Idel, Moshe - Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia (SUNY, 1988)
Idel, Moshe - Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia (SUNY, 1988)
Idel, Moshe - Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia (SUNY, 1988)
IN
Abra6am AbulaAa
MOSHEID EL
Moshe Idel
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
vii
ix
Journal Abbreviations
xi
Introduction
Chapter 1.
13
Chapter 2.
55
Chapter 3.
73
Chapter 4.
179
Bibliography
229
233
Index of Titles
241
Acknowledgments
of America in New York. Thanks are due to all the libraries that
permitted me the use of manuscript materials in their possession.
Last but not least, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture
in New York generously assisted me during the years of collecting
and studying the pertinent material. Research funds from the
Institute for Jewish Studies and the Faculty of Humanities at the
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, helped me to prepare this work for
publication.
Foreword
Shlomo Pines
Journal Abbreviations
A]Sreview
HTR
HUCA
]]S
]QR
MGWJ
PAA]R
REf
Introduction
2. Abulafia' s Life
Introduction
pope. During that same period, and possibly in the same place, he
began to study the Kabbalah, which he had earlier opposed, his
studies being concentrated primarily on the commentaries of Sefer
Ye~irah. From Catalonia he travelled to Castile, where he taught the
Guide to R. Joseph Gikatilla and R. Moses b. Simeon of Burgos, two
of the leading Castillian Kabbalists during the 1270's and 1280's. After
leaving Castile, he spent the next several years-apparently the entire
second half of the 1270's-wandering about, possibly going as far as
France.
At the end of the decade, he again taught the Guide in the Greek
cities of Thebes and Patros, and in 1279 returned to the Italian city
of Capua, where he continued to teach the work of Maimonides.
Because of his peculiar method of studying the Guide, based on
combinations of letters and similar linguistic techniques, as well as
his messianic statements about his intention to meet with the pope,
he was persecuted by his fellow Jews. At the end of the Hebrew year
5040 (i.e., Fall 1280), he attempted to meet with Pope Nicholas III,
who rejected these overtures. While the pope was still in his vacation
palace in Soriano, near Rome, Abulafia made a daring attempt
defying the pope's threats to burn him at the stake, and arrived at the
castle. However, soon after his arrival the pope suddenly died, thus
saving Abulafia from a certain death.
After a brief period of imprisonment in Rome by the "Little
Brothers"-the Minorites-Abulafia left the Apennine Peninsula,
arriving in Sicily in the year 1281, where he continued his literary and
messianic activities. He succeeded in establishing not only a circle of
students and admirers who "moved at his command," but apparently
also opponents. His prophetic and messianic pretensions evidently
caused the leaders of the island to turn to R. Solomon ben Abraham
ibn Adret (ca. 135-ca. 1310, known as Rashba) for instructions on how
to deal with this personality; and ibn Adret, who was both an halakhic
sage and a Kabbalist, began an all-out war against Abulafia. Even if
his letters against the ecstatic Kabbalist did not always find a
sympathetic ear among Abulafia's many disciples in Sicily, there is
no doubt that Abulafia's status was nevertheless severely damaged,
and he was forced to go into exile on the island of Comtino near Sicily,
at least for a brief period. The polemic between Abulafia and ibn
Adret continued throughout the second half of the 1280s and
concluded, insofar as we can tell, with Abulafia's death towards the
end of the year 1291. In any event, there is no indication of any activity
of Abulafia' following that date.
3. Abulafia's Writings
Prophetic Works
Beginning in 1279, Abulafia composed a series of "prophetic"
books, the vast majority of which have been lost. Their nature is,
however, apparent from the single work of this genre which has
survived, Sefer ha-6t, as well as from the extant interpretations which
the author gives to his other works of this kind. One may assume,
on the basis of these two documents, that these books contained
Abulafia' s mystical and messianic visions, which he enjoyed during
a very fruitful spiritual period. Several of the subjects of these visions,
such as "the man" and "the circle," will be discussed in detail below.
Introduction
Occasional Works
There are also occasional works, such as epistles and poems,
which constitute only a small part of his corpus; albeit, the epistles'
contribution to our understanding of Abulafia's thought and his
spiritual development is particularly significant.
All told, some thirty works or fragments of works written by
Abulafia have survived, preserved in some one hundred manuscripts.
Only a very small proportion of his total oeuvre has been printed, and
even this small number has had the misfortune to have been printed
with many mistakes. It follows from this that in almost every case
one needs to refer to the manuscripts--an unusual phenomenon if
one is speaking about a key figure for the understanding of Kabbalah
as a mystic phenomenon. The refusal of the Kabbalists and printers
to publish Abulafia's literary works creates great difficulties in
clarifying his system and, as the reader will find below, the bulk of
the material considered here comes from manuscripts scattered over
different continents, awaiting a wider audience. This is the reason
for our constant reliance upon manuscripts.
However, an understanding of Abulafia's mystical path cannot
suffice with these written testimonies alone. There is considerable
material extant from the period preceding him, such as the writings
of the Ashkenazic Hasidim or those of R. Baruch Togarmi, from which
Abulafia learned basic fundamental areas of his thought. Until now,
the topics in these works relevant to Abulafia' s thought have not
received detailed treatment, a fact which presents difficulties for the
understanding of Abulafian thought. No less important are those
works which were influenced by Abulafia's writings, such as the
anonymous Sefer ha-f:_eruf and Ner Elohim; the works of R. Isaac of
Acre, first and foremost the 6~ar J:Iayyim; Sa'are Z:_edeq, attributed to
R. Shem Tov Ibn Gaon; and R. Judah Albotini's Sullam ha-'Aliyah.
Thus, analysis of Abulafia's mysticism demands reference to an
entire Kabbalistic school, spreading over many years and requires
careful study of the writings of many different Kabbalists. However,
the difficulties entailed and the time demanded to master this
extensive background are well justified, as only study of this type can
enable us to understand the complex development and spread of
ecstatic Kabbalah of the Abulafian type through various regionsItaly, Greece, Palestine6-and assist us in comprehending properly
that most important contemporary mystical phenomenon: Hasidism. 7
The present work will clarify only a few of these questions, and others
will be dealt with elsewhere, while such major questions as the
contribution of ecstatic Kabbalah to the shaping of Hasidic mysticism
4. Survey of Research
Scholars had already addressed themselves to Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah by the middle of the nineteenth century, when Moritz
Landauer described the work of this Kabbalist first based upon the
manuscripts available in the Munich Library. 8 Unfortunately, Landauer's distinction as the pioneering scholar of Kabbalistic manuscripts did not assist him when he carne to describe the spiritual
configuration of Abulafia's Kabbalah. Because he was convinced that
Abulafia was the author of Sefer ha-Zohar, he arrived at a totally
misguided picture ot' his thought, in those few cases where he
attempted to do so. In the second half of the nineteenth century, we
find general remarks concerning the life and works of Abulafia-but
not an analysis of his system-in the major works of Heinrich
Graetz, 9 Moritz Steinschneider, 10 and Adolph Jellinek.l 1 The latter in
particular devoted several studies to Abulafia' s thought, some of
which he published. His most important contribution was in the
separation of Sefer ha-Zohar from the sphere of the ecstatic Kabbalah
and its attribution to R. Moses de Leon. 12 Research was henceforth
free to address itself to the clarification of Abulafia' s system on the
basis of authentic documents.
At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth
century, writers in Kabbalah reiterated the theories of their predecessors, including Landauer's erroneous view that Abulafia was the
author of Sefer ha-Zohar. 13 Significant progress in this respect was not
made during that generation until the beginnings of Scholern's
research. In a series of studies of ecstatic Kabbalah, 14 as well as an
entire chapter devoted to Abulafia in his comprehensive work, Major
Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 15 Scholern expanded, corrected, and
improved upon the bio-bibliographical descriptions of his predecessors. But Scholern's major contribution was in the primary analysis
of Abulafia's Kabbalistic thought and the determination of his place
as one of the important creators of Kabbalistic literature. However,
despite Scholern's major accomplishments in removing scho~arly
errors and the reconstruction of Abulafia's ecstatic mystical system
itself, Abulafia's Kabbalah was not included in a long series of
phenomenologically oriented works, many of which were presented
at the discussions of scholars of religion at Ascona. 16 Thus, for
example, ecstatic Kabbalah is completely absent from Scholern's
discussions concerning devequt, the significance of the Torah in
Introduction
Introduction
commandments of Judaism.
Another significant and striking difference between ecstatic
Kabbalah and the theosophical-theurgic is manifested in their
respective exegetical approaches. While that of Abraham Abulafia is
filled with uses of numerology and plays on lettersgematria, notriqon, and letter-combinations (I,erufe otiot)-as may be
seen from his commentaries, the main bulk of Spanish Kabbalistic
exegesis is essentially symbolic, and only in passing do they make
use of the methods favored by Abulafia. In using these methods, this
ecstatic Kabbalist followed in the footsteps of the Ashkenazic
Hasidim, as he also did in his mystical techniques based upon
letter-combinations and pronunciations. 20
Another difference between these two branches of Kabbalah is
to be found in their relationship towards the community or the public.
Abulafia, more than any other Kabbalist who preceded him, stressed
the need for isolation in order to achieve prophetic ecstasy. This
elevation of the ideal of separation or withdrawal from society in
order to attain religious perfection developed simultaneous with the
emphasis in theurgic Kabbalah upon the communal religious service
within a community of mystics, as expressed in Sefer ha-Zohar. This
school turned towards the fuwurah, the mystical confraternity, the
combined force of whose members is able to repair the Divine world,
and through that world the entire cosmos.
Finally, an interesting difference which does not pertain directly
to the different Kabbalistic systems, but to the biographies of their
leading figures: namely, that the vast majority of the works of the
ecstatic Kabbalah were written by itinerant Kabbalists. This was the
case with Abulafia; this was also, apparently, the fate of Sa'are Z.edeq,
by his own testimony, and of R. Isaac of Acre. By contrast, through
the 1280's we do not know of any Kabbalists who contributed to the
formation of the theosophical-theurgic Kabbalah whose lives were
uprooted. At most, one hears of a move from Catalonia to Provence
and back again, or visits to the various cities of Castile, but not of
migration from one continent to another. Many of the Spanish
Kabbalists-such as Nahmanides, ibn Adret, and R. Todros Abulafia
-resided permanently in the major cities and constituted the
religious establishment. On the other hand, the ecstatic Kabbalists
found difficulty in striking roots in any one place, but tended to
wander about without being subject to any system of authority for
any extended period of time. If we add to this the tension that grew
up between Abulafia, the spokesman of the ecstatic Kabbalah, and
R. Solomon ibn Adret, who was among the major representatives of
the theosophical-theurgic Kabbalah, we may conclude by saying that
10
Notes to Introduction
1. Sem ha-Gedolim, Ma'areJs.et Sefarim, VIII, sec. 76.
2. I intend to devote a lengthy discussion elsewhere to the details of the
polemic between Abulafia and Ibn Adret, one of the main records of which
is found in this responsum of the latter.
3. See Chap. 12, fol. 31b. In practice, Yasar of Candia copied the attack
of R. Judah Hayyat, found in the introduction to his Commentary to Ma'areJs.et
ha-Elohut (Mantua, 1558), fol. 3b of the introduction. It is astonishing that a
person as expert in Kabbalistic literature as R. Azulai saw fit to mention
Yasar's copy of this attack rather than the original, cited here explicitly at the
end of Chap. 11.
4. The most important sources for Abulafia' s life were published by
Jellinek, Bet ha-Midras, III, pp. xl-xlii, and !del, "Abraham Abulafia and the Pope."
See also idem., "Maimonides and the Kabbalah," on Abulafia as teacher of the
Guide of the Perplexed (in press).
5. For a full listing of Abulafia's original works-both those that have
been preserved and those that were destroyed-and the material ascribed to
him or belonging to his circle, see Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 3-85.
6. On this subject see Ide!, "Ecstatic Kabbalah and the Land of Israel,"
in Studies, essay VI.
7. See Ide!, "Perceptions of Kabbalah."
8. M. Landauer, Literaturblatt des Orients, vol. 6 (1845), pp. 380-383,
417-422, 471-475, 488-492, 507-510, 525-528, 556-558, 570-574, 588-592,
747-750.
9. Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1956), IV: 4-40; idem.,
"Abraham Abulafia, der Pseudomessias," MGWJ 36 (1887), pp. 557-558.
10. For the places of publication of his edition of Sefer ha-6t and the
epistles, and for We-zot li-Yehudah and Seva' Netivot ha-Torah, see the list of
abbreviations, p. 234.
Introduction
11
11. See, for example, Hebriiische Bibliographie 4 (1861), pp. 71-79, and his
numerous footnotes to the descriptions of the manuscripts in the Munich
Library.
12. See A. Jellinek, Moses ben Schem-Tob de Leon und sein Verhiiltniss zum
12
Chapter One
14
15
16
cleansed themselves of all impurity, and fasted and bathed themselves and became pure, and they used the names and gazed at the
Hefs:alot." 8 In Rashi's opinion, the ascent to heaven signifying the
entry into Pardes was performed "by means of a name." 9
Similar testimony appears among the Ashkenazic Hasidim; Sefer
ha-Ffayyim, attributed to R. Abraham ibn Ezra, presents an interesting
description reflecting the widespread use of Names:
A vision (mareh) occurs when a man is awake and reflects upon the
wonders of God, or when he does not reflect upon them, but
pronounces the Holy Names or those of the angels, in order that
he be shown [whatever] he wishes or be informed of a hidden
matter-and the Holy Spirit then reveals itself to him, and he knows
that he is a worm and that his flesh is like a garment, and he trembles
and shakes from the power of the Holy Spirit, and is unable to stand
it. Then that man stands up like one who is faint, and does not know
where he is standing, nor does he see or hear or feel his body, but
his soul sees and hears-and this is called vision and sight, and this
is the matter of most prophecy.lO
The disputant of the anonymous author of Sefer ha-I;Iayyim, R.
Moses Taku (ca. 1235), describes a similar technique in a surviving
fragment of his book, Ketav Tammim:
And two of those who were lacking in knowledge [among] the
schismatics [thought] to make themselves prophets, and they were
accustomed to recite Holy Names, and at times performed kawwanot
during this recitation, and the soul was astounded, and the body
fell down and was exhausted. but for such as these there is no barrier
to the soul, and the soul becomes the principle thing [in their
constitution] and sees afar; [but] after one hour, when the power
of that Name which had been mentioned departs, he returns to
what he was, with a confused mind,ll
The last two passages corroborate one another: during the
procedures of reciting the Names, the body trembles violently, freeing
the soul from its dependence upon the senses and creating a new
form of consciousness. The process is in both cases compared to
prophecy; one should note that prophecy is also mentioned, in a
similar context, in R. Hai Gaon's previously quoted words: "similar
to a prophetic vision."
R. Eleazar of Worms (ca. 1165-ca. 1230, the Roqea[l), a
contemporary of the above-mentioned anonymous author of Sefer
ha-I;Iayyim, also knew the technique of recitation of the Names of
17
18
19
20
21
From this passage, as well as from the one cited above from O?:ar
<Eden Ganuz, we learn that one must combine the letters of a given
Name, and then combine them in turn with the combinations of the
letters of another Name. This activity is referred to by Abulafia by the
term Ma<aseh Merkavah, i,e., the act of combining [harkavah] the letters
of one Name in another, which brings about the receiving of
metaphysical knowledge, i.e., the standard meaning of Ma<aseh
Merkavah in Abulafian Kabbalah. ln Sefer ha-6t, p. 75, we read:
One who concentrates upon the Ineffable Name which is combined
in twelve ways-six of them inverted-which causes the grandeur
of Israel, shall rejoice in it, and the joy and happiness and gladness
will combine in the heart of each one who seeks the Name, in the
Name Yh'whdyhnwh Eloha El Sadday YHWH ~ewaot.
22
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23
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24
with every number, one will find the units on the left side, and the
tens, which are like units, on the right side." 40 It seems unlikely to
assume that Abulafia based his system in lf.ayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba upon
circles of nine letters by mere chance, without any relation to the
above quotation from Ibn Ezra's commentary. 41 As was the case in
the adaptation of R. Eleazar of Worms' system of combination to the
Sephardic system of grammar, here Abulafia incorporated the idea
of the nine-letter number into a circle with the seventy-two letter
Name. It is worth mentioning that the nine letters within a circle
reappear in Abulafia' s Sefer ha-Haft.arah, 42 where they appear within
the circle of the letters of the forty-two letter Name, while preserving
the number nine. We should also note that the use of concentric
circles in order to combine the letters of various Divine Names
likewise appears in other works of Abulafia, such as Imre Sefer43 and
Gan Na'ul. 44 It is also interesting to note that circles including Divine
Names appear in Islam as well, as one learns from a study by G.
Anawati, 45 although I have not yet found significant points of contact
between the use of the circle in Abulafia and in the Arabic sources.
A. Breathing
Any technique in which the pronunciation of letters occupies a
central place must attach importance to proper principles of
breathing. Discussions of breathing appear in Yoga, in Sufism and
in Hesychasm, albeit with different emphases. 46 Abulafia's writings
contain brief statements about and allusions to a technique of
breathing to be practiced by one who pronounces the Ineffable Name.
We shall attempt here to analyze the fragmentary material which has
come down to us. The most significant of these passages appears in
Maftea~ ha-Semot,47 where it states:
.
One must take each one of the letters [of the TetragrammatonJ and
wave it with the movements of his long breath (!) so that one does
not breathe between two letters, but rather one long breath, for
however long he can stand it, and afterwards rest for the length of
one breath. He shall do the same with each and every letter, until
25
there will be two breaths in each letter: one for pausing when he
enunciates the vowel of each letter, and one for resting between
each letter. It is known to all that every single breath of one's nostrils
is composed of taking in of the air from outside, that is, mi-ba"r
le-ga"w [from outside to inside], whose secrets allude to the attribute
of Gevurah and its nature, by which a man is known as gibbor
[mighty]-that is, the word ga"w ba"r [a rearrangement of the
consonants of the word gibbor]-for his strength by which he
conquers his Urge. 48 As in the secret of abg yt~ qr' stn with ygl pzq sqw
~t, 49 composed of the emission of breath from within to outside,
and this second composition is from g"w to b"r.
This passage combines together two significant elements: the
technical description of breathing, and the theoretical discussion of
the meaning of breathing. The technical aspect includes three
different elements, comprising one unit: 1) the intake of air, namely,
breathing; 2) the emission of air while pronouncing the letter and its
vowel; 3) the pause between one breath and the next. In his epistle
Seva' Netivot ha-Torah, p. 7, Abulafia refers to "the secret of the Name
and the vocalization of some of its letters, their knowledge, and the
resting breath, the interrupting [breath] and the extending [breath]."
Comparison of the three terms used in Sefer Maftea!z ha-Semot indicates
that the resting breath is parallel to the phrase, "he shall rest for the
length of one breath"; the extending breath parallels the intake of air
before pronouncing a letter, "so that he not breathe between two
letters, but takes one long breath, as much as he is able to stand in
length"; while the interrupting breath is parallel to the emission of
air which accompanies the pronunciation of the letter, "one for
pausing, as at the time of pronouncing the vowel of that letter."
Abulafia refers to three breaths elsewhere as well, 50 but only for
purposes of gematria, without any technical interpretation likely to
assist in the understanding of his approach.
The division of the breathing process into three stages is not
new; it already appears in Yoga, in which the process of breathing is
divided into puraka, the intake of breath; recaka, the emission of
breath; and kumbhaka, the retention of air. 51 True, there is no exact
parallel between the retention of breath in Yoga, whose aim is to use
up the oxygen present in the air one breathes by means of slight
physical effort, to the state of rest mentioned by Abulafia, which
follows the emission of breath. It may be that the word 'halt,' which
re!e.rs to the holding of the air in order to pronounce the letter of the
DIVme Name', is a parallel to the halt practiced in Yoga, but we cannot
state this with any certainty. 52 In both systems, one arrives at an
extremely slow pace of breathing, which is a goal in and of itself in
26
As we have seen, one ought to extend both the breath and its
emission. The same is not true, however, for the pause between
breaths; Maftea!z ha-Semot speaks of the pause as equalling the length
of one breath, while in Or ha-SeJs.el there is a slight variation: 55
Do not separate between one breath and the breath of the letter, but
cling to it, whether one long breath or a short one .... But between
the letter of the Name and the Aleph, in the direct ones, or between
the Aleph and the letter of the Name, in the inverted ones,56 you
may take two breaths-no more-without pronouncing anything.
At the end of each column, you may take five breaths, and no more,
but you may also breathe less than five breaths.
27
overcome his evil Urge. For this reason, man pronounces the Name
of forty-two letters60 incorporating the expression qera< satan ["cut off
Satan"] which corresponds, in my opinion, to "conquering his Urge."
The ability to overcome corporeality, tantamount to the Evil Urge and
to Satan, by means of breathing is likewise alluded to in another
formulation from lfayye ha-<olam ha-Ba:
And you may yet again, if you wish, breathe three breaths which
are one.... And immediately the Satan will die, for they were
enemies to the perceptions which are in the blood of man, and the
blood is the animal [attribute]. But the secret of the one breath is
Sadday-[i.e.,] Sin Dalet Yod-and that is the second seal ... which
killed the demons with the seal of the Messiah, which kills the evil
blood, and also kills the evil attribute, so it immediately dies by the
hand by the strength of those three breaths. 61
The function of the three breaths which are one is that, as they
constitute one unit connected with the pronunciation of one letter,
they may destroy or murder the Satan and the imagination, i.e., the
adverse perceptions inherent in the blood of man, in the evil blood,
etc. On the other hand, the breath is the means of strengthening the
spiritual element in man: the "precious hand," Sadday, the seal of
Messiah. 62 Elsewhere in the same work, Abulafia writes about:
... eighteen breaths, which will add to you years of life, which are
the life [in gematria: 18] of the soul, from the two creatures in which
there is the life of the soul. And there are in you two nostrils in which
they are mingled, and understand this, for they are the nostrils of
the soul, whose secret is the two cherubim, and they are two chariots
which force the Shekhinah to dwell on earth and to speak with
man.63
28
29
After you begin to pronounce the letter, begin to move your heart
and head: your heart by your intellection, because it is an inner
[organ], and your head itself, because it is external. And move your
head in the form of the vowel [-point] of the letter which you are
pronouncing. This is the manner of the form of the motion: know
that the vocalization which is above is called If.olam, and that alone
is marked above the letter, but the other four vowel sounds are
below the letter. And that [vowel] which is above the letter Aleph,
which you pronounce with the letter Kaf or Qof: do not in the
beginning incline your head either to the right or the left, nor below
or above at all, but let your head be set evenly, as if it were in a scale
[i.e., balanced], in the manner in which you would speak with
another person of the same height as yourself, face to face. Thus,
when you extend the vowel of the letter in its pronunciation, move
your head up towards the heavens, and close your eyes and open
your mouth and let your words shine,77 and clear your throat of all
spittle so that it not interfere with the pronunciation of the letter in
your mouth, and in accord with the length of your breath shall be
the upper movement, until you interrupt the breathing together
with the movement of your head. And if after uttering [the letter]
there is a moment left to complete the breath, do not lower your
head until you complete everything.
As one can clearly see, the head motions are simply attempts to
~mitate the written form of the vowel sounds, an attempt repeated
In the use of music, where the vocalization is transformed into
musical notes, as we shall see in the next chapter.
C. The Hands
30
31
32
33
34
your thought shall perform much. From Rabbi Tanhum. " 94 The
expression, "your mind shall perform much," and the end of the
previous passage from Me,irat 'Enayim, suggest an explicitly magical
direction, conveying a technique, the main element of which is the
attainment of cleaving to God (devequt). 95 It may be that R. Isaac of
Acre combined Abulafia' s teaching with a magical understanding of
the imagining of the letters of God's Name which also was practiced
in the thirteenth century.
In conclusion, it is worthwhile citing a few comments concerning
the imagining of the letters from MS. Sasson 290, p, 648:
You may picture the Ineffable Name like the white flame of the
candle, in absolute whiteness, and the light in your looking at the
candle, and even when there is no candle, remember the flame, and
there you may see and look at the light, from the pure white light.
And one must always imagine that you are a soul without a body,
and the soul is the light, and you are always within the
above-mentioned flames, by way of the pure clouds. And strive to
be pure and full, and if it is daytime wearing I:ii:it and tefillin and the
ring upon your finger, and at night as well the ring upon your finger.
And be accustomed to cleanliness in that house where you stand in
the sanctuary of God, within His precious, holy and pure names.
35
[lamed], and imagine as if you are gazing at your belly, and do not
breath between pronouncing the place of your organ and pronouncing that letter which rules over that organ. 98
36
and the belly [is created of] water, corresponding to s'd [corresponding to] water, and the torso, created from the wind, corresponding
to tm"d [corresponding to] wind_l02
37
There is no doubt that this refers to the head, the torso and the
belly, with the help of a slightly different classification: (a) the head;
(b) the first [qama; the correct reading may be qomah-stature]; (c)
end. As in lfayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, the letters of the Name of
seventy-two letters, which are pronounced over the organs of the
body, are here mentioned in order to create the homunculus, while
while in lf.ayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, "in order to change nature," namely
the spiritual nature of man-his psyche. It is worth mentioning that
this technique incorporates two different planes of activity: the letters
must be pronounced while one envisions in one's mind the place
which they influence.
The magical character of this technique is manifested in R. Judah
Albotini's Sullam ha-'Aliyah. Here the author copies almost word for
word, the relevant passages from the two major works by Abulafia,
Or ha-Sefiel and lf.ayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba. 106 Prior to describing the
above-mentioned technique, the author writes: 107
... that the angels were created and all creatures were made from
the twenty-two letters and their combinations and their permutations, and as fire by nature warms, and water cools, so do the letters
by their nature create all sorts of creatures, and [fulfill] the requests
of those who mention them with wisdom and knowledge. Of this
our sages said108 that Bezalel knew how to combine the letters with
which heaven and earth were created. Likewise, the other prophets
and pious men in each generation, by means of the combination and
permutation of letters and their movements, used to perform
miracles and wonders and turn about the order of Creation, such
as we find it explained in our Talmud109 that Rabba created a man
and sent him to R. Zeira.
38
Elsewhere, he writes:
Be prepared for thy God, o Israelite! Make thyself ready to direct thy
heart to God alone. Cleanse the body and choose a lonely house
where none shall hear thy voice. Sit there in thy closet and do not
reveal thy secret to any man. If thou canst, do it by day in the house,
but it is best if thou completest it during the night. In the hour when
thou preparest thyself to speak with the Creator and thou wishest
Him to reveal His might to thee, then be careful to abstract all thy
thought from the vanities of the world. 111
39
40
The point here is that, after one utters the twenty -four Names
(symbolized by the gematria of the word dOdi), each of which consists
of three letters, it is possible to reach contact with the archangel
Metatron. This intense increase in the level of mental activity at the
time of pronunciation places the Abulafian experience under the
category of "intense ecstasy," to use the terminology of Marganit
Laski. 125 One does not find in Abulafia experiences of contemplative
mysticism which are continued over a long period of time. Instead,
his approach is intense; for this reason, the duration of the experience
is also limited, as it is impossible for the mind to function on such
an intensive level over a long period of time. Abulafia' s system directs
one towards short bursts into Eternal Life, followed by a rapid return
to the life of this world. For this reason, the above-mentioned
approach, in which Abulafia's technique is seen as a means of
bringing about a state of auto-hypnosis, seems difficult to accept. 126
The decrease in the level of bodily and mental activity characteristic
of the hypnotic state is absent in Abulafia. In his opinion:
41
42
Bate Midrasot I, 92, with minor corrections based upon the text in Bet
ha-Midras, III, ed. Jellinek (Chap. 14); cf. Schafer, Synopse, pp. 88-89, par.
204-205. On the Divine Names mentioned in this passage, see Scholem, Major
Trends, p. 56 and p. 363, nn. 57-58.
2. S. Mussaioff, Merkavah Selemah (Jerusalem, 1921), fol. 4b; on the
parallelism between this passage and the previous one, see the note by
Wertheimer, Bate Midrasot I, 92, n. 75.
3. Printed in Ta'am Zeqenim (Frankfort a. M., 1855), p. 54 ff. The version
cited here appears in R. Judah al-Barceloni's Perus Sefer Ye~irah (Berlin, 1885),
p. 104. See also B. Levin, O~ar ha-Geonim IV, Responsa, p. 17; idem., I, 20, n.
1; MS. New York - JTS 1805 (Enelow Collection, 712) fol. 41a.
4. Levin, O~ar ha-Geonim IV, Responsa, p. 14; Scholem, Major Trends, pp.
49-50. n. 33-35. Jellinek thinks that this reflects Sufi influence, but he has not
given his reasons for this statement. See Beitriige, no. 22, p. 15. See now also
Idel, Kabbalah-New Perspectives, pp. 89-91.
5. G. Vajda, "Etudes sur Qirqisani," REf, vol. 106 (1941-45), p. 107, n. 2.
6. 'Aru!_ ha-Salem vol. 1, p. 14.
7. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, p. 54.
8. See his commentary on lfagiggah, fol. 14b.
9. Rashi on lfagiggah 14b. Compare the aggadah cited in Yalqut Sim'oni to
Genesis, sec. 44.
10. MS. Cambridge Add. 643, fol. l9a; MS. Oxford 1574, fol. 34b; MS.
Vatican 431, fol. 39a. This passage is quoted in the name of Ibn Ezra-with
slight changes-in Sefer Ketav Tammim of R. Moses Taku, 6~ar Ne~mad, III,
p. 85, which matches the version found in MS. British Library 756, fol.
170b-l71a. On this work, see Dan, Esoteric Theology, pp. 143ft.
11. 6~ar Ne~mad III, 84. See M. Guedemann, ha-Torah weha-lfayyzm
be-~arfat uve-Askenaz pp. 123-124, and Scholem, Major
be-yemey ha-Benayim
Trends, pp. 102-103.
12. MS. Oxford 1812, fol. 55b. On this work, see Dan, Studzes, pp. 44-57;
idem, "The Ashkenazi Hasidic Gates of Wisdom," in Hommage a Georges Vajda,
43
And now I shall point out what the three times YHWH refers. Know that
there are two [kinds] of comprehension which one may comprehend of
Him, may He be blessed. The first is that He exists: this comprehension is
the one spoken of when they say that we may understand God through His
deeds, for it is impossible without there being a first cause. The second is
that, even though we have not yet reached it, we are confident that in the
future awesome things are to be generated, from which we may recognize
the rank [ma'alah] of the cause which generated them, on a level greater than
that which we know now, in what has been generated in the act of Creation.
And albeit that this comprehension is greater than the former one, the
common element of both is that through His actions one knows the Active
Agent. But these comprehensions differ in that the former is a comprehension of his existence, and the latter is comprehension of his rank. But there
is yet a third [kmd of] comprehension, with which created beings are not
involved at all, and this is the comprehension of the essence, which is hidden
from' all beings but God alone, who alone comprehends His essence, and
none other. And these three comprehensions are alluded to in the verse,
"God h;ts reigned, God does reign, God w1ll reign forever and ever."
The awesome deeds referred to here are evidently parallel to Ibn Latif's
44
remarks concerning the Divine will, on the one hand, and the miracles and
wonders performed by means of the supernal will, in the quotation below
from R. Moses of Burgos, on the other hand.
19. For Ibn Gabirol's influence on Ibn Latif in the identification of 'will'
and 'speech,' seeS. 0. Heller-Wilenski, "The Problem of the Authorship of
the Treatise Sa'ar ha-Samayim, Ascribed to Abraham Ibn Ezra" (Heb.), Tarbi~,
vol. 32 (1963), pp. 290-291, and n. 74.
20. See Scholem, Les Origines, p. 356.
21. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. l49a. On "Torah, Wisdom and Prophecy," see
also below, Chap. 4, n. 34.
22. The reference is to R. Ishmael, R. Nehunyah ben ha-Kanah and R.
Akiba, "who are among the great ones of Israel among the authors, such as
Pirqe Hef5!llot, Sefer ha-Bahir and Otiyot de-Rabbi 'Aqiva," as Abulafia explains
below, in fol. 148a.
23. Perus Sem- ben M"B Otiyot, printed by Scholem in Tarbi~, vol. 5 (1934),
p. 56.
24. See the chapter devoted to this subject in Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp.
133ff.
25. Sitre Torah, MS. Paris- BN 774, fol. l56a; Sefer ha-6t, pp. 80-81.
26. Sitre Torah, ibid., fol. 157b. The verbs "combine" and "be purified" are
different forms of the root ~rf.
27. Maftea~ ha-Ra'ayon, MS. Vatican 291, fol. 21a.
28. See the chapter on language in Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 143-146.
29. 6~ar 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 161a.
30. MS. Jerusalem 8 148, fol. 63b.
31. Liqqutei lfami~, MS. Oxford 2239, fol. 113a.
32. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 706b.
33. Perus Sir ha-Sirim, MS. Oxford 343, fol. 49a.
34. MS. Miinchen 408, fols. 65a-65b, also published in Sefer ha- Peli'ah,
fol. 35b. On the dialogic element in Abulafia's mystical experience, see below,
chap. 3.
35. On Ma'aseh Merkavah= sem be-sem= 682, see Idel, Abraham Abulafia,
pp. 179-181.
36. Or ha-SeJsel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 95a, copied in Pardes Rimmonim, fol.
92c, under the title Sefer ha-Niqqud. Compare, against this, the table appearing
in Ner Elohim, MS. Miinchen 10, fol. 149a-149b and 150b, which differs in a
number of respects from that in Or ha-SeJs.el. A specimen of the table of
45
ha-Sekel.
For similar phenomena of combinations of vowels in ancient pagan magic
seeP. C. Miller "In Praise of Nonsense" in Classical Mediterranean Spirituality
ed. A. H. Armstrong (New York, 1986) pp. 482-499.
37. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 97a.
38. 'Eser Hawayot, MS, Miinchen 43, fol. 219a, as well as in several
passages in Sefer ha-Sem. The section was copied from the works of R. Eleazar
in Min!zat Yehudah by R. Judah I:Iayyat (Ma'are's!t ha-Elohut, fol. 197b) and from
there to Pardes Rimmonim, fol. 92b. The expression, "the book of the structures
[ma'arafiot] of the living God" is an allusion to Ma'are's!t ha-Elohut, R. Moses
Cordovero substituting the author for its commentary. The first Spanish
Kabbalist to use an Ashkenazic system in his books was R. David b. Judah
he-Hasid, in Matt Mar'ot ha-?_ov'ot, p. 95. This source was also known toR.
Moses Cordovero, who mentions him as "the author of Sefer 6r Zaru'a,"
which, as is known, is the work of R. David. Compare Pardes Rimmonim, fol.
93b with the citation given in Mar'ot ha-?_ov'ot. R. David's contemporary, R.
Menahem Recanati, also alludes to this system in his Perus la-Torah,
Gerusalem, 1961) fol. 49b.
39. See the chapter on language in Idel, Abraham Abulafia, sec. 3 and n.
31. Abulafia based the use of the word notariqon upon widespread knowledge
in his circle. See MS. Berlin - Tiibingen Or. 941, fol. 88a, which contains a
text very similar to pt. 3 of Ginnat Egoz, in which the word notariqon appears
with the vocalization of five different vowels.
40. On Exodus 3:15.
41. M. Steinschneider (Hebriiische Bibliographie, val. 21, p. 35) alludes to
the possibility of the influence of ha-'Agulot ha-Ra'ayoniot on the technique of
circles in ljayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba. However, it is difficult to substantiate such
an assumption in light of the fact that Abulafia does not at all mention
ha-'Agulot ha Ra'ayoniot, despite the fact that this was a widespread work
among the Jews.
42. MS. Rome - Angelica 38, fol. 38b; MS. Miinchen 285, f. 30a.
43. MS. Miinchen 285 fol. 102a.
44. MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 320a.
45. George Anawati, "le nom supreme de Dieu," Etudes de philosophie
46
-Aleph.
57. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 54b: "And between each letter you are allowed
to wait aad to prepare yourself and breathe for the duration of three breaths
of the breaths of pronunciation."
58. The sentence "but he is not allowed ... together" appears twice; I
have eliminated the repetition.
59. Maftea[l ha-Semot MS. New York, JTS 1897, fol. 87a. It is worth noting
that, despite the difficulty in uttering letters while breathing, such an
instruction does appear among the Sufis, who make use of a 'technique
combining pronouncing while breathing and emitting air. See AnawatiGardet, Mystique musulmane (Paris, 1961), pp. 208--209.
60. In Sephirotic Kabbalah, the forty-two letter Name serves as a symbol
for the attribute of Gevurah-the Sefirah of rigor.
47
62. G' nesimot (three breaths) , 814, nesimah a~at, ha-sa(an yamut -mas(inot
(one breath; Satan will die; enemies) > ha- hasagot be-dam ha-adam (the
comprehension in the blood of man) >sin dalet yod (the letters of Sadday written
out in full) >~otam seni (the second seal) >hemit ha-sedim (killed the demons)
, ba-~otam masia~ (with the seal of Messiah) >memit ha-dam ha-ra' (kills the bad
blood) >memit middah ra' ah (kills the bad attribute) > met mi-yad yeqarah (dies
of a dear hand). There may be a connection between the positive valuation
of breathing as a means of strengthening the spiritual element, and the idea
of the Orphic poets, quoted and rejected by Aristotle in De Anima 410b, 28,
that the soul is drawn in by breathing.
v
63. MS. Oxford 1582, fols. 54b-55a. Y"H nesimot (18 breaths) >824 >senot
(years of life) > ~yye nesamot (life of the soul) > meis~nney ~ayut (the
changers of vitality) >~ayut ha-nesamah (vitality of the soul). Sene ne~irim (two
nostrils) > 678 > 'aravot > ne~ire nesamah (nostrils of the soul) >senaim keruvim
(two cherubs)> seney murkavim (two compounded) >mak_ri~e ha-Sek_inah (those
who force the Shekhinah). See also MS. Jerusalem go 1303 fol. 55b.
~ayyim
As it is said [Gen. 2:7], "And he breathed into their nostrils the breath of
life," and one who weighs the letters must contemplate the secret of the
recitation of the names, with the hidden breaths sealed by all the wisdoms,
and in them he shall live after death.
And with the unique Name [there are]letters created and revealed miracles
performed in the world ... for with His Name He spoke and the world
was, and there is no chance in his words, but through them he splits the Sea
and the Jordan.
68. The, concluding poem of Ifayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, MS. Oxford 1582, fol.
48
71. Maftea!z ha-Semot, MS. New York JTS 1897, fol. 87a. Compare also Or
ha-Se!_el, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 77b.
72. Sa'ar ha-Yir' ah, Chap. 10. The section is also quoted in Midras Talpiyot
of R. Elijah ha-Kohen, fol. 15b.
73. Deuteromomy 8:3.
74. The division of the hour into 1080 seconds, as well as the 1080
combinations, also appears in Abulafia, but he does not draw any connection
between them in his known works, no doubt because no connection of this
type exists in actuality. See: IS Adam, MS. Rome- Angelica 38, fol. Sa; Perus
Sefer Ye~irah, MS. Paris 774, fol. 60a; O~ar Gan 'Eden, MS. Oxford 1580, fol.
40b; and many other places. See also the introduction to Or Yaqar, printed
in R. Abraham Azulai's Or ha-lfamah (Bene Barak, 1973), III, fol. 44c sec, 73
on Bamidbar.
75. Sa'ar Pirte ha-Semot, Chaps. 1-2; as is well known, R. Moses
Cordovero was the teacher of R. Elijah de Vidas.
76. MS. Oxford 1582, fols. 54a-54b, printed by Scholem, Abulafia, p. 23.
77. Bera!_ot, fol, 22a.
78. MS. Vatican 233, fols. llOa-llOb; Scholem, Abulafia, p. 226. See also
J. L. Blau, The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance (New York,
1965), p. 69, n. 12.
79. MS. New York JTS 1801, fols. 9a-b; MS. British Library 749, fol. 12a-b,
with omissions. See also Ner Elohim, MS. Miinchen 10, fol. 166b.
80. Psalms 141:2.
81. (Wien, 1860), p. 32. In the printed version the word magi'ot appears
there, which I have corrected in accordance with the meaning here. Here, it
refers to the letters of the Ineffable Name, which move the letters of Alef
Bet, an idea which appears already in Kuzari IV:25, and was already known
among the Kabbalists of Gerona, and afterwards by R. Joseph of Hamadan.
82. See Ibn Ezra's commentary to Exodus 3:15, which is also cited in the
section on circles, below, Chap. 3.
83. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 52a.
84. Ibid, fols. 57b-58a. On the connection between closing one's eyes
and the use of mystical technique, see Idel, "Hitbodedut as Concentration,"
Studies, essay VII, Appendix A.
85. Printed by Gershom Scholem, from the commentary of R. Joseph
Ashkenazi to Parasat Beresit, in his article, "The True Author of the
49
Commentary to Sefer Ye~_irah attributed to the Rabad and his Works" (Heb.),
Qiryat Sefer 4 (1927-28), p. 299; see also Scholem's remarks, ibid., n. 2;
Hallamish, Kabbalistic Commentary, p. 223.
86. Sefer Ye3_irah I:9.
87. Compare Genesis Rabbah 17:5, ed. Theodor-Albeck p. 156.
88. The problem of the contemplation of colors and lights in Kabbalah
will be discussed in a separate work, in which I shall analyze this passage
from R. Joseph from other aspects. Abulafia does not mention colors at all
in his works, while elsewhere, in the epistle We-Zot li-Yehudah, p. 16, Abulafia
criticizes the contemplation of lights as being of a lower type of Kabbalah
than that which he advocates. See also the quotation alluded to below, p. 00.
89. Ed. Goldreich, p. 217; see also Gottlieb, Studies, p. 235.
90. Deuteronomy 11:22.
91. Deut. 10:20.
92. Deut. 4:4.
93. Ed. Goldreich, p. 89.
94. MS. Paris- Seminaire Israelite de France 108, fol. 95a, and compare
MS. Oxford 1943 and 15. British Library 768, fols. 190b-191a, and ibid., 771/2.
MS. Paris 108 contains sections from both Me'irat 'Enayim (see fol. 92a) and
an anonymous work of Abulafia (fol. 82a-89a). The forming of the letters of
the Name with colors, while connecting matter to Sefirot, appears as well in
MS. Sasson 919, p. 229, which also includes materialfrom the circle ofR. Isaac
of Acre.
95. There is no doubt that R. Isaac of Acre's remarks were influenced by
Maimonides' understanding of providence in Guide, III:51, albeit his
intellectual approach was given a magical significance.
96. The circle used by Abulafia in his technique turns afterwards into a
subject revealed in his vision.
97. Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi (London,
1970), p. 234, n. 41-42.
98. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 62a.
99. Ibid., fols. 63a-b.
100. Ibid., fol. 12b.
101. Abulafia, p. 170.
102. MS, Oxford 1582, fol. 12b.
103. See Gad Ben-Ami Zarfati, "Introduction to Baraita de-Mazalot"
(Heb.), Bar Ilan; Sefer ha-Sanah 3 (1968), p. 67 and n. 34. This division appears
so
51
When you wish . . . to make your question, turn your heart from all other
involvements, and unify your intentions and your thoughts to enter Pardes.
Sit alone in awe, wrapped in ~allit and with teftllzn on your head, and begin
[to recite] 'Mikhtam for David' [Ps. 16], the entire psalm ... and read them
with their melodies.
Thereafter he should bow on his knees with his face to the east and say as
followg . . . and think of the Name which is written before him, but not utter
it w1th his lips ... and the Name of four letters, which is divided on the the
perfection of the vocalization into th1rty-eight sections, and they are not to
52
I, R. Isaac of Acre, felt in myself a great longing to gaze at the mllui [i.e., the
plene writing of each letter] of the Ineffable Name in all its ways, for I already
knew that the ways of heh and waw four and four, thus, h ha hh hy w ww waw
wyw. But the first one has only one mzluz, thus, ywd. But now guard yourself
and guard your soul lest you read the letters hhwyh, and do not read them,
for whoever pronounces the Name by its letters as they are written has no
portion in the World to Come. See this and ask your soul, but contemplate
them.
Chapter Two
T.
53
54
55
and melody, until its melodic sound is made to be like kinn6r, putting
in motion his soul to the fineness of the melody and its variation.
Then the true pronunciation of the letter is revealed to him,
according to their special natures which function by means of the
variation of melody, in a motion working in his soul. Just as music
affects the [proper] balance 10 of the body, so has this an effect on
the soul by the power of the Name.
56
57
In the above-cited passages, music does not play any part in the
manifestation of 'prophecy', although such a function is among the
most ancient ascribed to it. It fulfills such a role in the Bible, 25 in the
Talmud,26 and in the medievalliterature.27 In the latter period, there
was a widely-held view that music performed a two-fold function:
through its mediation, 'prophecy' descended directly upon the
individual; moreover, it was within the capacity of music to prepare
the intellect, the instrument of 'prophecy', and thereby facilitate its
reception. Medieval authors considered music as an integral part of
their theoretical education and as a means of strengthening their
intellectual powers. Isaac ibn Latif writes: 28 "The science of music is
a propaedeutic one, leading to improvement of the psychological
disposition as well as to understanding of some of the higher
intellectual principles." On the other hand, Solomon ibn Adret
writes: 29
With the increase in joy, the intellectual power which resides in the
soul is fortified and is better prepared to grasp the intelligibles, as
was the case with Elisha, "bring me a minstrel." As our Sages of
Blessed Memory taught,30 "The Shekhinah does not dwell as a result
of inaction or sadness, but rather through a joyous thing."
to the soul and lead it to the Holy Spirit, as it is said, "with nevel and
tof and [lalil and kinnor before them, and they shall prophesy"[!
Sam., 10:5], and so also in the matter of Elisha [II Kings 3:15] "but
now bring me a minstrel." You likewise find that in the Eternal
~ouse ~i.e., the Temple] they played and performed upon musical
Instruments. You know their saying, "the most important music
58
59
The High Priest ... knows how to fully direct his concentration on
all inner and outer emanations, in order to exert influence by means
of the secret of the holy Seraphim; his elevation is according to either
his closeness or remoteness, and his power is awakened by the
sweetness of the song and the pure prayer. So do the musicians
direct their fingers, according to their elevation and understanding,
[placing them] on the keyholes of [wind instruments] kinnorot [!]and
[on] strings, arousing the song and the melody to direct their hearts
toward God. Thus the Blessing is aroused and the Shekhinah resides
in them, each one according to his performance and according to his
understanding. 41
60
61
one who knows how to do this, and who directs the letters and
performs the necessary activities, and this is the secret of "He within
Whose dwelling there is Joy." 48 Joy comes only from the joy of
music, and the joy of music comes from the Holy Spirit, as it is
written, "and when the minstrel played, the power of the Lord
came upon him." [II Kings 3:15] Such also was the incident of the
two young French girls in the city of Montpellier 49 in ancient times,
who knew how to perform music, and had pleasant voices, and
excelled in the science of music. They began to recite [Psalms 45:1]:
"to the chief musician upon Sosannim, for the sons of Korah,
Maschil, A Song of Loves." They chanted according to the straight
path, and they fused with the higher [entities], and they were so
absorbed in song that before they finished half the psalm, God
rejoiced at hearing the song from their mouths, as is His way, that
the tune rose upwards, they achieved union, and their souls
ascended to Heaven. 50 See how God rejoices at hearing a tune done
correctly, and how much power there is in good music! As proof,
notice that when the cantor has a good appearance, a pleasant voice,
clear speech, and good melodies, the congregation rejoices with
him, and for this reason the souls, which are sublime, take pleasure.
Souls come from God, and thus God rejoices along with them,
concerning which they say, 51 "making happy God and men."
62
him," [II Kings 3:15] for prophecy does not dwell in him [unless
there is] joy [see Sabbat 30b]. This was already hinted at in two words
appearing at the end of Ecclesiastes [12:13], where he says, "The end
of the matter, all being heard: Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Join yare (fear) with samar
(keep), and you find sir amar (i.e., "say a song"). There ia a hint [of
this] in [Numbers 6:27] "and they shall put my name upon the
children of Israel, and I will bless them" -yare samar, et semi. 53
63
ha-'Aliyyah:
He should continue to play on all sorts of music[al instruments] if
he has such or if he knows how to play on them; if not, he should
make music with his mouth, by means of his voice, [singing] the
verses of praise and out of love for the Torah, in order to gladden
the living soul which is partnered to the speaking, intellectual soul. 64
Music's sphere of influence is the living soul. Its task is to make
this soul happy, so as not to interfere with the proper functioning of
the intellectual soul, or the intellect. 65 This view also appears in Yesod
'Olam, written at the end of the thirteenth century by El.\lanan ben
Abraham Eskira, who belonged to a circle close to the views of Ginnat
Egoz and the Sefer 'Iyyun. There we read:66
When the soul craves for solitude and to regale itself in the luxuries
of the intellect, were it not that Nature stands in its way with a
temptation of images, it would separate itself from the body. For
this reason, the kinnor was struck in front of the altar at the time
that the sacrifice was offered. 67 When the priest entered the Holy
of Holies, which is the solitude, his garment produced sounds from
the thirty-two bells, as it is written, "and his sound shall be heard
when he goeth in unto the holy place ... that he die not"[Ex.
28:35]. It is known to those who speak of the science of music that
music is intermediate between the spiritual and the material, in that
it draws forth the intellect at the time of its imprisonment, as it is
writh;n, "but now bring me a minstrel" [II Kings 3:15], and as it is
written, "awake neve/ and kmnor" [Ps. 57:9]. Nature drags the
intellect, so to speak, to leave the intellectual [world] and to amuse
itself with material things.
In another work written at the same time, Joseph ben Shalom
64
65
66
Kings 2:3 appears in several places. Cf. Pesiqeta de-Rav Kahana (ed. Buber),
chapter 7, fols. 62b-63a, and Buber's notes; also L. Ginzburg. The Legends of
the Jews (Philadelphia, 1946), VI, p. 262, n. 81-83.
17. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 7a. "Can 'eden in gematria equals 'ad naggen, and
gan 'eden in gematria equals 'eved naggen."
18. De Virtutibus, 39, 217; cf. also H.A. Wolfson, Philo (Cambridge,
Mass., 1947), II, p. 29.
19. M.J. Rufus, Studies in Mystical Religion (London, 1919), p. 40.
20. Cf. the material collected by A.J. Hesche!, The Prophets (New York,
1962), p. 341, n. 28-29, and Meyerovitch, Mystique et poesie, pp. 78, 88.
21. Cf. Mekileja on Exodus 18:19; cf. also B. Cohen, Law and Tradition in
Judaism (New York, 1959), p. 24, n. 70.
22. Cf. Dan, Studies p. 179:
It cannot be that the Glory speaks of His Own accord in the same way that
man speaks of his own accord. Take the neve! as an example; the man plays
on it, and the sound is not of the nevel's own accord.
67
The experts in this art call these six notes, in their language, [u]t, mi[!] re fa
solla, and there is another fine note which joins in with them all, together
and equally, and it is the song of [all] songs, "a great sound which did not
cease." It is possible that David of blessed memory alluded to this art with
the seven sounds, firstly, the "sound on the water" to instruct us in the
Name. This art is truly material and spiritual, and therefore it arouses the
perfection of the qualities by which prophecy sets in, as it is written, "But
bring me now a minstrel, and when the minstrel played."
The tenth gate: the musical service in the Temple, vocal and instrumental,
in order to draw hearts towards Blessed God, and to lift the souls to the
supreme world, the spiritual world. This is the issue of the pleasantness of
voice [required] in the synagogues for prayers, qerovot and pzyyutzm, and in
the Temple they had proper command of the science of music.
68
38. In ed. Ferrara and MS. Paris-BN Heb. 745: ha-beten: Scholem suggests
the correction ha-bittuy: the original version may have been a Hebrew
transcription (la'az) of the term notes, such as, ha-noti.
39. For these denominations of high and low pitch, see Adler, HWCM,
index, p. 354 (daq) and p. 82, sentence 2, n. 1 (gas).
40, Ed. Ferrara and G. Scholem read "mitnoseset," but see below the
corresponding passage of Ibn Sahula, and see also the commentary ta'ame
ha-Nequddot we-~uratan in Madda'e ha-Yahadut II (1927), p. 267, 1. 18; we
therefore adopt the correction mitno~e~et.
41. Published in Madda'e ha-Yahadut II (1927), p. 247.
42. Cf. Scholem, Madda'e ha-Yahadut II (1927), p. 169.
43. MS. Oxford 343, fol. 38b. On this work and its relation to the Kabbalah
of the Zohar, cf. G. Scholem, Peraqim be-toledot Sifrut ha-Qabbalah Oerusalem,
1930/31), p. 62. I have omitted the passage dealing with music indicated by
dots, which deals with music from Midras ha-Ne'elam, which Scholem
published there. Cf. also Adler, HWCM pp 172-174.
44. Numbers Rabbah 6:10. Cf. Adler, HWCM pp. 173-174, sentence 1, n. 2.
45. Tenu'ah, (musical) motion; for thP various musical meanings, see
Adler, HWCM index, p. 380 (tenu'ah), p. 376(nu' nu' a); see also Werner-Sonne,
in HUCA 16 (1941), 306, n. 183, and 17 (1942-43), 537.
46. Misnah, Yoma 3:11. The idea that the science of music had originated
with Israel and was then lost also appears in the passage cited above from
Adne Kesef, and also in the important musical discussion of Moses Isserles in
Tarat ha-'Olah, pt. 2, chap. 38: "the science of music which, due to sin, has
been forgotten by us from the day on which the song-service ceased to exist."
Cf. also I. Adler, "Le traite anonyme du manuscrit Hebreu 1037 de Ia
Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris," Yuva/1 (1968), 15-16.
47. Sod ha-Sa/Selet, found in Sodot, MS. Paris - BN 790, fols. 141a-b; cf.
Gottleib, Studies, p. 120, n. 57.
48. The expression "in whose dwelling there is joy" appears twice in
connection with music in Sod Ilan ha-A~ilut, from the circle of Sefer ha-Temunah;
G. Scholem published this small treatise in Qovez 'al Yad (n. s.) 5 (1950); cf.
ibid., pp. 83, 97. There is question that there is a very close connection
between the conception of music found in Sod ha-Sa/Selet and that found
among members of the circle of the Sefer ha-Temunah. I hope to write at length
elsewhere on the conception of music in this circle.
Tarbi~
69
3 (1932), 260.
See also the references to the five stringed kin nor in the Tiqqune Zohar; cf.
Inventory of Jewish Musical Sources, series B, vol. I: Music Subjects in the
Zohar . .. by A. Shiloah and R. Tene Oerusalem, 1977), tiqqun 10 (p. 119, no.
175, 2), tiqqun 12 (p. 121, no. 178, 4 and 11). tiqqun 21 (p. 128, no. 181, 21).
61. The author probably has in mind the equivalence kin nor= 'ud =the
musical instrument par excellence, thus arriving at the equivalence kinnor =
music (cf. the beginning of the preceding note).
62., The last five words of this quotation perhaps refer to names of the
70
65. Averroes wrote on the connection between the animal soul and
sounds in his Epitome of Parva Naturalised. D. Blumberg. (Cambridge, Mass.,
1954), p. 11, ll. 6-9:
The animal soul found in the living being does not deny the action of nature,
but rather rejoices in the colors and sounds which nature produces, for they
exist potentially in the animal soul. . . .
The sensitive soul of Allemanno is the animal soul of Averroes and the
living soul of Sa'are ?:_edeq. It is worth addressing the difference between Sa' are
?:_edeq and Sullam ha-'Aliyah: in the latter book, primarily instrumental music
is discussed, and we may here be encountering the influence of the Sufi
practice of sama', which was based upon instrumental music. Cf. Meyerovitch, Mystique et p6esie, p. 83 ff. and bibliography, as well as F. Rosenthal,
"A Judeo-Arabic work under Sufi Influence," HUCA 15 (1940), pp. 433--48,
esp. pp. 478-469.
66. MS. Moscow - Gunzburg 607, fol. Sa. This passage seems to be an
adaptation from Musare ha-filosofim, I, 18 (8); see Adler, HWCM, p. 148; see
also the emendations of the sequence of this passage in Werner and Sonne,
HUCA 17 (1942-43), p. 515-516 and p. 525 (English translation). For the
connection between music and sacrifices, see Ibn Falaquera' s Sefer ha-Mevaqqes
(based on the music epistle of the I.\1wan al-Safa); cf. Adler, HWCM, p. 165,
sentence 3.
67. The phrase, "the harp was struck in front of the altar" seems to be
based on the Mishnaic phrase "the ~alii (flute) was played in front of the
altar," in 'Ara!5_in 2:3.
68. Ed. Jerusalem, 1965, fol. 31b. It would be superfluous to point out
that the connection between High Priest and ecstasy appears as early Philo,
and from there moved on to Plotinus. It also appears in the Zohar. Cf.
Scholem, Major Trends, p. 378, n. 9.
69. Ed. Koretz, 1784, fol. SOc. In the matter of the number of bells, there
is a clear parallel between Yesod 'Olam and Sefer ha-Peli'ah; the number
thirty-two does not appear in Zeva~im 88b, where thirty-six or seventy-two,
but not thirty-two, bells, are spoken of.
70. The text, still unpublished, is preserved in MS. British Library 749,
71
fol. l5b. Vital himself admits that his conception of prophecy was influenced
by Abulafia whom he quotes (among others) in chapter 4.
71. Hitbodedut: here the meaning is not "solitude" or "isolation," as in
the usual connotations of this term. See M. Steinschneider, MGWJ 32 (1883),
p. 463, n. 8 and Hebriiische Ubersetzungen (Berlin, 1893), p. 74. The
interpretation of hitbodedut as dumbness of the senses also seems plausible
in Pseudo Ibn-Ezra, Sefer ha-'A~amim (London, 1901), p. 13.
72. Mafsitin nafsam: for the meaning of this "withdrawal", see
Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, pp. 61-62, 69.
Chapter Three
74
The connection between mystical experience and related phenomena-such as foretelling the future, magic, and extraordinary
physical sensations and emotional feelings-was well known from
ancient times. 4 During the Middle Ages, these phenomena continued
to be viewed as epi-phenomena of prophetic experiences; Maimonides characterizes all the prophets, with the exception of Moses,
with the phrase that, at the time of prophecy, "his powers would fail;
he would be overcome with dread, and nearly lose his mind." 5
Elsewhere, Maimonides compares the magician to "one who falls
sick," and goes on to offer an explanation of the connection between
prophecy and various physical and psychic phenomena in terms of
the major role played by the imaginative faculty. In Sefer ha-Mi~wot,
he writes:
It is impossible for those possessing these imaginative powers not
75
and more spiritually in sleep, for at the time of sleep the soul has
already nullified the senses of sight and its organs, and has turned
them towards the inner sense. And the proof that the inner powers
act more perfectly when the external senses are at rest is that, when
the thought of the people does greatly, they turn their powers of
feeling towards within the body until they faint from sleep, and
they will intend to rest the external senses in order to improve the
thought. And for this reason . . . prophecy indeed necessarily
comes about in a similar matter. And that is because, when these
inner powers move a strong movement, the external [organs]
contract until at times there occurs in this something similar to
fainting.?
76
77
compare to it any image because of its great spirituality and the sweetness
of its pleasure; all this occurred to your servant at the beginning.21
[Emphasis added]
2. The Light
78
79
80
the path of the Kabbalah of Names. One ought to point out that the
system of Sa<are Z.edeq presents a synthesis between the Sefirotic
Kabbalah and that of Names, a point on which it differs from that of
Abulafia. In a passage preserved in Sosan Sodot, 35 the author of Sacare
Z.edeq stresses the role of letter-combination in the appearance of
light: "and by the power of the combination and the meditation, there
happened to me that which happened with the light which I saw
going with me, as I mentioned in Sacare Z.edeq." The two passages by
this author are characterized by the fact that the source of the light
is inside the person's own body. Interestingly, this same phenomenon also appears in a mystical school which emerged in Greece
contemporaneously with Abulafia and his disciples. In the biography
of Symeon the New Theologian, the eleventh-century thinker who
greatly influenced the shaping of hesychasm in Greece in the
thirteenth century, we find a description of the uniting of Symeon
with the light which he saw:
And as the light became stronger, and was bright as the sun at
noon-time, he saw himself in the center of the light, and the
sweetness which penetrated to his entire body caused him joy and
tears. He saw the light adhering to his body in a manner which
would not be believed, and gradually penetrating to all his limbs
... and the light gradually penetrated into his entire body, to his
heart and his inwards, and transformed them into fire and light.36
This passage also influenced The Book of the System of Holy Prayer
and Concentration, the first work of the hesychastic school composed,
according to scholars, in the thirteenth century, in which it states:
"When you seek the place of the heart in your insides, you shall attain
the vision of the light, which will transform you into a being
completely shining, and you shall feel a great joy which cannot be
described." 37 The experience of light surrounding a holy thing or a
mystic is, of course, not in itself extraordinary. 38 However, the
appearance of two cases of a mystic enwrapped in light during the
same period cannot be merely coincidental, given the feasibility of
contact between the two schools in terms of geographical proximity.
While Sacare Z.edeq was evidently written in the land of Israel, it may
be that the events described therein occurred elsewhere: Abulafia
testifies that he had disciples in both Greece and Sicily, 39 so we cannot
disregard the possibility that the similarity in the appearance of light
is the outcome of actual historical contact.
The vision of light continued to be a form of experience among
those Kabbalists who used Abulafia's system. R. Isaac of Acre wrote
in
O~ar
81
l;layyim:
Moreover, in the third watch, when I was half asleep, I saw the
house in which I was sleeping full of a light which was very sweet
and pleasant, for this light was not like the light which emanates
from the sun, but was [bright] as the light of day, which is the light
of dawn before the sun rises. And this light was before me for about
three hours, and I hastened to open my eyes to see whether the
dawn had broken or not, so that I might rise and pray, and I saw
that it was yet night, and I returned to my sleep with joy, and after
I rose from my bed in order to pray, I suddenly saw a secret of the
letter Alef. 40
As in the case of the author of Sa'are Zedeq, the light appears to
R. Isaac of Acre in a state in which he was half-asleep, in the middle
of the night. Let us now turn to the account of R. Shem Tov b.
Abraham ibn Gaon: This Kabbalist, who at the beginning of his
literary activity was involved with copying manuscripts and had
contact with Kabbalists such as R. Solomon ibn Adret and R. Isaac
Tadros, later changed his path: among other factors were his
meetings with the Kabbalists R. Abraham, author of Sefer Yesod
'Olam and his son R. Hanannel of Esquira. This change is seen in
the study of Sefer Ye1,irah, a book which did not enjoy an important
position in the circle of Ibn Adret. In Badde ha-Aron, 41 which was
also written on the basis of a different approach than that of R.
Solomon ibn Adret, 42 R. Shem Tov states that when the Kabbalist:
82
83
3. Speech
We shall now return to Abulafia's remarks in his letter toR. Judah
Salmon. Following his remarks about light, he says the following
regarding the devotees of the Kabbalah of Names:
... and they ascend from light to light ... to the union, until their
inner speech returns, cleaving to the primordial speech which is the
source of all speech, and they further ascend from speech to speech
until the inner human speech [is a] power in itself, and he prepares
himself to receive the Divine speech, whether in the aspect of the
image of speech, whether in the aspect of the speech itself; and these
are the prophets in truth, in justice and righteousness. 47
84
Here it states explicitly that the source of the Divine voice and
speech is in man's heart, and not in the fire of the bush. 56 In another
work of Abulafia's, we read:
For this speech which comes from the Holy Spirit only comes to the
prophet by means of human speech, and the evidence for this is
"Moses spoke and God answered him with a voice"; and they
85
revealed its secret when they said "with a voice'-this was the voice
of Moses." 57
The speech issuing from man's inner being is also mentioned in
to Sefer Ye~irah,
For the one who speaks with the Holy Spirit does not hear that
voice, but that spirit comes within him and speaks by itself, as it
comes from a high place, that from which the prophets draw [which
is] in Ne3_ah and Hod . ... And there is no bringing together of lips
there nor any other thing. 60
The idea of human speech as an expression of the reception of
prophecy again appears in the writings of R. I:Iayyim Vital, who
writes in Sefer ha-Gilgulim:6l
Behold the secret of prophecy: it is certainly a voice sent from above
to speak to that prophet, and the Holy Spirit is likewise in that
manner. But because that voice is supernal and spiritual, it is
impossible for it alone to be corporealized and to enter into the ears
of the prophet, unless it first be embodied62 in that same physical
voice which emerged from that person while engaged in Torah and
prayer and the like. It then embodies itself in it and is connected to
it and comes to the ears of the prophet, so that he hears; but without
the human voice it cannot exist. But there are many changes, as is
said, for that selfsame supernal voice comes and is embodied within
his voice .... The supernal voice of the prophet and that voice
mentioned come and combine themselves with the voice of that man
at present, which emerges from him when prophecy rests upon
him, as is said, "the spirit of God spoke within me, and His word
is on my tongue." 63 For the spirit and the original word dwell now
upon my tongue, and there emerge from it the attribute of voice or
speech from his throat and he speaks, and then the man hears them.
This striking emphasis upon the appearance of the voice within
86
The Mystical
E~
himself, "and think when you respond, as though you yourself had
answered yourself." This double meaning reappears elsewhere in
that book: 71
When you complete the entire name and receive from it what the
Name [i.e., God] wishes to give you, thank God; and if, Heaven
forbid, you did not succeed in that which you sought, know that
you must return in full repentance, and weep for that which is
lacking in you level, and that you mentioned the Divine Name in
vain, which is a grave sin. And you are not worthy of blessing, for
God has promised us in the Torah to bless us, saying/2 "in every
place where I will have my Name mentioned, I will come to you and
bless you." Behold, "where I will mention My Name"-when you
pronounce My Name; and the secret of this is that at first you
pronounce My Name, when you mention My Name as I have
informed you, and the secret [refers to] the matter of the movement
of the head at the time of reciting the Qedusah [Doxology].
88
Yezirah: 76
I have already alluded above to the secret of "the radiance of the
Shekhinah," concerning the matter of "one two." It is known that
the Torah is called "this" (ha-zot), after the Ineffable Name, in saying,
"the words of this (ha-zot) Torah,'' 77 which is the secret of the Divine
image. And it cannot be seen except by a vision when he speaks,
or perhaps it refers to Gabriel, in the language of b"s (!) that sees the
form of man.
The attributes of the "thought form" which is the reason for the
"answering" seem contradictory: one may bow down before it, but
it is within "your heart," the human heart being its dwelling place,
"its throne." The form is portrayed as the Glory of God, whose
purpose is to give witness that the source of the speech is not in
89
man, but outside of him. However, the exact character of "the form"
is not clear: it is "the angel of God," "the Divine glory," "the
intermediary" between man and God, or an "intermediate" between
them. 78 It seems to me that these characteristics fit the human
intellect, described in lfayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba as "the flux of the intellect
emanated upon us always, and it is emanated from the Active
Intellect to us, and this is the angel which brings about cleaving
between your soul and the Creator, blessed be He." 79 This description
was influenced by Ibn Ezra and Maimonides who wrote, respectively,
"and the angel which is between man and his God is intellective" 80
and "this is the intellect, which is emanated upon us from God, may
He be blessed, and this is the connection which is between us and
Him." 81 The term "Glory" does not interfere with this identification,
as it frequently appears as a term for the soul prior to Abulafia. 82
Let us now compare Abulafia's words in Sefer ha-J:Ieseq with
those of his predecessor in Commentary to Sefer Ye~irah: 1) in both
passages, the term "one two" appears in the identical sense: i.e., as
the Name of God: 2) both authors mention revelation: in Abulafia it
refers to "Glory," while in R. Baruch Togarmi it is the "image of
God" which is revealed by Gabriel: 3) the revelation involves
"speech" in both places; 4) Abulafia speaks of the appearance of "a
thought form" or "Glory," while R. Baruch Togarmi speaks of Gabriel
(Gavriel) speaker (medabber) vision (ma'reh) the image of God (Z.elem
Elohim), which equals 413 in gematria, on the one hand, and the
human form (~urat ha-Adam) on the other. In Abulafia there are also
signs of "the human form" which appear at the time of pronouncing.
lfayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba states: "If Heaven forbid there has not yet come
to him, while pronouncing the two verses, either the flux or the
speech or the apprehension of the figure of man, and like visions of
prophecy, he ought to start again from the third verse." 83 On the
other hand, in the same work Abulafia uses other expressions
connected to his teacher's words: 84
The angel who advises you of the secret of God is named Gabriel,
and he speaks from the first verse of the holy name mentioned by
you, and he shows you the wonders of prophecy, for that is the
secret of: 85 "In a vision I will make myself known to him, in a dream
I will speak to him," for "vision," which is the secret of the verse,
equals Gabriel, and "dream," whose secret is86 "Edo," is Enoch.
Here, too, one finds the gematria for Gabriel > 246 > pasuq (verse) >
ma'reh (vision) > medabber (speaks). There seems no doubt that these
expressions allude to the Active Intellect. Consequently, in the
90
The Mystical
Experirmce '
91
powers becoming weaker and changing from form to form, until his
powers cast off all forms and are embodied into the power of the
form revealed to him, and then his strength is exchanged with that
of the angel who speaks with him. And that form gives him strength
to receive prophecy, and it engraved in his heart as a picture, and
when the messenger has performed his mission the prophet casts
off that form and returns to his original form, and his limbs and
strength come back as they were before and are strengthened, and
he prophesies in human form. 92
Ye~irah,
we read a
The author said: I have seen with my own eyes a man who saw a
power in the form of an angel while he was awake, and he spoke
with him and told him future things.94 The sage said: Know that he
sees nothing other than himself, for he sees himself front and back,
as one who sees himself in a mirror, who sees nothing other than
himself, and it appears as if it were something separate from your
body, like you. In the same manner, he sees that power which
guards his body and guides his soul, and then his soul sings and
rejoices, distinguishes and sees." And three powers overcome him:
the first power is that which is intermediary between spirit and soul,
and the power of memory and the power of imagination, and one
power is that which imagines. And these three powers are compared
to a mirror, as by virtue of the mixing the spirit is purified, and by
the purification of the spirit the third power is purified. But when
the spirit apprehends the flux which pours out upon the soul, it will
leave power to the power of speech, according to the flow which
comes upon the soul, thus shall it influence the power of speech,
and that itself is the angel which speaks to him and tells him future
things.
92
form standing before him and speaking with him and telling him
the future. Of this secret the sages said,97 "Great is the power of the
prophets, for they make the form similar to its creator," and the
sage R. Abraham b. Ezra said, "the one hearing is a man, and the
one speaking is the man."
93
him sciences which have never been heard or have never been seen,
written without revealing the future, or revealing to him the future
without any order concerning a mission, but to him alone: or with
the command of a mission to an individual, or being commanded
to go on a mission to many-all these will be heard when the ear
hears and understands the voice of the words of its friend who
speaks to him, but his fellow will not hear all this, but only he alone,
even if at that time he is among a hundred or a thousand people.
[All this will happen] after he has stripped off every corporeal thing,
because of the great immersion of his soul in the divine spiritual
world: this "container" [Heb.: heJsala; i.e., form of the body] will see
his own form, literally, standing before him and speaking to him,
as a man speaks to his friend; and his own form will be forgotten,
as if his body does not exist in the world. Therefore the sages said,
"great is the power of the prophets, for they make the form similar
to its creator"; their soul stands opposite them in the form of the
very "container" speaking with them, and they say that the Holy
One, blessed be He, speaks with them. And what caused them this
great secret? The stripping out of sensory things by their souls, and
their casting off from them and the embodiment in the divine spirit.
And this spirit shall at times come to all the prophets, according to
the Divine Will. But the master of all the prophets, Moses our
Teacher, peace upon him, always received a holy spirit which did
not leave him for even one hour, only when his soul was still sunk
in corporeal things, to hear the words of the Israelites that he might
guide them and instruct them, either in temporary or permanent
instructions, for which reason he had to say, "Stay and I shall hear
what God commands" (Num. 9:8); he stood and separated from
them and isolated himself and cast his soul off from those sensory
things with which he was involved on their behalf, and there rested
upon him the spirit and spoke within him.lOO
I should like to point out several ideas in this passage which are
quite close to Abulafia's approach.
1) The parable of the king's generosity. R. Isaac of Acre's view
was apparently influenced by a passage from Or ha-Sefsel, in which it
states that, "the flux. . . . And this is compared to a king and a
pauper, the latter being in the most extreme destitution. And the
king flowed with wealth, to make wealthy each man to his fellow,
until the great wealth reached the slave's master."1o1
94
95
96
97
for it lacks the letter waw; it is written yes 'et [i.e., the plain spelling
of the word yesu'at includes a waw, and signifies 'redemption' or
'salvation']; and know this.
It is clear from this passage that he is speaking about a permanent
struggle between the Intellect and the Imagination; the Angel of Life
and the Angel of Death; rational thought and imaginative thought;
the intellective apprehension and the imaginative one; the Good
Impulse and the Evil impulse. Abulafia returns to this inner battle in
Sefer ha-6t, p. 81 "and the battle within the heart between the blood
and the ink is very intense." On the same page, the nature of blood
and ink are portrayed as image ~elem, i.e., intellect] and likeness
[demut, i.e., imagination]: that is, ink as the spiritual element, the
intellect, and blood as the imaginative one. 111 These two elements,
as they do battle within Abulafia's heart, are described in Sefer ha-Ot,
p. 81: "And I looked and I saw there [in my heart] my likeness and
image moving in two paths." The same symbols used by Abulafia to
describe the inner battle of powers within man appear in the
description of the man himself: "and on his forehead was a letter
inscribed in blood and ink, into two sides." From this, we see that
the blood and the ink as they battle within the soul are projected
outside, and thus do they appear in the prophetic vision. What is the
meaning of the "letter on the forehead" which separates between the
other two letters? In Sefer ha-6t, p. 82, Abulafia relates that a fount
of seventy tongues flowed from between the sign of his forehead;
"the sign on his forehead was called the potion of death by the man,
but I called it the potion of life, for I transformed it from death to life."
The allusion to "seventy tongues" may be properly understood if
we assume that the meaning of the sign is the Active Intellect, which
is the source of the seventy tongues. The Active Intellect is the potion
of life for those who are able to receive its flux, while for those who
are unable to do so it is the potion of death. 112 This concept also has
a double meaning in both the person and the soul; in Sefer ha-6t, p.
82, we read, "And see with your eyes and understand in your heart
the hidden letter inscribed on your forehead explicitly." On the one
hand, it is possible to see the sign, while on the other it is subject to
understanding by means of the Intellect-your heart. On p. 83 of the
same work, we find another idea connecting the letter to the Active
Intellect:
98
99
We learn from this that the message which the man gives to
Abulafia is a confirmation of his success in transforming the
imagination into intellect, by this means attaining eternal existence.
This definition of eternal life appears in Or ha-Se}sel. 11B
And when the false apprehension is negated, as mentioned, and is
remembered in the mind from the heart of those who feel and the
enlightened ones, then "death shall be shallowed up 119 forever and
God will erase tears from every face and the shame of his people
will be removed for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." That is, the
secret of the intellect will be revealed after its disappearance.
100
person travels from the tent of filth to the tent of the blood, and from
the dwelling of the blood travels to the dwelling of the heart of
heaven, and there you shall dwell all the days of your life.
When man abandons the dwelling of the blood/imagination and
actualizes his intellect, he cleaves to the Active Intellect, alluded to
in "the heart of heaven," and thus brings about his survival. It is
worth while mentioning an additional sign of the connection between
"the man" and "the form" mentioned in Sefer ha-lfeseq. In Sefer ha-6t,
p. 83, he writes: "And I prostrated myself and bowed before him,"
referring to the man mentioned in the vision. In Sefer ha-lfeseq, he
states,
That one who finds a person innocent and conquered beneath him
the one who is culpable, until he is imprisoned himself and admitted
and was conquered; and concerning this you straighten your heart
immediately, that you bow before him [in] the form considered
mentioned in your heart, which is before you.I20
The innocent and the guilty doubtless refer to the intellect and
the imagination: when the imagination is conquered by the intellect,
there appears both inside and "outside" "the form," before which
one must bow.
Finally, we should take note that in two places in Sefer
ha-6t-passages not included in the vision of "the man" described
above-the idea of the prophet's conversation with himself appears.
On p. 74, it states, "The heart of my heart (libbi) said to the inner
heart of my heart (levavi) to write down the ways of God, etc.," while
on p. 80 we read "my heart (libbi) said to my heart (levavi)."
gematria:
And indeed YHWH is his vision, and this is what is meant by 123
"and he shall see the image of God"-that is, that he gazes at the
101
letters of this Name and at their ways, and all hidden things are
revealed to him. And the proof of this is that [the phrase] "and he
gazes at the image of God" is the equivalent in gematria to "at the
name of God he gazes," for the number of the final Mem in ba-sem
("in" or "at the Name") equals 600.124
This passage deals with Moses who, like Joshua in the passage
mentioned from Sefer ha-Navon, received guidance for his activity
through contemplation of the four letter Name.l 25 Abulafia's
formulation of this in his description of the revelation to Moses closely
matches what he wrote in I-Jayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba.126
The letters are without any doubt the root of all wisdom and
knowledge, and they are themselves the contents of prophecy, and
they appear in the prophetic vision as though [they are] opaque
bodies speaking to man face to face [saying] most of the intellective
comprehensions, thought in the heart of the one speaking them.
And they appear as if pure living angels are moving them about and
teaching them to man, who turns them about in the form of wheels
in the air, flying with their wings, and they are spirit within spirit.
And at times the person sees them as if they are resting in the hills
and flying away from them, and that mountain which the person
sees them dwelling upon or moving from was sanctified by the
prophet who sees them, and it is right and proper that he call them
holy, because God has descended upon them in fire,12 7 and in the
holy mountain there is a holy spirit. And the name of the holy high
mountain is the Ineffable Name, and know this, and the ryw (=216)
and secret of the mountain is Gevurah (might=216), and he is the
Mighty One, who wages war against the enemies of God who forget
His Name. And behold, after this the letters are corporealized in the
form of the Ministering Angels who know the labor of singing, and
these are the Levites, who are in the form of God, who give birth
to a voice of joy and ringing song, and teach with their voice matters
of the future and new ways, and renew the knowledge of prophecy.
This passage is interesting in a number of respects: like the image
of man which is revealed to the prophet at the time of prophecy, the
letters which are revealed also "speak"; these letters, which constitute
the Divine Names, 128 do battle with the enemies of God just as did
the man in the vision on p. 83 of Sefer ha-6t: "And the man was
concealed from my eyes after he spoke his words, and he went and
grew greater and stronger in his battles until he overwhelmed every
enemy." One may ask whether the central idea in the vision of "the
man" is also present in the vision of the letters--that is, its being an
imaginary expression of an inner process. The latter part of the
102
.,,
103
in the allusion of, 135 "They were made two cherubim of gold," and
this matter of gold is that it turns [something to] gold, and their
allusion is sem we-sem semo, sam me!:_ayyer u-me!:_uyyar.
The two urges referred to here by Abulafia are identical with the
imagination and the intellect, which are the two cherubim, both of
which apprehend. The end of the passage from Ner Elohim likewise
points toward the possibility of interpreting the mountain as an
allusion to the highest intellectual virtue to which Moses can reach.
One may interpret in similar fashion the passage from MS. Jerusalem
8 1303 fol. 56a, connected to Abulafia or his circle, that "also in the
divine mountain one shall apprehend and ascend in level and
understand the flux of God, which comes from the highest
mountain." It is worth mentioning that, in Sefer ha-6t, p. 76, it states
of Abulafia that "God shall surely find the top of a high mountain,
and its name is the fallen mountain and upon it sits the shepherd of
this flock for twenty years," an allusion to the redemption anticipated
in the year 1290, the twentieth year of Abulafia's prophetic career.
To summarize our discussion of the passage in Ijayye ha- cOlam
ha-Ba: the letters, which the prophet sees flying about, landing and
returning to the mountains, are the letters of the Divine Name, which
originate in the powers of the intellect and the imagination. It may
be shown that the Names of God are also found within the human
soul, and that the flying about and coming to rest are essentially inner
processes. In Sefer ha-6t, p. 81, we read: "And he showed me the
image and likeness moving about in two ways, in a vision in an image
TR"Y K"W, one image and one likeness." 136 The Ineffable Name
within man's soul incorporates both the image and likeness, which
are the intellect and the imagination. One p. 80 of Sefer ha-6t, Abulafia
again writes that "the people of God, the supreme holy ones, looking
upon His Name gaze at the source of your intellects and see the divine
image within the image of your hearts. Indeed, the "image" refers
to the head, for therein may be seen the heart of the vision." In Ozar
<Eden Ganuz, the same idea is repeated with a minor variation, "And
the two names are engraved in the heart and in the head, and they
are alluded to in [the versel,'there he gave them a law and a statute,"137 while in Sitri Torah we speak of "the name inscribed in your
soul in its truth."138 The words of the author of Ner Elohim should
be interpreted according to this same view of the Divine Name:
It is known to us by tradition that it is impossible for any of the
104
The name is found "in his heart," but the prophet speaks to it
and the Name answers him and reveals to him his way. This approach
is reminiscent of the words of the eighteenth century Sufi sage,
Nasser Muhammad 'Andalib of Delhi: "He sees the blessed form of
the word 'Allah' in the color of light, written upon the table of his
heart and upon the appearance of his imagination." 140
To conclude, we shall cite a section from Sefer ha-lfeseq, which
dearly demonstrates that the letters seen by the prophet resemble in
their function the "man" who is revealed:
After you find the appropriate preparation for the soul, which is
knowledge of the method of comprehension of the contemplation
of the letters, and the one who apprehends it will contemplate them
as though they speak with him, as a man speaks with his fellow,
and as though they are themselves a man who had the power of
speech, who brings words out of his mind, and that man knows
seventy tongues, and knows a certain specific intention in every
letter and every word, and the one who hears it apprehends it in
order to understand what he says, and the one hearing recognized
that he does not understand, except for one language or two or three
or slightly more, but he [that one] understands that the one speaking
does not speak to him in vain, except after he knows all the
languages; then every single word within him is understood in
many interpretations.141
105
in the middle line, on which depends the entire mystery of [the four
worlds] A~ilut, Beri'ah, Ye~irah, 'Asiyah, via the simple and felt
intellect, alluded to in the secret of their vocalizations. And my soul
rejoiced in them as one who had found a rare treasure, and they
,,,, ,,,, ,,,,,
blessed IS the Name of the Glory
were these:
of his kingdom forever and ever .... And I saw a name as follows,
thus:
106
The Urim referred to here allude to the inner light and the light
which comes from the Active Intellect-the Prince of the Face-for
which reason the intellective soul is portrayed as the moon, receiving
its light from the sun. 153 This influx is only received by the righteous,
that is, the enlightened ones who possess knowledge. In this passage,
Abulafia accepts Ibn Ezra's opinion that the Urim refer to the
luminaries-the sun and the moon. In another passage, Abulafia
introduces the second view, namely, that "the Urim and Tummim
are letters": 154
The strongest of these holy combinations, from which you will know
the secret of the Ineffable Names .... And these are the letters
which are called Urim and Tummim, which illuminate the eyes of
the hearts, and complete the thoughts,lSS and purify the supernal
thoughts, and enlighten the path of understanding, and make
known the planetary positions, and teach the existence of separate
beings, and tell the future.
107
man wisdom and indicate to him the future. These two functions
seem to me to allude to intellect and imagination, as the foretelling
of the future was strongly linked to the perfections of imaginative
power_l56 Let us now turn to Imre Sefer, 157 where Abulafia writes:
And of this [perfect] man it is said, "And upon the image of the
throne there sat an image, like the image of a man above it,"l58 and
it was an image looking like it, and the vision was the image of the
glory of God, and he saw himself as in a clear crystal, to the eyes
and the heart. And perhaps the Urim and Tummim [referred to] are
the inner ones, for the external ones are also thus called, but they
are as in an unclear crystal; know this and understand it well. And
the difference between these and these cannot be known except to
one who has apprehended both of them, and he is one who has
apprehended knowledge of the three-fold unique Name.
108
The author associated Abulafia's remarks concerning lettercombination and the Urim and Tummim with the Talmudic idea that
the Urim and Tummim worked by illuminating certain letters, which
combined to provide the answer to the question posed. 162 Like the
Urim and Tummim, the human form is separated from within his
body or his matter; after being separated, the human form, that is,
the intellect, is clothed in an imaginary garment, just as the letters,
which are isolated in their sense, combine into a word, a combination
which is all no more than an imaginary garment for an answer
containing meaning to the one inquiring. The stage of dressing is
designated by the name Tummim, connected with the power of the
imagination. Elsewhere in Sa'are Z.edeq, 163 we read:
Know that these letters which are the holy letters may be called signs
and traditions, which are depicted by their exterior form 164 with
prophetic agreement by the Holy Spirit, and that is the form which
appears to the prophets, when the inside, concave form is reversed
to an external, convex for, like the Tummim, as mentioned above.
The concave inner form is the intellect, while the external convex
for is the imaginative form. Thus, we again return to the view that
the powers of the soul are revealed to the mystic.
109
8. The Circle
110
and from pair to pair, and he said that upon them is a great and
awesome king who arranges and estimates all in wisdom. And he
completed those visions with wisdom, which is the secret that turns
about in wisdom night and day. An behold, I have written for you
the plain meaning of the things in detail, but now I must explain to
you their meaning, and this is impossible without a drawing of a
ladder, and even though it cannot be drawn in truth but in a
spherical [form], you will gain a certain benefit from the drawing of
this circular [form]:I68
111
ladder of the world, and scales for the human being. And this is the
subject of which Raziel informed me, and he further explained it in
saying that the pur fell between the names and always turns about
by justice, to judge in it he who is judged, and that when you shall
contemplate your essence, you will find that ladder is inscribed
between the eyes of your heart, in general and in particular, and
contemplate it very much, and know it.
I do not intend to analyze every detail of this vision; some are
not sufficiently clear to me, while others are not relevant to our
discussion. The opening statement of the vision is based upon an
idea articulated by Maimonides in Guide of the Perplexed III:7 (Pines,
p. 429):
"And the appearance of the rainbow that is in the clouds in the day
of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This
was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord." The
matter, the true reality, and the essence of the rainbow that is
described are known. This is the most extraordinary comparison
possible, as far as parables and similitudes are concerned; and it is
indubitably due to a prophetic force. Understand this.
The analogy between man and the rainbow, appearing in
Maimonides, was expanded by Abulafia: the rain, the showers, and
the vapors of the rainbow correspond to the humours within man,
while the clouds correspond to the smoke and steams within him.
The circle, symbolizing a sphere, corresponds to the sphere of the
cosmic axis (teli), while the bar is the cosmic axis itself. This is clear
from the description of the bar: it passes from south to the north just
as the axis passes over the world. This bar is already described in this
manner in Chapter 1 of Baraita de-Shemu' el: "Nafzas Baria~ is the cosmic
axis." 169 It follows that Abulafia's comparison of the sphere of 1pan
to "the sphere of the suspensory" is pertinent to this vision. 170
Abulafia emphasizes this point of comparison at the end of the vision:
and this ladder is called the ladder of the world, and scales for the
human being. By contemplation into himself, man may learn about
the ladder: "And when you shall contemplate your essence, you will
find that ladder, inscribed between the eyes of your heart, in general
and in particular." The principle which operates both in the ladder
and in man is the point of comparison; in the ladder, he refers to the
'lot and die," "justice and uprightness," "witness and judge,"
"retribution and punishment." These word-pairs allude to the
attributes of mercy and justice operating in the world. Likewise, in
Sifre Torah, Abulafia refers to "the secret of the one who is innocent
112
and guilty, in their coming before the judge, who is both witness and
judge."171 This refers to God, who manifests both the attributes of
mercy and judgment-a fact confirmed by the gematria: <ed (witness)
74 dayan (judge), while zakkai we-fzayav (innocent and guilty)
likewise adds up to 74. Elsewhere in Sifre Torah, it is clear that
"innocent and guilty" allude to "blood and ink": i.e., the intellect and
the imagination. 172 In 6~ar <Eden Ganuz, we read:
Behold, man has two urges, good and evil, and they are angels of
God without any doubt, and are like the image of the two sides of
the scales, which are always weighed and purified in their place as
they are, so that the power of one of them will overwhelm its fellow,
will let judge the language and tend towards it, like the balance
which inclines thereto.1 7J
The two urges, likened to the two sides of the scales, dearly
correspond to the imagination and intellect, alluded to in the
expression in the vision, "scales for the human being." Let us now
address ourselves to the double character of this vision: i.e., that it
speaks about both a sphere and a ladder. The circle which appears
in the vision and which is a projection thereof, is a well-known
phenomenon; Carl Jung saw it as an archetype of the process of
individuation of the personality or, in religious terms, the cleaving
of the "I" to God. The emphasis upon the high spiritual level attained
by Abulafia at the time he had the vision of the circle fits Jung's
assumption.l 74 In the wake of Jung's studies, G. Tucci wrote, in the
introduction to his book on mandala:
My aim has been to reconstitute, in their essential outlines, the
theory and practice of those psycho-cosmogrammata which may
lead the neophyte, by revealing to him the secret play of the forces
which operate in the universe and in us, on the way to the
reintegration of consciousness.175
113
114
While this passage does not refer to the vision of the sphere, but
to an experience of it, the proximity between the sphere and the
ladder and the spiritual contents connected with them remind us to
a great extent of Abulafia' s approach. The connection between the
ladder and the sphere are again discussed in another passage, related
to Sefer ha-Z.eruf, in connection with the spiritual manifestations
connected to 'prophecy':l86
I swear to you by the vision of the image of God, by the Creator,
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, by the Ineffable Name,
yhwh, that you inform me of the secret of prophecy at any time that
I request it by my mouth, and that you teach me the [secret of the]
World to Come 187 and the law of the king, and inform me of the one
ladder by which I may ascend to the house of the Lord God, to know
His awesome ways, and to know the ways of the ancient ones, and
make constant in me the foundation of the power of the true spiritual
sphere ... from now on and forever more, Amen, Selah.
The comparison between the sphere, the circle and the scales,
alongside the doctrine of combination of letters and the achievement
of prophecy, constitutes a clear indication that techniques originating
in ecstatic Kabbalah were drawn upon during the two generations
following the death of Abraham Abulafia within the region of
Byzantine culture.
Let us now turn to the vision of R. Isaac of Acre, which also
O~ar
lfayyim, he states:
I awoke from my sleep and suddenly I saw the secret of the saying
of the rabbis concerning Moses our teacher's writing of the Torah,
that he saw it written against the air of the sky, in black fire upon
white fire. This is that, when a man ascends a very high mountain,
standing within a broad flat valley without any hills or mountains
within it, but only a great plain, and he lifts up his eyes and they
look about and he gazes at the firmament of the heavens close to the
earth, around around, to the place of the sky close to the earth, as
it appears to his eyes, this is half the circle, and is known in the
language of the sages of the constellations [astrology] as the circle
of the horizon. This was seen by the soul and intellect of Moses our
teacher, surrounding him from above the entire Torah, from the
letter bet of Bereszt "In the beginning"), which is the first letter, to
the Lamed of Yzsra'el (Israel), written in one complete circle, each
letter next to its neighbor, surrounded by parchment. That is to say,
it is as if there were a hair' s breadth between one letter and the next,
for all the air which is around the letters of the Torah is entirely
within the circle, and between each letter and outside of the letters
there was white fire, dimming the circle of the sun, and the letters
alone were of black fire, a strong blackness, the very quintessence
of blackness. She [Moses' soul] gazed at them here and there to find
the head of the circle or its end or its middle, but did not find
anything .... For there is no known place by which to go into the
Torah, for it is wholly perfect, and while he yet gazes at this circle,
she combines on and on into strong combinations, not intelligible.l90
116
9. Metatron
117
After you utter the twenty-four names, whose sign is dodi (my
beloved), and "the Voice of my beloved knocketh," 202 then you shall
see the image of a youth or the image of a sheik, for seJs. in the
language of the Ishmaelites means "elder," and also in gematrza it
equals [the phrase] "a youth and he is old" (na'ar we-hu zaqen); and
the secret of his name as seen to you is Metatron. And he is a youth,
and hearken to his voice ... and when he speaks, answer him:203
"Speak 0 master, for your servant speaks."
118
was either Abulafia or one of his disciples who knew lfayye ha-'Olam
ha-Ba, as may be seen from the striking resemblance between the two
quoted passages. In both cases, the same mistake is made, deriving
from lack of knowledge of Arabic: sek_ is calculated as having a
numerical value of 320, apparently based upon its sound, while the
correct spelling is with yod. 209 We may now ask whether this is a
strictly theoretical discussion or whether the two passages in fact
reflect personal experience. Both authors in fact give evidence of
"meetings" with Metatron or its pseudonyms mentioned in the above
section.
On p. 84 of Sefer ha-6t, we find a description of a meeting with
an old man during the course of a vision: "And he showed me an old
man, with white hair, seated upon the throne of judgment210 . . . and
he ascended to the mountain of judgment, and I came close to the
elder and he bowed and prostrated himself." The old man interprets
Abulafia' s vision and then says, "And my name [is] Yehoel, that I
have agreed (ho'il) to speak with you now several years." The name
"Yehoel" seems a clear allusion to the fact that the old man is
Metatron himself. We learn from a discussion concerning Enoch and
Metatron in Sitre Torah 211 that:
R. Eleazar of Worms said that he [i.e., MetatronJ has seventy names,
as I have been shown by our holy rabbis concerning this in Pirqe
de-Rabbi Eli'ezer and by others in the works of R. Akiba and R.
Ishmael which are well known . . . and in order to arouse your
mind to it, I will write a few of those things which arouse man's
intellect towards the ecstatic Kabbalah, and I will inform you of
what he 21 2 said of him at first. Know that the first of the seventy
names of Metatron is Yehoel, and its secret is "son", 213 and its
essence is Ana, which is Elijah ... and he is the Redeemer.
119
120
121
11. Dangers
122
It seems clear from this that the great fire is vitally connected
with human matter, for which reason it endangers the man who
attempts to overcome it. In lfayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, Abulafia writes:
Now, son of man, if you seek the Lord your God in truth and in
wholeness, do not think to yourself use the Name, but of the
knowledge of the Name and the comprehension of its actions, and
not for the benefit of the needs of the body, and even though it is
able to do so, and its activities and nature are such; but because you
are compounded of the Evil Urge, you are a body of "flesh and
blood", both of which are "angels of death", and one must think of
their secret: the details of the matter include all the specific organs,
and is called the matter of decomposition, and its name is the River
Dinur, and its secret is "the individual living matter" [~omer ~ay
perati], etc. 235
123
O~ar
12. Devegut
124
125
cleave through knots of love249 to Him who does not undo the ties
of His love and the cleaving of his desire--that is, God, may He be
blessed, and no other by any means. And concerning this it says in
the Torah, 250 "And you who cleave to the lord your God are still
living this day"; and this is the matter of which they said, "And
cleave to him,"251 "And to him you shall cleave"252, for that cleaving
brings about the essential intention, which is eternal life for man,
like the life of God, to whom he cleaves. And for this [reason] those
who perform devequt are of three types: devequt to the supernal
entities, like fire, which is above and constantly ascends; and devequt
to the intermediate ones, like the wind, which is in the middle,
depending whether it ascends or descends; and devequt to the lower
ones, like the image of water, which is below, and constantly
descends. And in accordance with the devegut, so shall be the
survival [of the soul]-whether above, below, or in the middle.
126
127
128
129
"SeJsel" is the name given to that thing which guides all, which is the
first cause of all, and it is the name of a thing which is separate from
all matter, which is the [intellectual] influx (sefa') which emanates
from the first cause ... and it is that which emanates from the
separate [things], which is called the seJsel which cleaves to the hylic
[element].278
With the identification of God with sef5el, the question of unity
or identity becomes a matter of the connection between two entities,
which are liable to be equivalent in terms of their essence. Again, in
130
Or ha-Sefsel we read:
And they are therefore three levels, and the three of them are one
essence, and they are: God, may He be blessed; and his separate
[i.e., non-material] influx; and the influx of his influx (sefa' sifo),
which cleaves itself to the soul. And the soul which cleaves to it with
a strong cleaving, until the two of them are likewise one
essence .... And the first cause includes everything, and it is one
to all, and the intellects are many, the separate [ones] and the ones
receiving the flow, and the many souls, and only the Active Intellect
is one essence .... And behold the comprehension of the human
intellect, which flows from the separate Active Intellect, causes the
cleaving of the soul to her God. 279
Described here is the identity between the human soul and God
during the process of enlightenment, a process which transforms the
intellectual soul into the object of her intellection, which is God,
whereby the perfect unity is attained.
It is worth citing here certain ideas which appear in some
manuscript collections on Kabbalistic subjects, several of which are
very close to Abulafia's remarks in Or ha-Sefsel; these collections
include, in my opinion, original material of Abulafia's. In these
collections we read:
In this metaphor of the candle and the flame, there is a brief remark
[which helps] to explain and to portray what is the se_5el, and what
is the angel, and what is its cause-that is to say, God, may He be
blessed, who is called the form of the intellect (3_urat ha-sef5:el). And
figuratively, and as an example, it is said that the candle is He, may
He be blessed, and He is the object of intellection and He is the
beginning, and the end of the flame of the candle is the human
intellect, which flows from the end of the separate beings. And the
middle of the flame is an allusion to the other intellects, near and
far. But that which is close to the candle receives more from the
light. And from this issue we may understand that the intermediate
one is between man and the Creator, being the intellect which exists
in actuality. And when the soul will cleave to the intellect and the
intellect speaks to the angel and the angel to the Seraph and the
Seraph to the Cherub, part after part are united, from end to
beginning, you shall then arrive at the intelligible, and you will find
all these one-that is, the intellect and the object of intellection and
the intelligible are all one. And you have known that the Creator
and the angel and the human intellect, because of its [Divine] image
and likeness, which is the inner spirit, [all these] constitute one
essence at the time of intellection. However, God, may He be
131
132
Divine "spark" which has descended to the world of matter, and that
the process of intellection is simply the restoration of that spark to its
divine source. An allusion to this approach appears in the epistle,
We-Zot li-Yihudah: 284 "the ultimate compound, which is man, who
comprises all the Sefirot, and whose intellect is the Active Intellect;
and when you will untie its knots you will be united with it [i.e., the
Active Intellect] in a unique union." Several lines later, we read:
It is known that all the inner forces and the hidden souls in man are
differentiated in the bodies. It is, however, in the nature of all of
them that, when their knots are untied, they return to their origin,
which is one without any duality, and which comprises multiplicity,
until the En Sof; and when it is loosened it reaches 'till above, so
that when he mentions the name of God he ascends and sits on the
head of the Supreme Crown (Keter 'Elyon), and the thought draws
from there a three-fold blessing.
133
134
135
136
137
their revolutions with the twelve signs and the seven stars, and with
the three elements, until the one tying and loosening will strip off
from the stringencies of the prohibited and permitted, and dress a
new form for the prohibited and permitted. 310
Elsewhere in the same work it says "the names with which one
ties and loosens the knot is itself heter."3 11
Finally, we should note that the second meaning of the
expression, "loosening of the knots," namely, "the removal of
doubts," is suitable to Abulafia's general tendency. The separation
of the soul or the intellect from the body is in any event ipso facto a
separation from the imagination, which breeds doubt: 312 for in these
knowledges the knots are untied, as are the doubts in most of the
imagined matters, and man is left with his intellect in wholeness and
with his Torah in truth."
"Rationalistic" Mysticism
A central element of Abulafia' s understanding of prophecy is his
perception of the mystical experience as the supreme realization of
the capacities of human consciousness; this fact is made clear in a
passage concerning devequt, which Abulafia defines in the words, 313
"prophecy, is a matter of the intellect." More significant for our
purposes is the fact that Abulafia's private experience is subjected to
a rationalistic interpretation, as we have seen above in the
interpretation of a number of his visions and, no less important, the
fact that Abulafia saw in his own personal experience a confirmation
of a certain theoretical position. His visions confirm his metaphysical
approach, since in them the intellect, the imagination and the Active
Intellect are transformed from theoretical concepts, borrowed from
medieval thinkers, used to explain objective reality, or from the
prophecy of the ancient biblical figures, into a component of the
spiritual life of the mystic himself. We no longer speak of the concept
of imagination as the result of the need to explain certain
138
The Mission
As is well known, the concept of mission is a central component
in the Biblical understanding of prophecy: God chooses a particular
person who is made a prophet against his will, delegating him to
perform a certain mission which the prophet may at times not wish
to carry out, or even find repugnant. 315 While classical prophecy
emerged from such revelations of a compulsory character, an
interesting change takes place in the later books of the Bible, in which
God is understood as a remote entity, causing the prophet to seek to
bridge the gap in order to receive a revelation. This new figure is
designated by the term apocalyptic visionary, one who combines
personal experience with "Wisdom," where the intention of the
139
140
141
While these remarks are cited as God's words to Abulafia, the feeling
of mission revealed by this sentence testifies to the great power of the
prophetic experience in Abulafia's eyes. This does not mean that
Abulafia will alter the Torah-for this reason, there appears the
reservation, like a new torah"-but that it will revel its true face, that
is, its essence as a combination of the Names of God.333
The two main motifs discussed in this section-the prophet as
messenger and the Messiah as a prophet on the level of Moses-also
appear in R. Isaac of Acre. We have already seen in the above section
that he prophecy of mission appears in an advanced mystical stage
in O!Jlr Ifayyim. Let us now seeR. Isaac's understanding of the level
of Messiah: 334
There is one who prophesies through the intermediacy of the
brilliance of the light of the angel who dwells in his soul, which is
the angel who speaks within him, and this angel is intermediary ...
between him and the great supreme angel, who is Metatron the
Prince of the Presence.335 And there is one who prophesies by the
brilliance of the light of Metatron dwelling in his soul, and there is
one who does so by the brilliance of the light of the diadem [i.e.,
Malk_ut], while Moses himself [did so] by the brilliance of Tiferet
which emanated from T[iferet] and dwelt in his soul. And Messiah
son of David, whom God shall bring to us quickly, by the brilliance
of the light of the Crown, will emanate the brilliance of his light from
Keter and it will dwell in his soul, and by it he will perform awesome
and great things in all the lands.
142
Apart from the bodily element, there also hover over man the
truths of the power of imagination:
Sometimes it is revealed to you that you are to be killed and your
membrum virile swallowed up .... And sometimes it is concealed
from you, until you think that you will not die until you shall become
old, even though he stand before you and sees you, you do not see
him; and suddenly he returns to you and demands his portion, and
so it is always, time after time, day after day, until the day of your
death. 338
The main purpose of the Torah and of the Kabbalah ie:341 "that
man should attain the level of the angels called ISim and cleave to
them for eternal life, until human beings shall turn into separate
angels after being, before hand-human beings in actuality and
angels in potential, but on a lower level." Man's transformation from
transient essence to eternal takes place when he attains 'prophecy': 342
"and likewise he shall be required to call to the prophet with the
Divine influx until he returns to cleave to it and live on the day of his
death." This is not intended to refer to survival following bodily
death, but to the life of the World to Come which is acquired in this
life by complete relinquishment of this world: 343 "And his strength
shall cast off all natural powers and he shall put on the divine powers,
and he shall be saved by this from natural death on the day of his
death and live for ever." Abulafia stresses the Platonic idea of
voluntary death in many passages.344 In Can Na'ul, 345 we read:
And these are miraculous secrets, and the general rule from which
143
you will die, and when you divide it into two equal parts, one part
shall be ti~yeh ("you shall live") and also the second part t*yeh. 346
And this is the secret alluded to in the saying of the supreme Holy
Ones,347 "What shall a man do and live? He shall die! What should
a man do in order to die? To live!" And they said that this is alluded
to in [the verse]348, "When a man dies in a tent," and they explained
that the Torah is not preserved save by one who kill himself for it.
And the Rabbi [i.e., Maimonides] said in The Book of Knowledge, Laws
of the Fundaments of Torah,349 that the Torah is not preserved except
by one who kills himself in the tents of wisdom.
144
imagination which are not checked by the intellect: 353 "And when the
imaginary, lying apprehension is negated, and when its memory is
razed from the hearts of those who feel and are enlightened, death
will be swallowed up for ever." The extent to which Abulafia's
opinion is opposed to the ascetic tendency which seeks to leave life
in this world is evinced by the following passage:354
He shall pray and beseech continuously to the Honorable Name, to
save him from the attributes until he be found innocent in the
Supernal court, and ... in the lower court, and will inherit two
worlds,355 this world and the World to Come.
Projection or Interpretation
Let us now return to the question which we raised at the
beginning of this chapter: namely, did Abulafia, in explaining the
intellectual meaning of his visions, interpret his own experience
correctly, because they were the result of certain concepts in which
he was used to thinking, or is this a case in which meaning was
imposed upon an experience in which it was initially lacking. It seems
to me significant that a certain answer to these questions may be
found in 6~ar cEden Ganuz:
When I was thirty-one years old, in the city of Barcelona, God woke
me from my sleep and I studied Sefer Ye?irah with its commentaries;
and the hand of God [rested] upon me, and I wrote some books of
wisdom and wondrous books of prophecies, and my spirit was
145
quickened within me, and the spirit of God came into my mouth,
and a spirit of holiness moved about me, and I saw many awesome
sights and wonders by means of these wonders and signs. And
among them, there gathered around me jealous spirits, and I saw
imaginary things and errors, and my thoughts were confused,
because I did not find which of my people would teach me the way
by which I ought to go. Therefore I was like a blind man groping at
noon for fifteen years, and the Satan [stood] by my right hand to
accuse me, and I was crazy from the vision of my eyes which I saw,
to fulfill the words of the Torah and to finish the second curse [of]
the fifteen years which God had graced me with some little
knowledge, and God was with me to help me from the year [500]1
to the year [50]45, to save me from every trouble; and at the
beginning of the year Elijah the Prophet [i.e., [50]46 = 1286 C.E.],
God had favor in me and brought me to his holy tabernacle. 359
Abulafia reveals here that not all of his visions are the result of
the influence of the intellect upon the imagination; until the year 1286,
Abulafia testifies that he also experienced visions originating in the
realm of the imagination alone, and that this was apparently the
reason for his fears. It seems to me that the visions presented by
Abulafia set down in writing do not belong to this category, nor do
any of his books reveal the darker side of ecstatic experiences. Those
descriptions and interpretations of visions which have reached us
belong to the "positive" type of experience. Evidently this choice
between the intellectual and the imaginative, namely between visions
which can be allegorically interpreted as pointing to intellectual
contents, and those which originate in the power of the imagination
alone, without reflecting, in Abulafia's opinion, speculative conceptions, was carried out on the basis of criteria of the reflection of the
intellectual matters in the vision. Since the correspondence between
the content of the vision as it has been given and the speculative
system is very great, it is difficult to assume that this was a matter of
mere chance: In my opinion, his visions are the result of the projection
of philosophical concepts onto the imaginative realm, from whence
it is quite easy to find their roots in the theoretical system of the
author.
146
3. Ibid., p. 14.
4. See A. Hesche!, The Prophets (New York, 1962), pp. 390-409.
5. Commentary on the Mishnah, Introduction to lfeleq, translated by Arnold
S. MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 15Sa. Compare Midras ha-Ne'elam'al Rut (Zohar
Hadas, p. 92b): "The Rabbis say: storm-this is the storm of Satan, who made
turbulent the body of Job."
9. Ezek. 1:4.
10. Job 40:6.
11. MS. Oxford 15SO, fols. 163b-164a, with omissions.
12. Deut. 12:23.
13. Lev. 17:11.
14. Op cit., n. 11, fol. 162a.
15. MS. Oxford 15S2, fol. 12a, printed by Scholem in Kabbalistic
Manuscripts, p. 25.
16. MS. Jerusalem
147
148
34. MS. Jerusalem 8 148, fols. 63b-64a. The passage was published by
Scholem in Qiryat Sefer I (1924), p. 134, and translated in Major Trends, p. 150.
35. Fol. 69b. The corrected text was published by G. Scholem in his article
in MGWJ 74 (1930), p. 287.
36. I. Hausherr, "La Methode d'oraison Hesychaste," Orientalie Christiana, vol. 9 (1927), pp. 128-129; J. Lemaitre, Dictionaire de Spiritualite (1952),
col. 1852-53.
37. See Hausherr, op cit., p. 128.
38. We will cite here several examples of mystical experience connected
with light. In a work entitled Ma'aseh Merkavah published by Scholem in his
Jewish Gnosticism, p. 112, par. 22-23, we read: "R. Ishmael said: Once I heard
this teaching from R. Ne:ttunyah ben ha-Kanah, I stood upon my feet and
asked him all the names of the angels of wisdom, and from the question
which I asked I saw a light in my heart like the days of heaven. R. Ishmael
said: Once I stood on my feet and I saw my face enlightened by my wisdom,
and I started to interpret each and every angel in every palace." In Leviticus
Rabba 21:11, we read, "At the time that the Holy Spirit was upon him [i.e.,
the High Priest], his face burned like torches." In Ketav Tammim by R. Moses
Taku, (O~ar Ne!zmad 3 (1860), p. 88), we read: "And so the soul of the righteous
man shines, and in every place where the righteous go, their souls shine."
In Sa'are {.edeq itself, we learn of Moses that "When his generation [i.e., the
formation of his fetus] was completed after forty days, the skin of his face
shone (Ex. 34:29) .... When he was weaned, it shone. [All this] to indicate
to you the purity of his matter, and the negation of its darkness, until it
became, by way of analogy, like the heavenly sapphire-like material. And
our rabbis of blessed memory expounded, 'for the skin of his face shone'-do
not read 'or (skin) but 6r (light), for the letters a"h h'"r interchange; that is, the
enlightened intellect which dwells in the light which is in the innermost part
ofthe true, perfect intellect" (MS. Jerusalem go 148, fol. 33b-34a). For a survey
of the appearance of light in mysticism, see Mircea Eliade, The Two and the
One (New York, 1969), pp. 19-77. The subject of the "shining" enjoyed by
the body of the mystic as part of the mystical experience is in itself deserving
of a special study.
39. O'?flr 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580 fol. 165b.
40. MS. Moscow- Giinzburg 775, fol. 197a.
41. MS. Paris BN 840, fol. 46a. On the problem of concentration
149
Altered States of Consciousness, ed. Ch, T. Tart (New York, 1962), p. 40.
46. Heinrich Zimmer, "On the Significance of the Indian Tantric Yoga,"
in Spiritual Disciplines; Papers from Eranos Yearbooks, ed. J. Campbell (New
York, 1960), p. 51.
47. We-zot li-Yihudah, p. 16, corrected according to MS. New York - JTS
1887, and MS. Cambridge Add. 644.
48. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 95--96.
49. See the sources collected by Hesche!, Theology of Ancient Judaism, II,
pp. 267-268.
50. L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1946), vol. 6, p. 36, n.
201; Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, p. 269, n. 2.
51. Ex. 19:19.
52. See the long version of his commentary to Ex. 19:20:
Know that man's soul is supernal and honorable, and that it comes from the
intermediate world, and the body is from the lowly world, and nothing
speaks in the lowly world but man himself, and man hears, for that which
speaks to him, he wishes to understand what is in his heart, and the
intellectual person cannot create any language, but only that which is known
to him. . . . And behold, when man speaks to man in human matters and
in the language which he understands, he will surely understand his words.
And after we knew that the Torah spoke in human language, for the one
who speaks is man, and likewise the one who hears is man, and a man
cannot speak things to one who is higher than himself or lower than himself,
but only by way of "the image of man."
See also his commentary to Daniel 10:1, and Yesod Mora', where the
saying "the one who speaks is human and the one who hears is human," is
repeated. Cf. G. Vajda, Juda ben Nissim Maika (Paris, 1954), p. 140, n. 1; C.
Sirat, Ies Theories des visions supernaturelles (Leiden, 1964), p. 77.
53. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 12a. In Sitre Torah, Abulafia alludes to this idea
without detailing his intention (MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 140a).
150
151
between R Isaac of Acre and R Judah ben Ntsstm, see VaJda's abovementioned article, and note 155 below
60 Pnnted by Scholem m Qzryat Sefer vol 31 (1956), p 393
61 VIlna, 1886, p 60a-b (Ch 35), Sa'ar ha-Nevu'ah, also cited m R
Abraham Azulai, Hesed le-Avraham (Lvov, 1863), 'Eyn ha-Qore, Nahar 19, fol
51 a
62 The understandmg of the embodiment of the spmtual vmce w1thm
the corporeal vmce for purposes of revelation IS related to a commonly held
concept m the theosophical Kabbalah, holdmg that every descent-for
example, that of the angel--entails Its embodiment m a corporeal garment
63 II Samuel 23 2
64 See G Scholem, "R Eh]ah ha-Kohen ha-Itaman and Sabbatiamsm"
(Heb ), Alexander Marx Jubzlee Volume (New York, 1950), Heb SectiOn, p 467
Compare the explanation gtven by R Aznel of Gerona, of prophecy as the
outcome of "strength of the soul "
65 For the connection between prophecy and "greatness of soul," see
R Aznel of Gerona's letter to the city of Burgos, pubhshed by Scholem,
Madda'e ha-Yahadut II, 239 "m the dreams of the soul and Its strengthemng "
And know that the Kabbahst receives, that God says to a man "Recetve Me
and I wdl receive you," as 1t 1s said (Deut 26 17,18) "Thou hast avouched
[ht , spoke for] the Lord
And the Lord hath avouched [ht , spoken for]
you," and therefore 1t says (Ex 20 24), "In every place where I shall cause
my name to be mentioned I wdl go to you and bless you"
and 1t says
to you that tf you remember My Name for My honor, I have already
remembered your name for your honor
72 Ex 20 21
73 MS New York - JTS 1801, fol 9a, corrected accordmg to MS Bnhsh
152
Library 7-9, fols. 12a-12b. Abulafia's words were copied in the last part of
Sa'are Qedusah, which has not yet been printed, under the name f:Iayye
ha-'Olam ha-Ba, but they are essentially a corrected version of Sefer ha-f:Ieseq.
See also Abulafia's remarks in f:Iayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, MS. Oxford 1582, fol.
54a, "Hold your head evenly, as if it were on the balance pans of a scale, in
the manner in which you would speak with a man who was as tall as yourself,
evenly, face to face."
74. Ibid., fol. 9b, corrected on the basis of MS. British Library 749, fol.
12b. Abulafia plays on the similarity between tenu'ah (motion) and 'aniah
(response).
75. Ibid., 9b-10a, corrected according to ibid., fol. 12b. The appearance
of the Glory (kavod) as an intermediary witnessing the force of speech already
appears in R. Saadyah Gaon, in Emunot we-De'ot, sec. II, chap. 10, etc. On
the Glory as having a hurnan shape, see A. Altmann, "Saadya's Theory of
Revelation," Saadia Studies, ed. E. Rosenthal (Manchester, 1943), p. 20.
76. Abulafia, pp. 232-233, and see also our remarks concerning this
passage in Abraham Abulafia, p. 169.
77. Deut. 17:18.
78. The reading meliz appears in MS. British Library 749, while that of
'emza'i in MS. New York.
79. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 18b.
80. Haqdamat ha-Perus /a-Torah, p. viii.
81. Guide of the Perplexed III:51. On the background to this idea, see I
Goldziher, Kitab ma'ani al-nafs (Berlin, 1907), pp. 141-142.
82. Tesuvot Dunas ha-I.ewi ben Labrat 'al Rasa"g (Breslau, 1866), pp. 14-15;
R. Abraham ibn Ezra in his Commentary to Psalms 30:13; 103:1; and R. David
Qimhi's Commentary to these and other verses. In Sitre Torah, MS. Paris BN
774, fol. 163b, Abulafia writes explicitly that "Man alone of all that which is
generated and corrupted possesses the human form which is divided into
two portions, and receives influx from two sides, which are called Sefa'
(influx) and the glory of God." This refers to the human intellect, which is
called both "influx" and the "Glory of God."
83. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 56b.
84. Ibid., fol. 4b-Sa. In Or ha-Sei5el (MS. Vatican 233, fol. 127b), we learn
similar things: "And because man is composed of many powers, it is
necessary that he see the influx in his intellect, and that vision is called by
the name Intellectual Apprehension. And the influx will further jump to the
imagination, and require that the imagination apprehend that which is in its
nature to apprehend, and see in the image of corporeality imagined as
spirituality combined with it; and that force will be called Man or Angel or
153
the like." In Sefer ha-Ifeseq, MS. New York JTS 1801, fol. 35b, it states, "For
every inner speech is none other than a picture alone, and that is the picture
which is common to the intellect and the imagination. Therefore, when the
soul sees the forms which are below it, it immediately sees itself depicted
therein." Compare the words of R. Barukh Togarmi, Abulafia, p. 232: "the
Divine element is in you, which is the intellect that flows upon the soul."
85. Num. 12:6.
86. 'Edi = Ifanofc. Sadday = Mefafron. See R. Eleazar of Worms' 'Eser
Hawayot, MS. Munchen 143, fol. 220a. Ifalom (dream)~Edi = Ifano~ = 74. The
definition of Enoch as "witness" ('ed) originates in Midrashic literature.
87. MS. Oxford 1582, fols. 4b-5a.
88. See the references in G. Scholem, Von den mystischen Gestalt der
Gottheit (Zurich, 1962), pp. 307-308, nn. 12-18; Meyerovitch, Mystique et
Poesie, pp. 284-286.
89. MS. Oxford 574, fol. 13b. Cf. Scholem, in his above-mentioned book,
p. 309, n. 20; and Dan, The Esoteric Theology, pp. 224-225, esp. n. 8.
90. Num. 12:8.
91. Job 4:16.
92. This text is a corrected version by R. Moses of Burgos, whom Abulafia
considered among his disciples, of the saying of R. Isaac ha-Kohen, his
teacher. See Scholem, "R. Moses of Burgos, the disciple of R. Isaac" (Heb.)
Tarbif?. 5 (1934), pp. 191-192; Madda 'e ha-Yahadut II, p. 92. The passage also
influenced R. Meir ibn Gabbai, who quotes it verbatim in 'Avodat ha-Qodes. See
G. Scholem, "Eine Kabalistische Erklarung der Prophetie," MGWJ 74 (1930),
pp. 289-290.
93. R. Judah ibn Malka, Kitab Uns we-Tafsir, ed. Vajda (Ramat-Gan, 1974),
pp. 22-23, and p. 26. Ibn Malka wrote his works in the middle of the
thirteenth century, and not in the fourteenth century; see note 59 above.
94. A similar idea appears in the anonymous Perus ha-Tefillot, which is
close to both Abulafia and to Ibn Maika, which I shall discuss at length
elsewhere.
95. Fol. 69b. Corrected by Scholem according to MS. Oxford 1655, and
printed in the above-mentioned article (n. 92), p. 287.
96. On the identity of R. Nathan, see Idel, "The World of the
Imagination," pp. 175--176.
97. Genesis Rabba 27:1.
98. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 50a.
99. See note 95 above. In Sa'are 'f,edeq, MS. Jerusalem go 148, fols. 73b-74a,
154
155
116. MS. Rome - Angelica 38, 12a-b; MS. Miinchen 285, fol. 15a.
117. MS. Paris BN 4, fol. 166a, and see also fol. 166b. The passage is based
upon the following gematria: Adam and Eve (Adam we-l:fawah) = 70 = my
father and mother ('avi we-'imi) = blood and ink (dam we-diyo). And ink
(we-diyo) =26 = YHWH. Tav dam (sign of blood) =demut =(image)= nafseka (your
soul) kasfan (magician) kesafim (magic) sofek dam (spiller of blood) 450. See also
below, n. 172, and cf. Or ha-Selsel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 79a.
118. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 125a.
119. Isa. 25:8.
120. MS. British Library 749, fol. 12b; MS. New York- JTS 1801, fol. 9b.
121. Dan, Studies, p. 119. Joshua ben Nun gained understanding of the
Divine will by means of a vision, as "the name of four letters changes and
turns about in various different ways ... and likewise the name of God in
its letters resembles the angels and the prophets in many forms and brilliances
and has the likeness of human appearance." In Sefer ha-Ne'elam, MS. Paris
BN 817, fol. 75b, we read:
There is no prophet in the world who is able to tell of the various kinds of
Glories and levels which are within Him [i.e., within the Glory of the throne];
even that prophet, peace upon him [i.e., Ezekiel], who saw the Glory which
was upon the throne, saw nothing but the resemblance of the electrum, as
is stated there explicitly; and this great glory was placed upon the throne of
glory in order that His great Name might be placed upon it, and by it a
number of prophets, and that it be revealed to his pious ones, to each
according to his level, so that they not look at the splendor and majesty which
is in the essence of His Unity . . . . And when the Holy One, blessed be He,
said in his thought, "Let there be light" ... "Let there be a firmament" ...
and so on, His great Name, which is in accordance with His Glory, was
immediately revealed in that same word and creature. And this is [the
meaning of], "And God said let there be light ... a firmament, etc." and
subsequently "God made the firmament," etc. The Holy One, blessed be
He, says it in His thought, and the honorable Name performs it.
In Sefer '?ioni, fol. 34d (Yitro), it states: "For His great Name, which is the
Shekhinah, descended upon Sinai and dwelled upon it in fire, and the
Honorable Name speaks with Moses and Israel, 'Hear the Name of God,'
which is unique within the fire." A parallel to the description of the Divine
Name in Sefer ha-Navon, and to a certain extent to that in Sefer ha-Ne'elam is
found in Avicenna' s Commentary to M' arga Name, in which the prophet sees
the expression, "There is no God but Allah," inscribed upon a crown of light
on the forehead of the supernal angel. As noted by Henri Corbin, this
expression is the supreme Name of God; see his article, "Epiphanie Divine
et Naissance Spirituelle dans Ia Gnose Ismaelienne," Eranosjahrbuch 23 (1954),
p. 176, n. 69.
122. Dan, Ibid. p. 120: "The King of Glory is the Name of Four Letters";
156
157
their [allusion] also to the ascent to the tip of the mountain, upon which there
descended the "created light." These two matters assist us [to understand]
all similar matters, and they are [the terms] "place" [maqom] and "ascent"
['aliyah] that, after they come to the matter of "man," the two of them are
not impossible by any means; for Moses ascended to the mountain, and he
also ascended to the Divine level. That ascent is combined with a revealed
matter, and with a matter which is hidden; the revealed [matter] is the ascent
of the mountain, and the hidden [aspect] is the level of prophecy.
129. MS Mi.inchen 10, fol. 133b. Note the comparison of the giving of the
Torah to "the seekers of the kiss" on Mt. Gerizim, in Sefer ha-Malmad, MS.
158
of this name, which IS called, when It IS pronounced Yod He Waw He" Dam
(blood)=44= Yod=He Waw He, while d1yo (mk)=26= YHWH See Or ha-Sefsel,
MS Vatican 233, fol 79a In Can Na'ul, MS Munchen 58, fol 238a, It states
When the Name, whose secret IS m blood and mk, began to move w1thm
h1m, and he will feel It, as one who knows the place of a stone which IS
w1thm h1m, he will then know that the knowledge of the Name acted m
h1m, and 1t began to move him from potentiality to actuality
159
146 MS Oxford 123, fol 71a-b Certam magical subJects are discussed
m MS Ambrosiana 62/7 m the name of R Meshullam the Saducee, as attested
by G Scholem m Qzryat Sefer 11 (1933/34), p 189 Possibly the term Zarfatz (I e ,
the French) was corrupted to Zedoqz (The Saducee)
147 See h1s short commentary to Ex 28 30, and the remarks by R Joseph
ben Ehezer Tuv-'Elem Zafnat Pa'aneah (Cracow, 1912), pp 285--286 R David
Kokhav1 cites the opm1on m the name of the aggadah, statmg that
concentration upon the Unm and Tumm1m IS similar to an act of astrology,
see Mzgdal Dawzd, MS Moscow MS no ?, fol 175a
148 MS Pans BN 853, fol 56b-57a
149 Yoma 73b
150 Hagzggah 12a
151 That IS, on Sundays and Wednesdays
152 Num 6 25
153 See Also Ide!, "Types of Redemptive Activity," p 261, n 40
154 Sztre Torah, MS Pans BN 774, fol 157b Compare Gan Na'ul, MS.
Munchen 58, fols 321b-322a
The form of the letters, despite bemg flat, tend somewhat towards convexity,
wh1le the form of the eyes IS convex, so that when one receives power from
the letters m whiCh their form protrudes, It IS very thick and coarse, as m the
matter of 'Judah will ascend'-1 e, m the secret of the Unm and the
Tumm1m-and It IS pictured m the eyes of h1s head, and the letters Iilummate
the eyes m their bemg sunken mto them, and from there the power goes
over to the heart and IS sunk Withm It, standmg out, and the heart receives
It and completes with them Its actiOns, and moves from potentta mto actu m
attammg this ludden wonder
160
156 The connection between Unm and Tummim, the Ineffable Name,
and the faculty of the Imagmahon, appears later m R Hasdat Crescas See
S Urbach, The Phzlosophzcal Doctrme of R Hasdaz Crescas [Heb] Gerusalem,
1961), p 271
157 MS Pans BN 777, p 48 Compare Sefer ha-Zohar II, 230a-b
158 Ezek 1 26, see also Idel, Kabbalah- New Perspectzves, pp 63--65
159 MS Pans 777, p 49
160 In Sztre Torah, MS Pans BN 774, fol 165a "But snow IS the darkness
alone, and all the prophets gazed upon It and saw It and understood, for It
IS the 'Unclear crystal' " The reference here Is toward the supernal matter,
see also Hayye ha-Nefes, MS Munchen 408, fols 506-51a In Hayye ha-'Olam
ha-Ba, MS Oxford 1582, fol 69a-b, Abulafla expliCitly Identifies the Unm and
Tummim w1th the lummanes "Arzm we-Tamzm, and they are the Unm and
Tumm1m, wh1ch are m the 1mage of the lummanes, wh1ch enhghten m
truth " There 1s an allusiOn here both to the sun and moon, 1 e , the external
Unm and Tummtm, as well as to the mtellect and tmagmahon, whtch are the
mner Unm and Tummtm, enhghtenmg the truth
161 MS Jerusalem go 148, fols 73b--74a, translated by Scholem m Major
161
169 On the cosmic axis (telz) and Its Idenhty With the bar or axi~ of the
world, see A Epstem, Mz-Qadmomyot ha-Yehudzm (Jerusalem, 1953), pp
191-194 It Is worth ntmg here the comments of the author of Ner Elohzm
concermng this axis m MS Munchen 10, fol 130a
The southern pomt of the world there IS the Prmce of the Presence, for there
IS the head of the axis, and the north IS Its tau, and there IS the Pnnce of the
Back Part, and the appomted (angels] are Metatron and Sandalphon, or say
MIChael and Gabnel It has the nght-hand attnbute, which IS the attnbute
of mercy, m Its head, and at Its end m Its tml, IS the attnbute of judgment
162
The axis guides the world with both attributes: that of judgment and
that of mercy. Cf. note 171 below.
170. Of:ar'Edem Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 41b.
171. MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 145b. On reward and punishment in the
conduct of the world, see the same work, fol. 164b, "Metatron the Prince of
the Presence ... and he is the Prince of Action [i.e., the Active Intellect], the
fount of reward and punishment." Sar ha-Panim= 685 =Sar ha-Po'al (the Prince
of Action= Ma'yan Gemul va-'Ones (the fount of reward and punishment).
The intent is evidently to existence as reward and absence of existence as
punishment, whose source is in the motion of the spheres. On fol. 155a, a
parallel is drawn between reward and punishment, on the one hand, and
intellect and imagination, on the other, after which we read:
When you shall know within yourself that you have been perfected in those
attributes which witness to the power of imagination and the truth of its
essence in you, and when you will know that you have achieved perfection
in knowledge of the attributes of the Name by which the world is always
directed, and let your mind pursue your intellect to imitate it according to
your ability, always, and you shall know with your intellect ... " Cf. n. 169
above, and nn. 218-219 below.
163
164
196. Seva' Netivot ha-Torah, p. 10. It should be pointed out that this
understanding of the "ladder" differs in both Abulafia and in R. Isaac of Acre
from the image of the world as a ladder and a sphere. Concerning that outlook
which sees in the ladder a symbol of the world, Abulafia writes in Sitre Torah,
MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 122b:
The entire world is in the image of a ladder, beginning from the very lowest
place in locale and level; and the highest place is called "Throne," and the
lowest place is called "Footstool." And as the matter is thus, we found it in
reality, and we felt and apprehended in our senses and our intellect that the
matter of the universal man in the image of the world, for the world is a
macro-anthropos, and the man is a microcosm.
Yq.irah, p. 107.
200. At the end of the fifteenth century, Johannes Reuchlin reported
Nahmanides' words at the beginning of his Commentary on the Torah,
concerning the writing of the Torah in black fire upon white fire, adding that
the Kabbalists had a tradition that the Torah was written in a "circle of
fire," -in globum igneum. See Ars Cabalistica, ed. J. Pis tori us (Basel, 1587), p.
705.
201. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 53a. na'ar (youth) 320 sek; zaqen zaqen (old
man- old man)= 314= Metatron. It may be that one is meant to add the total
number of letters in Metatron and zaqen zaqen-i.e., 6--making the combined
gematria 320.
202. Song of Songs 5:2. The verse is interpreted in a number of sources
as an allusion to the indwelling of prophecy, or of the Shekhinah. See the
Targum to this verse, Rashi there, and Maimonides' remarks in Guide III:51.
The Safed Kabbalists mention this verse as an allusion to the appearance of
speech in their throats. "Behold the voice of my beloved knocked, and began,
'here 0 beloved'." See Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, p. 260 and n. 7.
203. I Samuel 3:9-10.
165
166
167
168
be turned about, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for every
righteousness and imagination is false: angels of mercy and angels of
destruction, those who learn merit and those who learn fault, defenders and
prosecutors; and he shall be in danger of death like Ben 'Azzai," etc. See
Ide!, "Hitbodedut as Concentration," p. 51.
227. The burning up during the process of carrying out a mystical
technique is already found in HeJsalot literature.
228. MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 157b. Compare the remarks of Johanan
Alemanno concerning the meditation upon Sefirot: "And again when he
sends forth his thought to them by a look, he shall immediately turn
backwards, lest he may conceive the spiritual as corporeal or his intellect will
uproot them or strike it, like one who peers and was hurt or peered and died,
for the corporeal intellect is unable to abide the Divine intellect, because of its
great vision [i.e., brightness], and it will be consumed and destroyed, like a
great fire which consumes a small one, and the light of the sun which blinds
the eye of the one who sees it, or a great candle which extinguishes a small
one" (anonymous work, MS. Paris BN 849, fol. 81b).
229. Ibid., fol. 158a.
230. Ibid., fol. 157b.
231. Imre Sefer, printed by Scholem, Abulafia, pp. 204-205, and also
brought in Liqqute Ifamif,, MS. Oxford 2239, fol. 129b.
232. Daniel 7:10.
233. On the face becoming drained of blood as a sign of fear, see Ide!,
169
170
Ibid., fol. 155a; compare Sa'are ?,edeq, MS. Jerusalem 8 148, fol. 39a.
259. MS. Rome- Angelica 38, fols. 31b-32a; MS. Miinchen 285, fol. 26b,
printed by Scholem in Major Trends, p. 382, and in Abulafia, p. 209, under the
heading, "Knowledge of the Messiah and the Wisdom of the Redeemer."
260. Sanhedrin 38a.
261. MS. Rome- Angelica 38, fols. 14b-15a; MS. Munchen 285, fol. 39b.
See Scholem, Major Trends, p. 382 and p. 140.
262. Based upon II Samuel5:17.
263. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 89-91.
264. Compare Sefer ha-Malmad, by one of Abulafia's disciples, where it
states (MS. Oxford 1649, fol. 206a), "Say to God, 'you are my son, this day
have I begotten you,' (Ps. 2:7) and likewise the verse, "I, I am He,' (Deut.
32:39) And the secret is the clinging of the power-that is, the supernal Divine
power, called the sphere of prophe~y-with human power, and so they said
'I, I'." More on this citation see Idel, "Abraham Abulafia and Unio Mystica,"
Studies, essay I.
265. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 20a and 21a.
171
64a~6b;
172
279. Ibid., fols. 115a-119a, with omissions. In the same work (fol. Sa),
Abulafia writes: "it may be that they will receive from this book of mine a
path, such that they shall long to cleave to its first cause."
280. MS. Paris PN 776, fol. 192b; MS. Vatican 441, fol. 115a. Compare
R. Pinhas Elijah Horowitz, Sefer ha-Berit (Brunn, 1797), Pt. II, fol. 29b. In an
anonymous work found in MS. New York- JTS 2203, fol. 214b, we read
similar ideas to those appearing in the above collection: "Surely know that
the Creator and the intellect [i.e., the human intellect] and the angels, all
become one thing and one essence and one truth, and are like the flame of
the candle, for example."
281. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 120b.
282. See the long discussion of this matter in P. Merlan, Monopsychism,
Mysticism, Metaconsciousness (The Hague, 1963), pp. 18 ff., p. 25, 36.
283. Peruse Risonim le-Masef5.et Avot Oerusalem, 1973), p. 65. Similar things
appear on p. 62, cf. Sefer ha-'?eruf, MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 4a: "When the
intellect becomes refined, while it is [still] in matter, when it is still in that
same dwelling place in truth, this is a very high level, to cleave to the Source
of Sources after the soul has been separated from matter."
284. In the printed edition, pp. 20--21; MS. New York JTS 1887, fols.
99b--100a; and Scholem, Major Trends, p. 131. W.T Stace saw in this passage
an indication of pantheism; see his Mysticism and Philosophy (London, 1961),
p. 116. On the understanding of the Sefirot as pertaining to spiritual powers
within man, see Ide!, Kabbalah-New Perspectives, Chap. 6; on man as a
compound entity, see Idel, "Abraham Abulafia and Unio Mystica," Studies
essay I.
285. This appears to be Averroes' approach.
286. Abulafia was evidently influenced by the expression, "the forces
scattered in the world," which appears in Guide II:6, although the meaning
of this idiom is not the same in Abulafia as in Maimonides. The expression,
"the forces scattered in existence," appears in 1-Jayye ha-Nefes, MS. Miinchen
408, fol. 90a.
287. MS. Vatican 233, fols. 109a-b, and Scholem, Abulafia, pp.
22~226.
173
291. The expression, is elohi (Divine man), also appears in MS. Leiden
93, from whence Majda also translated the passage; see ibid., p. 379, n. 1. It
is worth noting here that the expression "Divine man" appears in
Maimonides' letter to R. f:Iasdai ha-Levi. This letter refers to a story
concerning the equanimity of the perfect man, an idea which likewise appears
in Me'irat 'Enayim. The expression is elohi similarly appears in Even Sappir, MS.
Paris BN 728, fol. 154; cf. Idel, "Hitbodedut as Concentration," Studies, essay
VII.
ha-Mafte~ot
174
297. See Scholem's remarks, Abulafia, p. 131 ff, as well as the important
article of Mircea Eliade, "The God who Binds," Images and Symbols (New York,
1969), pp. 92-124.
298. On the use of this expression in magic, see R. C. Thompson, Semitic
Magic (New York, 1971), p. 166, p. 169, n. 3; S. J. Shah, Oriental Magic
(London, 1956), p. 82. The expression, "the binding of the bridegroom" (asirat
ha-hatan), which appears during the Geonic period, also bears a magical
significance: see L. Ginzberg, Geonica (New York, 1909), II, p. 152; S.
Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York, 1942), p. 110. On the subject
of magic and the knot, see Vajda's above-mentioned study, p. 110-112.
299. This Platonic idea appears in several places in Abulafia; see, for
example, Sitre Torah, MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 160a: "to open blind eyes, to
remove the prisoners from bondage, from prison those who dwell in
darkness," etc.; Or ha-Se15_el, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 117a ff.
300. The motif of nature seducing the soul in order to sink within it is
an old one; see Mussare ha-Filosofim, I, 18, 8.
301. O;wr'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 23b.
302. Joel 3:5.
303. P. 144.
304. Of:ar'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fols. 133b-134a.
305. Ibid., 56a; teli = 440 = mef<asef (witch). This gematria is widely used
by Abulafia. The knots which sustain the human body are already alluded
to in R. Judah Barceloni's Perus Sefer Yef:irah, (Berlin, 1885) p. 17: "the creature
will be separated and the knots will be undone, and he will die."
306. Ibid., fol. 131b.
307. On the expression, "his law and his portion," see Steinschneider,
Al-Farabi, p. 103, n. 37, and p. 247.
308. Of:ar'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 131b.
309. On the "creational" fettering of man, see Hans Jonas, The Gnostic
Religion (Boston, 1963), p. 204.
310. Or ha Se15_el, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 117a. The matter of the "fettering"
and the putting on of the spiritual form also appears in Sefer ha Qanah
(Koryscz, 1784), fol. 106d; "And the intention is that Enoch cast off the bodily
element and put on the spiritual element, and was fettered by a spiritual
knot."
311. Ibid., fol. 115b; haq qeser (the knot)= 605 = hitir (untied). See Idel,
"Mundus Imaginalis," Stud1es, essay V.
312. Of:ar'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 132a, based on Guide of the
175
Perplexed II:2 and Samuel ibn Tibbon, Perus Millim Zarot (ed. J. Even-Shmuel),
p. 82.
313. Jjayye ha-Nefes, MS. Miinchen 408, fol. 63a.
314. "Myth and Mysticism: A Study of Objectification and Interiorization
in Religious Thought," Journal of Religion 49 (1969), pp. 328-239.
315. See Binyamin Uffenheimer, Jjazon Zefalreyah; min ha-Nevu'ah
la-Apoqaliptiqah (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 135 ff, and the bibliography cited in the
notes.
316. Ibid., fol. 127b-128a.
317. Jjayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 50a.
318. Or ha-Sek_el, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 125b.
319. Ibid., fols. 127b-128a.
320. Guide for the Perplexed II:37. On the prophet-messenger in Avicenna,
see F. Rahman, Prophecy in Islam (London, 1958), pp. 52., pp. 86., and
compare We-zot li-Yihudah, pp. 18-19.
321. Sitre Torah, MS. Paris BN 774, fol. 154b.
322. Isa. 50:6.
323. Ibid., v. 9.
324. Jjayye ha-Nefes, MS. Miinchen 408, fol. 47a.
325. MS. Jerusalem 8 1303, fol. 73b. The passage is based entirely upon
fragments of verses connected with various different prophets.
326. Further on, Abulafia quotes a series of verses expressing the bitter
lot of the prophets.
327. MS. Rome- Angelica 38, fol. 34a.
328. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 402--408, esp. n. 71. In addition to
the passages cited there, see Sefer ha-Ot, p. 68 and Sefer ha-'Edut, MS. Rome
-Angelica 38, fol. 13b.
329. See Idel, "Abraham Abulafia on the Jewish Messiah and Jesus,"
176
The term, "upper Messiah," also appears in Sefer ha-Temunah, fol. 29b,
while the lofty status of the Messiah is mentioned in Perus Sem ben M"B Otiyot
by R. Moses of Burgos, in a fragment published by G. Scholem, Tarbiz 5
(1934), p. 55 and n. 6. As in the passage from R. Isaac of Acre, in the note
from MS. Montefiore as well the Messiah is identified with the Sefirah of
Keter. Generally speaking, the Messiah enjoys a relatively low status, and is
identified with the Sefirah of Malkut; see, for example, R. Moses de Leon's
Seqel ha-Qodes, pp. 90-91. On the definition of the Messiah as "a Divine
power," see R. Azriel of Gerona, Derek. ha-Emunah we-Derek. ha-Kefirah,
published by Scholem, "New Remnants of the Writings of R. Azriel of
Gerona" (Heb.), Sefer Gulak we-Klein Oerusalem, 1942), p. 211. The Messiah's
"divinity" becomes a central element in Sabbatian Kabbalah, but the approach
per se is rooted in earlier Kabbalah--a point which I cannot discuss in depth
here. Compare the remarks of Reuchlin, De Arte Cabalistica (Basel, 1557), p.
862; "est enim Messiha (sic) Virtus Dei."
335. Metatron, the Prince of the Presence.
336. 61-ar 'Eden Ganuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 174a. Compare R. Abraham
ibn Ezra's short commentary on Ex. 23:20 (ed. Fleischer, p. 202). On fol. 134a
of the same work, Abulafia again describes reality in bleak terms: "for
everything that is with us is all earthly, and we have no control over it, nor
complete power over it, except in a very few cases and occasions; and all is
imagination and mockery, like a dream which passes by in the night which,
when the sleeper awakes from it, thus shall he find it. And even when he
looks at the day past, he will see that all his days are like a passing shadow."
337. Compare Isa. 28:8.
338. Sitre Torah, MS. Paris BN 774, fol 155. The motif of Satan or the
imagination perpetually lying in wait for the mystic, who for this reason is
177
p. 98.
347. Tamid 32a. The author of Sefer ha Malmad (MS. Oxford 1649, fol.
207a), similarly stresses the concept of willed death, as in the example of his
teacher:
... for in truth, if a man lives it, that man will live; as the philosphers say:
"If you wish to live by nature, die voluntarily and live by nature; and if you
wish to die by nature, live voluntarily and die by nature." And this is clear
to a man who has been granted by God knowledge and understanding and
intellect; blessed is He who has graced us knowledge. And our sages said
likewise, in their saying: "What shall man do to live? He shall die. And what
shall man do and die? He shall live."
178
and place It m the service of the D1vme power, and he shall afflict h1s body
and hit It with woundmg blows, for truthful are the blows of a fnend, as
[our rabbis] of blessed memory said, 'With what shall a man give hfe to his
soul? He shall kill his body, unhl he return from the children of On H1gh and
attam everythmg, from the earth to the firmament, and from one end of the
heavens to the other, and he shall hve for etermty "'
351 The opmwn of H Graetz, Hzstory of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1956),
IV 5, concernmg the need for mtense preparatiOns, afflictions and Isolation,
have no basis m the wntmgs of Abulafia
352 Ozar 'Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford 1580, fol 162a
353 Or ha-Sels_el, MS Vatican 233, fol 125b
354 Can Na'ul, MS Munchen 58, fol 328a
355 Kzddusm fol 71a
356 See particularly the hst of conditions Abulafia reqmred of those
disciples who would be worthy of receiVmg the secrets of Kabbalah, m which
any extreme ascetic element IS conspicuously absent, Hayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba,
MS Oxford 1582, fol 34a
357 Ozar Hayyzm, MS Moscow- Gunzburg 775, fol 170b
358 Compare also the appearance of "equamm1ty" (hzstawwut)-lacl<Ing
m the wntmgs of Abraham Abulaha-m R Isaac of Acre, agam apparently
under Suhc mfluence, see Idel, 'Hztbodedut as Concentration," Studzes, essay
VII
359 Ozar 'Eden Ganuz, MS Oxford 1580, fols 165b-166a
Chapter Four
180
181
to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. The other prophets and pious men
are beneath that degree; but their knowledge of God is strengthened
when death approaches. 7
182
183
And he explained [the verse] "by the mouth of God" [Num. 33:38;
Deut. 34:5] as follows: this is compared to the kiss, and it [refers to]
the cleaving of the intellect to the object of its intellection so closely
and intensely that there is no longer any possibility for the soul [to
remain in] matter, and that intense love called the kiss is a rebuke
to the body, and it remains alone, and this is the truth. And on the
literal level, [it means that] there was none of the weakness of the
elements or any element of chance but the edict of God, may He be
blessed. 18
184
185
186
apprehensions [than this], and the human mind has not the power
to apprehend this until it is attached to the divine intellect, in a
connection similar to that of the body and the soul, or the connection
of form and matter, similar to the union of male and female, the
best and sweetest of which is the first [union]-that is, a virgin
groom with a virgin bride-for the longing between the two of them
has continued a long time before their uniting. [Thus,] at the time
of their union they attain the pinnacle of their desire, and the
movement of the first desire ... And their hearts receive a great
peace, and the movement of their desire is from then on a calm one,
in a moderate manner, neither excessively rapid nor excessively
slow, but as is fitting: and after the two minds settle on one matter,
they begin to move in the form of the desire of their giving birth,
and they will attempt to guide their actions with the intention of
impregnation, for they have already moved from one desire of a
certain aim to another desire, and it is also doubtless a purposive
one, and thus the thing continues from purpose to purpose, and all
things follow one purpose or another .... But I must inform you
here of the matter of those who seek out 'prophecy', which is similar
to what I have said concerning the simile of the groom and the bride,
and of this it is said,31 "If all the songs (sic) are holy, Song of Songs
is Holy of Holies." For the entire intention of that poet was to tell
us by means of parables and secrets and images the form of true
'prophecy' and its nature and how to reach it. And the essence of
'prophecy' is that the intellective soul, which is the mover within .
the body, is first united with all the ways of the Torah and with the
secrets of the mi;:.wot and knowledge of their reasons in general, and
after it has ascended the rungs of apprehension included in
knowledge of the truth and removal of the illusions according to
Kabbalah ... and the last is the purpose of the general prophecy.
187
188
disciples, who write what they write according to the Holy Spirit,
and they are those who know the ways of prophecy.
A leitmotif of these passages is that of the delight accompanying
mystical experience. One might argue that this is merely a theoretical
inference from the pleasure which accompanies sexual union, but in
several passages Abulafia makes it quite clear that this pleasure is in
fact the aim of mystical experience. In Or ha-Sek_el, he says:
The letter is like matter, and the vocalization is like spirit, which
moves the matter, and the apprehension of the intention of the one
moved and of the mover is like the intellect; and it is that which acts
in spirit and matter, while the pleasure received by the one who
apprehends is the purpose. 46
As is well known, in the hierarchy customary in the Middle Ages,
the ultimate purpose [telos] of a thing is seen as the most important. 47
For that reason, this passage of Abulafia may be understood as an
indication of the primacy of pleasure above apprehension. However,
there are also places in which the distinction between apprehension
and pleasure is not so sharp, although there too pleasure may be seen
as the final goal. Thus, he writes in Maftea!z ha-To]s_a!zot:
The purpose of marriage of man and woman is none other than their
union, and the purpose of union is impregnation, and the purpose
of impregnation is [bearing] offspring, and the purpose of [offspring]
is study [i.e., of Torah by the child born], and the purpose of that
is apprehension [of the Divine], whose purpose is the continuing
maintaining of the one apprehending with pleasure gained from his
apprehension. 48
In addition to these theoretical expressions, there are descriptions of the mystical experience and of the sensation of pleasure
accompanying it. In 0f:,tlr 'Eden Ganuz, 49 for example, we read:
And you shall feel in yourself an additional spirit arousing you and
and passing over your entire body and causing you pleasure, and it
shall seem to you as if balm has been placed upon you, from your
head to your feet, one or more times, and you shall rejoice and enjoy
it very much, with gladness and trembling; gladness to your soul
and trembling of your body, like one who rides rapidly on a horse,
who is happy and joyful, while the horse trembles beneath him. 50
Abulafia is ready to see physical pleasure as an appropriate
means of expressing the feelings which accompany the mystical
189
190
191
It follows from this that the seed is an image for the influx which
reaches the intellective soul, transforming it into intellect in actuality.
In Ifayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, Abulafia briefly returns to the point that
"every man is the fruit of God, may He be blessed, and His seed, by
way of allegory, and he is His son in truth." 79 This idea likewise
appears in Sa'are :?edeq, where the anonymous author writes that
'"and she bears seed' [Num. 5:28] which is the Holy Spirit, and it is
a lasting son." 80 His contemporary, R. Nathan, states in an extant
collection from his writing that the Sefirah of Malf<Ut:
... is the male among the separate intelligibilia and among the souls
of human beings, for the influx which comes from it to the
intellective soul is like the seed, which comes from the man to the
womb of the woman. And just as a man matures in years, so does
his intellect, which is the influx, grow with him. 81
The use of the image of seed is a logical sequel to the use of the
image of intercourse, in addition to the fact that according to the
medieval world view, the connection between the brain and the seed
is an organic one: the source of the seed, like the intellect, is in the
brain. 82 This outlook is clearly expressed in Sefer ha-Bahir83; it was
accepted by the earliest Kabbalists, 84 and became the dominant view
within the Kabbalah. Abulafia himself associates the two subjects,
and writes of the brain and the heart that "both of them know their
Creator ... and from both together is issued the power of birth."85
192
193
Sefer Ye?irah, 90 "soul [i.e., man], world and year" (nefes, 'olam, sanah)."
The connection between the impregnation of the soul and the
intercalation of the year and the world lies in the fact that both are
connected with calculations: The soul becomes impregnated when it
calculates gematriot and combinations, so that it becomes wise and
gives birth to "understandings" under the influence of the Active
Intellect. It is worth noting that, like the calculations of gematriot, the
calendrical calculations are performed in Hebrew with the help of
letters. The triad mentioned in connection with intercalation also
appears in Ner Elohim:91
He who knows the secret of intercalation, which is the secret of the
year, will [also] know the secret of the impregnation ['ibbur] of the
world and of the impregnation of the soul. For this reason all the
letters are twenty-two [in number], and there is the divine Name
there: on one side the name YHWH and on the other side the name
Ehyeh. The names YHWH and Ehyeh add up in gematria to 47, which
is the sum of the number of years in the "great cycle" of the sun,
28, and in the lunar cycle, 19.92
194
195
Despite the fact that this passage is rather obscure, it may well
be that it refers to the connection between the intellective aspect
symbolized by the expression, "the circle of man," "his right hand,"
and the material aspect, symbolized here by the words "his left
hand" and "the circle of fire." These phrases are evidently
understood in terms of the connection of male and female, who
correspond to the intellective and material parts. This is also
suggested by the use of the term sefa' (influx), whose results are
evidently the impregnation or the "secret of impregnation." This
would indicate that Abulafia's type of thought penetrated into the
latter Kabbalistic school of mid- sixteenth-century Jerusalem. It is also
quite plausible that the above-quoted section is in fact a fragment from
one of Abulafia's lost writings, or one of his circle. In any event, we
shall now go on to the results of the process of "impregnation."
196
With some minor changes, Abulafia reiterates the interconnections among ben (son)-boneh (builds)-binyan (building) in Sitre
Torah: "For sem (name) comes from the word desolation (semamah)
and destruction, while ben comes from the term 'understanding'
(binah) and 'construction' (binyan). " 109 The significance of these
etymological exegeses seems clear-the son who is born is the
builder, that is, the Intellect which is the true building of man, which
attains eternal life for him. 110 In the sequel to the above-mentioned
passage from Sitre Torah, we read that "man is composed of a desolate
and wasted desert (midbar), like his body, and a rational being
(medabber), which is prepared and built for perfect and eternal
existence." Abulafia's words cited here are reflected in another
passage in Sitre Torah:
"The donkey ([lamar) brays." The pure bodily matter, "your soul"
"the magician" (kasfan; an anagram of nafSe.ka, "your soul"), and it
is the appetitive soul. "Dogs barking"-this refers to the material
powers, that is, the power of imagination and excitation, and the
other powers, which are partly spiritual and partly material. "A
woman speaking [i.e., coupling with] her husband"-matter and
form. "And a baby"-intellective power-"suckling from its mothers breast"-the Active lntellect. 111
197
198
one thing from another; and they have already alluded to this in
saying, "When he was forty years old Abraham came to know his
Creator."125 And the Torah likewise alluded to this concerning Isaac,
"And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca." 126 And this
is the secret of the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the
desert, and the form of the fetus in the womb is completed after forty
days, to require the one pregnant for a male and twice that for a
female,127 and this is [likewise] the secret of the [Hebrew letter]
mem, which gives birth.12s ... Therefore it is said [of Moses], 129
"forty days and forty nights he did not eat bread and did not drink
water."
The phrase, "to be redeemed from the power of the physical
forces" is reminiscent of the above passage from O!Jlr 'Eden Ganuz,
dealing with the redemption of the first-born "from the powers within
man, which is the intellect." 130 The spiritual birth is alluded to here
by the parallel to physical birth, forty years as against forty days;
there is likewise an association here with saying in Avot 5:23, "one
who is forty years old-for understanding." In I-Jayye ha-'Olam
ha-Ba, 131 Abulafia again discusses the above- mentioned idea:
Yafefiyah [the Prince of the Torah] ... taught Torah, that is, the
entire Torah, to Moses our teacher for forty days and forty nights,
corresponding to the formation of the fetus in its mother's womb, 132
[the time necessary] to distinguish between male and female.
Therefore it is possible for a person to enjoy the radiance of the
Shekhinah in this world without food for forty days and forty nights,
like Moses and Elijah. 133 And the secret of the names of both of them
is known to you, and he combines one with the other: first Moses,
and then Elijah, and their combination emerges as a Divine Name
(sem ha-elohi; an anagram of Mose, Eliyahu), and it is in its secret
[meanin~] the name of the son, and he is the son of God [pun on sem
and Ha-Sem].
Prima facie, the above-cited passages from Abulafia's works are
no more than theoretical discussions of the spiritual development of
Moses and Elijah: Abulafia relies upon literary sources that were
known long before him, and upon the number forty years, which is
a formulary number. One may ask whether his discussion is merely
an intellectual exercise, or whether there are indications of Abulafia's
personal experience underlying these arguments; i.e., was the
intellect which transformed Abulafia into a son of God born within
his soul? 134 The only two books in which I have found a connection
drawn between the appearance of the intellect and the number forty
were written in 1280, that is, the Hebrew year 5040, which was the
199
200
completed after forty days, the skin of his face shone, and therefore
he extended [the stay of] in the desert of those who left Egypt for
forty years, because of their great poverty, and he, peace upon him,
only needed one day for each year.140
R. Isaac of Acre writes in a similar vein in his book 6p;zr lfayyim: 141
The enlightened one who goes to separate himself and to
concentrate, to draw [down] upon his soul 142 the divine spirit, in
wondrous and awesome deeds which are too terrible to relate; from
the day he came from God, strong desire and intense love in the
heart of his father and mother gave birth to him, and he who gave
birth to him, to connect with [him] and to labor in him until he is
today forty years old, which is the time of completion of the building
of his intellect and its sanctuary, to adjure evil and to choose good.
"For until forty years [man wishes] fine food"1 43-these allude to
the sensory and corporeal realms. "From then on, [he wishes] fine
beverage"-this is the Divine spirit, to apprehend the intelligibilia,
and this is what is said in he verse,144 "God has [not] given you a
heart to know and eyes to see and ears to hear, until this
day' -which is the fortieth year-" and has led you forty years in the
wilderness" 145-an allusion to the house of seclusion.
201
old I was unable to understand a thing from his books." Despite the
differences between the passages, it seems to me that they
complement one another: both speak about Raziel as a master, while
the periods of study complement one another: Toldot Adam speaks
of two later periods of study-from 13 to 40 and from age 40
on-while the introduction speaks of the earliest stage, until the age
of thirteen. 148 It is worth mentioning that the anonymous author of
Toldot Adam often copied from the works of other authors without
mentioning them by name, and therefore the above passage may be
a reworking of an idea of Abulafia' s without its source being
mentioned. 149
Finally, I would like to cite the view of several Jewish authors
on the subject of spiritual rebirth. First, I would like to quote the
author of the Zohar:150
Come and see: whoever reaches the age of thirteen years and on is
called a son of the congregation of Israel,ISI and whoever reaches
the age of twenty years and onwards is called a son of the Holy
One, blessed be He.I52, for certainly "You are sons of the Lord your
God."153 When David reached thirteen years and was meritorious,
on that day that he entered his fourteenth year, it is written, I54 "God
said to me, you are my son, this day I have begotten you." What is
the meaning? That before that day he was not His son and the
supernal soul did not dwell upon him, for he was in his years of
uncircumcision. For that reason-"this day I have begotten you."
"Today" certainly "I have begotten you" and not the Other Side
(sitra a[tra), as it had been until now.
It is clear from this passage that the author of the Zohar also
interprets the appearance of the soul, which is the supernal
component within the personality, as a new birth, transforming man
into a son of God. The statement at the end that man is under the
domination of the Other Side until the age that one is required to
perform the commandments reminds one of Abulafia' s statement
that prior to the appearance of the intellect the bodily powers of man
are predominant. The perception of the appearance of the intellective
soul or the intellect as a symbol of renewal appears in two later
authors. In book Yesodot ha-Maskil, R. David Yom Tov ibn Bilia, a
fourteenth century Portuguese philosopher with mystical leanings,
writes as follows:Iss
For were the intellective soul itself present within man at the time
of his birth, this would require that we immediately apprehend the
supernal knowledge and wisdom, and we do not see this: for if one
202
does not engage in study one knows nothing, and if one does so
one becomes something else by onese1f,156 and this is the proof that
the soul which comes into being with the person is no more than a
preparation. And we learn this principle from the saying of the
Psalmist, of blessed memory, who says to his soul, "He who does
good on behalf of me, renew as an eagle my youth." 157 There is no
doubt that the Psalmist was only speaking to his intellective soul,
which is renewed after man is born, and this renewal is like that of
the eagle, which is renewed by itself (sic) after a [certain] known
period.
A combination of the motifs of the self-renewing eagle (probably
an allusion to the phoenix) 158 and the man of intellect appear in R.
Abraham Bibago, a fifteenth-century Spanish philosopher, who gives
striking expression to the way in which the intellect flows into man
from the upper world as a son:
However, the human intellect is like the son which flows down from
the world of intellect, and afterwards,just as there is a relation
between the son and his father, so is it possible that there may be
cleaving between us and the world of the intellect; thus, when God
said to me "you are my son" i.e., I will give you understanding
brought down into the world, "this day I have begotten you," and
that day that you cling to Me, you will be born in a renewed and
eternal birth. And this is meant by his saying, "renew as an eagle
my youth." 159
One should also note the words of R. Menahem cAzariah de
Fano, a sixteenth- century Italian Kabbalist, in Ma, amar ha-Nefes:
"And then God said to me, 'You are my son,' and in this saying he
emanated upon him a spark of the spirit. 'This day I have begotten
you'-this refers to the spark of the soul, for both of which [the two
sparks] he will shine into him, 'today,' in their images."I6o
Finally, I wish to comment upon the great similarity between
several elements in Abulafia' s approach concerning man's true birth,
i.e., that of the intellect and the remarks of the Renaissance thinker,
Lodovico Lazarelli, in his work, Crater Hermetis, 161 Basing himself
upon a version of Pe'ulat ha- Ye~irah, 162 Lazarelli interprets the
appearance of the golem, referred to in that work, as a spiritual process
of the appearance of renewed man. As in Abulafia, this appearance
is defined as the birth of the disciple's intellect under the tutelage of
the master's intellect, 163 Using the image of seed, 164 the act of true
birth of man is described by Lazarelli in terms of the teacher's
resemblance to the creative power of God. 165 Evidently Abulafia's
203
204
mystery in the sexual act, and that this mystery, which cannot be
given clear expression, enables it to serve as a symbol for the sublime
mysteries, 168 and even to influence the divinity despite its "gross"
components.
Abulafia, under the influence of the philosophical approach, 169
perceives the sexual act as a lowly one. In 0plr 'Eden Ganuz, 170 he
writes: "Intercourse is called the Tree of knowledge of good and
evil, 171 and it is a matter of disgust and one ought to be ashamed at
the time of the act [and be away] from every seeing eye and hearing
ear." Abulafia emphasizes the lowliness of the sexual act: the aura
of mystery which accompanies it in the Sefirotic Kabbalah is here
completely absent. If, nevertheless, Abulafia chose it as an image for
mystical experience, he did so because in his approach there is no
necessary connection between the image and the process or thing to
which that image refers. While the theosophical Kabbalists emphasized the mysterious aspect of the sexual act, Abulafia stresses more
its "didactic" element; that is, the sexual act is one that is parallel to
mystical experience because of the similar set of components and the
interrelationships among them. We do not find any assumption in
Abulafia of a substantive connection between the processes; he seeks
a schema which is appropriate and well-known for describing
mystical experience, so that he can exemplify its occurrence in a
simple way. Another distinction is to be added to what we have said
thus far: intercourse is an act whose nature is known to us, and it is
used to describe an event which may also be apprehended and
defined in intellectual terms. Not so in Sefirotic Kabbalah: the
supernal union is a hidden process, which is reflected in human
sexual union without our being able to understand its exact nature. 172
Let us now turn to another distinction between the sexual act as
symbol and as image. Generally speaking, the human sexual act is
used in Sefirotic Kabbalah to allude to processes within the Godhead.
Abulafia' s use of the sexual act as an image for the connection of the
intellective soul with the Active Intellect and its cleaving to it do not
appear in earlier Kabbalah. According to Scholem erotic symbolism
was interpreted as a symbolism dealing with Godhead, while the
connection between man and God was not explained by the use of
such symbols except in the later period, of Safedian Kabbalah. 173 It
follows from this that the process alluded to in Abulafia is entirely
different from that referred to by theosophical Kabbalists. These
Kabbalists refer to an act whose actual performance acquires a certain
theosophic meaning, provided that it is done accompanied by
knowledge and mystical intention towards its true goal. There is no
hint of this demand in Abulafia: there is in principle no need for
205
2. See Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar II, pp. 280-306, and the notes
there; R. J. Z. Werblowsky, Tarbiz 34 (1965), pp. 204-205; idem, Joseph Karo,
206
pp 57-58
3 On love as mtellectual worship, see Ttshby, zbzd, pp 283-284
Abulaha's view on this subject appears m the section entitled "the worship
of God via love," Sod 2 10, Sztre Torah and Hayye ha-Nefes There are bnef
discussiOns of this subject m several other sources see Mafteah ha-Seftrot,
MS Milano- Ambrosiana 53, fol 176a Vajda, L'amour de Dzeu dans Ia theologze
JUlVe du Moyen Age (Pans, 1957), pp 203-204, descnbes Abulaha's approach
to this subject, based upon Hayye ha-Nefes alone On pp 197-198 he giVes a
translation of a passage from Imre Sefer discussmg mtellectuallove, without
mentionmg either the source of the section or Its author, See also Idel,
Abraham Abulafta, p 27
4 Bava Batra fol17a, Szfrez Devarrm, sec 357, Mo'ed Qatan fol 28a, etc
5 See the midrash, Petzrat Mose Rabbenu, m Eisenstem, Ozar ha-Mzdraszm,
II ,pp 370, 383
6 Song of Songs 1 2
7 It would appear to me that this passage from the Guzde of the Perplexed
mfluenced, not only Abulaha and his disCiples, but also those Kabbahsts
belong~ng to the theosophic school Its ImpressiOn may already be noticed
m R. Aznel, Perus ha-Aggadot, p 5 and p 59
And the sages satd [Srfra Wa-yrkra, 32 12), "'no man shall see me and hve'
[Ex 33 20]-m theu hfehme they can not see but at the hme of the1r deaths
[they may]," and they are hke the candle whose hght waxes JUSt as 1t 1s about
to be exhngu1shed And th1s 1s what IS wntten, "you gather [ht "add"] the1r
spmts and they d1e" (Ps 104 29]-m that add1hon the1r spmt departs
207
The subshtuhon of Ben Azzm for R Akiva as the one who died by the
kiss likewise appears m a passage m MS Vatican 41, fol 34b, m the margms
"and Ben Azzai likewise desired the secret and went beyond the bounds to
seek It, and he died With the kiss "It IS possible that R Judah al-Bohm grafted
the Idea found m Hayye ha-'6lam ha-Ba onto a descnption of the death of Ben
Azzai, MS Vatican 283, fol 71b
"Ben Azzai looked and d1ed " He gazed at the radiance of the Shekhmah,
hke a man With weak eyes who gazes mto the full light of the sun, and his
eyes are dimmed, and at times he becomes blmded, because of the mtens1ty
of the hght which overwhelms h1m Thus It happened to Ben Azza1 the hght
overwhelmed him, and he gazed at It because of h1s great desire to cleave
to It and to enJOY It Without mterruphon, and after he cleaved to It he d1d
not wish to be separated from that sweet radiance, and he remamed
Immersed and hidden Withm It And his soul was crowned and adorned,
and that very radiance and bnghtness to which no man may clmg and
afterwards hve, as IS said, "for no man shall see Me and hve"[Ex 33 20] But
Ben Azza1 only gazed at It a httle while, and then his soul departed and
remamed [there], and was hidden away m the place of Its cleavmg, which IS
a most preciOus hght And this death was the death of the pwus, whose
souls are separated from all the ways of the supernal world
This passage was evidently wntten dunng the first half of the thirteenth
century, cf R Aznel's Perus ha-Aggadot, ed Tishby, p 19 For other
descnptions of Ben Azzm's ecstatic death, seeR Isaac of Acre, 6zar Hayyzm,
MS Moscow- Gunzburg 775, fol l38a, R Menahem Recanah, Perus [a-Torah,
fol 37d, etc
16 Psalms 116 15
208
17. This duality also appears in Gnosticism; see Hans Jonas, The Gnostic
Religion (Boston, 1963), p. 285. Sufism also contains testimonies to the death
of the mystic in a state of ecstasy. See above, Chap. 2, n. 50.
18. MS. Jerusalem 8B 1303, fol. 53b; MS. Vatican 295, fol. 6b. In his book,
'?eror ha-Mor, Ch. 6 [in Jellinek, Kerem Ifemed 9 (1956), p. 157], R. Isaac ibn
Latif writes: "When the human intellect actually cleaves to the intelligibilia,
which are the Active Intellect, in the form of the kiss." Ibn Latif's approach
influenced R. Yohanan Alemanno, Sa'ar ha-Heseq (Livorno, 1790), fol. 35a-b;
Collectanaea, MS. Oxford 2234, fol. 187a. In his Collectanaea, fol. 30a, Alemanno
cites a passage from Narboni's commentary to Averroes' On the Possibility of
Conjunction which speaks of the "preparation" of the Active Intellect: "Let
Him kiss him with the kisses of His mouth, and let him receive the Active
Intellect in the light of his soul which rises upon her." See Kalman P. Bland,
The Epistle on the the Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect by Ibn Rushd
with the Commentary of Moses Narboni (New York, 1982), p. 96.
19. MS. Oxford 1649, fol. 204a.
20. See above, Chap. 3, par. 6.
21. The author of this work may be alluding to the gematria 10 x 26 [i.e.,
the name YHWH] = 260 [the gematria of Gerizim, in the deficient spelling used
in Scripture].
22. MS, Miinchen 22, fol. 187a; MS. New York JTS 839, fols. 105b-l06a.
The vision of light while in the ecstatic state at the time of death, described
in Sefer ha-'?eruf, is similar to what is already found in a text from the circle
of Sefer ha-'Iyyun. Several manuscripts contain a passage belonging to this
circle (MS. Vatican-Urbino 31, fol. 164a; MS. New York JTS 839, fol. Sb; etc.),
which reads:
From the time that the righteous person departs to his eternal home, he sees
the light of the sphere of the intellect, and immediately he departs. As if the
Holy One, blessed be He, has created it and made it known to the eye. And
Moses saw the light of the Zebu!, and immediately died. And why all this?
Because the body has no strength to stand it.
Here, there is no direct connection stated to death by the kiss, but the
author of Sefer ha-Peli'ah did draw a connection between the passage from the
circle of Sefer ha-'Iyyun and the image of the kiss (Koretz, 1788, fol. 106b):
Know that at the time that the righteous person departs to his eternal abode,
he sees the light of the sphere of the intellect, and his soul immediately
departs and leaves the body. And know that he is shown it in accordance
with the level of that righteous person and his cleaving to that light, and he
immediately cleaves [to it], for there is no strength in the body to withstand
209
the soul's longing when it sees that light; and Moses, as soon as he saw the
light of the dwelling of the supernal Zebu!, immediately cleaves there. And
the vision of the light which is visible to the righteous whose soul is there is
called the kiss.
Here, as in Sefer ha-~eruf, death is the cause of ecstasy, and not vice
versa. The vision of and cleaving to the light are a Neoplatonic motif, which
appears frequently in Bahya Ibn Pakuda.
One ought to point out that in a text from the circle of Sefer ha'Iyyun, the
meaning of the sphere of the intellect is similar to that of empyreum. On the
relationship between the two concepts, see Colette Sirat, Mar'ot Elohim
le-Rabbi I:fanofs. ben Selomo al-Qonstantini Gerusalem, 1976), pp. 16-17, and see
also the Talmudic discussion of the light concealed for the righteous in
I:fagiggah 12a.
23. I refer to the passages in Recanati, Perus /a-Torah, fol. 38b and 77c.
These statements have an explicitly Neoplatonic cast, based upon the ideas
found in R. Ezra, Perus la-Aggadot, printed in Liqqute Sifs.ehah u-Fe'ah, fols.
7b--8a, and in R. Azriel's Perus ha-Aggadot, p. 40. While R. Ezra and R. Azriel
do not draw any connection between the cleaving of the individual soul to
the supernal soul and death by the kiss, such an association does appear in
Recanati. Recanati's Perus /a-Torah influenced, on the one hand, R. Judah
Hayyat's Ma'are!_et ha-Elohut (Mantua, 1558), fol. 95a-96b, and Christian
Kabbalah, on the other. See Ch. Wirszubski, Three Chapters in the History of
Christian Kabbalah [Heb.] Gerusalem, 1975), pp. 11-20; Edgar Wind, Pagan
Mysteries in the Renaissance (Darmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), pp. 155-156;
F. Secret, Ls Kabbalistes Chretiens de Ia Renaissance (Paris, 1964), pp. 39-40; B.
C. Novak, "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Johanan Alemanno," JWCI
vol. 45 (1982), pp. 140-144.
24. See Moses ibn Tibbon, Perus Sir ha-Sirim (Lyck, 174), p. 14; R. Ezra,
Perus Sir ha-Sirim (in Kitve ha-Ramban, ed. Chavel p. 485), which was directly
influenced by Maimonides and by R. Joseph ibn Aknin, Hitgalut ha-Sodot
ve-Hofa'at ha-Me'orot Gerusalem, 1964), p. 24; and A. S. Halkin, "Ibn Aknin's
Commentary of the Song of Songs," Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York,
1950), pp. 396ff.
25. On the difference between Abulafia and the Kabbalists in their use
of the image of sexual union, see the end of Chap. 4.
26. R. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1961), p. 151. There is a similarity between Abulafia's understanding
of sexual union and that appearing in Ibn 'Arabi, La Sagese des Prophetes (Paris,
1955), pp. 186-187. On prophecy seen as intercourse between the human
intellect and the logos, see R. A. Baer, Philo's Use of the Categories Male and
Female (Leiden, 1970), pp. 55ff., p. 57. The pair of concepts, Active Intellect
and Passive Intellect, were identified as male and female by Postel: see De
Etruriae regionis (Florence, 1551), p. 144. This treatise is cited in the
210
11
The Torah said Behold I have placed before you today hfe and goodness
and death and evil [Deut 30 15] [Th1s refers to] the practical commandments, of wh1ch It IS said, good and evil that IS, hfe -knowledge and
mtellectual commandments-and foolishness-that Is, death And the good
m his eyes and the evil m h1s eyes [refers to] the practical commandments,
of which It IS said good and evil
211
ha-Pelz'ah, fols 52b-c I have made some mmor corrections to the verston m
MS Munchen, hased upon the text m Sefer ha-Pelz'ah In an eptstle known
as Milzref la-kesef, MS Sasson 56, fol 33b, Abu1aha wntes
And by hts concentration, he prepares the bnde to recetve the mflux from
the power of the bndegroom The Dtvme elements [1 e, the dtvme letters
and the mtelhgtbilla] should move the mtelhgtbtha and by persisting m hts
concentration and mtenstfymg and strengthemng It and by hts great destre
and the strength of his longtng and the persistence of his yearmng to attam
the cleavmg and the kiss, the strength of the bnde and her name and her
power will be mentioned favorably and preserved for ever for thts IS their
law, and the separated thmgs Will be Jomed and the conJOmed thmgs
separated, and reahty will be turned about
Here, too, the 1mage of bnde and groom alludes to the human soul and
the Active Intellect, which are umted by the speoal techmque of Abulafia
On "Torah, wtsdom and prophecy," See also above, Chap 1, m a quotation
from Ozar 'Eden Ganuz (n 21)
35 See Cantzcles Rabba 1 11
36 The meamng of the 1d10m Kenesset Yzsra'el [the collectivity of Israel]
1s explamed as follows m Imre Sefer, MS Pans 777, p 57 "The secret of
Kenesset Yisrael, whose secret IS Kenesset Yod Sar el [I e , the collectivity of
Yod, the prmce of God], for the whole person IS one who gathers all and IS
called the congregation of Jacob " Further on, Abulaha speaks of Kenesset
Ytsrael m the sense of the Shekhmah or the tenth sefuah but, as we have
seen m our d1scuss10n of the concept of Shekhmah, this 1s also liable to be
part of the human soul See Lzqqute R Nathan, MS New York- JTS 1777, fol
34a
Maharan [said], Kenesset Yzsra'el alludes to the gathenng of the souls of the
nghteous of Israel, which bnngs down mercy and favor upon the poor one,
but not upon all the souls wtthm the body, for It alludes only to the
Intellective soul
And the power of speech, called the Rational Soul, whtch received the Thvme
mflux called Kenesset Yzsra'el whose secret IS the Active Intellect whtch IS
also the general mflux and wh1ch IS the mother of the mtellect of the world
See R Moses Knspm, Perus Serna' Yzsra'el, MS Parma 105 fol 45b It
212
213
important of the four causes," Further on, in the passage from Sefer Or
ha-Se!_el, Abulafia writes, "and the purpose is the most elevated of the
reasons."
48. MS. Oxford 1605, fol. 7b; cf. Or ha-SeJsel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 128a,
"and according to the prophet who derives pleasure in attaining the form of
prophecy [i.e., a mystical experience]."
49. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 163b--164a.
50. The comparison of the soul and the body to a horse and its rider is a
common one. See the material gathered by H. Malter, "Personifications of
Soul and Body," JQR vol. 2 [N. S.] (1911), pp. 466-467.
51. See Sefer Raziel: "More than a young man, who has gone many days
without going to a woman, and he desires her and his heart burns, etc.-all
this is as nought in comparison with [his wish] to do the will of the Creator."
In R. Eleazar of Worms' Sefer ha-MalaJs.im; "And at the time that a young man
engages in intercourse and shoots like an arrow [i.e., ejaculates], that
selfsame pleasure is as nought compared with the slightest pleasure of the
World to Come." Sefer lfasidim: "And that joy [in the love of God] is so strong
and so overwhelms his heart, that even a young man, who has not gone to
a woman for many days, and has great desire, and whom his seed shoots
like an arrow he has pleasure-this is as naught compared with the
strengthening of the power of the joy of the love of God." These sources are
gathered by M. Guedemann, Ha-Torah weha- lfayyim be-yeme ha-Benayim
(Tel-Aviv, 1953), I, p. 124, n. 2. In 'Ez lfayyim by R. Isaiah b. Joseph, a
Byzantine Kabbalist, written in the first half of the fourteenth century (MS.
New York- Columbia 16l.S.1, p. 60), we read:
Know that the pleasure of the indwelling of prophecy, which is the influx
of the Active Intellect, known in Arabic as kif 'aqal fa'al, is similar to the
pleasure derived from intercourse, with the following difference between
them: namely, that when a man completes the evil act of intercourse he
despises it, but the influence of the intellect is the opposite.
214
Pesa~im
fol. 112a.
215
There is a complete similarity between man and the earth; for just as the earth
has sown in it wheat and all kinds of seed, clean and good, which take root
in it within the dust, and which it then causes to spring forth; so does God,
may He be blessed, place the pure and clean soul within man, a Divine
portion from above, within the human body.
The planting of the soul with the body also appears in Sefer ha- Ne'elam,
written at the beginning of the fourteenth century; MS, Paris BN 817, fol. 73b.
82. It is worthy of note that the connection between seed and light, which
appears in Tantra, is alluded to in Sefer ha-Zohar II, fol. 167a:
Similar is the foundation of man at his birth. First he is the "seed" which is
light, because it carries light to all the organs of the body, and that "seed"
which is light sheds itself abroad, and becomes "water."
Cf. Iggeret ha-Qodes, Chap. 3 (Chavel, p. 326): "for man's seed is the vital
substance of his body and the light of his radiance." See also Mopsik, Lettre
sur Ia Saintete (n. 1 above), p. 289, n. 86.
83. See section 155 in ed. Margalioth, and Scholem's remarks, Das Buch
Bahir (Darmstadt, 1970), pp. 111-112, and p. 169.
84. See, for example, R. Ezra, Perus ha-Aggadot, MS. Vatican 441 f. 53b;
Liqqute Sils_e!wh u-Fe'ah (on Masels_et Qiddushin), fol. 14a; R. David b. Judah
he-.f:Iasid, ed. Matt, Mar'ot ha-Zov'ot, p. 135.
85. Sefer I-fayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 27a-b.
216
And know that every thing which is a cause or an influx or the like is called
son, and if it is a lowly power, it is called daughter or female or woman or
some similar name, and among these is Bat Qol ("heavenly voice"; literally
"a daughter of a voice"), and if it is a strong power, it is called a male son
or a man.
96. On the term ~otam (seal) as a designation for the Active Intellect, see
Ginnat Egoz, fol. 58c (the second folio), "For he, may He be blessed, places
form in all shapeless matter, and by means of this the Tenth Intellect, called
isim, whose basis is the name YHW (isim = 461 = sem YHW) which is given
over to him by the natural seal, and therefore he is able to portray and to
give form to shapeless matter." On the seal and the impression as an image
for the Active Intellect, seeR. Isaac ibn Latif, Ginze ha-Melef5., Chapter 5 (KofgJe
Yit:fulq vol. 28, p. 14): "And on the upper impress found in the intellect, the
seal, the forms without purpose and without time"; see there also Ch. 8, p.
217
The secret of the supernal imprint and the lower one is also through that
which the mouth cannot utter nor the ear hear, which is alluded to somewhat
in a closed manner, "in our form and image," "in his image and form." And
what is like this is not this, and the sages said [see Rashi on Gen. 1:27], "in
the image made to him."
See also Ibn Latif's f.urat ha-'Olam, p. 17; Liwyat Ifen of Levi b. Abraham
(MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 84b); and M. Steinschneider, Al-Farabi (St. Petersburg,
1869), p. 253, n. 2.
97. The expression ''warp and woof" (seti wa-'erev) also carries a sexual
connotation. In 6p~r 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, f. 4b-5a, Abulafia writes:
peras milah berit 'Esav (half, circumcision, covenant, Esau > 988), which is warp
and woof (eti wa-'erev > 988), to make it known that thusly do we this
covenant: We cut the flesh of desire to the honor of the Name, and we reveal
the crown and cut the permitted flesh, warp and woof, and we make a
covenant of peace (berit salom > 988). In circumcision (milah] we cut along the
warp, and in peri'ah [i.e., the secondary stage of circumcision] we cut along
the woof.
218
See his comments concermng Anstotle and Galen further on m this same
chapter
101 MS Oxford 1582, fol 78b It Is worth mentionmg that the redemption
of the son already has eschatological sigmficance m the Talmud, Bava Kamma
fol 80a, It IS referred to there as yesu'at ha-ben, the remarks of the Tosaphistic
authors on this passage allude to an eschatological aspect
102 MS Oxford 1580, fol 3a
103 Ex 1315
104 MS Oxford 1580, fol 155b On fol 122a m the same work, It IS stated
"and the meanmg of the [commandment of] the first-born IS known, namely,
that It Is the human mtellect "
105 MS Rome- Angelica 38, fol 12a, MS Munchen 285, fol 14a.
106 MS Oxford 1580, fol 163a
107 MS leipzig 39, fol 1a
108 Gen 53
109 MS Pans BN 774, fol 121a, MS New York- JTS 2367, fol 19b
110 In the Adab literature, we fmd the saymg "Wisdom IS the eternal
child of man." See Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Tnumphant (leiden, 1970), p
321 Muslim mysticism also recogmzes the Idea of destroymg the body m
order to rebmld the new man with the md of wisdom see L Massignon,
Eranos;ahrbuch vol 16 (1947) p 403 and Meyerovitch, Mystzque et poesze, pp
261-262, and n 7 The connection among ben- bmah- bmyan appears m the
fifteenth century wntmgs of R Moses ha-Kohen Ashkenazi In his polemic
with R Michael ha-Kohen, which took place m Candia, Crete, he wntes
(MS Vatican 254, fol 7a)
"In hts form and tmage" -phystcal offspnng and spmtual offsprmg Then
he established for htm from them an eternal bmldmg, whtch shall never dte,
for tt 1s an estabhshed halakah that one must beget a male and a female And
th1s alludes m the male to- begettmg spmtual sons, that IS, who are on the
level of a male, and the female alludes to physical children, for the
preservation of the species, and these are on the level of female
IS
219
"And the thud watch IS when an mfant cnes m the bosom of Its' mother, and
a woman speaks [1 e couples With] her husband" Now, my brother, know
and understand that the mfant refers to the Intellective Soul, which IS pure
and clean, from underneath the throne of glory and, hke the mfant, who
does not know either to abommate evil or to choose good, so IS the Intellective
soul unable to receive and to understand the WISdoms from the mtelligibiiia,
because It IS sunken m refuse and filth And the ammal soul, together with
It, suck from the breasts of theu mother, and those breasts from which she
sucks are the two Torahs, the Wntten Torah and the Oral Torah, and her
mother IS the D1vme wisdom, as IS smd, "Yea, If thou call for understandmg"
[Prov 2 3]---do not read 1m [1], rather em [mother, 1,e , the verse should be
read, "call understandmg your mother"] And the woman coupling With her
husband IS the mtellechve soul, wh1ch umtes w1th her husband, who 1s the
Holy One, blessed be He, as IS sa1d, [Isa 54 5], "for your Maker IS your
husband, the Lord of Hosts IS h1s Name "
220
113. 6-r-ar ha-lfo!_mah, MS. Mussaioff 55, fols. 104a-105a, with omissions.
On another similarity between R. Isaiah and Abulafia-the metaphor
comparing the mystical process with sexual intercourse-see note 51 above
and Chap. 20.
114. The reference here is to the Active Intellect, which~ws "into the
world and not upon a portion of the human soul." The term selanu (our) is
intended to distinguish it from "the Active Intellect of the separate
intelligibilia," a term appearing further on in the passage, and referring to
the first separate intelligibilium, identified with Keter.
115. See Yitzhak Baer, "Kabbalistic Teaching in the Christological
Doctrine of Abner of Burgos" (Heb.), Tarbiz 27 (1958), p. 281, and nn. 7--8
[reprinted in his Me~qarim u-Masot be-To/dot 'Am Yisrael Oerusalem, 1986),
vol. 2, p. 372].
116. Zohar III, 290b. On the souls as sons of God, that is, as the outcome
of the union between Tiferet and Malkut, see Zohar I, 82b, and see also Sefer
ha-Nefes ha-lfafcamah, fol. 3, col. 2b: "All the higher soul is an example of her
Creator, like the image of the son from the father, for he is its building,
literally; thus, the higher soul is the building of her Creator."
117. See Ch. Wirszubski, Three Chapters in the History of Christian Kabbalah
Oerusalem, 1975), p. 54 and n. 4, and p. 56, n. 4. It is worth mentioning that
this identification between God and Wisdom appears again in Abulafia in
Sefer ha-Ge'ulah, MS. Chigi, I, 190.6, fol. 292a, "and they called Wisdom son
and related it to the son" (in the Hebrew source). See also note 122 below.
118. Hermetica, ed., Walter Scott (London, 1968), I, pp. 240-241; R.
Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Mysterienreligion (Leipzig, 1970), pp. 75ff.
119. Underhill, Mysticism, pp. 122-123.
120. Meyerovitch, Mystique et poesie, p. 264.
121. I refer to the concept sakya putto--i.e., the son of the Buddha. See
also Mircea Eliade, "Rites and Symbols of Initiation," The Mysteries of Birth
and Rebirth (New York, 1965), pp. 53 ff; The Secret of the Golden Flower, ed., R.
Wilhelm (New York, 1962), p. 9.
122. Giles Quispel, "The Birth of the Child," Eranosjahrbuch vol. 40 (1971),
pp. 235--288; Erich Newmann, The Origin and History of Consciousness (New
York, 1962), p. 253; H. Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi,
(Princeton, 1969) p. 172, pp. 346--348, nn. 70-71; idem, "Divine Epiphany and
Spiritual Birth," Man and Transformation, Eranosjahrbuch, vol. 23, (1959), p.
109, and n. 94. While al-walad al-tamm, the birth of the complete child, takes
place in the pleroma, there, too, the sense is the actualization of "the spiritual
man." It is worth mentioning here the words of Pico della Mirandola, in his
work On the Glory of Man, dealing with the transformation of man into an
angel and a son of God by means of his intellective powers. Perhaps in this
context one ought to interpret the term intellectus as referring to the human
221
intellect: in Chaldean Thesis, No. 13, we read, "Per puerum apud interpretes,
nihil aliud intelligibiler quam intellectum." Ch. Wirszubski, Three Chapters in
the History of Christian Kabbalah, p. 34, explains the word puer ("youth") here
as alluding to Metatron, i.e., the Active Intellect. However, it may be that
Pico is referring here specifically to the human intellect; see p. 66, n. 23 in
that work, and note 117 above.
123. MS. Rome-Angelica 38, fol. 36a. On the subject of intellective and
mystical development at the age of forty, see Ide!, "On the History," where
we discuss the quotations cited below.
124. The concept of man's spiritual redemption is discussed by Ide!,
"Types of Redemptive Activity," pp. 259-263. I have cited there additional
material from the writings of Abulafia and his circle on this subject.
125. See Ide!, "On the History," pp. 2-3.
126. Genesis 25:20.
127. For the sources of this view, see the material gathered by Urbach,
I have found that the matter of the nature of prophecy is that it is an influx
poured out by the Name, may He be blessed, upon the intellectual faculty
by means of the Active Intellect, and afterwards upon the imaginative faculty,
[so that] he forms parables and images. But Moses, our teacher, did not
[prophesy] via the imaginative faculty at all, but [the flow was] from the
Active Intellect to the separate human intellect. Therefore Moses fasted ...
for forty days, corresponding to the formation of matter [i.e., of the human
fetus] during forty days, to weaken all powers of matter, in order to attain
prophecy with wholeness.
222
explamed that this number corresponds to the fetus, whiCh IS formed on the
fortieth day, and to the Torah which was giVen at the end of forty days" See
also R Judah Moscato, Nefuzot Yehudah, Derus 9, fol 25b
133 Based upon Exodus 24 18, I Kmgs 19 8
134 It IS worth mentiomng here the words of Meister Eckhart
We are celebratmg the feast of the Eternal birth which God the Father has
borne and never ceases to bear m all Etermty whilst this birth also comes to
pass m Ttme and m human nature Samt Augustme says this birth IS ever
taking place
But If It takes place not m me, what avails 1t? Everythmg
hes m this, that It should take place m me
Now when the sphere of the mtellect IS moved by the Active Intellect and
the person begms to enter It and to ascend the sphere which returns, hke the
Image of a ladder and at the hme of the ascent his thoughts shall be really
223
transformed and all the VISions shall be changed before hun, and there will
be nothmg left to him of what he had earher Therefore, apart from changmg
his nature and his formation, as one who was uprooted from the power of
feelmg [and was translated to] the power of the mtellect
And when the spmt rests upon him, his soul shall be mtermmgled with the
grade of angels who are called Istm [I e the Active Intellect] and he becomes
another person and he shall understand by himself that he IS not as he was,
but that he has ascended above the grade of other sages, as It IS said regardmg
Saul [I Sam 10 6] and you shall prophesy and become another person '
The sages of philosophy told that a certam kmg once asked an honorable
sage whom he saw bent m stature and With white hau and many wrmkles,
and asked him, "How old are you? He rephed Twelve years old ' In
amazement he [the kmg] said to him Explam this nddle of yours'' He
answered him For twelve years I have engaged m wisdom and m the service
of God and whatever I have hved apart from this IS not [counted] by me as
days and years [Menahem ha-Mem, Perus le Mzsle (Furth, 1844), f Sb ]
224
149. One is already struck by this in the introduction to the book, where
the anonymous author copied from three different works of Ibn Latif without
mentioning the source:
225
And the greatest of all deeds is to make souls, as alluded to in [the verse],
"and the souls they made in Haran." (Gen. 12:5) For as God created man
directly, in the likeness of God making him, this deed is for us the most
sublime of all good deeds. Therefore, the enlightened man is required to
make souls more than he is required to make bodies, for the purpose is not
226
the making of bodies, but only in order to make souls. And thereby man
comes to resemble his maker, as in the words of the prophet, "For a spirit
shall enwrap itself before Me, and souls I have made" (Isa. 57:16).
227
Bibliography
230
Bibliography
231
232
~evi:
The Mystical
233
234
Barmta de-Mazalot, 36
Barmta de-Semu'el, 111
Ben Adret, Solomon See Ibn Adret,
Solomon
Ben Azza1, 182, 207n
Bmah(understandmg), 196--197pass ,218n
B1rth, See Reb1rth
"Blood and mk " See Letters m blood and
mk
Body, human 122, 149n, organs of, 40,
65n, reactwn to prophetic expenence,
75, 76, "storm of the organs," 75, 77,
suppresswn of, 143, symbohsm of, 102,
110-111, three mam organs, 34-35
Breathmg 8, 20, 24--28, 45n, and DlVlne
semce, 27, m Yoga, 25, pauses w1thm,
24--25, three phases of, 25, 27
Buddh1sm, 197, 220n
Candle and flame, metaphor, 130, 172n
Cantlllatwn accents (te'amzm), 60, 63, 64
Capua,2,3
Castile, 3, 8, 9
Cataloma, 2, 3, 8, 9
Chnstlan Kabbalah, 10, 197, 209n
Chnstlamty, 41, 197
C1rcle 4, 23, 108--117, as object of meditation, 113, m Islam, 24, m VISIOn,
114--116, of 360 rungs, 109-110
C1rcumCJs10n, as symbol, 217n
CleaVIng to God See Devequt
Closmg of eyes, 48n
Colors and hghts, 49n
Combmatlons of letters See lettercombmatwns
Commumty, relation of K to, 9
ComprehensiOn, three kmds of, 17
Comtmo, 3
Concentration, 40, 121, 148n, 154n
Conscwusness 134, changes m structure
of, 19, punf1cat1on of, 40, transformation of, 126, trans-normal, 17
Contemplation, 20, 111
Index
fear of
Ftre, 169n, tmage of, 122
Ftrst Cause, 131, 134
Flame, See Candle and Flame
Forms ~urot), SOn, 152n
Fortieth year, 197-201, 221n, 222n, 223n,
as date of rebtrth, 198, parallel to forty
days, 198
Four-letter Name See Ineffable Name
"Four worlds," 104
Gabnel, 89, 98
Gematna, use of, 9, 15, 89, 100, 102, 105,
112, 116--117, 127, 150n, 151n, 153n,
155--159n pass , 163--169n pass , 172n,
175n, 178n, 185, 195, 209n, 212n, 216n,
217n, 221n
Gtkatllla, Joseph, 3, 167n, 219n
Glory See Dtvme Glory
Gnostlctsm, 90, 208n
Golem, SOn
Gottheb, Ephratm, 124
Graetz, Hemnch, 6
Grammar, 24
Greece, 5
Hat Gaon, 15, 16, 17
Hanannel, Rabbenu, 15
Hastdtsm, 5, 43n, 86
Head motwns, 28--29, 152n
Havarah (syllable), mustcal connotation of,
64n
Havurah (mystical confratermty), 9
Hayyat, Judah, IOn
Hand motwns, 29
Head movements, 8, 20, 40
Heat, sensation of, 51n
Hekhalot hterature, 5ln, 168n
Hermeneutics, of Abulafta and of theosophtcal school, 11n, 73
Hermes Tnsmegtstus, 197
Hesychasm, 13, 24, 35, 40, 52n, 80, 122,
177n
Htda, see Hayytm Joseph Davtd Azulat
Htgh Pnest, 59, 60, 63, 64, 70n, 105
Htllel of Verona, 2
Hztbodedut, 71n
Holy Spmt See Shekhmah
Human form, V!Ston of, 95 See also Man,
VISIOn of
235
236
Intenonzahon, of letters, 20
InterpretatiOn, 74
Isaac b Jacob ha-Kohen, 58--62 pass1m,
91, 15ln
Isaac of Acre, 9, 33, 34, 80--82 pass1m, 93,
116--119 pass1m, 134, 141, 144, 151,
153n, 157n, 163n, 164n, 170n, 178n,
190, 223n
Isaac the Bhnd, 78, 147n
Isa1ah b Joseph, 58, 197
Iszm (angels), 142, 223n
IslamiC myshc1sm See Suf1sm
Isolation 9, 38, as preparation, 38
Italy, 5
Jelhnek, Adolph, 6
John of the Cross, St , 150
Jonas, Hans, 138
Joseph b Shalom Ashkenazi, 32
Joseph of Hamadan, 48n
Joshua ben Nun, 154n
Joshua the Kara1te, 140
Judah the Has1d, 56
Jung, Carl, 112, 119, 166n
Kabbalah as mystic phenomenon, 5,
differences between schools, 8-9, 203205, ecstatic school, 5, 6--7, 9, 53, 115,
118, 183, Geronese, 192, Jerusalem,
16th century, 195, of Names, 8, 79--80,
83, post-Sabbahan thought, 1, Prophetic, 8, Safed school, 164n, 204,
Sehrotlc See Sef1rot, Kabbalah, theosophlcal-theurg:zc school, Spamsh, 8,
symbohsm, 78, theosoph1cal-theurg1c
school, 7, 9, 79--80, 167n, 178n, and
pass1m throughout the book
Kabbahshc exegesis, 9
Kaplan, Aryeh, 11n
Kawwanot, 16
Kenesset Yzsra' el, 211n
Keter 'Elyon (Supreme Crown), 132
Kiss as symbol, 180-184, death by,
180-181, 207n, m Sef1rohc and Abulaflan Kabbalah, 203-205
Knots, 135--137
Koah ha Me'orer (Shrrmg Power), 96
Kumbhaka, 46n
Ladder, 1mage of, 109-111, 116--117, 163n,
164n
Landauer, Montz, 6
Language,45n
Lask1, Margamta, 40
Letters 157n, 161n, 188, 192, as s1gns and
hmts, 54, form of, 161n, rmagmg of, 33,
m blood and mk, 96--98, 112, 113, 157n,
m Unm and Tumm1m, 108, m VISion,
104, three pnmary, 35, twenty-two,
153n, 184, 185, 193, vocahzahon of, 26
Letter-combmahons 3, 9, 19, 40, 45n,
53, 65n, 75, 86, 94, 122, 223n, and
1magmahon, 75, m Guzde, 3, mtellectual
prmc1ple of, 55, notnqon, 9, role m
VISions, 80, tables of, 22, 23, transposition, 62, w1th vowels, 40, wnhng of,
20, 82, 3_eru[e otwt, 9
Lev1tes, 59, 60, 67n See also MusiC
Light 77--83, 106, 147n, 148n, 168n, 189,
208n, 209n, 215n, as VISion, 82, perception of, 82, related to symbolism, 78,
supernal, 123 See also Colors and Lights
Love 179, 207n, as metaphor, 65n, of
God, 181
Luzzatto, Moses Hay)'lm, 51n
Mag:zc, 74, 158n, 174n
Ma1momdes, Moses 14, 32, 73, 74, 89,
126, 138-140 pass1m, 179, 187, 189,
206n, Abulaf1a's commentary on, 4,
Theology, 8
"Man," the 4, 90, 105, 197,
"DIVIne," 173n, meetmgs w1th own
1mage, 90-91, VISIOn of, 95--101, 104105, 120
Mandala See Circle, as obJect of meditation
Manuscnpts, 7
Marcos (Gnostic), 190
Merkabah hterahire, 119, 157n, 167n
Merkavah, Ascent to, 14-15
Mess1ah, 127, 140, 141, 176n, 199
Metatron, 110, 117-119, 128, 141, 153n,
165n, 166n, 171n, 221n See also Active
Intellect, Pnnce of the Presence
Methodology, 7
M1drash, 56
Mmontes, 3
Mmam, 180-181
Mz3_wot m Abulaha's system, 8, Kab
bahshc performance of, 8, theurg:zcal
Index
sJgmfJcance of, 7
Montanos, 56
Moses 74, 93, 101, 103, 115, 116, 127,
140, 141, 148n, 155n, 180, vmce of, 65n,
84, 149n, 198,206n
Moses b Mannon, See Maunorudes, Moses
Moses b Nahman, See Nahmamdes,
Moses
Moses b Simeon of Burgos, 3, 19, 61,
146n, 152n
Moses de Leon, 78, 206n
Mountam, as symbol, 102-103, 115, 156-157n, 183
Music as analogy, 53, 55-57, as techmque, 55-57, harmony of two prmCJples, 54, m Abulafia's techmque, 61--64,
mfluence on body, 65n, mfluence on
soul, 54, m Temple serv1ce, 58-59, 64,
letter-combmahon, 53, 54, Jove of God
VIa, 179, of angels, 60, notes, see
Nequdd6t, parallel to vowel pomts, 62,
relation to mtellect, 57, relation to
prophecy, 57-60, 66n
Mystical confratermty See Havurah
Mystical expenence 13, 21, as reahzahon
of consciOusness, 137, components of,
137-146, dangers of, 121-124, death
connected w1th, 181, dJa!ogJCal element, 43n, epiphenomena, 74, 146n,
erotic Imagery of, see Erotic Imagery,
fear of, 119-121, relatiOn to hght, 148n,
theoretical framework, 157n, visual and
verbal elements, 77-78
Nahmamdes, Moses, 9
Name of God 1, 8, 40, 42n, 87, 89, 117,
123, 126, 129, 137, 155n, 159n, 164n,
168n, 169n, 193, Ad6nay, 21, as a means
of acqumng knowledge, 17, as distinct
hngmshc umts, 19, combmahons of, 21,
141, w1thm one another, 21-22, connection with prophecy, 18, corporeal and
spmtual, 128, h1dden Name of God, 18,
22, 23, 31, 141, 1magmmg of, 30, letters
of, 34, 49n, 101, 103, 105, mental
combmation of, 20, 1080 combmations
of, 28, 48n, of forty-two letters, 27, 43n,
46n, of seventy-two letters, 15, 22, 23,
24, 31, 35, 36, 38, 105, 107, reCitation of,
181, 182, see also Pronunciation, three
approaches to, 18, three levels of, 20,
237
238
184-187, 212n
"Sons of prophets," 64
Sonano, Italy, 3
Soul, human 124, 127, 148n, 15n, 170n,
171n, 179, 186, 21ln, 225n, and body,
183, 189, 213n, as woman, 186, 205n,
210n, connection to DIVIne, 184, mtellechve knowledge, 192, 201, 202, 214n,
219n
Speech, prophetic 83, 84, 94, 148n, from
God, 86, from withm man, 86
Spmt, 76
Staudenmaier, 83
Stemschneider, Montz, 6
Stirnng Power, See K6ah ha-Me'6rer
Sufism (Islamic mystiCism), 14, 24, 40,
42n,46n, 104,122,126,144,189,197,
210n, 218n
Syllable See Havarah
Symeon the New Theolog~an, 80
Index
239
Index of Titles
Abulafia, Abraham:
Gan Na'ul, 24, 47n, 53, 55, 143, 156n, 158-159n, 186-187, 212n
Hayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba, 1, 4, 22-28 passim, 31, 34-37 passim, 40, 45n,
56, 61, 76, 86, 88--92 passim, 101, 103, 117, 118, 120-122 passim,
128, 129, 151n, 176n, 181, 191, 195, 197, 207n
Hayye ha-Nefes, 21, 156n, 187
Imre Sefer, 4, 24, 56, 193, 211n, 222n
is Adam, 134
Maftea~ ha-Ra'ayon, 55, 213n
Maftea~ ha-Sefirot, 185, 187, 192
Maftea~ ha-Semot, 24, 25, 26
Maftea~ ha- To!l~ot, 188
Me3_arej la-kesef, 21ln
Or ha-Sels:_el, 4, 22, 26, 29, 37, 45n, 62, 93, 99, 121, 129-134 passim,
152n, 173n, 187, 188, 212n
03_ar 'Eden Ganuz, 4, 18, 20, 21, 61, 76, 84, 103, 112, 125, 129, 145,
149n, 161n, 188, 191, 195-197 passim, 204, 217n
Pe'ulat ha-Yezirah, 26, 36-37, 202
Sefer ha-'Edut, 127-128, 141, 199
Sefer ha-Ge'ulah, 140, 192, 196, 199, 220n
Sefer ha-Haft.arah, 24, 74, 102, 140, 156n, 197
Sefer ha-Ifeseq, 4, 29, 38, 54, 87-89 passim, 100, 104, 120, 151n, 152n,
156n
Sefer ha-Mafte~ot, 4, 134
Sefer ha-Melammed, 39
Sefer ha-Meli3_, 98, 109, 177n, 196
Sefer ha-6t, 4, 21, 62, 73, 95, 97-101 passim, 103, 104, 113, 118--120
passim, 165n, 166n
Sefer ha-Yasar, 126
Sefer Raziel, 213n
Seva' Netivot ha-Torah, 25, 212n, 221n
241
242
Sifre Torah, 75-78 passim, 96, 99, 103, 112, 113, 118, 120, 122, 126,
149n, 151-152n, 160n, 164n, 174n, 177n, 196, 216n
Somer Mi~wah, 105
We-Zot li-Yihudah, 79, 132
Al-Bataliusi, ibn Sid:
ha-'Agulot ha-Ra'ayoniot, 45n
Albotini, Judah:
Sullam ha-'Aliyah, 5, 37, 63, 70n, 171n, 182
Alemanno, Johanan:
Collectannaea, 157n, 208n, 225n
Angelino, Joseph:
Qupat ha-Roklin, 164n
Ashkenazi, Moses ha-Kohen:
MS. Vatican 252, 218n
Averroes:
Epitome of Parva Naturalia, 74
Avicenna:
Commentary to Marga Name, 155n
Azriel of Gerona:
Derek_ ha-Emunah we-Derek_ ha-Kefirah, 176n
Perus ha-Aggadot, 147n, 167n
Sa'ar ha-Kawwanah (attributed), 78, 82
Bahya ben Asher:
Commentary on the Torah, 156n
Baraita de-Mazalot, 36
Baraita de-Semu'el, 112
Bar Hiyya, Abraham:
Megillat ha-Megaleh, 175n
Ben Zimra, David:
Magen Dawid, 160n
Bibago, Abraham:
Derek_ Emunah, 202
Book of the System of Holy Prayer and Concentration, 80
Cordovero, Moses:
Pardes Rimmonim, 28
De Fano, Menahem Azariah:
Ma' amar ha-Nefes, 202
Eleazar of Worms (Roqeafz):
'Eser Hawayot, 28
Sefer ha-Ifok_mah, 17
Sefer ha-Malak_im, 213n
Sefer Yirqa!z, 17
Index of Titles
243
ha-'A~ilut
Isaac of Acre:
244
Hasqafat ha-Sefs_el, 58
Isaiah b. Joseph of Greece:
'E3_ Jjayyim, 213n
03_ar ha-Jjo~mah, 197
Jacob b. Asher (Ba'al ha-Turim):
Guide of the Perplexed, 2, 3, 111, 149n, 164n, 172n, 180, 181, 206n,
212n, 213n
149n
Menahem ha-Meiri:
Index of Titles
245
Nathan (ha-Navon):
Liqqutei, 190, 191, 211n
Nathan b. Jehiel of Rome:
Sefer ha-'Aruf5., 15
Ner ElVhim, 5, 62, 101, 103, 125, 161n, 193, 207n, 226n
246
Qimhi, David: