Or Hachaim [Philosophical polemic]

The author was among those expelled from Spain, and for his remaining years (d.1507) sought in his writings to find meaning in the catastrophe that had befallen Spanish Jewry. The present treatise asserts that philosophical rationalism was the cause whereby so many Spanish Jews chose to embrace the Church rather than a life in exile. Ya’avetz blames a distorted version of Maimonidean intellectualism that in turn led to rationalism, and thus a weakening of religious observance and commitment to personal religious sacrifice