Revel Welcomes Princeton University Professor and Cairo Geniza Scholar, Mark R. Cohen
Revel was delighted to host Dr. Mark R. Cohen, Princeton University’s Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East, on Tuesday, November 8. The day’s events included a lunch for PhD students, a faculty dinner and an evening lecture, which drew an audience of more than 60 students and faculty.
The specific example Cohen chose to illustrate this point was Maimonides’ definition of “ben bayit” (literally, a member of one’s household), in his monumental code of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah. The great twelfth-century codifier defined the term as an individual not part of the actual household, who conducted business on behalf of ba’al habayit (literally, head of household) “be- emunah” (with faith or trust).

Although Maimonides was not the first to refer in halakhic writings to business practices based on the surrounding Arabic culture, it was he, says Cohen, “who gave the practice halakhic legitimacy in his code.”Maimonides’ innovation was in his synthesis of halakha and the reality of his time. “Rambam intertwines Islamic economy…with Talmudic agency,” said Cohen. “…[This] new territory, though unfamiliar to [later] Talmudists was very familiar to Maimonides.”
Furthermore, argued Cohen, Maimonides had a particular goal in reflecting the commercial reality in his Mishneh Torah. “By updating halakha,” said Cohen, “Rambam hoped to bring the merchants into halls of Jewish justice,” rather than have them resort to Islamic courts.
The lecture was especially exciting for students enrolled in Dr. Debra Kaplan’s fall 2011 Revel course on “Charity in Medieval and Modern Times,” as the entire class recently read Cohen’s two most recent books, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt and The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza (Princeton University Press, 2005), for their first paper assignment.
Article by Yaelle Frohlich; Photography by Judah Harris
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