Tag: Rambam

Alan Jotkowitz shares insights into Rambam’s Hilkhot Teshuvah

Hasdai Crescas criticized Maimonides for counting belief as a Mitzvah, arguing that we have no control over what we believe. Dovid Campbell explores a surprisingly common defense of Maimonides that places his views closer to those of Crescas than we might have initially imagined.

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.

David Fried reviews Diana Lobel's Moses and Abraham Maimonides: Encountering the Divine, which argues that the categorization of Moses Maimonides as an Aristotelian philosopher and his son Abraham as a Sufi mystic is an oversimplification.

Yakov Nagen examines attitudes towards Islam in Jewish thought.

Tamar Ron Marvin argues for the importance of recognizing a Jewish idea of Aliyat Ha-Dorot.

Yaakov Jaffe traces the origins and evolution of the custom to shake the lulav in different directions.

Two readers respond to Michael Broyde's recent article on time-bound commandments. Leah Sarna critiques Broyde's omission of female scholarship, and Avi Siegal argues that Broyde's unifying theory skews the data.

Michael Broyde offers a new theory for why halakhah obligates women in some time-bound positive mitzvot and exempts them from others.

The dynamic conversation continues with three letters to the editor widening our perspective on Torah u-Madda. Steve Gotlib grapples with the challenges of living Torah u-Madda in the real world; Ezequiel Antebi Sacca adds a Sephardic view from Argentina; and Eugene Korn adds insight to the Jewish view on Christianity.