Letter to Yefet ben Elijah

To the distinguished and erudite dayyan [judge] Japhet, son of the esteemed and pious scholar Eliahu, from his solicitous friend, Moses ben Maimon. Your gracious epistle reached me but its content amazed me. You complain about my silence and my failure to ask about your welfare since I left Palestine. Apparently, this is a case of one who comes to admonish others but deserves admonition himself. Indeed, you acted treacherously toward others but no one acted that way towards you. Since we separated, my father died. We received letters of consolation from distant lands of Idumea and the West but not a word from you.

Many and severe misfortunes befell me in Egypt. Illness and material losses overwhelmed me. Informers plotted against my life. But the heaviest blow, which caused me more grief than anything I had ever experienced to this day, was the death of the most saintly man I knew, who was drowned while journeying in the Indian Ocean. With him went down a considerable fortune belonging to us as well as to others. His little daughter and his widow were left with me.

For almost a year after receiving the sad news I lay on my couch stricken with fever, despair, and on the brink of destruction. Close to eight years have now elapsed and I still mourn for him for there can be no consolation. What can possibly comfort me? He grew up on my knees, he was my brother, my pupil. He went abroad to trade that I might remain at home and continue my studies. He was well versed in Talmud and Bible and an accomplished grammarian. My greatest joy was to see him. Now every joy has been dimmed. He has departed to his eternal life and left me confounded in a strange land. Whenever I come across his handwriting on one of his books my heart turns within me and my grief reawakens. Verily, I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning (Genesis 37:35). Were it not for the Torah which is my delight and the study of philosophy to divert my grief, I should have succumbed in my affliction (Psalms 119:92).

But despite all that, I complain against no one, neither scholar, nor pupil, nor friend or acquaintance, and not even against you, although you deserve my reprimand more than anyone. For have not the four of us, my father, brother, you and I toured the holy places and now you have not even seen fit to ask or inquire about us. I would certainly be justified not to answer your letter that just arrived. But my love for you, which I have kept steadfast in my heart, cannot be severed and I shall never forget when we walked together through the deserts and forests seeking God. I shall, therefore, bear no grudges against you as love obliterates all iniquity.

God only knows the awesome and fierce pressures on me. If you were only here I would accord you the proper hospitality and honor you deserve.

I was overjoyed to learn that the Lord blessed you with a son. I heard that he is a brilliant student of the Torah and is endowed with fine qualities of character. May your offspring be the proper successor of your ancestors in the land. May this be God’s Will. Amen.