Conflict, Crisis and Resolution in the Life of Maimonides

The figure of Maimonides conjures up an image of genius that is stable, productive and enduring. As the contemplative scholar and philosopher, he appeared to create serenely and persistently. Maimonides did, in fact, work long and fruitfully in the vineyards of Jewish learning. The last and most creative flowering of Judaism's “Golden Age” in Spain, he brought about his religion's revival and renewal. Examination of his life and works, however, reveals the complex and paradoxical personality, the conflicted and questing man.

As a boy Maimonides produced commentaries on the Talmud (Minkin 1957). At the age of 33 he completed his Commentary, a work that explained and interpreted the existing Jewish Code of Law. Ten years later his own Code of Jewish Law appeared, held by scholars to be the most brilliant virtuoso performance in rabbinic literature. Then, at the age of 55, his Guide for the Perplexed established him as a philosopher of universal scope. This work gave the medieval world a profound, uniquely Jewish view of God, Man, and the World. It was to influence the significant thinkers of his era and has since achieved the status of a classic. A testament to his creative consistency, these works were produced during a life of almost continuous uncertainty and peril. Then, at this mature age, the philosopher who had committed himself to a life of intellectual contemplation dramatically and radically changed his mode of existence. During his remaining fifteen years he was to devote himself to the theory and practice of medicine. In a letter written at this time, Maimonides alluded to the nature of this transformation: “Strange women, whom I first took into my house as handmaids, have become my wife's rivals and take up