הרמב״ן

Nachmanides, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman of Girona (the Ramban), is the man who held both ends of the Torah in his hand, the plain and the hidden, and let go of neither. A commentator, decisor, physician and kabbalist, he opened his commentary on the Torah with all the depth of the plain meaning of the Rishonim, and then hinted toward 'the way of truth,' the secrets of Kabbalah, as if there were no wall between them.

His greatness was revealed also in a time of trial. In 1263 he was forced to stand in the Disputation of Barcelona against the apostate Pablo Christiani, before the king and the clergy, and to defend all of Judaism. He did so with dignity, courage and wisdom, and paid for it with exile from Spain. At the end of his days he went up to the Land of Israel, found Jerusalem in ruins, and founded a community there anew.

The letter he sent from Jerusalem to his son is a treasure of humility: 'and I lifted my eyes to the mountains... what shall I answer you, my son.' A giant of a man who saw the destruction with his own eyes and was not broken, but began to build from a single stone. He taught that love of the Land is not an idea but an act, and that even in the great destruction one can begin.

What do we learn from him? That one need not choose between reason and the secret, between the plain and the deep; one can bear both in reverence. Nachmanides teaches that a person can defend his people publicly with courage and write to his son with the humility of a child, and that love of Zion is measured by feet that ascend, not only by a heart that longs.