When the great rabbinic scholar, philosopher, and physician Moses Maimonides died in 1204, he was succeeded by his son Abraham as head of the Egyptian Jewish community. Abraham also continued his father’s legacy by authoring numerous works on theology, biblical exegesis, halakhah, and medicine in both Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. David Fried reviews a recent book about these two towering figures:

Anyone familiar with the writings of Abraham Maimonides knows that he frequently presents himself as the faithful heir to his father’s teachings. Scholars, though, have seldom taken this self-perception seriously. Conventional wisdom is that Moses Maimonides is the Aristotelian philosopher and his son the Sufi mystic. Only in the last several decades has the Maimonidean scholarship really begun to seriously look at the phenomenology of Moses Maimonides’ religious encounter, and perhaps even mystical inclinations, and not merely his philosophical content.

Diana Lobel is one of the scholars who takes this work seriously, and her new book, Moses and Abraham Maimonides: Encountering the Divine, offers us a far more nuanced comparison of Abraham and Moses Maimonides than we have previously seen. Lobel presents a valuable portrait of the interplay between [the elder] Maimonides’ philosophy and his inner religious life and spiritual practices. . . . Lobel is able to point out very real differences between [father and son] in both the spiritual and philosophical realms without resorting to facile tropes of saying that one is a philosopher and the other a mystic.

Perhaps the most significant distinction between father and son that Lobel points out relates not to philosophical doctrine but to the spiritual role of philosophy itself. For Moses Maimonides, the study of physics and metaphysics is a spiritual exercise. Meditating upon natural science is the path to love and fear God and an important rung on the ladder (if not the ultimate one) towards God’s inner court. Abraham more or less agrees with the content of his father’s science and philosophy, but does not see its study as a primary path to Divine encounter.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.