Rambam Meduyyak

Introduction

With God’s help

Blessed is our God who created us for His glory and gave us the Torah of truth and planted eternal life within us. "The Torah of truth – is the written Torah, and eternal life He planted within us – is the oral Torah" (Tur, Orach Chaim, Siman 139).

Approximately twenty years ago, I became aware of the need to produce a precise edition, based on the most reliable manuscripts, of Rambam’s monumental work "Mishneh Torah," the "anthology of the entire Oral Torah". In the year 5764 (2004), God granted me the privilege of printing the first volume, and in 5781 (2021), the last volume, totaling fourteen volumes, one for each of the fourteen books of "Mishneh Torah." In that edition, each page featured a photograph of the Warsaw-Vilna printing with the commentators on the page, alongside the precise text based on manuscripts with my annotations.

From the beginning, I knew that a fourteen-volume edition could not be practical for every individual, and I intended to publish a one or two-volume edition as well. With Divine assistance, I present this new edition in two volumes, which, though it does not include photographs of the Warsaw-Vilna print, displays the precise text of Rambam based on the manuscripts, with all textual annotations, including the reasons for preferring this text over the Warsaw-Vilna print versions.

In this edition, many corrections, clarifications, and improvements have been made, making it a new and improved edition compared to the previous one. May it contribute to the study of Torah for its own sake and in truth.

At the conclusion of this many-years-long work on editing the precise text of Rambam, I wish to express in words, too small to fully convey, my deep gratitude to my life partner, my wife Yehudit. May her reward be doubled from Heaven.

Yitzchak Sheilat

Editor's Introduction

A. And This is the Torah That Moses Placed

The book 'Mishneh Torah' by our teacher Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), may his memory be for a blessing, referred to by its author as "our great work"¹ or "our great work encompassing all the laws of the Torah"², is a unique and complete masterpiece. 'Mishneh Torah' is, first and foremost, the most comprehensive among the books of Jewish law, as it includes all the commandments of the Torah, both those applicable in our times and those that are only applicable when the Temple is standing³. Its status as the "pillar of instruction"⁴ was established by Rabbi Yosef Karo, author of the 'Shulchan Aruch,' who based his work primarily on 'Mishneh Torah' as it was written. The second unique feature of 'Mishneh Torah' is that since its composition until today, it has posed an endless challenge to Talmud scholars, who strive to uncover Rambam's understandings of the Talmudic discussions. There is hardly a scholarly class that does not debate how to understand Rambam’s approach. Thirdly, 'Mishneh Torah,' while being a book of law, is also a primary source for the study of fundamental beliefs, to which our teacher gave a significant place in his book. This special status of 'Mishneh Torah' relieves us of the need to elaborate on the necessity of a precise and detailed edition, an edition that aspires to get as close as possible to the original text as it emerged from the author's hands.

It suffices to quote our teacher's words about the spiritual effort he invested in the work to understand our duty to strive to transmit it as accurately as possible. Here are the words of our teacher in his letters:

"And as it was at this time, we were meticulous in the minute details of every law in our great work"⁵.

"And how much I labored day and night for approximately ten consecutive years in composing this work, and great people like you know what I have done"⁶.

"I was zealous for the Lord, the God of Israel, seeing a nation without a truly comprehensive code of laws, and without clear and true opinions, and I did what I did for the sake of God alone"⁷.

In our generation, significant efforts were made by several scholars who labored to produce new editions of 'Mishneh Torah,' aiming to correct the text that has been used by learners in recent generations — the Warsaw-Vilna printing and its reprintings — based on earlier and more precise texts, and to purge the work of the many errors that have accumulated in it over the years. Almost simultaneously, three important new editions of 'Mishneh Torah' began to appear: Rabbi Shabtai Frankel’s edition (by a team of scholars), with the basic commentaries and useful additions (Kehillat Bnei Yosef, Jerusalem-Bnei Brak, 1975-2007); Rabbi Yosef Qafih’s edition, with a commentary that is somewhat of a "Shita Mekubetzet" (collected anthology) of Rambam’s commentators along with added layers of his own (Mossad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem, 1984-1996); and Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch’s edition, with his original commentary 'Yad Peshutah,' which was published on about half of the work and which he, unfortunately did not manage to complete (Maaliyot, Jerusalem, 1990-2020). Following these, two single-volume editions based on Rabbi Qafih’s edition were also published: Rabbi Yochai Makbili’s edition (Or VeYeshuah, Haifa, 2006), and Rabbi Peretz Uriel Blau’s edition (Chazak, Kfar Chabad, 2010).

Below, we will review the principles of text editing in these editions and explain why we took the initiative to prepare a new edition named 'Rambam Meduyyak' ('Precise Rambam'), which was published with Divine assistance in fourteen volumes between 2004 and 2021. This will be discussed after addressing some crucial facts related to the text of 'Mishneh Torah'.

B. The Writing and Dissemination of 'Mishneh Torah'

A first and fundamental fact is that Rambam (Maimonides) initially wrote the work in draft form (and perhaps in more than one draft⁸), and finally made a clean copy in his own handwriting. This is known to us both from Rambam's own testimony about his working method and from findings that have reached us (see below). From the clean copy, which became Rambam's personal book and remained with him, the work was copied by a scribe or by several scribes, and thus the first copies of the work that came out of Rambam's house were created. Relatively quickly, in various places, copies were made from the first copies, and so on, and the work spread among most Jewish communities already in Rambam's lifetime. In a letter to his student, written about ten years after the completion of the work, Rambam writes: "It has already spread to the ends of the inhabited world"⁹.

More than twenty years passed from the completion of 'Mishneh Torah' until Rambam's death¹⁰. During those years, Rambam corrected the text in several places and recorded these corrections in his personal book. This is attested to by both Rambam himself as well as by his son Rabbi Abraham (see below). Even after the dissemination of the work, Rambam allowed proofreaders to come and correct their copies from the original copy in his possession, and thus also the corrections that he had made in his book over the years reached the wider public.

The original copy of the book, written in Rambam's own handwriting, was kept by his descendants in Egypt for about two hundred years (see below), but afterwards it disappeared without a trace. On the other hand, remnants of the draft of the work were found: among the pages of the famous Cairo Genizah, found in the "Ezra the Scribe Synagogue" in Fustat, the Jewish suburb of Cairo where Rambam lived, about twenty pages of the draft of 'Mishneh Torah' were discovered, almost all from the books of "Damages" (Nezakim) and "Judgments" (Mishpatim), with erasures and additions as is typical of an author when composing a work¹¹. Rambam's handwriting was definitively identified based on original letters with his handwritten signature found in the Genizah¹², and also based on the famous certification with his handwritten signature appearing in a manuscript of the books of "Knowledge" (HaMadda) and "Adoration" (Ahavah). This manuscript was purchased about 350 years ago in Aleppo, i.e. Aleppo, Syria, by an English scholar named Robert Huntington, and was later acquired, along with Huntington's entire collection, by the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and is known today as Oxford MS 577 (Huntington 80). The text of the certification at the end, in Rambam's handwriting, reads:

"Corrected from my book; I am Moses son of Rabbi Maimon, may the memory of the righteous be a blessing."

This certification constitutes evidence from a primary source of the existence of a clean copy of 'Mishneh Torah,' which was Rambam's personal copy ("my book"), and also that copies of the work were corrected from it.

The fact that the draft was copied to a clean copy by Rambam himself, in his own handwriting, is already known to us from his responsa to the questions of the sages of Lunel¹³, and later from the testimony of his descendants. Rambam's words in two of the responsa to the sages of Lunel read as follows:

"And when I composed the work, I stood by this matter for several days, and the first version that I initially composed, which I created from my mind and did not copy¹⁴, it is written in it..."¹⁵.

"This is certainly true as you say, and when I initially copied into my version I made a mistake¹⁶, and so is the matter..."¹⁷.

The term 'version' here means: a copy of the book (as in Arabic: 'nuskha,' see below). Rambam uses the term 'version' several times in this sense, such as in a letter to the community of Lunel: "and bought three versions of the work"¹⁸, meaning: three copies of the work, and also in Hilkhot Malveh veLoveh 15:2, see there. 'When I copied into my version' thus means: when I copied from the draft to my copy, which is "my book" in the above-mentioned certification "corrected from my book."

About the corrections Rambam made in his book after it had already been disseminated, we read in another responsum to the sages of Lunel:

"And I have already now added something that was not there initially, which is 'even if it killed a person,' you should also add this"¹⁹.

Similarly, Rabbi Abraham, Rambam's son, attests in his responsum:

"My father, my teacher, of blessed memory, has already corrected his book, in his handwriting, thus"²⁰.

"And in any case, the corrected text of his words in his handwriting reads thus"²¹.

And in the book 'Maaseh Rokeach' on Hilkhot Chametz uMatzah 5:2, he writes that that he found in an ancient manuscript a translation of a passage from the book of Rabbi Abraham, Rambam's son, 'Al-Kafaya' (='The Sufficient [for the Servants of God]'), in which Rabbi Abraham attests:

"And this precision I received from my father, my teacher, of blessed memory, during my studies with him, it was written in his work... and he erased "this is permitted" and corrected it in his handwriting to "one is not liable to karet."

And in his glosses on Hilkhot Chametz uMatzah 5:19, Ramach writes that he heard about this (all these matters are, of course, brought in the appropriate places in the notes to this edition).

In the next chapter, we will present the testimony of a later descendant of Rambam, according to which the clean manuscript of the work, which was in his possession, was written by Rambam himself.

C. Commentary on the Mishnah and 'Mishneh Torah'

A similar situation to the one described above exists regarding Rambam's Commentary on the Mishnah. Draft pages of this work, too, were found in the Cairo Genizah²²; it was also copied to a clean copy by Rambam himself (see below); and Rambam added corrections to it in his own handwriting throughout his life. We have been more fortunate regarding the Commentary on the Mishnah, as five out of its six original volumes, in the author's own handwriting with his corrections, have been preserved through the ages until today. The original manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah was transferred by one of Rambam's descendants to Aleppo (see the next chapter). The English scholar Edward Pococke, and his student Robert Huntington mentioned above, purchased three of its volumes there, and they are now housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Two additional volumes, which ended up in Damascus, were acquired about a hundred years ago by the Jewish collector Rabbi David Sassoon, and are now housed in the National Library in Jerusalem. The volume of the Order of Taharot has not been found to this day. The five volumes of the Commentary on the Mishnah were published in an illuminating facsimile edition, with a comprehensive introduction by Rabbi Solomon Sassoon²³.

On the first page of the Order of Zeraim from this manuscript, it is written:

"הד'ה נסכ'ה אלאצל וסאיר אלאצל אלד'י בכ'ט רבינו משה ז'ק'ל' הם מלכי... וכתב שלמה בן דוד בן אברהם בן הגאון רבינו [משה ז'ק'ל']"

Translation: "This is the original version, and the rest of the original (i.e., the other volumes of the original) which is in the handwriting of our teacher Moses of blessed memory; these are my possessions." Signed by the great-grandson of our teacher (the completion 'Moses , may the holy one be for a blessing' does not need further explanation).

Here, the Arabic expression 'nuskha al-asl' (translation: the original "version" = copy), also appears in the testimony of another descendant of our teacher, namely "Rabbi Joshua, one of the descendants of Rambam, of blessed memory," mentioned many times in 'Kesef Mishneh,' and in his testimony, he refers to the original copy of 'Mishneh Torah.' The just mentioned Rabbi Joshua, who was the son of Rabbi Abraham the Second, the brother of the above-mentioned Rabbi Solomon, the son of Rabbi David, the son of Rabbi Abraham, the son of Rambam²⁴, writes in one of his responsa to the questions of the sages of Aden regarding places they found difficult in 'Mishneh Torah'²⁵:

"אלנסך' אלד'י ענדכם גיר צחיחה, בל אלצחיח... פאצלחו אלנסך' עלי ד'אלך, פאן כל נקל ננקלה אנמא הו מן נסכ'ה אלאצל אלדי בכ'ט אלמצנף ז'ק'ל"

Translation: "The version you have is not correct, but the correct one is... Therefore, correct the version according to this, as every copy we make is indeed from the original version which is in the handwriting of the author, may the memory of the holy one be for a blessing."²⁶

Rabbi Joshua, who, like his forefathers, held the position of Naggid of the Jews of Egypt, lived between the years 1355-1310 CE²⁷. It is known that he did not live in Fustat²⁸, but we do not know whether he resided in the capital Cairo²⁹, or in Alexandria, or perhaps in another city. From the generation before Rabbi Joshua, we have distant testimony that ostensibly speaks of the existence of the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' in Alexandria. The testimony is found in the book 'Orchot Chaim' by Rabbi Aaron HaKohen of Lunel, who was exiled from Provence to Majorca during the expulsion of the Jews of Provence in 1306 CE, and around that year he composed his book³⁰. In the laws of Yom HaKippurim, Siman 10, he writes (Florence printing 1750, page 104b; the language below is based on a preferred version in MS New York JTS Rab. 666, page 207a):

"And I inquired and searched and found a corrected book in the hands of one who corrected it by his own hand in Alexandria of Egypt from the books written by the hand of Rambam of blessed memory, and it is proper to rely on it."

However, it is possible that the mention "in Alexandria of Egypt" does not indicate the precise place where the book was corrected, but rather the place from which the book arrived in Provence, see below in Chapter Five.

It is important to note that the impression we get from the original manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah, which is before us, cannot serve as an example for its later companion, namely the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah,' which has not been preserved for us. In the Commentary on the Mishnah, our teacher made corrections in hundreds of places, with small and large corrections, and even erased an entire page and replaced its text. The reason for this is explained by our teacher himself in his letters:

"And the stammering they stammer about the Commentary on the Mishnah, is all because I corrected it in places. The Creator of all knows that most of the errors were because I followed the Geonim of blessed memory like Rabbi Nissim... and Rabbi Hefetz... and others whom it is difficult for me to recall. And even if it were i who erred, I do not claim that I reached my ultimate perfection at first, nor that I never made a mistake. On the contrary, whatever became clear to me as different, I always retracted in all things in my works and my nature"³¹.

And regarding a specific law in the laws of Shemittah, he wrote:

"What we mentioned in the work is correct, and about which there is no doubt, and so we mentioned in the Commentary on the Mishnah, and what is in your hands is the first version that came from our hands before scrutiny, and we followed in this saying what the author of the Book of Commandments, Rabbi Hefetz... and when we examined the sayings and scrutinized them – it became clear that what we mentioned in the work is correct, and we corrected the Commentary on the Mishnah"³².

And again regarding another law there:

"And this Mishnah, what we heard in its interpretation always is what Rabbi Isaac ben Giat mentioned... and that is what we established³³ ourselves... And as it was at this time, in our meticulous scrutiny of every law in our great work – the interpretation of the Mishnah became clear to us and its reason was revealed"³⁴.

Our teacher thus tells us candidly that at the time of composing the Commentary on the Mishnah – when he was in his twenties³⁵ – he was greatly influenced by the interpretations of his predecessors, and that his independent judgment mainly emerged during the composition of 'Mishneh Torah,' when he re-examined each topic to determine the legal ruling, and many of his interpretations and approaches originated then. However, Rambam's continuous quest for truth caused him to also add a few corrections to the clean copy of 'Mishneh Torah' over the years, as mentioned in the previous chapter, but their number is small, amounting, as far as we know, to only a few tens of corrections in the entire work (wherever we identified such a correction, we noted it in the footnotes to this edition, and the final version is, of course, provided in the text).

D. What Happened to the Original Manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah'?

The original manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah was discovered, as mentioned, in Aram Tzovah (Aleppo) and Damascus in Syria. The famous Aleppo Codex, on which Rambam wrote: "The book known in Egypt, which includes the twenty-four books... corrected by Ben Asher, and upon which I relied in writing a Torah scroll according to its precise rules" (Hilkhot Sefer Torah 8:4)³⁶, was also preserved in Aleppo until our generation. The presence of these texts in Aleppo is likely due to the migration of Rabbi David HaNaggid (the second³⁷), son of Rabbi Joshua HaNaggid (mentioned in the previous chapter), from Egypt to Aleppo around the year 1375 CE (5135 in the Hebrew calendar). Rabbi David was a scholar with a large library and was himself a prolific scribe and author. A very important question for our study is whether the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' was also brought to Aleppo by him. It appears that the answer is negative. In the margins of Oxford MS 577, written by the scribe Rabbi Yefet ben Solomon HaLevi with Rambam's certification at the end "corrected from my books," there are notes in Rabbi David's handwriting, including a complete copy of a responsum by Rambam. Rabbi David also added notes to the margins of the original manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah, as identified by Sassoon in his introduction to the facsimile edition of the manuscript (pp. 89 and 94). There is no doubt that if he had the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah, ' he would have written his notes on it, as he did with the Commentary on the Mishnah, rather than on a copy "corrected from my books." It therefore appears that the most authoritative manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' that Rabbi David had in Aleppo was the "corrected from my books" manuscript. It will be shown below that this was a complete manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah,' on which Rambam signed every volume.

Another piece of evidence that the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' was not in Aleppo is that the existence of the Commentary on the Mishnah in the author’s handwriting was known in Aleppo for centuries, and the scholars there corrected their versions of the Commentary on the Mishnah based on it. Thus, for example, we have before us an important manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah (Oxford MS 395), whose proofreader, Rabbi Mosi ben Abd al-Mahsan of Aleppo³⁸ (who lived in the 15th century), writes at the end: "קובל חסב אלטאקה עלי ספר אלרב אלמעט'ם בכתב ידו הטהורה אות באות" Translation: "Compared as much as possible to the book of the great Rabbi in his pure handwriting, letter by letter." In contrast, there are several testimonies before us, which will be brought later, that the authoritative copy of 'Mishneh Torah' in Aleppo was the manuscript that Rambam attested to, with his handwritten signature, that it was corrected from his book.

Why didn’t Rabbi David HaNaggid take 'Mishneh Torah' to Aleppo? It seems this was due to an agreement with other descendants of Rambam, who remained in Egypt, regarding inheritance. It is known that the original manuscript of the Commentary on the Mishnah passed from the descendants of Rabbi Solomon, Rambam’s great-grandson, to the descendants of his brother Rabbi Abraham, as noted by Sassoon in his introduction (chapter 14). It therefore seems that there was some sort of division agreement among Rambam’s descendants, which left the original 'Mishneh Torah' in the hands of Rabbi Solomon’s descendants in Egypt.

Although the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' remained in Egypt, about 150 years after the time of Rabbi David HaNaggid the Second, in the late 16th century, its traces were no longer known there, and the great scholars of Egypt, Radbaz, Rabbi Yosef Kurkus, and Rabbi Yaakov Castro, had to rely on secondary and tertiary sources to clarify the versions in 'Mishneh Torah.' Thus, Radbaz writes in his responsa (Responsa Radbaz, Livorno 1712, Siman 225 = Warsaw 1882, vol. 4, Siman 1260):

"I checked in all the old books found here in Egypt, his place, and in one corrected book, which they say was corrected from a book that he, himself, of blessed memory, corrected which is in Aleppo³⁹ to this day, and in all of them it is written and permitted to him (Hilkhot Melachim 4:4)."

There is no doubt that the "book that he himself, of blessed memory, corrected which is in Aleppo to this day," is none other than the manuscript that Rambam signed "corrected from my books," which included all of 'Mishneh Torah,' and the phrase "that he himself, of blessed memory, corrected" is not precise, but rather means that he personally approved its corrections, and Radbaz saw in Egypt a book that they said was corrected from that manuscript. Know this, for in another responsum (Responsa Radbaz, Venice 1749, Siman 9 = Warsaw 1882, vol. 5, Siman 1822), Radbaz writes:

"And I checked in the precise books, checked against the book that was corrected from the book of the Rabbi, of blessed memory that was in Aleppo⁴⁰, and thus it is written in Hilkhot Mamrim (2:9) from the tradition they learned."

Here too, the meaning is the accurate books that were checked against that book that was corrected from his book of blessed memory (and not: that he himself corrected) that was in Aleppo⁴¹.

And in Rabbi Yosef Kurkus’s commentary on Hilkhot Terumot 5:13:

"For I saw someone who wrote... that the true version in the book that was corrected from book with our rabbi's own signature is that his Terumah is not Terumah."

And in Responsa 'Ohel Yaakov' by Rabbi Yaakov Castro⁴² (Livorno 1783, Siman 108, page 160b):

"And Rambam of blessed memory wrote as follows according to the precise versions found here in Egypt with his signature in his handwriting at the end of the book, he said to them: write and give" etc.

Thus, in the days of Radbaz, Rabbi Yosef Kurkus, and Rabbi Yaakov Castro, Rambam’s manuscript was not present in Egypt, nor in Aleppo, and the most authoritative books in Egypt were those corrected from the book in Aleppo which had Rambam's certification with his handwritten signature that it was corrected from his book, or there were other manuscripts in Egypt bearing Rambam’s signature, see below.

How did the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' disappear? Did it suffer a calamity such as fire, drowning, or the like? We cannot answer this troubling question for now. There is vague information about Rambam’s descendants who were taken captive and exiled from their land⁴³, raising the possibility that the manuscript’s disappearance is related to this sad event. However, this is only speculation, and the answers are with God.

According to what has been said so far, we can also understand the words of Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi, author of 'Shitah Mekubetzet,' who was a student of Radbaz. He writes in his responsa (Venice edition 1590, Siman 5, page 27): "And so it seems from the language of Rambam of blessed memory who wrote in the third chapter of Hilkhot Edut (1) as follows: 'One for monetary laws and one for capital laws... etc., thus it is found in the old books found here in Egypt copied from an old book written in the handwriting of the author of blessed memory.'" The phrase "copied from an old book written in by the hand of the author of blessed memory" is strange, for if it is written by the hand of the author of blessed memory, why the need for the title "old book"? But it must be understood that it means an old book that bears the author’s handwriting attesting that it was corrected from his book (or there is a slight omission in the responsum, and it should read: "copied from an old book [corrected from that] written by the hand of the author of blessed memory"), and these are the words of Radbaz. In any case, it is clear that the author’s own manuscript was not before Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi, so he relied on the testimony of the copied books. Hence, also what he wrote in another responsum (ibid., Siman 28, page 87): "And know that in some of the Rabbi’s books it says 'it is like a faulty Chalitzah' (Hilkhot Yibum v’Chalitzah 4:14), and this is a mistake, and it should be corrected to 'it is a faulty Chalitzah,' and thus it is found in the handwriting of the author of blessed memory" – means that this is found in the aforementioned precise books that were copied from a book bearing the author’s handwriting.

And in the commentary 'Melekhet Shelomo' on the Mishnah (Keilim 2:5), by Rabbi Shelomo Adani, who studied with Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi while he was in Jerusalem, it is written: "I was astonished that in Rambam’s chapter 18 (Hilkhot Keilim 5:5) in all the printed editions I see 'she reaches into it with her hand,' and there is no correction on it even in a corrected book that came into my hands, corrected from a book in Aleppo with the handwritten signature of Rambam, of blessed memory, at the end." And he wrote further (Keilim 23:4): "And in Rambam there it says in chapter 25 Siman 2 'the chair of the launderer who launders (שכובס),' but I found it corrected in a precise book from the author’s own handwriting, with his signed name at the end, 'who gathers (שכורם).'" And thirdly (Nega’im 6:1): "And in Rambam, the first chapter of Hilkhot Tum’at Tzara’at Siman 7... [the word] הקלקלי is written with two lameds, and even in a book corrected from a book bearing the Rambam’s signature at the end."

And in the Responsa of the Mabit, also from the same generation (Venice edition 1589, vol. 1, Siman 1), he wrote regarding the text of the dates appearing in Hilkhot Kiddush HaChodesh and Hilkhot Shemittah and Yovel: "Because I checked the old books of the Rabbi, some of them 205 years old, and also the book in Aleppo bearing the Rabbi’s handwriting, and no correction was found in it, neither regarding Shemittah nor regarding Kiddush HaChodesh, but all are like the versions of our books." It is clear that if "the book in Aleppo" was the actual manuscript of Rambam, of blessed memory, there would be no need for the Mabit to mention the old books, as he checked Rambam's own manuscript. Therefore, it is certain that "the book in Aleppo bearing the Rabbi’s handwriting" means the book bearing the handwriting of Rambam attesting that it was corrected from his book, as stated by Radbaz and 'Melekhet Shelomo'. This is explicitly found in the gloss in the hand of Rabbi Shemuel Lirma, from the same generation, on the Naples 1492 edition of the Commentary on the Mishnah found in the National Library in Jerusalem⁴⁴: "And when I came to Aleppo, I found in the 'Mishneh Torah' that was corrected from his book."

From here to another testimony from someone from the same period, Rabbi Yehuda Albotini, one of the rabbis of Jerusalem, who writes in his commentary 'Yesod Mishneh Torah' on the Book of Ahavah, which he began to compose in 1515 CE, about the Aleppo Codex of Scriptures:⁴⁵ "I saw the aforementioned book in the synagogue of the Aleppo community, may their Rock guard and preserve them; it is a book written on large parchment proofread and corrected beautifully from the Assyrian script, and I saw many innovations in it, and the leaders of the community, may their Rock guard and preserve them, told me that they have a tradition that it was brought there by Rabbi Abraham, son of our Rabbi, the Rabbi of blessed memory, and Rabbi David, son of the Rabbi, Rabbi Abraham, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, who is buried there in Aleppo, and since he brought the aforementioned book, it remained there, along with the Commentary on the Mishnah written by the hand of the Rabbi of blessed memory, with five or six books of the Yad written by the hand of the Rabbi of blessed memory, all of which I saw with my own eyes in Aleppo, for they are placed in one of the sanctuaries of the aforementioned synagogue, and the Rabbi relied on that book."

Here, first of all, the tradition he reported from the people of Aleppo is not precise, as it does not refer to Rabbi Abraham, son of Rambam, and his son Rabbi David, who were never in Aleppo – Rabbi David, son of Rabbi Abraham, was brought to burial from Egypt to Tiberias, near the grave of Rambam, and his tombstone is there to this day – but it refers to Rabbi David HaNaggid the Second, son of Rabbi Joshua, who moved to Aleppo and brought with him the Aleppo Codex and the Commentary on the Mishnah written by the hand of Rambam. But regardless of this tradition, it is likely that even the language of "five or six books of the Yad written by the hand of the Rabbi of blessed memory" is not precise, but rather refers to books bearing Rambam’s signature in his own handwriting, as testified by Rabbi Shemuel Lirma, who also visited Aleppo at that time, and as stated by the Mabit: "book in Aleppo bearing the Rabbi’s handwriting," proven above to mean: with the signature of the Rabbi. [The possibility that five or six books of the original manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' were indeed in Aleppo, meaning that according to Rabbi David’s division agreement with the other heirs the 'Mishneh Torah' was divided into books, some of which Rabbi David received and brought to Aleppo, while others remained in Egypt, and that for books that Rabbi David did not have the original manuscript he used the "corrected from my books" manuscript – seems highly unlikely to me. It is much more likely that from the "corrected from my book" manuscript only five or six books remained with the Aleppo community, while the rest disappeared, as in the following years most of these books also disappeared, and the scholar Huntington, mentioned above in Chapter 2, only find in Aleppo about a hundred years later the books of Knowledge (HaMadda) and Adoration (Ahavah).]

Let us summarize the conclusions from all the above testimonies:

A. The manuscript with Rambam’s certification "corrected from my books" that was in Aleppo was considered the most authoritative manuscript known in the 16th century.

B. It, and not Rambam’s original book, was in Aleppo⁴⁶.

C. It contained the entire work, not just the books of Knowledge (HaMadda) and Adoration (Ahavah) (it is possible that not all the books were copied by the same scribe). It seems that Rambam certified the correcting of the manuscript from his book at the end of each of its volumes.

In the next chapter, we will see that the manuscript that was in Aleppo was not the only one with Rambam’s certification with his handwritten signature. The reason why it was considered the most authoritative manuscript stemmed from the fact that this manuscript was in the possession of Rambam’s descendants and was esteemed by them. Moreover, apart from the certification "corrected from my books" at the end of the books of Knowledge (HaMadda) and Adoration (Ahavah), there is a dedication at the beginning of the book, which reads:

"This work was for a very knowledgeable student, engaged in Torah for its own sake day and night, his name was Mr. Elazar, may he be remembered for a blessing and for life, son of Perachiah, may his end be good, and he was very pious and meticulous in his actions and wisdom, and he died young due to the sin of the generation, may God accept his deeds and grant his portion with those who know Him. And this student instructed, may he rest and rise for his lot, that this entire work should remain in the hands of the Beit Din forever, not to be sold or redeemed, and that no one individual should acquire it forever, but it should be ready and available for all students to correct their books from it, not to read it regularly or to copy from it, but anyone who wishes to [correct] their book should ask for any book they want from the Beit Din, and give a deposit against its value to the Beit Din, until they correct their book and return it. And it is a mitzvah to uphold his words and... may this be a secondary testament and..."

The writing of this dedication is very similar to Rambam’s handwriting, and it is likely that it was indeed written by him⁴⁷, or by a family member whose handwriting is similar to his⁴⁸. Thus, Rambam, or one of his family members, saw this copy, after it was corrected from the original, as a copy worthy of being relied upon for its accuracy and to correct books from it⁴⁹. Indeed, from examining the corrections in the manuscript, it is clear that the proofreader did his work meticulously, not neglecting even minor linguistic details. However, who can discern errors? Even the work of a reliable proofreader is not a guarantee of absolute accuracy, and indeed, even in this choice manuscript, there are a few evident errors, which we corrected in this edition based on other authoritative manuscripts, as detailed below in the introduction to the Book of Knowledge.

E. Additional Manuscripts with the "Corrected from My Book" Certification

The manuscript in Aleppo was not the only one that received Rambam's certification with his handwritten signature. Regarding the existence of another manuscript of 'Mishneh Torah' which Rambam certified with his handwritten signature, we have testimony from Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham ibn Gaon, a student of the Rashba, and the author of the commentary 'Migdal Oz' on 'Mishneh Torah.' Rabbi Shem Tov immigrated to the Land of Israel around 1315 CE and settled in Safed. In 1325 CE, he completed his Kabbalistic work "Badei HaAron" in Safed⁵⁰. In his 'Migdal Oz' commentary on 'Mishneh Torah,' he tells us about a corrected book he found in Israel. He writes in Hilkhot Ishut (7:17): "When I came to the Holy Land, I found a book which was corrected from the books of Rabbi Moshe of blessed memory, and he signed it with his signature, and it was written in it" etc. Again, in Hilkhot Issurei Bi’ah (1:12): "After I came to the beautiful Land, I checked in the book that was corrected from his book and signed by his hand, and I found it so" etc. And further there (9:21): "And when I merited to come to the beautiful Land and found the corrected book signed by his hand" etc. And in Hilkhot Edut (20:3): "Until here are the words of Rabbi Moshe of blessed memory, letter by letter, corrected from the book that is signed by his hand which I merited to obtain when I came to the beautiful Land". And in Hilkhot Geneivah (5:3): "As I copied from the book that was copied from the book written by the hand of Rabbi Moshe of blessed memory." [There is no doubt that this refers to the book corrected from the book in the handwriting of Rabbi Moshe of blessed memory, and 'copied' here means corrected, as will be explained later in this chapter. 'Migdal Oz' also mentions this book in Hilkhot Avodah Zarah (3:6; 4:6), Hilkhot Teshuvah (4:3), Hilkhot Shabbat (17:9; 17:35; 26:15), Hilkhot Issurei Bi’ah (1:12; 8:10), Hilkhot Chovel uMazik (5:6), Hilkhot Shechenim (2:8), Hilkhot Malveh veLoveh (9:1), and Hilkhot Melachim (1:9)].

In the colophon of Oxford MS 598 of the Book of Zeraim (see the introduction to the Book of Zeraim), it is written: "I corrected this book from a corrected book bearing the signature of the author, may the memory of the holy one be for a blessing, certifying that it was corrected from his book in his pure handwriting. I completed it on Thursday, Rosh Chodesh Shevat, in the year 1648 of the Seleucid Era, 5096 to creation, a sabbatical year, in the city of Safed in the Upper Galilee." Due to the proximity of the dates and the location (the year 5096 is close to the years of the composition of 'Migdal Oz', and Safed is the residence of the author), it can be almost certainly determined that the book from which this manuscript was corrected is the same book signed by Rambam found by the author of 'Migdal Oz' in Safed, and it is not the book later found in Aleppo (that Oxford MS 577 of the Books of Knowledge and Adoration, "corrected from my book," is part of it), as in those years at the end of the first century of the sixth millennium (the first half of the 14th century in the secular calendar), the Aleppo manuscript was still in the possession of Rambam’s family in Egypt and was only transferred to Aleppo several decades later, as mentioned in the previous chapter.

Another testimony from the Land of Israel, from the same period, regarding the existence of a manuscript with Rambam’s certification there, is found in a Genizah fragment, Cambridge T-S NS 298.24, containing the end of the order of prayers at the end of the Book of Adoration. The scribe writes at the end of the fragment: "This book was corrected from the one signed by the author of blessed memory, in Jerusalem, may it be built and established quickly, the holy city,⁵¹, year 113"⁵² (1353 CE). Is this the book found by the author of 'Migdal Oz' in Safed, or were there more than one book with Rambam’s certification in the Land of Israel? We cannot currently know.

Another interesting proof that not only the Aleppo manuscript bore Rambam’s certification with his handwritten signature is provided by the colophon of another important manuscript before us, Oxford MS 602 of the books of Service (Avodah) and Sacrifices (Korbanot). This is a Middle Eastern manuscript, estimated to be written in the 14th century. At the end of the Book of Service, it states:

"I corrected this Book of Service from a version (=copy, as above in Chapter 2) which bears the handwriting of our teacher, our rabbi and our master, the ever-flowing fountain, the strong hammer, the light of the world, the sage of the generation and its wonder, the treasure of wisdom, our master Moshe son of the revered, the great, the holy, our teacher and master Maimon, may the memory of the holy be for a blessing, and this is the text written by his hand: corrected from my book; and so wrote Moshe son of Rabbi Maimon, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing. And written by Natan HaLevi ben Mordechai, may his soul be bundled in the bundle of life."

Similarly, at the end of the Book of Sacrifices, he copies the exact text of Rambam’s certification: "corrected from my book; and so wrote Moshe son of Rabbi Maimon, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing."

It is possible that this is the book found by the author of 'Migdal Oz' in Safed, or it is the book that was in Jerusalem (if they are not the same book), but in any case, it seems that this is not the book in Aleppo, as the text of the certification cited by the proofreader differs from the one in the Aleppo manuscript (instead of 'I,' it is 'and so wrote'), so it appears that we are dealing with another manuscript on which Rambam wrote the certification at a different time and with a different formulation.

We know of the existence of another manuscript with Rambam’s certification in his handwriting, besides those in Aleppo and the Land of Israel, from an earlier source. In his book 'Kiryat Sefer' on the laws of writing a Torah scroll, Meiri brings the text of a letter sent by Rabbi Meir Halevi Abulafia (Ramah) to the scholars of Burgos, concerning the opened and closed parshiyot of the Torah, in which he recounts among other things ('Kiryat Sefer,' ed. R.M. Hershler, Jerusalem 1956, p. 46; the language below is based on a preferred version in manuscripts [London Or. 10677, page 20b; Manchester Gaster 659, page 21b]):

"And I sent to Marseilles to the distinguished scholar Rabbi Samuel ibn Tibbon the physician, and asked him to send me the version of the open and closed parshiyot from the book copied from the book of the Rabbi that came with him to Marseilles, which the Rabbi of blessed memory signed with his handwritten signature, this book of 'Mishneh Torah' was corrected from the book that I wrote, not in my presence, I, Moshe son of Maimon the Spaniard. And so he did, and sent them to me promptly."

It is clear that the phrase "the book copied from the book of the Rabbi" means: the book corrected from the book of the Rabbi, as explicitly stated in the language of the certification brought later: "this book of 'Mishneh Torah' was corrected from the book that I wrote," and as we found in 'Migdal Oz,' mentioned above, who usually wrote "the book that was corrected," and once wrote "the book that was copied." The book that came with Rabbi Samuel ibn Tibbon to Marseilles is therefore another copy of 'Mishneh Torah' that was corrected from Rambam’s manuscript and received his certification, and Rabbi Samuel ibn Tibbon obtained it in Egypt during his visit there after Rambam's death and brought it with him to Provence. We know about Rabbi Samuel’s visit to Egypt, about eight and a half years after Rambam’s death, from what he wrote at the end of the 'Explanation of Foreign Terms' attached to his translation of the 'Guide for the Perplexed'⁵³, and it reads (Parma MS 557, page 210b):

"I made this section within the ship on the shore of Adra, within four mile of Elkalvia and one and a half days to Tunis, coming from Alexandria in the month of Tammuz in the year 4973 of creation. May God return us with our companions in peace to our city and our homes, amen."

Even without the certification text quoted by Ramah, which differs from the texts mentioned above, it is clear that this manuscript brought by Rabbi Samuel to Provence is not the Aleppo manuscript, which remained with Rambam’s family in Egypt, nor the Safed manuscript, which came to the Land of Israel (and it is unlikely it came there from Provence). Could it be the book Rabbi Aaron HaKohen of Provence (mentioned in Chapter 3) referred to: "And I found a corrected book in the hands of one who corrected it in Alexandria of Egypt from the books written by the hand of Rambam of blessed memory"? It seems so. In any case, it is clear that there was in Provence a copy of 'Mishneh Torah' with Rambam’s handwritten certification that it was corrected from his book, and this fact gives a certain likelihood of unique reliability to ancient manuscripts from Provence (see the specific introductions to the different books).

F. Which are the Most Reliable Manuscripts Available Today?

From all that has been mentioned above, it emerges that in the absence of Rambam’s original manuscript (aside from the draft pages mentioned in Chapter 2), we should first seek out manuscripts that were directly corrected from his original manuscript, which we will call first-grade manuscripts, and then those that were copied or corrected directly from the first-grade manuscripts, which we will call second-grade manuscripts.

Among the manuscripts bearing Rambam's certification "corrected from my book," only Oxford MS 577 of the books of Knowledge and Adoration, mentioned above, have been discovered so far. This manuscript is rightly recognized as the most reliable manuscript we possess.

Another first-grade manuscript is Escorial MS G III 2 of the Book of Judgments, written by "Shelomo HaLevi, son of Rabbi Shemuel the Judge, the wise man, may the memory of the righteous be a blessing." At the end, the scribe noted: "קובל עלי נסכ'ה אלאצל," translated: "This has been compared to the original manuscript" (on the term 'nuskha al-asl' see above, Chapter 3)⁵⁴. Rabbi Shemuel HaLevi ben Saadia, "the wise judge," was a member of Rambam's court and signed with him, and with "the pious judge" Rabbi Yitzchak ben Sason, on many rulings (see the index in Responsa of Rambam, ed. Blau, vol. 3, p. 220). His son, Rabbi Shelomo, was an expert scribe, and we have preserved from his copies most of Rambam’s Commentary on the Mishnah (in Oxford MS 395 mentioned in Chapter 4, and in subsequent numbers in the Oxford catalog), as well as parts of the Guide for the Perplexed, the laws of Rif, and more. His closeness to Rambam’s house allowed him to correct the book from Rambam's original book. It should be noted that both this manuscript and the manuscripts on which Rambam wrote "corrected from my book" were not copied from Rambam's original manuscript, but only corrected from it after being copied from another manuscript. The reason for this is likely that copying takes a long time, while proofreading is relatively short, so permission was granted only for correcting, not for copying. Even in the dedication on the Aleppo manuscript (above, end of Chapter 4), it speaks of permission being given to correct books from this book that was placed in the Beit Din, not to copy it.

Another manuscript with testimony that it was corrected from Rambam’s books is Oxford MS 592. This manuscript contains sections from various books of 'Mishneh Torah,' some short and some long. A large part of it was written by the scribe of Oxford MS 577, which bears Rambam's signature, Rabbi Yefet ben Solomon HaLevi, as determined by comparing the handwriting, and a small part by another, also Middle Eastern, scribe. On the last page, there is an inscription: "corrected from the books of the author, the revered, the great, the holy Rabbi Moshe Gaon, may the memory of the holy be a blessing, by me, Abraham the Westerner, son of Yehuda." This inscription apparently refers to the part written by Rabbi Yefet ben Solomon, where some corrections are indeed visible, and not to the part by the other scribe.

Regarding second-grade manuscripts – in the previous chapter, two manuscripts were mentioned, currently available to us, containing the books of Zeraim, Avodah, and Korbanot, which were corrected from a manuscript bearing Rambam's handwritten certification. One of them, and probably also the other, originated from the Land of Israel. Additionally, with Divine assistance, we succeeded in identifying among the manuscripts from Aleppo a group of manuscripts containing another significant portion of 'Mishneh Torah,' all written by the same scribe in the years 1468-1488 CE, and these were copied or corrected, apparently, from the famous book that Rabbi David HaNaggid brought to Aleppo, from which we have the books of Knowledge (HaMadda) and Adoration (Ahavah) with Rambam's signature "corrected from my book." The proof for this was found by comparing the book of Knowledge in the scribe's handwriting (Lyon MS 8) with the Book of Knowledge in the manuscript signed by Rambam⁵⁵. The comparison revealed almost complete identity, and specific individual proofs were found indicating that the scribe had before him the manuscript signed by Rambam that we have (the proofs are mentioned below in our annotations to the Book of Knowledge). Details of these manuscripts, along with the other manuscripts we used, will be provided in the introduction to each book in our edition⁵⁶.

G. The Yemenite Manuscripts

The editors of the new complete editions of 'Mishneh Torah' that appeared in our generation, as mentioned above (Chapter 1), Rabbi Shabtai Frankel and Rabbi Yosef Qafih, assumed as a given that the Yemenite manuscripts of 'Mishneh Torah' are the most accurate manuscripts available to us. Rabbi Qafih's adherence to the Yemenite manuscripts was absolute, and out of his love for them, he sometimes preferred them in his edition of the Commentary on the Mishnah over what he found written in Rambam's own holy handwriting(!), see what he wrote in his introduction to the Order of Zeraim in his edition, page 15. There are even cases where he established their text in the main text even when their error was proven (see for example what he wrote in note 90 to his introduction to the Mishnah in his edition). Even in the edition of Rabbi Shabtai Frankel, of blessed memory, the editors wrote in each volume in the 'Yalkut Shinui Nuschaot' (collection of variant texts): "The Yemenite books are more reliable than all others," and when they reached the Book of Knowledge (HaMadda), they excluded only the manuscript of the books of Knowledge (HaMadda) and Adoration (Ahavah) signed by Rambam.

The importance of the Yemenite manuscripts is indeed significant for two reasons:

A. The origin of the Yemenite manuscripts is from books written during Rambam's lifetime, as attested to in his letter to the community of Lunel: "Cities of Yemen and Arab cities... have already dedicated wealthy men, may our God bless them, and sent messengers to us and bought three versions (=copies) of the work, and placed a version in each border"⁵⁷.

B. The Yemenite scribes are known for their faithfulness, as Rabbi Qafih wrote in his introduction to his edition (p. 10): "The Jews of Yemen, their scholars and unique ones, are conservative; they have never dared to 'correct' or 'emend' any book that came into their hands, and certainly not the books of our teacher, who was revered by them."

However, these two reasons alone are not a guarantee of absolute accuracy. Contrary to Rabbi Qafih's words there, the Yemenites did not copy their first books from Rambam's manuscript, but bought ready-made copies that cost them money, as Rambam himself testifies⁵⁸. The difference is very significant: if the Yemenites had sent expert scribes to sit at Rambam's house and copy from his book at leisure – it could be assumed that these would be very accurate copies. But when it comes to buying ready-made copies, which could have been second-hand copies, or third-hand or more – there is no knowing their accuracy. Consider the original text of the books of Knowledge (HaMadda) and Adoration (Ahavah) in the manuscript "corrected from my books," which was of course written during Rambam's lifetime, where, in hundreds of places, the proofreader had to correct errors compared to Rambam's manuscript. It is also known that in the first book that reached Lunel during Rambam's lifetime, which either it or a copy generated from it, was before the Raavad, author of the glosses,⁵⁹ there were scribal errors, as Rambam writes to the scholars of Lunel: "Your complaints are not against me, as you said, nor against yourselves, but against the scribe and the proofreader, and the text of my words is so"⁶⁰ (Responsa, ed. Blau, Siman 294), and further: "This is also a mistake" (ibid., Siman 433); and Rambam's commentators have noted several of Raavad's glosses that originated from scribe errors in the copy before him (see for example the places noted above in Chapter 5 in 'Migdal Oz').

The Yemenites and Arabians, as stated, bought three copies of the work in Egypt during Rambam's lifetime, but there is no evidence that these copies were corrected from Rambam's manuscript. On the contrary, a detailed examination shows that several scribe errors corrected by the proofreader in the "corrected from my book" manuscript of the books of Knowledge and Adoration are present in the Yemenite manuscripts, even in the oldest ones (this does not refer to places where Rambam corrected and changed the text, but simple errors that occurred in the first copies of the work and spread from there, see our notes on these books). Furthermore, it appears that the three copies bought by the Yemenites were not identical in all details, let alone those copied from them. Who is more trustworthy on this matter than the ancient Yemenite scholars themselves, headed by Rabbi David Adani, author of 'Midrash HaGadol,' who writes at the beginning of his collection of questions to Rabbi Yehoshua HaNaggid about places in 'Mishneh Torah'⁶¹:

"קאל אלסאיל ש"צ: והד'ה אלמסאיל, וכת'יר מנהא מן אג'ל אכ'תלאף אלנסך' ענדנא"

Translation: "The questioner said: These are the questions, many of them due to the variation between the versions among us."

About a hundred years later, Rabbi David ben Yesha, a Yemenite scholar, wrote in his commentary on 'Mishneh Torah' (translated by Y. Ratzhabi)⁶²:

"Know that errors are numerous in the versions, and many stubbornly hold on to those same errors... This is in many places in the work... There were questions and answers about the work and other topics raised between the descendants of our teacher and people from other lands, especially from the Yemenites, and most responsa noted that the reason was errors that crept into the copies of the work."

Despite all this, due to the two reasons mentioned above, the Yemenite manuscripts are indeed excellent compared to their counterparts from other countries, and their accuracy far surpasses that of manuscripts from Spain, Ashkenaz, Italy, and more. The exceptions are the manuscripts referred to by me as paleographs,⁶³ "Middle Eastern" manuscripts, meaning manuscripts written in the Middle East, Egypt, Syria, and the Land of Israel. The reason for this is simple: we saw above that Rambam's original manuscript existed in Egypt for about two hundred years; in Aleppo, Syria, the esteemed complete copy with Rambam's certification and dedication to the Beit Din existed for about another two hundred years; and in the Land of Israel, there was at least one copy of the work with Rambam's certification. In the vicinity of these manuscripts, books could be corrected more reliably and accurately than elsewhere.

Therefore, in editing 'Mishneh Torah', priority should be given to the Middle Eastern manuscripts, especially those of the first and second grades (as defined at the beginning of the previous chapter). Following them, the ancient Yemenite manuscripts, close to them, should be used. Rarely, it might be necessary to use other manuscripts as well, and then it pays to give attention to manuscripts from Provence, where a manuscript corrected from Rambam's book also existed, as mentioned above, even though we currently have no known Provencal manuscript with a direct relationship to the manuscript brought by Rabbi Samuel ibn Tibbon from Egypt.

H. The Genizah Fragments

Another important source for determining the text is the numerous fragments of 'Mishneh Torah,' both small and large, found in the Cairo Genizah. We have already mentioned that draft pages in Rambam's own handwriting were found there, which increases the likelihood of finding among the Genizah fragments remnants of manuscripts written close to Rambam's location and time. Indeed, the Genizah also contains remnants of later manuscripts and prints, whose value is not great, and even among the older ones, there are pages written in a careless manner, as practice attempts by novice scribes, etc. However, there is no doubt that many Genizah fragments originated from the wear and tear of high-quality manuscripts written by skilled scribes, and their importance for textual research is significant.

I would like to acknowledge the manuscript researcher, my friend Rabbi Avishai Yorav, of blessed memory, who provided me, at the time, with a list of Genizah fragments of 'Mishneh Torah' that he painstakingly collected from Genizah collections in various libraries worldwide. I also want to mention, for a good and long life, the yeshiva students who assisted me during the work with various tasks, including extracting variant readings from these fragments (their names are mentioned in the introductions to the volumes of 'Rambam Meduyyak'). However, in the years since my work on the first fourteen-volume edition until now, a revolution has occurred in the ability to utilize Genizah materials, with the establishment of the "Genizah Project" by the esteemed benefactor Rabbi Dov Friedberg, may Hashem grant him life and strength, which aims to make Genizah fragments accessible to the general public in a digital photographic edition. In this magnificent endeavor, there is a special section called 'Yad HaRambam,' where one can view the variant readings in 'Mishneh Torah' both from the earliest printings and from Genizah fragments with the click of a button. Thanks to this revolution, I was able to access more Genizah fragments in the current edition, and I adopted a general reference method that avoids the cumbersome citation of libraries and catalog numbers. When I refer in the textual notes to 'Genizah fragment' or 'Genizah fragments,' it means fragments that can be found by chapter and halakhah in 'Yad HaRambam' in the Friedberg Project⁶⁴.

In addition to the various manuscripts of 'Mishneh Torah,' we have another highly important source for determining the text: the Commentary on the Mishnah in Rambam's original handwriting, which was discussed above. Rambam testifies that he wrote 'Mishneh Torah' "in the manner of the Mishnah and in the language of the Mishnah"⁶⁵. In many halakhot, we can refer to the Mishnah and its commentary in the Rambam's manuscript, to check what was his version of the Mishnah and how he interpreted it, and see the direct influence of these interpretations on the formulation of the halakhot in 'Mishneh Torah.' Also, from the responsa of Rambam, his son Rabbi Abraham, and his grandson Rabbi Yehoshua, we can extract important decisions regarding the text of 'Mishneh Torah.'

I. The Editions That Appeared in Our Generation

Before I detail the working method in this edition, I must add a few more words about the aforementioned editions that appeared in our generation and clarify why there was a need for a new precise edition. I will preface by saying that there is no doubt that the aforementioned rabbis and editors, each according to his merit, undertook pioneering and highly important work in correcting the existing printed texts (not to mention their great exegetical work, in which I am not engaged at all). Their editions are are praiseworthy editions, far more accurate than the regular printed versions. However, in my humble opinion, even in these important editions, the work has not yet been properly completed. [The following comments are not a systematic and detailed critique of the editions (suitable for a review article, which is not the place here), but only general remarks on the principles of editing.]

We have shown above that the common assumption of the editions of Rabbi Qafih and Rabbi Shabtai Frankel, that Yemenite manuscripts are the most reliable available to us, is not justified. Moreover, Rabbi Qafih edited 'Mishneh Torah' solely based on Yemenite manuscripts that were in his private collection, see the general introduction to his edition, but most of his manuscripts are late, from after the invention of printing, see his introductions to the books (photographs of the colophons are provided there in the introduction to the Book of Judges), while in various libraries in Israel and around the world, there are older and more accurate Yemenite manuscripts. In our edition, we endeavored to locate old and praiseworthy Yemenite manuscripts and use them alongside the Middle Eastern manuscripts, as mentioned above. We can only quote Rabbi Qafih's own words in his introduction to his edition (Book of Knowledge, at the beginning, p. 15): "I hope that others will complete the work, even if not according to my method but according to theirs... and from me and them, the Exalted One will be glorified... May the goal be achieved because it is great."

The editors of Rabbi Shabtai Frankel's edition adopted a strange method of editing. These are their words in the section of variant readings (in the Book of Times (Zemanim), which was the first to be published): "In the body of the book, we wrote the text that seemed to us to be the primary one, in our humble opinion, after examining and considering the manuscripts and printed editions, but we generally refrained from establishing any (in later volumes they added: significant) text in the body that is not found in one of the printed books." That is to say: the main text is a mixed, eclectic text, subject not only to the editors' discretion but also to the printed books, despite the fact that the first printed books were copied, of course, from manuscripts that preceded them, and it goes without saying that the original is always preferable to a copy. I do not understand what sanctity there is in the printed books that is not in the manuscripts. On the contrary, it is known that some of the first printed editions of our sacred texts were printed by non-Jews, converts, and those disqualified from testimony, while all the manuscripts were written by kosher Jews and were used by Torah scholars in the generations of our earliest sages. It is true that the printed editions greatly contributed to the dissemination of Torah in Israel, but they also caused much harm, as is known, because they replicated their errors in thousands of copies, and the great scholars of the generations worked hard to eradicate the thorns from the printed Talmud and other works and restore the crown to its former glory. Consider the 'Chochmat Shelomo' by Maharshal and the glosses of Bach, etc., etc.

No important details were provided about the manuscripts used in the Frankel edition, primarily the time of their writing. The Middle Eastern manuscripts they used were included in the category of "Spanish" manuscripts, although the Middle Eastern ones are as different from the Spanish as the East is from the West... Most of the Yemenite manuscripts they used were private, and even those found in libraries did not have their numbers provided, so you do not know if they are old manuscripts, close to Rambam's time, or late ones, close to our time, which are much less valuable.

Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch sought to attach his comprehensive commentary 'Yad Peshutah' to a reliable text of the work, and for each book of the fourteen, he chose a single manuscript that seemed reliable to him based on examining questionable places, and sometimes he used an additional manuscript (see the introductions to the various books in his edition; in some books, he consulted with me about choosing the manuscript, and I gave him my recommendation). Beyond this, he hardly dealt with variant readings or comparing his text to the printed editions.

Another common shortcoming of all three editions is that the student does not see before his eyes how the new edition differs from the regular printed editions, and therefore he does not know immediately why the text before him is preferable to the printed versions. In our edition, we tried to address this shortcoming, as explained in the next chapter.

J. The Working Method in This Edition

As mentioned at the beginning, the aim of my work is to present to the learner a text of 'Mishneh Torah' as close as possible to the final version as it left the hands of Rambam, along with precise, clear, and transparent information that will enable any learner to know the source of our text, recognize significant variant readings found in the most reliable manuscripts, and understand why our text is superior to the regular printed versions (Warsaw-Vilna). To this end, I selected the most important manuscript available for each book of 'Mishneh Torah,' according to the criteria set out above at the end of Chapter 7, and used it as the basis for the main text. This manuscript is marked as MS A. In the notes, significant variant readings of interest to the learner⁶⁶ from the most reliable manuscripts according to the above criteria are provided. Details of the manuscripts are given in the introduction to each book. In general, we marked Middle Eastern manuscripts (excluding MS A) with the letter B (B1, B2, etc.), Yemenite manuscripts with the letter T (T1, T2, etc.), and long Genizah fragments noted in the introduction to the book with the letter G (G1, G2, etc.). The term 'manuscripts' in the notes refers to the manuscripts used for a particular book of 'Mishneh Torah.'

I did not undertake to provide variant readings from manuscripts far removed from the source (their total number reaches hundreds) or from various printed editions of 'Mishneh Torah,' as their value is only for those who want to trace the textual history over the generations and in different countries. This is not among the goals of my edition, nor is it within my capacity.

Although I based the text of each book of the fourteen on the most important manuscript available for that book, I did not follow it blindly. In places where the main manuscript's text is clearly erroneous, and the correct text is found in other reliable manuscripts, I established the correct text in the main text according to the other manuscripts, explicitly noted in the annotation along with the text of MS A. Thus, on the one hand, the learner is not disturbed by errors in the main text, and on the other hand, he has all the information regarding the sources of the text. However, wherever the text of MS A is possible, we established it in the main text and preferred it over the text of other manuscripts because of its attribution, meaning the testimony of its closeness to Rambam's manuscript. It is known that many times a seemingly more simple variant originates from a "correction" made by a scribe, and it is also known that one does not follow the majority in variant readings but if comparing what matches the majority and what is closest, closest is preferable.

In my notes, I endeavored to explain the superiority of the text of this edition over the printed versions, marked with the letter D (the reservations regarding the printed versions usually open with the word 'but' When I wrote that the text of the printed editions is a mistake or unnecessary "correction", the intention is not to blame the editors, for it is possible that the variant reading is the work of a scribe of some manuscript, according to which the book was printed). When the same text appears in the editions of Rabbi Shabtai Frankel and Rabbi Qafih and I comment on it, I noted in parentheses: (also F, K), and if only in one of them: (also F) or (also K). I did not bother to check these editions in other places, as I was not interested in discovering new errors but only in pointing out the errors in the regular printed versions compared to the correct text. Likewise, I did not comment on non-significant changes in the printed text that are obvious to all, such as errors in gender (masculine and feminine) and the like, or changes due to censorship, such as 'heathens' instead of gentile, 'heathens' instead of idolatry or idol worshippers, 'apostate' instead of renegade, 'Epicurean' instead of heretic.

Whenever we have evidence of a correction made by Rambam in his book after it was completed and copied to a clean copy, and even in doubtful places, this is noted in the footnotes, of course, with the original version that was corrected being provided. I also tried to note in the footnotes the places where Rambam's commentators addressed textual issues.

Additional notes on the format of our edition:

Division into Halakhot – One of the things corrupted in the printed editions is the division of the halakhot. The original division, as it appears in the manuscripts, is provided in our edition through colons at the end of each halakhah and a space afterwards (as was Rambam's method in the Commentary on the Mishnah and the draft pages of 'Mishneh Torah,' where he did not number the halakhot but marked an inverted segol at the end of each halakhah and a space afterwards). However, we retained the numbering of the Halakhot (א, ב, ג etc.) as in the printed editions for the sake of finding the appropriate place in the commentaries. If the printed editions have a new halakhah where it should not be, only the halakhah number will appear without colons and space before it.

Text of the Verses – Rambam quoted from memory the thousands of verses in the work, and in a few cases he did not quote completely accurately, as we know from the Commentary on the Mishnah in his handwriting. In cases where all the manuscripts we used have the verse in an incorrect version, we corrected it in the text using parentheses and brackets as is the norm. In cases where MS A has an incorrect version, but one of the other manuscripts has the correct version, we provided the correct version in the text and noted the version of A in the annotation. It is better to attribute the error to the scribe of MS A rather than to Rambam. On the spelling of the verses, see below.

Spelling – Rambam's spelling in his handwriting, both in the Commentary on the Mishnah and in the drafts of 'Mishneh Torah,' tends to be full (plene) spelling, but there is no consistency. Sometimes the same word appears in a deficient (chaser) spelling and a few lines later in full (plene) spelling, or vice versa. Even in quoting verses, Rambam tends towards full spelling and does not strictly adhere to the Masoretic spelling. The reliable manuscripts we used also lack consistency regarding full and deficient spelling, and it seems that each scribe did as he saw fit (this also applies to the spelling of 'eizeh' or 'eyze,' 'lefikakh' or 'lefikhakh'). If we had Rambam's original book, we would certainly copy it as it is, but since we do not have it, we thought it right to adopt a consistent method in matters of plene and deficient spelling: not to follow one manuscript but to unify the spelling so that the reading will be smooth and comfortable. An exception to this is the issue of final mem or nun endings ('omrim' – 'omrin' and the like), where we always followed the main manuscript (A). We did not vocalize words, not even partial vocalization, and if we had a comment regarding the correct pronunciation, it was provided in the apparatus. However, for basic convenience in studying, we punctuated the entire work (Rambam did not punctuate it), but we used only period and comma symbols, and quotation marks for marking scriptural quotes. In any case of doubt in punctuation, we noted it in the apparatus.

In three matters, we adopted a writing style different from Rambam's original, also for the reader's convenience:

(a) Rambam writes the name of God with three consecutive yods at the same height, but we wrote it with a heh with an apostrophe (ה') as is customary today.

(b) Rambam generally connects the word 'shel' to the following word, but we separated it, as has been customary for many generations (when the word after 'shel' is definite, the separation sometimes creates difficulty, and we noted these cases).

(c) Rambam marks abbreviations with a dot or apostrophe above each letter, while we wrote it as is customary today with two apostrophes before the last letter.

Linguistic Forms – There are linguistic forms peculiar to Rambam's language (and also to the language of the Sages in reliable textual witnesses) that generally did not survive in the printed editions, and we want to mention them here so we do not need to comment on them every time they appear:

Verbs with a final heh in the third-person feminine past tense typically appear as: עָשָׂת (= עשתה), קָנָת (= קנתה), אָפָת (= אפתה), נצטַוָּת (= נצטותה), etc. This form is also found in the Torah ("ועָשָׂת את התבואה," Leviticus 25:21) and is common in the language of the Sages.
Also in verbs with a final heh, it is common in Rambam's language to find forms such as: עשיָין (= עשאן), אפיָיה (= אפאה), הוריָיה (= הוראה), הניָיה (= הנאה).
Unlike 'איפה,' 'איזה,' and 'איכן,' the form for 'when' is: אַמָּתַי (and not: 'אימתי').
After 'במה דברים אמורים' comes: 'בְּשֶׁ...' (and not: 'כְּשֶׁ...').
The singular form of 'תלמידי חכמים' ('talmidei chakhamim') is: תלמיד חכמים (and not: תלמיד חכם).
Rambam almost always uses the word 'יתר' and not: 'יותר'.
There are words of foreign origin whose forms in Rambam's language differ from the usual in the printed editions: אנדרָגִינָס, אַפַּטרופוס (and also: אַפַּטרופא), ליסטֵיס (in plural: ליסטים), and the plural of 'tarnegol': תַּרְנֹגְלין.

K. Conclusion

The laborious task of preparing this edition, a work that often lacks intellectual prowess, was undertaken out of reverence for the Torah and in honor of our great teacher, Rambam. I spared no effort in copying, comparing manuscripts, and verifying the correct version based on authoritative textual witnesses. I did not rely on reasoning or scholarship, nor did I attempt to explicate Rambam's position in the particular subject matter to decide between variants, as any in-depth learner knows that what initially seems like an interpretation of Rambam's words can, after further analysis, turn out to be the opposite, and after another review, one might realize they were mistaken again. Who, then, can confidently say, "Accept my opinion"? I saw my role as faithfully transmitting the original text of the work, as accurately as possible with the resources available to us. Now the book 'Mishneh Torah' lies before us, for anyone who wishes to learn – let them come and learn, to interpret – let them come and interpret.

My gratitude goes to the libraries around the world where the manuscripts are kept (the names of the libraries and the manuscript numbers are provided in the brief introduction to each book), as well as to the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, without whose excellent services and the dedication of its staff, this edition would not have seen the light of day.

Symbols and Abbreviations

Manuscript Symbols:

Details of the manuscripts we used for each book are provided in the introduction preceding the book. In general:

A – The main manuscript upon which the text of this book is based.
B (followed by a number) – A Middle Eastern manuscript.
T (followed by a number) – A Yemenite manuscript.
G (followed by a number) – A Genizah fragment noted in the introduction to this book.

A letter with two digits separated by a hyphen indicates two or more consecutive manuscripts. For example:

B1-2 means: B1 and B2.
T1-3 means: T1, T2, and T3.

'Manuscripts' ('כתבי היד') – (indicates) all the manuscripts we used in this book.

Printed Edition Symbols:

D – Warsaw-Vilna edition
F – Rabbi Shabtai Frankel's edition
K – Rabbi Qafih's edition

Note: A textual note always refers only to the word in the body of the halakhah to the left of which the number appears, unless explicitly stated otherwise in parentheses (e.g., from..., or: until ...).

⁸ See the Iggeret HaShemad of our master (in Iggerot, pp. 33-34; early translation), where he criticizes those who disseminate written material "from a first draft, without seeing to rewrite and correct it," noting that even for oral matters, it is proper to review them three or four times before teaching them publicly, "and for something a person writes and records, it should ideally be reviewed a thousand times." Even if not more than one complete draft of the work was written, findings from the Genizah indicate there were intermediary stages in the writing besides the draft and the final version. See my article "On the Stages of Writing the Mishneh Torah – An Heretofore Unpublished Draft Page," in MiBirkat Moshe, a collection of articles in honor of Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch (Maaliyot, Maaleh Adumim 2012), Vol. 1, pp. 109-114.

⁴⁷ This is the opinion of R.S. Sassoon (in the introduction to the facsimile of the Commentary on the Mishnah, Chapter 4), R. Shelomo Zalman Havlin (in the introduction to the facsimile mentioned in note 11, p. 19), and others. However, what Havlin wrote (ibid, p. 22) that certain corrections in the body of MS Oxford 577 were apparently made by Rambam himself in his handwriting – in my opinion, this has no basis. The corrections in the manuscript are all in the handwriting of the proofreader or proofreaders on whom Rambam testified "proofread from my book." Is it conceivable that Rambam, who did not find time to publish all his works (see Iggerot, p. 562, and also the description of his daily schedule, ibid, pp. 509-510), engaged in proofreading additional copies of his work besides his personal copy? It should also be noted that if indeed Rambam wrote the dedication at the beginning of the manuscript, there is no basis for the assumption by R. S.Z. Havlin (ibid., note 10) that the deceased, Mr. Elazar b. Perachiah, was the son of Rabbi Perachiah b. Nissim, the author of the commentary on Tractate Shabbat (published by Machon Ofek, Jerusalem, 1998). Rabbi Perachiah was a contemporary of Rabbi Avraham, the son of Maimonides, and was apparently younger than him (see the introduction by R. A. Shoshana to this commentary, p. 5 and onward), and Rabbi Avraham was nineteen years old at the time of Maimonides' death (see Iggerot, pp. 20-21). Therefore, it is impossible that Rabbi Perachiah's son could have had time to own a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah and to bequeath it before his death to the court, all during Maimonides' lifetime! Similarly, there is no reason to support Sassoon's speculation, cited by Havlin (ibid., p. 22), that the scribe of the manuscript, Rabbi Yefet ben Shelomo Halevi HaParnas, was the son of Rabbi Shelomo son of the judge Rabbi Shmuel Halevi, who was a member of Maimonides' court. Rabbi Shelomo son of the judge Rabbi Shmuel, known to us as a scribe who copied Maimonides' writings (see below, Chapter 6), was presumably a young man during Maimonides' lifetime, and it is unlikely that his son would have had time to copy the Mishneh Torah during Maimonides' lifetime in the handwriting of a skilled and experienced scribe. Does the name Shelomo Halevi really prove anything? Are there not many Shelomo Halevis in the marketplace!

⁴⁹ Dr. Ezra Chwat and Rabbi Yehuda Seewald discovered among the Genizah fragments remnants of a copy of the Guide for the Perplexed in its original Arabic, written by Rabbi Yefet Ben Shelomo mentioned above (a clear identification based on the handwriting), and on the back of the first page is the opening poem of the Guide in Rambam's own handwriting(!). This surprising discovery, which has yet to be published in print, proves that Rabbi Yefet's copies were indeed made in close proximity to Rambam, and supports the assumption that the dedication on the manuscript of Knowledge and Adoration is in his handwriting. However, the fact that there were hundreds of textual changes in the manuscript before it was proofread, some of which cannot be attributed to haste in writing (such as superfluous words that needed to be deleted), indicates that its initial writing was not a copy from Rambam's manuscript, but from another copy, and only the proofreading was from Rambam's book.

⁵⁶ The printed volumes of the Mishneh Torah from Venice, which contained many handwritten annotations, spurred special interest at the time they were discovered. These annotations were attributed, albeit without sufficient clarity, to Rabbi Betzalel Ashkenazi, author of the Shitah Mekubetzet, and his circle in Egypt and Jerusalem (see the article by M. Benayahu mentioned in note 44, the articles by Rabbi A. Havatzelet and Rabbi D.Z. Rothstein in Moriyah, 20, issues 10-12, pp. 19-28, and the words of R. Shelomo Zalman Havlin in the introduction to the facsimile of the Aleppo manuscript mentioned in note 11, pp. 27-29). As we have seen in Chapter 4, Rabbi Betzalel Ashkenazi possessed only second-grade manuscripts, i.e., manuscripts copied from a book that had Rambam's confirmation in his handwriting. These printed volumes are now found in various libraries worldwide and in private hands, and I received some of their facsimiles from Rabbi D.Z. Rothstein, who generously provided me with them. Examination revealed that every correct reading in the annotations is found in the complete first and second grade manuscripts and in Yemenite manuscripts, and they also contain many erroneous readings. In one of these copies, an annotation mentions: "the book proofread by Rabbi Nissim Bibash from the books of the Rabbi that are written in his own hand in Aleppo," and in another annotation: "the book that was proofread from the book signed by the Rabbi in his own handwriting" (Benayahu, ibid, p. 137). There is no doubt that this refers to the same book, namely the Aleppo manuscript with Rambam's signature, and this is the meaning of "written in his hand," as mentioned in Chapter 4 (especially the reference to the language of Rabbi Moses Ben Joseph Trani brought there). Years ago, I had the opportunity to see an original copy of the Mishneh Torah printed in Venice 1524, the second volume (the entire Mishneh Torah was printed there in two volumes), at the end of which there is an important testimony in the handwriting of the proofreader, which reads: "Since I found in the hands of the complete sage Rabbi Nissim Bibash the book of our master Moshe, proofread, which he proofread from the book which can be found today in the city of Aleppo in the handwriting of our master Moshe himself, as it is accepted by the people of that land, therefore I implored him to give me the proofread book, and I corrected this book on it (i.e. according to it) as much as possible with all my ability, and what was difficult for me in matters that were corrected I did not write them until they were resolved for me by the aforementioned sage." Rabbi Nissim Bibash was active in the period after the printing of Rambam's books in Venice, apparently in the fourth century of the sixth millennium (the 16th century), the same period in which its scholars speak of the manuscript in Aleppo with Rambam's affirmation as the most important source for clarifying the correct version in the work, as mentioned in Chapter 4. Flipping through the mentioned printed copy, in which the number of annotations is not uniform and varies from section to section, I concluded that it cannot provide a complete picture of the version of the Aleppo manuscript. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the writer, evident from the end of his words, offers the possibility that the annotations in the book can contribute significantly to clarifying the proper text, and if we had the first volume of this printed copy, it would be possible to verify this by comparing the annotations in the Books of Knowledge and Adoration to the version of the (Oxford Huntington) manuscript, which we have for these books. Unfortunately, not only do I not know if the first volume exists, but also the second volume was sold at the time to a certain publishing house, and I do not know if the annotations in it were published.