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Legacy of 12th-century rabbi, doctor and thinker Moses Maimonides on
display in NY
‘The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries,’ a Yeshiva
University exhibit, shows the far-reaching impact of one of the Middle
Age’s most prolific Torah scholars

By CATHRYN J. PRINCE
23 May 2023, 4:00 am
2 Clockwise from left: Arthur Szyk, Maimonides, New Canaan,1950,
Watercolor and gouache on paper. (Collection of Yeshiva University
Museum, gift of Louis Werner); Moses Maimonides' Commentary on the
Mishnah, Egypt, after 1168. (The Bodleian Libraries, University of
Oxford); Guide of the Perplexed, Barcelona, 1347 or 1348, by Moses
Maimonides. (The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen/ all images from the
Yeshiva University Museum exhibition 'The Golden Path: Maimonides Across
Eight Centuries')

NEW YORK — In 1784, three years after the American Revolution, New York
City cantor Hendla Jochanan van Oettingen composed a prayer for the
well-being of Gen. George Washington and Gov. DeWitt Clinton. That
prayer may have been lost to history — had it not been for the way van
Oettingen knitted Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith together with the
newfound freedom of the original 13 states.

Now that parchment is on display in “The Golden Path: Maimonides Across
Eight Centuries,” a new Yeshiva University Museum exhibition at the
Center for Jewish History. Like the many manuscripts and artifacts on
exhibit — some for the first time — the prayer illustrates the
far-reaching impact and influence of one of the Middle Age’s most
prolific Torah scholars.

Born in 1138 in Córdoba, present-day Spain, Moses ben Maimon, or
Maimonides, was a Sephardic rabbi, doctor and philosopher. After the
forced exile of Córdoba’s Jews in 1148, he worked and lived in Morocco
and Egypt, where he served as the personal physician of the sultan
Saladin. In Jewish scholarship as well as philosophy and science,
Maimonides was ahead of his time — and as an effect, despite being
revered by many, his philosophical work was considered heretical by some
rabbis and banned, even into the 19th century.

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“It’s fascinating to see the multiplicity of Maimonides. He was so
prolific and expansive; everyone can see themselves in his work,” said
Dr. David Sclar, the exhibit’s guest curator.

As one walks through the show’s three sections, “Luminary,” “Radiance,”
and “Prism,” it becomes clear that Maimonides is both a mirror and a
lens for generations after his death in Egypt in 1204.

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“He was a proper polymath. People can elevate the aspect of him they
most relate to; there is the power of his ideas, the power of his
identity, and the power of his written words. One can take a piece of
him and make it prime,” said Gabriel Goldstein, associate director for
exhibitions and programs at Yeshiva University Museum.

The Book of Commandments, or Sefer Hamitzvot, by Moses Maimonides;
Yemen, 1492. (Hartman Family Collection/ From the Yeshiva University
Museum exhibition ‘The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries’/
Photo by Ardon Bar Hama)
Science buffs and academics might be interested in how Sir Isaac Newtown
consulted Maimonides’ Laws of the New Moon when he reformed the Julian
Calendar. For artists, there is Ben Shahn’s 1957 portrait of Maimonides’
“Science and the Humanities,” which served as the model for the mosaic
mural now gracing the William E. Grady Career and Technical Education
High in Brooklyn.

Others might be interested in Maimonides’ hand-drawn menorah whose
angular, rather than curved, design has been adopted today by the Chabad
movement for public Hanukkah celebrations. And for anyone into pop
culture, there is an iPhone case and a pink onesie, both of which bear
the sage’s likeness.

Panel from a Torah ark door, Egypt, 11th century, with later carving and
paint. (The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore [funds provided by the W.
Alton Jones Foundation Acquisition Fund, 2000] and Yeshiva University
Museum [funds provided by the Jesselson Foundation]/ From the Yeshiva
University Museum exhibition ‘The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight
Centuries.’ Photo by Susan Tobin)
Through a partnership with international collections, the show, which
runs through December, boasts the most impressive collection of
Maimonides manuscripts and artifacts ever to be displayed together,
Sclar said.
Among the pieces on loan are 13th-century Yemenite manuscripts and early
printed books from the Italian State Archives. There are texts produced
by and for Christian audiences from the Chicago-based Hartman
Collection, the most significant private collection of Maimonides
manuscripts and rare books. The Bodleian Libraries in Oxford loaned two
illuminated manuscripts, both of which bear his signature. Additionally,
there are fragments from the Cairo Genizah on loan from the Library of
the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Aside from the manuscripts, there is a carved 11th-century door to the
Torah ark from Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue. Although Maimonides was not a
member of the synagogue, he would have seen it while living there,
Goldstein said.

Guide of the Perplexed, Barcelona, 1347 or 1348, by Moses Maimonides.
(The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen/ From the Yeshiva University
Museum exhibition ‘The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries’)
Also on display is the first major public viewing of a “Moreh Nevukhim,”
or “Guide to the Perplexed” — Maimonides’ principal philosophical work.
Completed in 1349, the lavishly illuminated manuscript is on loan from
The Royal Library in Copenhagen.

Even now, the gold leaf decorating the margins has not lost its sheen
and the blue peacock still pops from the page. Considered one of the
finest examples of the illumination traditions of that era, the nearly
pristine condition of the manuscript shows the reverence people had, and
continue to have, for Maimonides’ ideas.

“It’s absolutely breathtaking,” Goldstein said, adding that he feels a
personal connection to the work since he first saw it decades ago while
working as a summer intern.

Sclar, who is also a high school teacher at The Frisch School in New
Jersey, said it was important to him that the exhibit be accessible to
middle school students, serious academics, and everyone in between.

“Seeing these pieces in his hand are significant because it lets us see
Maimonides was a person. My deepest desire is that people will look at
these things and sit down, talk, and learn from each other,” Sclar said.

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