18 Kislev · Yahrzeit
Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Avraham ben HaRambam
Avraham ben Moshe (HaRambam).
The Rambam personally instructed his only son, named after the patriarch Avraham, and revealed to him many new insights that he did not record in his own writings.
At the age of 19, Rabbi Avraham, who was born when his father was fifty-one years old, succeeded his father as personal physician to the sultan and his royal court, and took over the leadership of Egyptian Jewry as Nagid.
The new Nagid brought about significant improvements in communal affairs. He put an end to the common practice of bans of excommunication and counter-bans pronounced by every minor official against his real or perceived opponents over the slightest offense to his prestige. Rabbi Avraham forbade anyone from pronouncing such bans except a panel of three dayanim of the city's authorized beit din. To reverse the thirst for honor and prestige that had gripped many communal officials, he introduced a rule forbidding anyone from sitting in the synagogue with their back to the ark, facing the congregation, considering such a posture disrespectful toward the Torah.
Like his father before him, Rabbi Avraham received questions on religious practice from Eretz Yisrael, Yemen, Provence, Baghdad, Syria, and, of course, Egypt. Only about 130 of his numerous responsa have survived in manuscripts and in the halachic works of other authors. Some of them have been published. Brief, concise, and always to the point, his responses trace problems back to their Talmudic principles and resolve them through logical reasoning.
Two other collections of Rabbi Avraham's responsa are devoted to refuting the arguments of Rabbi Daniel HaBavli against the Mishneh Torah and Sefer HaMitzvot.
When Rabbi Avraham heard of the great controversy against the philosophical views of his famous father, he took up the challenge with a vigorous defense in an essay entitled "Milchamot Hashem," in which he relates that many French scholars (among them Tosafists) who visited Egypt were able to understand the Moreh Nevuchim in Rabbi Yehuda al-Charizi's translation and "rejoiced in its discussions."
Of his great work "HaMaspik L'Ovdei Hashem" ("Sufficient [Guidance] for the Servants of G-d"), only a few chapters have survived.
Rabbi Avraham also began a commentary on the Mishneh Torah that would indicate the source of each ruling, as well as a similar commentary on the Moreh Nevuchim, but unfortunately passed away before he could complete them.
He was succeeded as Nagid by his son, Rabbi David.