[Avodah] Rambam

[Joel Rich]

>From a Tradition Magazine book review: “As the old saw has it, there is
Maimonides, Yourmonides, Hermonides, etc. In the world of academic
scholarship, there may be as many versions of Maimonides as there are
scholars of Maimonides. Jolene Kellner has noted more than once that
Maimonides serves as a Rorschach test: everyone looking at the inkblots on
the pages of his works sees a different picture. R. Kafih conveyed a
similar idea in a letter to Prof. Michael Schwarz, who translated the Guide
into modern Hebrew: “In my view, Maimonides resembles a mirror. Whoever
stands before it sees his own image, and so with Maimonides-he has many
faces, and each one infuses his own flavor.” Nevertheless, even in an
amusement park fun house mirror, some connection is still discernible
between the person facing the mirror and the visage reflected in it. From
the perspective of most academics, the image of Maimonides found in Kisvei
HaRambam is a pale reflection of the man himself.”

This seems to be a version of something I had said many years ago, not just
about Rambam – everyone looks into tora and sees their reflection. I’ve
come to think it’s a more nuanced and symbiotic relationship, which would
explain why two gdolim can know all the corpus yet come to different
conclusions. How it actually works in practice, and how self-aware the
participants are, has always been a subject of fascination to me. Thoughts?

Bsorot Tovot

Joel Rich
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