page_title: Mishneh Torah
section_title: Study
hierarchical_section_title: Mishneh Torah / Present day / Study
caption_attribution_description: English: Menachem Mendel Schneerson - the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Lag BaOmer parade. Brooklyn, New York, USA. 17/05/1987 עברית: הרבי מליובאוויטש [1] - בתהלוכת ל"ג בעומר בניו-יורק תשמ"ז (1987)
context_page_description: The Mishneh Torah, subtitled Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka, is a code of Jewish religious law authored by Maimonides. The Mishneh Torah was compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE, while Maimonides was living in Egypt, and is regarded as Maimonides' magnum opus. Accordingly, later sources simply refer to the work as "Maimon", "Maimonides", or "RaMBaM", although Maimonides composed other works.
  Mishneh Torah consists of fourteen books, subdivided into sections, chapters, and paragraphs. It is the only Medieval-era work that details all of Jewish observance, including those laws that are only applicable when the Holy Temple is in existence, and remains an important work in Judaism.
  Its title is an appellation originally used for the Biblical book of Deuteronomy, and its subtitle, "Book of the Strong Hand", derives from its subdivision into fourteen books: the numerical value fourteen, when represented as the Hebrew letters Yod Dalet, forms the word yad.
  Maimonides intended to provide a complete statement of the Oral Law, so that a person who mastered first the Written Torah and then the Mishneh Torah would be in no need of any other book.
context_section_description: The in-depth study of Mishneh Torah underwent a revival in Lithuanian Judaism in the late 19th century. The Lithuanians did not use it as a source book on practical halakha, as they followed the Ashkenazi authorities such as Moses Isserles and the Aruch ha-Shulchan. 
  Instead, they used it as a guide to Talmudic interpretation and methodology. Given the fact that the Mishneh Torah entirely omits these topics, this reading seems paradoxical and against the grain. Their method was to compare the Talmudic source material with Maimonides' final decision, in order to reconstruct the rules of interpretation that must have been used to get from one to the other.
  It thus remains an integral part of the Yeshiva curriculum. 
  As regards Talmud study, it is one of the primary works referenced in analyzing the Talmudic text from a legal point of view, as mentioned.
  It is also a primary text referenced in understanding the Halakha as presented in the Arba'ah Turim and Shulchan Aruch; and Mishneh Torah is thus one of the first post-Talmudic sources consulted when investigating a question of Jewish law. 
  See Yeshiva #Talmud study; Yeshiva #Jewish law; Halakha #Codes of Jewish law.
  Prominent recent authorities who have written commentaries on the work include Rabbis Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (Ohr Somayach), Chaim Soloveitchik (Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim), Yitzchok Isaac Krasilschikov (Tevunah), Isser Zalman Meltzer (Even HaEzel), and, more recently, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Hadran al HaRambam), Elazar Shach (Avi Ezri), Nahum Rabinovitch (Yad Peshuta), and Rabbi Yosef Kapach. See also: List of commentaries on Mishneh Torah
  Many scholarly speeches (e. g., the traditional Rabbi's speech on the Shabbat preceding Pesach and Yom Kippur) often revolve around a reconciliation between two passages in Maimonides' work.
  Rav Soloveitchik's work Al haTeshuvah discussing repentance in the light of Rambam's work, is widely studied and referenced (in Modern Orthodox communities) in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
  Today, thousands of Orthodox Jews, particularly Chabad Hasidim, participate in one of the annual study cycles of Mishneh Torah (one or three chapters a day), innovated by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in the spring of 1984. Parallel to the three- or one-chapter(s)-a-day cycle, there is a daily study of the Sefer Hamitzvot "Book of the Commandments", also authored by Maimonides.
  A popular commentary, רמבם לעם (Rambam La'Am), was produced in 1971 by Rabbi Shaul Tanchum Rubinstein (published by Mossad Harav Kook). This 20 volume set is widely used in daily Rambam study, in the (Israeli) Chabad and Religious Zionist communities.
  Adin Steinsaltz has produced a similarly positioned commentary, published by Koren in 2017.
caption: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as "the Lubavitcher Rebbe", studied the Mishneh Torah daily and encouraged other Jews to follow along with him in an annual study cycle.
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