The Book of the Lamp

Maimonides’s earliest major work, most of which was composed during his years of exile in Spain and Morocco, was the Book of the Lamp (1168). The Book of the Lamp is a commentary on the Mishneh, a compilation of the earliest oral and rabbinical teachings about the Talmud. Centuries of Jewish examination sought to explain the meanings and significance of the Mishneh’s passages, and Maimonides brings these together into a cohesive and normalized interpretation of Talmudic law. It was often the practice of his contemporaries to consider the Mishneh as a separate entity from the Talmud, and Maimonides makes a point of synthesizing the two aspects of Jewish study. In the Book of the Lamp Maimonides seeks to rectify some of the conflicting interpretations that had been left by earlier rabbis and commentators, sifting through the various ideas in order to decide which was most authoritative.

The most significant of the commentaries in the Book of the Lamp is Maimonides’s establishment of 13 core principles and beliefs that he saw as necessary for all Jews. He pronounces that all faithful Jews must ascribe to theories confirming the existence of only one God and acknowledge His incorporeality and eternity. Furthermore, he stipulates that they must believe in the possibility of prophecy as a means of communication between God and man, accept Moses as the greatest prophet, and consider the Torah to be the greatest of the revealed prophecies and to be immutable, having been given by God. He articulates ideas about divine providence, reward, and punishment; finally, he establishes the hope for a Messiah and the resurrection of the dead as a central tenet of the Jewish faith.

These 13 principles amount to what is essentially a Jewish list of articles of faith. This sort of concept is not unknown in Christianity or Islam, which both contain codified creeds, but in Judaism such a regimented understanding and presentation of the cores of belief were new (and slightly controversial) when Maimonides wrote the Book of the Lamp. Even today some Jewish scholars reject the need for and suitability of any attempt to formulate this kind of definition for their faith.