Type: Code of Law

The Mishneh Torah

Rabbi Moses Maimonides

Image Map of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah.
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Sample Text in Translation

The Mishneh Torah is sometimes referred to as the Yad Ha-Hazaqah, "the mighty arm." This is a play on the numerological value of the Hebrew word for arm, "yad," which is 14, equal to the number of volumes in this code.

The author actually referred to the book as "Sefer Mehoqeq" ("The Book of Legislation"), a title which is rarely employed.

Dates

Author

Though born in Spain, in his youth his family fled religious persecution, settling in Egypt.

Maimonides' literary output includes: a work on philosophical logic; an Arabic commentary to the Mishnah; an enumeration of the 613 precepts of the Torah; the Mishneh Torah law code; the Arabic philosophical treatise The Guide of the Perplexed; and many letters and responsa addressed to various Jewish communities.

Place

Fustat (now Cairo), Egypt.

Description

Some of the distinctive features of the Mishneh Torah are the following:

• It encompasses the full range of Jewish law, as formulated for all ages and places. Most other Jewish law codes confined themselves to laws that were in force in their own times and lands, thereby excluding rules that apply only in the Land of Israel, under an independent Jewish kingdom, or that could not be observed following the destruction of the Temple.
• It completely reorganizes and reformulates the laws in a clear and logical system. Earlier codes had followed the Talmud's sometimes haphazard arrangement with only very few attempts to improve on that order.
• It presents the normative rulings without any discussion or explanation of how the decisions were reached.
• It opens with a section on systematic philosophical theology, derived largely from Aristotelian science and metaphysics, which it regards as the most important component of Jewish law. Most other Jewish codes avoided mixing creed and religious law; and Maimonides' interpretation of Jewish religion in terms of Greek ideas aroused much opposition.

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