Toward the end of his life, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), received a correspondence from his Hebrew translator of the brilliant philosophic work in Arabic The Guide for the Perplexed. The translator wanted to visit Maimonides (known by the acronym Rambam) to pay him homage.
But in a poignant and informative response to his translator’s request, the Rambam dissuaded the representative of the talented Ibn Tibbon family in France from visiting him, saying there was no time to talk, because he served the Muslim court in Egypt all day as a physician in Old Cairo.
Exhausted, he returned home only to see Jewish and Muslim patients for no fee. Barely having time to eat, he only discussed Torah on Shabbat afternoon with his disciples.
What an amazing letter! The codifier of the outstanding 14-volume Mishneh Torah, the philosopher of the Guide for the Perplexed, the composer of many great Jewish works, a writer to the Jews from Yemen to Lunel, and his prodigious essays on human health and remedies – how did he find the time?
The Rambam had been a full-time scholar, escaping the Almohad Muslims in Spain and North Africa. His family might have been forced to convert to Islam in Morocco. The death of his brother David, a gem merchant, in the Indian Ocean, paralyzed him for a year.
But he still had to make a living – and did so as a physician in the highest echelons of Muslim leadership. He did not believe in making money from teaching Torah. He believed the highest form of tzedakah (charity) was giving someone in need a job. It is simply jaw-dropping.
Maimonides miraculously found time to write treatises on Torah and the Oral Law, and didn’t take a penny for it. He was not sitting all day in the beit midrash – the house of study – arguing over disagreements if the Talmud. He wrote his legendary legal code, the Mishneh Torah, because he feared that the extensive Talmud did not provide an adequate practical guide for Jews being exiled and persecuted.
The prolific medieval Jewish author wrote The Guide for the Perplexed to keep Sephardic Jews from not being seduced away from Judaism by Aristotelian philosophy. He was truly a remarkable person and Jew. He didn’t take a penny from the Jewish community. He worked, earning a living as a doctor. He was the greatest mind we have encountered in our history in so many ways. And no stipend from a state to support his great endeavors.
BELIEVE ME, I am not an enemy of the kollel – Torah seminaries for married men. But learning there should be reserved for the best and the brightest Talmudic scholars; it should not be the place for mediocrity. When David Ben-Gurion concluded the “Status Quo” with the non-Zionist Agudas Israel before the founding of the Jewish state, there were four hundred yeshiva students granted an exemption from service in the IDF. The brilliant first prime minister of Israel was a fool – his well-intentioned hope was to revive hassidic communities that were almost wiped out in the Shoah. But now, two generations later, it is out of control.
Connecting the ancient thread to the modern
There is a whole subculture of tens of thousands of yeshiva students who are exempt from military service. Their days are spent in the house of study. They receive stipends from the government and don’t even adhere to the political ideology of the state. Israel is a great place to study Torah without consequences or responsibility.
Would the Rambam have approved of this? As much as they study the Mishneh Torah, it is an insult to its illustrious author. This is not what one of the greatest Jews to have ever lived would have wanted to be his legacy.
I am not an Israeli and I have never served in the IDF. So preaching service is none of my business. But every time I think of Maimonides’ letter to the Ibn Tibbon family, I am ashamed. Full-time study in yeshiva and afterwards in kollel is meant for the best and the brightest. They deserve an exemption from the IDF. But threats from the Chief Rabbinate that the hundreds of thousands of Torah mediocrities will leave Israel rather than be drafted are an abomination, especially during this war for Israel’s existence.
I live in the Exile but I make sure Israelis know that there are those of us who are advocates for Israel and Judaism’s existence – every day. This comes at a critical time when Hamas is winning the propaganda war. My only hope is that religious Zionists won’t cower in the shadows and fail to stand up for Torah study and the state.
For those who have given life and limb because they are fulfilling a mitzvah and protecting the Jewish homeland, there are no adequate words of appreciation. That goes for all the fighters in the IDF and all Israelis – secular or religious. I do what I can. I am just waiting for the next Rambam.
The writer is a rabbi, essayist, and lecturer in West Palm Beach, Florida.