The Codifier, the Physician, and the Thirteen Principles

Maimonides was not only a philosopher but the supreme legal codifier of Judaism. His Mishneh Torah ("Repetition of the Torah") is a monumental, systematically arranged code of the entire body of Jewish law, written in clear Hebrew and organised by subject so that, as he boldly put it, a person could know the whole law from the Torah and his book alone, an ambition that provoked criticism as much as admiration.

In his commentary on the Mishnah he formulated the Thirteen Principles of Faith, the nearest thing Judaism has to a creed, later versified in the hymn Yigdal still sung in synagogues. He earned his living as a physician, ultimately serving the Ayyubid court in Egypt, and wrote medical treatises drawn on for centuries. His towering authority is caught in the traditional saying, "from Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses." Yet he was also intensely controversial: his rationalism, his allegorical reading of scripture, and his views on resurrection ignited the bitter Maimonidean controversy that divided Jewish communities for generations after his death.