Defending Rambam Against the Riaz and Jewish Morality Against Thomas Jefferson's Expert Witness

This afternoon (2/15/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we took up a side-quest: to defend the Rambam against a charge leveled by the Riaz. The Rambam held that one who believes that Hashem has a body or appearance qualifies as a heretic. The Riaz, like the Raavad, disagreed with the Rambam's psak and explains his reasoning. Our defense was based on the Rambam himself. The Rambam reveals the mistaken premise on which the Riaz's conclusion is based. Since today is Presidents Day, we read an excerpt from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson on the topic of Jewish morality in which he relies on an "expert" historian of philosophy who commits the same error as the Riaz. Lastly, we read an excerpt from Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman's book, "Ani Maamin," which frames the errors of both men as an example of fallacious anachronistic thinking. NOTE: All references to Rid in this shiur are really supposed to be references to Riaz. I noted that there are two Rishonim named R' Isaiah di'Trani. I mistakenly thought that they were only differentiated by their titles "the Older" and "the Younger" and that the acronyms of רי"ד and ריא"ז were used for both. Turns out that they different people!