Mishne Torah, R. Moses ben Maimon (Rambam), Berlin 1862
משנה תורה
- Sold Winning Bid: $80.00
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- Lot Number 46948
- Title (English) Mishne Torah
- Title (Hebrew) משנה תורה
- Note Binding
- Author R. Moses ben Maimon (Rambam)
- City Berlin
- Publisher דפוס יוליוס זיטטענפעלד
- Publication Date 1862
- Estimated Price - Low 500
- Estimated Price - High 1,000
- Item # 1329836
- End Date
- Start Date
Physical Description
Five volumes., folio, 377:240 mm., usual age staining, wide margins. A very good set bound in the original quarter leather over boards., rubbed.
Detail Description
Mishneh Torah consists of fourteen books, subdivided into sections, chapters, and paragraphs. It is the only Medieval-era work that details all of Jewish observance, including those laws that are only applicable when the Holy Temple is in existence, and remains an important work in Judaism. Its title is an appellation originally used for the Biblical book of Deuteronomy, and its subtitle, "Book of the Strong Hand," derives from its subdivision into fourteen books: the numerical value fourteen, when represented as the Hebrew letters Yod (10) Dalet (4), forms the word yad ("hand").
Maimonides intended to provide a complete statement of the Oral Law, so that a person who mastered first the Written Torah and then the Mishneh Torah would be in no need of any other book. Contemporary reaction was mixed, with strong and immediate opposition focusing on the absence of sources and the belief that the work appeared to be intended to supersede study of the Talmud. Maimonides responded to these criticisms, and the Mishneh Torah endures as an influential work in Jewish religious thought. According to several authorities, a decision may not be rendered in opposition to a view of Maimonides, even where he apparently militated against the sense of a Talmudic passage, for in such cases the presumption was that the words of the Talmud were incorrectly interpreted. Likewise: "One must follow Maimonides even when the latter opposed his teachers, since he surely knew their views, and if he decided against them he must have disapproved their interpretation.Hebrew Description
Reference
Tidhar, 4 (1950), 1720–21; 17 (1968), 5247; Kressel, Leksikon, 2 (1967), 419–20;; Bibliography of the Hebrew Book 1470-1960 #000150102; Wikipedia