Q&A: Maimonides’ View on the Common Denominator
Maimonides’ View on the Common Denominator
Question
There is a dispute about the nature of the common denominator. There are two main views. The Rosh, and the view of the Gedolim cited in the Rosh. It seems that the Rosh holds that once there is a primary category from which the main derivation comes, we judge it like that primary category itself; but the Gedolim say that we derive the exemptions of the two primary categories being learned from. The Tur and the Shulchan Arukh rule like the Rosh, but I haven’t managed to understand Maimonides’ view on this issue…. Could you help?
Answer
I didn’t understand your question. Which Maimonides are you referring to?
Discussion on Answer
Indeed, it seems that he did not bring those cases. But I don’t think that is connected to any particular conception of the common denominator. In any case, he should have brought it.
My question is that from his words it is not clear at all how he understood the common denominator: do we derive the exemptions, or do we not derive exemptions at all? Seemingly there are many practical ramifications.
I don’t see how anything can be learned from the absence of something like this. He did not bring it as Jewish law, and now you can offer various guesses as to why. I don’t think you’ll reach conclusions that way about his approach to the “common denominator.”
According to Maimonides’ approach, is there a common denominator at all? At first glance it seems that he does not rule on the cases of the common denominator at all in Laws of Monetary Damages, chapter 13.