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Two works related to Maimonides (Rambam). The first is Be’ur Millot ha-Higgayon, a commentary on Maimoindes’ Millot ha-Higgayon. This is his earliest work, composed in Arabic as Makalah fi-Sina'at al-Mantik at the age of 16. Millot ha-Higgayon (“Treatise on Logical Terminology”) is a study of various technical terms that were employed in logic and metaphysics in fourteen chapters. It is here translated into Hebrew by R. Moses ibn Tibbon and printed here with a commentary by Moses Mendelssohn, one of the Mendelssohn’s few Hebrew works, and with glosses by Isaac Satanow. The text of Millot ha-Higgayon is at the top of the page in vocalized square letters, the commentaries below in rabbinic type.
The second work is Ruah Hen attributed to R. Judah ibn Tibbon. It is a commentary on Maimonides’ philosophic masterpiece, the Moreh Nevuhim as well as a popular introduction to philosophy and science, all the with the commentary of Israel ben Moses Ha-Levi Zamosc, best known for his Nezaḥ Yisra'el. In Ruaḥ Ḥen ("A Spirit of Grace"), Zamosc provides simple textual interpretations, "comments" on the Aristotelian principles in the medieval text by exposing totally incompatible findings of recent – namely, Wolffian – science. The "small animals" observable through a microscope in a droplet of semen elicit his exclamation, "How awe-inspiring is this statement, which our forefathers did not fathom." The new knowledge grounded in experience opened new unexpected horizons, refuting at the same time entrenched (Aristotelian) beliefs and thus undermining traditional authority, including that of Maimonides. Zamosc's is a subversive commentary: a venerated, authoritative text was used to legitimate the introduction of new ideas into a conservative community. This new literary genre was to be employed by later maskilim. Yet Zamosc's reception of the new science was limited to its descriptive aspects, and he failed to grasp mathematical physics or to accommodate contemporary philosophy. The breakdown of all received verities weakened Zamosc's commitment to Maimonides' philosophy and hence to reason and science. Zamosc's views became more conservative and fideist: the commentary on Ruaḥ Ḥen paradoxically both exposes recent science and signals its author's turn toward the authority of traditional, including kabbalistic, texts. |
