The Daily News Letter Lectures on Rambam in Spain

MADRID.

Metropolitan as well as provincial papers are now giving a good deal of attention and space to the lectures being sponsored throughout Spain by official and private organizations in connection with the Maimonides festivals.

One of the lectures which attracted a large and distinguished audience was that given by Dr. Jose Chapiro under the auspices of the Madrid Medical Association, at one of the great halls of the university. Among those on the rostrum were the Minister of Egypt, and high military and civil officials, including Don Ignacio Bauer, a member of the press department of the Ministry of Interior.

In his lecture Dr. Chapiro pointed out the greatness of Maimonides in such diversified fields of learning as medicine, astronomy and philosophy. His influence had done much to further the sciences. His wanderings must have been a torture to him, who was inclined to peace and contemplation.

These wanderings which started in his thirteenth year, when he left his birthplace at Cordoba in order to evade his compulsory conversion to Mohammedanism, came to an end at last when he settled near Cairo, at Fostat. Here he acted as medical adviser to the Sultan Saladin, at the same time occupying the position of president of the Jewish community and, by his teachings and mode of living becoming one of the greatest men who ever lived in Egypt. Even the English King, Richard the Lionhearted, who had heard of the fame of Maimonides came to Fostat, which in the meantime had become a center of learning, and invited him to come with him to England as his medical adviser. But Maimonides deelined. When on December 13, 1204, the great philosopher died, the entire population of Fostat observed mourning for three days and the Jews of Jerusalem observed a day of fasting.

After outlining the life of Maimonides, Dr. Chapiro dealt with his works, which found their highest expression in the “Guide to the Perplexed.” In the opinion of Dr. Chapiro, neither his metaphysic nor his admirable moral teachings gained immortality for the writings of Maimonides. The Rambam’s views on international relations and international law, to which even today a body such as the League of Nations could add nothing new, have earned for the Jewish, sage the right to enduring fame, Dr. Chapiro declared.

In his moral works, Maimonides had blended harmoniously the Greek, Mohammedan and Christian philosophies, applicable to the whole of humanity. According to Maimonides, morality is a science that must be studied, a science that regards good deeds as obligatory and not to be allowed to remain undone. A man who only acts when driven by his instincts will never hear the voice of conscience. Morality, the Rambam maintained, is the science of heart which permits us to discover in ourselves what is bad in order to find a remedy in the science of ethics.

In concluding his lecture, Dr. Chapiro showed how the influence of Maimonides could be traced through the centuries even in the works of St. Thomas of Aquino, upon whom the “Guide to the Perplexed” had made a deep impression.

A further lecture was held at the Ateneo, the famous Madrid association of scholars. Here Alfredo Lagunilla Inerritu spoke about Maimonides as philosopher. According to him, the philosophy of Maimonides had its roots in the schools of Baghdad and Cordoba which created an Arabic-Hebrew and Catholic scholasticism. This speaker also, as did Dr. Chapiro, linked Maimonides to the Greek philosophy, but he went even further and showed the traits of the philosophy of India, which had contributed in rounding out the picture.