Exile and Otherness. Ilana Maymind
in Fez, driven by compassion for his fellow Jews, Maimonides wrote his Epistle on Forced Conversion (Iggeret ha-Shemad) also called Treatise on Martyrdom (Ma’amar Qiddush ha-Shem) written in 1160 or 1161. In this letter, he privileges human life and states that if general persecution and transgression is public, the Jew must die rather than transgress.88 He shows compassion and tolerance by advising Jews to confess the Islamic creed rather than die. Yet, when this Jew is forced to transgress, he should do it to the smallest extent possible and aim to leave that place as soon as it becomes possible.
In 1165, Maimonides and his family arrived in Acre, the capital of the Crusader towns of Syro-Palestine. They stayed there for the summer of 1165. In October 1165, they made a three-day pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In 1166, Maimonides and his family finally came to Fustat (Old Cairo) after a brief stay in Alexandria.
These wanderings from place to place influenced Maimonides’ ability to integrate various influences and later manifested in his intellectual versatility and testified to his “cosmopolitan” nature. Perhaps this ability was enhanced by the fact that even before his exile, Maimonides’ life was embedded in the Islamic culture of Muslim Spain (Andalusia), characterized at that time by a peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Although his ability to adapt to a new environment was developed prior to his final exile in Egypt, his life under Islamic dominance made him well aware of a certain inherent duplicity.
While still wandering from Andalusia and not settled in any permanent place, Maimonides started writing his Commentary on the Mishnah,89 a preparatory work to his own Mishneh Torah (Repetition of the Torah) that consisted of fourteen books that were compiled between 1170 and 1180. It grew out of his focus on the preservation of Jewish community and led to his emphasis on the commandments.90 The Commentary was his major compilation of comprehensive law code.91 Because the Talmud records conflicting explanations of the Mishnah, Maimonides took upon himself to determine which explanations are authoritative. It mirrors, to some extent, Shinran’s approach to the commentary on the sutras, particularly his translation of some sutras. In the Commentary on the Mishnah, conclusion to Seder Taharot,92 Maimonides explicitly addressed exile by stating that his “heart is often burdened by the troubles of the time and what God has decreed for us with regard to exile and wandering the world from one end to another.”93
While Maimonides recognized that complete adherence at times might not be feasible, he considered following the commandments as being imperative to preserving Jewish heritage. The possible inability to have a complete devotion to the commandments necessitated certain creative reinterpretations. By contextualizing specificity of the exilic conditions and putting Mishneh Torah into language accessible to everyone, he converted it into a mechanism central to the construction of a viable diaspora. In his discussion of laws of inheritance and laws related to the poor, Maimonides transformed the Talmudic elliptic style with its variety of overlapping arguments into comprehensible material and a functional tool for continual survival, imbued with a sense of compassion for the disadvantaged and the excluded other.
Maimonides’ life significantly improved when he moved to Egypt in 1166. The Fatimid dynasty that ruled Egypt at that time was spared Almohads’ fanaticism. In Fustat, Maimonides became integrated into Egyptian society and involved with the day-to-day life of the Egyptian Jewish community. There the boundary between the Jewish community and the other communities was largely demarcated by the commandments and the requirement to adhere to them. Maimonides did not necessarily translate this legal separation into strict relational boundaries and did not erect any impenetrable boundaries between his existence as a Jewish leader and a thinker influenced by Islamic thought.
In 1171, Egypt was conquered by the Ayyubids, a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin. Shortly after Saladin became sultan over Egypt, Maimonides was elected to become the head of Egyptian Jewry—ra’is al-yahud. Navigating between Jewish and Islamic communities, Maimonides exercised the highest judicial authority by appointing chief judges and having broad communal responsibilities. In addition, he functioned as a respondent to legal inquiries from Jewish communities in Egypt and elsewhere. Maimonides’ active participation in public affairs demonstrated his concern with the lives of the Jewish community. Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen (Iggeret Teiman), written in 1172, is a further testimony to his commitment to the Jewish community as well as his recognition of the forced duplicity.94 In this letter, Maimonides reminds the Jews that they were constantly challenged, “Kings attempted to destroy God’s Law and religion with the Sword. Thinkers—Syrian, Persian, and Greek—tried to undermine it with their writings” and the Christian and Muslims, “combined both tactics, force together with persuasion.”95 When Maimonides is subsequently told that a Jewish convert to Islam Jacob ben Fayyum claimed that Islam fulfilled the mission of Judaism, his response exemplifies an attempt to raise Jewish consciousness. Maimonides avoids contrasting Judaism and Islam in terms of their monotheistic claims but rather does so in terms of their respective revelations. He concludes this epistle by noting that, despite having concerns about his own safety after making his views public, he is convinced that “the public welfare takes precedence over one’s personal safety.”96 Maimonides’ diasporic personality allows him to speak in the language that is close and clear to those who share his fate. His goal was never to claim the impossibility of coexistence with other traditions, despite this commitment to the preservation of Judaism.
Maimonides’ articulation of the laws related to the poor demonstrates his ability to empathize. Maimonides stipulates that one should break the Sabbath (“make it a weekday”) rather than depend “on other people and cast oneself upon public charity.”97 Here we can see some parallels to Shinran’s attitude when he is willing to challenge the existing views. Not only does Maimonides implicitly challenge the religion-based approach but he also contests the Jewish government officials who state that “one should die before becoming dependent upon other people.”98 Maimonides writes: “offering the poor a partnership or gainful employment or a loan or a gift that could be used to build economic security” is “the highest form of philanthropy.”99 In order to stipulate the laws so as to take into account his concern for the poor and the foreign, Maimonides splits into two the law which prioritizes the familiar over a more distant (the so-called ladder of charity: “My people come before a Gentile. . . . . The poor of your town come before the poor of another town”). He argues for “a poor relative from ‘another town’ who deserves immediate assistance despite being a foreigner.”100 Maimonides’ views of inheritance also testify to his recognition of the challenges experienced by those who are transplanted from their places of birth as he considers laws of inheritance in terms of morality.
Another good illustration can be gleaned from Maimonides’ approach to captives. In 1180, Maimonides received a legal query related to ransoming a captive in Alexandria.101 Maimonides was also actively involved in obtaining funds for the Jewish prisoners from Bilbays captured by the Crusaders. He sent letters to Jews throughout Egypt asking for contributions to pay out ransom fees demanded by the Crusaders for these prisoners. Maimonides’ commitment to his community was not limited to writing letters and listing his name as a signatory, but he also served as campaign treasurer who oversaw the distribution of the obtained funds.
Maimonides’ commitment to his community is further manifested in his articulation of laws of charity in the Mishneh Torah. While the Talmud Bava Batra tractate considers ransoming captives the most important form of charity of all, Maimonides makes it even more explicit the Mishneh Torah when he writes: “the ransoming of captives has precedence over the feeding and closing of the poor . . . not only the captive included among the hungry, the thirsty, and the naked, but his very life is in jeopardy.”102
Despite his focus on preserving community’s religious and cultural identity, in some cases, Maimonides had to go against the prevailing views even of his own community and to enter into a struggle with the dominant and well-established local power. Case in point is his refusal to collect funds for the support of halakhic scholars.103 Perhaps this explains why, despite Maimonides’ integration into the society and his role of ra’is al-yahud, he held this position only for two years, from 1171 to 1172. He did not regain his position until later in his life, from 1196 to 1204.104 We observe here a certain