Finding the Hidden Maimonides: From the Cairo Genizah to the Vatican Library

Finding the Hidden Maimonides: From the Cairo Genizah to the Vatican Library

David Wachtel, Senior Consultant for Special Collections at The JTS Library

Monday, April 3, 2017, 7:30 p.m.

Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
19785 Hampton Dr. #4
Boca Raton, Florida

About the Lecture

Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204), also known as Maimonides or simply as Rambam, is among the most illustrious Jewish figures of all time. His reputation rests upon his excellence in a wide variety of fields including halakha (Jewish law), philosophy, and medicine. His rabbinic works, The Commentary on the Mishna, Sefer haMitzvot, (Book of the Commandments) as well as his philosophical masterpiece, Moreh Nevukhim (Guide for the Perplexed), a synthesis of Jewish and Aristotelian thought, are all considered classical Jewish texts, and his magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, the first systematic code of Jewish law, is considered to be his outstanding contribution to Jewish scholarship.

Join us as we attempt to discover the hidden Maimonides. We will begin our search by looking for evidence of the man and his legacy through the Cairo Genizah, an ancient repository of discarded texts. We will travel across the medieval and modern Jewish world, to Morocco, Israel, Egypt, India, New York, and even the Vatican in Rome, as we search for clues to the life and legacy of this remarkable man.