1. See, e.g., the sources collected by Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, 2:360-367.
2. Degel Mahaneh ’Efrayyim, p. 89, also p. 87.
3. See, e.g., Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 66-86; Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, 3:70-74.
4. See Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, pp. 460-475; idem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 77-81, 83-84; idem, Sabbatai Sevi, pp. 313-314, 811-814; Liebes, Sod ha-’Emunah, pp. 47, 292-293 note 236.
5. On this term see Moshe Idel, “Some Concepts of Time and History in Kabbalah,” in E. Carlebach, J. M. Efron, and D. N. Myers, eds., Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (University Press of New England, Hanover, N.H., 1998), pp. 153-157.
6. See ibid.
7. See BT, Sanhedrin, fol. 97a; BT, ’Avodah Zarah, fol. 9a; Urbach, The Sages, pp. 677-678; David Berger, “Three Typological Themes in Early Jewish Messianism: Messiah Son of Joseph, Rabbinic Calculations, and the Figure of Armilus,” AJSR 10 (1980), pp. 149-150; Liebes, “The Messiah of the Zohar,” pp. 170-171; Wolfson, “From Sealed Book,” p. 174, note 66.
8. Cf. the numerous references found in Richard Landes, “Lest the Millennium Will Be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western Chronography, 100-800 C.E.,” in The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. W Verbeke, D. Ver-helst, and A. Welkenhuysen (Leuven University Press, Leuven, 1988), pp. 137-211; Katharine R Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain, 1530-1645 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979), sub voce “Prophecy of Elijah”; Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif, 1988), index, sub voce “Elijah, Prophecy of”; Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, Isaac Cardoso, A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics (University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1981), pp. 281-284.
9. On this concept see Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, pp. 48-49; idem, “The Messiah of the Zohar,” pp. 165-174, 183; idem, Sod ha-’Emunah, p. 164. See also R Nahman of Braslav, Liqqutei Moharan, I, fol. 47c.
10. See Isaiah Tishby, Messianism in the Time of the Expulsion from Spain and Portugal (Merkaz Zalman Shazar, Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 137-138 (Hebrew).
11. Tiqqunim, printed in Zohar, I, fol. 23ab, according to the translation in Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, 3:1102.
12. See ibid., 3:1103-1104.
13. See the studies mentioned above, chap. 4, note 3, and Liebes, Sod ha-’Emunah, p. 164.
14. See the text printed and discussed by Liebes, Sod ha-’Emunah, p. 204.
15. See Liebes, “The Messiah of the Zohar,” p. 166.
16. See passages found in chap. 1, par. VI; chap. 6, par. IV; chap. 5, par. I and note 36; and app. 5, par. II. See especially the interesting passage from R. Dov Baer of Mezeritch, ’Or Torah, p. 47, where the separation or divestment from corporeality and the ascent to the higher worlds are related to the better understanding of the Torah. Cf. also ibid., pp. 41-42.
17. Metzuyyarot.
18. Ms. Paris BN 839, fol. 4ab; Ms. Jerusalem, JNUL 8° 488, fol. 45b. For a late-eighteenth-century reverberation of this view see R. Isaac Aizik Haver, ’Or Torah, in ’Amudei ha-Torah, pp. 23-24.
19. Emmanuel Swedenborg, The True Christian Religion (London, 1936), par. 6, pp. 6-7; cf, par. 212, p. 288; and Apocalypse Explained, par. 1074. See also above, chap. 5.
20. On the influence of another Kabbalistic view on Swedenborg see Idel, “The World of Angels in Human Form,” Studies in Jewish Mysticism Presented to Isaiah Tishby (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 66, n. 251 (Hebrew), where I suggest that Swedenborg studied Kabbalah at Uppsala University. On Swedenborg’s spiritual hermeneutics see Corbin, Face de Dieu, pp. 47-108.
21. See, e.g., R Hayyim of Volozhin, Nefesh ha-Hayyim, pp. 274-275.
22. See chap. 1, pars. VI-VII; chap. 3, par. II, c; chap. 9, par. V; chap. 11.
23. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 83-86.
24. See Ramhal, Tiqqunim Hadashim, p. 52.
25. Psalms 8:6.
26. This is the determinative particle, which is translated as “the.”
27. Midrash Shmu’el, fol. 3a.
28. See Yarim Moshe, fol. 3cd.
29. See Notzer Hesed, p. 1.
30. On the question of the existence of the Torah on two planes see Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, 1:238-241; Silman, The Voice Heard at Sinai, pp. 93-97.
31. This tension is, in my opinion, somehow different from what Scholem proposed to call absolute and relative; see On the Kabbalah, pp. 43, 73, 74, 77. As we shall see, what Scholem calls the absolute Torah consists in combinations of letters without ordinary semantic cargoes, whereas the relative Torah adopts semantic forms of expression.
32. See above, chap. 9, par. I.
33. See above, chap. 2, par. IV; chap. 4, par. VI.
34. On Gikatilla’s views of the Torah in his later works see Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 42-43; Idel, “The Concepts of the Torah,” pp. 60-62.
35. On this view see also R David ibn Avi Zimra, Magen David, fols. 1c, 50a; Cordovero, Pardes Rimmonim, gate 30, chap. 6; II, fol. 70d, and see Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, p. 116; Ha-Shelah, II, fol. 98a; R. Nahman of Braslav, Liqqutei Moharan, I, fol. 47c.
36. On weaving see above, chap. 9, notes 92, 93, and Sha’ar ha-Niqqud, in ’Arzei Levanon, fol. 36ab, and Asi Farber-Ginat, ed., R. Joseph Gikatilla’s Commentary to Ezekiel’s Chariot (Cherub Press, Los Angeles, 1998), pp. 45-46.
37. See especially Sha’arei ’Orah, gate 5, Gates of Light, pp. 244-245.
38. Qin’at ha-Shem Tzeva’ot, p. 115. See also Tiqqunim Hadashim, pp. 9, 14, 103. For this specific technique of letter combination and its metamorphoses in later Kabbalah see Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 22-24, 44–45, notes 34-38.
39. Tiqqunim Hadashim, p. 7.
40. See R. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, ’Adir ba-Marom, fol. 6a.
41. See above, chap. 8, par. IX.
42. Meshotetot.
43. Siyyimo. Technically, it is possible to read this as either the world or Sefer Yetzirah, but I assume that the world when finished has been inserted within the already existing Torah.
44. Cf. several manuscripts dating from the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century; bibliographical references above, chap. 1, note 26.
45. Commentary on Sefer ’Ish ’Adam, Ms. Rome-Angelica 38, fol. 2a.
46. See also below, the passage from Sha’arei Tzedeq.
47. Deuteronomy 30:19. See also above, chap. 11, beside note 101.
48. Exodus 32:15.
49. Sitrei Torah, Ms. Paris BN 774, fol. 131a. For additional passages on the sphere or wheel of the Torah in Abulafia and one of his followers see Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 38-39, 41.
50. Lefi kohakha.
51. Le-galgel ha-torah.
52. Sitrei Torah, fol. 156a.
53. Commentary on Hotam ha-Haftarah, Ms. Rome-Angelica 38, fol. 45b.
54. The same view is found in Ms. Jerusalem JNUL 8° 1303 fol. 54a, in a passage written by Abraham Abulafia.
55. See Sefer ha-Yihud, Ms. Schocken-Jerusalem, Kabbalah 14, fol. 120b.
56. See below, apps. 1 and 3.
57. Or “combine it,” megalgelim bah. On this verb as pointing to combination of letters see above, chap. 9, note 82.
58. Sha’arei Tzedeq, p. 29.
59. Sha’arei Tzedeq, p. 17; corrected according to Ms. Leiden, Warner 24, fol. 127a; Ms. Jerusalem 8° 148, fol. 47ab; the text in the second manuscript is missing in those lines.
60. See Hayyei ha-’Olam ha-Ba’, Ms. Paris BN 777, fol. 108a, and above, chap. 11, par. V, respectively.
61. See Nahmanides’ introduction to his Commentary on the Pentateuch, p. 7: “The writing was continuous, without interruption between the words.” On the writing of the inscriptions in ancient times without spaces between the words but with dots that give the impression of a continuous text, see the samples in Joseph Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet (Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 55-57, 70-72 (Hebrew).
62. On the Art of Kabbalah, p. 293; De Arte Cabalistica, in J. Pistorius, Ars Cabalistica (Basel, 1587), p. 705.
63. Compare the way Abraham Abulafia described his stand in the quote from Sefer Gan Na’ul, cited above, chap. 11, par. IX.
64. On the Art of Kabbalah, p. 293. On the same page the Abulafian distinction between the Kabbalah of sefirot and the one concerning divine names is mentioned.
65. See also ibid., p. 337.
66. For the identification of the primordial Torah with the third sefirah see also the same Kabbalist’s Commentary on Bereshit Rabba’, p. 138, as well as the writings of contemporary Kabbalists, e.g., Zohar, II, fols. 73b, 85a, Tiqqunei Zohar, Introduction.
67. Tzeruf gashmi.
68. Sefer Yetzirah (Jerusalem, 1961), fol. 18bc; cf. fol. 31a. On this Kabbalist see the important studies of Gershom Scholem, Studies in Kabbalah, ed. J. ben Shlomo (Am Oved, Tel Aviv, 1998), 1:112–136 (Hebrew); Vajda, “Un Chapître;” Hallamish’s preface to The Commentary on Genesis Rabba’; see also Idel, Golem, pp. 119–128, 138–142. It is possible that R. Joseph’s Commentary was known by Reuchlin.
69. See Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, fols. 31a, 42d.
70. Ibid., fol. 33ab.
71. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 39–41; Idel, “The Concept of the Torah,” pp. 49–52, and below, app. 3, note 41.
72. Ms. Vatican 274, fol. 184a. On this text see M. Idel, “An Anonymous Kabbalistic Commentary on Shir ha-Yihud,” in K. E. Groezinger and J. Dan, eds., Mysticism, Magic and Kabbalah in Ashkenazi Judaism (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1995), pp. 139–154.
73. Commentary on Bereshit Rabba’, p. 102.
74. Gate 30, chap. 3: II, fol. 69b; the additions of R. Jacob Barukh, the editor of R. Yohanan Alemanno’s introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, printed as Sha’ar ha-Hesheq (Halberstadt, 1860), fol. 32a; R. Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, ’Or ha-Me’ir, fol. 190ab.
75. See, e.g., the various discussions of Ramhal, and in R. Gedalyah of Lunitz, Teshu’ot Hen, pp. 33, 91, and the quote in the name of R. Yehiel Mikhal of Zlotchov, Mayyim Rabbim, fol. 21b, to be adduced below, par. VIII; Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 77–78.
76. Compare the same question in Tiqqunei Zohar, no. 67, fol. 98b.
77. Sefer Tzeror ha-Hayyim, Ms. London, Montefiore 318, fols. 84b–85a. See also ibid., fols. 28b–29a and 76a, where the primordial Torah, torah qedumah, is described as related to the 231 combinations. On this Kabbalist see the recent study by Yoni Garb, “The Kabbalah of R. Joseph ibn Tzayyah As a Source for the Understanding of Safedian Kabbalah,” Kabbalah 4 (1999) (Hebrew). On issues related to the sources of ibn Tzayyah’s view of combinations of letters and primordial Torah see Idel, Golem, pp. 151–152.
78. On this legend and the bibliography related to it see above, chap. 5, par. I and note 3.
79. Tzerufei shemot ha-qodesh. On this phrase see also below, the passage from HYDA’ referenced in note 109, and in R. Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, ’Or ha-Me’ir, fol. 34b.
80. A term for divine names.
81. Tzafnat Pa’aneah, fol. 14b. See also my introduction to this book, pp. 39-41.
82. I.e., the angel’s opposing the disclosure of the Torah to Moses.
83. Sefer Metzudat David (Zolkvoe, 1866), fol. 70b. The same text occurs also in his Responsa, III, no. 643.
84. See Sefer ’Aqedat Yitzhaq (rpt. Jerusalem, 1961), I, fols. 10b, 219a.
85. The most elaborate exposition of Cordovero’s concept of the Torah is in Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, pp. 113-192; on some topics close to our following discussion see especially Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 71-76. Some of the descriptions below are based on Cordovero’s Shi’ur Qomah, fols. 63ad, 85cd.
86. See the text translated in Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, p. 127.
87. Ibid., fol. 63cd. Compare, above, the view of Sha’arei Tzedeq about the weakness of the back structure of the Torah.
88. Ibid.; see also fol. 85cd.
89. On the Torah as a seal see also Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, p. 114.
90. See also Cordovero’s text printed in Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, p. 124 and note 26.
91. Hesed le-’Avraham, 2:27, fol. 12a; Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 71-72; Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, pp. 113-114.
92. See the text printed in Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, p. 124.
93. Ibid., p. 125.
94. Tzerufei shemoteiah. This term also occurs in R. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto’s writings.
95. On the view that the Torah can be read as a continuum of divine names see above, chap. 11, par. IV.
96. Ha-Shelah, III, fol. 177a; also II, fol. 112a.
97. See also R. Isaiah’s commentary on liturgy, Sha’ar ha-Shamayyim (Amsterdam, 1698), fol. 31b.
98. Numbers 19:14.
99. Midrash Talppiyyot, fol. 35b.
100. Ibid.
101. See above, chap. 3, note 22.
102. Isaiah 51:4.
103. Devash le-Fi, fol. 40d. See the translation in Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 74-75. Though taking into consideration Scholem’s English version, I adopted a more literal rendition, which differs from his on some points.
104. I wonder if this view is not related to some of the interpretations of the three unconnected letters ’alif, lamid, mim, in the Qur’an, which were conceived of as divine names. See Ayoub, The Qur’an and Its Interpreters, pp. 56-59.
105. BT, Berakhot, fol. 30a.
106. Scholem, On the Kabbalah, p. 75.
107. Ibid.
108. Devash le-Fi, fol. 41a.
109. See above, note 79.
110. For the midrashic sources of this dictum see Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, 1:240 note 9.
111. Sarsur. This is a leitmotif in HYDA’s books. For one of its possible sources see Ha-Shelah, II, fol. 116ab. It is plausible that the mediator is Moses. See also an earlier discussion of Moses as sarsur in the anonymous Kabbalistic Collectanaea, Ms. Paris BN 974, fol. 147a. See also R. Abraham Azulai, Hesed le-’Avraham, fol. 12a, R. David ibn Avi Zimra, Magen David, fol. 39c; R Mordekhai Ze’ev of Kalbiel, Sefer Qol Ramaz (Warsaw, 1904), fol. 27b.
112. Tzavarei Shalal, fol. 184ab.
113. On the Kabbalah, pp. 75-76, where Scholem adduces an additional passage from another of HYDA’s books.
114. Qin’at ha-Shem Tzeva’ot, pp. 131-133. The Hebrew passage in this book has been rewritten in Aramaic in Tiqqunim Hadashim, p. 9. Interestingly, the phrase tzeruf ha-’avodah occurs in Ramhal’s Mesillat Yesharim, chap. 16, p. 275, where the meaning is different: the catharsis of worship.
115. Ibid., p. 133.
116. Ibid., p. 132. See also above, chap. 5, par. IV, on the view of Ramhal about the drawing down of the Zohar.
117. ’Adir ba-Marom, fol. 96b.
118. See Teshu’ot Hen, pp. 32-33; also p. 96.
119. Be-ta’arovot’otiyyot. Scholem translated it as “incoherent jumble of letters.”
120. Me’uravin be-ta’arovot.
121. Sefer Ge’ulat Yisrael (Ostrog, 1821), fols. 1d-2a; for a slightly different translation see Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 76-77. On the correspondence between the divine infinite wisdom and textual infinity mentioned at the end of this passage see above, chap. 3, note 30.
122. See chap. 3, par. II; chap. 9, par. V.
123. See Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 59, 278, note 73; cf. Sha’ar ha-Niqqud, printed in ’Arzei Levanon, fol. 38a. First printed in Venice in 1601, this collection of early Kabbalistic texts was reprinted in Cracow in 1748.
124. See Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Kabbalah, p. 177.
125. See Toledot Ya’aqov Yosef fol. 133ab.
126. Teshu’ot Hen, p. 82. For another very similar quote see ibid., p. 19. See also Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, 3:72.
127. See especially the quote from Abulafia’s Mafteah ha-Hokhmot, adduced above, chap. 11, par. V.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid., pp. 18-19, 33, 96. For the possible sources of this explanation of the two kinds of Torah see HYDA’, Midbbar Qedeimot, fol. 61a. See also R Isaac of Komarno, Notzer Hesed, p. 1. This stand has something to do with the assumption that the primordial Torah is found in a state of union, higher than time, while the revealed Torah is characterized by separation. See, e.g., the Great Maggid of Mezeritch, ’Or Torah, p. 47, and cf. ibid., p. 79, where the separation is related to combination of letters. See also idem, Maggid Devarav le-Ya’aqov, pp. 227-228.
130. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 21.
131. See Gikatilla, Commentary on Matters in The Guide of the Perplexed.
132. Ha-Shelah, III, fol. 190b; ’Ahavat Dodim, p. 237.
133. See Allen Tate, The Man of Letters in the Modern World (Meridian Books, New York, 1955), p. 39.
134. Mayyim Rabbim, fol. 21b. For more on this passage and its possible Abulafian sources in Sefer ha-Peli’yah see Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 56-58. See also the discussion in Weiss, Studies, pp. 129-135.
135. See above, chap. 2, par. IV.
136. Genesis 36:12.
137. Sippurei ma’asiyyot.
138. Hishtalshelut.
139. Qedushat Levi, p. 115.
140. Exodus 1:22.
141. On this term see above, chap. 2, note 91.
142. Toledot ’Aharon, I, fol. 27c. For more on changes of the Torah related to time see ibid., II, fol. 2ab.
143. On air as an important symbol for the highest divine hypostasis, Keter, see the various footnotes of Mopsik to Le Sicle, s.v. “Air,” and especially his introduction, pp. 59-65.
144. Cf. Toledot’Aharon, I, fols. 32c, 33a.
145. See below, note 161. Cf. also a similar discussion in Ha-Shelah, II, fol. 98a, and R. Isaac Aizik Haver, ’Or Torah, in ’Amudei ha-Torah, p. 219, and above, chap. 2, note 78.
146. For other examples of eccentric exegesis see Ha-Shelah II, fol. 24b.
147. See chap. 2, par. IV.
148. See, e.g., the Sabbatean epistle attributed to R. Abraham Peretz, Magen ’Avraham, printed by Gershom Scholem in Qovetz ’al Yad, n.s., 2 (12) (1937) pp. 145-146 (Hebrew).
149. Ha-hester ha-gadol.
150. BT, Berakhot, fol. 55a.
151. Ha-hoshekh ha-gadol.
152. Qol Yehudah, fol. 26a. The views of this Hasidic author require detailed analysis; I assume that an impact of ecstatic Kabbalah can be detected. See, e.g., fol. 21c.
153. Mahashavah qedumah, in Qol Yehudah, fol. 4c.
154. Ibid.
155. See also the text of Hasidei Ashkenaz, printed by Dan, The Esoteric Theology, p. 124, where the theory of the torah as the divine names is preceded by the assumption that the Torah is one unit.
156. Qol Yehudah, fol. 19c.
157. ’Or Yitzhaq, p. 170.
158. Ibid., p. 171. On this figure see Schatz-Uffenheimer, Hasidism as Mysticism, pp. 129-136. Compare, however, in the printer’s introduction, ibid., p. 2, where he claims that we do not know the nature of the future Torah.
159. Ibid., pp. 168-169.
160. Ibid., pp. 1-2, 6.
161. See more on this topic below, app. 3, and the beginning of the Kabbalistic text preserved anonymously in Ms. Paris BN 839, fol. 4ab, and Ms. Jerusalem, JNUL 488 8° fol. 45b, and note 145 above.
162. This theory occurs several times in R. Aharon of Zhitomir’s Toledot ’Aharon; see note 144 above, to which I referred above. See also R. Gedalyah of Lunitz, Teshu’ot Hen, pp. 13, 110.
163. Behirut. On this term see above, chap. 2, par. IV.
164. The combination of the divine names.
165. The world.
166. ’Or ha-Torah. This phrase is found already in ancient Jewish texts, as in Heikhalot literature, and at the beginning of Kabbalah; see R. Azriel of Gerona, Commentary on the Talmudic ’Aggadot, p. 77; see also Cordovero, Shiur Qomah, fol. 63c, and see also the passage from his Sefer ’Elimah Rabbati, printed in Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Qabbalah, p. 177. See also above, chap. 6, note 68.
167. The word that occurs twice and has been translated as “deficiency” is qalut, which literally means “light.”
168. See above, note 78.
169. Keli mukhan. On this phrase see above, chap. 5, note 67.
170. Shemu’ot Tovot ve-Razin de-’Orayita’, ed. H. A. Rabinovitch (Chernovitz, 1885), fol. 20b-21b.
171. On this theme see above, chap. 6, note 171, and earlier in Hasidic literature in R Dov Baer of Mezeritch, ’Or Torah, pp. 158-159; R. Isaac of Radvil, ’Or Yitzhaq, p. 167; R. Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, ’Or ha-Me’ir, fol. 191b; and in the camp of the Mitnaggedim, the contemporary R Hayyim of Volozhin, Nefesh ha-Hayyim, pp. 186, 343.
172. See also above, chap. 2, note 74.
173. See, e.g., Cordovero, Pardes Rimmonim, gate 30, Introduction, II, fol. 88c; R Yehudah Arieh Leib of Gur, Sefat ’Emmet, III, fol. 85d.
174. On the Kabbalah, p. 77.
175. See chap. 4, par. VI.
176. See below, end of app. 3 and note 44.
177. See, e.g., Ha-Shelah, I, vol. 9a; II, fol. 98ab, 112b; HYDA’, Penei David, fol. 181b; R Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, ’Or ha-Me’ir, fols. 165b, 239b.
178. ’Or ha-Me’ir, fol. 190a.
179. Ibid., fol. 190b. Cf. also fols. 146a, 264a.
180. See also ibid., fol. 126cd. See also fols. 299d-300a, where this author refers to Ha-Shelah as a source for his view of combinations of letters.
181. See Green, Devotion and Commandment, esp. pp. 50-72.
182. See below, app. 2 and note 2.
183. According to this text, p. 164, this source is the sefirah of Hokhmah.
184. ’Or Torah, in ’Amudei ha-Torah, p. 219. See also ibid., p. 164.
185. The only significant exceptions are some of the writings of R. Menahem Mendel of Shklow, which absorbed some elements of the hermeneutical system that are characteristic of ecstatic Kabbalah, an issue that deserves a separate discussion. Many of the pertinent books are still in manuscript, and only their publication will demonstrate their relevance to the impact of ecstatic Kabbalah.
186. See also above, chap. 1, par. XI.
1. For more on this issue see Idel, “Conceptualization of Music.”
2. Chavel, ed., Commentary on the Torah, pp. 7-8. For more on Nahmanides’ esotericism see Idel, “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition,” and above, chap. 7, par. III. See also the view of R. Shlomo ibn Adret, Nahmanides’ main disciple, who was both a Halakhist and a Kabbalist, in his Responsa, no. 423, and R Joseph Ergas, Shomer ’Emunim, p. 15. For esotericism in ibn Adret’s student, R. Shem Tov ibn Ga’on, see Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, pp. 69-75.
3. Compare the text quoted from a responsum of R Hai Gaon and analyzed in Idel, “Defining Kabbalah,” pp. 101-102.
4. The Commentary on Job, in Kitvei ha-Ramban, ed. C. D. Chavel, 1:23.
5. Traditions related to the cosmic cycles, shemittah and yovel, topics that can be understood by their relationship to the theosophical system. See below, note 18.
6. Mi-da’at’atzmo.
7. Compare the responsum of R. Hai Gaon, discussed in more detail in Idel, “Defining Kabbalah,” pp. 101-102.
8. Nahmanides, Kitvei ha-Ramban, ed. C. D. Chavel (Jerusalem 1964), 1:190.
9. Cf. Wolfson, “By Way of Truth”; Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation, pp. 53-57, 63-69.
10. This assumption has some antecedents in earlier periods in the rabbinic texts. See G. A. Wewers, Geheimnis und Geheimhaltung in rabbinischen Judentum (de Gruyter, Berlin, 1975); Smith, Clement of Alexandria, s.v. “secret, secrecy”; Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, p. 58.
11. Kitvei ha-Ramban, 1:163.
12. See Idel, “On the History,” pp. 6-9.
13. See BT, Hagigah, fol. 13a.
14. See also the passage of Nahmanides quoted above, chap. 9, note 25.
15. See his “Interpreting the Variorum,” Critical Inquiry 2 (1976), pp. 473-485.
16. See Stock, The Implications of Literacy, p. 74. On tradition in a more dynamic manner see also Banon, La lecture infinie, pp. 71-84.
17. See Idel, “Nahmanides.”
18. See his On the Mystical Shape, pp. 207-209. See also above, note 5.
19. Sefer Hayyei ha-’Olam ha-Ba’, Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 45b. See also Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 3-11. On the influence of this quote on R. Mordekhai Dato’s description of R. Moses Cordovero’s Kabbalistic activity see Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, p. 137.
20. See the discussions of this acronym in R Barukh Togarmi and Joseph Gikatilla’s early Sefer Ginnat ’Egoz.
21. Sefer ’Otzar ’Eden Ganuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 55a.
22. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 51-53.
23. Sefer Imrei Shefer, Ms. München 285, fol. 90a; Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 139-140.
24. See the three volumes of studies published by Oxford University Press and edited by Steven T. Katz, Mysticism and Religious Traditions (1983), Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (1978), and Mysticism and Language (1992), as well as the opposite stand as presented in the studies edited by Robert K. C. Forman, The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy (1990).
25. Rashei peraqim.
26. Sefer Sha’arei Tzedeq, p. 9.
27. Namely the path of Kabbalah.
28. Sha’arei Tzedeq, p. 23. For another view of Jewish esotericism in terms of an experiential event, the union with God see the view of the mid-eighteenth-century Hasidic master R Menahem Mendel of Premiszlany, above, chap. 6, par. III.
29. Sheva’ Netivot ha-Torah, p. 21.
30. A list of ancient mystical books appears in a similar context in his epistle Sheva’ Netivot ha-Torah, p. 21.
31. The manuscript has MHTY; it is possible that this is one of the many errors of the copyist of this unfortunately unique manuscript. If so, we should read the sentence as follows: “which came to me in the form of Bat Qol.” However, it is possible that Abulafia alluded to the Greek form THY, namely God, and then MTHY would mean “from God.” Abulafia used the form THYV to point to God in his earlier Sefer Get ha-Shemot; see Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, p. 24.
32. Bat Qol. See the mention, at the beginning of this text, of qolot, voices. It is also possible that the similarity between the sounds and the written forms of qolot and qabbalot is implied in the idea that traditions coming from above are voices.
33. Compare his epistle Sheva’Netivot ha-Torah, p. 21, where he counts the revelation from the Agent Intellect as higher than the secrets he learned from various esoteric books. Cf. Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” pp. 57-58.
34. See Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” pp. 58-59 and note 90; p. 69. On the superiority of oral transmission to written documents, see Abraham Abulafia’s view as discussed in Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 46-55. For the Renaissance misunderstanding of the identity of Abulafia’s master as Maimonides himself see Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola, pp. 87-88, 91-98.
35. See also Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 180-184.
36. Scholem, Major Trends, p. 140.
37. Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 50–51.
38. See above, chap. 7, par. III.
39. See Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 24–37.
40. Ibid., pp. 20–21.
41. See Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” p. 69, note 128.
42. See Scholem, Major Trends, p. 137.
43. Shomer Mitzvah, Ms. Paris BN 853, fol. 48b. On this view of Kabbalah, which assumes both mystical and magical aspects, see my discussion of the mystico-magical model in Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 103–145.
44. This issue deserves a separate treatment.
45. Qabbalah sikhlit. This view, characteristic of some of the innovative Kabbalists, was reiterated by several Kabbalists, especially in the period of the Renaissance and later.
46. Ms. Paris BN 770, fol. 175b.
47. Sheva’ Netivot ha-Torah, p. 12. On this issue see also Wolfson, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 55–58.
48. Sefer Shomer Mitzvah, Ms. Paris BN 853, fol. 74ab. See also Wolfson, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 81–82.
49. See Idel, “On the History,” pp. 6–9.
50. PT, ’Avodah Zarah, II:8.
51. Shomer Mitzvah, Ms. Paris BN 853, fol. 48b.
52. On this term see above, chap. 7, notes 24, 48.
53. Sefer Shomer Mitzvah, Ms. Paris BN 853, fol. 78a.
54. See, e.g., Marsilio Ficino’s description, drawn explicitly from Jewish sources, that the science of the divine names was already revealed to the patriarchs, adduced in Francois Secret, Les Kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance (Paris, 1964), p. 77, and Athanasius Kircher’s view of the Adamic language, cf. L. Deikman, Hieroglyphics: The History of a Literary Symbol (St. Louis, 1970), pp. 97–99. It should be mentioned that a book quoted by Abulafia in the context of books he has studied, Sefer Raziel, is attributed in some sources to Adam, to whom it, like Sefer ha-Razim, was revealed by an angel. This book was known in various European translations at the end of the fifteenth century. See also Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, p. 106. On the Adamic source of Kabbalah see Mopsik, Le Sicle, pp. 109–110. Another issue that cannot be addressed here is the difference between the normative rabbinic tradition that attributes to Moses the reception of fifty gates of understanding and the tradition that attributes this divine gift to Adam. The latter view, which seems to reflect a much earlier mythologoumenon, is still extant in Ashkenazi mystical literature. See above, chap. 7, notes 59, 101.
55. Sefer ha-Hezyonot, p. 49. See also above, chap. 6, note 154.
56. See Lory, Les Commentaires esoteriques, pp. 79–82, and above, chap. 11, notes 92, 93.
57. See Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 86–95.
58. On the contention of easiness in Abulafia’s thought see Idel, “Defining Kabbalah,” pp. 112–113.
59. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, pp. 141–144; idem, The Conflicts of Interpretations, p. 331; idem, From Text to Action, pp. 99–101. Compare this view with the much more static approach of a mid-eighteenth-century Hasidic master, R. Pinhas of Koretz, who claims that everyone finds himself in the Torah, just as he does. Cf. Midrash Pinhas, fol. 23a.
60. Cf. Paul Ricoeur, “Philosophical Hermeneutics and Theological Hermeneutics,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 5, no. 1 (1976), p. 30; idem, From Text to Action, pp. 100–101; Vanhoozer, Biblical Narrative, pp. 132–141.
61. See above, chap. 11, par. IX.
62. See above, chap. 3, par. II, and chap. 4, note 41.
63. BT, Babba’ Batra’, fol. 12a. See also Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, 2:314–316.
64. Tiqqun ve-hashlamah ’el ha-torah.
65. Tiferet Israel, chap. 69 (Benei Beraq, 1980), p. 216. On the souls of the people of Israel as the perfection of the Torah see R. Barukh of Medzibezh, Botzina’ di-Nehora’, p. 77, and Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, p. 29.
66. Eco, The Open Work, pp. 15, 19.
67. On the reader as author in a hypertextual context see Luca Toschi, “Hypertext and Authorship,” in The Future of the Book, pp. 169–207; Michael Joyce, “(Re)Placing the Author: ‘A Book in Ruins,’ ” in ibid., pp. 273–293; Eco, “Afterword,” in ibid., p. 303. See also above, chap. 6, note 169.
1. See, e.g., Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 83–95; idem, Language, Torah, and Hermeneu-tics, pp. 101–109; and below, note 2. On Gadamer see Weinsheimer, Gadamer’s Herme-neutics, pp. 247, 249–251. See also above, Introduction, note 1, and Joseph Dan, “Prayer as a Text, and the Prayer as Mystical Experience,” in Ruth Link-Salinger, ed., Torah and Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman (Shengold Publishers, New York, 1992), pp. 33–47.
2. See also above, chap. 5, par. VI. On linguocentric spirituality see Idel, “On Talismanic Language” and “The Voiced Text of the Torah,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literatur-wissenschaft und Geistgeschichte 68 (1994), pp. 145–146. On some cases of emphasizing experiential dimension of the loud lectio for meditation and of encountering God in the twelfth-century Christian mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux see Stock, The Implications of Literacy, pp. 408–409.
3. Schaefer, Hekhalot-Studien, pp. 293–294. Interestingly, the term “mysteries” is used to describe what I believe it would better to translate as “secrets.” On casuistic elements in Kabbalistic literature see Scholem and Werblowsky, the passages adduced in Idel, “Defining Kabbalah,” p. 98.
4. See above, chap. 6, par. II.
5. Cf. the translation of Smalley, The Bible in the Middle Ages, pp. 170–171.
6. For the two different treatments of translation see Bruns, Inventions, pp. 23–24, 41–42; idem, Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern, pp. 88–89; compare the positive attitude to the event of translation of the Septuagint in Greek sources to the negative reactions found in some Hebrew sources.
7. See the survey of Paul Fenton, “Abraham Maimonides (1186–1237),” in Jewish Mystical Leaders, pp. 127–154, and above, chap. 11, notes 92, 93.
8. Cf. Handelman, The Slayers of Moses, Faur, Golden Doves, and Shira Wolosky, Language and Mysticism: The Negative Way of Language in Eliot, Beckett, and Celan (Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., 1995). See also Caputo, The Prayers and Tears, pp. 335–336; Wolfson, Through the Speculum That Shines, pp. 13–16.
9. Cf. Baer, Studies, 1:111–112, Bloom, The Strong Light, pp. 30–31, 69.
10. Hans Jonas, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1973), p. 29, adduced and discussed by Handelman, The Slayers of Moses, pp. 27–28. Compare also Steiner, After Babel, pp. 59–63.
11. See, e.g., chap. 2 and chap. 11, par. VI.
12. Cf. Scholem, On the Kabbalah, p. 59.
13. Frank Talmage, “The Term ‘Haggada’ in the Parable of the Beloved in the Palace in the Zohar,” JSJT 4 (1984/85), pp. 271–274 (Hebrew).
14. See, e.g., Wolfson’s Philo.
15. Moshe Idel, “Ramon Lull and Ecstatic Kabbalah,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 51 (1988), pp. 170–174; Eco, The Search, pp. 53–69.
16. See Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola, pp. 63, 73–74, 81.
17. Eco, The Search, pp. 132–139.
18. On Leibniz and Kabbalah see Allison Coudert, Leibniz and the Kabbalah (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1995).
19. The relatively significant divergences between the main concepts that informed the different corpora mentioned above should not minimize the fact that earlier contacts between them, in Europe or in the East, preceded the medieval episodes and even facilitated them by “allowing” some later figures, like Pico della Mirandola and Johann Reuchlin, to claim that there were basic concordances between these corpora. See also above, chap. 9, par. I, and below, app. 6.
20. Derrida, Dissemination, p. 344; See also the French edition, Jacques Derrida, La Dis-sémination (Le Seuil, Paris, 1972), p. 382, copied from Abulafia’s Sheva’ Netivot ha-Torah, pp. 14–15. See above, chap. 3, note 44, and chap. 9, par. VII.
21. See Derrida, L’écriture et la différence, pp. 117–228; see also Shira Wolosky, “Derrida, Jabes, Levinas: Sign-Theory as Ethical Discourse,” Prooftexts 2 (1982), pp. 283–302.
22. See Dissemination, pp. 342–345. Derrida resorted to at least two additional forms of Jewish mystical thinking: Lurianism and Hasidism. On the latter see above, chap. 2. On Mallarmé’s emphasis on the importance of the blank space and that of some texts in Kabbalah and Hasidism see ibid., p. 345, and above, chaps. 2 and 3.
23. See, e.g., Harold Bloom’s theory of misprision.
24. See above, chap. 9, par. III.
25. Compare also the emphasis found in Ricoeur on stability, completeness, and intactness of text. Cf. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, p. 147, and see also p. 139. On Derrida’s view of textuality and its possible sources see Howard Felperin, Beyond Deconstruction: The Uses and Abuses of Literary Theory (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985), pp. 36–37.
26. See Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 22–23.
27. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, p. 146.
28. See Derrida, L’écriture et la différence, pp. 117–227, especially the last page, where he refers to James Joyce’s expressions “Jewishgreek” and “Greekjewish.”
29. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, pp. 11, 100–101, 103.
30. Ibid., pp. 101–109.
31. See also above, notes 1–2.
32. See also above, chap. 9, note 84.
33. Ms. Leipzig 39, fol. 5b. On the Latin, glossed version of this statement see C. Wirs-zubski, Between the Lines, Kabbalah, Christian Kabbalah and Sabbatianism, ed. M. Idel (Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 1990), p. 42 (Hebrew). See also below, app. 2, note 32.
34. On Abulafia’s exegetical strategies in his three commentaries on the Guide see Idel, “Abulafia’s Secrets of the Guide.”
35. See the various interpretations of this thesis in David Biale, “Gershom Scholem’s Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on Kabbalah,” in Harold Bloom, ed., Gershom Scholem (Chelsea House, New York, 1987), pp. 120–123, and Joseph Dan, “Beyond the Kabbalistic Symbol,” JSJT 5 (1986), pp. 383–385 (Hebrew). None of these authors, however, addressed the issues to be discussed below. See, however, Bloom, The Strong Light and Ruin the Sacred Truths (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1989), p. 192, who repeatedly resorts to terms found in this thesis.
36. See chap. 6, par. V.
37. Bloom, The Strong Light, p. 55. For Scholem’s negativity see ibid., pp. 7, 13, 61–67; idem, Agon, p. 83, idem, Kabbalah and Criticism, pp. 53ff. See also above, chap. 2, par. IV, and chap. 12.
38. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 48–50.
39. Bloom, The Strong Light, pp. 60–61.
40. See Bloom’s description of Scholem as being in “an obsession with the imagery of catastrophe.” Cf. his “Scholem: Unhistorical or Jewish Gnosticism,” in Harold Bloom, ed., Gershom Scholem (Chelsea House, New York, 1987), p. 217.
41. Cf. Bloom’s introduction to Scholem’s From Berlin to Jerusalem (Schocken Books, New York, 1988), p. xx. See also ibid., p. xxi: “He [Scholem] longed for a wholly Gnostic Kabbalah, and indeed for a Gnostic Judaism, though he was wary of expressing this desire too overtly.” To believe another expert on Scholem, he has been alienated, in exile even while in Israel; See Irving Wohlfarth, “ ‘Haarscharf an der Grenze zwischen Religion und Nihilismus’: Zum Motiv des Zimzum bei Gershom Scholem,” Gershom Scholem zwischen den Disziplinen, ed. Peter Schaefer and Gary Smith (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1995), pp. 176–256.
42. See above, chap. 3, note 12, and Handelman, Fragments of Redemption, pp. 82–92. See also Scholem’s interpretation of a Hasidic story that in its Hasidic original version is much more positive but has been interpreted in a rather weak, not to say negative, manner in Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 349-350; Hartman, The Fate of Reading, pp. 273-274, and compare Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 270-271; Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 185-186.
43. Cf. Scholem, The Messianic Idea, p. 35; Idel, Messianic Mystics, pp. 233, 283-289.
44. See Jacques Riviere, “La crise du concept de littérature,” Nouvelle Revue Française, February 1, 1924.
45. See the view of Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New American Library, New York, 1953), p. 150.
46. Cf. Riviere, “La crise du concept de littérature.”
47. On Kafka see also above, chap. 5, par. VI, and Introduction, note 52. On Celan see Stephane Moses, “Patterns of Negativity in Paul Celan’s ‘The Trumpet Place,’ ” in S. Budick and W. Iser, eds., Languages of the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory (Columbia University Press, New York, 1989), pp. 209-224. On Kafka and Scholem on negativity see ibid., pp. 222-223.
48. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, p. 271.
49. Cordovero, Derishot, p. 70. See also above, chap. 3, note 75. Compare the similar imagery found in earlier Kabbalistic texts treated in Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 158-159. See also the important passage of Cordovero’s disciple, R Elijah da Vidas, Reshit Hokhmah, Sha’ar ha-Qedushah, chap. IV, vol. 2, p. 59, where the contention is that the intensive study of the Torah creates an experience of divestment of spirituality, and man becomes an angel.
50. Namely the angels.
51. Cordovero, Derishot, p. 70; see also ibid., p. 76. See also R Barukh of Medzibezh, Botzina’ di-Nehora’, p. 111.
52. The Israelites at the Sinaitic revelation.
53. Botzina’ di-Nehora’, pp. 109-110.
54. ’Or ha-Me’ir, fol. 4a; the Hebrew is mamtzi’im ta’am hadash. On this very page the verb mamtzi occurs several times; see also ibid., fol. 38cd.
55. Ibid. See also ibid, fols. 216d-217a; Ha-Shelah, II, 108b. See also the earlier texts adduced and discussed by Weiss-Halivni, Revelation Restored, pp. 87-89, and the Kabbalistic passages quoted in Silman, The Voice Heard at Sinai, pp. 98-100.
56. Sefat ’Emmet, III, fol. 85d. The concept of the implantation of the Torah, which has much earlier sources, occurs also at ibid., I, fol. 89b, III, fol. 85. On continuous revelation see above, chap. 3, note 123. On combination of Torah letters see above, chap. 12.
57. See Smith, Imagining Religion, pp. 36-52; Gadamer, Truth and Method, pp. 329-30. See also Weiss-Halivni, Revelation Restored, pp. 47-74.
58. Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982), p. 173; Simon Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas (Blackwell, Oxford, 1992), pp. 59-106.
1. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 5–32.
2. “L’exégèse biblique,” pp. 33–46, esp. pp. 37–40. See also idem, “Das Merkwort PRDS in der Jüdischen Bibelexegese,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 13 (1893), pp. 294–305.
3. “On the Question of Pardes and the Fourfold Method,” Sefer Eliahu Auerbach (Jerusalem, 1955), pp. 222–235 (Hebrew). See also van der Heide, “Pardes”; Banon, La lecture infinie, pp. 204–216; Fishbane, The Garments of the Torah, pp. 112–120.
4. On the Kabbalah, p. 61: “I am inclined to agree with Bacher.” Several years earlier, however, Scholem’s opinion was much more clear-cut in favor of the Christian influence: “I have no doubt that this method (pardes) was taken from the Christian medieval exegesis.” Scholem, Devarim be-Go, p. 249.
5. Talmage, “Apples of Gold,” p. 320; van der Heide, “Pardes,” pp. 154–155.
6. See Talmage, “Apples of Gold,” p. 349, note 48; Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, p. 93 and p. 191, note 52. See also the proposal of Amos Funkenstein “Nahmanides’ Symbolical Reading of History,” in J. Dan and F. Talmage, eds., Studies in Jewish Mysticism (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 129–150, that Nahmanides adopted the Christian typological interpretation. For more on this type of interpretation see Marc Saperstein, “Jewish Typological Exegesis after Nahmanides,” JSQ 1 (1993), esp. pp. 167–168; Idel, Messianic Mystics, p. 62.
7. See Isadore Twersky, Studies in Jewish Law and Philosophy (KTAV, New York, 1982), p. 208.
8. Van der Heide, “Pardes,” p. 149.
9. See e.g. the tension between the plain sense and the esoteric one in Isma’ili herme-neutics, where the plain sense was regarded as Satanic! For Kabbalistic examples of a similar tension see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 207–208.
10. Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 82–124.
11. See Bacher, “L’exégèse biblique,” passim.
12. See e. g. one of the most important discussions of Zoharic hermeneutics, the maiden parable, which has been analyzed in detail by several scholars: see Bacher, “L’exégèse biblique,” pp. 36–38; Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 55–56; Talmage, “Apples of Gold,” pp. 316–317; and above, chap. 10, par. VIII.
13. Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 83–87.
14. Midbbar Qedeimot, par. Peh, section Peshat, fol. 49a, quoted in the name of R. Isaac Luria. For more on this paragon of Jewish learning see above, chap. 12, and below, app. 4, par. III. See also the discussion of R. Moses Eliyakum Beri’ah, Da’at Moshe, fol. 111d, where he describes the study of the first three senses of the Bible as intended solely for that of Sod.
15. On Bahya’s version of the fourfold method see Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 59, 62.
16. See e.g. Tiqqunei Zohar, printed in Zohar, I, fol. 26b.
17. BT, Hagigah fol. 15a. On the whole issue see Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, pp. 14–19.
18. See Sha’ar ha-Yihudim (Qoretz, n.d.), fol. 33d; Shulhan ’Arukh le-ha-Ari (Krakow, n.d.), fol. 26a, par. Qeriah be-Hokhmat ha-Kabbalah. See also the text from Sha’ar ha-Gilgulim, discussed by Scholem, On the Mystical Shape, p. 239.
19. In the domain of the theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah a relevant example is the maiden parable mentioned above, note 12. See also Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 223–224.
20. As to the experiential implication of a mystical interpretation of the Bible in ecstatic Kabbalah see Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. xi, 101–109, 121–124.
21. See Iser, The Act of Reading, p. 10, and above, chap. 6.
22. On this Kabbalistic type, in opposition to the conservative Kabbalah, see Idel, “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition,” 63–73; idem, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 212–213, and idem, “Nahmanides.”
23. See Idel, “Nahmanides.”
24. On the last quarter of the thirteenth century as one of the most creative periods of Kabbalah see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 211–212.
25. Kabbalistic hermeneutics, especially the Zoharic type, was treated recently by Wolf-son, “By Way of Truth”; idem, “Circumcision, Visionary Experience and Textual Interpretation: From Midrashic Trope to Mystical Symbol,” History of Religions 27 (1987), pp. 189–215; idem, “Left Contained in the Right: A Study in Zoharic Herme-neutics,” AJSR 11, no. 1 (1986), pp. 27–52; idem, “The Hermeneutics of Visionary Experience: Revelation and Interpretation in the Zohar,’ ’ Religion 18 (1988), pp. 311–345. See also Ithamar Gruenwald, “From Talmudic to Zoharic Homiletics,” in The Age of the Zohar, pp. 255–298 (Hebrew), and Daniel C. Matt, “Matnita Dilan: A Technique of Innovation in the Zohar,” in The Age of the Zohar, pp. 123–145 (Hebrew).
26. I propose to distinguish between the narrative symbolic interpretation, namely those cases—very common in theosophical Kabbalah—where the biblical story was decoded as pointing to another supernal story, and the static symbolism, when the external structure of the text functions as an iconic symbol of another supernal entity. For more on this issue see above, chap. 8.
27. On this issue see Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 154–156; idem, “Reifica-tion of Language.” On the Kabbalistic theory of language see Scholem, “The Name of God.”
28. For an example of such a view see above, chap. 3, par. I. On indeterminacy in ancient Jewish exegesis see Stern, Midrash and Theory. For more on the function of the ideo-grammic attitude toward the biblical text as it was exposed by Nahmanides and those influenced by him see Haviva Pedayah, “Tziyyur and Temunah in Nahmanides’ Commentary on the Pentateuch,” Mahanayyim, n.s., 6 (1994), pp. 114–123 (Hebrew).
29. Those techniques were exposed in detail by the Ashkenazi Hasidim; see Dan, “The Ashkenazi Hasidic,” and Marcus, “Exegesis for the Few,” pp. 1–24. In Kabbalah they were adopted in Abraham Abulafia’s hermeneutics; see Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 95–119.
30. Cf. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 247–249, and above, chap. 3.
31. That is obviously the case in Abraham Abulafia’s hermeneutics, which explicitly includes three major types of Kabbalistic exegesis; cf. Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 95-117, and above, chap. 11. See also the sevenfold exegetical method of the anonymous author of Sefer Tiqqunei Zohar, cf. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, 3:1083-1084.
32. Benin, “The Mutability,” and above, chap. 12.
33. See Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 157-179, and above, chap. 2, par. IV.
34. ’Or ha-Ganuz (Jerusalem, 1981), fol. 3b.
35. On some medieval examples of applying the exegetical devices employed for biblical interpretation to writings of the mystics see Idel, “On Symbolic Self-Interpretations.”
36. See Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 238-239, and above, chap. 6, par. IV.
37. See ibid., pp. 150-153.
38. See R. Abraham of Turisk, Magen ’Avraham, I, fol. 28a.
1. See the seventh article in Thirteen Articles of Faith.
2. On the whole issue see Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, 3:1082-1089. For later treatments of this issue see R. Joseph Ergas, Shomer ’Emunim, pp. 16-18, and in Polish Hasidism see Piekarz, Studies, pp. 87, 117-127. For more on the emergence of the biblical stories see the various texts adduced above, chap. 12.
3. Chap. 5:26-27. On the peculiar version of’Avot used by Abulafia see Charles Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Cambridge, 1897), pp. 60, 69. See also Ethics of the Fathers, trans. Hyman Goldin (Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, 1962), pp. 89-90.
4. Middah. See the occurrence of the word in Job 11:9. See also above, chap. 3, note 67.
5. See Maimonides’ Commentary on ’Avot, ad locum.
6. Genesis Rabba’9:11, p. 73.
7. The numerical value of the consonants Bag Bag He’ He’ amount to 22, which is the number of the Hebrew letters and Tovah.
8. Exodus 19:9.
9. Twice in the text.
10. On this image see above, chap. 2.
11. Psalms 119:18.
12. In our versions, however, the word here is dibbur, “saying,” not “letter.”
13. Here I have translated hokhmah in a different manner than earlier, where I preferred the term science.
14. Job 11:9. This verse had often been adduced in relation to the concept of infinity. See, e.g., above, chap. 3, note 67.
15. In the Bible middah, “measure.” This is apparently the earliest instance where middah and Torah are explicitly related.
16. Sefer Sitrei Torah, Ms. Paris BN 774, fols. 169b-170a. In his Migdal ’Oz, a commentary on Maimonides’ Hilkhot Yesodei Torah, chap. 1, he writes that in Sefarad, on a very old parchment, qelaf yashan meyushan, he saw an epistle that starts with the following sentence: “I, Moses, the son of Maimon, when I had descended to the chambers of the Merkavah, understood the issue of the end etc., and his words were similar to the words of true Kabbalists, which were alluded to by our great Rabbi, Ramban, blessed be his memory, at the beginning of [his] commentary on the Torah.” For more on this passage and its background see Idel, “Abulafia’s Secrets of the Guide,” pp. 316–317.
17. See above, chap. 6, par. II.
18. See Idel, Messianic Mystics, p. 296.
19. See above, chap. 9, note 82.
20. See R. Todros ha-Levi Abulafia’s critique of a Kabbalah that is reminiscent of Abraham Abulafia’s: “There is no need for the words of those who allude to the seventy-two names in connection with ’Av ’Anan, despite the fact that it is known to the masters of Kabbalah that seventy-two names surround the seat of glory. This issue is distant from our intention concerning the hints which we have hinted, as West is distant from East. The Kabbalah of the sages of the divinity [hakhmei ha-’elohut] regarding the secrets of the Torah is separated from the Kabbalah of the knowers of the names, except those that are not to be erased.” ’Otzar ha-Kavod, fol. 11c. See also above, chap. 7, note 125.
21. See above, chap. 9, note 81.
22. Ms. Paris BN 768, fol. 11a: ve-ha-dam bo ha-satan ve-ha-satan bo ha-dam. See Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 35–36.
23. The Hebrew consonants of the words ’Adam ve-Havah, AVY ve-’Immy, Dam ve-Dyo, YHWH Yod He’ WaW He’ amount to seventy. For an elaboration of the similarity between the blood and ink on the one hand and the semen of mother and father on the other see Abulafia’s ’Otzar ’Eden Ganuz, Ms. Oxford Bodleiana 1580, fol. 31b.
24. Hebrew ve-dyo (“and ink”) amounts to 26, like the Tetragrammaton.
25. See Ezekiel 9:4. See also BT, Sabbath, fol. 55a: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Gabriel: Go and record upon the forehead of the righteous a line of ink, that the angels of destruction may not rule over them; and upon the foreheads of the wicked a line of blood, so that the angels of destruction may rule over them.”
26. She-muledet, compounded of the consonants of tav shel dam.
27. Demut = tav dam.
28. Yoledet = tav dyo.
29. Sefer Sitrei Torah, Ms. Paris BN 774, fol. 166a. For another discussion of blood and ink see below, the quote from Abulafia’s Sefer Gan Na’ul and R. Isaac of Acre’s Sefer ’Otzar Hayyim.
30. On this affinity see Idel, The Mystical Experience, p. 97.
31. See Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, p. 102.
32. Sefer ha-Ge’ulah, Ms. Leipzig 39, fol. 5b. On the Latin, glossed version of this statement, see Wirszubski, Between the Lines, p. 143. See also above, chap. 9, note 112.
33. See chap. 11, pars. III, IV.
34. See Sefer Mafteah ha-Re’ayon, Ms. Vatican 291, fol. 49b.
35. See also the very similar distinction found in a fragment of R. Isaac of Acre, “Blood is the secret of the Unique Name in plene reading, as follows: Yod He Waw He, and its literal meaning is without the plene spelling . . . is ‘and ink.’ Therefore, the secret of the Ineffable Name is blood and ink. The blood alludes to the secret of the sacrifices and the prayers, while ink is like the writing of the Torah in ink upon a book.” Cf. Ms. Sasson 919, p. 209. The affinity between the passage of R. Isaac of Acre and Abulafia is one of the most convincing philological arguments for the relations between texts found in the writings of the two ecstatic Kabbalists.
36. This is one of the main topics in Sefer Sha’arei ’Orah. See above, chap. 12, par. III.
37. Ms. Roma-Angelica 38, fol. 37a. For more on this quote and its possible implications see Idel, Messianic Mystics, pp. 306–307.
38. See also Sefer ha-Melammed, Ms. Paris BN 680, fol. 298a.
39. Metzuyyar.
40. Compare, e.g., to the Zohar statement in I, fol. 134b.
41. ’Emtza’it. Abulafia is fond of the gematria ’emtza’it = torah = 611. See, e.g., above, chap. 11, note 83, and Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 37–38, 165, note 47.
42. BT, Megillah, fol. 13b.
43. Mafteah ha-Sefirot, Ms. Milano-Ambrosiana 53, fols. 164b–165a. See also Scholem, Major Trends, p. 141.
44. Ms. Munich 58, fol. 328a. For the fuller context of this quote see above, chap. 11, par. IX. See also an important discussion of blood and ink in relation to the different forms of the divine name in Abulafia’s Sefer ha-Melammed, Ms. Paris BN 680, fols. 291b–298a. This is the correct order of the folios, unlike that found today in the unique manuscript.
45. See above, chap. 11, par. IX.
46. Ibid.
47. For more on this issue see app. 3.
48. For this halakhic requirement see also above, chap. 2, note 55.
49. Sefer ’Otzar Hayyim, Ms. Moscow-Guenzburg 775, fols. 105b–106a; see also Gottlieb, Studies, p. 244. On the combinations of letters stemming from the primordial Torah see above, chap. 12.
50. Barceloni, Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, p. 107.
51. Namely a scroll.
52. Sefer Quppat ha-Rokhelin, Ms. Oxford Bodeliana 1618, fol. 10a. See also the fifteenth-century North African author R. Simeon ben Tzemah Duran, Magen ’Avot (Livorno, 1785), fol. 29b.
53. See above, chap. 12, pars. IV–V.
54. Cf. Scholem, Peraqim be-Sifrut ha-Qabbalah (Jerusalem, 1931), p. 102. See already R. Moses ha-Darshan, Bereshit Rabbati, p. 46, and note to line 8, and above, chap. 12.
55. See above, chap. 12, note 61.
56. Chap. 4, par. IV.
1. This is the opening of the acronym ’[A]HYD[A]’ which recurs in his writings. The term “youth” should be understood as an epithet pointing to modesty, not as an indication of the Kabbalist’s actual age. On R. Isaac’s resort to various acronyms for his name see Amos Goldreich’s observations in Me’irat ’Einayyim, pp. 2, 371; Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, p. 81.
2. See Nahmanides, Introduction to the Commentary on the Torah, p. 2. A Kabbalistic interpretation of this rabbinic dictum can be found already in the Geronese school, in R Azriel’s Commentary on the Talmudic Aggadot, pp. 3-4; see also Tishby’s footnote, p. 3, note 21. R Isaac of Acre apparently did not know this text.
3. Genesis 1:14.
4. Namely the divine world of emanation, which is the first of the four worlds designated by the acronym ’ABYA’.
5. ’Al derekh ha-’emmet ha-nekhonah.
6. See R Moses ha-Darshan, Bereshit Rabbati, p. 47, and the note to line 8; R Yehudah Barceloni, Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, p. 270.
7. BT, Berakhot, fol. 8a.
8. Le-’olam.
9. Peshitut ’elyonah. Compare this phrase, and two others below, to the similar description of the highest ontological level in the theosophical scheme according to the Collectanaea of R Nathan the Sage, which I have proposed to identify with a student of Abraham Abulafia and as one of R Isaac of Acre’s teachers. Cf. Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, p. 81.
10. Heikhalah, namely its body. This is a common way of designating the body in his writings. See, e.g., ’Otzar Hayyim, Ms. Moscow-Ginsburg 775, fol. 216a.
11. Proverbs 8:22.
12. Namely the second sefirah.
13. BT, Hagigah, fol. 14b.
14. The numerical value of each of the three words, mahashavah, shannah, and sefirah, is 355.
15. The formulation in Hebrew is rather clumsy.
16. This is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its numerical value is six.
17. Genesis Rabba’, I:1, p. 2. See also above, chap. 1, note 17.
18. Sefer ’Otzar Hayyim, Ms. Moscow-Ginsburg 775, fol. 129a. There are some structural similarities between R Isaac’s understanding of the Aggadic statement and that of R Moses Cordovero in his Shi’ur Qomah, fol. 13b, but I am not sure that we can assume a direct influence of R Isaac’s solution on the Safedian Kabbalist. See also a book by another Kabbalist close to Abulafia’s thought, R Reuven Tzarfati’s treatise found in Ms. Moscow-Gunsburg, 134, fol. 110ab, R Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi, Commentary on Bereshit Rabba’, p. 138; and Ha-Shelah, I, fol. 10a; II, fol. 97b.
19. On this title for Nahmanides’ Commentary on the Pentateuch see Abrams, “Orality,” p. 90.
20. See, e.g., Me’irat’Einayyim, pp. 88, 90, 92. See also Gottlieb, Studies, pp. 231-247; Idel, The Mystical Experience, pp. 140-141.
21. See Me’irat’Einayyim, pp. 38-40.
22. Ibid., pp. 87-88, 218, quoting R. Todros ben Joseph ha-Levi Abulafia’s ’Otzar ha-Kavod, fol. 5b. See also in the Kabbalistic traditions found in Ms. Paris BN 680, fol. 271a, Ms. Jerusalem, JNUL 8° 1073, fol. 23a, and in the Nahmanidean additions to R. Moses de Leon’s Sefer ha-Nefesh ha-Hakhamah (Basel, 1608), col. G, fols. Id-IIa.
23. Cf. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, 1:285-286. I would say that the Zoharic approach had been adopted by the scholars, who generalize as if its stand is characteristic of the entire Kabbalistic literature. This is part of what I call the monochromatic approach that is characteristic of most of the modern academic approaches to Kabbalah.
24. See above, chap. 10, par. II.
25. See above, chap. 10, par. IV.
26. See Matt, The Book of the Mirrors, p. 3.
27. On the possibility that this acronym was already found in R Nathan’s Collectanaea see Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 82, 88, note 47. See also Goldreich’s remark in Me’irat ’Einayyim, pp. 401-402.
28. Chap. 6, pars. IV, V; chap. 10, par. VII.
29. See chap. 10, par. X.
30. I cannot enter here into a detailed analysis of R Isaac’s exegetical system. The above passage seems, however, to demand a qualification of the opinion expressed by Goldreich, Me’irat ’Einayyim, p. 401, and Gottlieb, Studies, p. 239, note 16, that this higher exegetical method is related to the role played by the ’Ein Sof. Moreover, in one of the cases, in Sefer ’Otzar Hayyim, Ms. Moscow-Ginsburg 775, fol. 148b, the highest means of interpretation is connected to the divine name and to the attainment of prophecy, in a manner quite reminiscent of Abraham Abulafia’s seventh exegetical method. See Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 101-109. For more on nisa’n see Boaz Huss, “NISAN—The Wife of the Infinite: The Mystical Hermeneutics of R Isaac of Acre,” Kabbalah 5 (2000), pp. 155-181. See also above, app. 1.
31. For more on this acronym see Idel, Messianic Mystics, pp. 303-304.
32. Introduction, p. 2. See Wolfson, Circle in a Square, p. 164, note 36, and also above, chap. 4, note 46, and app. 2, as well as Heschel, The Theology of Ancient Judaism, 2:346-347.
33. See the seventh of Maimonides’ Thirteen Articles of Faith.
34. See Abrams, “Orality,” p. 97. Indeed, the resort to the term “secret” in the text is evident: fifteen times in a rather short passage. It fits the fondness with this term in the late-thirteenth-century innovative Kabbalah.
35. For a discussion between a philosopher and R Shem Tov ibn Gaon, a student of a student of Nahmanides who also interpreted Nahmanides’ secrets, see Idel, R. Mena-hem Recanati, the Kabbalist, chap. 15. Moreover, R Isaac apparently overlooked a passage from R Shem Tov ibn Gaon, Sefer Keter Shem Tov, Ms. Paris BN 774, fol. 75a, where the same rabbinic dictum has been adduced and succinctly interpreted. See especially the text of R. Isaac that criticized the extreme arcane interpretations of Nahmanides’ Commentary on the Pentateuch by his followers. Cf. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, pp. 384-385. Scholem’s view, that Nahmanides was in possession of a variety of Kabbalistic traditions that reached him from various sources, is as yet unfounded.
36. See Moshe Idel, “The Vicissitudes of Kabbalah in Catalonia,” in Moshe Lazar and Stephen Haliczer, eds., The Jews of Spain and the Expulsion of 1492 (Labyrinthos, Lancaster, Calif, 1997), pp. 35-36.
37. See Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 203, 397-398.
38. See Introduction, par. IV.
39. Sefer ’Otzar Hayyim, Ms. Moscow-Ginsburg 775, fol. 105b.
40. See also above, app. 2, note 2.
41. See above, chap. 12, note 71.
42. On this dictum and its sources in Sefer Shi’ur Qomah and early Kabbalah see Idel, “The Concept of the Torah,” p. 52.
43. Ms. Jerusalem, 8° 3925, fol. 116b; Commentary on the Commandments, Ms. Vatican 177, fol. 24a. See also Idel, “The Concept of the Torah,” pp. 66-67.
44. See chap. 2, par. V.
45. See Ms. Leiden 24, fols. 197bc, 198a. For the view of the divine logos as shadow see Philo, Leggum Allegoriae, 3:96, a passage dealt with by Charles Mopsik, though in the context of the relation between man and God. Cf. Les grands textes, p. 376.
1. For the earlier phases of Christian Kabbalah see, e.g., Gershom Scholem, “The Beginnings of the Christian Kabbalah,” in Joseph Dan, ed., The Christian Kabbalah (Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass., 1997), pp. 17-51; Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola; M. Idel, “Jewish Kabbalah in Christian Garb: Some Phenomenological Remarks,” in Michael Terry, ed., The Hebrew Renaissance (Newberry Library, Chicago, 1997), pp. 10-16. See also above, chap. 9, the end of par. VI.
2. See Idel, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” p. 201.
3. Kat Luther.
4. Ha-hokhmah ha-mefo’arah.
5. In Hebrew galuyyot, meaning literally “exiles.” It seems, however, that there is no reason to doubt that he refers to the expulsions from Spain and Portugal, perhaps as well as the expulsion of the Jews from Sicily.
6. Namely Christians.
7. See Idel, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” pp. 186-187.
8. See the text printed, translated, and discussed by David Kaufmann, “Elia Menachem Chalfan on Jews Teaching Hebrew to Non-Jews,” JQR, o.s., 9 (1896/1897), pp. 500-508.
9. For other positive reactions to the first stage of Luther’s activity, which was positive in relation to Judaism, see Hayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Opinion,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 4 (1970), pp. 239–326.
10. A phrase pointing to an esoteric topic.
11. Namely “send.”
12. I.e., the disclosure.
13. The version is not so clear here. Abraham David, “A Jerusalemite Epistle from the Beginning of the Ottoman Rule in the Land of Israel,” in Chapters in the History of Jerusalem at the Beginning of the Ottoman Period (Yad Ben Zvi, Jerusalem, 1979), p. 59 (Hebrew), reads the manuscript text as hita’aqti, which makes no sense, and he proposed to correct it for hitama’tzti, “I made efforts to,” but this reading and analysis of the context (see ibid., p. 43) contradicts the stand expressed in the preceding sentence. I have therefore proposed to amend the version to hitappaqti, “I refrained.”
14. Psalms 25:14.
15. See R. Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi, Commentary on the Prophecies of the Child, Ms. Firenze-Laurentiana, Plut. 44, 7, printed in David, “A Jerusalemite Epistle,” p. 59.
16. Apparently the priests.
17. Cf. Psalms 49:13.
18. See his Commentary on the Tiqqunei Zohar (Jerusalem, 1975), 3:204; Sack, Be-Sha’arei ha-Qabbalah, p. 37, note 22.
19. See especially the expression pardes ha-torah, in Tiqqunei Zohar, cf. Zohar Hadash, fol. 102d.
20. Namely Kabbalah.
21. Sefer ha-Hezyonot, ed. A. Aescoli (Mossad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem, 1954), p. 68; Abraham Berger, “Captive at the Gate of Rome: The Story of a Messianic Motif,” PAAJR 44 (1977), pp. 16–17.
22. See chap. 3, note 68.
23. Sefer Tiferet ’Adam, p. 110.
24. Ibid., p. 101.
25. See Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy (Littmann Library, London, Washington, 1993), pp. 295–296. On this Kabbalist see Yoram Jacobson, Along the Path of Exile and Redemption: The Doctrine of Redemption of Rabbi Mordecai Dato (Mossad Bialik, Jerusalem, 1996) (Hebrew).
26. See Idel, “Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah,” pp. 166–168, 174–178.
27. For more on this ritual see Shaul Maggid, “Conjugal Union, Mourning and Talmud Torah in R. Isaac Luria’s Tikkun Hatzot,’ ’ Daat 36 (1996), pp. xvii–xlv; Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, pp. 51–52; Idel, Messianic Mystics, pp. 308–320. On the ritual study of the Torah at midnight see R. Elijah da Vidas, Reshit Hokhmah, in Fine, Safed Spirituality, pp. 103–107.
28. Sha’ar Ruah ha-Qodesh (Jerusalem, 1912), fol. 17ab.
29. Vital, Sha’ar ha-Kavvanot (Hotza’at Meqor Hayyim, Jerusalem, 1963), fol. 58b; idem, Peri ’Etz Hayyim, p. 348; see also R. Ya’aqov Hayyim Tzemah, Siddur, p. 78; idem, Naggid u-Metzavveh, p. 23. See the important remark by Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, pp. 51–52, who already pointed out the possible nexus between this view and “Christian exegesis of the Bible.” My claim is that it is more precisely the Christian Kabbalah than general Christian exegesis that is involved here.
30. Siddur, p. 79.
31. See Peter Kuhn, Gottes Trauer und Klage in der rabbinischen Überlieferung (Talmud und Midrasch) (Brill, Leiden, 1978), pp. 254–257. On the myth of mistarim see already in BT, Berakhot, fol. 3a, which has been exploited but interpreted in a quite different manner from the original myth. On the sparks found in the shells see Scholem, On the Mystical Shape, pp. 75–77.
32. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, pp. 146, 152.
33. See idem, Major Trends, pp. 256–257; idem, “Shetar ha-hitqasherut shel Talmidei ha-’Ari,” Zion 5 (1940), pp. 133–160.
34. Proverbs 4:2.
35. Penei David, fol. 175cd. See also Ramhal, Qin’at ha-Shem Tzeva’ot, p. 119.
36. Tzavarei Shalal, fol. 217c. This characterization of the Torah is presumably drawn from earlier, apparently Cordoverian sources, and they are paralleled by Hasidic views, which often resort to the concepts of instrument and pipe.
37. See also above, chap. 3, note 23.
38. See Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 375, note 130. Compare especially the view found in a pseudo–Midrash ’Orah Hayyim, apparently forged by R. Moses de Leon, printed in Eisenstein, ’Otzar ha-Midrashim, p. 29–30.
39. On this topic see Meir Benayahu, Rabbi Hayyim Yosef David Azulai (Mossad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem, 1959), pp. 145–146 (Hebrew).
40. See chap. 3, par. III.
41. Not only has the rite of tiqqun hatzot been known and sometimes performed by Hasidim, but also the view of the Torah in exile has been mentioned by Hasidic authors. See, e.g., R. Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, ’Or ha-Me’ir, fols. 184c, 190c, who discusses the combinations of letters of the Torah that have fallen within the qelippot; and R. Qalonimus Qalman Epstein, Ma’or va-Shemesh, 2:605.
1. See Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 178, and also my forthcoming “The Voiced Torah and Sonorous Community in Jewish Mysticism.” On orality and religion see Graham, Beyond the Written Word, esp. p. 143, where he discusses Calvin’s view of the importance of orality as a main form of divine revelation.
2. Rapoport-Albert, “God and the Zaddik.”
3. Dibber or dibbur.
4. Ben-Amos and Mintz, In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, p. 179. The distinction in spelling between “Torah” versus “torah” is that of the translators. See also the important parallel adduced by Scholem, Devarim be-Go, pp. 307–308, and discussed again by Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, pp. 146–147.
5. Compare also above, app. 4, the Lurianic discussion about the sparks of the Torah that are found within the realm of evil.
6. Namely the negative powers stemming from the stern aspect of the divine system.
7. Yatva’.
8. Cf. Zohar, I, fol. 153b.
9. The words of the stupid.
10. Liqqutei Moharan, no. 207, fol. 112d. See Liebes, Sod ha-’Emunah, pp. 249-251.
11. See above, chap. 6, note 12.
12. See his Sefer Megillat ha-Megalleh, p. 27. This passage has been copied in R. Bahya ben Asher’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, on Genesis 2:4, p. 55. For more on this issue see above, chap. 13, par. VI.
13. See chap. 4, III.
14. It seems that only in the ecstatic Kabbalah is there a discussion of the oral Torah as the Torah that is in actu, be-fo’al, a description that implies its superiority over the written one. See Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, pp. 48-49, and above, chap. 13, par. VI.
15. See Wilensky, Hasidim and Mitnaggedim, 1:317. This letter was written in 1805.
16. See, e.g., the continuation of R. Nahman of Braslav’s quote mentioned above, note 10, and Liebes, Sod ha-’Emunah, pp. 249-250.
17. On the question of the language of these sermons there can be no dispute that, although printed in Hebrew, they were delivered in the vernacular, Yiddish.
18. See the first statement of R. Nathan of Nemirov’s introduction to Liqqutei Tefillot, and above, chap. 6, par. V.
19. Compare the sources of this view in Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 334, note 22.
20. See, e.g., R Yisrael Loebel, in Mordecai Wilensky, Hasidism and Mitnageddim (Mossad Bialik, Jerusalem, 1970), 2:317, No’am ’Elimelekh, fol. 67c.
21. See Tishby, Studies in Kabbalah, 3:988-994. See also Weiss, Studies, pp. 80-81.
22. See his introduction to Maggid Devarav le-Ya’aqov.
23. ’Irin Qaddishin (rpt. Jerusalem, 1983), fol. 49d. On this Hasidic master see David Assaf, The Regal Way: The Life and Times of R. Israel of Ruzhin (Zalman Shazar Center, Jerusalem, 1997) [Hebrew], and above, chap. 12. See already the Great Maggid of Mezeritch, ’Or Torah, p. 11. For another discussion of this topic in Hasidism, where R Meir is presented as repairing the ’ayin to ’aleph thus as a theurgist, see Tiferet Shlomo, Tisa’. R Meir is described as repairing the letter that is particular to him in the Torah. See also Piekarz, Studies, p. 127. For more on the topics discussed in paragraphs III and IV below see also Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 239-244.
24. See chap. 3, note 68.
25. On seventy facets of the Torah see above, chap. 3, note 31. On the possible source for the shift from ’aleph to ’ayin see Cordovero, Pardes Rimmonim, gate 21, chap. 1; I, fol. 105a.
26. In Hebrew the term panim means both face and facets. See also the Braslav stand discussed by Piekarz, Studies, p. 120.
27. On metoposcopy in Jewish mysticism see Gershom Scholem, “Ein Fragment zur Physiognomik und Chiromantik aus der Tradition des spätantiken jüdischen Eso-terik,” in Liber Amicorum: Studies in Honour of Professor Dr. C. J. Bleeker (Brill, Leiden, 1969), pp. 175-193; Ithamar Gruenwald, “New Fragments from the Literature on Hakarat Panim and Sidrei Sirtutim,” Tarbiz 40 (1970), pp. 301-319 [Hebrew]; Schaefer, Hekhalot-Studien, pp. 84-95.
28. Isaiah 3:9.
29. ’Irin Qaddishin Tanyana’ (Barfeld, 1887), fol. 24c. My assumption is that the author had in mind a Sabbath afternoon sermon. On the relation between Sabbath and seventy facets of the Torah see already R. Pinhas of Koretz, Midrash Pinhas, fol. 22b. On the Hasidic practice of repeating the sermon on the way home, it is plausible that the above text reflects a mnemonic technique that was intended not to offer new interpretations but to help memorize the content of the sermon because it could not have been written down during the Sabbath. To a certain extent, the oral performance of the sermon is a continuation of the written Torah in another medium, which allows and compels reflection on its exposition without resorting to the written text because of the unusual authority of the homilist.
30. See, e.g., Ada Rapoport-Albert, “God and the Zaddik as the Two Focal Points of Hasidic Worship,” History of Religions 18 (1979), pp. 296-325. For more on the union with the divine in Hasidism as part of the process of understanding the Torah see above, chap. 2, par. IV.
31. Chap. 3, note 74.
32. Homily on Ezekiel, translated in Smalley, The Bible in the Middle Ages, p. 32.
33. Studies in the Zohar, pp. 85-138.
34. See Moshe Idel, “On Mobility, Individuals and Groups: Prolegomenon for a Sociological Approach to Sixteenth Century Kabbalah,” Kabbalah 3 (1998), pp. 145-173.
35. See above, chap. 3, note 110.
36. See Be’er Mayyim Hayyim, I, fols. 45c–47b.
37. Ibid., I, fol. 46b. See also the thirteenth-century ecstatic text discussed in Idel, The Mystical Experience, p. 148, note 38.
38. See Scholem, On the Mystical Shape, pp. 251-273; idem, “The Paradise Garb of Souls and the Origin of the Concept of Haluqa’ de-Rabbanan,” Tarbiz 24 (1955), pp. 297-306 [Hebrew].
39. See Piekarz, Studies, pp. 88-89.
40. See above, chap. 6, par. III.
41. See note 29 above.
42. “Le moi et la totalité” and some subsequent expositions discussed in Etienne Feron, De l’idée de transcendance à la question du language (Millon, Grenoble, 1992), pp. 87-88.
43. See above, chap. 6, par. V, in the discussion of the quote from R. Nahman of Braslav.
44. See Maimon’s description of the Great Maggid during his sermons as analyzed by Weiss, Studies, pp. 70-78.
45. On the discrepancy between the written literature and Hasidic life see the caveats of Abraham Y. Heschel, Kotzk: The Struggle for Integrity (Tel Aviv, 1973), 1:7-10 [Yiddish], part of it translated in Samuel Dresner’s introduction to Heschel, Circle of the Ba’al Shem Tov: Studies in Hasidism, ed. S. H. Dresner (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985), p. xxiii; Heschel, “Hasidism,” Jewish Heritage, vol. 14 (1972), pp. 14-16; and Ze’ev Gries, The Book in Early Hasidism (Hakkibutz Hameuchad, 1992), p. 92 [Hebrew].
1. See above, chap. 2, note 171.
2. Wolfson, Philo.
3. Henry Cornelius Agrippa, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1979), p. 1.
4. For more on binary syntheses in explaining the emergence of major intellectual systems see M. Idel, “On Binary ‘Beginnings’ in Kabbalah-Scholarship,” Aporematha: Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte, Band 5 (2001), pp. 313-337.
5. Charles Trinkaus, “In Our Image and Likeness” (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970), 2:730-740.
6. See Idel, “Hermeticism and Judaism.”
7. The belief in heavenly books is widespread in Assyrian and Babylonian literatures, an issue that does not concern us here.
8. European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Williard R. Track, Bollingen Series, 36 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990), pp. 302-347.
9. See Idel, “Hermeticism and Judaism,” pp. 62-64; Shlomo Sela, “Scientific Data in the Exegetical-Theological Work of Abraham ibn Ezra: Historical Time and Geographical Space Conception” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1997), pp. 367-375 (Hebrew).
10. See the recent collection of articles on this figure edited by I. Twersky and J. M. Harris, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Jewish Polymath (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1993); Sela, Scientific Data.
11. Daniel 7:10.
12. Ma’arakhot ha-shamayyim.
13. Namely in Exodus 32:32.
14. Namely the celestial world, constituted by planets and stars.
15. Ha-ma’arakhah ha-’elyonah.
16. Commentary on the Pentateuch, ed. A. Weiser (Mossad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem, 1977), 2:47 (Hebrew).
17. See especially Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Some Astrological Themes in the Thought of R. Abraham ibn Ezra,” in Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, pp. 33-49.
18. On this literature see Uriel Simon, “Interpreting the Interpreter,” ibid., pp. 86-128.
19. Nahmanides, Commentary on the Pentateuch, ed. C. D. Chavel (Mossad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem, 1959), 1:514.
20. Sifro shel ha-qadosh barukh hu’.
21. Apparently, R. Bahya was acquainted with a famous Jewish book of magic entitled The Alphabet of Metatron, which establishes some forms of affinity between an alphabet, described as the alphabet of stars, and magic. See the edition by Israel Weinstock, “’Alpha Beta shel Metatron,” Temirin 2 (1982), pp. 51-76 (Hebrew).
22. Golmi.
23. Psalms 139:16. For interpretations of this verse see Idel, Golem, pp. 298, 300.
24. Commentary on Exodus 32:32, ed. C D. Chavel (Mossad ha-Rav Kook, Jerusalem, 1967), 2:338 (Hebrew).
25. Namely the six lower sefirot, which according to many Kabbalistic traditions surround the sefirah of Tiferet.
26. BT, Rosh ha-Shanah, fol. 16b.
27. Commentary on Exodus, 2:339. The source for this theosophical interpretation is, as Efrayyim Gottlieb pointed out, R. Ezra of Gerona’s Commentary on the Talmudic Legends. See Gottlieb, The Kabbalah in the Writings of Rabbi Bahya ben Asher (Qiriat Sefer, Jerusalem, 1970), p. 50 (Hebrew). See also R. Bahya’s contemporary Castilian Kabbalist R. Todros ha-Levi Abulafia, ’Otzar ha-Kavod, fol. 16c.
28. Fabrizio Lelli, “Retorica, poetica e linguistica nel Hay ha-’Olamim di Yohanan Ale-manno” (Ph.D. diss., Universitá degli Studi di Torino, 1990/1991); Fabrizio Lelli, Yohanan Alemanno: Hay Ha-’Olamim (L’Immortale) (Leo S. Olschki, Florence, 1995); B. C. Novak, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982), pp. 125-147; M. Idel, “The Anthropology of Yohanan Alemanno: Sources and Influences,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 7 (1990), pp. 93-112.
29. Untitled treatise, Ms. Paris BN 849, fol. 7b. On Alemanno’s authorship of this book see Gershom Scholem, “An Unknown Treatise of R Yohanan Alemanno,” Qiriat Sefer 5 (1928/1929), pp. 286-302 (Hebrew).
30. See M. Idel, “The Study Program of R. Yohanan Alemanno,” Tarbiz 48 (1979), pp. 310-312, 316, 320 (Hebrew).
31. Ms. Oxford Bodleiana 2234, fol. 2b.
32. See Joseph Hacker, “The Connections of Spanish Jewry with Eretz Israel between 1391 and 1492,” Shalem 1 (1974), p. 145, note 64, and p. 147 (Hebrew).
33. See, more recently, Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986), pp. 13, note 3, and p. 49, note 28. See also Leroy E. Loemker, Struggle for Synthesis: The Seventeenth Century Background of Leibniz’s Synthesis of Order and Freedom (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 89-95.
34. Cf. Idel, “The Study Program,” p. 307, note 36, and p. 313.
35. Idel, “The Study Program.”
36. Another form of thought, medieval Arabic and Jewish philosophy, was also influential on Christian intellectuals. See, e.g., Shlomo Pines, “Medieval Doctrines in Renaissance Garb? Some Jewish and Arabic Sources of Leone Ebreo’s Doctrines,” in B. D. Cooperman, ed., Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1983), pp. 390–391; M. Idel, “Magical Temples and Cities in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 3 (1981/1982), pp. 185–189; Kalman Bland, “Elijah del Medigo’s Averroistic Response to the Kabbalahs of the Fifteenth-Century Jewry and Pico della Mirandola,” Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1 (1991), pp. 23–53; Bohdan Kieszkowski, “Les rapports entre Elie del Medigo et Pic de la Mirandole,” Rinascimento 4 (1964), pp. 58–61; Stephane Toussaint, “Ficino’s Orphic Magic or Jewish Astrology and Oriental Philosophy? A Note on spiritus, the Three Books on Life, Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Zarza,” Accademia 2 (2000), pp. 19–33.
37. See Wirszubski’s magisterial Pico della Mirandola, pp. 80, 106–112, 150–151.
38. On this issue see more above, chap. 4.
39. Opera Omnia (Basel, 1557), p. 113. See also Eugenio Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life (Arkana, London, 1990), pp. 85, 92; Ernst Cassirer, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,” Journal of History of Ideas 3, no. 3 (1942), pp. 341–342. On the relationship between Kabbalah and astrology in Christian Kabbalah see F. Secret, “L’Astrologie et les Kabbalistes Chrétiens et la Renaissance,” Le Tour Saint-Jacques 4 (1956), pp. 45–49.
40. Henri de Lubac, Pic de la Mirandole (Aubier Montaigne, Paris, 1974), pp. 317–318.
41. Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola, p. 175. His reference in note 13 to Isaiah 34:4 does not solve the conceptual question of the thesis.
42. Ibid., pp. 262–263. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, p. 62, note 1.
43. Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola, pp. 248–250.
44. See above, note 38.
45. See Idel, “On Judaism.”
46. See R. Bahya ben Asher’s commentary on Deuteronomy 18:11; cf. Idel, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” p. 233, note 68; idem, “Abulafia’s Secrets of the Guide,” pp. 313–319.
47. See also R. Abraham Abulafia, Sheva’ Netivot ha-Torah, pp. 14–15, a Kabbalist who started his Kabbalistic career in Barcelona, like Bahya ben Asher. This epistle has been translated into French as L’Epître des sept voies, trans. J.-C. Attias (Editions de l’Eclats, 1985), p. 72. Abulafia contrasts the Kabbalistic interpretation of the Bible by means of combinations of letters, a method understood as an inner, more sublime logic, and the Aristotelian logic, which is appropriate to the knowledge of nature.