We Drink only from the Master's Water

Abstract

Everything I interpret in the way of wisdom, I interpret only according to what [Maimonides’] opinion would be in these things, in accordance with what is revealed in his books. I drink from his water and make others drink [cf. Hag. 3a-b]. Everything comes from the ‘fruit of the righteous’ [see Prov. 11:30] and his good ‘work’. It itself is ‘life’ and causes ‘life’, continuously and forever. [Samuel Ibn Tibbon, preface to his Commentary on Ecclesiastes]1