The congregation next in importance was that of Alexandria, numbering 3000 families; they had a rabbi from Provence, Phineas ben Meshullam. So poor were the Jews of Egypt in Talmudical authorities at this time that they were obliged to import a Talmud instructor from France. A Karaite congregation existed also in Alexandria. In Bilbeïs (east of the Nile) there was a large congregation, consisting of 3000 members, which suffered much during the campaign of Amalrich, the Christian king of Jerusalem. In Fayum, the native city of Saadiah, there lived at that period only twenty Jewish families.
The state of culture of the Egyptian Jews about this time was not more brilliant than that of their Asiatic brethren. They added nothing to the wealth of Jewish literature. The lower classes were so ignorant of the principles of their own religion that they borrowed customs from the neighboring Karaites, even such as stood in glaring contradiction to Talmudical Judaism. The Egyptian congregations also had a pilgrims' shrine of their own. In Dimuh, not far from Fostat, in the neighborhood of the Pyramids, they showed the synagogue of Moses, which they believed the greatest of the prophets had built; they admitted that it had been rebuilt after the destruction of the Temple by Titus. Near this synagogue there was a tree of stupendous height, with evergreen leaves and slender stem. This tree, according to the belief of the Egyptian Jews, had shot up from the rod of Moses. On the Feast of Weeks the Jews of Egypt used to make a pilgrimage to Dimuh, and pray in the hallowed synagogue. And it was out of this land of ignorance that there went forth a second Moses for the deliverance of the Jewish race, whose mission it was to promulgate a more refined Judaism, to declare relentless war against superstition, and put an end to ignorance. Egypt became, through Moses Maimuni, the center of Judaism.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
MAIMUNI (MAIMONIDES).
Early years of Maimuni (Maimonides)—His journey to Fez—Letter of Consolation of Maimun (father of Maimonides)—Maimuni and the Jewish Converts to Islam—The Maimun Family in Palestine and Egypt—Maimuni's Commentary on the Mishna—Saladin and the Jews—Letter of Maimonides to Yemen—The Mishne-Torah of Maimuni—Controversies with reference to this Work—Joseph Ibn-Aknin—Maimuni as a Physician—Maimuni attacked by Samuel ben Ali—Maimuni and the Jews of Provence—The More Nebuchim and its importance—Death of Maimonides.
1171–1205 C. E.
In the last part of the twelfth century, Judaism appeared to have lost its center of gravity, to be about to fall into utter dissolution. On the decay of the Gaonate, the south of Spain, with the congregations of Cordova, Granada, Seville and Lucena, assumed the leadership; but, through the intolerance of the Almohades, these places were now without any Jewish congregations, and at the utmost saw Jews under the mask of Mahometanism. The community of Toledo, the new capital of Christian Spain, as well as those of the northern Spanish towns, had not yet succeeded in gaining any extensive influence. The communities of southern France were still in the first stage of their infancy; the northern French Jews were too exclusively absorbed in the Talmud, and oppressed by anxiety for what the morrow would bring. The German Jews were "servi cameræ" of the Germano-Roman empire; the Jews of the other countries of Europe had scarcely extricated themselves from barbarism. The restored Exilarchate, the offspring of the caprice of a Caliph, was not rooted firmly enough, even in Asia, to be able to exercise any ascendancy over the more highly endowed European Jews. Thus there was nowhere a center to which the widely dispersed nation might converge. Moreover, since the death of Joseph Ibn-Migash and Jacob Tam there had arisen no men of commanding authority able to mark out a path, or even to stimulate inquiry.
About this time, when dissolution seemed imminent, Maimuni appeared, and became the prop of the unity of Judaism, the focus for all the communities in the East and the West, a man whose decisions as a rabbinical authority were final, although he was not invested with any official dignity. He was spiritual king of the Jews, to whom the most important leaders cheerfully submitted. So memorable did everything connected with this great personage appear in the eyes of his contemporaries, that even the day and the hour of his birth have been recorded.
Moses Ibn-Maimun (with the long Arabic name Abu-Amran Musa ben Maimun Obaid Allah) was born on the Eve of Passover (30th March, 1135, at one o'clock p. m.), in Cordova. The early training of Maimonides (as he is often called), the man who was destined to bear the future of Judaism on his strong shoulders, was calculated to strengthen his character in a most emphatic manner. His father, Maimun ben Joseph, a pupil of Ibn-Migash, was, like his ancestors for eight generations back, as far as his progenitor Obadiah, a learned Talmudist and a member of the rabbinical college of Cordova. Maimun also took an interest in the sciences, knew mathematics and astronomy, and wrote books on those subjects, as well as on Talmudical topics. It was he who imbued his son with an enthusiastic love for learning, and awakened his feeling for an ideal life. Maimuni had scarcely passed his thirteenth year when great misfortune broke over the community of Cordova. The city was captured by the Almohades (May or June, 1148), who forthwith promulgated fanatical edicts against Jews and Christians, giving them the alternatives of conversion to Islam, expulsion, or death. Maimun and his family went into exile with the great majority of the Cordovan congregation. They are said to have established themselves at Port Almeria, which a year before had been conquered by the Christians. In the year 1151, Almeria also fell into the power of the Almohades, whose fanatical king, of course, did not fail to impose on the Jewish and Christian inhabitants of the city a change of religion, as he had done in the other conquered cities of southern Spain. From that time the family of Maimun was obliged to lead a wandering life for many years, without being able to find a permanent residence anywhere.