Harambam

Mind and Soul
Jewish Thinking in Morocco

Reconciliation between Rationalism and Jewish belief Systems in North Africa and Spain and Maimonides

Moshe Ben Maimon, Rabbi,
Known as Harambam, Maimonides
Cordoba, Spain; Fez, Morocco; Fostat, Egypt (1135-1204)

Linkages between Babylon and North Africa

Transmition of knowledge has been the key to Jewish continuity and survival across generations. As mentioned in Harif's profile, researchers who often emphasized the lack of information on North African Jewry tended to neglect linkages between Babylon and North Africa. Specifically, following the death of Rav Hay, the last of the Rabbis known as Geonim, Babylon declined as a center of learning while other Academies rose to prominence. Rabenu Nissim and Rabenu Hananel brought Babylonian learning traditions to Kirouan, turning it into an important center of rabbinical learning in North Africa.

Rabbi Isaac Alfasi's (Harif), studied in Kirouan with Rabenu Nissim and Rabenu Hananel, among the last to study in Jewish centers of learning in Babylon.

Linkages between Moroccan and Spanish Jewries and Mutual Influence

Rabbi Isaac Alfassi (Harif) left Fez to Spain and established a rabbinical centre of learning in Lucena, where Baruc Albaliah, Yehuda Halevy and Yossef Ben Meir Migash studies.

Harambam, born in Cordoba in 1135, was the student of Rabbi Yossef Ben Meir Migash and acquired rabbinical accreditation under his tutelage. Harambam was groomed to assume rabbinical leadership in Cordoba but increasing hostilities between Christians and Moslems in Spain led his family to move to Fez, Morocco, where relative stability still reigned in spite of the rise of the fundamentalist Mouahidoun movement. Harambam moved to Fez (1160) not only to escape religious persecution but also to continue his rabbinical and medical studies with Rabbi Yehuda Hacohen Eben Shoshan.

As demonstrated above, teachers and students moved back and forth between Spain and North Africa. Thus transmission of rabbinical knowledge could not be clearly demarcated as Spanish or North African. Linkages were intense and mutual influences - significant.

The devastation of the Spanish and Western North African Jewry

The fundamentalist Mouahidoun movement spread all across Morocco and North Africa like a storm. Ibn Toumert offered Jews conversion or death (1125). Then Abd El Moumin of Sousse launched a campaign to conquer Maghreb for Islam (1141-1147). In the beginning of his campaign, he used inter-faith debates to convince Non-Muslims to convert, but when the soft approach failed, Jews had to choose between conversion and death. Some chose death, Rabbi Yehuda Hacohen Eben Shoshan among them. Yet many Jewish refugees managed to move to Egypt, Israel, Syria and Yemen, among other countries. By 1160 hardly any Jews survived in North Africa between Tangier in the West to Mahdiah in the Eastern Maghreb. The devastation of the Spanish and Western North African Jewry was complete as witnessed in the poetry of Rabbi Abraham Eben Ezra.

Conversion to Islam and related Controversy

Although a segment of the population followed Eben Shoshan's example and chose death rather than conversion, most Jews converted to Islam to live. Converts continued to practice Judaism covertly. Rabbinical rulings indicate that efforts were made to keep converts property and inheritance in Jewish hands whenever and wherever feasible.

Harambam diverged with his teacher, Eben Shoshan. He comforted converts to Islam, encouraged them not to despair, maintain Jewish beliefs covertly and move to places of refuge as soon as possible ('in secret or in the open, learn Torah and pray to the heavens and do not despair if your knowledge of Hebrew is gone, for God listens to you in every language and from every place.' Harambam's Conversion Letter known as Igeret Hashemad).

Harambam managed to survive in Fez but even he could no longer stay there in spite of his privileged relationship with the king. Harambam moved east like most refugees. He spent a few months visiting holy sites in Israel, and then moved to Egypt where he assumed a rabbinical post as well as a medical position at the royal court (1165). Harambam did not forget Jews in distress in Western North Africa. He called upon Jews to collect funds to release prisoners as well as assist converts to move to places of refuge where they could practice Judaism overtly.

Reconciliation between Rationalism and Jewish belief Systems in North Africa and Spain

Harambam became one of the leading philosophers of the Middle Ages. He was a doctor, mathematician, astronomer, community leader and rabbi. Following Rabbi Isaac Alfassi's approach, Harambam reviewed the Talmud with the purpose to re-compose it within a manageable legal and rational framework (Mishneh Torah). He later wrote 'A Guide to the Perplexed' (Moreh Nevoocim) in which he reconciled the Jewish belief system with rationalism (Aristotelian thinking). Harambam's philosophical approach influenced Baruc Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohn as well as Christian (Saint-Thomas d'Aquino and Eckhart) and Moslem thinkers. He also published medical treaties of great significance.

Some reviewers tend to emphasize Harambam's rational approach and distinguish it from subsequent 'mystical' approaches underlying the work of Avi Hatsira Yaacov. But in reality, the difference was only in emphasis. Avi Hatsira did not reject rational thinking. He only argued that Judaism as a belief system cannot be derived from rules of nature or rationalism. Both could easily live with theological and rational derivations side by side.