Maimonides on Life

By Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld

Maimonides is a unique figure in Jewish history in that not only was he a masterful scholar of virtually all areas of Jewish law, but he was also one of the greatest philosophers Judaism (as well as mankind) has ever produced. His monumental work, Mishne Torah (“repetition of the Torah”) concerns itself primarily with Jewish law, yet deals with all aspects of Jewish life including philosophy, health and character development. In this class Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld studies two key sections of the Mishne Torah — the Laws of Understanding (Hilchos De’os), and the Laws of Repentance. The former is the one section devoted almost exclusively to ethics and character development. In style, this course will resemble his Pirkei Avos class, translating a weekly paragraph of Maimonides and expounding upon it, bringing out the beauty and relevance of Maimonides’ words.

Dovid Rosenfeld is a native of the Washington D.C. area. He received Rabbinic Ordination from Ner Israel Rabbinical College in 1992, while also holding a Masters in Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University. He works for aish.com as both the rabbi of their Ask the Rabbi service and as programmer of their multiple websites. He is also the author of Torah.org’s highly popular Pirkei Avos Avos class. He resides in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel, together with his wife and children.