שיטת הרמב"ם

I always heard people say something which to me sounded like “the Rambam said that all you need is his sefer. He doesn’t even hold you need to learn Gemara, or anything else”, although I always found it a little hard to believe he ever said that.

Then, recently, I saw him say ‘במו עצמו’ in the hakdama to the ‘יד החזקה’ pretty much the very same thing. To quote:

"כדי שלא יהא אדם צריך לחיבור אחר בעולם בדין מדיני ישראל; אלא יהיה חיבור זה מקבץ לתורה שבעל פה כולה,... לפיכך קראתי שם חיבור זה משנה תורה--לפי שאדם קורא תורה שבכתב תחילה, ואחר כך קורא בזה, ויודע ממנו תורה שבעל פה כולה, ואינו צריך לקרות ספר אחר ביניהם."

So we see quite clearly (seemingly) that the Rambams opinion is that one does not need to learn any other sefer besides the Tanach and the Rambam! Not even Gemara or latter sefarim.

In regards to Halacha, it obviously seems that the Rambams opinions of ‘all a person has to be yotze’ is very different than, say, Maran. But that’s also partially because (partially because of his ‘magid’ and partially because of the ‘Ari’) he was very influenced by Kabala and the Zohar (whereas the Kabala and Zohar apparently weren’t yet ‘revealed’ in the era of the Rambam.

ועוד צריך עיון. ודו"ק ותשכח


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