Moses Maimonides, also known as Rambam, was the preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Spain on Passover Eve, 1135, and died in Egypt on 20th Tevet, December 12, 1204. He was as a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.
Although his writings on Jewish law and ethics met with respectful opposition during his life, he was posthumously acknowledged to be one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history, his copious work a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah still carries canonical authority as a codification of Talmudic law. In the Yeshiva world he is known as "Hanesher Hagadol" (the great eagle) in recognition of his outstanding status as a bona fide exponent of the Oral Torah, particularly on account of the manner in which his Mishneh Torah is elucidated by Chaim Soloveitchik.
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