahada –
is entirely compatible with Judaism's belief in one
The Torah only prohibits recognizing a false prophet and/or actually converting to another religion. However, "Jews [in North Africa] who were only compelled to recite [Mohammed is His prophet] knew well in their hearts that he is a false prophet" (freely translated from page 25). Being forced to recite such a lie in a time of persecution is not prohibited even though it creates a public impression. The Torah expects that "a person live by doing [the commandments]" (Leviticus 18:5). From here the Sages continue, "To live by them but not to die because of them." To die unnecessarily may be reckoned as committing suicide, which is absolutely forbidden.
from the age of
Sarah - see Genesis
three of the four Matriarchs - Rachel died in childbirth
on the way to Bethlehem. See Genesis
nagid - This title is a Biblical word that appears in the books of Samuel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Chronicles.
he finished its composition in Egypt - Maimonides writes
in the postscript, "I, Moses the son of Maimon, began to compose
this book of commentary when I was
Fostat (Fustat) - The ancient city of "Old Cairo" is about two miles from the relatively newer seat of government. Al-Fustat began as a military camp. The Fatimid dynasty began to build New Cairo during the late tenth century or so. Cairo itself was the administrative center of Egypt's rulers. Today, Fostat is merely a neighborhood in the largest city in Africa. Egyptian authorities have been (or still are) restoring the ancient synagogue where Maimonides probably prayed.
Saladin arrived in Egypt - originally from Kurdistan by way of fighting Crusaders in Syria.
Ayyubid dynasty - members of the Sunni school of Islam. The less popular Fatimids had been Shi'ites in a region almost entirely populated by Sunni Muslims. They were not extremists, though.
Saladin practiced the restraint and mercy of traditional Islam - "The Arabs may have been military and political victors, but they never regarded the civilization of those they conquered with contempt" (Sara Reguer. 2000. "Judaism in the Muslim World." The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck, eds. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. p. 134). Apparently, this is a description of the early Arab conquerors who spread Islam. The first couple of generations of Islam established normative Islam. Fanatics and extremists have come and gone from time to time. Maimonides lived in a region of normative Islam until he was thirteen years old. He and his family did not find a place of normative Islam until he was thirty years old in Egypt. Even then, the Fatamids were somewhat extreme, but Saladin deposed them in 1171 when Maimonides was 36 years old. However, both the Fatamids (despite some extremist beliefs), Saladin, and his Ayyubid dynasty treated Jews fairly. Saladin ". . . restored Egypt as the major power in the Middle East and initiated a prolonged period of economic prosperity, population growth, and cultural revival" (Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, vol. 16, "Saladin").
jizia - to compensate the rulers for defending the peoples who did not defend themselves by serving in the army.
vizier - but probably not the caliph.
one of the chapters - The Book of Fixed Times (Z'manim), Section of "Sanctifying the New Month," Chapter 9, halacha 7.
a.m. - anno
mundi abbreviated in Latin which means "year of the
world"; This is the Jewish counting of years from the first
day of creation in Genesis. In Hebrew we refer to this as shanah
x l'bri'at olam –
Two chapters later - The Book of Fixed Times (Z'manim), Section of "Sanctifying the New Month," Chapter 11, halacha 16.
Tevet - TAY vet; during the winter.
4965 a.m. - (winter 1204-1205) There is no dispute about this date as we see in narratives based on social memory. According to family memory, Maimonides died just short of his 70th birthday. Accordingly, there is no doubt in my mind that he was born in 1135.
Photo offset published by M. P. Press, New York, 1958 (Kislev 5719)
The Brothers Pollack
Reprinted 1976-1979