Maimonides

Maimonides joined Jewish law, theology, medicine, and Aristotelian philosophy in a body of writing that repeatedly asks how disciplined habits support intellectual and moral life. Ethical Writings of Maimonides is a modern selection translated and edited by Raymond L. Weiss with Charles E. Butterworth rather than a single work composed under that English title. New York University Press first published the collection in 1975, and Dover issued an unabridged edition in 1983. Its contents include Laws Concerning Character Traits, Eight Chapters, selections from the Regimen of Health and Guide of the Perplexed, material on the messianic age, and the Letter to Joseph. The editors worked from original sources and sought greater precision than earlier English versions, while their introduction places the selections within the encounter between philosophical ethics and Jewish legal tradition. Because the anthology crosses several original works, it shows Maimonides approaching character through practice, moderation, reason, communal obligation, and the pursuit of knowledge rather than through an isolated moral treatise. This spans religious, medical, philosophical, and communal settings.