What was Maimonides' attitude toward the typically medieval description of the universe presented at the beginning of his great law code, the Mishneh Torah? Was that account of the physical universe meant only as a statement of the best description of nature available at the time (and thus radically distinct from the halakhic matters which make up the bulk of the Mishneh Torah), or was it meant to be a description of the true nature of the universe as it really is, not subject to revision in the light of new paradigms or new models (and thus essentially similar to the halakhic matters in the text)?

During the Middle Ages, each Mediterranean land, from one end of the sea to the other, had its Jewish philosophers. There was one region and one Jewish culture, however, that made no contribution at all to the writing of medieval Jewish philosophy. That was Ashkenazic or Northern European Judaism, the culture of the Jews of England, Northern France, Germany, and Eastern Europe north of the Balkans.

Voltaire's voluminous writings on religion contain, as is well known, a large number of attacks on the Jewish people and Judaism. Historians have offered a variety of explanations for this sustained animosity on the part of a great rationalist and proponent of religious toleration toward a people and a religion which continued, in his own day, to be victimized by unjust persecution. While much remains in dispute, there does seem to be general agreement that Voltaire attacked Judaism at least in part because its most sacred texts constituted the foundation of Christianity, the religion he wished to destroy.

In 1880 the Jewish community of Iraq was forced to confront a sharp increase in antisemitic persecution. Not all of the country's Jews were prepared for this new phenomenon and the result was a number of suicides. The Iraqi rabbinate, both shocked and determined to put an end to the needless taking of life, declared from all the synagogue pulpits that those who commit suicide have no share in the world-to-come. This idea was certainly not unknown to either the masses or the rabbis, who probably believed it to be found somewhere in talmudic literature. However, although it does not appear there, the rabbinic maxim is very well known. Since this notion has played a central role in many rabbinic discussions about the status of suicides, it is worthwhile to trace its origin.