In the fifteenth century, the Mishneh Torah was
already viewed more as the textbook of Jewish law than a practical code.
That function was being assumed by the Arba-ah Turim of Jacob ben
Asher (1270(?)-1340), who in 1303 accompanied his father from their native
Germany to Toledo, Spain. He felt that reasoning had become faulty,
controversy had increased, opinions had multiplied, so that there was no halakic ruling which was free from differences of opinion, hence the need for a new
code. Though he revered Maimonides and accepted his halakic authority, he found three difficulties with his
classic code: it was too long, containing laws no longer applicable after
the destruction of the Temple and
outside of the Holy Land; it was overly theological; and it reflected the
Sefardi tradition alone to the neglect of the Ashkenazi. Ben Asher based
his code on Maimonides's, but
its structure was existential, beginning with the laws one is to observe
upon waking in the morning and presenting only laws applicable to life in
the Diaspora.
The Mishneh Torah begins with:
The basic principle of all basic principles and the
pillar of all knowledge is to realize that there is a First Being who
brought every existing being into being. All existing things, whether
celestial, terrestrial, or belonging to an intermediate class, exist only
through this true existence.
The Arba-ah Turim opens with
Judah ben Tema says: be as courageous as a panther,
light as an eagle, swift as a deer, strong as a lion to do the will of your
Heavenly Father.
The laws in the Turim reflect the Sefardi
tradition, as recorded by Maimonides,
and the Ashkenazi usage, as presented by Jacob's father, Rabbi Asher. Both
communities could look to it as an authoritative compendium of the laws of
Israel. The Mishneh Torah concludes with a vision of Messianic days:
The Sages and Prophets did not long for the days of the
Messiah that Israel might exercise dominion over the world ... be exalted
by the nations, or that it might eat, drink and rejoice. Their aspiration
was that Israel be free to devote itself to the Law and its wisdom, with no
one to oppress or disturb it ... in that era there will be neither famine nor war, neither jealousy nor strife.
Blessings will be abundant, comforts within the reach of all. The one
preoccupation of the whole world will be to know the Lord. "For the
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea."
The Arba-ah Turim ends with a citation from the Mishneh
Torah:
If one sees his fellow drowning, sees robbers attacking
him and can save him, or if one learns that evil doers are conspiring
against him, or if one can persuade his fellow not to harm another, and he
has not done, he has transgressed the commandment, "Thou shalt not
stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor." (Leviticus 19:16). But if
one saves another, it is as though he has saved the whole world.
The former is an exalted vision of the "end
of days," the latter, ethical instruction, more immediate and more
practical. The Mishneh Torah was a classic, the Turim, a
code. Both were eventually superseded as the accepted code of Jewish Law by
the Shulhan Aruch of Joseph Caro, who prepared for the composition of his great code by
writing masterly commentaries on those of Maimonides and Rabbi Jacob, but the
code he wrote was an abridged, revised, and refined version of the Turim, not the Mishneh Torah.
