32 Facts About Nachmanides

Nachmanides was raised, studied, and lived for most of his life in Girona, Catalonia.

Nachmanides is considered to be an important figure in the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Jerusalem following its destruction by the Crusaders in 1099.

Nachmanides was born in Girona in 1194, where he grew up and studied, and died in the Land of Israel about 1270.

Nachmanides was a descendant of Isaac ben Reuben of Barcelona and cousin of Jonah Gerondi.

Against this tendency Nachmanides strove, and went to the other extreme, not even allowing the utterances of the immediate disciples of the Geonim to be questioned.

Nachmanides holds that as God is eminently just, there must be reward and punishment.

Nachmanides gives much importance to the messianic era, especially in relation to the end of the 4 exiles, the last of which is that of Edom identified in Rome.

Nachmanides considers many prophecies of the Tanakh concerning the Messiah and in particular the Book of Daniel: here he considers the exact moment before the messianic revelation while admitting not to be completely aware of what should happen in every detail.

Nachmanides frequently cites and critiques Rashi's commentary, and provides alternative interpretations where he disagrees with Rashi's interpretation.

Nachmanides's exposition, intermingled with aggadic and mystical interpretations, is based upon careful philology and original study of the Bible.

David Berger has argued that Nachmanides did subscribe to the existence of a natural order.

Over time, Nachmanides updated his commentary in at least 250 places, particularly after moving from Spain to the land of Israel.

The debate was initiated by a Pablo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Christianity, who had been sent by the Dominican Master General, Raymond de Penyafort, to King James I of Aragon, with the request that the king order Nachmanides to respond to charges against Judaism.

Nachmanides answered the order of the King, but asked that complete freedom of speech should be granted.

Nachmanides countered that Christiani's interpretations were distortions; the rabbis would not hint that Jesus was Messiah while, at the same time, explicitly opposing him as such.

Nachmanides further said that if the sages of the Talmud believed that Jesus was the messiah then most certainly they would have been Christians and not Jews, and the fact that the sages of the Talmud were Jews is beyond dispute.

Nachmanides proceeded to provide context for the proof-texts cited by Christiani, showing that they were most clearly understood differently than as proposed by Christiani.

Furthermore, Nachmanides demonstrated from numerous biblical and talmudic sources that traditional Jewish belief ran contrary to Christiani's postulates.

Nachmanides argued that the Biblical prophets regarded the future messiah as a human, a person of flesh and blood, and not as divine, in the way that Christians view Jesus.

Nachmanides stated that their promises of a reign of universal peace and justice had not yet been fulfilled, that since the appearance of Jesus, the world had been filled with violence and injustice, and that among all denominations the Christians were the most warlike.

Nachmanides noted that questions of the Messiah were of less dogmatic importance to Jews than most Christians imagine.

The controversy was therefore resumed, and concluded in what was considered a complete victory for Nachmanides, who was dismissed by the King with a gift of three hundred gold pieces as a mark of his respect.

The Dominicans, nevertheless, claimed the victory, and Nachmanides felt obligated to publish the text of the debates.

Nachmanides admitted that he had stated many things against Christianity, but he had written nothing which he had not used in his disputation in the presence of the King, who had granted him freedom of speech.

The justness of his defense was recognized by the King and the commission, but to satisfy the Dominicans, Nachmanides was sentenced to exile for two years and his pamphlet was condemned to be burned.

Nachmanides left Aragon and sojourned for three years somewhere in Castille or in the southern part of the Kingdom of France.

Nachmanides then settled at Acre, where he was very active in spreading Jewish learning, which was at that time very much neglected in the Holy Land.

Nachmanides gathered a circle of pupils around him, and people came in crowds, even from the district of the Euphrates, to hear him.

Nachmanides died in the Holy Land after having passed the age of seventy or seventy-six.

Nachmanides, as above, was a leading Torah scholar of the Middle Ages, authoring major commentaries on Torah and the Talmud.

Nachmanides was a leading and prolific scholar; his output, as outlined, spanned Halacha, mysticism, science and philosophy.

Sodot HaTefilah, a Hebrew manuscript ascribed to Nachmanides, is similarly likely by Eleazar of Worms.