Our Great Sephardic Rabbis by: Ike Sultan
Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon (1186 – 1237) the son of Maimonides (Rambam) was the leader or Nagid of the Egyptian Jewish community following his father. Avraham was born in Fostat, Egypt - his father, Maimonides, was fifty-one years old then. The boy was "modest, highly refined and unusually good natured"; he was also noted for his brilliant intellect and even while a youth became known as a great scholar. When his father died in 1204 at the age of sixty-nine, Avraham was recognized as the greatest scholar in his community. Thus, he succeeded Rambam as Nagid (head of the Egyptian Jews), as well as in the office of court physician, at the age of only eighteen. Rabbi Avraham greatly honored the memory of his father, and defended his writings and works against all critics. Thanks to his influence, a large Egyptian Karaite community returned to the fold of Rabbinic Judaism.
One example of Rabbi Avraham’s effort to support his father’s seforim involved Rav Daniel HaBavli, a talmid of Rav Shmuel ben Eli the rosh yeshiva of Baghdad, who wrote a letter to Rav Avraham in 1213 containing 47 complaints against the Rambam’s views in Yad HaChazaka and Sefer HaMitzvos. Rav Avraham begins his reply by complaining: “I say, alas my master! Do you want to use up my little time! Is not some of it consumed serving the nations of the land (as a doctor) and some of it directing the vineyard of Hashem, and some of it for the seforim that I began to author and commentaries that I have begun to write, and if you challenge me with this matter when will I have time to take care of my affairs?” He then answers Rav Daniel’s questions by pointing out that the Rambam’s Gemara had a different girsa (version) or that Rav Daniel’s text of the Yad was inaccurate. In other cases he says that he himself worked for years to figure out an answer to the difficulty presented, and in some instances he frankly admits that Rav Daniel’s objection is correct.
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