Professor Kaplan vs. Professor Soloveitchik on the Rambam

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Today, the 20th of Teves, marks the yahrtzeit of Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon—the Rambam—who passed away in 1204 CE. Jews around the world should pause to reflect upon him, as his brilliance continues to illuminate Torah life eight centuries later.

This article focuses on a  debate regarding the very structure of the Rambam’s greatest halachic work. Professor Lawrence Kaplan of McGill University (who is bh alive) published his critique against the Rav’s son – Professor Haym Soloveitchik in Hakirah (Volume 19, 2015). Professor Soloveitchik’s views were printed in Volume II of his Collected Essays (2014).

As an observation, most Briskers would agree with Professor Soloveitchik on this one.  Many of the Brisk Roshei Yeshiva and their Torah focuses on where the Rambam places halachos. But, we get ahead of ourselves.  Also please note that the above picture is not a real one but was created artificially.

THE QUESTION

At the heart of the debate between the two lies a deceptively simple question:

How much meaning did the Rambam intend us to find in the structure of his code itself?

Was the Mishneh Torah designed as a seamless conceptual architecture, where every halacha’s placement is philosophically loaded? Or is it a monumental halachic achievement whose structure, while brilliant, also reflects development, revision, and practical human decision-making?

Professor Soloveitchik argues forcefully for the first position. The Rambam’s organizational choices are never incidental. When a law appears to sit uneasily in its location, that tension is not a flaw but a clue—the Rambam signaling something deeper. For Professor Soloveitchik, the Rambam is not merely codifying law but shaping meaning through classification itself.

Professor Kaplan, while deeply respectful of Professor Soloveitchik’s questions, challenges all of the assumptions behind them. Drawing on manuscript evidence from the Cairo Genizah, Professor Kaplan shows that the Rambam did not originally conceive his work as fourteen books at all. He first thought in terms of discrete halachic units, each internally coherent, and only later imposed the overarching book structure. Once this historical fact is taken seriously, he argues, many of Professor Soloveitchik’s “problems” look very different.

THE FIRST MYSTERY: WHY IS AVEIDAH IN SEFER NEZIKIN?

Sefer Nezikin contains laws dealing with damages—theft, robbery, murder, injuries. This makes sense; nezikin means damages.

But Professor Soloveitchik asks: “Why are the laws of lost property (avedah) in Sefer Nezikin? Why has the Rambam created a unit ‘Hilchos Gezelah va-Avedah‘?” Finding someone’s lost item and returning it is a mitzvah—there’s no nezek involved!

Professor Soloveitchik Demolishes the Obvious Answers

Answer #1: “Someone who doesn’t return lost property is like a gazlan.” (Boaz Cohen, JQR 1935)

Professor Soloveitchik’s response: Someone who doesn’t pay workers is also like a robber—yet those laws aren’t in Sefer Nezikin! The fact that breaching an obligation resembles robbery doesn’t make those laws part of Torts.

Answer #2: “Both share the obligation of hashavah (returning).”

Professor Soloveitchik’s response: Should we combine nazir with metzora because both prohibit shaving? Sharing one Hebrew word doesn’t create meaningful connection.

Then his knockout punch: “In lost property there is no actual ‘obligation to return.’ The finder publicizes the find, then settles in his easy chair until the owner rings. Not so the robber—he must actively seek the owner, even to ‘the lands of the Medes and Persians.'”

Professor Soloveitchik suggests avedah belongs in Sefer Kinyan—as the Tur and Shulchan Aruch actually place them.

PROFESSOR KAPLAN’S RESPONSE

Profound Halachic Foundations

Professor Kaplan demonstrates that robbery and lost property share profound halachic foundations: in both cases the object belongs to its owner but is not in his possession; in both cases the mitzvah of restoration governs the finder or taker; in both cases concepts such as yeush (despair of recovery) play a central role. Far from being an artificial pairing, the unit reflects genuine legal coherence.

Professor Soloveitchik exaggerates both sides:

On robbers: The Rambam rules (Hilchos Gezelah va-Avedah 7:9) that a robber only must chase down the owner if he denied the robbery under oath. Otherwise, “the money may remain in the robber’s possession until the owner comes.” Just like the finder!

On finders: Professor Kaplan responds with wit: “The finder will have to budge from that easy chair to care for the object so it doesn’t deteriorate.” The Rambam rules (13:11) that the finder must inspect the item regularly. “Consider the lost animals specified by the Torah—the ox, the sheep, the donkey—and try to imagine caring for them from an easy chair…. I would not wish to set foot in his house!”

THE BOMBSHELL: SEFER NEZIKIN DIDN’T ALWAYS EXIST!

Now comes the dramatic revelation.

Professor Kaplan’s crucial critique: Professor Soloveitchik’s objection assumes a finalized structure that did not yet exist when the relevant unit was written. At the time the Rambam joined robbery and lost property into a single halachic unit, there was no independent Sefer Nezikin at all. Both sets of laws belonged to a broader category of obligations between people.

In his Introduction to Sefer HaMitzvos, the Rambam describes his plan: “I would divide the book into groups of laws (Halakhos)—Hilchos Sukkah, Hilchos Tefillin, etc.” No mention of books! (See Herbert Davidson, Moses The Rambam, Oxford 2005, p. 213.)

The Smoking Gun: Genizah Fragment TS 10 K8

A manuscript fragment from Cambridge University Library—in The Rambam’ own handwriting—contains a draft of Sefer Mishpatim‘s first page. (Published by Rabbi Elazar Hurvitz, Hadorom 38, 1973.)

What does it reveal? Sefer Mishpatim was originally the eleventh book with fourteen units—and the first unit was called “Hilchos Nezikin,” which The Rambam crossed out and renamed!

Originally, there was no separate Sefer Nezikin! The current Sefer Nezikin and Sefer Mishpatim were one combined book containing ALL interpersonal laws—whether or not they involved initial damage. Their later placement together, when the work was subdivided, was not conceptual confusion but editorial continuity.

Professor Kaplan’s conclusion: “When The Rambam conjoined the Laws of Lost Property with Robbery, there was no Sefer Nezikin!”

Why Didn’t He Fix It?

Professor Kaplan’s wonderfully human explanation: “When we’re working on a major project, we want perfection. But at a late stage, when one structural change requires massive rewriting—well, that’s another story. And this is an age of word processing!”

“Perhaps the reader will object that we’re speaking of The Rambam, ha-nesher ha-gadol. All I can say is: ‘even so.'”

THE SECOND MYSTERY: GEIRUS IN HILCHOS ISSUREI BIAH

The Problem

The Rambam places geirus (conversion) in Hilchos Issurei Biah (Forbidden Relations) in Sefer Kedushah.

Professor Soloveitchik finds this troubling: Conversion is fundamentally about belief, recognition of Hashem, and spiritual transformation. “Is the purpose of conversion to permit relations?” He proposes relocating it to Sefer HaMadda—after Hilchos Avodah Zarah (completing Avraham Avinu’s distancing himself from idolatry) or concluding Hilchos Teshuvah.

PROFESSOR KAPLAN’S RESPONSE

Professor Kaplan does not deny conversion’s spiritual dimension, but he insists the Rambam understood conversion first and foremost as a change in legal personal status with immediate consequences in marriage, family relations, and illicit prohibitions.

The principle “ger she-nisgayer ke-katan she-nolad” (a convert is like a newborn) means that technically, Biblical arayos no longer apply after conversion—generating complex questions about incest and lineage that the Rambam addresses at length precisely where those topics belong. He devotes ten paragraphs (Issurei Biah 14:10-19) to these issues!

The True Meaning of ‘Kedushah’

In his Introduction, the Rambam explains Sefer Kedushah: “For it is through these two matters—forbidden relations and forbidden foods—that the Omnipresent sanctified us and separated us from the nations.” This is the only instance where The Rambam cites Torah verses to explain a sefer’s name. Kedushah means the kedushah of Klal Yisrael, separated from the nations!

Now geirus makes perfect sense! Conversion is about “entering the bris, taking shelter under the Shechinah, accepting the Torah” (Issurei Biah 13:4)—converts separate from the nations and attain Israel’s kedushah. To relocate conversion to Sefer HaMadda would distort the Rambam’s conception of what conversion actually is: not merely intellectual acknowledgment of God, but entry into covenantal obligation with concrete halachic ramifications.

Why NOT Sefer HaMadda?

Sefer HaMadda contains “fundamental principles that a person must know at the outset”—laws binding on everyone at every moment. Conversion is a one-time procedure for converts only.

Crucial observation: The Rambam deliberately avoids mentioning the bris (covenant) in Sefer HaMadda! But conversion is fundamentally about the bris—mentioned four times in Chapter 13 of Issurei Biah. Avraham in Sefer HaMadda appears as a universal figure—a sage who discovered God through reason—with no mention of his covenant!

The Rambam’s Actual Ending

Professor Soloveitchik composes a beautiful hypothetical ending linking Avraham to converts. But compare what the Rambam actually wrote (Hilchos Teshuvah 10:6):

“According to knowledge will be the love… Therefore a person must devote himself to understand the sciences that make his Maker known—as we explained in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah.”

No bris! No conversion! No Klal Yisrael! Instead: knowledge of Hashem through the sciences, and a reference back to the very beginning of the book. Sefer HaMadda forms a circle—ending pointing to beginning. The entire Mishneh Torah forms a circle too: Hilchos Melachim 12:5 speaks of Messianic times when “the world’s occupation will be only to know Hashem,” echoing Yesodei HaTorah 1:1.

Professor Kaplan concludes: “The Rambam’ ending is a work of art; Professor Soloveitchik’s substitute, while beautiful, is a pastiche.”

THE DEEPER METHODOLOGICAL DIVIDE

Beneath these specific disagreements lies a deeper methodological divide. Professor Soloveitchik reads the Mishneh Torah primarily as a conceptual edifice, where structure itself conveys meaning and invites philosophical interpretation. For him, tensions demand symbolic resolution. Professor Kaplan reads it as a legal masterpiece whose architecture emerged over time and must be understood historically as well as analytically. For him, many tensions dissolve once we understand how the Rambam worked.

One sees the Rambam chiefly as a flawless system-builder; the other sees him as a supreme halachist whose evolving plans left traces of human process—without diminishing the work’s greatness.

CONCLUSION

Mystery #1 Solved: When The Rambam combined Gezelah with Avedah, there was no separate Sefer Nezikin! Both fit naturally in the original combined Sefer Mishpatim. He later split it but didn’t reorganize everything.

Mystery #2 Solved: Sefer Kedushah is about Klal Yisrael’s kedushah, separated from the nations. Geirus fits perfectly—it’s about entering the bris and attaining that kedushah, with deep legal connections to arayos.

Professor Kaplan solved these mysteries by combining traditional lomdus, historical research (Genizah manuscripts), reading the Rambam’s other works, and close attention to his introductions.

Professor Soloveitchik challenged: “The Rambam is in no need of our praise; we are in need of understanding him.” Professor Kaplan accepted—and showed that the Rambam’s seemingly strange choices actually reveal profound thinking.

The debate between Professor Soloveitchik and Professor Kaplan finds a remarkable precedent in a centuries-old clash between two giants of halachic literature: the Sema and the Bach. The same fundamental tension we have traced throughout their disagreement—the clash between the creative world of the beis hamidrash and the practical world of halachic ruling—animated Jewish scholarship four hundred years ago.

Professor Kaplan challenges the assumption that every structural choice in the Mishneh Torah is philosophically loaded. Drawing on manuscript evidence from the Cairo Genizah, he shows that the Rambam did not originally conceive his work as fourteen books at all. He first thought in terms of discrete halachic units and only later imposed the overarching book structure. A manuscript in the Rambam’s own handwriting reveals that Sefer Nezikin and Sefer Mishpatim were originally one combined book!

Once we understand how the Rambam actually worked—through drafts, revisions, and practical editorial decisions—many of Professor Soloveitchik’s “problems” simply dissolve. The placement of aveidah with gezelah wasn’t a philosophical statement; it was a practical decision made before the current structure even existed.

This is exactly the approach of the Bach. The Bach served as the rabbi of Krakow—one of the greatest Jewish communities in Europe. He operated in the world of practical halacha, where real people needed real rulings. From that vantage point, he looked critically at the beis hamidrash innovations of his contemporary, the Sema.

The Bach’s critique was sharp: the Sema’s creative interpretations produced “laws that the early authorities never imagined.” The pilpul of the yeshiva might be wonderful for sharpening students’ minds, but it had no place in printed books that would guide practical halachic decisions. “Permission was given to a yeshiva head to sharpen students,” the Bach wrote, “but such matters were not given to be written in a book, and certainly not to be printed.”

Professor Kaplan echoes this practical sensibility. He offers a wonderfully human explanation for why the Rambam didn’t fix apparent structural problems: “When we’re working on a major project, we want perfection. But at a late stage, when one structural change requires massive rewriting—well, that’s another story.”

“Perhaps the reader will object that we’re speaking of the Rambam, ha-nesher ha-gadol. All I can say is: ‘even so.'”

This is the voice of practical reality cutting through beis hamidrash idealism. Great scholars were human beings working within real constraints. Their works should be understood as the products of human effort and practical decision-making—not as perfect conceptual edifices where every detail carries hidden philosophical meaning.

Professor Soloveitchik argues that the Rambam’s organizational choices are never incidental. When a law appears to sit uneasily in its location, that tension is not a flaw but a clue—the Rambam signaling something deeper. Every structural puzzle is an invitation to creative analysis.

This is pure beis hamidrash thinking—exactly what the Sema championed centuries earlier. The Sema believed the ideal learner was one whose deep engagement with Torah leads them to “derive from their own minds and reasoning many laws.” For the Sema, the yeshiva was a creative laboratory where scholars could innovate, where difficulties in texts were not problems but opportunities.

The Sema deliberately chose not to serve as a community rabbi. He withdrew into his private yeshiva, funded by his father-in-law, because he believed that practical communal responsibilities would interfere with the “clear mind” needed for deep Torah study. His world was the world of pilpul, of intellectual creativity, of scholars gathered together to sharpen one another’s thinking.

Professor Soloveitchik operates in the same spirit. His famous questions about the Mishneh Torah—Why is aveidah in Sefer Nezikin? Why is geirus in Hilchos Issurei Biah?—are the questions of the beis hamidrash. They assume that every apparent anomaly conceals a deeper conceptual truth waiting to be uncovered through creative analysis.

Most Briskers, trained in this tradition of finding meaning in the Rambam’s every placement and formulation, would side with Professor Soloveitchik. This is the legacy of the beis hamidrash approach that the Sema helped pioneer: treating halachic texts as invitations for limitless intellectual exploration.

The Sema’s yeshiva was a place of intellectual freedom, where scholars could pursue ideas wherever they led, where creative interpretations were celebrated, where the goal was to “open the eyes of the reader” to new possibilities. The Bach’s rabbinate was a place of practical responsibility, where rulings affected real lives, where tradition provided guardrails, where innovation was viewed with suspicion.

Professor Soloveitchik operates in the spirit of the beis hamidrash. His questions about the Rambam’s structure are the questions of a scholar seeking conceptual depth, treating every anomaly as a doorway to insight. Professor Kaplan operates in the spirit of practical scholarship. His answers draw on historical evidence, manuscript research, and a recognition that even the greatest works bear the marks of human process.

The Bach warned that beis hamidrash creativity, when put into print, could “cause the masses to stumble.” People without the training to evaluate pilpul would take creative interpretations as established law. Professor Kaplan similarly warns that treating every structural choice as philosophically loaded can lead us to construct elaborate theories that the Rambam never intended.

The remarkable parallel between these debates, separated by four centuries, reveals something fundamental about Torah study. The tension between the creative freedom of the beis hamidrash and the practical constraints of halachic ruling has never been resolved—and perhaps it never should be.

The beis hamidrash needs the freedom to explore, to question, to innovate. Without that creativity, Torah study becomes stale repetition. But practical halacha needs grounding in reality, in tradition, in evidence. Without that restraint, creative interpretation can spin off into fantasy.

The Sema brought the creativity of the yeshiva into printed halachic literature, and his work has enriched Torah study for centuries. The Bach insisted on practical restraint, and his caution has protected the integrity of the halachic tradition. Professor Soloveitchik’s conceptual questions have deepened our appreciation of the Rambam’s genius. Professor Kaplan’s historical research has shown us how that genius actually operated in the real world.

On this 20th of Teves, as we mark the yahrtzeit of the Rambam, may we merit to continue learning his Torah in depth.

The author can be reached at [email protected]