https://seforimblog.com/2007/08/marc-b-shapiro-forgery-and-halakhic-2/
In The Limits of Orthodox Theology I quoted the following
comment of R. Bezalel Naor, who was quoting his teacher, the Gaon R.
Shlomo Fisher of Jerusalem: “The truth, known to Torah scholars, is that
Maimonides’ formulation of the tenets of Jewish belief is far from
universally accepted.” For those who don’t know, R. Fisher is one of the
gedolim of our time, and you can see many of his shiurim on yeshiva.org.il. Many of these shiurim focus on Talmud (and he has published the great rabbinic work, Beit Yishai),
but R. Fisher is also the only one of our gedolim who is an expert in
Jewish philosophy. This explains why his Derashot Beit Yishai are very
different than other collections of derashot. Professor Zev Harvey told
me that from R. Fisher’s edition of Crescas’ Or ha-Shem, it is clear
that he used Wolfson’s Hebrew text found in Crescas’ Critique of
Aristotle.[1]
Someone I know currently attends R. Fisher’s
weekly shiur on Avnei Miluim, the last half-hour of which is devoted to
issues of hashkafah. Interestingly enough, he reported to me that a few
weeks ago R. Fisher declared that he believes the Rambam abandoned his
system of 13 Principles, the proof being that they are never mentioned
as a unit in the Mishneh Torah.[2] In my book, I noted that R. Shlomo
Goren held the same view. R. Goren also makes another interesting point,
that while in the Commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides requires one to
actually believe in certain principles, in the Mishneh Torah he only
requires you not to deny any principles. One who has never heard of a
principle obviously does not believe in it, which makes him a heretic
according to the Commentary on the Mishnah. But according to the Mishneh
Torah, since this person does not actually deny the principle, he is
not regarded as a heretic.
Getting back to R. Moshe, as is well known, he ruled that the Commentary
of R. Yehudah he-Hasid was a forgery, as he could not imagine that a
rishon would acknowledge that there were some post-Mosaic passages in
the Torah.[3] Only after my book appeared did Rabbi Naor tell me that
the comment I quoted above in the name of R. Fisher was stated precisely
with reference to R. Moshe’s positon on this issue. After R. Moshe
banned R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s Commentary, R. Fisher commented that R.
Moshe assumes that R. Yehudah he-Hasid has to accept the Rambam’s
Principles, but in truth there were many disagreements with the Rambam,
and R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s position on Mosaic authorship is one of them.
