By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah ( i. e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides ) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus who had a physical body.

The principles and rules appear to have been settled by the time Maimonides compiled the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century.

In his work Mishneh Torah ( 1178 ), Maimonides included a chapter " Sanctification of the New Moon ", in which he discusses the calendrical rules and their scriptural basis.

Besides the basic categories applied to the mitzvot in antiquity, during the medieval period Jewish law was classified by such works as Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah and Joseph Karo's Shulchan Aruch.

Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah divides the laws into fourteen sections.

* The post-Talmudic codificatory literature, such as Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Aruch with commentaries ;

* The Mishneh Torah ( also known as the Yad HaHazaka for its 14 volumes ; " yad " has a numeric value of 14 ), by Maimonides ( Rambam ; 1135 – 1204 ).

This includes manuscript material for his books Guide to Jewish Religious Practice ( 1979 ), The Ten Commandments in a Changing World ( 1963 ), The Anguish and the Ecstasy of a Jewish Chaplain ( 1974 ), and his translation of The Code of Maimonides ( Mishneh Torah ): Book 7, The Book of Agriculture ( 1979 ).

Maimonides ( Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer 1: 4 ) relates that until the Babylonian exile, all Jews composed their own prayers.

Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, summarizes the matter as follows:

In his introduction to Mishneh Torah Maimonides provides a generation by generation account of the direct line of all those who transmitted this tradition beginning with Moses himself up until the Mishnaic era.

Kahane's legislative proposals focused on transferring the Arab population out from the Land of Israel, revoking Israeli citizenship from non-Jews, and banning Jewish-Gentile marriages and sexual relations, based on the Code of Jewish Law compiled by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah.

* Traditional Baladi and Dor Daim ( Yemenite Jews ) base most of their practices on the Mishneh Torah, the compendium by Maimonides of halakha, written several centuries before the Shulchan Aruch.

Another formulation of the prayers was that appended by Maimonides to the laws of prayer in his Mishneh Torah: this forms the basis of the Yemenite liturgy, and has had some influence on other rites.

It was also an important resource in the study of the Babylonian Talmud by the Kairouan school of Hananel ben Hushiel and Nissim Gaon, with the result that opinions ultimately based on the Jerusalem Talmud found their way into both the Tosafot and the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides.

One feature of this method is the use of Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah as a guide to Talmudic interpretation, as distinct from its use as a source of practical halakha.

Maimonides, in his Commentary to the Mishna ( preface to chapter " Chelek ", Tractate Sanhedrin ), and is his Mishneh Torah, ( in the Laws of the foundations of the Torah, ch.

* Maimonides introduction to the Mishneh Torah English translation

The Mishna in the beginning of Avot and ( in more detail ) Maimonides in his Introduction to Mishneh Torah records a chain of tradition ( mesorah ) from Moses at Mount Sinai down to R ' Ashi, redactor of the Talmud and last of the Amoraim.

* Kesef Mishneh ( כסף משנה ) ( Venice, 1574-5 ), a commentary of Mishneh Torah by Maimonides ;

" Maimonides devotes the last section of " Sefer ha-Madda '" in his Mishneh Torah to the subject.

* Hadran al HaRambam – Commentary on Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah.

" ( Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Mada 1: 7.

( Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, XI. 4.

Mosheh ben Maimon ( משה בן מימון )‎, called Moses Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (), or RaMBaM ( רמב " ם – Hebrew acronym for " Rabbi Mosheh Ben Maimon "), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the most prolific and followed Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages.

Maimonides studied Torah under his father Maimon, who had in turn studied under Rabbi Joseph ibn Migash – a student of Isaac Alfasi.

A popular medieval saying that also served as his epitaph states, From Mosheh ( of the Torah ) to Mosheh ( Maimonides ) there was none like Mosheh.

Maimonides explains: " We do not know exactly how the Torah was transmitted to Moses.

Importantly, Maimonides, while enumerating the above, added the following caveat " There is no difference between Biblical statement ' his wife was Mehithabel ' 10, 6 on the one hand an " unimportant " verse, and ' Hear, O Israel ' on the other an " important " verse ... anyone who denies even such verses thereby denies God and shows contempt for his teachings more than any other skeptic, because he holds that the Torah can be divided into essential and non-essential parts ..." The uniqueness of the 13 fundamental beliefs was that even a rejection out of ignorance placed one outside Judaism, whereas the rejection of the rest of Torah must be a conscious act to stamp one as an unbeliever.

Maimonides rules that one who becomes angry is as though that person had worshipped idols.

Their method was to compare the Talmudic source material with Maimonides ' final decision, in order to reconstruct the rules of interpretation that must have been used to get from one to the other.

The rules are certainly not gathered together in one series, as they are, for instance, in Maimonides ' introduction to the Mishnah ; they are scattered in various parts, and their number is quite considerable.

The Aleppo Codex was the manuscript used by Maimonides when he set down the exact rules for writing scrolls of the Torah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah (" the Laws of the Torah Scroll ") in his Mishneh Torah.

After having given some general rules for translation from the Arabic into Hebrew, Maimonides explains the doubtful passages, which he renders into the latter language.

As against this, many ( e. g. Yeshayahu Leibowitz ) argue that Caro and the others were operating within the rigorous rules of halachic reasoning and that their conclusions were in no way affected or invalidated by their personal theological views ( just as, from the opposite perspective, Maimonides ' status as a halachic authority is not affected by his acceptance of Greek philosophy ).

Since the decree of Maimonides, observance of the rules of Keri and hence regular mikweh use by men fell into disuse in many communities.

In 1178 AD, Maimonides included all the rules for the calculated calendar and their scriptural basis, including the modern epochal year in his work, Mishneh Torah.

Today, the rules detailed in Maimonides ' code are those generally used by Jewish communities throughout the world.

In the legal codes, such as Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah, it is laid down that any copy of the Pentateuch which does not comply with the strict rules for a Sefer Torah, for example because it is not a parchment scroll or contains vowel signs, has only the same sanctity as a copy of an individual book ( ḥomesh ).

Maimonides, and other rabbinical commentators, extrapolated this into the conclusion that, if they exist, then male sons and their descendants are the heirs of an individual, but if they do not it would be any daughters or their descendants, and if these do not exist then it would be the individual's father, and if he is no longer alive then the rule concerning heirs applies to him-the father's sons ( the individual's brothers ) and their descendants have priority, followed by the father's daughters ( the individual's sisters ), followed by the father's father ( the individual's grandfather ), and so on.

Maimonides ( 1134 – 1204 ) says that as sins cannot be taken off one ’ s head and transferred elsewhere, the ritual is symbolic, enabling the penitent to discard his sins: “ These ceremonies are of a symbolic character and serve to impress man with a certain idea and to lead him to repent, as if to say, ‘ We have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, cast them behind our backs and removed them from us as far as possible ’.”

This verse teaches that, although one must intervene to save the victim, one may not kill a lethal attacker if it is possible to neutralize that attacker through non-lethal injury Sifrei ; Maimonides ' Yad, Nezikin, Hil.

Likewise: " One must follow Maimonides even when the latter opposed his teachers, since he surely knew their views, and if he decided against them he must have disapproved their interpretation.

Especially sharp was the blame heaped upon Maimonides because he neglected to cite his sources ; this was considered an evidence of his superciliousness, since it made it difficult, if not absolutely impossible, for scholars to verify his statements, and compelled them to follow his decisions absolutely.

Likewise: " One must follow Maimonides even when the latter opposed his teachers, since he surely knew their views, and if he decided against them he must have disapproved their interpretation ".

Maimonides states, " But if he did not succeed in all this or was killed, he is definitely not the Moshiach promised in the Torah ... and God only appointed him in order to test the masses.

In regards to kol isha specifically, he notes that R. Yaakov Weinberg cites Maimonides Hilkhot Isurei Bi ’ a ( Laws of Forbidden Sexual Relations ) 21: 2, in which Maimonides states that " one who looks even at a woman ’ s little finger with the intent to derive pleasure is as if he looked at her privates and even to hear the voice of a forbidden woman or to see her hair is forbidden.

" R. Weinberg points out that the meaning of Maimonides ’ words is that the prohibition to hear a woman ’ s voice is only if there is intent to thereby derive erotic pleasure.

One of the strongest arguments against it is that it would be astonishing if Maimonides, famously opposed to the Karaites, had followed the authority of a Karaite, even in the matter of open and closed sections.

From the practical point of view Jewish law as codified by Maimonides is as compatible with modern conditions as any later code: if anything more so, as later Jewish law has become enmeshed in many unnecessary intellectual tangles.

But if Israeli was attacked by Ibn Ezra he was praised by other Biblical commentators, such as Jacob b. Ruben, a contemporary of Maimonides, and by Ḥasdai.

The opinion of the majority is followed by R. Isserles and even Maimonides, whom he respected very highly, is disregarded if he was in the minority.

Maimonides taught that if the sages in Palestine would agree to ordain one of themselves, they could do so, and that the man of their choice could then ordain others.

Note that Maimonides ' approach is also widely held amongst the non-rationalistic, mystical streams of Judaism — thus, for example, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, the Shlah HaKodosh holds that " none of these sometimes mind-boggling ' stories ' are devoid of profound meaning ; if anyone is devoid of understanding, it is the reader " ( Shnei Luchos HaBris, introduction ).

Maimonides maintains that if one has already married such a woman, he has no obligation to divorce her according to Jewish law.

Indeed, Maimonides, one of the great Rabbis of the Middle Ages, wrote that if science and Torah were misaligned, it was either because science was not understood or the Torah was misinterpreted.

Maimonides argued that if science proved a point that did not contradict any fundamentals of faith, then the finding should be accepted and scripture should be interpreted accordingly.

Nonetheless Maimonides held that a prophet can be identified if his or her predictions come true.