The Power of Imagination: A Maimonides Tale

Known as a prominent figure, Maimonides served as the personal physician to the King of Egypt. His success was a thorn in the eyes of the king's advisors, who grew envious and persuaded the king to replace Maimonides with a Muslim doctor named Kamon. "Rabbi Moses ben Maimon is a Jew. Why don’t you take a physician of your own faith?" they repeatedly argued. "Kamon's expertise is no less than that of the Jew...".

The king, aware that their words stemmed from jealousy and that Maimonides' skills were unparalleled, found it difficult to part with his dedicated doctor. However, he struggled under the pressure from his ministers. Reluctantly, he decided to conduct a dangerous test between Maimonides and the foremost doctor of the Arabs.

He summoned both physicians and proposed a frightening challenge: each of you will attempt to poison the other, and whoever survives, utilizing their antidote in advance, will prove as the expert and serve as my doctor.

To decide who would be the first to drink the other's poison, the king drew lots, and it was determined that Maimonides would go first.

The Muslim doctor went home and spent an entire week devising a potent and swift poison, a deadly potion deemed too late for any remedy. Meanwhile, Maimonides placed his trust in Hashem, prepared suitable antidotes, and instructed his students to lay him down immediately after ingesting the potion to slow his blood circulation and thus delay the poison's spread. Once he was lying down, they were to administer the mixture he prepared in advance.

The decisive day arrived, and all of Egypt was anxious to see who would survive the cruel test.

The two doctors stood before the king with their concoctions. Kamon, the Muslim doctor, handed Maimonides the lethal potion he prepared. Maimonides' face showed no distress; his lips murmured a silent prayer, and he downed the deadly dose. His students promptly laid him on the ground and gave him the antidote he had crafted to neutralize the poison.

By Heaven's grace, within a day and a half, it was evident that while the potion threatened the life of the great eagle, the antidote had worked. Maimonides regained his strength and recovered. A few days later, he returned to his work as if nothing had happened.

Now it was Maimonides' turn to offer Kamon his own deadly potion. Fear gripped Kamon, and he trembled when facing the Jewish doctor who had survived the poison. He knew the dangerous potion he had given and witnessed Maimonides' resilience. His fear was immense. Days earlier, he had already filled his belly with various remedies and concoctions to prepare his body for the Jewish doctor's potent poison.

Maimonides

Minutes before the test, Maimonides entered the palace kitchen, took two cucumbers, two tomatoes, some peppers, and a lot of spices. He blended everything into a drink that was entirely harmless, yet looked intimidating and threatening.

With this drink, Maimonides entered before the king and ministers, and gave it to Kamon. With hands trembling with fear and his body shaking like a leaf in the wind, Kamon swallowed the frightening drink and immediately took his anti-poison potion. Expecting the usual symptoms and sensations of poisoning, he was astonished to feel nothing... as if he had ingested no poison at all.

The absence of expected symptoms terrified Kamon. Knowing Maimonides' profound understanding of the human body and the effects of substances, he fearfully confided to his associates: "It seems Maimonides, in his wisdom, gave me a slow-acting poison that will activate only when combined with something else, perhaps meat..."

Kamon stopped eating meat. The doubts that the sophisticated poison operated in conjunction with specific foods haunted him, prompting him to avoid even baked goods. Upon realizing neither meat nor baked goods triggered the poison, he abstained from dairy products too unless it was freshly milked before his eyes.

For a week, Kamon was restless. He got up, lay down, wandered the streets, and returned home, listening to the beat of his heart and measuring his breaths, convinced the powerful secret poison was still at work, only to appear after a period of time.

A week later, Maimonides met Kamon in the palace corridors. Seeing his pale face and emaciated body, Maimonides asked the celebrated Egyptian doctor, "Tell me, is it true you've almost stopped eating and drinking? And if you indeed drink a little milk, how do you feel?"...

At that moment, Kamon's pallor intensified. His face turned ashen white, and he collapsed, fainting. Maimonides bent over him to find his heart had stopped, and he had died.

The King of Egypt was pleased with the test results. He called Maimonides and asked him to reveal the components of the special poison mixture he supposedly used, a sophisticated poison that lay dormant for a week before taking effect...

"I would never commit such an act," Maimonides surprised the king with his answer. "I did not poison him at all. I never misuse the gift of healing Hashem bestowed upon me. I received the power of medicine to save lives, not to take them." The king remained silent, gazing questioningly at his great physician. After all, Kamon had died a week after the challenge.

"He died by his own hand," Maimonides explained gently, "by the power of his imagination, magnified by the fear of a self-created poison that didn't exist. He died from imaginary fear."

The king now understood more deeply that Maimonides was not only a great doctor but also a wise sage. From then on, he elevated Maimonides above all his ministers. The lesson we take from this story is to be wary of negative imagination, as it can tragically lead someone to the brink of death.