Q&A: Maimonides’ View Regarding Torah Study
Maimonides’ View Regarding Torah Study
Question
Maimonides writes in a letter to his student:
“Study only the rabbi’s halakhot, of blessed memory, and compare them with the Code; and if you find a dispute, know that close analysis of the Talmud leads to that, and investigate it in its proper places. But if you spend your time on commentaries, and on explanations of the back-and-forth of the Talmud, and on those things whose toil we have spared you—this is a waste of time and of little benefit.”
What is Maimonides’ conception of the value of Torah study?
Answer
This is too general a question, and not really very interesting to me. He wrote in several places that physics and metaphysics are more important than Talmudic topics, whose main purpose is to know what to do. These are very puzzling statements, and I do not agree at all—and of course I’m not the only one.
Discussion on Answer
The last part of chapter 4 of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah.
I’m very curious to know—if there’s a link, I’d really appreciate it if you could point me to it—where Maimonides wrote that physics and metaphysics are more important than Talmudic topics.