The Spanish-born Jewish scholar Nahmanides (1194-1270), also called Moses ben Nahman, was the first outstanding rabbi to declare that resettlement in the land of Israel was a biblical precept binding upon all Jews.

Nahmanides was born in Gerona and educated in Spanish rabbinic schools. He became the leader of Spanish Jewry, which was centered at Gerona. His studies and his natural frame of mind inclined him toward a mystical interpretation of the Bible and toward the philosophic doctrines of the Cabalists.

Nahmanides's chief achievements lay in two directions. First, he reorganized and revivified the study of the Talmud in Spain. He produced a series of short works, each of which consisted of a selected passage from the Talmud that he analyzed and commented upon. In fact, Nahmanides inaugurated this form of rabbinic literature. Second, Nahmanides profoundly influenced Jewish biblical theology through his exegetical work. It was in this...