MOSES NACHMANIDES
French and Spanish Talmudists.--The Tossafists, Asher of
Speyer, Tam, Isaac of Dompaire, Baruch of Ratisbon, Perez of
Corbeil.--Nachmanides' Commentary on the Pentateuch.--Public
controversies between Jews and Christians.
Nachmanides was one of the earliest writers to effect a reconciliation
between the French and the Spanish schools of Jewish literature. On the
one side, his Spanish birth and training made him a friend of the widest
culture; on the other, he was possessed of the French devotion to the
Talmud. Moses, the son of Nachman (Nachmanides, Ramban, 1195-1270),
Spaniard though he was, says, "The French Rabbis have won most Jews to
their view. They are our masters in Talmud, and to them we must go for
instruction." From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, a French
school of Talmudists occupied themselves with the elucidation of the
Talmud, and from the "Additions" (_Tossafoth_) which they compiled they
are known as Tossafists. The Tossafists were animated with an altogether
different spirit from that of the Spanish writers on the Talmud. But
though their method is very involved and over-ingenious, they display so
much mastery of the Talmud, such excellent discrimination, and so keen a
critical insight, that they well earned the fame they have enjoyed. The
earliest Tossafists were the family and pupils of Rashi, but the method
spread from Northern France to Provence, and thence to Spain. The most
famous Tossafists were Isaac, the son of Asher of Speyer (end of the
eleventh century); Tam of Rameru (Rashi's grandson); Isaac the Elder of
Dompaire (Tam's nephew); Baruch of Ratisbon; and Perez of Corbeil.
Nachmanides' admiration for the French method--a method by no means
restricted to the Tossafists--did not blind him to its defects. "They
try to force an elephant through the eye of a needle," he sarcastically
said of some of the French casuists. Nachmanides thus possessed some of
the independence characteristic of the Spanish Jews. He also shared the
poetic spirit of Spain, and his hymn for the Day of Atonement is one of
the finest products of the new-Hebrew muse. The last stanzas run thus:
Thine is the love, O God, and thine the grace,
That holds the sinner in its mild embrace;
Thine the forgiveness, bridging o'er the space
'Twixt man's works and the task set by the King.
Unheeding all my sins, I cling to thee!
I know that mercy shall thy footstool be:
Before I call, O do thou answer me,
For nothing dare I claim of thee, my King!
O thou, who makest guilt to disappear,
My help, my hope, my rock, I will not fear;
Though thou the body hold in dungeon drear,
The soul has found the palace of the King!
Everything that Nachmanides wrote is warm with tender love. He was an
enthusiast in many directions. His heart went out to the French
Talmudists, yet he cherished so genuine an affection for Maimonides that
he defended him with spirit against his detractors. Gentle by nature, he
broke forth into fiery indignation against the French critics of
Maimonides. At the same time his tender soul was attracted by the
emotionalism of the Kabbala, or mystical view of life, a view equally
opposed to the views of Maimonides and of the French school. He tried to
act the part of reconciler, but his intellect, strong as it was, was too
much at the mercy of his emotions for him to win a commanding place in
the controversies of his time.
For a moment we may turn aside from his books to the incidents of his
life. Like Maimonides, he was a physician by profession and a Rabbi by
way of leisure. The most momentous incident in his career in Barcelona
was his involuntary participation in a public dispute with a convert
from the Synagogue. Pablo Christiani burned with the desire to convert
the Jews _en masse_ to Christianity, and in 1263 he induced King Jayme I
of Aragon to summon Nachmanides to a controversy on the truth of
Christianity. Nachmanides complied with the royal command most
reluctantly. He felt that the process of rousing theological animosity
by a public discussion could only end in a religious persecution.
However, he had no alternative but to assent. He stipulated for complete
freedom of speech. This was granted, but when Nachmanides published his
version of the discussion, the Dominicans were incensed. True, the
special commission appointed to examine the charge of blasphemy brought
against Nachmanides reported that he had merely availed himself of the
right of free speech which had been guaranteed to him. He was
nevertheless sentenced to exile, and his pamphlet was burnt. Nachmanides
was seventy years of age at the time. He settled in Palestine, where he
died in about 1270, amid a band of devoted friends and disciples, who
did not, however, reconcile him to the separation from his Spanish home.
"I left my family," he wrote, "I forsook my house. There, with my sons
and daughters, the sweet, dear children whom I brought up on my knees, I
left also my soul My heart and my eyes will dwell with them forever."
The Halachic, or Talmudical, works of Nachmanides have already been
mentioned. His homiletical, or exegetical, writings are of more literary
importance. In "The Sacred Letter" he contended that man's earthly
nature is divine no less than his soul, and he vindicates the "flesh"
from the attacks made on human character by certain forms of
Christianity. The body, according to Nachmanides, is, with all its
functions, the work of God, and therefore perfect. "It is only sin and
neglect that disfigure God's creatures." In another of his books, "The
Law of Man," Nachmanides writes of suffering and death. He offers an
antidote to pessimism, for he boldly asserts that pain and suffering in
themselves are "a service of God, leading man to ponder on his end and
reflect about his destiny." Nachmanides believed in the bodily
resurrection, but held that the soul was in a special sense a direct
emanation from God. He was not a philosopher strictly so-called; he was
a mystic more than a thinker, one to whom God was an intuition, not a
concept of reason.
The greatest work of Nachmanides was his "Commentary on the Pentateuch."
He reveals his whole character in it. In composing his work he had, he
tells us, three motives, an intellectual, a theological, and an
emotional motive. First, he would "satisfy the minds of students, and
draw their heart out by a critical examination of the text." His
exposition is, indeed, based on true philology and on deep and original
study of the Bible. His style is peculiarly attractive, and had he been
content to offer a plain commentary, his work would have ranked among
the best. But he had other desires besides giving a simple explanation
of the text. He had, secondly, a theological motive, to justify God and
discover in the words of Scripture a hidden meaning. In the Biblical
narratives, Nachmanides sees _types_ of the history of man. Thus, the
account of the six days of creation is turned into a prophecy of the
events which would occur during the next six thousand years, and the
seventh day is a type of the millennium. So, too, Nachmanides finds
symbolical senses in Scriptural texts, "for, in the Torah, are hidden
every wonder and every mystery, and in her treasures is sealed every
beauty of wisdom." Finally, Nachmanides wrote, not only for educational
and theological ends, but also for edification. His third purpose was
"to bring peace to the minds of students (laboring under persecution
and trouble), when they read the portion of the Pentateuch on Sabbaths
and festivals, and to attract their hearts by simple explanations and
sweet words." His own enthusiastic and loving temperament speaks in this
part of his commentary. It is true, as Graetz says, that Nachmanides
exercised more influence on his contemporaries and on succeeding ages by
his personality than by his writings. But it must be added that the
writings of Nachmanides are his personality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
NACHMANIDES.
I.H. Weiss, _Study of the Talmud in the Thirteenth Century_,
_J.Q.R._, I, p. 289.
S. Schechter.--_Studies in Judaism_, p. 99 [120].
Graetz.--III, 17; also III, p. 598 [617].
JACOB TAM.
Graetz.--III, p. 375 [385].
TOSSAFISTS.
Graetz.--III, p. 344 [351], 403 [415].