“We have now completed that for which we have hoped [to complete], and I ask of God, may He be blessed, and I implore Him, that He should save me from errors. One who finds in it something doubtful or it is clarified for him in any halakha a better explanation than I have explained, he should make note of this and judge me favourably, for what I tasked myself with is no small matter, and its execution is not simple for someone with a sense of honesty and discernment. [This is] especially [true] because my mind is often occupied with the occurrences of the time, and with the exile and wandering in the world from one end of the heavens to the other that God has decreed upon us. Perhaps we have already received reward for this exile, as exile atones for sin. He, the exalted One, knows that I have written the explanation of some laws while I was traveling by land, and others I wrote while at sea on the Mediterranean, and this [commentary on the Mishna] alone is sufficient [to be a large burden upon me] to explain, in addition to investigating other fields of knowledge.
I have only described the situation to express my regret for what [errors] may be revealed by a discerning critic. It is inappropriate to blame him for his critique; rather he receives reward for it from God, and he is beloved to me, as it is a labor for God. And what I have just described about my condition while I was writing this work is the reason that it took me so long. I, Moshe, son of R. Maimon the judge, the son of R. Yosef the sage, son of R. Yitzchak the judge, son of R. Yosef the judge, son of R. Ovadia the judge, son of R. Shlomo the rabbi, son of R. Ovadia the judge, may the memory of the righteous be a blessing, began to write this commentary when I was twenty three years old, and I completed it in Egypt at the age of thirty, in the year 1479, as dated in formal documents. Blessed is He Who gives strength to the weary, Fresh vigour to the spent.”
Rambam, End of Peirush Hamishnayot, Uktzin 3:12
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