 This Talmudic saying, with which Maimon concludes his first philosophical work, the Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (1790,) applies strikingly well to the life story of Salomon Maimon. Maimon was born in 1753 in Suchowyborg (Sukowy Borek), a village on the tributary of the Nieman river, next to the town of Mir (Mirz) in Lithuania. His family, which originally was rather wealthy, fell into poverty due to poor management of its properties. Thus, Maimon’s father became a children’s teacher, an example that was followed later by his son Salomon. Maimon received a traditional religious education, which concentrated mainly on the study of the Talmud. At the age of 11, shortly after the death of his mother and following a comedy of errors involving the mothers of two young girls, Maimon was married in an arranged ceremony, and three years later, in 1767, his first son, David, was born. During his early adulthood, Maimon developed a keen curiosity about the sciences and philosophy. The most crucial influence was that of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, through which Maimon became acquainted with Aristotelian philosophy in its medieval cloth, and with the iconoclastic spirit of Maimonides’ philosophy of religion. Maimon’s attachment to Maimonides — both personally and philosophically — ran throughout his life. Even Maimon’s own name was adopted as an expression of respect towards this teacher (At the time, few Jews adopted family names. Before taking the surname ‘Maimon’, Maimon used to be called after his father: Salomon ben (“son of”) Joshua). Maimon also developed an interest in Kabbalistic texts, which in spite of his relatively young age, he attempted to study and interpret according to the bodies of knowledge he had already mastered (i.e., Maimonidean philosophy). Around 1770 Maimon went to visit the court of the Maggid (The Preacher) of Mezrich, the contemporary leader and one of the founders of Hassidism. Maimon’s visit seems to last no more than a few weeks, still it is clear that he was strongly impressed by this new form of religious life and its teaching of self-annihilation in God. Maimon dedicates a chapter and half of his 1792/3 Lebensgeschichte to the portrayal of early Hassidism, and these chapters are indeed the most valuable external historical source on the emergence of Hassidism. Maimon passes a negative judgment on some aspects of Hassidism, still even from the late perspective of his writing in the 1790s his enthusiasm about some features of the movement (such as, the use of improvisation in expounding the Torah) are salient. Recent scholarship on Hassidism confirmed virtually all of the teaching’s Maimon quotes in the name of the Maggid and his disciples (see Melamed 2018). It is also remarkable that the story of Maimon’s visit to the court of the Maggid is documented in Hassidic sources which describe Maimon as one of the disciples of the Maggid “she-shana u-firesh” (“who studied and reneged”). See Hoizman (1962, 261–62). Maimon’s discussion of Hassidic pantheism is highly sympathetic, and occasionally he alludes to the similarities between Hassidic acosmism, and Spinozism.