TWO NOTES ON MAIMONIDES Norman Roth 1. Living in Egypt, a biblical transgression? A question regarding Maimonides which has “perplexed” more than one writer is that, given the clear biblical prohibition against returning to Egypt (Deut. 17.16), how is it that he permitted himself to live there? A related problem was raised perhaps first by Harry Friedenwald, an au- thority on the history of Jews in medicine: “Students of the life of Maimonides are at a loss to explain why the family settled in Fez, for this was the capital of the Almohades [sic, correctly Almohads in English] who had driven the family from Cordova” 1 . Since then, numerous other writers have expressed astonishment at this decision to go allegedly “from the firing pan into the fire”. In fact, we now know, of course, that the Almohads did not persecute Jews in Fez and it was a very rational decision to move there. When Maimonides’ father died, apparently, the family moved briefly to the Land of Israel before settling finally in Egypt 2 . The question why he would allow himself to do so remains 3 . Of course, the fact is that Jews had lived continually in Egypt for centuries before he went there, but the question is particularly significant in light of the fact that Mai- monides himself enumerated this prohibition among the negative command- ments, citing also Deut. 28.68 and Ex. 14.13 and the talmudic opinion that even Alexandria (although founded after the biblical period) is included in the prohibition. Nevertheless, he stated that “it is permissible to pass through [Egypt] for the sake of trade or to pass to another land” 4 . 1 Harry Friedenwald, “Moses Maimonides the Physician”, Bulleting of the Institute of the History of Medicine 3 (1935): 557. 2 On the legend of Maimonides “fleeing” Spain (the decision was entirely voluntary, of course), see Joseph Sambari in Adolph Neubauer, ed., Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles (Oxford, 1887-95) 1: 117 (“lirgom be-avanim” there refers to throwing stones at Mecca; see my Jews, Visigoths & Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation & Conflict (Leiden, 1994), p. 120 and n. 23. 3 Isadore Twersky raised the question, but attempted no solution (“Ereṣ Yisrael ve-galut be-mishna- to shel ha-Rambam”, in Moshe Hallamish and A. Ravitzky, eds., Ereṣ Yisrael be-hagut ha-yehudit bi-mei ha-beinaim [Jerusalem,1991], 92 n. 3). Curiously, scholars such as Jacob Mann and S. D. Goitein apparently were not concerned as to why Jews generally settled in Egypt in the medieval period. The same is true of more recent scholars, such as Mark R. Cohen (see his useful survey, “Maimonides’ Egypt”, in Eric L. Ormsby, ed., Moses Maimonides and His Time [Washington, D.C., 1989]); note that there were many Jewish communities in Egypt, not only Fusṭāṭ or Alexandria. 4 Sefer ha-miṣvot (“Book of commandments”), Negative Commandment 46; Hebrew translation Joseph Kafih (Jerusalem, 1958), pp. 192-93; rpt. of first edition, with strictures of Moses b. Naḥman (Naḥmanides), ed. Charles Chavel (Jerusalem, 1981), p. 276. Naḥmanides made no comment there.