Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments I have dedicated this book to the memory of my father, Moshe, who devoted himself to providing his children with the opportunities he was denied. Though he endured unimaginable suffering and loss as a result of being a member of a group branded as “outsider” and singly targeted for death simply for having been born, he managed to maintain a genuine smile, an embracing shmeichel throughout his life. In our house there were no outsiders . All were welcome and none were judged. He was often fond of saying in Yiddish, his mother tongue, a language that had been virtually extinguished along with the vast majority of its native speakers, that there is no such thing as a “bad child”—one needs only to smile, welcome, and engage. If the Talmudic approach to pedagogy is correct—that an outsider needs to be “pushed away with the left hand and, at the same time, drawn near with the right”—then my father had two right hands. His smile is etched in my mind forever. I must mention one other memory of my father who always insisted on extending a warm shalom, a hello to whomever he would encounter, familiar or unfamiliar, throughout his life. He would often lament the contemporary loss of this common ix civility. Though, at the time, I did not fully appreciate its significance, I now understand a rabbinic legend regarding an encounter between Moses and God prior to Moses’ receiving of the Torah. God was aghast that Moses did not initially greet him with the customary shalom. My father’s example has taught me that this midrash anchors the entire Law in the greeting, the welcoming of another into one’s own space. Without the shalom, that which establishes relationship between individuals, there in fact can be no Torah. Rabbinic tradition has it that shalom is a name of God for whose common use as an ordinary salutation special dispensation was granted. My father’s hello reminds me that the divine resides in the welcome, in the expansion of insider space and conversely in the minimization of outsider space. The friendship of my brothers Irwin and David and the love of my mother Rose have been of inestimable value in ensuring the success of my late entry into the world of the academy. As always, my wife Florence is living testimony to the truth of the Proverbial maxim, He who finds a wife finds the Good. Maimonides addressed his students as his own children for, as he said, to teach is also to engender. The reverse can also be said. The loving listening and responses of my children during the years I worked on this book have enriched my fatherhood and so, in some sense, my sons Shimon and Yonah and my daughter Nina have engendered me in turn. I would like to extend my gratitude to David Burrell for his sensitive reading of my manuscript and his keen insights as well as his encouragement to publish my work. My deepest appreciation is here also expressed for the profoundly critical input of the readers of my manuscript, Elliot Wolfson and Kenneth Seeskin, which contributed to a final product of much enhanced quality. One could not ask for a better combination of scholarly imprimatur on one’s own scholarship. Thanks also to Diane Kriger for her fine editing and indexing. Lastly, thanks to Menachem Kellner, David Novak, and Albert Friedberg for their invaluable feedback, comments, and, most of all, comradeship and willingness to hear me out and set me straight if need be. ■ Earlier versions of parts of this book have appeared in various publications and I would like to express my gratitude for permission to reprint revised chapters of the following: x ■ Acknowledgments Chapter 1 from “Maimonides and the Convert: A Juridical and Philosophical Embrace of the Outsider,” Journal of Medieval Philosophy and Theology 11:2 (2003): 125–46, with the permission of Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2 from “Maimonides on Leprosy: Illness as Contemplative Metaphor ,” Jewish Quarterly Review 96:1 (2006): 95–122, with the permission of University of Pennsylvania Press. Chapter 3 from “The Failed Theodicy of a Rabbinic Pariah: A Maimonidean Recasting of Elisha ben Abuyah,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 9:4 (2002): 353–80, with the permission of Mohr Siebeck. Chapter 4 from “Maimonides On Kingship: The Ethics of Imperial Humility ,” Journal of Religious Ethics 34:1 (2006): 89–114, with...