Maimonides (review)

Sherwin Nuland's book, Maimonides, is part of a series of books published by an organization called Nextbook. Nextbook, according to its website, is "created as a locus for Jewish literature, culture, and ideas." Among other activities undertaken as part of that mission, Nextbook has commissioned a "Jewish Encounters" book series in which prominent authors consider notable individuals, issues, or events in Jewish history. The Jewish Encounters series, published in partnership with Schocken Books, "aims to create volumes at once edifying, entertaining, and wonderfully illuminating." The first two books in the series are Nuland's on Maimonides and Robert Pinsky's on King David. It is meant to serve as "a gateway to Jewish literature, culture, and ideas for Jews and non-Jews alike."

Nuland begins his book on Maimonides with a disclaimer. He is, he claims, no expert. Instead, he writes as an "everyman," approaching Maimonides not as a scholar but as a practicing Jewish physician of the twenty-first century, looking to see what he can find in the writings of his twelfth-century compatriot. The claim is charmingly disingenuous. Nuland is no ordinary physician. Author of numerous books about doctors, medicine, health, and illness, he is one of the most insightful and prolific physician-writers of our day. He is a historian of medicine, a student of Jewish law, and a master at explicating the mysteries of modern biomedical science. In addition, as he suggests in the prologue to this book, he is among those who have "frequently recited Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith in our synagogues, had our photographs taken alongside his bronze statue in the Plaza of Tiberiades in Cordoba, made the pilgrimage to the site believed to be his grave in Tiberias, attended lectures about him by learned authorities, and tried to learn more by occasionally spending an evening reading directly from The Guide for the Perplexed." In other words, Nuland is perhaps the perfect "everyman" to guide those of us who know little about Maimonides to an introductory appreciation.

Nuland begins with a clever chapter called, "My Son, The Doctor: Jews and Medicine", in which he explores the connections between theology, sociology, culture, and habits of mind that have led Jews, in all ages, to become physicians. He sees a number of connections. First, the Torah itself is meticulously concerned with physical health: "It is hardly a source of wonder that 213 of the 613 commandments enumerated by the sages and eventually codified by Maimonides have in one way or another to do with care of the body" (12). Second, Rabbis were forbidden to make a living by their religious activities. Instead, they worked in one profession or another. It was, Nuland says, "only natural that some of them turned to healing as a source of income. It was in this way that the association of medical skills and rabbinic wisdom became, in a sense, formalized" (12). Jews also, he notes, traveled frequently and had contact with physicians in other lands. This increased their knowledge and skills, leading to the well-recognized phenomenon that Jewish doctors were always in great demand throughout Europe.

This social history of Jews as doctors is used as backdrop for Maimonides' own somewhat surprising and unlikely path to the medical profession. Until his mid-thirties, Maimonides had been a leading Talmudic scholar. His scholarly work was supported by a family, jewelry-trading business in which his brother was the entrepreneur. Maimonides would not turn to medicine until his brother died in a shipwreck while on a trading journey to India. For Maimonides, it was a practical decision. After his brother's death, he needed to earn a living. He was already well connected, both through business dealings and through his fame as a theologian. Furthermore, he had always been interested in the latest medical developments. According to Nuland, it was this surprising but easily understandable set of coincidences, tragedies, and practical considerations that led Maimonides to take up medicine.

Maimonides never went to medical school. He was self-taught. His practice was, apparently, immediately successful...