"Prayer of Maimonides"

Beautiful is the "Prayer of Maimonides," 12th Century Jewish physician-philosopher-teacher: "0 God, Thou hast formed the body of man with infinite goodness; thou hast united in him innumerable forces incessantly at work like so many instruments, so as to preserve in its entirety this beautiful house containing his immortal soul, and these forces act with all the order, concord and harmony imaginable. . . . 0, God, Thou hast appointed me to watch o'er the life and death of Thy creatures; here am I, ready for my vocation." Medical students study this prayer, along with the "Oath of Hippocrates" and its spirit has guided their practice. Scholars have long sought its Hebrew or Arabic original. Last week they were chagrined to learn that they had overlooked a report published in the American Israelite 21 years ago. The late G. Deutsch, doctor of philosophy, then wrote: "The Prayer of Maimonides, so called, was written neither by Maimonides nor by any other medieval physician. It is the work in good faith of a modern Jewish doctor, Marcus Hertz of Berlin (1747-1803), the friend and physician of Moses Mendelssohn.* It was written in German and was translated into Hebrew. . . ." And from Hebrew back into modern languages.

*Of Maimonides, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (also called Rambam, from his initials), Jews say: "From Moses unto Moses there arose not one like Moses." Mendelssohn (1729-86) who gave Jews European culture and modernized Judaism, is rated the third great Moses of the Israelites.