Mishneh Torah, Book of Love: Laws of Prayer

Here Maimonides presents the biblical obligation to pray and the history of the formulation of the Jewish liturgy. The opening of the “Laws of Prayer” is typical for Maimonides, who almost invariably reviewed the primary sources and the definition of a particular obligation at the beginning of each section. While Maimonides insisted that the obligation of daily prayer is biblical, many other medieval authorities held this obligation to be merely rabbinic. In the latter part of this excerpt, Maimonides reflects on the historical circumstances of the shift from prayer as a fluid, individualized text to a more formal liturgy.