YOSEF GIQATILLA

(1248–c. 1325)

Praised by Avraham Abulafia as his finest student, YOSEF GIQATILLA was greatly influenced by the prophetic Qabbala of his teacher, and he went on to become one of the major qabbalists of the thirteenth century. His most well-known book, Sha‘arei Ora (Gates of Light, which was written before 1293), demonstrates a marked departure from Abulafia’s thought and shows Giqatilla to be immersed in theosophical qabbalistic teachings treating the sefirot and qabbalistic symbolism. Though no direct link has been established, he seems to have been close to Moshe de Leon, and generally speaking his approach to his subject in his later work falls somewhere between the Geronese school of Nahmanides and the school of The Zohar. His other work—much of which remains in manuscript—includes a qabbalistic commentary on the Passover Haggada, two commentaries on the Song of Songs, a book about the mitzvot (observance of the command-ments), and some twenty liturgical poems, and proverbs. While Giqatilla is not considered a poet per se, and isn’t among the poets treated in Haim Schirmann’s definitive four-volume anthology, Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Provence, his handful of extant hymns and didactic poems are of interest for their qabbalistic content and the author’s desire to cast it in Andalusian verse forms. The poem below is taken from the opening section of Giqatilla’s first extant composition, Ginat Egoz (The Nut Garden), which he wrote in 1274, at the end of his two-year period of study under Abulafia. The first word of the title is an acronym standing for gema-tria (numerology), notarikon (acrostics), and temura (permutation—of the letters, as in anagrams). Comprising an introduction to the mystical symbolism of the alphabet and the divine names, Ginat Egoz is studded with short didactic poems introducing each chapter and epitomizing some of the points made in the prose. Born in Medinaceli, Castile, Giqatilla lived for many years in Segovia.

THE NUT GARDEN