As to the comment of the previos reviewer the Rambam never went all the way to Syria for the Allepo Codex since it did not get there in Syria to hundred of years later according to most accounts. The Rambam himself never says that he went to Syria but that he checked the Sefer Torah that was in Egypt.

Most of the time students classical Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew have to use the Leningrad Codex. But: the modern issues of this codex do not mention that the first word of the Tenakh is written with a large Beth. This is one of the many omissions. Maybe due to what might be some sort of anti-semitic background of the original editor, some kind of misunderstanding creeps into the mind of the student who makes use of the Leningrad Codex. Better is the Aleppo Codex which contains all the original notes of the Ben Asher School. This is why Maimonides travelled all the way from Spain to Syria to check this codex . When we read the Bible, even when it is not from a Thorah-Scroll, we see the text, the form and place of the Hebrew letters and the makeup of the page. This gives a certain imprint on our mind; let us say, it influences our sub-consciousness for the better. When we make use of what might be called a non-kosher text, it influences our mind for less then the best. For instance the student of Tenakh then even can be made to believe that The Bible is not of Divine origine - G'd forbid. For this reason and for the completeness it is recommended to use the Aleppo codex for study of the Holy Scriptures. D.G.Ouwehand.

Kellner's book accurately but dispassionately summarizes some of the controversies that swirled around the Rambam in the middle ages. If you want to understand why Maimonides is still considered controversial in some circles, read this work.

One of the central questions confronting the Jewish community in assimilation friendly United States and Western Europe is whether or note their grandchildren will be Jewish. Menachem Kellner (Sire Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Professor of Jewish Religious Thought, University of Haifa) addresses the core concern and provides a coherent and persuasive analysis of what religious faith means in classical Judaism. He concludes with arguing for a new way of construing the relationship of Orthodox to non-Orthodox Jewish and Jewish institutions. Must A Jew Believe Anything? is an invaluable, timely, and much appreciated contribution to Judaic Studies collections and reading lists.

For a unique, if challanging, reinterpretation of the whole of Western thought read Botwinick's insightful and creative book. You will never feel the same about the standard textbook interpretations of Western thought and philosophy again.

This book is reflects the thought of a prfound intellect who is a radical sceptic and at the same time deeply religious. In this work Botwinick demonstates how these two seemingly opposing world views are in fact complementary. Not only that, but that both faith and sceptism have been at the heart of Western thought from the Old Testement to the the Modern age.

Botwinick concludes that political liberty is a fucntion of this peculiarly Western worldview and that in abandoning it we abandon that which has made freedom possible. A brilliant and challenging work!

The appearance of a new biography of Maimonides is always important, if only because it happens infrequently.

What we need, and do not yet have in English, is an excellent and scholarly biography of Maimonides, like Netanyahu's biography of Abarbanel.

Ilil Arbel's new biography, entitled Maimonides, A Spiritual Biography, does not fill that bill. However, for those who are already reading Maimonides, it will fill in the historical gaps reasonably well. The book is based on secondary and tertiary sources, with the exception of the more historically significant items of Maimonides' correspondence and some of the shorter works, which the author shows familiarity with. The author is fluent in Hebrew, and may be an Israeli, it is not clear from the jacket material. That material indicates that she is a "Writer and editor, and has a Ph.D. in the field of mythology and folklore, and is a regular contributor of Judaic myths to Encyclopedia Mythica, her next book is A biography of Hillel, she resides in New York City".

The book comes with a full index and a short bibliography. There are a very few notes, more would have been desirable. I would like to know where she got some of her material. There is a Chronology which she confesses is based on the usual consensus opinions but not based on any research of her own.

I do not think the book will do anyone any harm. She pointedly stays away from giving comment or analysis of the Guide or the Mishneh Torah, and for that reason, I do not understand why she calls this a spiritual biography. The excitement that I get from the works of Maimonides themselves is not well communicated by the author.

What she does do that helps make this book of contemporary significance is the integration of Geniza material from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, about which I recently wrote on in connection with the Spertus College of Judaica exhibit. She does know this material, and has spent some time with the writings of S.D. Goitein, the acknowledged expert in that field. She also has listed in her bibliography several contemporary Israeli books on Maimonides. All of these sources help to provide depth and context in Maimonides' story.

Among these positive attributes I would randomly site her extended treatment of the unending controversies between Maimonides and the Gaon of Baghdad, Shmuel Ben Ali, who was the leader of the Babylonian Academy and saw himself as the universal Jewish authority. She also fills in the personalities of Maimonides son Abraham, and his student Joseph Ibn Aknin, for whom the Guide of the Perplexed was dedicated.

On the controversial issue of Maimonides' feigned conversion to Islam, she fails to explain the meaning of such conversions, and leaves her readers confused. At one point she states flatly we can rest assured that he never converted to Islam, and at other times she indicates just as flatly that he feigned observance of Islam. She should have explained that Islam does not need conversion at all as Islam views people as having an Islamic nature which only needs to be realized. Such realization takes place when the individual acknowledges the formula of the divinity of Allah and the prophecy of Mohammed in a mosque. Maimonides himself writes that since this is all that is required, together with occasional attendance at Mosque prayers, a Jew need not question his own faith if he has to do these acts for the sake of survival.

Admittedly our determination that Maimonides feigned such conversion is based on circumstantial evidence, but it is exceptionally good circumstantial evidence. Apart from his own words in his epistle on the subject, we know for a fact that no Jew, and particularly no Jew of public prominence like Maimonides and his father, could have survived long in Fez, Morocco under the Almohads without feigning Islam. Then there is the well known case, discussed by Arbel, of the prosecution brought by Abul Arab ibn Moisha in Cairo. Moisha had known Maimonides in Fez, as an apparent Muslim, and was shocked to find him as the head of the Jewish community in Cairo. He brought a prosecution against Maimonides for the capital heresy of converting from Islam. Maimonides' protector, El Fadil, Saladin's vizier, was the judge in the case. Arbel states that Fadil's ruling was to declare Maimonides never really adopted the fate or converted but only kept up a fabulous disguise and therefore could not have had a relapse from Islam. What really happened, according to Dr. Joel Kraemer, was that the court ruled coerced conversions were not effective conversions in Islam, citing Quran, and Maimonides could not be held guilty for feigning conversion under coercion.

Like all books nowadays, the editors don't really do any editing, and there are many obvious typographical errors in the text. One howler is the author's apparent inability to distinguish pray from prey (twice!) as in
". . . It prayed on his mind."

The book is neither long nor difficult to read, and the author has a moderately engaging prose style. She seems to be genuinely interested in the details of Maimonides life, and for those reasons the book should be read.

As a librarian, I was alerted to this excellent biography by Booklist and by The Library Journal, which both gave it excellent reviews. I don't read every book I order, but since I am particularly interseted in Maimonides, I did read it, and with great pleasure. I have studied much of Maimonides' work, and many books that analyzed his work, but Arbel's book is the only one fulfilling the need for a lively biography that really tells about Maimonides, his character and his relationships.

The book is extremely well-written, easy to understand, and will be entirely comprehesible to the secular reader. You don't have to be a Maimonides expert, a philosophy student, or a religious scholar to enjoy it. Yet any scholar will appreciate Arbel's historical research and grasp of the era he discusses.

My only criticism was that I wished the book were longer and continued into the second generation (Maimonides' son, Abraham, was a fascinating character). However, I realized that the book is a part of a series of biographies, the well-received Lives and Legacies (all called "A Spiritual Biography") from Crossroad Publishing, so Arbel probably followed certain guidelines as to length. I am very much looking forward to the publication of Arbel's biography of Rabbi Hillel, which apparently he is writing now.

In this exciting, vibrant biography, the author succeeds where all others failed -- she brings Maimonides and his contemporaries to life. A few other books, all of them at least thirty years old, claim to be his biographies, but they are really only discussions of his work, with a few biographical details merely tacked on. Arbel's book, on the other hand, is truly the story of the life of a most interesting man, set against the vast panorama of a turbulent era. The intriguing details, taken from rarely used historical materials, help the reader visualize the scandals, controversies, court intrigues, and wars, as well as the daily lives, fashions, food, entertainment, and houses of people in Spain, Morocco, Israel, and Egypt of the twelfth century.

Arbel obviously likes and admires Maimonides, but she does not worship him, and is not averse to showing his human, less than perfect side. She may run into trouble with the more orthodox rabbis, perhaps, but for the general reader it is a wonderful approach, and you end the book feeling that you have spent some time with a human being, not the demigod that is presented by other authors. I truly enjoyed the book.

The problem with this book is that it is an exposition of the provocative and important world view of the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, but falls short as a comprehensive interpretaion of Maimonides. The readings of Maimonides are (at best) controversial, do not add up to a systematic analysis of Maimonidean thought. Leibowitz gives no hint of how his interpretation fits into the large body of Maimonidean studies, and the book can not therefore serve as an introduction to the thought of the greatest Jewish thinker ever.

serious attempt to defince the essence of Judaism stripped of both the folk religion of Yiddishkeit and flowery and sentimental "spirituality" liberal religious Judea-christian thought. Possibly the most significant volume for our generation. On par with the Rav's Halachic Man. A must for those intellectual about Judaism

Although too much time is devoted to chiding the ignorant -- Jewish and non-Jewish alike -- with regards to the great Medieval everythingist Maimonides, this book is quite worth the read. If one brackets the amount of bitter, hostile polemics against other scholars of the Middle Ages -- who are never as smart as Roth -- and wades through the countless notes explaining how bad every single person's translation of this and that text has been, one can learn a great deal from this scholarly introduction. The book is neatly divided into essays and texts, just as promised. The essays are both didactic and informative, and the texts give little tastes of the thought of this great man, who is, as Roth so enthusiastically notes, so important for so many reasons. This is a good introduction with good bibliographies, worth the effort, even despite the polemics.

Maimonides' Guide is a masterwork of philosophic interest to Jews and non-Jews interested in the problem posed by philosophy to revealed religion, but Friedlander's translation is not the way to approach it. Besides removing the ambiguity of Maimonides' title by rendering it "The Guide *for* the Perplexed", he translates technical Rabbanic hermaneutical terms into awkward and sometimes inappropriate Latin 'equivilants'. Anyone who needs such translation won't be able to understand Maimonides' thought anyway, steeped in Rabbinics as it is; anyone looking to learn something of the Guide will be unable to do so with this translation. Shlomo Pines' translation is universally considered superior; be sure to get both volumes.

This work of philosophy is in fact three books, the last one not really dealing with philosophy, is one of the greatest masterpieces of philosophy ever written. Composed almost a thousand years ago, it is still extremely relevant. Words cannot really describe it - you MUST read for yourself.

The translation is pretty good, if sometimes difficult, in any case, it is a much easier read than the Hebrew translation.

I'm going to try to separate my critique of the text as it is presented, and Maimonides work.

The typeface used here is awfully small, and crammed onto the pages with a crowbar, it seems. The margins must be measured with a micrometer. I suppose the publishers were determined to get the thing into one volume, but this book is really pretty slender; I don't see why it couldn't be larger to accommodate larger print, with more white space, so the words aren't crammed together like passengers in steerage.

The translation is dated, and takes some getting used to, if you haven't had a lot of exposure to late Victorian English, the language may be off-putting. I happen to have a degree in English literature, and have read many styles extensively, and barely notice how dated the language was. There are other translations, but Freidlander, in this translation is very cautious in keeping his words consistent. This is important, because a large part of Guide for the Perplexed is defining Biblical terms.

The Guide for the Perplexed is a brilliant work. Maimonides is my nomination for "most important post-Talmudic scholar."

The Guide is not a simple work; Maimonides does not spell things out; he doesn't give succinct answers to ages old questions. One doesn't go to this book, look up "Cain," and say, "Ah, there's where he got his wife."

This is a book to aid the reader in becoming a better scholar. Where Maimonides does not give answers, he presents the tools that may assist the reader in studying the Torah, and coming up with his (or her!) own answers.

Words are defined, and also analyzed in an etymological way, which is really more mystical than scientific, but we're talking Torah.

Maimonides knows better than to give tools for interpretation without also giving lessons in interpretation. Some of his own mishnot come through as he discusses interpreting the Torah. He also discusses prophecy and free will, but eventually brings it all back to Torah.

Anyone who wants to be a serious Torah scholar needs this book.

Rabbi Heschel may have been a great man, active in the civil rights movement and other just causes. His skill as a young writer and biographer seems lacking in this book though. Very drab and dry, it seems to bounce around way too often. One does not get a good feel for Maimonides and only a limited glance at the era in which he lived. I found little in this book that would encourage me to recommend it to others.

Abraham Joshua Heschel has written a great biography of Maimonides which, although it may not be to everyone's taste, is still very satisfying and rewarding This is obviously not a book for the masses and it certainly would help to know a little bit about Maimonides before picking up this book. A superb book. Highly recommended

Kellner has his typical axe to grind once again. However, in this case he is in good company. Unfortunately, he does not really indicate that his entire thesis is not particularly original and can be found throughout traditional literature, particularly in the writings of the far-right R' Elhanan Wasserman and R' Abraham Isaiah Karelitz (Hazon Ish). I was particularly disappointed not to see any citations from R' Zvi Hirsch Chajes.

He also does not point out that Maimonides' thesis on this topic is implicitly against the famous Epsitle of Rav Sherira Gaon as well as R' Yehuda HaLevy's Kuzari. See Isadore Twersky's Introduction to the Code of Maimonides p. 62 ff.

Rather, Kellner prefers to score political points against the ultra-Orthodox by pretending that they are not aware of this concept.

If you are tired of the over-use of the concept "yeridat hadorot" (decline of the generations) in contemporary Orthodox Jewish thought, this book will arm you for a counter-attack!

Considering the price tag that this text carries, one would be much better off buying any other Maimonides text. This book is nothing more than a supporting document of the Mishneh Torah and the Guide for the Perplexed. It doesn't nothing but direct the author in one of these directions. There aren't even any excerpts from the texts, just the classic, "see my writing in...". Don't waste your money. The only thing it does say is that Maimonides believed in a resurrection of the dead.