Abraham Abulaf ias Works and Doctrine
Thesis submitted for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by Moshe Idel
Submitted to the Senate of the Hebrew University
Jerusalem 1976
1)
Preliminary
note.
1
2)
List
of abbreviations
2
3>
Abraham Abulafia 1 s
works
5-68
a)
Introduction
5
b)
Abulaf ia' e
authentic works
4
i)
Early books
4
a)
The Divorce of the Names (Geth Hashemoth)
4
b)
The Key of the Thought (Maftheah haRe r aion)
5
o)
Anonimous Booklet
6
d)
Common features of the above books
6
2>
Commentaries on the Secrets of l :he Guide to the
Perplexed
8
a)
Introduction
8
b)
Liber Redemptionis
10
o)
The Life of the Saul (Haye haNefesh)
11
a)
The Secrets of the Law (Sithrei Thorah)
11
5)
Prophetic books
13
a)
Introduction
13
b)
The Book of the Rightness (Sepher haYashar)
33
c)
The Book of Life (Sepher haHayyim)
14
a)
The Book of Haftarah
14
e)
The Book of Testimony (Sepher ha'Eduth)
14
f)
The New Convenant ChaBadashah)
li
k)
Sepher J Ish '"Adam
14
h) The Book of the Interpreter (Sepher haMelitzJ 14
i) The Seal of the Haftarah 15
j) The Preface 15
k) The Book of the Sign (Sepher ha 5 Oth) 15
Doctrinal books and manuals
a) The Book of the Teacher (Sepher haMelammed) 15
b) The Treasury of the Hidden Paradise ('Otzar
r Eden Ganuz) 17
c) The Keeper of the Commandment (Shomer Mitsvah) 18
d) The Book of Desire (haHeshecj) 18
e) The Locked Garden (Gan Na f ul) 19
f) The Book of the Keys (Maftehot) 20
g) The Words of Beauty C^Imrey Shepher) 21
h) The Light of Intellect ('Or HaSekel) 24
i) The Commentary on the Book of Formation 25
j) The Prize (or Division) of the Book (Peras
Sepher) 26
5) Letters, Poems and Fragments 27
a) To Jehuda - Letter adress- ■-.. to R. Juda
Salmon of Barcelona 27
b) The Seven Ways of the Law 28
c) The Letter "Matzref Lakesef" 28
d) Letter 29
e) Various Fragments 30
f) Collectanea of R- Joseph Eametz 31
g-i) Poems 33-34
c). Appendix. R- Joseph Haoetz v Preface to Abulafia's
Light of Intelect 35
d) Notes 37
e) The Book of Eternal Life (Hayye ha'Olam Habba) 6£
The alleged books of Abulafia and works from his circle 69-85
aj The Book of Combination (Sepher haTzeruf) 69
■ b) The Candle of God (Her 'KLohim) 72
c) The Book of Unity (Sepher haYihud) 75
d) A Letter about metamorphosis 75
e) Ms- Oxfords 1911 76
s ir m x a h y
The aim of this chapter is to suply a detailed description of
whole literary activity of Abulafia. The description contains the works
arranged according to their date of composition, a complete list of the
manuscripts, the structure of the works and their influence on Jewish authors,
For the list of Abulafia' s works see the contents-
The alleged books of Abulafia and _ works from his circle.
This chapter deals with some works which, though closeji to Abulafia' s
system, were not written by him. For the list of these works see the contents,
Basic concepts of A Abulafia 's theory of prophecy. B6-128
The main subject of Abulafia's works is the description of the way
to reach prophecy- His recufxing attempts to describe "the way" are more
extensive than his discussions on the nature of the prophecy itself. Abulafia's
definition of prophecy leans on Maimonide-E' onej the prophecy is an emana-
tion from God through the Active Intellect on the intellect and imagination",
A perusal of the definitions found in Abulafia's workB, shows that
he introduced new concepts in the frame of Maimoni^es ' thoughts these concepts
are; combinations of letters, seventy languages and speech. The main aim of
this chapter is to describe the meanings of the concepts: Active Intellect;
emanation, human intellect, and imagination
a) Active Intellect- Though Abulafia's view of the Active
Intellect as baaed on the Judeo-Arabic theory, which sees it as the least of
\X
the ten separate intellects; it is possible to find in Abulafia' s works new
features; the main contribution of his discussions is the synthesis between
the philosophical concept and the Jewish traditional one, which sees the angel
Metatron as the source of esoteric truth; the identification of Metatron with
the Active Intellect brought to a reciprocal translation of functions: Metatron
became the source of metaphysical knowledge while esoteric doctrines are revealed
by the active intellect j in Abulaf ia 1 s view, the sources of religion and philo-
sophy are one, inspite of the differences in the terminology. What the philoso-
phers call "Active Intellect", is called by Abulaf ia "Israel". He links also
between the Kabbalistic "Kalkhut" and the Active Intel." tct, which ia also descri-
bed as the "speech" (dibbur) s because it "speaks" with the prophet. Another iden-
tification which occurs in Abulafia 1 s works is that of Hoses with the active
intellect.
b) Emanation: Abulafia distinguishes between two forms of influences
on the human soul; the one, named emanation - which is Maimonides' "shefa" -
influences only the human intellect end its result is knowledge; the other, named
speech - dibbur - influences both the intellect and the imagination and its outcome
is prophecy. The aim of this distinction is the need to describe prophecy in terms
which differs from those employed by the philosophical epistemology; the sources
of Abulafia' s "speech" is the traditional terminology of prophecy in Midrash and
Talmud, but the meaning of the term in his system differs from that of the tradi-
tions the "speech" "heard" by the prophet has no ontological existence; it is the
result of the influence received by the imaginative faculty, and its aim is to
translate the revelation received by the intellect into acustic or visual
sensations .
c) Human Intellect. As we have shown above, the "speech" is a term
applied to the Active Intellect and the prophetic influence; the same term
defines also human intellect. In the book Candle cf God, whose author was
one of Abulafia's disciple, we find a peculiar division of the human soul;
according to it there are three soulss an animal soul, a rational soul (med-
dabereth) and a intellectual soul (sikhlith); it seems that it arrived to him,
and to the first past of the Zohar, Midrash haNe'elam, through Dunash ibn
Tamim's Commentary to the Book of Formation, who derived it ultimately from
a Pythagorean tradition found in Diogenes Laertius 1 Lives of the Philosophers,
In Abulafia's authentic works we found Averroea' influence on the view of the
passive or hylic intellect.
d) Imagination. Imagination plays a tremendous role both in
Abulafias' theory of prophecy and in his mystic life. The most important role
of this faculty is the translation of the speculative truths into images; this
translation is necessary to the prophet and to the people which cannot understand
abstract ideas. Imagination plays an important role in education, and politics,
because it helps to convince the mob to obey the law. Abulafia links imagination
with blood, following Maimonides who links it to the heart, and to the "speech"
and common-sense t the last identification originating also from Maimonides 1
Guide. Between intellect and imagination there is a perpetual war; the victory
of the intellect means eternal life while the victory of imagination means
triumph of the "Satan" or the man's material part.
Index A .
In Abulafia's and his disciples' works we find the view that the
angel Sandalfon represents the material nature, obviously antithetical to
Metatron, which is identical to the Active Intellect.
Index B .
There are different meanings of the Holy Spirit; according to Abulafia
the Holy Spirit is identical with the Active Intellect, to the emanation which
flows from it and to the actualized human intellect.
The magical and informativ e. ch aracteristic of the Holy Names .
The magical characteristic means that the Holy Names possess magical
powers which we may use only for God's honor but not for practical purposes.
The highest prophetical rank is identical with the power to change the nature
for Cod's honor. Abulafia also thought that it is possible to create an
homunculus - golem - by the repetition of combinations of letters and Holy Name.
The meaning of the informative characteristic is that the Holy Names contain
in their letters, order of letter or their mathematical value, philosophical,
scientific or theological truths; we may learn these truths by meditation on
Cod's name easier than by the logical way of the philosophy or the experimental
way of the science.
Abulafia' s theory of language
Abulafia' s theory is an attempt to build up an linguistic way to
KB
achieve prophecy. There ere three main parts which compound a language:
consonants, vowels and the combination of the consonants. There are only
twenty-two natural consonants - these of the Hebrew - while the other ones are
their alophones. The relation between the vowels and the consonants is that of
soul to body- The combination of the consonants characterizes the languages,
and this is the key to the knowledge of the seventy- two languages? by combination
we may build up every one of these languages. The original language is Hebrew,
because it is the language of revelation, and by its nature it expresses the
essence of the things. Abulafia rejects the test of the original language
which is found in Herodotus Histories II; his view ^s that must be a natural
language which is the origin of all the conventional languages; the languages of
the Gentiles are to Hebrew as ape to man, but we may use them in order to get
speculative truth', language has two main functions . the communicative one and
the prophetic one; the second is attained only through Hebrew, which contains
the other seventy-two.
T he . Nature of the Law .
The synthesis of Abraham ibn Ezra's view of the Law as the superior
world with Maimonides view on the angels made by Isaac ibn Latif , influences
Abulafia's teacher, Baruch Togarmi, and from his commentary of the Book of
Formation this view passes into Abulafia's works; the Law is identical with
God, the separate intellects and with the Active Intellect. In its mundane
aspect, the Law was received by the intellect and i m agination, and its nature
is determinated by these faculties; the intellectual, esoteric meaning is
the Oral Law, which is the Law as an assembly of Holy Names; this was the
original division of the letters of the Law which God taught Moses; the
written Law is that combination of letters which speaks on commandments,
and is both intellectual and imagi n ative by nature. The task of the mystic
is to restablish the original order of the letters of the Law f so that we may
read it as Holy Names the hidden level of the Law has two meanings; the philo-
sophical one, which speaks about the development of the human soul and its
relation with the Active Intellect; we may get it from the Bible by allegorical
interpretation; the other is the understanding of the Law as an expression of
Holy Names; two examples may illustrate this twofold nature of the hidden levels
the sacrifice of Isaac and the Exodus.
Kethode of Interpretations.
Abulafia describes sewen ways to interpret the Bible; the literal one
is knowledge of the Biblical texts; the second is the commentary which solves
the difficulties of the text when understood literally; homiletics and legends
which amplifies the text by legends and homiletical devices; the philosophical
allegory which sees in the biblical text the allegory of the soul's fate- These
four ways are compared by Abulafia to the four Christian methods of interpretation,
the fifth one is the way of the Book of Formation, and its meaning is interpreta-
tion of every single letter and of the peculiar forms of letters as transmitted
by the Kasorar The sixth may is the restitution of the letters to their prime
matter, that is the division of words into single letters and their combination
to new words; this way contains methods as notarikon f gematria ect. The seventh
may is the way of prophecy r and it includes the technique of combination of the
letters of the Holy Names; by the process of combination we arrive at a
higher level of consciousness and to magical powers which originates
in the union of the human intellect and the Active Intellect.
In Abulafia's work we find also a. threefold division of the seven ways;
the first three - for the mob; the fourth for the philosophers, the last three
for the prophets. Two additional ways of interpretation occur in Abulafia's
works; the algebric one, and the "supercommentary". The algebric one is based
on gematria; a Biblical verse is divided in several parts which are substituted
by other words according to the algebrical method; if a verse is compound of the
elements ABCDE, and AB = FC, and US - HI, by gematria ; ohen the combination
FGCHI is an interpretation of ABODE, The supercommentary is the confirmation
of truth found in several sources, as Maimonides , which arrived at it by the
interpretation of the Bible; Abulafia confirms these interpretations by his
peculiar methods; gematria and other linguistic ways.
Abulafia's technique to reach prophecy
Since the Kerkava mysticism^ through the evidences found in the Gaonic
period and in Ashkenazi Hasidism, we find various techniques which uses the Holy
Names in order to change the level of consciousness; while the techniques
before Abulafia use these names as a whole, in his technique we find combinations
of the separate letters of the Names of God with the letters of the alphabets.
There are three stages in Abulafia's technique; the written combination, the
utterance of these combinations and the intellectual combinations. Other elements
of his technique are breathing, movements of the head according to the vowels.
The breathing is compound of three elements; inspiration, expiration and
obstructions thas threefold division reminds the Yoga system of breathing.
There are some preliminary conditions to the process of "reminding" the Name
of Gods an isolate room; white clothes,- philacteries and Tallith; complete
rejection of worldy thoughts.
The mystic has to visualize the letters of God's Name in order to
attain the prophetic consci ousness . The main difference between Abulafia's
technique and Yoga, Hesychasra or Sufism is his concentration on a changing
object; while these techniques irie to still the mind, the aim of Abulafia's
technique is the intensification of mental activity by he necessity to concen-
trate on a complex of actions.
Prophecy and Music
There are three main uses of music in Abulafia's system: a) the
process of playing on the harp reminds him the combination of the letters; the
musical tones gladden the soul by their various combinations , while the combina-
tions of letters gladden the intellect b) playing on harp is an image of the
prophetic experience; the wellknown image of the prophet as a lyre on which
the Holy Spirit plays occurs twice in Abulafia's books. c) miisic is an
organic part of the technique; the mystic sings the consonants according to the
vowels; in later manuals, like the book Ladder of Ascension by Juda Albotini,
appears also instrumental music, apparently under the influence of Sufism.
Prophetic experience
The prophetic experience of Abulafia has two main characteristics:
sensual aspects and imaginative visions. Throughout the experience, the mystic
may see light - at the beginning -, and hear speech at the second stager
The first one is attributed by Abulafia to the theosophic Kabbalists, while
the second stage appears especially vhen using the "path of names". The
speech is superior to the light because it is the origin of prophecy. Abulafia
describes the process of prophecy as a conversation between the mystic and
himself; he asks a question and answers it changing the voice. Abulafia sees
the form of & man which is the projection of his own soul and its faculties:
the intellect and the imagination. Another vision of Abulafia is the vision
of the letters of the Holy Name, which contain also tfca faculties mentioned
above. A peculiar vision of letters as that of the Uria and Tumim which are
alBO the intellect and ima g i n ation- The most interesting vision is that of
the circle or the sphere which reminds the mandalas described by C- Jung.
This circle is, like the mandala, a cosmogramma and a psychogramma because its
movement alludes to the structure of the world and its processes, and the struc-
ture of the soul. The appearance of the Metatron is alluded in the Book of
Eternal life and the Book of the Sign, where this angel is described as an old man.
Abulafia' s meeting with Metatron influenced R- Isaac of Acre who seems to be a
disciple of Abulafia or of one of Abulafia's pupil t K, Natan.
Abulafia warns against the fire which is an image of the demonic
Imagination which tries to burn the intellect; when the imagination is over-
come the intellect cleaves to the Active Intellect and they become ones
Abulafia speaks about a total fusion not only of the human intellect with the
Active Intellect, but also with the Divine Intellect, viz, God Himself*. This
XYlf
fusion is attained when the knots of the soul are unknoted, and the soul
knots itself to the intellectual vorld.
The main characteristics of Abulafia's mysticism are: this is a
rational type of experience because the intellect is the organ of the expe-
rience and the supreme object of the aspiration is an intellect: the Active
Intellect or God; Abulafia's mysticism is a fusion between emissary prophecy
and intellectual experience. He sees hijnself as one of the classical prophets
and his books as worthy as the prophetic books. His experiences are eschato-
logic in character, because during the ecstasy the m.--tics feel the bliss of
the next world in this world.
One of most interesting feature in Abulafia's mysticism is the fact
that his visions are projections of the speculative concepts known before the
experience. At last, there is no trace of asceticism, in his system.
Erotic Imagery of the prophetic experience
Describing the prophetic experience, Abulafia uses images which may be
arranged according to this schemes Kiss, Intercourse, Semen, Impregnation,
Son and New Birrh. These images are compounded of corporal elements and their
function is to describe the development of the prophetic process which begins
by the kiss, thafis the cleaving of the soul to the Active Intellect, and
ends with the birth of the son, it is the completely actualized intellect.
This birth is also the new birth of man because he achieves immortality by this
intellect; this is the Jewish counterpart of the motif of rebirth which occurs
in the mystic literature. Remarkable enough, Abulafia's use of these images
XVIII
differs completely from the Kabbalistic use of intercourse as a symbol for theo-
sophical processes; in Abulafia' s view, the erotic imagery is only a means to
exemplify the way the prophecy arrives to the soul, and there is no speculative
or other meaning to the very act of intercourse. But, like during the intercourse,
the mystic experiences a feeling- of intensive delight, described as annointment.
This delight is, in Abulafia' e eyes, the supreme aim of the prophet and is more
important than the rational insight. The stress on the voluptuous aspects of the
mystic experience reminds both Sufism and the Christian nuptial mysticism.
It is worthly to note that Abulafia saw the forty as the age of mystic
rebirth, and the statements about this subjects occur in books written when he was
forty,
Hessianiam in Abulafia 1 s system
There are -t& different ways of seeing Hessianism in Abulafia' s works; it
is a spiritual process, viz. the Messia is a perfect mystic who arrived at prophecy;
the other way speaks about natural redemption which will occur as a fullfilment of
a natural process, which will come to an end in the year 1290. The years between
1280-1290 is called the period of actualisation of the potentiality, and this is
the time when Abulafia propagated his views on the nature of redemption in Sicily,
He saw himself as Messia and went in 1260 to confer with the Pope Nicholas III,
under the impact of both a personal revelation which he received in 1271 in Barce-
lona, and a tradition about the recognition of the Messia. After a miraculous
rescue from, death, he flied to Sicily and tried to convince both Jews and Gentiles
that he is the Messia; this activity brought out a extreme reaction from the side
of R. Salomon ibn Adereth, one of the most important spiritual leader of Snanish
Jewry, and persecutions from the side of local Jewry; he flied to a little isle
beside Malta, and afterwards returned to Sicily.
XIX
In -AMI&fTa~s~"view j the Messia will bring to the world the true
interpretation of the Law it is the knowledge of the name of God, . which
is four semi-consonants; this new religion will unify the whoje world;
in order to illustrate his theory, he uses the well known parable of the
three rings, parable which originates in Islam and was known to the Xlllth
century Jewish and Christian; Abulafia changes some details of the parable
and speaks only about one son and servants; the son is Israel, who mean-
while, has not reached the true religion; the ring is not in the hands of -
any religion, but Israel will receive it in the days of the Hessia. Abula-
fia describes the relations between Jesus and Messia a c that of matter
versus spirit, and alludes to the identification of Jesus with the slain
Messia ben Joseph; he also identifies Jesus with Friday, and the Messia
with Saturday (Shabbat) in order to allude to the superiority of the later;
thia idea entered the Christian Kabbalah - J. Reuchlin - through a booklet
written by one of his disciples.
Abulafia is the first in the chain of medieval Messianism, who saw
Messia as a perfect mystic whc had to act in order to bring out the
transformation of the people of Israel; in order to attain the days of the
Messia, the Messia himself has to prepare the hearts of themen.
Abulafia' s doctrine and the Kabbalah
Abulafia' s doctrine is the result of a synthesis between philosophical
views, originating in Maimonides* Al-Parabii Avicenna and Averroes with
Ashkenazi praxis of the Holy Names; the influence of the Kabbalah seen as
XX
a theosophical system, is negligable; he uses, sporadically, Kabbalistic
terminology either in order to attack theosophical views, or in order to
interpret them according to his own views. The main difference between
Abulafia and the theosophical Kabbalah appears in the realm of theology:
for Abulafia, God is the Divine Intellect who intellects Himself perpetually,
while the Kabbalah's main tenet is the view of Godhead as a dynamic complex
compounded of ten Sephiroth. This difference influences also the view of
the commandments f their aiJn is not, in Abulafia's view, theosophical, but
psychological; by understanding the esoteric meaning of the commandment,
the man's soul approaches God, but does not change Him as the theosophical
view of the commandements supposes .
Despite the use of the term "Kabbalah" for his own system, its meaning
differs from the theosophical use of it; for Abulafia Kabbalah is either
the revelation received from the Active Intellect, or the tradition which
contains this revelation; but, in order to discover the true meaning of
the tradition, we have the purify it from additions which defile its original
message; the means to discovery the esoterical message are the logic of
the philosophers and the superior science of combinations of letters, which
is in Abulafia'a eyes an "esoteric logic".
The term "Prophetic Kabbalah", which occurs in Abulafia'a works, was noi-
employed by the theosophical Kabbalah, and seems to appear as a development
beginning from Maimonides , Two contemporarie writters, Menahem haMeiri
and Jedayah from Beziers, used, "he term without any connection to theosophy.
Abulafia 1 s influence on the Kabbalah was great only because the
character of the later changed throughout the ages; beginning with the
14th century, the Kabbalah is a eccleotic movement, which included Abulaflan
methods which were not an integral part of Kabbalah in the Xlllth century.
~W braham Abulafia's heriiiencutic.il style might seem rather
>V daunting and incomprehensible, It is not easy, even for an
JL V experienced reader of' I lehrvw texts to study Akilalia, as.
very often, the words that make up a sentence seem to make no
sense. However, once one gets used to the way Abulafia thinks,
then deciphering the meaning of the text becomes an interesting
challenge and there is a feeling of achievement when what looks
like utter gibberish suddenly takes on meaning.
For Abulafia, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are the notes
he uses to comprehend Cod, decipher the meaning of history, and
predict future events. The Torah is the score that contains every-
thing if one knows how to read, interpret, and hear it. Abulafia
uses three main liernieneutical methods to reveal the true reading
of the Torah: Ccniatria, Icmuitili (changing the order of the letters)
and tzrrufd ottiyot {letter combinations), and Notrikon (acrostics).
GciiMtria refers to the numerical value of the Hebrew letters of
the alphabet. When words or phrases have the same numerical
value, one can then equate between them, and learn about their se-
cret meanings and connections.
The straightforward gemutria starts from Aleph with a value of
i, Bet — 2, Gimel — 3, Dalet — 4, Heh— 5, Vav — 6, Zayin — 7,
Her. — 8, Tet — y, Yud — 10, Kaf— 20, Lamed — 30, Mem — 40,
Nun — 50, Samech — no, 'Ayin — 70, Peh — 80, Tzaddi — yo, Kuf —
too, Resh — 200, Shin — 300, Taf- — 400. There arc six final letters
(meaning when the letter appears at the end of a word, it has a dif-
ferent written form): Final Kaf— 500, Final Mem — rtoo, Final
Nun — 700, Final Peh — 800, Final Tzaddi — yoo. Hence, if one
wants to use letters to represent a Dumber, then, for example: yyy
could be written Final Tzaddi, Tzaddi, Tet, or Taf, Taf, Kuf,
Tzaddi, Tet. One thousand, however, can be represented by Aleph,
two thousand by Bet, etc., hence the Jewish year 5767 in letters is
Heh, Taf, Shin, Samech, Zayin.
There is also what is called genmtria kct&nah (little gentatria)- —
this is when the letters from Yud and up (tens, and hundreds) lose
their zeros and are counted as single digits. Hence, the gCHMtria of
the word tui-kol (All, Everything) in regular jictmilriti is 55
(5+20+30), but in geuttttrui htafnifi is 10 (5+2+3).
The numerical value of words can also be worked out from the
spelling out of the letters that make up the word and then calculat-
ing its value. Tor instance, Uayil (house) lias the numerical value of
4 1 2., but also bet {bet, yud, hij) yud {yud, \nw, date!) taf (taf, itlepli, pch)
equaling j»j,
A difference of one in numerical value between words or
phrases is unimportant as one is omnipresent.
Tcniimh is essentially an anagram or the substitution of other
letters for the original letters that make up the word according to
systematic rules. For instance, an anagram of EloIUnt (one of the
names of God) makes male yah (the plentitnde of YH — another
name of God and the first two letters of the Tctragrammaton)
when the order of the letters is changed. Teitntrah can also be the
substitution of one letter with another which is its equivalent in the
order of the alphabet that is chosen. For instance, one of the most
famous of these series is called Alhasli which means that the first
and last letter of the alphabet are interchangeable (Aleph — Taf), the
second letter and the second from last (Bet — Shin), the third and
the third last (Gimel — Resh), etc.
Tcimirah goes hand in hand with tzaitfci ottiyot — letter combi-
nations ot permutations, which implies that the words of the To rah
can be divided differently in order to get at their truest meaning
and inner essence. The whole lotah is made up of letter combina-
tions that imply that there is much scope for uncovering the per-
mutations which allow one to discover the Divine names.
Notrikott is taking the letters of a word or the first or last letters
of a scries of words and forming from the letters a new word that
has significant meaning or implications for the subject under dis-
cussion. For instance, the verse (Psalm 9y.i2)'"Uincl Mc-ErctzTiz-
mali" (Truth will spring up from the ground) the first letters of each
of the words form the word EMcT (truth).
'alef
boy r
gTmel
1 yod
3 kaf
D kaf
1 kaf (final)
!? lamed
« m6m
D mem (final)
3 nQn
1 nun (final)
D samek
V 'ayin
3 peh
2 feh
^ fBh (final)
H sadeh
^ sadeh (final)
P qof
1 r6S
VJ Sin
W sTn
Tl taw
rn^nN
'abelut
1*
ben
•7m
ReM
V
gan
Dill
d&r5m
innN
'Aharon
>l!?
Lewi
mm
mizrah
nra
Pesah
no'QVJ
Semrtah
lav
yobel
1V^
Kena'an
iron
bakut
T**>
Lemek
&
Uban
Dn?2
Miryam
omiN
'Abraham
niu
nedabah
113
Nun
'DID
Susf
■my
'omer
1WS
Pison
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language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia [transl.
i. Kallus], have been for quite a while out of print.
I am grateful to Moshe Idel for accepting my suggestion
we these two volumes reprinted in the "Henry J. Leir Li-
i of Sephardica," a series dedicated to Sephardic texts and
ars. I would like to recognize here the translators who had
performed years ago the difficult task of presenting read-
translations of complex texts in the volumes published by
HJNY Press — J. Chipman for his contribution to "The Mys-
Experience in Abraham Abulafia," and M. Kallus for the
ous task of tackling the complexities involved in translating
guage, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia." I
preserved the integrity of their work, but have corrected a
[ number of misprints, completed certain blank spots, par-
arly in the footnotes, and I have also unified the system
ansliteration of Hebrew words into Roman script according
e norms we have followed in all the previous volumes of
hardica." The reader will find hereafter the detailed Table of
scriptions. 1 would like to express my gratitude to Suzana
, literary agent of Moshe Idel, for her cordial involvement,
also particularly grateful to Shoshana Idel for contributing
irtwork for the book's cover, in which one may perceive
i mystical and musical ehoes of major themes in Abraham
lafia's works. Last, but not least, I want to thank my disci-
nd friend, Francisco Javier Pueyo, collaborator and technical
»r of the "Sephardica" series.
This volume in our series is dedicated to the memory of
Doris Leir, the soul companion of the late Henry Leir who,
ng his many contributions to cultural enterprises, has gen-
sly contributed to the creation of the "Henry J. Leir Library
;phardica."
Moshe Lazar
University of Soutliern California
Foreword by Shlomo Pixies
As is understood by the thirteenth-century mystic Abra-
ham Abulafia, Kabbalah is not primarily a form of gnosis or
theosophy. In effect, his view has nothing in common with the
Sephirotic Kabbalah, whose object is the penetration of the struc-
ture of Divine being and the processes occurring therein. With
the help of his profound erudition, Moshe Idel has devoted pa-
tient and exhaustive study to the analysis of the extant material
from the voluminous Abulafian corpus. He concludes that the
mystical technique, experiences, and doctrines of this author are
focused upon the human being and his upward progress along
the path leading to prophetic-mystical ecstasy.
This description leaves the reader with a clear sense of the
disparity among the elements composing the corpus in question.
Idel begins by discussing the senses of sight and hearing of the
mystic in a state of extasy and the techniques enabling him to
reach this state. He observes that the processes spoken of here
which have parallels in Yoga (i.e., in its breathing excercises) and
the Greek hesychasm: namely, the peculiar importance given to
the pronunciation of Divine Names. All of these have no bear-
ing upon the theoretical basis of Abulafia's thought, a structure
which, at least in terms of its terminology, betrays philsophical
influence.
There is no doubt that it was a powerful mystical im-
pulse which led Abulafia as commentator of the Guide for the
Perplexed to declare in the same work that a certain technique,
consisting of the permutations of Hebrew letters composing cer-
tain words, is far superior to the cognitive path recommended
by the philosophers as a means of apprehending and cleaving to
the Active Intellect (i.e., the supreme goal of the Aristotelians).
The cognition spoken about by Abulafia is one which is easily
obscured by the imagination.
Essentially, both Maimonides and, even more emphati-
cally, Abulafia, understand the imagination as opposed to the
intellect. On the other hand, Abulafia's thought regarding imag-
ination, like that of Maimonides, entails a certain unacknowl-
edged ambivalence. It is inconceivable that Abulafia thought,
in contradistinction to Maimonides, that the imagination played
no role whatsoever in the visual and aural experience of the
prophets, an experience which he understood as one of mysti-
cal ecstasy. While Maimonides states that all the prophets are
philosophers, and Avicenna, in the last work written before his
death, articulates his belief that the prophets are mystics, Abu-
lafia inverts Avicenna's statement: all the true mystics are, in his
opinion, prophets. From this, the inevitable conclusion is that
he himself was a prophet.
Author's Preface
The present volume comprises the complete texts of two
different studies dealing with Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah.
Both were parts of my Ph.D. thesis submitted in 1976 at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, re-written and substantially
updated toward their publication in English by SUMY Press in
1987 and 1989. The study of ecstatic Kabbalah has made some
additional progress, in several studies published since then by
myselPand by Elliot R. Wolfson, 2 as well as by the recent print-
ing of a substantial part of the ecstatic Kabbalistic literature by
editors from the ultra-orthodox communities in Israel.
It seems that the rediscovery of ecstatic Kabbalah in schol-
arship has aroused a profound interest in a variety of academic
and literary circles as wide as the spectrum that comprises Um-
berto Eco's scholarly studies and his Foucault's Pendulum as well
as a variety of poets and artists, and including some circles in
Israeli and American ultra-orthodoxy. These changes in the re-
ception of the writings of Abraham Abulafia, who had been
viewed in many circles as a "black sheep" of Kabbalistic lit-
erature, are indubitably related to more profound shifts in the
religious sensibility of the past generation, and of a deeper in-
clination toward a more individualistic approach as represented
by the ecstatic Kabbalists.
Indeed, the investigation of this school of Kabbalah is a
sine qua non, not only for understanding Abulafia's one school of
thought in itself, but also for considering another type of history
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PARTI
The Mystical Experience
in Abraham Abulafia
Introduction
1. The Question of Abulafia's Status
In describing Hayyey ha- c Oldm Iw-Ba 7 , one of the principal
works of R. Abraham Abulafia, the noted mystic R. Hayyim
Joseph David Azulai (1724-1807), better known as the Hid"a,
wrote: 1
This is a book written by R. Abraham Abulafia, concerning
the circle of the seventy-two letter [Divine] Name, which I saw
on the manuscript parchment. And know that the Rasba [R.
Solomon ben Adret] in his Responsa, sec. 548, 2 and Rabbi Yasar
[R. Joseph Solomon del Medigo of Candia), in Sefer Mesarefk-
Hokmdh, 3 expressed contempt toward him as one of the worth-
less people, or worse. However, I say that in truth I see him
as a great rabbi, among the masters of secrets, and his name is
great in Israel, and none may alter his words, for he is close to
that book mentioned, and his right hand shall save him.
These remarks of the Hid"a aptly summarize the problem
involved in Abulafia's thought and his role in the development
of the Kabbalah. To begin with, despite his greatness as a mystic,
being "among the masters of secrets," he was fiercely attacked
by the major halakhic figure of his generation, R. Solomon ben
Abraham ibn Adret, and was placed under the ban. It follows
from this that R. Azulai's words, "as one of the worthless peo-
ple, or worse," were a deliberate understatement, intended to
safeguard the honor of both Abulafia and his critics. The fact
that Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba^ remained in manuscript form until the
eighteenth century would suggest that the effect of Rasba's ban
had not worn off even then, or for that matter until our own
day. Nevertheless, it seems to me that, between the final years
of the thirteenth century, when Abulafia was excommunicated
by his opponent in Barcelona, and the seventeenth century, a
striking change occurred in the status of the banned Kabbalist.
A figure such as R. Azulai (Hid"a), who was expert in all dimen-
sions of Jewish culture and who at the same time represented
post-Sabbatian Kabbalistic thought in the East, did not hesitate to
praise the man and to describe his system in glowing terms: "his
name is great in Israel, and none may alter his words." Such a
drastic change — from excommunication to a position in the fore-
most ranks of Jewish mystics — is indicative of an unprecedented
phenomenon in the development of Jewish mysticism.
The present study describes a central question in the
vast corpus of R. Abraham Abulafia. The exploration of this
question — the nature of the mystical experience and related
matters — will clarify the importance of this Kabbalist within the
framework of medieval Jewish mysticism, and assist our under-
standing of the ambivalent attitudes toward Abulafia in different
periods. Who was Abraham Abulafia, and what was his unique-
ness as a Kabbalist?
2. Abulafia's Life
Unlike many other Kabbalists who preceded him or were
his contemporaries, Abulafia provided extensive details regard-
ing his life. These are quite numerous, and have not yet been
discussed in a detailed biography of Abulafia's life; this sub-
ject will be discussed elsewhere. In this context I shall present
only the basic information concerning Abulafia's life, based ex-
clusively upon the testimony contained in his own writings. 4
Abraham was born in the Hebrew calendar year 5000
(1240 C.E.) in Saragossa in the province of Aragon to his father,
Samuel; the family moved to Tudela, where Abulafia continued
to study with his father until the death of the latter, when he was
a young man of eighteen years. Two years later, Abulafia left
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 5
Spain and traveled to the land of Israel in search of the mythical
River Sambatyon. However, the battle between the Mamelukes
and the Tatars in Eyn-Harod brought an abortive end to Ab-
ulafia's Palestinian travels in the city of Acre. He returned to
Europe via Greece, where he was married, and after a few years
went on to Italy. There, in Capua, he studied philosophy and
especially the Guide for the Perplexed with R. Hillel of Verona, and
after some time returned to Catalonia. In 1270 he had a vision, in
which he was commanded to meet with the 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 Yesirah. From
Catalonia he traveled 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. Af-
ter 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 works 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 inten-
tion to meet with the pope, he was persecuted by his fellow
Jews.
At the end of the Hebrew calendar 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 to evade
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.
6 Introduction
After a brief period of imprisonment in Rome by the "Lit-
tle Brothers" — the Minorites — Abulafia left the Apennine Penin-
sula, 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 evidendy caused the leaders of the island
to turn to R. Solomon ben Abraham ben Adret (ca. 1235-ca. 1310,
known as Rasba) for instructions as to how to deal with this per-
sonality; 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 sympa-
thetic 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 1280's and concluded, insofar
as we can tell, with Abulafia's death toward 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
Abulafia was an extremely prolific Kabbalist author,
doubtless among the most fertile of the thirteenth century. He
left behind him an extensive literary heritage, much of which
has survived, although certain important items have been lost. 5
During a relatively short period of time, during the twenty years
between 1271 and 1291, Abulafia composed nearly fifty works,
long and short, which may be divided into several principal lit-
erary types:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 7
Handbooks for Mystical Experience
The most significant and fully developed genre is that
of handbooks for the acquisition of prophecy (i.e., ecstasy) and
cleaving to God (debequt) — i.e., what is in contemporary lan-
guage called mystical experience. These books detail various
techniques, some elements of which will be described below.
The most important of these works are Hayycy ha-Vlam ha-Ba',
referred to above; 'Or ha-Sekel, 'Imrey Sefer, 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz, and
Sefer ha-Heseq. The former three enjoyed extensive circulation, at
least insofar as is indicated by the large number of surviving
manuscripts, and there can be no doubt that these enhanced
Abulafia's prestige among Kabbalists.
Interpretation of Classical Jewish Texts
Abulafia composed a commentary on the Torah, entitled
Sefer ha-Maftehdt, almost all of which is extant. He likewise in-
terpreted Sefer Yesirdh and Maimonides' Guide a number of times
each, as well as the "prophetic books" which he himself com-
posed.
Prophetic Works
Beginning in 1279, Abulafia composed a series of various
"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-'Ot, 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.
8 Introduction
Occasional Works
There are also occasional works, such as epistles and po-
ems, 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 writ-
ten 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 liter-
ary 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 con-
siderable material extant from the period preceding him, such
as the writings of the Ashkenazic Hasidim or those of R. Baruch
Torgami, from which Abulafia learned fundamental areas of his
thought. Until now, those topics in these works relevant to Ab-
ulafia's thought have not received any detailed treatment, a fact
which presents difficulties for the understanding of Abulafian
thought. No less important are those works which were in-
fluenced by Abulafia's writings, such as the anonymous Sefer ha-
Seru/and Ner 'Elohim; the works of R. Isaac of Acre, first and fore-
most the 'Qsdr Hayyim; Swarey Sedeq by R. Nathan ben Sa'adyah
Harar; and R. Judah Albotini's Sullam ha-'Aliydh.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 9
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 Kabbal-
ists. 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 de-
velopment and spread of ecstatic Kabbalah of the Abulafian type
through various regions — Italy, Greece, Palestine 6 — and assist us
in comprehending properly the most important contemporary
mystical phenomenon: Hasidism. 7 The present work will clar-
ify only a few of these questions, and others will be dealt with
elsewhere, while such major questions as the contribution of ec-
static Kabbalah to the shaping of the Hassidic mysticism will
still require extensive clarification.
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. 6
Unfortunately, Landauer's distinction as the pioneering scholar
of Kabbalistic manuscripts did not assist him when he came to
describe the spiritual configuration of Abulafia's Kabbalah. Be-
cause he was convinced that Abulafia was the author of Sefer ha-
Zohar, he arrived at a totally misguided picture of 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, 11 who has devoted several studies to Ab-
ulafia's thought, some of which he published. His most impor-
tant 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
10 Introduction
clarification of Abulafia's system on the basis of authentic doc-
uments.
At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twen-
tieth century, writers in Kabbalah reiterated the theories of their
predecessors, including Landauer's erroneous view that Abu-
lafia was the author of Sefer ha-Zohar. 13 Significant progress in
this respect was not made during that generation until the be-
ginnings of Scholem's research. In a series of studies of ec-
static Kabbalah, 14 as well as an entire chapter devoted to Abu-
lafia in his comprehensive work, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 15
Scholem expanded, corrected, and improved upon the bio-
bibliographical descriptions of his predecessors. But Scholem'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, de-
spite Scholem's major accomplishments in removing scholarly
errors and the reconstruction of Abulafia's ecstatic mystical sys-
tem itself, Abulafia's Kabbalah was not included in a long se-
ries of phenomenologically oriented works, many of which were
presented at the discussions of scholars of religion at Ascona. lfi
Thus, for example, ecstatic Kabbalah is completely absent from
Scholem's discussions concerning debeaut, the significance of the
Torah in Kabbalah, or the problem of mysticism and religious
authority. In all of these areas, the ecstatic Kabbalah could have
contributed substantially to expanding the understanding of the
Kabbalistic phenomenon.
Since Scholem's studies only a few, and to a large ex-
tent tangential, other studies have been written concerning
Abulafia, 17 nearly all of them inspired by Scholem. 18 The present
study represents the first in-depth coverage of a central subject
in ecstatic Kabbalah — that of the religious experience. The ma-
terial presented here is essentially an expansion and reworking
of one section of a more extensive work devoted to Abulafia's
thought, presented as a doctoral dissertation at the Hebrew Uni-
versity under the guidance of Professor Shlomo Pines. Since
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 11
its original presentation in 1976 I have published a number of
articles concerning matters which I did not discuss at length
in the dissertation, and the data presented in those studies en-
riched my own perception of the area of Kabbalah in general
and of ecstatic Kabbalah in particular. Several chapters from the
dissertation have been reworked from a broader perspective, de-
rived from ten years of additional study. The present expansion
also includes significant additions of new material, based on the
study of hundreds of manuscripts. Some of this material has
been identified for the first time as belonging to the school of
ecstatic Kabbalah and was previously unknown in the research
literature.
My method of dealing with Abulafia's thought has been
to gather the relevant material from the scores of manuscripts
and to present it, with the intention of enabling the reader to
have unmediated connection with the texts, but also to interpret
them, both through the act of presenting them within a specific
context, as well as by deciphering the allusions and sources of
the author. The success or failure of this approach may only be
judged by the overall picture thereby created, which will hope-
fully contain fewer internal contradictions and will clarify to
the reader matters which are discussed in Abulafia's writings in
scattered places and in fragmentary form.
5. Abulafian and Theosophic Kabbalah
I would like to conclude this introduction by describing
several characteristics of Abulafian Kabbalah in comparison with
that of the theosophical-theurgic school — that is to say, that Kab-
balah which concentrated upon discussions concerning the na-
ture of the Sefirdt (theosophy) and the theurgical significance of
the miswot, i.e., the ability of the Kabbalist to alter the Sefirotic
system, which had been hurt by the sin of Adam.
12 Introduction
Abulafia designates this system by two primary terms:
prophetic Kabbalah and the Kabbalah of Names. The former
term (which I have generally translated as ecstatic Kabbalah in
the body of this work) refers to the goal of this mystical path:
namely, the attainment of 'prophecy' or 'ecstasy,' i.e., manifes-
tations of revelation and union with the Divine {debequt), desig-
nated by the classical term "prophecy" (nebwah) in the absence of
any other more suitable, comprehensive term. The second term,
the Kabbalah of Names, refers to the esoteric traditions concern-
ing the nature of the Divine Names and their use in order to
attain ecstasy. The two terms are not new in principal, and were
at most adjusted to the needs of Abulafia's particular system.
This Kabbalah is distinguished from the other Kabbalis-
tic systems of its time both by the essential purpose of ecstatic
Kabbalah, as well as by the techniques for its attainment. In the
extensive Kabbalistic literature composed during the last third
of the thirteenth century in Catalonia and Castile, a central place
is given to discussions concerning the nature of the divine sys-
tem, including both its deepest and most remote level — the Eyn
Sdf (the Infinite) — and its revealed aspect— the ten Sefirot. An
additional characteristic of this literature is the stress upon the
role of the miswot, whose performance in the Kabbalistic manner,
with the intention of actualizing the effect of these acts upon
the Divine world, is a basic element of Spanish Kabbalah, and
specifically of Sefer ha-Zohar. This complex doctrine of Divinity,
developed above and beyond that which existed in Kabbalah at
the beginning of the thirteenth century, was alien to the spirit of
Abulafia, who sees in it a danger of heresy. He accuses certain
Kabbalists — apparently referring to Ibn Adret, among others—
of being even worse than Christians: while the latter believe in
a triune God, the Sefirotic Kabbalists believe in a system of ten
distinct Divine forces!
Abulafia advocates a theology similar to that of Mai-
monides in lieu of the Kabbalistic theosophy; he stresses pri-
marily the understanding of God as Intellect /Intelligible/ Act of
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 13
Intellection, a definition allowing, as we shall see below, for the
union of the actualized human intellect and the divine Intellect.
The position of the miswot is also different in Abulafian Kabbalah
from that in classical Spanish Kabbalah. iy While the Kabbalists
of Castile and Catalonia stress the mystical path which travels
via the performance of the miswot, Abulafia teaches a completely
different way, consisting primarily of the pronunciation of Di-
vine names and a complex technique involving such components
as breathing, singing, and movements of the head, which have
nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional commandments
of Judaism.
Another significant and striking difference between ec-
static Kabbalah and the theosophic-theurgic school is manifested
in their respective exegetical approaches. While that of Abraham
Abulafia is filled with uses of numerology and plays on letters —
gematria, notriqon, and letter-combinations (serufey 'dtiyot) — as may
be seen from his commentaries, the main bulk of Spanish Kab-
balistic 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 tech-
niques based upon letter-combinations and pronunciations. 20
Another difference between these two branches of Kab-
balah was in their relationship toward 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 si-
multaneous with the emphasis in theurgic Kabbalah upon the
communal religious service within a community of mystics, as
this is expressed in Sefer ha-Zohar. This school turned toward the
havurah, the mystical confraternity, the combined force of whose
members is able to repair the Divine world, and through that
world the entire cosmos.
14 Introduction
Finally, an interesting difference which does not pertain
directly to the different Kabbalistic systems, but to the biogra-
phies of their leading figures: namely, that the vast majority
of the works of the ecstatic Kabbalah were written by itiner-
ant Kabbalists. This was the case with Abulafia; this was also,
apparently, the fate of $a<arey Sedeq, 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-theurgical 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 Span-
ish Kabbalists— such as Nahmanides, Ibn Adret, and R. Todros
Abulafia — resided permanently in the major cities and consti-
tuted 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 between Abulafia, the spokesman of the
ecstatic Kabbalah, and R. Solomon ibn Adret, who was among
the major representatives of the theosophic-theurgic Kabbalah,
we may conclude by saying that we have two mystical schools
whose ideational and experiential structures differ from one an-
other in the most radical conceivable manner.
Abulafia was considered, by the Christian Kabbalist Jo-
hanan Reuchlin, 21 as a pillar of Christian Kabbalah, 22 as well as
one of the two pillars of Jewish Kabbalah. Christian Kabbalah
is based to a considerable extent upon the thought of Abulafia,
whose writings were translated into Latin and Italian. 23
Chapter One
Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
Abraham Abulafia's system differs from that of other me-
dieval Jewish thinkers in presenting a detailed, systematic path
enabling the seeker to attain to mystical experience. In this sys-
tem various concepts used to describe reality by Arab and Jewish
philosophers are transformed into subjects of personal experi-
ence by means of a suitable technique. This technique paves
the way toward the zenith of mysticism: the total unity between
man's intellect and the supreme Being, whether this is under-
stood as God or as the Active Intellect. While other medieval
thinkers as well saw this experience as their soul's desire, which
they strove to attain with all their strength, we nevertheless do
not find in philosophical works of this period any detailed, spe-
cific instructions as to the means of realizing such contact. The
discussions by R. Abraham ibn Ezra and Maimonides and by
their disciples concerning the nature of 'prophecy,' in which they
saw the hallmark of this ideal experience are not to be read as
concrete instructions, rooted in a specific path toward the real-
ization of the desired goal. They rather describe a phenomenon
from the distant past, namely, Biblical prophecy, without claim-
ing although not explicitly denying that similar experiences are
possible within their own generation.
In my opinion, the path propounded by Abulafia in his
books is an adaptation of the Jewish mystical traditions which he
had learned from the Ashkenazi world of Franco-Germany to the
16 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
spiritual needs of Jews educated within the philosophical schools
of Spain and Italy, which primarily thought in Maimonidean
concepts. To these were added elements originating in mysti-
cal techniques outside of Judaism — Greek-Orthodox hesychasm,
Indian Yoga and possibly also Sufism. The last-mentioned is,
however, primarily visible in the writings of his students, rather
than in Abulafia's own writings. We shall therefore begin by
describing the elements of technique as they appear in the writ-
ings of Abulafia and his disciples. As recitation of the Divine
Names was the main technique developed by this school, we
shall begin our discussion with this topic.
1. The Ecstatic Character of the Recitation
of the Divine Names
The recitation of the Name or Names of God as a means
of attaining ecstasy is a widely-known mystical practice, play-
ing a significant role in techniques known from India, Tibet,
and Japan, in Islam and in Orthodox Christianity. We shall not
discuss these techniques in a detailed way here; some will be
mentioned again at the end of this chapter for purposes of com-
parison with the material found in Abulafia. Before discussing
Abulafia's system, however, we shall examine the Jewish prece-
dents for use of the Divine Names in order to achieve changes
in human consciousness. In late antiquity, in Hekalot Rabbati, we
read:
When a man wishes to ascend to the Merkdbdh, he calls to
Suryah the Prince of the Presence, and adjures him one hun-
dred and twelve times with the Name twtrsy'y h', which is
read twtrsy'y swrtq tivtrky'l twfgr 'srwyly'y zbwdy'l wzhrry'l tnd'l
sqhwzy' dhybwryn w'dyrryrwn Ha- $em 'Elohey Yisra 1 el. He may
neither add nor subtract from these one hundred and twelve
times — for were he to add or subtract he might lose his life —
but he shall recite the names with his mouth, and the fingers
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 17
of his hands shall count one hundred twelve times — and im-
mediately he descends to and rules the Merkdbdh. 1
A similar passage appears in another treatise belonging
to this literature:
His mouth utters names and the fingers of his hands count one
hundred eleven times; so shall whoever makes use of this as-
pect [i.e., technique], let his mouth utter names and the fingers
of his hands count one hundred eleven times, and he must not
subtract from these names, for if he adds or subtracts, he may
lose his life. 2
Both these passages would seem to imply that this refers
to an established custom connected with the "descent to the
Merkdbdh." Similar methods were used during the Gaonic pe-
riod; in one of his responsa, R. Hai Gaon (939-1038) writes:
And likewise [regarding] a dream question: there were several
elders and pious men who [lived] with us who knew them [the
Names] and fasted for several days, neither eating meat nor
drinking wine, [staying] in a pure place and praying and recit-
ing great and well-known verses and [their] letters by number,
and they went to sleep and saw wondrous dreams similar to
a prophetic vision. 3
In another responsa, R. Hai Gaon testifies that:
Many scholars thought that, when one who is distinguished
by many qualities described in the books seeks to behold the
Merkdbdh and the palaces of the angels on high, he must follow
a certain procedure. He must fast a number of days and place
his head between his knees and whisper many hymns and
songs whose texts are known from tradition. Then he will
perceive within himself and in the chambers [of his heart] as if
he saw the seven palaces with his own eyes, and as though he
had entered one palace after another and seen what is there." 1
The former passage from R. Hai Gaon refers to "great and
well-known verses and letters by number"; G. Vajda contends
18 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
that the sense of the phrase, letters by number, refers to groups
of letters which equal one another in their numerical value (i.e.,
gematria). 5 In my opinion, this in fact refers to the use of the
Divine Name of seventy-two letters: the "great and well-known
verses" are probably the three verses, Exodus 14:19-21, each one
of which contains seventy-two letters in the Hebrew original, i.e.,
"letters in number." The second quotation also seems to me to
be connected with the use of Divine Names. In Sefer ha-'Aruk of
R. Nathan b. Jehiel of Rome (1035-ca. 1110), we again read in the
name of R. Hai Gaon, that "Pardes is that which is expounded
in Hekalot Rabbati and Hekalot Zutrati; i.e., that they would perform
certain actions, and pray in purity, and use the crown and see
the Hekalot and the bands of angels in their position, and see how
there was one chamber after another, and one within another." 6
G. Scholem has suggested that the expression "use the crown"
signifies the use of the Divine Name. 7 A younger contemporary
of R. Hai Gaon, Rabbenu Hanannel, many of whose ideas were
borrowed from the works of R. Hai, likewise writes about the
sages who entered Pardes, stating that they "prayed and cleansed
themselves of all impurity, and fasted and bathed themselves
and became pure, and they used the names and gazed at the
Hekalot." 8 In Rashi's opinion, the ascent to heaven signifying
the entry into Pardes was performed "by means of a name." y
Similar testimony appears among the Ashkenazic Hasid-
im; Sefer ha-Hayyim, attributed to R. Abraham ibn Ezra, presents
an interesting description reflecting the widespread use of
Names:
A vision {march) 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.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 19
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. 10
The disputant of the anonymous author of Sefer ha-
Hayyim.R. Moses Taku (ca. 1235), describes a similar technique
in a surviving fragment of his book, Ketab 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 principal 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. 11
The last two passages corroborate one another: during
the procedures of reciting the Names, the body trembles vio-
lently, 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.l230, the Roqeah), a con-
temporary of the above-mentioned anonymous author of Sefer
ha-Hayyim, also knew the technique of recitation of the Names of
God— a usage likely to bring about results similar to those men-
tioned in the works of R. Hai Gaon or in Sefer ha-Hayyim. These
are his comments in Sefer ha-Hokmdh: 12
abg yts 13 — these are the six letters, each and every letter [stand-
ing for] a [Divine] name in its own right: 14 A - Adiriron; B
- Bihariron; G - Gthariron; Y - Yagbihayah; T - Talmiyah; S -
Satnitayah. By rights, one oughtn't to write everything or to
vocalize them, lest those lacking in knowledge and those taken
20 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
(sic!— should be "striken") in understanding and of negligible
wisdom use them. However, Abraham our father passed on
the name of impurity to the children of the concubines, in or-
der that they not know the future by means of idolatry. 15 Thus,
some future things and spirits were revealed to us by means of
the [Divine] attributes, through the pronunciation of the depths
of the Names, in order to know the spirit of wisdom — thus far
the Sefer Yirqah. 16
R. Eleazar of Worm's statements reflect an awareness of
the antiquity of involvement in Divine Names and their recita-
tion as a means of acquiring knowledge of the future or various
wisdoms; the patriarch Abraham already knew these secrets and
attempted to conceal them from the children of the concubines,
and they were subsequently passed down from generation to
generation until the Jewish medieval mystics. The expression,
"pronunciation of the depths of the names," is particularly in-
teresting in light of the fact that Abulafia-who explicitly admits
to R. Eleazar's influence-was to see his own Kabbalah, that of
Names, as the deepest path within the Jewish esoteric tradition.
All of these quotations share the fact that they were formulated
outside of the framework of the great speculative systems of the
age-the Aristotelian and the Neoplatonic. Indeed, they reflect
those types of approaches which Mircea Eliade, the scholar of
comparative religions, would designate as "shamanistic."
Upon the emergence of philosophy, the use of Divine
Names became transformed into a means for realizing forms
of consciousness which transcend the ordinary frame of mind.
R. Isaac ibn Latif (ca. 1210-ca. 1280) writes in Ginzey ha-Melek: 17
The attainment of [knowledge of) the existence of God is
the highest form, including three kinds of comprehension
(hasagdh), 1 * which are: conceptual comprehension, prophetic
comprehension, and that comprehension which is hidden until
the coming of the Righteous one, who shall teach [it]. The first
kind is the comprehension of the existence of a first cause for
all [things], by means of conclusive proofs: this is speculative
Tlie Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 21
philosophical comprehension, grasped through knowledge of
those things which exist apart from the First Cause. The sec-
ond kind is comprehension that the First Cause acts by a sim-
ple will, designated as spiritual speech, and this is [known as]
prophetic comprehension, grasped by means of the Divine in-
flux emanated upon the prophets by knowledge of the secret of
His glorious names, through the comprehension of each one of
them and of their wholeness; this level is one to which the mas-
ter of conceptual speculation has no entry. The third kind is
comprehension of this knowledge by means of the Name which
is completely and utterly hidden [and] described as within, and
this is the essence and the highest of all comprehensions, and
it is this one which is reserved in the future for those who fear
God and take into account His name [Malachi 3:16].
The first kind of understanding mentioned here is that of
natural theology based upon philosophy, which is the province
of "scholars of speculation." The second is a combination of the
approach of R. Solomon ibn Gabirol (ca. 1020-ca.l057; known in
Latin as "Avicebrof"), which asserts the identity of will and the
approach of speech, 19 and speculation upon the Divine Names.
At the time, this explicit connection between prophecy and con-
templation of the Divine Names was an unusual one and, in my
opinion, is indicative of the penetration into Ibn Latif's thought
of a view from one of Abulafia's sources. The third kind of
comprehension mentioned above involves the hidden Name of
God; this is an allusion to the name 'hwy, which was considered
the hidden name of God both by the circle of Sefer ha J lyyun and
by Abulafia. 20 The similarity to Abulafia is particularly great, as
both Abulafia and Ibn Latif believed that knowledge of the hid-
den name of God will be realized in the times of Messiah. In
'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz, Abulafia writes:' 121
What we have seen in some of the books of those sages 22 con-
cerning the division of the names is that one who has knowl-
edge of their essence will have a great and wondrous superior-
ity in Torah and wisdom and prophecy above all his contem-
poraries. These are the things which God has chosen above all
22 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
else in the world of the soul; therefore, He has given them to
the soul in potentia, and when they go from potentia to actu, the
soul acts on another soul, so that the souls are renewed, and
this knowledge shall save many souls from Sheol.
Three different approaches to the Divine Names appear
in this passage: that true knowledge of the names is liable to
make one wise; that they are capable of bringing an individual
to the level of prophecy, i.e., to a mystical experience; and that
they contain hidden powers to change reality by "renewal" of
souls. All three of the approaches combined here— the infor-
mative, the magical, and the ecstatic — were present within the
circle of Kabbalists whom Abulafia knew. R. Moses b. Simeon
of Burgos, described by Abulafia as one of his students, writes:
It is truly known that those prophets who concentrated in-
tensely in deed and in thought, more so than other people of
their species, and whose pure thoughts cleaved to the Rock of
the World with purity and great cleanliness that the supernal
Divine will intended to show miracles and wonders through
them, to sanctify His great Name, and that they received an
influx of the supernal inner emanation by virtue of the Di-
vine names, to perform miraculous actions in physical things,
working changes in nature. 23
These words of R. Moses of Burgos indicate that a tech-
nique for receiving prophetic flow by means of Divine Names
was known in Spain in the second half of the thirteenth century.
As we shall see below in the chapter on prophecy and music,
Abulafia's approach to music was likewise known to the circle
of R. Moses of Burgos.
Before we continue to analyze Abulafia's technique, I
should like to mention one feature common to all the passages
quoted above: namely, that they refer to the Divine Names as
distinct linguistic units, which the one 'prophesying' must repeat
several times. In these passages, the Name is not broken down
into a multitude of units, which constantly change by means
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 23
of different combinations and vocalizations. This technique of
breaking-down or atomizing the Name is the most distinctive
characteristic of Abulafia's technique; the Holy Name contains
within itself 'scientific' readings of the structure of the world and
its activities, thereby possessing both an 'informative' character
and magical powers. It is reasonable to assume that both qual-
ities are associated with the peculiar structure of the Name. 24
However, in Abulafia's view this structure must be destroyed in
order to exploit the 'prophetic' potential of these Names and to
create a series of new structures by means of letter-combinations.
In the course of the changes taking place in the structure of the
Name, the structure of human consciousness likewise changes.
As Abulafia indicated in a number of places, 25 the Divine Name
is inscribed upon man's soul, making it reasonable to assume
that the process of letter-combination worked upon the name is
understood as occurring simultaneously in the human soul: "In
the thoughts of your mind combine and be purified." 26 We shall
now see how the Divine Names are used as a means of attain-
ing mystical experience or, as Abulafia writes, 27 "in the name
my intellect found a ladder to ascend to the heights of vision."
Just as the letters themselves generally appear on three
levels — writing, speech and thought 28 — so do the Names of God;
one must 'recite' the Names first in writing, then verbally, and
finally mentally. The act of writing the combination of the let-
ters of the Divine Names is mentioned in several places in the
writings of Abulafia and his followers, only two of which we
shall cite here: "Take the pen and the parchment and the ink,
and write and combine Names" 29 and, in Surrey $edeq? a "when
midnight passed [over] me and the quill is in my hand and the
paper on my knees."
The second level, that of verbal articulation, is more com-
plex, including several components which must be analyzed sep-
arately: 1) the seeker of mystical experience must sing the letters
and their vocalization (this point will be discussed separately in
the chapter on music and prophecy); 2) he must maintain a fixed
24 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
rhythm of breathing; 3) his head must be moved in accordance
with the vocalization of the letter pronounced; 4) he must con-
template the internal structure of the human being. These last
three procedures will be discussed below at greater length.
The third level involves the mental combination of the Di-
vine Names: "Know that mental [letter-lcombination performed
in the heart brings forth a word, [the latter] being [the result of
the letter-]combination, entirely mental and born from the sphere
of the intellect." 31 A brief description of the movement from one
level to another appears in 'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz. 32
One must take the letters *ms yhw, first as instructed in the
written form which is an external thing, to combine them, and
afterwards one takes them from the book with their combina-
tions, and transfers them to one's tongue and mouth, and pro-
nounces them until one knows them by heart. Afterwards, he
shall take them from his mouth [already] combined, and trans-
fer them to his heart, and set his mind to understand what is
shown him in every language that he knows, until nothing is
left of them.
An explicit process of interiorization is presented here: the
letters of the Divine Name undergo a process of 'purification' by
which they are transformed from tangible letters, existing out-
side of the intellect, into intellective letters, existing in the heart.
This process is one of construction of the intellect, beginning with
sensibilia and ending in intelligibilia. Thus, through the com-
bination of the letters on all three levels, one may arrive at the
highest level of consciousness: prophecy, or mystical experience.
Several passages shall be cited below indicating that this tech-
nique allows a 'prophet' to achieve unique spiritual attainments.
The Castilian Kabbalist R. Isaac b. Solomon ibn Abi Sahula, a
contemporary of Abulafia, writes: "It is known that when he re-
ceived this verse (I am that I am [Ex. 3:14]), Moses our teacher,
of blessed memory, attained the very essence of wisdom and
the highest level in the renewal of miracles and wonders, by the
The Mystical Experience in Abraliam Abulafia 25
combination of its letters." 33 The process of attaining wisdom is
described in impressive terms in Abulafia's Hayyey ha-Nefes:
And begin by combining this name, namely, YHWH, at the
beginning alone, and examine all its combinations and move
it and turn it about like a wheel returning around, front and
back, like a scroll, and do not let it rest, but when you see its
matter strengthened because of the great motion, because of the
fear of confusion of your imagination and the rolling about of
your thoughts, and when you let it rest, return to it and ask [it]
until there shall come to your hand a word of wisdom from it,
do not abandon it. Afterwards go on to the second one from
it, Adonay, and ask of it its foundation [yesodo] and it will
reveal to you its secret [sodo]. And then you will apprehend
its matter in the truth of its language. Then join and combine
the two of them [YHWH and Adonay], and study them and ask
them, and they will reveal to you the secrets of wisdom, and
afterwards combine this which is, namely, '£/ Sadday, which
is tantamount to the Name ['El Sadday - 345 = ha-Sem], and it
will also come in your portion. Afterwards combine 'Elohim,
and it will also grant you wisdom, and then combine the four
of them, and find the miracles of the Perfect One [i.e., God],
which are miracles of wisdom. 34
From this passage, as well as from the one cited above
from 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, we leam that one must combine the let-
ters of a given Name, and then combine them in turn with the
combinations of the letters of another Name. This activity is re-
ferred to by Abulafia by the term Ma'aseh Merkabdh 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 Merkabdh in Abulafian Kabbalah. In
Sefer ha-'Ot, p. 75, we read:
One who concentrates upon the Ineffable Name which is com-
bined 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
26 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
the name, in the name Yh'whdyhnwh 'Eioha 'El Sadday YHWH
Sewaot.
The first and second of these Names are combinations of
one Name within another: YHWH - ADNY - YHWH - YHWH. 35
2. Combinations of Letters of the Divine Names
The two Divine Names most frequently used by Abulafia
in letter-combination are the Name of seventy-two letters, whose
combinations are mostly described in Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba>, and
the Tetragrammaton (the Name of Four Letters or the "Ineffable
Name"), details of whose combinations are discussed in 'Or ha-
Sekel. We shall begin our discussion with the latter.
The method of combination expounded in Sefer 'Or ha-
Sekel is exemplified by the use of the letter Aleph, which is com-
bined in turn with each of the letters of the Tetragrammaton, so
that one arrives at four combinations, as follows: »y >h w >h. Each
of these units is in turn vocalized by every possible permutation
of the five vowels, holam, qdnias, hiriq, sere, qubus, in the sequence
of both >y and y, and so on. One thereby derives four tables,
each containing fifty vocalized combinations. The following is
an example of one of these tables: 31 *
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 27
This table, as we have mentioned, is one of four in which
the letter "Alef is combined with the four letters of the Divine
Names. But, as Abulafia states in the book, it is not only by
chance that he 'chose' this form of combination as an example;
in his view, the letter 'Alef constitutes part of the hidden Divine
Name, >hzuy. 37 However, this explanation seems a kind of exegesis
of material which he already found in his earlier sources. In one
of the works of R. Eleazar of Worms (ca. 1165-ca. 1230), we find
a combination-technique quite similar to that of Abulafia; in this
technique, the letter 'Alef is also combined with each of the four
letters of the Tetragrammaton, each unit being vocalized by two
vowels. We shall cite one example: 38
The main difference between Abulafia's table and R.
Eleazar's one lies in the total number of vowels used: rather
than five vowels, 39 as in Abulafia, in R. Eleazar there are six,
by means of the addition of the shewa. The total number of
combinations thereby increases geometrically. In my opinion,
Abulafia adapted an Ashkenazic system of combination to the
Sephardic system of vocalization, based upon five major vowels;
the sewa, counted as a vowel by the Ashkenazim, disappeared,
thereby decreasing the total number of vocalized combinations.
Abulafia, for whom this system of combination was exemplified
by the use of the letter 'Alef and the other letters of the Ineffable
Name, saw this as an allusion to his view that the Name >hzey is
the Hidden Name of God.
Whereas the system described above is based upon a
square, each of whose sides contains a different combination
of the letters of the Divine Name, the system found in Hayyey
28 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
ha-'Olam ha-Ba' is based upon the circle. The name of seventy-
two letters is recited while contemplating circles, each of which
contains nine letters out of the 216 letters of the Name; one
thereby arrives at a system of twenty-four circles, containing
in toto all in all the Name of seventy-two letters. It seems to
me that the source of this system can also be identified; in the
longer commentary to Exodus by R. Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-
1164), the author describes the mathematical qualities of the let-
ters constituting the Ineffable Name, and thereafter writes that
"all of the numbers are nine from one direction, and ten from
the other direction. If one writes the nine in a circle, and dou-
bles over the end 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 sys-
tem in Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba 1 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 Worm's
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 mention-
ing that the nine letters within a circle reappear in Abulafia's
Sefer ha-Haftarah, 42 where they appear within the circle of the let-
ters 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 'Imrey Sefer 43 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.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 29
3. Techniques for Recitation of the Names
As we have seen above, the procedure for reciting the
Name contained a number of elements, each of which shall now
be enumerated separately.
A. Breathing
Any technique in which the pronunciation of letters occu-
pies 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. 4 * 5 Abulafia's
writings contain brief statements 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 mate-
rial which has come down to us. The most significant of these
passages appears in Mafteah ha-Semot 47 where it states:
One must take each one of the letters [of the Tetragram-
maton] 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 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 Geburdh and its
nature, by which a man is known as gibbdr [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 yts qr c stn with ygt pzq sqw syt 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 discus-
30 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
sion 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 Seba- Netibot 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 Mafteah Im-Semdt indicates that the resting breath is paral-
lel 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 geinatria, 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 refers to the holding of the air in order to
pronounce the letter of the Divine 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 Yoga, and in practice also in
Abulafia. Without stating so directly, he emphasizes the need for
a long period of emission, on the one hand, and the maximum
exploitation of the air held in the lungs, on the other: "that he
should not breath between two letters except for one long breath,
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 31
for so long as he is able to stand." Indeed, in Pe'ukt ha-Yesirdh, he
states that "one should pronounce one letter of the Name with
a great voice, in one breath, until he exhausts his breath from
breathing out." 53 In 'Or ha-Sekel, he similarly states:
When he begins to pronounce one letter with a given vocaliza-
tion, one should remember that it alludes to the secret of the
unity, so do not extend it more than the length of one breath
and do not interrupt it during that breath at all until you com-
plete its expression. And extend that [particular] breath in ac-
cordance with the strength of the length of one breath, as much
as you are able to extend it. 54
As we have seen, one ought to extend both the breath and
its emission. The same is not true, however, for the pause be-
tween breaths; Mafteah ha-Semot speaks of the pause as equalling
the length of one breath, while in 'Or ha-Sekel 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 'Alef, in the direct ones,
or between the 'Alef and the letter of the Name, in the in-
verted 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.
Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba> gives a different version, which al-
lows for the possibility that one may take three breaths between
the pronounciation of each letter. 57
Another rule entailed in the act of pronouncing the Names
refers to the prohibition against pronouncing the letters while
breathing in: "and it is possible that the speaker [i.e., the per-
son who recites] may breathe, and will not speak with his lips
between the emission of air and its intake, but he is not allowed
to speak with his mouth and take in the breath together, 58 but
that the speech and the emission of air may occur together." 59
32 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
Turning to the theoretical significance of breathing, we
find that the process of intake and emission of air is alluded to in
the afore-cited passage from Maftiah ha-Semot by the words mi-ba"r
le-ga"w, which symbolize the attribute of Geburah within man-
that is, his ability to overcome his evil Urge. For this reason,
man pronounces the Name of forty-two letters 80 incorporating
the expression aera- satdn ["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
Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-BaK
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- lie,] Sin Dalet Yod- and that is the second
seal. . which killed the demons with the seal of the Messiah,
which kills the evU blood, and also kills the evil attribute, so it
immediately dies by the precious 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.' 2 Elsewhere in the
same work, Abulafia writes about
...eighteen breaths, which will add to your 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 Sekinah to
dwell on earth and to speak with man. 63
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 33
This passage suggests the ability of the breath to bring
about a mystical experience, and through that the survival of
the soul. 6 " The two aspects of breath— that of overcoming cor-
poreality and of strengthening spirituality— are symbolized by
the two angels, Gabriel and Michael: "from his two nostrils one
may recognize the two archangels, of whom it is said that the
names of all the angels change in accordance with their work and
their deeds and their activities, 6 ' [i.e.,] Michael and Gabriel." 66
In Abulafia's writings, Michael is identified with the Active In-
tellect or Metatron, while Gabriel is identified with Sandalphon,
to whom is encharged the corporeal realm. 67 In two other pas-
sages, we learn of the service and knowledge of God with the
help of breathing: "Remember Yah and his activities, for He is
the one who seals and makes an impress— know Yah through
your breath. 08 "'All that has breath shall praise Yah, HalUuyah'"" and
it is said, 70 'with each and every breath that is within you, praise God.'" 1 '
In conclusion, we must mention the connection between
breathing and the recitation of the Name as it appears in 'Hit
Hokmdh. 12 The sixteenth-century Safedian Kabbalist, R. Elijah de
Vidas, quotes therein a certain book not mentioned by title, as
follows:
There are 1080 divisions to an hour, corresponding to which
the Tetragrammaton is combined and permutated in various
combinations of vocalizations of the alphabet, in a total of 1080
combinations. These 1080 combinations correspond to the 1080
breaths which a man breathes, and to each breath there cor-
responds one letter of the name of four letters, which gives
vitality to that breath.
And this is alluded to in "For by every thing which comes from
the mouth of God may man live." 73 As God gives breath and life,
it is appropriate that all his [man's] breaths be devoted to the
service of the Creator, and to this our sages referred in Genesis
Rabba [in their interpretation of] the phrase "all that has breath
shall praise Yah..." [Ps. 150:6]
34 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
The connection between the act of breathing and the
recitation of the 1080 combinations of the Ineffable Name, with
all possible vocalizations,"' is made here, to the best of my
knowledge, for the first time. It is based upon R. Eleazar of
Worms' 'Eser Haiaaydt and on the quotation from 'Or ha-Sekel, both
of which appear in Pontes Rimmonim," the major work of de Vi-
das' master, R. Moses Cordovero.
From a practical viewpoint, it is difficult to imagine that
one may breathe 1080 times in one hour, particularly when one
also needs to pronounce letters; in any event, such a rapid pace
would seem to contradict Abulafia's whole approach. However,
the very occurrence of the breathing technique together with the
pronunciation of letters of the Divine Name evinces the practice
of an Abulafian-like technique among the Safedian Kabbahsts, a
fact further strengthened by other evidence.
B. Shaking of One's Head
In Abulafia, the act of pronouncing the letters is accom-
panied by motions of the head corresponding to the vowels of
the letters pronounced. A detailed description of this practice
appears in Hayyey ha-Vlam ha-Ba; n quoted here in extenso:
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 morion: know that the vocalization which is above is called
Holam, 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 'Alef, 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.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 35
Thus, when you extend the vowel of the letter in its pronunci-
ation, move your head up toward the heavens, and close your
eyes and open your mouth and let your words shine " 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 un-
til 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.
The process described here in detail is also alluded to
briefly m Sefer 'Or ha-Sekel:'"
And your head is crowned with tefMin, facing east, for from
there light emerges to the world, and [from] there you may
move your head toward five directions. And on [the vowel]
holam begin from the center of the east, and purity your
thoughts, and lift your head with the breath bit by bit until
it is complete, and your head shall be facing up. And after
this is completed bow down to the earth once., and on [the
vowel] sere move your head from left to right, and on aamas
from right to left. 7
As one can clearly see, the head motions are simply at-
tempts to imitate the written form of the vowel sounds an at-
tempt repeated in the use of music, where the vocalization is
transformed into musical notes, as we shall see in the next chap-
ter. v
C. The Hands
We find a description in Sefer ha-Hesea of the hand move-
ments to be performed during the pronunciation of the Divine
Names.™ This description is unique in Abulafia's extant works
and it reflects the position of the hands during the Priestly Bless-
ing-
36 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
"Let my prayer be acceptable as incense, the offerings of my
hands as sweet meal-offerings." 80 And lift your eyes up to the
heaven, and lift your left and right hands, like the lifting up
of hands of the kohen, who divides his fingers, five on one
side and five on the other, with two on the right and two on
the left [in each hand], the two smallest fingers, aemisdh and
zeret (i.e., the pinky and the "ring finger") joined together, and
these two next to them also joined. And divide between them,
with the thumb stuck out by itself, and your hands shall also
be in this form Vfc/ VJV and your tongue shall
separate between them, like a balance stone, [here details of
the pronunciation are given]. . .and immediately put down your
hands, which you lifted before God with ease, in the image
of the ten Sefirot from the right, like the image of the ten fin-
gers, five over against five, to the right and left. And you have
switched the powers and made meritorious the one who was
guilty; therefore place your left hand on your heart, spread out
with the five fingers, and above it place your right hand, out-
stretched with its five fingers, to indicate that the meritorious
one has overcome him. . . and if you wish to lift your hands for
a longer period of time, you are allowed to do so; but if not,
you need not worry.
Thus far, we have described those actions which one is
to perform while pronouncing the letters. A separate chapter
will be devoted to the song or "melody," as Abulafia calls the
pronunciation of the letters in different tones. We shall now
turn to the third stage of the pronunciation of the Divine Name,
namely, the inner activities performed in "the heart," that is,
with the powers of the soul: the intellect and the imagination.
4. The Inner Pronunciation
From the mid-thirteenth century, there appears in Hebrew
mystical literature a technique, one of whose components is the
imagining of the letters of the Divine Names. Evidence of such a
practice appears in R. Isaac Ibn Latif, who enumerates three dif-
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 37
ferent stages of contemplation of the letters of the Divine Name.
In his Surat ha-Olam, which was apparently written at the end of
the second third of the thirteenth century, he writes: 81
The desired end is to strip the Name of [its] matter and to
imagine it in your mind, although it is impossible for the imag-
ination to depict it without some physical image, because the
imagination is not separate from the sensibilia, and most of
what is attained by the activity of the imagination is performed
through the contemplation of the shape of the letters and their
forms and number. And it must also be understood that its
letters [i.e., those of the Divine Name] are that which make it
move and speak, and that the other letters move about, but one
cannot image them in speech except for the letters of the Name,
even though they do not become mingled and do not change
their places in the squaring of the numbers. . . And it is known
to anyone who is wise of heart that when the imagination goes
away, so do the letters. Therefore, the straightforward intellect
must strip this Name of simple matter, and imagine it in the
form of pure mind.
The subject of this passage is the letters of the Divine
Name, >hwy, which enliven speech and whose numerical coun-
terparts (i.e., 1, 5, 6, 10) each retain their final digit when they are
squared. 82 According to Ibn Latif, there are three levels of con-
templation of these letters: the material, the imaginative and the
intellective. The second stage is to be understood, in my opin-
ion, as the depicting of the letters in the power of the imagina-
tion, without the physical presence of the written letters. These
imaginary letters are thereby transformed into an object of con-
templation of the intellect just as, according to the Aristotelian
theory of knowledge, every imaginary form is the material for
intellectual activity.
Ibn Latif's words indicate that the technique which he
discusses at length in several places was already in use some
time before its occurrence in Abulafia. In the latter's Hayyey ha-
'Olam ha-Ba', we read:
38 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
Prepare your true thoughts to imagine the Name, may He be
Blessed, and with it the supernal angels. And visualize them
in your heart as if they are human beings standing or sitting
around you, and you are among them like a messenger. . . And
aiter you have imagined this entirely, prepare your mind and
your heart to understand the thoughts whose matters are to
be brought to you by the letters you have thought of in your
heart. 83
It becomes clear several pages later that this refers to the
letters of the Ineffable Name, of which it is said that they are
the ones portrayed "and he shall close his eyes and intend in
his thought, and the first intention is that he is to imagine that
there are four camps of the Indwelling, or a Tabernacle around
them, and four beautiful flags in round forms surrounding the
fifth camp."" 4 Following this passage, Abulafia describes the im-
age that is to be imagined: the seventy-two letters Name in the
center, with the four names of four letters in the four corners
of the square. Next to the seventy-two letter Name is written
thirty-two [probably an allusion to the 32 netibot mentioned in
Sefer Yesirah]; this is an allusion to the gematria: 72 + 32 = 104 = 4
x 26 [26 is the gematria of the Tetragrammaton].
One also ought to note here the parallels to the techniques
of imagining in the writings of other Kabbalists. Abulafia's
younger contemporary, R. Joseph b. Shalom Ashkenazi, cites
an extremely interesting quotation in the name of "the philoso-
phers." This quotation, to be discussed below, is important in a
number of different respects; I shall confine myself here to men-
tioning just one of them. The unidentified philosophers cited,
who were presumably contemporaries or predecessors of Ab-
ulafia, proposed a technique of contemplation quite similar in
several respects to that contained in the above quotations from
Abulafia, though not identical with it. The following is the text
of the passage: 85
The philosophers have already written on the issue of prophe-
cy, saying that it is not improbable that there will be a person to
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 39
whom things will appear in his imaginative faculty comparable
to that which appears to the imaginative faculty in a dream.
All this [could take place] while someone is awake, and all his
senses are obliterated, as the letters of the Divine Name [stand]
in front of his eyes, in the gathered colours. Sometimes he will
hear a voice, 81 a wind, a speech, a thunder and a noise with
all the organs of his hearing sense, and he will see with his
imaginative faculty with all the organs of sight, and he will
smell with all the organs of smell, and he will taste with all
the organs of taste, and he will touch with all the organs of
touch, and he will walk and levitate. All this while the holy
letters are in front of his eyes, and its colours are covering it;
this 87 is the sleep of prophecy.
The similarity of the content of this quotation to Abu-
lafia's teaching is interesting, despite the fact that he is clearly
not the author quoted here; the contemplation of the letters of
the Divine Name as a technique for bringing about 'prophecy' is
clearly parallel to Abulafia's own path. Moreover, the quotation
of these words in the name of "the philosophers," despite the fact
that it is mingled with ideas from Sefer Yesirah, fits the mixture of
Maimonidean philosophy and Sefer Yesirah mysticism character-
istic of Abulafia's own writings. Nevertheless, the presence here
of a certain motif which is definitively rejected by Abulafia— i.e.,
"and its colors are enwrapped in it" 88 — makes it difficult for us'
to identify this passage with any likelihood as one of the "lost"
writings of Abulafia. Yet it is precisely this conclusion, taken
together with the quotation from Ibn Latif, which is significant
for our understanding of the development of the teaching of this
ecstatic Kabbalist. Abulafia did not create a new theory, but de-
veloped an already existing tendency, albeit one in some respects
rather different from that expressed in his works.
R. Isaac of Acre, an ecstatic Kabbalist of the late thirteenth
and early fourteenth century, saw the act of imagining of the
letters composing the name of God as a means of achieving the
life of the world to come. These are his words in Mevat 'Einauim:' 3
40 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
I, Isaac the young, the son of Samuel, of Acre, may it speedily
be rebuilt, say [as follows], to the elite as well as to the vulgus:
that whoever wishes to know the secret of attaching one's soul
above and cleaving one's thought to Almighty God, so that
one may acquire the World to Come with that same constant
thought, without interruption, and God will always be with
him, in this [world] and the next [do as follows]. Let him
place before his eyes and his thought the letters of the Ineffable
Name, as if they are written before him in a book, in Assyriac
writing, and let him visualize each letter before his eyes as
great, without limits. I mean by this to say that when you
envision the letters of the Ineffable Name before your eyes,
[imaginatively] put your mind's eye on them but the thought
of your heart be on the Infinite {'Eyn So/], [the envisioning and
the thought] both concomitantly. And this is the true cleaving
of which Scripture said, "to cleave to Him," 90 "and to Him
shall you cleave," 91 "and you who cleave," 92 etc. And so long
as the soul of man cleaves to the Name, may He be blessed,
no evil shall befall you, and you shall come to no error in any
matter, either intellective or sensory, and you will not fall into
the hand of chance, for so long as one is cleaving to God, may
He be blessed, he is above all chance and rules over them.
Another sentence in the same work describes the tech-
nique of imagination:
I, Isaac. . . of Acre, have come to write a tradition pertaining to
the intention of the punctuation of the Holy Name. . . of which
whosoever knows it will think in his heart of its vocalization
as if it is vocalized before him. 93
In a magical passage appearing in the manuscripts, the
idea of imagination appears as follows: "Another way YHWH
with the vocalization of debdreka. Imagine in your mind the let-
ters of the Ineffable Name before your eyes, in a circle colored
red as fire, and your thought shall perform much. From Rabbi
Tanhum." 94 The expression, "your mind shall perform much,"
and the end of the previous passage from Menrat 'Einayim, suggest
an explicitly magical direction, conveying a technique, the main
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 41
element of which is the attainment of cleaving to God (debeaut). 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 predicted in the thirteenth century.
In conclusion, it is worthwhile citing a few comments
concerning the imagining of the letters from MS. Sasson 290, p.
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 sisit 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.
I have discussed the visualization of the Divine Names
at some length, because it concerns an extremely widespread
technique, known to a number of different Kabbalists. How-
ever, there is one point which is decisive for the understanding
of Abulafia's doctrine: what he assumes to be a means, in the
passages we have cited from Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba>, become (in
other passages of his to be discussed in the third chapter) the
goal. The letters of the Divine Name are not only a component of
the method of cleaving to God; the process of imagining the let-
ters in the first stage precedes the vision of the letters in the final
stage of the ecstatic process. 96 This distinction between technique
and goal is not clear in other authors, so that in their descrip-
tions the imagining of the letters is transformed into immediate
cleaving to them. Finally, let us note that the technique of imag-
ining already appears in the early thirteenth century mystic Ibn
Arabi. 97
42 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
Another interesting element of Abulafia's technique of
contemplation appears in Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba\ In several places
there, he refers to a technique of recitation and contemplation
connected to the three main organs of the body: the head, the
belly and the torso:
And he should again pronounce the head of the end, which is
L [lamed], and imagine as if you are gazing at your belly, and
do not breathe between pronouncing the place of your organ
and pronouncing that letter which rules over that organ. 98
Elsewhere in the same work we read:
Again, go and mention the head of the middle of the Name.
You already know that you ought to pronounce [the names of]
the organs from what I have said, that there are so-to-speak
three spots on your head: the inside, which is the head of
the head; the middle, which is the inside of the head; and the
behind, which is the end of the head. And likewise imagine
as if there are three points on your torso, which is the place
of your heart: the head, which is the center of the middle; the
middle, which is the middle of the middle, which is but one
point in its center; and the behind, which is the end of the end.
And likewise imagine that there are three points in your belly:
the front, which is the point of your navel, the head of the end;
the middle, which is the point of your entrails; the middle of
the end, and behind, which is the point of the end of your
spine, which is the place of the kidneys where the spinal cord
is completed, the end of the end."
This passage is based upon the pronunciation of the letters
of the Name of seventy-two letters, consisting of units of three
letters, each three of which constitute one column. A unit con-
sists of a beginning, the first letter; a middle, the second letter;
and an end, the final letter. It follows from this that, by recit-
ing a column of nine letters pertaining to the bodily organs, one
thereby refers to the human head, torso and belly. An error in
the recitation of one letter is likely to bring about a change in one
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 43
of the organs of the body, for which reason the name of seventy-
two letters also includes the combination Mum [defect]. 100
What are the sources of this technique? The reference to
the navel leads G. Scholem to think that there is a connection
between Abulafia and the school of hesychasm, which practiced
the contemplation of one's navel. 101 But it seems to me that pre-
cisely that opinion which he sees as "one which is difficult to
imagine" is the correct one; namely, that this technique came
about through an internal development, based upon study of
Sefer Yesirdh. In Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba\ it states:
Know that there are within man three matters created by the
three pillars [i.e., primary letters], 'ms, combined with yhw,
and these are the angels of fire, wind and water. Behold, the
head is created by three forms of fire, corresponding to ta'q
[corresponding to] fire, and the belly [is created of] water, cor-
responding to s c d [corresponding to] water, and the torso, cre-
ated from the wind, corresponding to tm"d [corresponding to]
wind. 102
This division of the human body originates in Sefer Yesirdh
iii, 4, where it states "[There are] three pillars [called] >ms in
the soul: fire, water and wind. The head is created from fire,
the belly is created from water, and the torso, which is created
from wind, mediates between them." Abulafia added a new
element to this division, occurring already in Baraita de-Mazdldt, 103
in which the astrological signs are divided into three groups,
each element belonging to another group: ta"q = Taleh, 'Aryeh,
Qeset (i.e., Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) = fire; tm"d = Te'omim, Moznayim,
Gedi (i.e., Gemini, Libra, Capricorn) = wind; sa'ad = Sartdn, 'Aqrdb,
DeU(i.e., Cancer, Scorpio, Aquarius) = water. Through this, there
came about the view that the three parts of the human body are
likewise connected to the three letters.
Abulafia used the letters of the Name of seventy-two let-
ters rather than the initials of the names of the constellations,
viewed in this way, it is dear that according to his approach the
44 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
navel is no more than one of the nine points of the human body,
and that there is no special significance to its contemplation. It
is worth mentioning here the magical character of the technique
of pronouncing the name of the organ and the letter appointed
over it. In Hayyey ha- t Oldm ha-Ba>, Abulafia writes:
Head and belly and torso, that is, the head, beginning inside
the end. The "head" is the first point that you imagine in it;
the "end" is the purpose of the head, and is like a tail to it, and
the belly is likewise like a tail to the head, and is the image
of the torso, wherein the heart is located. And the image that
you ought to imagine at the time of pronunciation, in order
to change within that image the nature of [one] part of the
bodies, alone or with others, is: think in your heart the name
of that thing, and if it is [composed] of two letters, such as yam
[sea], and you wish to invert it, and the name of the reversal
is yabasah [dry land], the companion of yam with yabasah, and
this is "beginning and end, yah." But the middle is me-ydbis
yam; behold, Yah me-yabes Yam ("God makes dry the sea"), for
He in truth makes the sea into dry land. And pronounce in
this image whatever you remember, and thus you will first say
heh, in the middle of your head, and draw it within your head
as if you were contemplating and see the center of your brain,
and its central point in your thoughts, and envision the letter
heh inscribed above it, which guards the existence of the points
of your brain. 104
Yesirdh:
We may now understand Abulafia's remarks in Pe'ulat ha-
Begin at the head of your head, until there the first eight lines
to preserve the head, and he shall mention the second eight 5 Preparations for Recitation
lines to fulfill the first, in the first order, and he shall mention
the eight third lines, the storm and the wind, and one image
emerges. 105
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-
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 45
stature]; (c) end. As in Hayyey ha-'Oldm 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 in Hayyey 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 Albotmi's Sulldm ha-'Aliydh. Here the author copies, almost
word for word, the relevant passages from the two major works
by Abulafia, 'Or ha-Sekel and Hayyey ha-'Oldm 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 wis-
dom and knowledge. Of this our sages said 108 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 permuta-
tion 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 Talmud 109 that Rabba created a man
and sent him to R. Zeira.
Having described the details of the technique of reciting
the Divine Name, we shall now discuss the necessary prepara-
tions related to this act. In two of his books, Hayyey ha-'Oldm
ha-Ba> and 'Or ha-Sekel, Abulafia describes these conditions:
46 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
... At the time that you wish to recite this Ineffable Name as
engraved above with its vocalization, adom yourself and se-
clude yourself in a special place so that your voice will not
be heard to anyone apart from yourself, and purify your heart
and your soul from all thoughts of this world. 110
Elsewhere, he writes:
Be prepared for thy God, oh 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
A similar description is repeated in Sefer ha-Heseq:
When you wish to recite the name of seventy-two letters, fol-
lowing the preparation we have mentioned, you must arrange
to be alone in a special place, to pronounce the secret of the In-
effable Name, and to separate and isolate yourself from every
speaking creature, and from all vanities of [the world, so as not
to view them as] attributes [of God]. And also so that there
not remain in your heart any thoughts of human or natural
things, of either voluntary or necessary [matters], as if you are
one who has given a writ of divorce to all forms of the mun-
dane world, as one who has given a testament in the presence
of witnesses in which he orders [another] to take care of his
wife and his children and his property, and has relieved him-
self of all involvement and supervision and transferred it from
himself and gone away. 112
The two main stipulations appearing here— separation
from the vanities of the world and isolation in a special house
for the purpose of this recitation— reappear in Sawrey Sedeq:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafta 47
He should also ascend to purify his soul above all other wis-
doms which he has learned; the reason for this being that, as
they are natural and limited, they contaminate the soul and
prevent the Divine forms, which are extremely fine, from pass-
ing through it. . . therefore one must isolate oneself in a special
house, and if the house is such that he will not even hear a
voice, this is even better. 113
A third preparation for the act of recitation is to adorn
oneself in tallit and tefillin:
And wrap yourself in a tallit and place your tefillin on your
head and your arm, so that you may be fearful and in awe of
the Sekinah, which is with you at that time. And cleanse your-
self and your garments, and if possible let them all be white,
for all this greatly assists the intention of fear and love. 114
Elsewhere, we read, "And sit enwrapped in clean white
pure garments or new garments over all your garments, or over
your tallit, and your head adorned with tefillin." 1 ^ To this atmo-
sphere of mystery is added the instruction that "if it is night,
light many candles, until it shall enlighten your eyes well." 116
As two contemporary students of hypnotism have attempted to
show in a study, 117 to which we shall return later, these instruc-
tions constitute a method akin to, though not identical with, that
inducing auto-hypnosis.
Once these conditions have been fulfilled, the one con-
templating begins to combine letters according to the methods
described above. The immediate goal of these combinations is
to achieve a state of "warming of the heart": 118
And begin to combine small letters with great ones, to reverse
them and to permutate them rapidly, until your heart shall be
warmed through their combinations and rejoice in their move-
ments and in what you bring about through their permutations;
and when you feel thusly that your heart is already greatly
heated through the combinations... then you are ready to re-
ceive the emanated influx. 119
48 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
In Sefer lia-Melamed, Abulafia says, "but that of which I
have informed you concerning the matter of the secret of com-
bination, that when you mention the words combined, then the
divine spirit shall rest upon you through the heating of your
heart." 120 We read another formulation of this motif in Swarey
Sedeq, "all these acts must be performed with rapid motion,
which warms the thought and increases the longing and joy." 12 '
This motif of "warming" the heart or the thought is decisive
for understanding the nature of the technique suggested by Ab-
ulafia; one may easily be misled by the external similarity be-
tween the components of Abulafia's path toward the mystical ex-
perience and certain details in Yoga or hesychasm. But beyond
the details, which are clearly borrowed from outside sources,
Abulafia's way is an original one in terms of the psychological
mechanism by which the new consciousness which he reaches is
activated. While in the other known techniques— Yoga, Sufism
and hesychasm— the goal is to attain the maximum degree of
concentration by means of a generally simple formula, to be re-
peated over and over again, Abulafia's method is based upon the
contemplation of a constantly changing object; one must com-
bine the letters and their vowel signs, "sing" and move the head
in accordance with the vocalization, and even lift one's hands in
the gesture of Priestly Blessing. This combination of constantly
changing components is entirely different from what we know
of these other techniques. Abulafia is not interested in relaxing
the consciousness by means of concentration on a "point," but
in purifying it by the necessity to concentrate intensely on such
a large number of activities that it is almost impossible at that
moment to think about any other subject. By this means, the
consciousness is purified of every subject apart from the names
being uttered.
The concentrated effort also assures rapid results; in
Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba< 1]a Abulafia states that,
...it is the tradition among us, that the influx comes to the
complete man when he completes the first verse following the
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 49
pronounciauon of the twenty-four names, whose mnemonic 1 * 1
is "My beloved is white and ruddy; the voice 124 of my beloved
knocks" ( Dddi salt we-'adom; Qql dddi dofeq).
The point here is that, after one utters the twenty-four
Names (symbolized by the gemalria of the word dddi), 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 Ab-
ulafian 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 toward 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 diffi-
cult 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:
The more the sublime intellective flow is strengthened within
you, the more your external and internal organs become weak-
ened, and your body begins to tremble greatly and mightily,
until you think that you shall surely die at that time, for your
soul will become separated from your body out of the great
joy in attaining and knowing what you have known. 127
I would like to note one interesting side aspect of Ab-
ulafia's technique: namely, that his method is based upon the
actual expression or pronunciation of the Ineffable Name, and
that, in every possible combination of vocalization and of the
letters themselves. According to the Mislmah, "One who pro-
nounces the Name in its letters [i.e., as it is written] has no
share in the World to Come." 128 Abulafia claims the exact op-
50 Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy
posite: that the way to attain the World to Come is precisely,
and only, by pronouncing the Ineffable Name. Thus, we find
here an extraordinary phenomenon: Abulafia's system is based
upon the performance of an act, the recitation of the Holy Name,
which constitutes a definite halakk transgression. It is therefore
quite surprising that neither Abulafia nor his opponents even
mention this problem. 1 ^ 9 This makes an interesting contrast to a
somewhat similar case in the Christian world. I refer to a reli-
gious movement that sprang up in Russia in 1913, which con-
sidered the Name of God as the principal means for connecting
with Him; in its view, the recitation of God's name during wor-
ship brings about the unification of the worshipper with God
Himself through the very act of pronouncing. Its opponents ar-
gued against this view that one is categorically proscribed from
uttering God's name unnecessarily. 130
In conclusion, one may mention the term used by G.
Scholem to characterize the above-described path. In several
places, he referred to Abulafia's path as a kind of "magic of
inwardness," 131 whose main intention is to change man's inner
structure. Abulafia claimed that one could alter both man's na-
ture and his soul. 132 For this reason, while his path ought to
be identified as a magical one because it alludes at times to
the possibility of changes in external nature, its main intention
of influencing the soul deserves the term technique rather than
magic. As against the vain attempt to change the outside world,
Abulafia at least succeeded in changing his own consciousness,
as did the other mystics.
I
Chapter Two
Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
There are two main aspects to the association between
mystical ecstasy and music in the ecstatic Kabbalah: on the one
hand, music served as an analogy for the technique giving rise
to ecstasy and the ecstatic experience; on the other, it was an
important element of the actual technique of Abulafia and his
students. We shall first consider music as an analogy.
1. Analogy for Ecstasy-Evoking Techniques
In Gan Ntrul, we find a passage containing a comparison
between the influence exerted by music and the combination of
letters: 1
Know that [letter-]combination is like the hearing of the ears,
for the ear hears and the sounds are combined according to
the form of the tune and the sound-enunciation. 2 Witness the
(string instruments) kinnor and nebel; their sounds are com-
bined, and with the combination of the sounds the ears hear
variation and exchange 3 in the pangs of love. 4 The strings
which are struck with the right hand and with the left hand
vibrate, bringing the sweet taste to the ears, from which sound
moves to the heart, and from the heart to the spleen. 5 In the
meantime, joy is renewed through the pleasure of the variation
of the tunes, which can only be renewed by the form of the
52 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
combinations. That is, the player plucks the first string, which
is analogous to the letter >alef, for example, and it moves from
there to one string, 6 to bet, gimel, Met, or he— that is to say,
a second, third, fourth, or fifth string, as we are using five as
an example. From there the pluckings are transposed, and by
means of transposition tunes and melodies are brought about
which transpose the heart by means of the ears. Thus also is
the matter of combining letters from the outside with the pen,
in the form of the combinations of the letters (>alef, mem, sin),
as follows: >ms, s sm, m>s", m's, s'm, sm>; thus all cognates and
similar things.
There are parallels between music and the technique
of combination in three areas: 1) Music-making and letter-
combination operate by means of the harmony which is pro-
duced by the conjoining of two different principles: two differ-
ent instruments {kinnor and nebel), two different tones from the
same musical instrument, or the joining of two different letters
in the process of combination. The movement from one string
to another described by Abulafia is similar to a certain tech-
nique of combination which begins with a particular letter and
either moves to the adjoining letter or skips over one or more
letters: i.e., A-B, B-G, G-D, etc., or A-G, B-D, G-H, etc. 7 2) Letter-
combination, like music, gladdens the heart; it does so by means
of the "hidden things which are found in the transposition of the
letters," wherein the joy comes from uncovering the secrets. 3)
Like music, letter-combination is an activity which takes place
outside the soul, influencing the soul inwards.
This parallel between music and letter-combination is re-
peated in Sefcr ha-Hcseq. There, Abulafia writes:
You must first verify in your heart, anyway that you can verify
it, that the letters are in essence signs and hints in the image
of characters and parables, and were created because they are
instruments by which man is taught the way of understand-
ing; and to us they are in the image of the strings of the kinnor.
For by means of the production of sound when it is plucked
The Mystical Experience in Abraliam Abulafia 53
on the string with the plectrum with the shift of the plucking
from string to string, and with the combination of the sound-
enunciations which are produced by it, the soul of the man
wishing to be joyous is awakened to joy, happiness, and glad-
ness, and it receives from this its pleasure and much benefit to
the soul. 8
Abulafia 's student, R. Nathan ben Sa<adyah Harar, author
of Sa<arey Sedeq, largely follows in the footsteps of his teacher
when he writes: 9
. . . And how the letters transpose, change, conjoin, separate and
jump about in the first letters, in the middle of the word, and at
the end of the word, and the whole word, and the kind of the
form of combination of vowel points, and their pronunciation,
and these are carried over to the second degree, which is the
form of the sound and melody, until its melodic sound is made
to be like kinnor, 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 mo-
tion 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.
When we pronounce the various combinations of the let-
ters, we affect the soul alone, whereas the influence of music is
perceptible both in the soul and in the body. There is an impor-
tant distinction to be added between the citation from Can Na<ul
and that from Sawey Sedeq: the influence of the revelation of the
secrets— that is, the intellectual principle behind the process of
letter-combination — in the latter passage turns into an influence
or sensation: the voice of the one uttering the letters of the Name
is pleasant, as is the sound of the harp, and thus influences the
soul. 11 Music is also used as an analogy for 'prophecy' itself.
54 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
2. Analogy for 'Prophecy'
The comparison between the mystical experience and the
hearing of Music" (a motif which often appears in mystical lit-
erature) serves to describe the actual occurrence in terms of a
non-verbal medium, which makes it possible to compare the sen-
sation at the moment of the experience with something familiar
from everyday experience. Abulafia's approach is different: in
his view, the analogy of music serves to describe the mechanism
of the coming about of 'prophecy' itself. In Mafteah ha-Ratn/on,
we read: 13
It is known that sound is heard more loudly in a place which is
hollow or pierced, due to the purity of the spiritual air which
enters therein, as in the case of the kinnor and similar musical
instruments, which produce sound without any speech, and
so also the concavities of the upper stories, caves, mountains,
bathhouses, ruins, etc., whose interior is hollow. Notice that
from them there is also produced a sound like the sound of one
who is speaking. By means of this secret you will understand
the meaning of 'Moses spake and God answered him by a
voice' [Ex. 19:19], i.e., in a voice similar to that of Moses. 14 You
must know that the body of man is full of holes and cavities,
from which you may understand how the Sekinah dwells in
the body which is pierced and [contains] cavities and which
produces speech.
Here, Abulafia compares the body to the kinnor or some
other musical instrument, as the human body is filled with cav-
ities and holes which are apt to produce a sound when a wind
blows. This process is similar to the Holy Spirit— the Sekinah —
moving in the human body, giving rise to prophecy. The analogy
of the human body to the kinnor appears in 'Imrey Sefer: 1 *
Just as the owner of a garden has the power to water the garden
at will by means of rivers, so does the one making music with
the Name have the power to water at will his limbs by means of
his soul, through the Almighty, Blessed Name; and this is [the
meaning of] "and it came to pass, when the minstrel played.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 55
that the hand of the Lord came upon him" [II Kings 3:15]— this
is the kinnor hung above David's bed, which used to play of
itself and "praise Him with the nebel and kinnor" [Ps. 150:]. 16
But this would only be after receiving the divine effluence,
which is called the seventy-two letter name, together with the
understanding of its paths.
It seems to me that the analogy of the garden to the body
also extends to the kinnor: just as the garden and the body are
passive, receiving the action of the gardener and the musician
with the Name of the seventy-two letters, so also does David's
kinnor play "of itself" when the divine effluence reverberates
within it. Abulafia here appears to suggest that David's kinnor
resembles the human body: like the kinnor, man also makes mu-
sic "of himself" when the wind blows. Possible support for this
interpretation may be found in Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba>:
The body is like a garden, which is the master of vegetation,
and the soul is Eden, which is the master of delights; and the
body is planted in it. The secret of gan 'eden [Garden of Eden]
is 'ad naggen [through playing], for prophecy dwells when <ebed
naggen [the servant plays?], e.g., "when the minstrel played"
[H Kings 3:15], as in the case of "Elisa'.' 7
If we have deciphered Abulafia's meaning correctly, then
we are confronted with the widespread analogy of man to the
kinnor or nebel upon which God plays music. This motif is hinted
at as early as Philo; 18 since Montanus 19 it appears explicitly sev-
eral times in mystical literature, 20 nor is it absent from Hebrew
literature. The Midrash 21 speaks of prophets as those "who were
like an instrument full of speech." R. Judah the Hasid describes
the Glory as a nebel upon which God plays in order to arouse
the prophet to prophesy. 22
This topic appears several times in Kabbalistic literature.^
The motif later reached Hasidism, which spoke of converting
the musician to a musical instrument, and of the analogy of the
56 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
sofar, which produces a sound when one blows into it, with the
prophet, who prophecies only when God dwells within him. 24
3. Music as a Means of Attaining Prophecy
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 medieval literature. 27 In
the latter, 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 capac-
ity 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 in-
telligibles, as was the case with Tilisas "bring me a minstrel."
As our Sages of blessed memory taught, 30 "The Sekindh does
not dwell as a result of inaction or sadness, but rather through
a joyous thing."
Joseph ibn Caspi states: 3 ' "Poetic words: the whole art
of song-making performed on musical instruments which have
the effect of rousing the intelligent soul, and which was termed
in ancient times music." The author of 'Or ha-Mendrah, who be-
longed to Abulafia's school, wrote in the fourteenth century: 33
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 57
If he shall praise with [his] voice he is more likely to bring plea-
sure to the soul and lead it to the Holy Spirit, as it is said, "with
nebel and tqf and halti and kinnor before them, and they shall
prophesy" [I Sam. 10:5], and so also in the matter of "Elisa 1 [II
Kings 3:15] "but now bring me a minstrel." You likewise find
that in the Eternal House [i.e., the Temple] they played and
performed upon musical instruments. You know their saying,
"the most important music was by means of instruments," al-
though some said, "the most important music was vocal." 33
It was all through the enunciation of sound alone, rising and
falling. The main intention was to arouse the soul to make use
of all of its glorious power, which is the power of intellectual
attainment.
Another interesting testimony is given by an early four-
teenth century Byzantine kabbalist, R. Isaiah ben Joseph, who
writes:
Know that the prophet, when he wishes to prophesy, must first
isolate himself for a determined period of time and perform his
ablutions. Afterwards he settles into his special place, and he
then summons musicians on various instruments who play for
him and sing spiritual songs, and he will deal with certain
chapters of this book which are unclear to him. Afterwards
the musicians will begin to play, as we explained in the eighth
chapter of Sefer ha-Hasgdhah, which is the fourth part of our
treatise Hasqdfat ha-Sekel, and there is no need to repeat it here. 34
These are the views of some savants of Abulafia's period.
We find a different point of view on music in the writings of two
other contemporaries, both of them mystics. One of them, Isaac
ben Jacob ha-Kohen, maintains that the science of music was
known to those who served in the Temple and to the prophets,
who employed it in order to receive the Holy Spirit: 35
Those who served in our glorious Temple were expert in the
subtleties of the nequddot 36 which went forth from their mouths
when they made music, with the known measure and refer-
ences to the musical instruments of David, "the most pleasant
58 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
of Israel's singers," of blessed memory. At the moment when
[the melody] emanates from their mouths with awe, reverence,
holiness and pleasant voice, rising and falling, extending and
shortening," by the Holy Spirit, of specified measure accord-
ing to the prophets of blessed memory, and on the basis of the
pattern of the notes {neauddot) drawn according to the melodic
[evolution] of the rising and falling sounds 38 ... some of them
of high [pitch] and others of low [pitch], 39 some are small and
others large [rhythmic values?].
The measures and the drawings [of the notes according to]
the melodic levolution] of the sounds are all based upon and
directed to the inner spiritual qualities— then the Holy Spirit
awakens, sparkles, 40 and craves.
We find similar remarks in lia-'Ammud ha-Semdli [Treatise
on the Left Emanation] of Isaac ha-Kohen:
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 el-
evation and understanding, [placing them] on the key-holes
of [wind instruments] kimwrot [!] and [on] strings, arousing
the song and the melody to direct their hearts towards God.
Thus the Blessing is aroused and the Sekinah resides in them,
each one according to his performance and according to his
understanding. 41
The first passage had an influence on Isaac ha-Kohen's
follower's student, Isaac ben Solomon ibn Abi Sahula, who stud-
ied Kabbalah with Moses of Burgos. 42 In his commentary on Song
of Songs, Isaac ibn Abi Sahula writes: 43
Properly speaking, the Sage should have called it "Song of
Songs" and no other name, because of the science of song
which was known among that nation in that period. The
Levites used to perform according to it in the Temple at the
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 59
time of service, as it is written, "he shall minister in the name
of the Lord his God," [Deut. 18:7] and we learned in our tra-
dition: "What service is it which is in the name of God? One
must say that it is that of song." 44 This singing was a great and
awesome matter, "a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty"
[Isa. 28:5]. By means of the melodic song, both vocal and
instrumental, the soul is awakened and the Holy Spirit shines
within it and it is elevated, understanding things far more sub-
lime that it had understood beforehand.
This praiseworthy song is the sound emanating from the mu-
sicians' mouth with awe, reverence, and holiness, rising and
falling, extending and shortening [see note 37], as if it were em-
anating from the song of the heavenly angels. By moving 45
in known measures, which are understood by the pattern of
the notes [neauddot] which are drawn according to the melodic
[evolution] of the sounds, they are directed toward the spiritual
degrees, as is explained in the science of music
Among the holy musicians there were some who were supe-
rior to others in this science, as they said: 46 Hogras ben Levi
had a chapter of song, i.e., more than the chapters which his
fellow musicians had. This indicates that they had books com-
posed on the tradition of song, arranged like the chapters of
the Mishnah. All this was intended to awaken the soul to its
loftiness, in order that it arrive at its true character. Then the
Holy Spirit arises, sparkles, and craves with fondness, care,
and great love, and then it achieves an even greater degree.
There is a close connection between this passage and the
first citation from Isaac ha-Kohen; one might even say that Ibn
Abi Sahula expanded upon what was stated by Isaac ha-Kohen.
With regard to our subject, these passages may be summarized
as follows: 1) There is a connection between the science of mu-
sic, though it is now lost, and prophecy; 2) The singing of the
Levites and of the prophets was connected with the Name of
God; 3) The somewhat ambiguous use of the term nequddah (mu-
sical note/vowel-point) seems to indicate a connection between
the song of the Levites and vowel points.
60 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
These ideas appear also in the Sod ha-Salselet. It is difficult
to determine exactly when this work was written, but it appears
to date from the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the
fourteenth century. 47
The secret of the salselet: In a few places in the Torah there is
a cantillation note called salselet, whose form is: | . It is found
on the words zva-yitmdhmdh ("and he lingered") [Gen. 19:16],
and wa-yomar ("and he said") in the verse: "and he said, 'O
Lord, God of my master Abraham'" [Gen. 24:12], and also in
the Hagiographa and in the Psalms.
The Kabbalists say that this note is like the lovely music which
the angels sing and play before God, and that David received
some of this music by means of the Holy Spirit. So also with the
Levites, who performed the holy songs in the Temple, that is,
the Psalms. They made their voice pleasant by singing the song
in a lovely, pleasant, clear and good voice. They pronounced
their speech with a significant melodic movement, with that
same suspended pronunciation as with the great salselet, in
order to elevate that speech with the note of the salselet, which
is made at the beginning of the word, and before he ends that
particular word, he makes a lovely turn with the small salselet.
He would thereby elevate his tune higher, and then lower it a
little, as, for example, in chanting according to the science of
He would make this pronunciation while performing the good
and pleasant song which he knows by tradition to be fit for
the salselet. If he has received no tradition, and he knows how
to innovate a pleasant tune on his own — a tune which will
have a pleasant cantillation and a pronunciation similar to the
enunciation of the salselet — then he must pronounce the Name
in this order and with this sound, for this is what the High
Priest used to do. He used to proclaim the name with this
tune while in the Holy of Holies, and he would vocalize it
while employing a tune according to the rule of the salselet, so
that he would swallow the letters of the Name. This was so
that all those listening heard the pleasant melody and did not
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 61
heed to understand the letters of the Name, so much were their
souls enjoying listening to the melody.
This can be done also by one graced by God to proclaim
Names, by 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 Sosdnim, for the sons of Qorah, Maskil; 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."
In this passage we find some of the ideas which we had
found in the circle of Isaac ha-Kohen. Music is described as a
science which, in ancient times, was known to the High Priest;
it leads to devotion and is connected with the pronunciation
of the Name. However, in the passage quoted above, music is
described as still effective, and not as a lost science. It seems that
this science was preserved in the circle of Abraham Abulafia,
62 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
who was closely associated with one of the disciples of Isaac
ha-Kohen, namely Moses ben Simeon of Burgos. 52
4. Music as a Component of Abulafian Technique
In striking contrast to the philosophers and kabbalists,
Abulafia says very little about the theoretical aspects of the con-
nection between music and 'prophecy'. In his writings one only
finds instructions concerning music-making while pronounc-
ing Divine Names, which is the path by which we arrive at
'prophecy.' In his book 'Osar 'Eden Cdnuz, we read:
The proof that song indicates the degree of prophecy is that
it is the way of song to make the heart happy by means of
tunes as it is said, "And when the minstrel played, the power
of the Lord came upon 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 ydre- (fear) with sdmar (keep), ■
and you find sir 'dmar (i.e„ "say a song"). There is 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- iamar -et semt.
Elsewhere, Abulafia speaks of music in terms of practical
instruction. We read in his book Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba-. "In this
manner he should transpose each letter frontwards and back-
wards, using many tunes." 51 In another place he states:
Make that special breath as long as you can, according to your
capacity for taking one long breath, as long as you can possibly
make it, and sing the alef and every other letter which you
proclaim with awe, fear and reverence, until the joy of the soul
is combined with its understanding, which is great. The form
of the tune for each letter should be in the image of the vowel-
points. It should be in the form of the holam upwards. 55
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 63
Again, in 'Or ha-Sekel we find: "Until you say he properly,
and in the image of the holam which extends upwards, play the
hiria which extends downwards." 55 Similarly, in Vsar 'Eden Cdnuz:
"Your tongue should always speak with a pleasant and pleasing
tune, and very gently." 5 ' On page 70 of Sefer ha-Ot, music is
mentioned as an additional element of the sacred text to that of
letters and vowel points. The parallel between music and vowel-
points emerges from these citations. The vowel point serves as
a sort of note which gives the pitch to the one proclaiming the
Name: holam indicates a high pitch, and hiria a low pitch. This
usage calls to mind the lost science of music mentioned by Isaac
ha-Kohen. Both he and Abulafia hold that this science leads to
'prophecy.' There is no doubt that the remarks of the anonymous
author of Ner 'Elohim 5 ' also represent in essence a description of
a technique which was employed in practice, and not a "lost"
science:
The niggun [i.e., music] is the beauty of pronunciation and in-
dicates the production of sounds, with reference to five mat-
ters, because of the five varying pronunciations of the vowel
points. 58 Moreover, the lute (kinndr), which has five strings, en-
compasses all music.™ The philosophers call this science rnuzika
in Greek, because the word kinnar is [equivalent to] music. 81
We also call it no'am and ta'am, as with the cantillation accents
(te'amim), which are zarqa, tarsa, tevir, revi'a, geres, etc., because
by means of them the entire recitation is made more beautiful
and more pleasing to those listening to it. It [the recitation]
climbs up, becomes longer, and then turns backwards. 62
Further evidence of the integration of music into the tech-
nique of Abulafia's students is found in Sa-arey Sedeq:
He should then continue with a pleasant voice and with
melodies in the verses of praise and out of love of the Torah,
for the joy of the living soul which is partnered to the rational
[soul]. 63
64 Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah
Based upon this passage, Judah al-Botini writes in Suildm
ha-'Aliyyah:
He should continue to play on ail 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 Yesdd 'Oldm, written at the end of the thirteenth
century by Elhanan ben Abraham Eskira, who belonged to a
circle whose views were close to those found in Ginnat 'Egoz and
the Sefer 'lyyun. 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 interme-
diate between the spiritual and the material, in that it draws
forth the intellect at the time of its imprisonment, as it is writ-
ten, "but now bring me a minstrel" [II Kings 3:15], and as it is
written, "awake nebel and kinnor" [Ps. 57:9]. As Nature drags
the intellect, so to speak, to leave the intellectual [world] and
to amuse itself with material things.
In another work written in the same period, Joseph ben
Shalom Ashkenazi's commentary to Sefer Yesirah, 68 the entry of
the High Priest into the Holy of Holies is also seen as a symbol
of mystical experience connected with music:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 65
The letters go out in the ways of the paths through the way of
music, and this is the secret of the canullation accents (te<amim)
of the Torah, for they come in and go out with the sound of
singing. The secret of this is the golden bell and pomegranate
with which the High Priest used to enter the Holy of Holies,
so that its sound may be heard. From this you will understand
the secret of the Holy Spirit which resides in prophets in the
manner of music.
The author of the Sefer ha-Peli'dh combines the views of
Yesdd Vtdm with those of the "Commentary to Sefer Yesirah" when
he writes:
He should draw the spirit of the Living God by means of
known melodies which are the thirty-two melodies according
to which the Torah is transposed. They say that those melodies
are the canullation accents of the Torah (ta'amey torah). 69
Finally, let us quote the remarks of Hayyim Vital, who in
the fourth part of Sa'arey Qedusdh writes: 70
And this is the secret of the "sons of the prophets," before
whom went the drum and the flute, etc. For by means of
the sweetness of the sound of music, dumbness [of senses] 71
descends upon them with the pleasantness of the sound. They
withdraw their souls, 72 and then the musician stops playing,
and the "sons of the prophets" are left with this supreme union
and prophecy.
Chapter Three
The Mystical Experience
Abulafia's system of thought is dominated by two major
concepts: the intellect and the imagination. The literal meaning
of the Torah is associated with the imagination, while its es-
oteric meaning is associated with the intellect. 1 These concepts
also provide a key to understanding his visions and their hidden
meaning. The allegoric approach characteristic of his Scriptural
hermeneutics will thus assist us in understanding the meaning
of his own visions. While Abulafia's biblical interpretation is
a clear example of allegorization of the text — that is, the intro-
duction of an allegorical meaning into a text in which there is
ab initio no such significance— his interpretation of his visions is
not subject to such a clearcut definition. On the one hand, Abu-
lafia attempts to interpret personal experience through the use of
concepts which are inappropriate to the type of material which
they are meant to interpret; on the other hand, those concepts
which Abulafia made into cornerstones of his thought may be
expressed ailegorically in his visions, so that the interpretation
itself is not so much an allegorization as an uncovering of the al-
legorical element inherent within the vision. We will not attempt
to decide this question at this point, but it is worth citing here
Abulafia's own words concerning the need for an interpretation
of his visions. In Sefer ha-'Ot, p. 85, he writes of his vision: "This
is the meaning revealed to all, but the hidden meaning may only
be understood by one who comprehends it by himself."
68 The Mystical Experience
One may ask why Abulafia felt such a great need to in-
terpret his visions. The answer to this question is imbedded in
his prophetic-mystical approach. Following Maimonides, Abu-
lafia states that prophecy is impossible without the imaginative
faculty, 2 through which the flow of the intellect is transformed
into visual images and sounds. The function of interpretation
is to return to the intellective influx, which contains within it-
self the intellectual contents of the revelation. Abulafia saw
himself as a prophet in every respect, as we may see from his
Sefer ha-Haftdrdh, which he asked to have read every Sabbath in
the synagogue; 3 consequently, his visions include an intellectual
message in imaginative garb. Our discussion must therefore be
divided into two: one part will concern the sensual-imaginative
aspect of his experience, and the other, the interpretive and "in-
tellectual" part. The tangible part of Abulafia's experience is not
subject to interpretation; the feeling of joy or of mission, the fear
which pursues the prophet, and similar feelings, are well-known
signs accompanying a message in visual or verbal form.
1. Sensations and Feelings
The connection between mystical experience and related
phenomena — such as foretelling the future, magic, and extra-
ordinary physical sensations and emotional feelings — was well
known from ancient times. 4 During the Middle Ages, these phe-
nomena 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 expla-
nation 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-Miswdt, he writes:
l
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 69
It is impossible for those possessing these imaginative powers
not to perform one of those acts by which this power is actu-
alized and brought to light. And among these are those who
strike upon the ground many times with a stick which is in
their hand, or scream out in strange cries and abandon their
thoughts and gaze at the earth a long time until they find it,
as in the matter of falling sickness [epilepsy], and will relate
what is to occur in the future. 6
Maimonides is saying here that the strengthening of the
activity of the imagination is inevitably accompanied by vari-
ous external manifestations. Ibn Rushd (Averroes), on the other
hand, holds that the fullest activity of the imagination is contin-
gent upon silencing the activities of the senses. In his Epitome of
Parva Naturalia, we read:
It is fitting that the power of the imagination act more com-
pletely and more spiritually in sleep, for at the time of sleep
the soul has already nullified the senses of sight and its or-
gans, and has turned them towards the inner sense. And the
proof that the inner powers act more perfectly when the exter-
nal senses are at rest is that, when the thought of the people
does greatly, they turn their powers of feeling toward 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. 7
Both of these opinions appear in Abulafia — that claiming
a strengthening, and that asserting a diminution, of external ac-
tivity simultaneous with the strengthening of the imagination,
while only the latter view appears among the members of his
circle. In Sitrey Tordh? he states:
Know that so long as you combine letters rapidly, and the hairs
of your head do not all stand up in trembling, you have not
yet attained one of the levels of the spirit in which all of the
70 The Mystical Experience
limbs [of the body] are moved, and you have not known even
His existence, let alone His essence. But the beginning of that
apprehension is the whirlwind, of which it is said, 9 "and I
looked, and behold, a whirlwind coming from the north." And
it is said, 10 "and God answered Job out of the whirlwind."
The "storm" refers here to the storm of the limbs, as Ab-
ulafia describes it in 'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz: 11
Tlie hairs of your head will begin to stand up and to storm.('-) And
your blood — which is the life blood which is in your heart, of
which it is said 12 "for the blood is the soul," and of which it is
likewise said, 13 "for the blood shall atone for the soul" — -[this
blood] will begin to move out because of the living combination
which speaks, and all your body will begin to tremble, and
your limbs will begin to shake, and you will fear a tremendous
fear, and the fear of God shall cover you. . . And the body will
tremble, like the rider who races the horse, who is glad and
joyful, while the horse trembles beneath him.
The meaning of this trembling is explained in the previous
page of that same work, where we read:
And his intellect is greater than his imagination, and it rides
upon it like one who rides upon a horse and drives it by hitting
it with [a whip] to run before it as it wills, and his whip is in his
hand to make it [i.e., the imagination] stand where his intellect
wills. 14
Another description of the trembling which overcomes
one who meditates at the time of the 'prophetic' experience ap-
pears in Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Bw: "By his concentration he again
brings upon himself fear and trembling, and the hairs of his
head stand, and all his limbs tremble." 15 Abulafia's disciples
likewise testify to such a feeling; R. Nathan ben Sa<adyah Harar,
author of Sa'arey Sedeq, writes, "great trembling seized me, and I
could not gather strength, and my hairs stood up." 16
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 71
A second element manifested in the descriptions of Abu-
lafia's experience is "spirit"; further on in the above-cited pas-
sage from Sitrey Torah, we learn that "the second apprehension
is that of spirit, not like the spirit of God." 17 In 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz,
Abulafia explains the subject of this spirit as follows:
And you shall feel another spirit awakening within yourself
and strengthening you and passing over your entire body and
giving you pleasure, and it will seem to you that balm has
been poured over you from the crown of your head to your
feet, once or many times, and you shall rejoice and feel from
it a great pleasure, with gladness and trembling. 18
The feeling of pleasure and relief following the trembling
is also depicted in Hayyey lia-Vldm ha-Ba>: 19
Afterwards, should you merit it, the spirit of the living God
shall pass over you, 20 and there shall dwell upon you the spirit
of God, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
knowledge and fear of God, and one will imagine that it is
as if one's entire body has been anointed with anointing oil
from head to feet, and he will be the Messiah of God and his
In Sa'arey Sedeq, R. Nathan ben Sa'adyah Harar writes in
the identical manner as does Abulafia:
Behold, I was anointed from head to foot as with the anointing
oil, and we were surrounded with great joy, and I do not know
how to 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
Abulafia's disciples testify to the absence of sensation fol-
lowing "the storm of the organs." In the same work, the author
states: "And I immediately fell down as if I were not in the
world, for I did not feel any strength in any organs," 22 while
R. Judah Albotini writes: "until all of the physical powers were
taken away from me, and his intellect also departed him (sic),
72 The Mystical Experience
like [the will] to act, and he falls to the earth as if dead, and
lies down and falls asleep." 23 These texts, which in at least some
cases reflect personal experiences, are quite rare in Jewish mys-
ticism, and constitute important evidence of ecstatic moods and
tendencies accompanied by distinctive bodily phenomena.
2. The Light
In Sitrey Tdrdh, Abulafia goes on to describe the various
stages of mystical experience. We have already noted above
his words referring to the storm and the wind as two primary
"comprehensions." Let us now proceed to the other stages: 24
"and the third is the tumult, 25 and God was not in the tumult";
and the fourth, fire: "And God was not in the fire, and after
the fire there was a still small voice." Like the first two, the
third and fourth stages are defined by means of scriptural verses.
The significance of the third stage — the tumult — is not clear to
me, and it may be connected with the movement of the limbs
referred to above. We must examine the fourth level carefully,
as it includes two different elements: "fire," that is, the visual
element; and "speech," the verbal element. The order in which
these two elements are cited is determined by the verse from
the book of Kings, but this order would seem in fact to reflect
the preference of hearing over seeing. In his letter to R. Judah
Salmon, Abulafia writes:
But all of the early ones of the Kabbalists mentioned are called
"prophets for themselves," and those who know God from
His actions [i.e., the philosophers] share with them to an ex-
tent this title. Those called prophets in terms of this aspect
speak within themselves alone, and the light of God illumi-
nates part of their thoughts at some of the times [by] a small
light, and they themselves recognize that this light is not from
themselves, but no speech comes to them that they might rec-
ognize that it is speech, but rather light. 26
I
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 73
In this passage, as in the verse cited from Sitrey Tdrdh,
a distinction is drawn between the visual and verbal element,
with preference given to the latter as a higher level of prophecy.
According to Abulafia, the revelation of light is characteristic of
'prophetic' experience among the Kabbalists who followed the
Sefirotic system. There is extensive basis for this statement; in
the writings of R. Isaac the Blind, and particularly in those of R.
Azriel of Gerona, we find an abundance of symbols related to
light. 27 Later on, in a passage from Saw ha-Kawwdndh (attributed
to R. Azriel), we read:
Whoever fixes a thing in his mind with complete firmness,
that thing becomes for him the principal thing. Thus, when
you pray and recite benedictions or (otherwise) wish to direct
the kawwandh to something in true manner, then imagine that
you are light, and all about you is light from every direction
and every side, and in the midst of the light a stream of light,
and upon it a brilliant light, and opposite it a throne, and upon
it the good light. . . And turn to the right and you find [there]
pure light, and to the left and you will find an aura, which is
the radiant light. And between them and above them the light
of the glory, and around it the light of life. And above it the
crown of light that crowns the objects of thought, illuminates
the paths of ideas, and brightens the splendor of visions. And
this illumination is inexhaustible and unending. 28
The first sentence is the most important one for under-
standing this passage: by concentrating his thought upon a par-
ticular subject, man is able to enter into a world whose structure
is dictated by the contemplator: the "thing" which the contem-
plator "fixes. . . in his mind with complete firmness." In our pas-
sage, this is the light which he "makes the main thing" in wake
of his spiritual effort. Evidence for the connection between the
light and prophecy appears already in R. Ezra of Gerona, who
writes, "for he sat and learned, and would connect his thoughts
on high. . . for all light requires the supernal light which is above
it, and to be drawn to it, for each light is in accordance with the
subtlety of its inwardness." 29
74 Vie Mystical Experience
These passages, and others which we could have
brought, 30 indicate that the light was an important focal point
to the early Kabbalists, and that it continued to be an impor-
tant source of symbols for the Kabbalah of R. Moses de Leon as
well. 31 From this, it follows that Abulafia's distinction concern-
ing the Kabbalists who experience light visions and those who
have a "speech" experience is in many cases correct. His second
statement is likewise true: the early Kabbalists were "prophets to
themselves"— that is, their experiences remained confined to re-
stricted circles, and those who underwent these experiences de-
liberately refrained from making them widely known. From this
point of view, Abulafia argues, the early Kabbalists were simi-
lar to the philosophers, who sufficed with knowledge of God in
terms of His actions, and did not generally attempt to dissemi-
nate their teaching in public. Abulafia's third statement, that the
Sefirotic Kabbalists do not receive "the word," is likewise cor-
rect; as against the great number of sources dealing with light,
there are very few Kabbalists who claim to have heard voices
or speech. 32 To Abulafia, the receiving of light seems connected
with the Sefirotic system, 33 for which reason it is a lower level
of prophecy.
In the continuation of the passage, quoted above from
the epistle We-Zot li-Yehudah, he says of the practitioners of the
Kabbalah of Names, who are designated there by the term "sec-
ond," that "they are all prophets who are beginning to see light
in the light of life, and from there to ascend from light to light
through the course of their thoughts, which are compounded
and sweet. . . " We may infer from this that the revelation asso-
ciated with light is a first stage in the path of prophecy, which
also appears among those who follow Abulafia's path. Study of
Abulafia's works indicates that the light has no significant func-
tion in his phenomenon of prophecy; this can be explained on
the assumption that Abulafia's books are only concerned with
the more advanced stage of mystical-prophetic experience, dis-
regarding the initial stages. Abulafia thought of himself as one
who had reached the highest level, for which reason it was nat-
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 75
ural that the light would no longer occupy such a prominent
place in his system. On the other hand, one of Abulafia's stu-
dents, R. Nathan ben Sa=adyah Harar, author of Sa'arey Sedeq,
comments that at the beginning of his path he experienced the
appearance of light, and only later did he experience speech, ex-
actly as described in Abulafia's above-mentioned comment. In
the description of his first mystical experience, the anonymous
author writes as follows:
The third night, after midnight, I nodded off a little, quill in
hand and paper on my knees. Then I noticed that the candle
was about to go out. I rose to put it right, as oftentimes happens
to a person awake, then I saw that the light continued. I was
greatly astonished, as though, after close examination, 1 saw
that it issued from myself. I said: 'I do not believe it.' I walked
to and fro all through the house and, behold, the light is with
me; I lay on a couch and covered myself up, and behold, the
light is with me all the while. 3,1
There is no reference here to speech in this first revelation,
which appeared after a number of days, after the author had
progressed in the path of the Kabbalah of Names. One ought
to point out that the system of Sa'arey Sedeq 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 Sa'arey Sedeq 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 Sa'arey Sedeq." 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 contem-
poraneously 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:
76 The Mystical Experience
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 mariner
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 trans-
form 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 mys-
tic 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 Sa<arey Sedeq
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 we cannot thus
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 'Oswr Hayyim:
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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 77
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. i0
As in the case of the author of Sa i arey Sedeq, the light ap-
pears 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 ben 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 Todros, later changed his path: among
other factors were his meeting with the Kabbalists R. Abraham,
author of Sefer Yesod 'Oldm, and his son R. Hanannel of Esquira.
This change is seen in the study of Sefer Yesirah, a book which
did not enjoy an important position in the circle of Ibn Adret. In
Baddey ha-'Ardn,* 1 which was also written on the basis of a differ-
ent approach than that of R. Solomon ibn Adret, 42 R. Shem Tov
states that when the Kabbalist:
. . . has no companion to himself within his heart (sic!), he shall
sit in silence and be still, for it has come upon him, 43 and he
shall begin to write what he sees in his mind, like one who
copies from a book that is written before him. . . a ball like the
sun (!) in true drawing, for the light has appeared to him at
that hour.
A similar statement of R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon appears in
Sosdn Sodot, where R. Moses of Kiev states that
. . . also at the time we composed this book, when we would
articulate the Ineffable Name, things came into our eyes from
verses in the image of red fire toward evening, until we were
astonished by them and we left them. And this happened to
us several times [while we were] writing. 44
It seems to me that we may summarize the passages con-
cerning the appearance of light among Jewish authors in terms
of two main characteristics. First, light appears in connection
78 The Mystical Experience
with the activity of writing or of combining the letters of the
Ineffable Name in writing. Even though this is not explicitly
stated by our authors, from our knowledge of the technique of
the author of Sa'arey Sedeq and of R. Isaac of Acre there can be no
doubt that they followed Abulafia's path in combining the letters
of the Ineffable Name; among other authors, R. Shem Tov and R.
Moses of Kiev, this is explicitly stated. Second, the appearance
of light comes about unexpectedly; the light appears suddenly,
and not as the result of a deliberate attempt to bring about an
experience of light. Unlike the description in Sa c ar Iia-Kawwandh,
in which the experience of light is the result of a deliberate effort,
the above-cited authors are astonished by the appearance of the
light. An additional difference between them and the anony-
mous Kabbalist lies in the nature of the experience: from the
description in Sa<ar ha-Kawwdndh, the vision of light seems to be
a pneumatic vision, while the other authors stress that this is an
actual sensory phenomenon; they even attempt to describe the
color of the light or the feelings which accompany the light. An
additional distinction concerns the magical possibilities inherent
in the lights appearing to the anonymous Kabbalist. These lights
constitute a kind of world in itself to which one may turn with
"requests," something for which there is no parallel among other
authors.
In conclusion, I would like to cite the statements of two
scholars who attempted to understand the phenomenon of light
in mystical experiences, whose explanations remind one of the
difference between Saw lia-Kawwanah and Abulafia's circle. Their
main claim is that the perception of light is the result of the
liberation of spiritual energy that had been stored in the brain;
the liberation of this inner energy brings about a stimulation of
the visual nerves (for which there is no external cause), as a result
of which the sensation of light is transferred to the brain. In the
above-cited cases, we may refer to an intellectual effort which
preceded the appearance of light: writing or the combining of
letters, or a deliberate and channeled effort on the part of the
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 79
anonymous Kabbalist who wrote Sa'ar ha-Ktiwwanah. We shall
begin with Deikman's comments:
The concept of sensory translation offers an intriguing expla-
nation for the ubiquitous use of light as a metaphor for mystic
experience. It may not be just a metaphor. "Illumination" may
be derived from an actual sensory experience occurring when
in the cognitive act of unification, a liberation of energy takes
place, or when a resolution of unconscious conflict occurs, per-
mitting the experience of "peace," "presence," and the like.
Liberated energy experienced as light may be the core sensory
experience of mysticism. 45
While Deikman's description is closer to that of Abulafia's
circle, in the words of Staudenmaier, as quoted by H. Zimmer,
we find an explanation closer to that given in Sa'ar ha-Kawwdndh.
In seeing, hearing, smell, touch, etc., the specific stimulus is
transmitted centripetally from the peripheral organs, the eye,
ear, etc., to the higher centers in the brain and finally to con-
sciousness- In the production of optical, acoustical, and other
hallucinations, one must learn to transmit the specific energy
in the reverse direction from the higher brain centers to the
periphery. 46
While Deikman deals with sensations appearing without
any intentionality on the part of the mystic, Staudenmaier speaks
of the results of deliberate efforts, whose primary purpose is
magical.
3. Speech
We shall now return to Abulafia's remarks in his letter to
'- R Judah Salmon. Following his remarks about the 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
80 The Mystical Experience
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
Unlike light, which is the source of "personal" prophecy,
speech is the source of true prophecy — that is, that prophecy
which is directed both to the prophet himself and to his fellow
man. In Abulafia's doctrine, prophetic speech refers, among
other things, to the flow received by the power of the imagina-
tion, that is, the voice which is heard at the time of prophecy. 48
En order for the mystic to receive the speech, he must strengthen
this intellect, that is according to the medieval Aristotelian epis-
temology, "the inner speech," so that he may receive the flow—
"the Divine word" — whose source is in God or in the Active
Intellect i.e., in the "primordial speech." The perception of
speech is accomplished in two ways: either within the Active
Intellect, that is, by means of speculation concerning the contents
of prophetic flux, or by means of "speech itself" — apparently by
hearing voices.
Besides this theoretical description of speech, in which
it is seen as the outcome of the power of the imagination — for
which reason it does not originate in the organs of speech-
one also finds other opinions on this subject in the writings of
Abulafia and his disciples. The prophet not only delivers the
prophecy by means of his voice, but also receives it "into his
throat." There was a wide-spread belief among the Sages that
the Sekindh spoke through the instrument of Moses' voice, 40 while
the saying, "the Sekinah speaks from his throat" was known at f
least from the time of Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch. 50
The sages based this upon the Biblical verse, "Moses spoke and
God answered him with a voice." 51 So long as God was able to
answer with a voice, the verse did not constitute an exegetical
problem; however, with the emergence of Jewish philosophy,
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 81
which developed the doctrine of incorporeality of the Divine,
those thinkers who saw God as a spiritual entity found it dif-
ficult to interpret this verse literally. In order to remove the
difficulties entailed in this, R. Abraham ibn Ezra writes, "The
one speaking is man, and the one hearing is man," 52 alluding
to the fact that God does not speak with the help of voices, but
that He conveys the intellectual content through the instrument
of spiritual speech addressed to the soul, whereafter the soul it-
self transforms this contents into speech which another human
being is able to hear. The Divine voice is thus removed from
prophecy, and in its place comes the voice of the prophet.
In 'Osar 'Eden Cdnuz, 53 Abulafia writes:
With this voice came wondrous verses from the Torah, the
Prophets and the Writings, and of this it is said, "Moses spoke
and God [Elohim] — which is the full name 54 — answered him
with a voice," and they said, 55 "with the voice of Moses." And
behold, the voice of the living God speaks from within the fire,
and it dwells within the heart, and thus is the speech there.
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 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 men-
tioned in Swarey Sedeq. In describing the latest phase of his exper-
iences, the anonymous author writes:
Behold, like the speech that emerges from my heart and comes
to my my lips, forcing them to move; and I said that perchance,
God forbid, it is a spirit folly which has entered me, and I
82 The Mystical Experience
perceive it speaking wisdoms. I said that this is certainly the
spirit of wisdom. 58
Elsewhere, he writes, "and a voice went out from me." 59 A
similar idea occurs to R. Isaac of Acre, who writes in Commentary
to Sefer Yesirdh:
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 Nesah 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 recep-
tion of prophecy again appears in the writings of R. Hayyim
Vital, who writes in Sefer lia-Gilgulhn: 61
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 spiri-
tual, it is impossible for it alone to be corporealized and to enter
into the ears of the prophet, unless it first be embodied 62 in that
same physical voice which emerged from that person while en-
gaged 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 su-
pernal 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 the act of prophesying is repeated by R. Elijah ha-Kohen
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 83
of Izmir, who writes of the maggidim: 64 "from the power of the
greatness of the soul 65 which is within man and tells him things,
and the manners of the telling, 66 that a great voice comes out of
his heart and enters into his heart and he hears, and those who
stand before him do not hear anything." The above-mentioned
approaches likewise served as the background for the appear-
ance of similar phenomena in Hasidism. 67
4. Prophetic Speech as Conversation
The concept of the immediate source of speech in the mys-
tical experience as residing within the human soul was further
developed in two other works of Abulafia. In Hayyey ha-'Oldm
ha-Ba', 68 he describes the process of pronouncing the letters of
the Divine Name as follows:
When you pronounce that matter found in the letters Ros, Tdk,
Sqf (i.e., "head, middle, end"), do not draw them out, but pro-
nounce them as one who inquires quietly to another: what let-
ter does such and such a point guard, which is such and such a
place [in the human body]? And prepare yourself to hear that
which will be answered in the pronouncing of the letter, and
[when] you hear the letter pronounced from his mouth, do not
pronounce it, for he has pronounced it for you, but receive the
tidings that He shall speak with you, for "in one [word] God
speaks;" 69 and in your heart, and pronounce again the head
of the end, which is L. . . And even if you wait a little while to
hear, let it all be within one breath, and let the completion of
the breaths be in the pronouncing of the letter, and not in any
other thing, apart from the time that he answers you, and he
shall pronounce the letter at the place which you have stated,
and therefore the verse 70 reads "in every place where I shall
mention [My Name]" — not "where you shall mention." And
the secret of the matter is — if I will mention, you will mention,
and if you shall mention, I shall mention. And consider his
reply, answering as though you yourself had answered.
84 The Mystical Experience
This passage depicts the act of pronouncing the letters by
means of letter-combination, and the answer received when they
are articulated. We may infer two contradictory things from this
concerning the nature of the one answering: 1) the respondent is
God: "He shall already speak to you, for 'in one God speaks/"
while the subject of the second verse, "1 will remember," is God.
Lt follows from this that a dialogue occurs between God and
the one combining at the time of the pronouncing; 2) the res-
pondent is the person 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 your 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, 72 "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].
Abulafia discusses here that case in which the pronunci-
ation of the Name has no result; the blame is placed upon the
one pronouncing it, who is seen here as a kind of false prophet,
as suggested by the expression from Job 31:28, "it is also a grave
sin, for I denied without trespass." The allusion to the verse
in Exodus 20:7, "thou shall not take the Name of the Lord in
vain," is further adduced to describe the guilt of one who pro-
nounces the Divine Name without any consequence. Abulafia's
argument is that God always answers, so that the deficiency can
only be in the man; it follows from this that the pronunciation
of the true Name is a dialogue between man and God. On the
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 85
other hand, Abulafia hints at the idea that "where I shall men-
tion my Name" means "where you shall mention my Name," an
act accomplished by various motions of the head. Testimony re-
lating to such situations of dialogue also appear in Sefcr ha-Heseq
in connection with the articulation of the Name:
Direct your face toward the Name, which is mentioned, and sit
as though a man is standing before you and waiting for you
to speak with Him, and He is ready to answer you concern-
ing whatever you may ask him, and you say "speak" and he
answers. . . And begin then to pronounce, and recite first "the
head of the head" [i.e., the first combination of letters], draw-
ing out the breath and at great ease; and afterwards go back
as if the one standing opposite you is answering you, and you
yourself answer, changing your voice, so that the answer not
be similar to the question. And do not extend the answer at all,
but say it easily and calmly, and in response recite one letter
of the Name as it actually is. 73
This passage clearly elucidates that, during the process of
pronunciation, the "respondent" is the person himself, who has
altered his voice and imagines to himself that another person
is standing opposite him and answering him. One may ask
the significance of the dual meaning of the passages cited from
Hayyey ha- c 01am ha-Ba*. The answer is to be found, in my opinion,
in Sefer ha-Heseq, where it states:
Immediately make your heart straight, and prostrate yourself
before that thought form [surah nehsebet] which you imagined
in your heart, which is before you. And it is "the master of
motion"— that is, it brings about that response which you have
answered, which your heart has implanted within you like a
throne, and made it into an angel of God, and it is that which
is intermediate between yourself and your Creator, and that is
His glory, may He be praised. 74
Elsewhere in the same work we read:
86 The Mystical Experience
But pronounce the names, one after another, as I have com-
manded you, whose secret is in the system of their motions,
"one two." And if you are clean and perfect in all that I have
instructed you, I have no doubt that the Glory will be revealed
to you and appear before you in a form such that you will be
able to feel its power, or it will bring to you speech so that you
will understand that it is from Him, and not from yourself.™
Before discussing these two passages, we must cite the
enigmatic sentences written by R. Baruch Togarmi in Commentary
to Sefer Yesirah:"
I have already alluded above to the secret of "the radiance of
the Sekindh," concerning the matter of "one two." It is known
that the Torah is called "this" (ta-zor), after the Ineffable Name,
in saying, 77 "the words of this (hfl-zot) Torah," 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 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 tit the uman intellect, described in Hayyey
ha-'Olam ha-Bw as "the flux of the intellect emanated upon us al-
ways, 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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 87
and Him." 81 The term "Glory" does not interfere with this iden-
tification, as it frequently appears as a term for the soul prior to
Abulafia." 2
Let us now compare Abulafia's words in Sefer ha-Hesea
with those of his predecessor in Commentary to Sefer Yesirah:
1) in both passages, the term "one two" appears in the iden-
tical 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 (Cabri'el) speaker (medabber),
vision (march), the image of God (Selem Xlohim), which equals'
246 in gematria, on the one hand, and the human form (surat ha-
'Adam) on the other. In Abulafia there are also signs of "the hu-
man form" which appear at the time of pronouncing. Hayyey
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 expres-
sions 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 is 86 "Edo," is 'Enoch.
Here, too, one finds the gematria for Gabriel -» 246 -» pasua
(verse) -> march (vision) -> medabber (speaks). There seems no
doubt that these expressions allude to the Active Intellect. Con-
sequently, in the prophetic vision the mystic sees "the figure of
a human" by means of the Active Intellect, a revelation accom-
panied by speech. We infer the connection between this figure.
88 Tfie Mystical Experience
which is the reason for the "response," and the person speaking,
from Abulafia's own words, who describes this situation as an
answer given by man to himself. It follows from this that we
may reasonably assume that the human form is no more than a
projection of the soul or intellect of the mystic, who carries on a
dialogue with it at the time of pronunciation. The ontic status of
this figure may be inferred from Abulafia's following comments
in Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba':
We, the community of Israel, the congregation of the Lord,
know in truth that God, may He be praised, is neither a body
nor a power within the body nor will He ever be corporealized.
But at the rime that the prophet prophesies, his abundance
creates a corporeal intermediary, which is the angel. 87
It follows from this that the human form seen is an imag-
inary creation, and is thus "bodily" (real) even though its source
lies in the human intellect. These opinions of Abulafia, in which
'prophecy' or mystical experience is interpreted in terms of a
dialogue between man and his inner essence — the intellect — are
not new. Already in Gnosticism, we learn of meetings between
man and his own image as the climax of self knowledge. 98 This
idea appears in Hebrew in the book Sefer ha-Hayyim, attributed to
R. Abraham ibn Ezra, 89 which states:
Image (temunah) — this refers to a vision within a thing, like I
the electrum (hasmdl) within the fire, and in the manner that
a man sees a form within the water or the form of the moon
or the form of some other thing or the form of himself, 90 "and
he shall see the image of God" — he sees his own image in the I
light of God and His glory, and this is, 91 "a form against my
eyes."
Testimonies of vision of the self, within the context of the _
process of prophecy, appear in those circles with which Abulafia
had a certain degree of contact:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 89
All the camps of the Sekinah have there neither image nor cor-
poreal form, but spiritual emanation, and likewise on the other
angelic levels. However, the tenth level, which is closest to hu-
man beings, called 'isim, is visible to the prophets. All agree
that they possess the form of a body, similar to [that of] a hu-
man being, and very awesome. And the prophet sees all sorts
of his powers becoming weaker and changing from form to
form, until his powers cast off all forms and are embodied in
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 is en-
graved in his heart as a picture, and when the messenger has
performed his mission the prophet casts off that form and re-
turns to his original form, and his limbs and strength come
back as they were before and are strengthened, and he proph-
esies in human form. 92
In R. Judah ibn Malka's Commentary to Sefer Yesirah, we
read a passage similar to that of R. Isaac ha-Kohen: 93
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
90 Tlie Mystical Experience
power of speech, and that itself is the angel which speaks to
him and tells him future things.
Here, as in Abulafia, a certain relationship is posited be-
tween the Active Intellect — =isim — and the human powers em-
bodied within it.
However, while in the three examples thus far cited the
element of dialogue is totally lacking, this element does appear
among Abulafia's students, apparently as a result of his influ-
ence. In Sosan S6dot, ab there is a statement quoted in the name
of R. Nathan, whom I believe to have been a direct disciple of
Abulafia: 96
Know that the fullness of the secret of prophecy to the prophet
is that suddenly he will see his own form standing before him,
and he will forget himself and disappear from it, and will see
his own 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."
The connection between 'prophecy' and foretelling the fu-
ture also appears in Abulafia, who writes in Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-
Bfl= 98 that the third level of prophecy is "to receive the command
of a thing in telling the future." By contrast, another disciple of
Abulafia, R. Nathan ben Sa<adyah Harar, only knows of the ap-
pearance of the image of the Self without speech. In Sosan Sodot,
we read the following:
Another sage wrote about this as follows: By the power of
[letter-] combination and concentration, that which I described
in Sa c arey Sedeq happened to me, [namely,] that I saw the light
going with me. But I did not merit to see the form of myself
standing before me, and this 1 was unable to do. 99 .
This statement incorporates a double testimony: 1) that
this disciple knew of the high level attained by R. Nathan; 2) that
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 91
the omission of the subject of speech does not signify that the
appearance of the self-image was unconnected with speech. As
we have seen above, this anonymous Kabbalist enjoyed speech
which emerged from himself, for which reason it is not men-
tioned in the present context.
Abulafia's influence upon R. Isaac of Acre, through R.
Nathan, may be seen in the former's 'Osar Hayyim, where he
writes:
Come and I will enlighten you concerning a major principle in
reading; and speaking, or saying or vision {mahdzeh) or a sight
Qtazon), and of the reality of the hands of God, and the reality
of speech or of the burden of speech or elocution or a prophetic
dream, or seeing or burden of the spirit or the downtreading
of the spirit or a gift of the spirit or the reality of the spirit of
God and the spirit of God; all these and more than these you
shall find in the written Torah, and all these and those similar
to them are the new flux, the spirit of God, which comes to
dwell in the pure soul which is worthy of it, in which it was
not present at the beginning.
It is like the case of a king in a favorable hour, who gives a
generous gift to one of his princes who came before him at
that time; the prince will rejoice in it and divide it with the
members of his household. So does this supernal spirit of
holiness suddenly come and dwell in the soul of this prophet
or visionary who is deserving of the spirit of prophecy or in the
soul deserving of the Holy Spirit in his soul alone, or the soul
deserving only a Heavenly Voice speaking within it, teaching
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.
92 The Mystical Experience
[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" [Hebr.: hekala; 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 soil 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. 100
I would 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-Sekel, in
which it states that, "the flux. . . And this is compared to a
king and a pauper, the latter being in the most extreme des-
titution. And the king flowed with wealth, to make wealthy
each man to his fellow, until the great wealth reached that
slave's master." 101
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 93
2. In 'Or ha-Sekel, the above-cited passage is preceded by a dis-
cussion concerning the different levels of prophets, reminis-
cent of the discussion which appears in R. Isaac of Acre, fol-
lowing the parable of the generous king: "the level of those
who pursue prophecy is greater than that of those who pur-
sue wisdom, and the level of the prophets who speak and
compose [books] is greater than that of the prophets who
make intensive effort in prophecy, and those [prophets] who
are sent are superior to the others," etc. 102 These two ideas
appear in a book written in honor of R. Nathan, Abulafia's
disciple.
3. The double meaning of the word "speech" in Abulafia, as
discussed above, is reflected in R. Isaac of Acre in the words:
"the form of the very 'container' speaking with them, and
they say that the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks with
them." 103
4. The understanding of Moses as one who at times abandoned
the mystical life in order to lead the people is likewise alluded
to in Abulafia, who speaks about the return of the mystic
"from God" in order to help others to achieve perfection. 104
Finally, one ought to take note of a passage in 'Eben
Sappir by R. Elnathan ben Moses Kalkish, a fourteenth-century
Byzantine Kabbalist, who knew Abulafia's writing and his circle
well: 105
For every apprehension which man receives of the spiritual
apprehensions, its beginning is in human thought, and when
man thinks continually concerning things which exist and their
essence and about supernal and mundane activities, and of
the Divine guidance which guides all, and which guards all
this order of existence which is ordered by God, may He be
blessed, and he removes his thought from everything apart
from this, and views all corporeal and bodily matters as the
image of contingent things, and spiritual matters as the essen-
tial ones; and everyday he adds to these sublime thoughts,
94 The Mystical Experience
until from the gathering of their multitude there is born its off-
spring, called wisdom, and from its abundance is born further
understanding 106 and knowledge.
And he shall do all this by combining the holy letters and
words and the pure language, which are the vehicle of all
thoughts, then there are born from their combination thoughts
of wisdom and understanding, and, because of its intense med-
itation on them, the intellect will perceive reality, and there will
come the renewed spirit, which made the fruit of the intellect,
from the source of the wondrous thought and will speak by
itself; but the thinker will recognize that there is a mover and
cause which causes him to think and to speak and to guide and
to compose until, through the great activity, the inner one will
return as if it is external apprehended, and the two of them,
the one apprehending and the object of apprehension, are one
thing, and they are intellectual apprehension.
We see here a description of the progress from apprehen-
sion of the intellectives of external things, their internalization,
and their implantation within the human soul. By the process
of letter-combination, the inner intellective objects are likely to
be transformed into external ones, causing the impression or the
experiences that the motivation for human actions is external to
himself.
5. The Vision of the Human Form
We have seen above that the appearance of the "human
form," and the conversation between it and the mystic, are both
a phenomenon discussed on Abulafia's writings and something
to which his disciples referred as a personal experience. Thus
far, we have only dealt with the theoretical aspect of this subject
in Abulafia — i.e., we have cited various passages which describe
the path by which the prophetic state is reached — but we have
not found any evidence of personal experience in these passages.
We shall now turn to another work of Abulafia's which, in my
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 95
opinion, includes direct first-person evidence of an experience
of this kind. We read in Sefer ha-'Ot, pp. 81-82:
I was shown a new vision by God, with a new name upon
a renewed spirit. . . I saw a man coming from the west with
a great army, the number of the warriors of his camp being
twenty-two thousand men 107 ... And when I saw his face in
the sight, I was astonished, and my heart trembled within me,
and I left my place and I longed for it to call upon the name of
God to help me, but that thing evaded my spirit. And when
the Man has seen my great fear and my strong awe, he opened
his mouth and he spoke, and he opened my mouth to speak,
and I answered him according to his words, and in my words
I was strengthened and I became another man. 108
One need not dwell upon the fact that "the form of a
man" appears in this vision. It is worthwhile taking note of
the dialogue between them: the man wishes to speak, "opened
his mouth and he spoke"; the speech was, however, externally
caused: "and he opened my mouth.. ..and I answered him." The
expression, "I answered according to his words," is indicative
of the source of the speech. The verse quoted from the Book
of Samuel likewise strengthens the interpretation of this pas-
sage as an expression of an event taking place within Abulafia's
consciousness. It is appropriate to examine more fully the de-
scription of the man:
On his forehead was a letter inscribed in blood and ink on
two sides, and the shape of the letter was like the shape of a staff
separating between them, and it was a very hidden letter. The
color of the blood was black, and changed to red, and the color
of the ink was red, and behold it was black, and the appearance
of the letter separating between the two was white. Miraculous
was that which was revealed by the seal, [which is] the key
within the forehead of he who came [the man], and all the army
of the band was turning about and traveling in accordance to it
[i.e., the seal or the key].
96 The Mystical Experience
Is this description meant as an external representation of
Abulafia's soul? Let us first examine his words in Sitrey Torah: 109
It is known and conspicuous to all the Sages of the Torah who
are Kabbalists, nor is it concealed to the true philosophers, that
every man is given a choice without any compulsion and with-
out any force, but there is a human power within man, and it
is called the 'Stirring Power' {koah ha-me c 6rer), and it is that
which arouses his heart to do or not to do [any thing]. And
after this, man finds in his heart one who forces him between
these two opposites, and whichever of them shall be victori-
ous over him will activate the limbs to perform actions for
good or for evil; and this principle shall return, of man always
struggling and warring against the thoughts of his heart, the
two former motivating all of the aspects of his many thoughts,
as is writen in Sefer Yesirdh, 110 "The heart in soul [i.e., within
man] is like the king in a battle". . . And a man possesses these
two forms, called impulses or powers or angels or thoughts
or comprehensions or however you wish to call them. For the
intent of them all refer to one thing, but the main thing is to
apprehend His reality and to recognize their essence in truth,
by proofs which are based upon tradition and reason, and to
distinguish between two paths of reality which they have, and
to know the great difference between them in degree. And if
the two are one reality or two combined together, and if they
may be separated or if they do not receive separation. And
when we see their battle in the heart, we may recognize that
they are two, and they act one upon the other and affect one
another, and therefore there is time for this and time for that
one, and it is like a small moment, like a point which cannot be
divided, less than the blinking of an eye. And this is alluded
to in [the saying] "There is a time with God like the winking of
an eye," for it lacks the letter waw; it is written yes <et [i.e., the
plain spelling of the word yeswat 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
The Mystical Experience in Abraiiam Abulafia 97
imaginative thought; the intellective apprehension and the imag-
inative one; the Good Impulse and the Evil Impulse. Abulafia
returns to this inner battle in Sefer ha-'Ot, 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 [selem, i.e., intellect] and likeness [demut, i.e., imagina-
tion]: that is, ink as the spiritual element, the intellect, and blood
as the imaginative one. 111 These two elements, as they do bat-
tle 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 Abu-
lafia 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-'Ot, 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 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-'Ot, 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 The Mystical Experience
And 1 gazed at the letter inscribed on my forehead and I knew
it, and my heart was enlightened when I looked at it, and my
spirit lives with it eternal life, and its statue brought me to and
its constitution moved me about, to speak and to compose this
Book of the Sign.
That cleaving which brings about "eternal life" is identical
with that cleaving to the Active Intellect which is the source of
the abundance causing the prophet to act and "to speak and to
compose." We may now understand several passages from this
vision. On p. 82, the man says to Abulafia:
You have been victorious in my war, and you changed the
blood of my forehead, and their nature and color, and you have
stood up to all the tests of my thoughts. Ink you have raised
and upon ink you shall be engrandized; the letter you have
sanctified, and by means of the letter [*fifc a pun upon the two
meanings of the word, "letter" and "sign"] and wonder you
shall be sanctified.
This man, who is the outcome of the transformation of
the flow of the Active Intellect from an intellectual flow to an
imaginary form, praises Abulafia because he has transformed the
blood, the imaginative element, into ink, the intellectual compo-
nent. This transformation was accomplished by means of the
"letter" — evidently a reference to the letters of the Divine name
mentioned below, with whose help man can actualize his intel-
lect. The transformation of the color, mentioned on p. 82, is
likewise depicted as a transformation from death to life, "Life
replaces death, requires the letter to find innocent and to give
life." What is the connection between ink/blood and life and
death? In the Talmud, Tractate Sfiabbat, we read:
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Gabriel: Go and record
upon the forehead of the righteous a line of ink, that the angels
of destruction may not rule over them; and upon the foreheads
of the wicked a line of blood, so that the angels of destruction
may rule over them. 113
L
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 99
In the Midrash 'Otiyot de-Rabbi Akiba, it states, 114
What is meant by [the verse], 115 "you shall draw a line"? This
teaches us that at the time that the Holy One, blessed be He,
decreed that Jerusalem was to be destroyed, He called to the
Angel of Death [alternative reading, "Gabriel"] and said to the
angel: Go first to Jerusalem and pick out from within it the
righteous and the wicked; and to every righteous man who is
in it, draw a line of ink upon his forehead, a line of life, in
order that he may live; and to every wicked person who is
within it, draw a line of blood upon his forehead, that he may
die.
Relying upon this midrds, Abulafia writes in Sefer ha-Melis:
A line of life, a line of ink; and the line of death, a line of
blood. And after this he showed us the form of his apprehen-
sion, and informed us that he had made the blood into ink
— that is, from death to life. That is, he restored the soul of
the spirit of life within him, with the apprehension, the form
of a living, understanding and wise being, and he knew that
it [i.e., the form] was deserving to survive eternally, by reason
of the apprehension, and it was transformed from being dead
to being alive. 116
A slightly different formulation appears in Sitriy Tordh:
"Adam and Eve" in gematria equals "my father and my
mother" (>abi we-'immi), and their secret is blood and ink, and
this latter is proven by this name, YHWH, and one who mer-
its it will have engraved upon his forehead a taw- for one a
taw of blood, for the other a taw of ink. And the secret of
the taw of blood {taw set dam) is that she is born (se-muledet),
and its matter is taw dam, which alludes to "likeness" (demut)
[the letters of taw dam form the word demut], meaning that it
precedes man in existence. And from that there comes "your
soul" {nafseka), and every "magician" (kasfdn) will be turned
about the path of magic (kesdftm), and one who does so "spills
blood" (sdfek dam). And the secret of the taw of ink is "and
the woman-that-gives-birth" (we-se-yoledet). Thus, you have
100 Tlw Mystical Experience
one form when she is born (se-muledet) and another when she
gives birth (se-yoledet). [ir
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 exis-
tence. This definition of eternal life appears in 'Or ha-Sekel. 116
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 swallowed
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.
More expressively, Abulafia writes in Sefer ha-'Ot, 82-83:
More bitter than death is his filth, and therein is sunk his
strength, and sweeter than honey is his blood, and therein re-
sides his spirit, in the dwelling of his heart. The soul of every
living, enlightened 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 / imagi-
nation and actualizes his intellect, he cleaves to the Active Intel-
lect, 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-Heseq. In Sefer lm-'6t, p. 83, he writes: "And I prostrated
myself and bowed before him," referring to the man mentioned
in the vision. In Sefer ha-Heseq, he states,
That one who finds a person innocent and conquered beneath
him the one who is culpable, until he imprisoned himself
and admitted and was conquered; and concerning this you
straighten your heart immediately, that you bow before him
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 101
[in] the form considered mentioned in your heart, which is
before you. 120
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-
'6f— passages not included in the vision of "the man" described
above— the idea of the prophet's conversation with himself ap-
pears. On p. 74, it states, "The heart of my heart (libbi) said to
the inner heart of my heart (lebabi) to write down the ways of
God, etc.," while on p. 80, we read "my heart (libbi) said to my
heart (lebabi)."
6. The Vision of the Letters
We may now refer to another vision appearing in Abu-
lafia's writings to complete our discussion of the subject of "the
form of a man." Already in Sefer ha-Nabdn, attributed to one of
the Ashkenazic Hasidim, we find the letters of the four-letter Di-
vine Name revealed to the prophet 121 or seen as identical to the
"Angel of Glory" or to Metatron, who also fulfill an important
function in the revelation. 122 Abulafia connected the Ineffable
Name to revelation by means of a gematria:
And indeed YHWH is his vision, and this is what is meant by
"and he shall see the image of God" 123 — that is, that he gazes
at the 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 6O0. m
This passage deals with Moses who, like Joshua in the
mentioned from Sefer ha-h!dbon, received guidance for
102 Tlie Mystical Experience
his activity through contemplation of the four letter Name. 125
Abuiafia's formulation of this, in his description of the revelation
to Moses, closely matches what he wrote in his Hayyey ha-Oldm
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 angeis 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, be-
cause God has descended upon them in fire, 127 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 Geburah (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,' 28 do battle with the
enemies of God just as did the man in the vision on p. 83 of
Sefer ha-'Ot: "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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 103
present in the vision of the letters — that is, its being an imaginary
expression of an inner process. The latter part of the passage
from Hayyey ha-^Oldm ha-Ba> seems to allude to this view. In Sefer
Ner 'Elohim, 129 the mountain from which the letters jump off and
to which they return is interpreted as an allusion to the head.
For it is known that the Torah was given on a mountain, and
the blessing and curse on a mountain. And the harbinger [i.e.,
of Messianic redemption] will ascend a mountain, as is said,
"on a high mountain get thee up, harbinger of Zion" [Isa. 40:9],
etc. The mountain thus alludes to the head, for there is no other
[organ] in the entire body as high and as distinguished as the
head, and its secret is har es (mountain of fire), and it is like
the comparison of the mountains to the land, for the heads are
the roots, therefore it is said, 130 "And the Lord called Moses
up to the top of the mountain, and Moses ascended" — that is,
to the highest place that man may ascend, and even though
it exists up above, it is impossible for any person to ascend
higher than did Moses.
An identity is established here between the "mountain
of fire", i.e., the place from which the Torah was given and the
human head. In Sefer ha-Haftdrdh , we find allusions to the duality
of "mountain." On the one hand, it alludes to the power of the
imagination: 131
He was revealed in his glory on the holy mountain, and it is
there a high and awesome mountain, in Italian monti barbaro,
and it is alluded to [in the phrase] hizzeq lia-qdseh (he strength-
ened the hard. . . ) and it was an act of miracle, which strength-
ened the breathing, and will also strengthen the soul, and it is
the hidden name, the name of vengeance, which is the abom-
inable name of the end and the sixth, which is "the false." And
Raziel transformed the dwelling place of the imagination as he
did, for Monti is the imagination, and it is Azazel; in Italian,
Monti. Therefore it is said of it, 132 that it is a mighty and diffi-
cult mountain, high and steep, and behold, it was hung to his
I'alto, and is like "high" in Italian. .. And Monti, "the heretic"
(ha-mini = 115 = monti), "the right hand" ascended, and he is
104 The Mystical Experience
Mento, who testifies that he is the 'false one/ and that is the
meaning of Sacramento in Italian.
This passage tells us that mountain equals Monti ha-dimyon
(the imagination) Azazel = 155, an identification which seems to
have existed even before Abulafia demonstrated it by gematria.
On the other hand, as against the identification of "mountain"
with "imagination," it is also identified with "intellect." 133 In the
same treatise, further on in the above-mentioned passage, 134 we
read:
We have found in this two urges both of which have the form
of gold, in the allusion of "They were made two cherubim of
gold," 135 and this matter of gold is that it turns [something
to] gold, and their allusion is sent we-sem semo, sdm mesayyer
u-mesuyydr.
The two urges referred to here by Abulafia are identical
with the imagination and the intellect, which are the two cheru-
bim, 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 mention-
ing that, in Sefer ha-'Ot, 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 his 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 Hayyey ha-
z Oidm ha-BaK 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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 105
also found within the human soul, and that the flying about and
coming to rest are essentially inner processes. In Sefer ha-'Ot, 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. On p. 80 of Sefer ha-'Ot, 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 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz, 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 verse], 'there he gave
them a law and a statute/" 137 while in Sitrey Tdrdh we speak of
"the name inscribed in your soul in its truth." 133 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 prophets of Israel to prophesy without knowledge of the
Name which dwells in his heart. And he is not aware [of this]
except according to the hidden order in Sefer Yesirdh by which
the prophet attains the order in the hidden things, and from
both of them he will know the name of the one arranging, and
it will speak to him and he will respond to it, and then it will
show him the path in which he must go and the deed that he
must do. 139
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
106 The Mystical Experience
To conclude, we shall cite a section from Sefer ha-Heseq,
which clearly 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 contem-
plation of the letters, and the one who apprehends it will con-
template 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 spe-
cific 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 recognizes 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 sin-
gle word within him is understood in many interpretations. 141
The speech of the letters, whose image is like that of a
man, which are the source of the seventy languages of man, re-
minds one of the "seventy tongues" of the man mentioned in
Sefer ha-'Ot. Finally, let us note the presence of a strikingly sug-
gestive element in this passage: the mystic must "imagine" the
letters — that is, make use of the technique described in the chap-
ter dealing with this subject— "and think as if they are speaking."
On the other hand, in the writings of R. Isaac of Acre,
the author of 'Osdr Hayyim, we find testimony of the spontaneous
appearance of the Divine Names:
The young one, R. Isaac of Acre said, I woke up from my sleep
and there suddenly came before me three Tetragrammata, each
one in its vocalization and place in the secret of the ten Sefirot
of the void, in the middle line, on which depends the entire
mystery of [the four worlds) Asilut, Beri'dh, Yesirah, 'Asiydh, 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 were these:
TIT TIT TIT*
i
The Mystical Experience in Abraham ASulafia 107
blessed is the Name of the Glory of his kingdom forever and
ever. . . And I saw a name as follows, thus:
sro
nnn
Just thus did I see it in its vocalization. 142
Texts of the type mentioned above may have influenced
the later practice of answering questions by visualizing the let-
ters of the Ineffable Name, known from the letters of R. Elijah
ha-Kohen of Izmir. 143
7. The Urim and Tummim
The link connecting between the appearance of the let-
ters of the divine Name and that of "the man" is the 'Urim
and Tummim. Opinion is divided as to the nature of these ves-
sels: Rashi states that they were "the writing of the Ineffa-
ble Name." 144 We learn the meaning of this name from several
sources: R. Jacob ben Asher, the Ba<al ha-Turim, wrote in his com-
mentary on Ex. 28:30 that "[the phrase] the 'Urim and Tummim in
gematria equals the Name of seventy-two letters," 145 which evi-
dently reflects a parallel opinion given in Zohar II, 234b, "and it
is customary in the seventy-two letters inscribed, which are the
secret of the Holy Name, and all of them are called 'Urim and
Tummim." In yet another tradition it is said that:
In the Kabbalah of R. Meshullam ha-Zarfati, which we received
from the book called Raziel, [it states] that when you write
these three verses in groups of three letters at a time, one arrives
at the name of seventy-two letters, and they help to say great
matters, of which there is no greater thing. This is the Ineffable
Name of the 'Urim and Tummim, which was [worn] upon the
heart of the High Priest. 146
108 The Mystical Experience
On the other hand, R. Abraham ibn Ezra thought that the
'Urim and Tummim alluded to the seven servants, that is, the seven
planets. 147
Abulafia attempted to draw a connection between the in-
terpretation of the 'Urim and Tummim as an internal matter with
that which saw it as an external matter. In Sdmer Miswah, 1 ** he
wrote:
But the mystery of wa-yomar (he said) is 'Urim — that is, the
*Urim and Tummim. And why are they called 'Urim? Because
they enlighten {me'trim) their words. 149 And the light 150 which
was created on the first day was one by which man may see I
from one end of the world to the other; for God, may He be
blessed, saw that the wicked were not deserving of using it, so
he hid it away for the righteous for the future. And this is the
light of the Torah, as one to whom God has granted a little bit
of knowledge and enlightened the eyes of his heart may see
the entire world with its light. And these are the luminaries,
which were created on the first day and on the fourth day,
and that is the meaning of the name [beginning with] A"D 1SI
half the name and its plene equal Ale" f Dale" t, and it alludes
to the thousand ('elef) potentialities. And the meaning of that
which they said, 15:i "May God shine his face upon you," is that 3
there is light before Him, by which every person can see what ^
he sees, and this is the beginning of the light which the sun
receives from it, just as the moon receives light from the light
of the sun; and all this is a metaphor from light to light, for the
bright inner light which shines is a thing without a body, and it f
comes from this, for it is hidden away for the righteous. And
as the righteous see it with many aspects, that light is itself
called "face," and its immediate cause is the abundance from
the Divine influx, and it is called by the name, "the Prince of
the Face."
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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 109
received by the righteous, that is, the enlightened ones who pos-
sess 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 let-
ters which are called Xlrim and Tummim, which illuminate the
eyes of the hearts, and complete the thoughts, 155 and purify
the supernal thoughts, and enlighten the path of understand-
ing, and make known the planetary positions, and teach the
existence of separate beings, and tell the future.
With the assistance of letter-combinations, these names
teach 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. 156 Let us now turn to 'Imrey Sefer, 157 where
Abulafia writes:
And of this (perfect) man it is said, 158 "And upon the image of
the throne there sat an image, like the image of a man above
it," 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.
In the same work, we learn of the significance of the "clear
crystal" (aspaqlaryah ha-me'irah), which is identified with the 'Urim
and Tummim:
Comprehension of the Name by the Name; and it is a specula-
tive examination into His Name, by means of the twenty-two
210 Vie Mystical Experience
letters of the Torah, after knowledge of the matter of the ten
Sefirot, from aleph to yod, which include all those which come
after them, for they are fulfilled by them. And they, with their
forms, are called the Clear Crystal, for all the forms having
brightness and strong radiance are included in them. And one
who gazes at them in their forms will discover their secrets and
speak of them, and they will speak of him. And they are like
an image in which a man sees all his forms standing opposite
him, and then he will be able to see all the general and specific
things. 159
The Divine Names are spoken of in two passages: in the
first passage in the phrase "these and these," which is an allusion
to the Name of seventy-two letters (>eleh zve-'eleh = 36 + 36 = 72),
and following that by the "three-fold unique name," which is
also an allusion to the seventy-two letter Name. In the second
passage, the matter is explained as follows: study of the Name is
like gazing into a mirror, in which a person sees his own image.
This vision of the self is accompanied by speech, "and he spoke
of them, and they spoke of him."
If we remember that Abulafia explicitly mentions the "hu-
man image," we again have the typical prophetic-mystical situ-
ation of Abulafia. The 'Urim and Tummim are the inner form of
man, that is, the Intellect and Imagination. It seems reasonable
to assume that, in the phrase >a$paklarydh se-eyna mcirah (trans-
lated above as "the unclear crystal"), Abulafia intends to refer
to the heavenly luminaries — the sun and the moon— which are
corporeal things outside of man. 160
Let us now turn to Abulafia's disciple, R. Nathan ben
Sa'aadyah Harar, who writes in Sa c arey Sedeq.
If he is able to decide and to further continue (in letter-
combination), he shall emerge from within to without, and it
will be imagined for him by the power of his purified imag-
ination in the form of a pure mirror, and this is "the shining
rotating sword" (Gen. 3:24), whose back side turns about and
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 111
becomes the front, and he recognizes the nature of its innerness
from outside, like the image of the 'Urim and Tummini, which
in the beginning cast light from within. "And you shall tell"
is not straight, but only combines because of its form being
incomplete, separate from its essence, until it is separated and
enclothed in the form of his imagination, and therein it joins
the letters by a perfect joining, ordered and ready.
And this seems to me to be that form which is referred to by
the Kabbalists as "garment"; but we have already commented
on the matter of the names and their activities. 161
The author associated Abulafia's remarks concerning
letter-combination and the llrvn 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 Xlrtm and Tummim, the human form is sepa-
rated 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. Else-
where in Sa'-arey Sedeq, 103 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 form, like the
Tummim, as mentioned above.
The concave inner form is the intellect, while the external
convex form is the imaginative form. Thus, we again return to
the view that the powers of the soul are revealed to the mystic.
112 The Mystical Experience
8. The Circle
We have seen thus far that Abulafia's visions contain reve-
lations of the contents of the human soul. We shall now examine
a vision incorporating both a revelation of the soul, on the one
hand, and a revelation of the world, on the other. We read in
Sefer toi-Melis: 165
This is the meaning of "as the appearance of the bow that is
in the cloud on a rainy day." 16 " Just as the colored brilliance is
seen in the rainbow on a rainy day, and is there with the bril-
liance of the sun, so do the humours, which are the rain and
the showers and the vapor. And the smokes and the steams
which are created by them and by the food which is in the prin-
ciple organs and which ascend and descend, are the clouds the
selves. And the brilliance of the soul, which is combined from
the sphere and from the stars and luminaries, together with the j
brilliance of the abundance which flows from the sphere of the
rainbow to the organs of the body, in general and in particular,
which is "the appearance of the brightness round about, which
was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God." 167
Therefore, Raziel says that when he arrived at this knowledge
and acquired it in his intellect, he knew the question which he
was asked by the form, which he saw inscribed before him, as
engraved by his Rock [i.e., God]. And this is clear testimony
that he asked wisdom from his Creator and that wisdom he
was taught by Him, blessed be His name. And then he re-
turned to the matter of opening his eyes to see before him the
tree of knowledge, whose name is life; that is, that which is to
others a potion of death, and is the tree of knowledge, was to
Raziel the potion of life, and he did not stumble in it as did
others.
And now seek to draw for us that which is its image, and he
said that it is like a round ladder, and he counted its steps,
and said that there are 360 rungs, and he saw that the width of
each rung was like the span of a man's step, from foot to foot,
and he saw that between each step there was as the length of I
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 113
a rung, and its appearance was like that of bright blue, which
was full around it from the east, and descends to the west
strongly, and in its middle there passed through a very thick
bar, and its length was like a third of the circle, so that it came
out that its head was to the south and its end to the north, and
it had four heads at its head [i.e., beginning], and likewise its
end to the four winds.
And on each head there was a body, equal, having eight points,
and six sections spotted like a carbuncle, and there were twelve
lines to each one of them, and a fifth head, from this side and
from that, until all of them amounted to five against five. And
he said that these go to the right, and these to the left, and they
accordingly threw the lots among known names. And he said
that the Pur turns about from y"w to y"w, that is, from higher
to higher, 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 rums about in wisdom night and day.
And 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]: 168
Know that this ladder must be drawn as a circle, if it stands
before the person's eyes like a full sphere, rolling back and
114 The Mystical Experience
forth before him, as if the man's face is toward the east and
his back toward west, and the person is in the middle. And
this is the spherical ladder which has two spherical lines and
wide rungs, slightly between the two lines, and they are 360
rungs, and between each rung is the width of a rung, so that
the length will be equal to the width, and its appearance like
that of bright blue, like the image of the sky which turns about
for one known special purpose. And man turns about with [the
help of] twenty Sefirot — five toes of his feet on his right side,
and five on his left, and likewise five fingers of his hand to the
south and five to the north, and they rum to the right or the
left, and there are four heads to his head, and four to his end,
and four winds from here to the south side and four winds to
the north, and each head of them has upon it a body equal, like
the image of a cube, and they are four cubes, and their names
are "females" from here, and four from here, and their names
are "males" and they turned about and changed. And each of
these cubes has six corners, speckled, a pair above, separated
below it, and a pair below it, separated upon it. And all of
the dots on them [add up to] 120 for these and 120 for these,
with the fifth to here and the fifth to here; and that is the one
which preponderates between them. And the number is 24, 24,
and the dots are not fixed in them, but are like tablets ready to
receive the dots, and because of the [circular] movement they
are renewed. And were the ladder to stand [even] a small mo-
ment without turning, then all the corners of the cubes would
be empty of all dots. But with the turns they are renewed, by
justice and uprightness, according to the Divine rule by which
he judges every living rational thing according to his deeds,
by lot (Pur). And this secret is as it were witness and judge of
the retribution and punishment. And this ladder is called the
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 if.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 115
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 for the Perplexed,
m: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 extraor-
dinary 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 (teti), while the bar is the cosmic axis
itself. This is dear from the description of the bar: it passes from
south to north just as the axis passes over the world. This bar
is already described in this manner in Ch. 1 of Beraita de-Semwei.
"Nahas Bariah is the cosmic axis." 169 It follows that Abulafia's com-
parison of the sphere of man 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 con-
templation into himself, man may learn about the ladder: "And
when you shall contemplate your essence, you will find that lad-
der, 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 Sitrey Tordh, Abulafia refers to "the secret of the one who is
116 The Mystical Experience
innocent 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 geniatria: 'id (witness) = 74 = dayan (judge), while zakkay we-
hayab (innocent and guilty) likewise adds up to 74. Elsewhere in
Sitrey Tordh, it is clear that "innocent and guilty" allude to "blood
and ink": i.e., the intellect and the imagination. 172 In 'Osar 'Eden
Gdnuz, 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
toward it, like the balance which inclines thereto. 173
The two urges, likened to the two sides of the scales,
clearly 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. 17,1 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
The psycho-cosmogrammaton referred to by Tucci is the
mandala, or circle, which forms the central object of meditation
I
The Mystical Experience in Abrafiam Abulafia 117
in Buddhist and Hindu practice. From this point of view, one
may see in Abulafia's vision additional evidence for the appear-
ance of the archetype of the mandala; like it, the sphere reveals
both the structure of the universe and of man and of those pow-
ers acting within them. One ought to take note of his words in
this vision: "the matter of opening of one's eyes, to see before
him the tree of knowledge, whose name is life; that is, that which
is to others a potion of death, and is the tree of knowledge, was
to Raziel the potion of life, and he did not stumble in it as did
others." This passage, which is connected with the appearance
of the sphere, ought to be compared with his words in Sefer lia-
'Ot, p. 82, at the time of the appearance of "the man": "the sign
on his forehead is the potion of death, as the man called it, and I
called it the potion of life, for I transformed it from death to life."
These two passages suggest that the visions are accompanied by
an inner event, a kind of synthesis between the two forces of
the soul — the intellect and the imagination — which are alluded
to by blood and ink.
In Sitrey Tordh, 176 we learn that:
The brain is a place which receives all kinds of images. But
witnesses come from it and tell us his powers; and they are
two trees, and each tree is an image, 177 and all the flux of the
likeness 178 constitute two trees, which are two 179 ... but one tree
adds wisdom, and the other adds desire; the tree of life adds
science, 180 and the tree of knowledge adds science, 181 and the
tree of life is a lot 182 and the tree of knowledge lots. 183 "One
lot 184 to God, and one lot to Azazel": the first for good, the
middle for the possible, and the last one for evil. . . For they
have sent forth their hand to know the power of their founda-
tion, and they exchanged their glory for an image of flesh and
blood, and they did not eat from the tree of knowledge, and
their wicked soul cannot be saved, even though the tree of life
they did not see, and they did enter by their corrupt ways for
they were created in vain, and to joke of themselves they were
found, and happy are those who understand the sciences, and
in their victory in the wars they shall gain two worlds.
118 The Mystical Experience
This passage epitomizes Abuiafia's awareness of the need
to connect between the intellect and the imagination-that is, to
bring the intellect to rule over the imagination, as a consequence
of which the soul is saved. We may cite here the words of
the anonymous author of Sefer ha-Seruf, connecting together the
sphere, the ladder, and the revolution which takes place in man
in connection with an experience of sphere or the ladder:
Know that when the sphere of the intellect is turned about by
the Active Intellect, and man begins to enter it and ascends
in the sphere which revolves upon itself, as the image of the
ladder, and at the time of ascent, his thoughts will be indeed
transformed and all the images will change before him, and
nothing of all that he previously had will be left in his hands;
therefore, apart from the change in his nature and his forma-
tion, as one who is translated from the power of sensation to
the power of the intellect, and as one who is translated from
the telurian process to the process of burning fire. Finally, all
the visions shall change, and the thoughts will be confounded
and the imaginative apprehensions will be confused, since in
truth this sphere purifies and tests. 185
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 Abuiafia's approach. The
connection between the ladder and the sphere are again dis-
cussed in another passage, related to Sefer ha-Seruf, in connection
with the spiritual manifestations connected to 'prophecy': 186
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
I
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 119
the foundation of the power of the true spiritual sphere. . . from
now on and forever more, Amen, Selah.
It seems reasonable to assume that the things cited in Sefer
ha-Seruf influenced R. Elnathan ben Moses Kalkish, who wrote
in his book, 'Eben ha-Sappir: l&li
God, may He be praised, gave us the Holy Torah, and taught us
the way of combination [of letters] and the steps of the ladder,
in describing the letters, in seeing that it is not within the ability
of our apprehension to attain knowledge of Him, may He be
blessed, without this great and correct proposal. .. for. .. from
the light and seraphic sphere of the intellect, 189 there shall be
born as the image of the prophetic image, which is the intention
of combination [of letters]. And according to its refinement
and the power of its innerness, they are worthy to be called
premises to all those upon its face, for they are the levels by
which to ascend on high, because it is the balance of the scales,
depending on the light of the intellect, but not in sensible light.
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 tech-
niques 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 includes the appearance of a wheel. In 'Osar Hayyim, 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 with-
out 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,
220 The Mystical Experience
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 Berisit ("In the beginning''), which is the first letter,
to the lamed of Yisra>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, dirnming the circle of
the sun, and the letters alone were of black fire, a strong black-
ness, 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. 190
The appearance of the Torah, as a circle revealed to the
eyes of the one who is contemplating it, reappears in Baddey ha-
'Ardn by R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon:
When he has no friend with whom to practice concentration
as he would wish, let him sit by himself. . . And he shall begin
to write what he sees in his mind, like one who copies from a
book that is written before him, in black fire on white fire, in a
true spherical form, like the sun, for the light has come upon
him at that hour. 191
It seems to me that the resemblance between these two
statements is not coincidental. Baddey ha-Aron describes one who
writes things down from his own mind as one who copies from
a book; there is no doubt that this book is to be identified with
the Torah, written in black fire upon white fire. The descrip-
tion of the act of writing is likewise suitable to Moses, who is
mentioned by R. Isaac of Acre. The description of the one med-
itating given by R. Shem Tov is similar to that of Moses in the
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 121
introduction to Nahmanides' Commentary to the Torah, which states
that Moses was "like a scribe copying from an ancient book and
writing." 192 The expression, "spherical like the sun," which ap-
pears in the passage from R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon, is parallel to
"the circle of the sun" in that from R. Isaac of Acre. It would
[therefore] appear that the appearance of the circle in the visions
of both authors is not coincidental, but that an historical con-
nection exists between their words; it seems Likely that R. Shem
Tov was influenced, in one way or another, by the opinions of R.
Isaac of Acre, even though in matters of theosophical Kabbalah
the direction of influence was the opposite. 193
Another motif in R. Isaac of Acre is the vision of the lad-
der. In a passage published by Gottlieb, R. Isaac states: "so long
as I was looking at this ladder, which is the name of the Holy
One, blessed be He, I see my soul cleaving to the 'Eyn Sof with
tiie master of union." 194 The understanding of the Divine name
as a ladder first appears in Abulafia, who says: "in the Name
my intellect found a ladder to ascend to the level of vision," 195
while he writes elsewhere: 196
The ladder seen by Jacob our Father was Sinai, 197 and this great
secret was revealed by means of gematria. . . and it was known
to us that the secret of Sinai is double (kefel) and it is easy (qal)
and there come out of it the two holy names, Adonay Adonay,
and there emerge from the names the five unique ones, the
secret of each one of whose secret is heavy (kabed).
Sulldm (ladder) = 130 = Sinai * Adonay Adonay = 65-65
+ 5 x 26 = 130. On the other hand, elsewhere in R. Isaac of
Acre we learn that the Divine Names are written in circles. 198 "I
heard them say to me that I ought not to remove the name of
the Mighty One from the thought of my mind in all the ways of
my prayers, and my blessings will never be removed from my
eyes, in the proper circles."
We find evidence for the understanding of the Torah as a
circle in the fourteenth century, 199 and it may be that these are
122 The Mystical Experience
in turn indicative of an older idea which saw the Torah as a
circle. 200 The articulation of this idea may be found in the works
of Abulafia, R. Isaac of Acre, and R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon.
9. Metatron
Let us turn now to another subject concerning Abulafia's
influence on R. Isaac of Acre. In Hayyey ha-Olam ha-Ba>*° 1 we
read:
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 sek in the language of the Ishmaelites means "eider," and
also in gematria it equals [the phrase] "a youth and he is old"
(na<dr wc-hu zdqen); 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 O master, for your
servant speaks."
This brief description of the appearance of Metatron is
of a didactic character; it is intended to portray the anticipated
meeting between the mystic devotee of Abulafia's path with the
angel Metatron, i.e., the Active Intellect.
Our passage was discussed within the circle of Abulafia's
disciples; we find some of the traces of this discussion in 'Osar
Hayyim: 204
Still on this very day we saw a direct reason why Moseh (i.e.,
Metatron, Prince of the Face) is called "a youth" (na c ar), "For
Israel is a young lad, and I have loved him," 205 and he himself
says "I was a lad and now I am old," 206 And the Sages say, 207
"the Prince of the World said this verse." And I heard from my
master, saying, that wjw is a designation referring to the oldest
of all the created things, 20 " but he is deserving to be called an
elder, and not a lad. And I say that this is a designation, for
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 123
in Arabic one calls an elder a "sheik" (sek), and a young man
{war) is numerically equal to [sodo] it sek. One of the disciples
said: but in Arabic one does not read [the word] Sek without
the letter yod, but only with it, as follows: "Seyk." And what
will one do with these 'ten' extra [numbers]?
And he did not answer him at all, and the thing remained in
doubt; and "doubt" (sdfeq) in the Arabic language is called Sek;
and today 1 saw it said that, so long as Metatron the Prince of
the Face is satisfied with his own influx, he is a sek without the
letter yod, with the accented kaf, and it means "doubt" [in He-
brew sfq may also be vocalized as meaning: "supply"], since
the influx of Almighty God is dependent upon the created be-
ing, and it is in the hands of the children of Israel; and whether
if the generation is guilty the influx stands by itself and does
not flow, and each one makes do with the flow of himself, but if
the generation merits it the abundance of Almighty God awak-
ens and flows, so that there is neither Satan nor evil influence,
and all is peace, life and blessing.
Therefore, when there is no influx forthcoming, Metatron
Prince of the Face is called sek without yod, being called
Metatron without yod, but when the influx comes within him
he is called Seyk with yod, as he is called Metatron with yod.
R. Isaac of Acre's words indicate that the teacher quoted
here was either Abulafia or one of his disciples who knew Hayyey
ha-'Oldm ha-Ba>, as may be seen from the striking resemblance be-
tween the two quoted passages. In both cases, the same mistake
is made, deriving from lack of knowledge of Arabic: sek is calcu-
lated 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 au-
thors in fact give evidence of "meetings" with Metatron or of its
pseudonyms mentioned in the above section.
On p. 84 of Sefer ha-'Ot, we find a description of a meet-
ing with an old man during the course of a vision: "And he
124 The Mystical Experience
showed me an old man, with white hair, seated upon the throne
of judgment 210 . . . and he ascended to the mountain of judgment,
and I came close to the elder and he bowed and prostrated him-
self." 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 Sitrey
Tordh 211 that
R. Eleazar of Worms said that he [i.e., Metatron] has seventy
names, as I have been shown by our holy rabbis concerning
this in Pirqey de-Rabbi Elvezer 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 toward the ecstatic Kabbalah, and 1 will
inform you of what he 212 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.
In my opinion, this passage establishes that the old man
in Sefer ha-'Ol is none other than an imaginary embodiment of
Metatron, that is, the Active Intellect. The meeting between the
elder and Abulafia bears a personal character: it is not described
in terms of a connection between two intellects but as one be-
tween two people. In Sefer ha-'Ot, p. 84, we read: "And I fell on
my face toward the earth before his legs, and he placed his two
hands upon me and he stood me upon my legs before him and
said to me: 'My son, blessed is your coming, peace peace unto
you.'" This personal approach is repeated in a work of R. Isaac
of Acre:
While I was yet sleeping, I, Isaac of Acre, saw Metatron, the
Prince of the Face, and I sat before him, and he taught me and
promised me many good things that would come to me. . . and
to my joy he came, and at his command I took his hand and
kissed him many times, [with] successive kisses of love, and
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 125
these kisses of mine were not upon the back of his hand, but
upon the palm of his hand, and his hand was very wide. 214
Here, as well, the meeting portrayed in the vision is seen
as a personal contact, in which there is a relationship going be-
yond the revelation of secrets characteristic of the revelations
of Metatron in the Merkdbdh literature. However, one must re-
member that in these passages as well, Metatron appears as a
teacher, and the mystic as a disciple, the vision thus being one
of the revelation of the divine teacher. 215
10. The Fear
As we have seen above, Abulafia's visions were given
an appropriate interpretation with the aid of philosophical ter-
minology. There seems no doubt that Abulafia was aware of
the character of his visions, for which reason it is difficult to
understand, on the face of it, why they were accompanied by
descriptions of states of fear and panic. If the prophetic experi-
ence is, in principle, a revelation of spiritual processes or of the
means of guiding the world, why must Abulafia fear that very
experience which he seeks with his entire being? Two different
possible answers to this question are possible: one may accept
Jung's view that man's self-understanding of his soul is accom-
panied by curiosity and fear, 216 for which reason Abulafia feared
the vision; or one may adopt the theory of Rudolph Otto, who
sees the revelation of God as the revelation of a "wholly other"
essence, inspiring fear in the heart of the person to whom it is
revealed. 217
Let us begin with Abulafia's own words on this matter;
in Sefer ha-'Ot, p. 82, Abulafia writes in connection with the ap-
pearance of "the man":
And when I saw his face in the vision, I was astonished and
my heart was frightened within me, and it moved from its
126 The Mystical Experience
place. And I wished to speak, to call to the name of God to
help me, but the thing moved away from my spirit. And when
I saw that man, my dread was tremendous and my fear was
very intense.
An exaggerated description of fear appears in Sitrey
T6rah: 2l&
And you become perfect in the knowledge of the well-known
attributes of God, by which the world is always conducted.
And let your mind pursue after your intellect, to resemble him
in them, according to your ability always. And know in your
intellect that you have already annihilated those faculties called
superfluous to you, and let all your intentions be for the sake of
heaven. And be God fearing in the essence of true fear, as you
would fear the Angel of Death when you see it, entirely full of
eyes. 2ia In its left hand is burning fire, and in its right hand a
two-edged sword, performing the vengeance of the covenant,
and in its mouth is a consuming fire, and he comes to you and
asks you to give him his share of your self; and he is half of
your existence, for example, and he seeks to cut off your limbs,
one by one, and you see it all with your eyes.
It is worth emphasizing here that Abulafia refers to the
fear of God, which is "as though you would be afraid of the angel
of death." The motif of fear reappears in Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba>:
"When you prepare yourself to speak with your Creator. . wrap
yourself in tallit and tefiliin on your head and your hands, so that
you may fear and be afraid of the Sekinah, which is with you
at that time." 220 This motif is connected with the description of
the appearance of "the king" at the time of the vision found in
the same book: "Portray this Name, may He be blessed, and
his supernal angels, and draw them in your heart, as if they
were human beings standing or sitting around you, and you are
among them, like a messenger, whom the king and his messen-
gers wish to send." 221 This motif is again found in Sefer ha-Heseq,
where the mystic is portrayed as one "who the king sends after
him and wishes to speak with in all events, as the king strongly
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 127
wishes to speak with him more than he wishes to speak with
the king." 222
In "Or tia-Sekei; 223 Abulafia reveals the nature of the king
whom one must fear: "The intellect, which is the source of wis-
dom and understanding and knowledge, and which is in the
image of the king of kings, whom all greatly fear. And behold,
the fear of this who comprehends is double-fold, for it is [both)
fear (or "awe") of [His] Grandeur, and fear [which is coupled
with] love." 224 What is the reason for the fear, according to Ab-
ulafia? In all of the cases mentioned above, fear is connected
with the participation of the power of imagination; in the mys-
tical experience, this potential achieves increased activity, and,
as we have seen at the beginning of the chapter, one of the con-
sequences of which is fear. Prophecy may be described as a
necessary cooperation between the intellect 2 * 5 and the imagina-
tion: the intellect requires the spiritual posture of love, while the
imagination brings about fear since, according to Abulafia, there
is a direct relationship between imagination, blood, and fear. Let
us now turn to other factors liable to catalyze a situation of terror
in connection with ecstatic experience.
11. Dangers
So long as the imagination was subject to the rule of the
intellect, the images envisaged at the time of prophecy reflected
intellectual truths. However, once the power of the imagination
grew, there existed the danger that there would appear before the
eyes of the mystic visions which have no connection whatsoever
with the intellect. These images, which constitute the primary
source of danger in mysticism, are understood as "messengers of
Satan," who attempts to mislead man's heart away from the pure
intellectual service of God. In Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba\ Abulafia
warns:
128 The Mystical Experience
Do not remove your thoughts from God for any thing in the
world; and even if a dog or a rat or another thing jumped
across you, which was not in your house, [know that] these are
the acts of Satan, who scouts about in your mind and creates
things which have no reality at all, and he is appointed over
this. 226
However, this danger is not emphasized much in Abu-
lafia's works. The complicated technique which he advocates,
in which one is required to carry out several different activities
simultaneously, thereby demanding the greatest possible con-
centration, is evidently in itself a guarantee against the mind
wandering. This differs from both Sufism and Hesychasm, in
which the formulae to be recited are simple, so that after a certain
period of time these are recited in an automatic manner without
any need for concentration. For this reason, there exist there the
danger against which they constantly warn: namely, that in the
course of reciting the Divine Name, the mystic is likely to think
about other subjects. This is almost impossible in Abulafia, for
which reason he does not devote much to warning against this.
One of the widespread images used to suggest the dan-
ger inherent in letter-combination is burning fire. 227 Let us begin
with several statements of Abulafia on this subject. In Sitrey
Torali, it says: "when you see the abundance of His goodness
and the taste of His radiance in your heart, remove your face
and afterwards again seek it bit by bit, and with this He will lift
you up, for the great fire guards the gate." 228 Elsewhere in the
same work, 229 in connection with the temptation to make magi-
cal use of the Divine Names, he states: "Take care. . as you take
care against being burned by fire, and be not hasty to kill your-
self" and "Combine and combine, and do not be burned." 230 In
a similar manner, Abulafia writes in connection with the act of
letter-combination: 231 "Know that the river Dinur 232 comes out
from before Him, and the one combining must take care and be
careful of its fear and for the Honor of His name, lest his blood
flee 233 and he kills himself."
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 129
In Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba>, he writes:
Take care against the great fire which surrounds the demons
(sedim) created from the white seed, whose name is Satan, bom
from "the tail of the uncircumcised" (zendb c arel), who uncov-
ered nakedness (gillah <erwah) and is deserving for this the ret-
ribution of evil (gemul ha-ra<), which is the evil body; and it is a
life of the reason and imagination, causing the cause to compel
the nature, by remembrance and knowledge. 234
It seems clear from this that the great fire is vitally con-
nected with human matter, for which reason it endangers the
man who attempts to overcome it. In Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba>, Ab-
ulafia 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" [homer hay perati\, etc. 235
A comparison of this passage with others pertaining to
this subject indicates that, apart from the subject of the matter
of man, there is an additional motif relating to fire, namely, the
involvement in the Divine Names. 236 While combining letters,
the mystic is likely to be inadvertently turned into a magician,
by means of the incorrect use of the Names; such an act is a
serious distortion of the goal of the Names, and brings about
the sinking of the sinner into the material over which he wishes
to rule. This thought is alluded to in the expression, "to compel
the nature," as well as in the last-quoted passage. 237
130 Trie Mystical Experience
Unlike the image of the fire, which symbolizes the immer-
sion into corporeality, we find among the students of Abulafia
the image of sinking, which is intended to express the immer-
sion of the mystic in the spiritual world, an immersion likely to
bring about his death. In Sahara/ Sedeq, the disciple implores his
master to give him the "power" that will enable him to survive
the awesome power of the revelation:
I said to him: "In heaven's name, can you perhaps impart to
me some power to enable me to bear this force emerging from
my heart and to receive influx from it?" For I wanted to draw
this force toward me and receive influx from it, for it much
resembles a spring filling a great basin with water. If a man
[not being properly prepared for it] should open the dam, he
would be drowned in its waters and his soul would desert
him. 238
The image of drowning reappears in R. Isaac of Acre's
'Osar Hayyim:
Now you, my son, make an effort to contemplate the supernal
light, since I have certainly introduced you into "the sea of the
Ocean" which surrounds the [whole] world. Be careful and
guard your soul from gazing and your heart from pondering
[upon the light], lest you sink; and the effort shall be to con-
template but [at the same time] to escape from sinking, and
you shall see your World (to Come] in your lifetime [i.e., attain
a celestial vision while yet alive], and all these words of ours
are in order to sustain your soul in her palace. 239
Elsewhere in the same book, he writes:
. . . cleave to the Divine Intellect, and It will cleave to her, for
more than the calf wishes to suck, the cow wishes to give suck.
And she and the intellect become one entity, as if someone
pours out a jug of water into a running well, that all becomes
one. 240
The Mystical Experience in Abraliam Abulafia 131
While the motif of drowning is not in accord with Ab-
ulafia's spirit, 241 there does reappear the warning that the mo-
ment of ecstasy is also likely to be the moment of death; we
shall enlarge upon the subject of "Erotic imagery for the Ecstatic
Experience" in Chapter Four.
12. Debequt
The topic of debequt (cleaving to God) in Jewish mysti-
cism has been a subject of study by some scholars. Scholem
devoted a detailed discussion to the subject, 242 concluding that,
while there is a widespread tendency in Kabbalah to acknowl-
edge the possibility of communio between the human soul and
God, the concept of union or complete identity between the two
is alien to the spirit of the Kabbalah. Other scholars, such as
Tishby 243 and Gottlieb, 244 have noted passages in which there
are nuances suggesting mystical union, but suggest that these
cases are few and far between, and that the discussion of the
authors of these passages is moreover sketchy, making it diffi-
cult to fully understand their exact meaning. 245 Abulafia was the
first medieval Jewish mystic in whom we find more extensive
evidence of mystical unity, sometimes expressing this in radical
ways.
I would like to begin by defining the meaning of the terms
to be used below. The term "union" (Hebrew: 'Ihud) is parallel
to the Latin unio, being used to refer to that state in which the
human soul or its intellect cleaves to an external object, making
the two of them into one. This broad definition, found among
scholars of mysticism, 246 stresses the transformation of man's
inner nature as an essential precondition for the mystical expe-
rience. The adjective "mystical" defines and delimits the object
of this union; it is union with these objects alone that makes
the experinece "mystical." A common denominator of all these
objects is the fact that they are general or that they encompass
more than the human soul or intellect; they include such spiri-
232 The Mystical Experience
tual entities as the supernal or general soul, the Active Intellect,
the separate intellects, and God or, to use religious terminol-
ogy, high levels in the various religious hierarchies: the angels
or the Godhead. The unity between the soul and these entities
transforms the spiritual element within man from particular to
general, a transformation accompanied by an experience diffi-
cult to describe in words. Unity entails the overwhelming of
man's limited consciousness by spiritual or more comprehen-
sive intellectual contents, an overwhelming which brings about
the obliteration of the individual consciousness.
Let us now return to Abulafia; In a passage from 'Osdr
'Eden Gdnuz, 2 * 7 he discusses the principle of the similarity between
the one cleaving and that to which he cleaves:
Once the knot is loosened, there shall be revealed the matter
of the testimony of the knot, and the one who cleaves to these
knots cleaves to falsehoods/ 48 for as they are to be loosened
in the future, so shall the knots of his debequt be loosened, and
nothing shall be left with him. Therefore, before he loosens
these, he must tie and cleave through knots of love 249 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 debequt are of three types: debequt to the supernal
entities, like fire, which is above and constantly ascends; and
debequt to the intermediate ones, like the wind, which is in the
middle, depending whether it ascends or descends; and debequt
to the lower ones, like the image of water, which is below, and
constantly descends. And in accordance with the debequt, so
shall be the survival [of the soul] — whether above, below, or
in the middle.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 133
These three kinds of debequt symbolize the possibility of
man's transformation into a supernal, intermediate, or lowly be-
ing, depending upon the object of his cleaving. The same idea,
expressed differently, appears in Ner 'Elohim:
Whoever is drawn toward the vanities of temporality, his soul
shall survive in the vanities of temporality; and whoever is
drawn after the Name which we have cited, which is above
temporality, his soul shall survive in the eternal [realm], be-
yond time, in God, may He be blessed. 253
In both passages, the same principle appears; namely, that
the object of cleaving debequt determines the essence of those
cleaving after the cessation of the debequt itself. Those who cleave
to "the Name" are thereby transformed from mortals into im-
mortals; however, this survival does not in itself have a mystical
character. While in both passages he does speak of a change
in the soul from being perishible to eternal, there is no indica-
tion or allusion to any change in its nature which would change
the soul into God or to one of the "supernal beings." Let us
begin with the latter passage: by the term "supernal ones," Ab-
ulafia refers to the supernal world or the world of the separate
intellects, while the "intermediate" refers to the spheres or the
intermediate world. In several places he states, in accordance
with the view of Ibn Rushd, 254 and in contradiction to that of
Al-Farabi and Maimonides, that cleaving to the Active Intellect
is possible in this world. The significance of this debequt is the
transformation of man's intellect into the Active Intellect, i.e.,
union. In order to express this union, Abulafia utilizes the well-
known formula originating in Islamic mysticism, 255 "he is he,"
which is repeated with minor changes in a number of passages
in Hebrew literature. 256
We read in Sitrey Torah about "that man who has actu-
alized his intellectual power and prophesies according to that
which he has actualized to the final, complete actualization, and
returned, he and he are one inseparable entity during the time
of that act." 257 The human intellect is actualized by the Active
234 Tlie Mystical Experience
Intellect, and at the time of mystical ecstasy the intellect united
with it. This process implies the transformation of the individ-
ual consciousness into a universal one, as stated by Abulafia in
the same work: "Until the prophet turns his personal, partial
[aspect], in the form of permanent, eternal, universal cause like
it, he and he are one entity." 258
In Sefer ha-Ydsdr, written at that same time as Sitrey Tdrdh,
we read: 359
If, however, he has felt the divine touch and perceived its na-
ture, it seems right and proper to me and to every perfected
man that he should be called 'master,' because his name is like
the Name of his Master, 260 be it only in one, or in many, or
in all of His Names. For now he is no longer separated from
his Master, and behold he is his Master and his Master is he;
for he is so intimately adhering to Him [here the term debequt
is used] that he cannot by any means be separated from Him,
for he is He. And just as his Master, who is detached from all
matter, is called. . . the knowledge, the knower and the known,
all at the same time, since all three are one in Him, so shall he,
the exalted man, the master of the exalted name, be called in-
tellect, while he is actually knowing; then he is also the known,
like his Master; and then there is no difference between them,
except that his Master has His supreme rank by His own right
and not derived from other creatures, while he is elevated to
his rank by the intermediary of creatures.
It is clear that the transformation is not only a matter
of the eternal survival of the soul, but of the transformation of
the essence of the soul into an intellective element, obliterating
the differences between the cause of the transformation, i.e., the
Active Intellect and that effected by it, namely, the human intel-
lect. These passages refer to the identity of the human intellect
with the Active Intellect in an objective sense, for which reason
one might argue that Abulafia makes use of no more than fig-
ure of speech. However, in Sefer ha- 'Edut, 261 which belongs to
that group of prophetic books which claim to express Abulafia's
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 135
prophetic-mystical experiences, the unity with the Active Intel-
lect is spoken of in a more personal manner. In the following
passage, Abulafia conveys the contents of the voice which he
heard in Rome:
And the meaning of his saying: "Rise and lift up the head
of my anointed one" refers to the life of the souls. And on
the New Year and in the Temple it is the power of the souls.
And he says: "Anoint him as king" — anoint him like a king
with the power of all the names. "For I have anointed him
as king over Israel" 262 — over the communities of Israel, that
is, the miswot. And his saying, "and his name I have called
Sadday like My Name" — whose secret is Sadday like My Name;
and understand all the intention. Likewise, his saying: "He
is I and I am He," and it cannot be revealed more explicitly
than this. But the secret of the corporeal name is the Messiah
of God; also "Moses will rejoice," which he has made known
to us, and which is the five urges, and is called the corporeal
name as well.
We must begin by deciphering the gematriydt used here:
the 'head of my anointed one' ros mesihi = 869 = the life of the
souls (hayyey ha-nefdsoi = and on New Year's (u-we-Ros ha- Sdndh) -
and in the Temple (u-we-Bet ha- Miqdds) = the power of the souls
(koah ha-nefdsot) = anoint him as king (tirnsehehu ka-melek) = by the
power of all the names (mi-koah kol ha-semdt). Israel (Yisra>el) =
541 = congregations (qehillot) = the commandments {ha-miswot).
The corporeal Name (ha-Sem ha-gasmi) = 703 = the anointed of
the Name (Mdsiah ha-Sem) = Moses rejoiced (yismdh Moseh) = five
urges ( hamisdh yesdrim).
The first gematria alludes to the connection between the
appearance of Messiah and spiritual development; the second
to the Active Intellect, which was the cause of this spiritual
development; 263 while the third alludes to the Messiah himself,
who is identified with the Active Intellect. This identity is sug-
gested by the words, "I called the Almighty by my name," "and
he is I and I am he." 264
136 The Mystical Experience
It seems to me that, by comparison of this passage to that
which appears in Hayyey ha- c Oldm ha-Ba\ i6S we may learn about
the identity of the Messiah: "Begin to attach the three spiritual
Divine Names and afterwards attach the three material names
of the patriarchs." Abulafia intends to refer here to the parallel
between the corporeal names — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and
the spiritual ones — 'Elohim, Adonay and YHWH. Further on in the
passage cited, Abulafia writes that "the ends of the names of
the patriarchs in reverse order are bq"m which in the system of
a"t b"s (i.e., inverted letters) is Sadday; "And I appeared to Abra-
ham, Isaac and Jacob in the name 'El Sadday" 266 In the passage
from Sefer ha-'Edut, he speaks about the "material name," which
must allude to one of the patriarchs, as well as Sadday, which is
likewise associated with the patriarchs.
We shall now have no difficulty in discovering the name
which Abulafia had attempted to conceal: his own name, "Abra-
ham." In Hayyey ha-'Otdm ha-Ba', we find another passage which
discusses the identity of the mystic with the Active Intellect at
the time of the mystical experience:
And he shall appear to him as if his entire body, from his head
to his feet, had been anointed with anointing oil, and he will be
the Anointed of God and his messenger and be called the angel
of God. The intention is that his name shall be like the name
of his master, Sadday, which I have called Metatron Prince of
the Presence. 267
Abulafia's words left an impression upon other Kabbal-
ists. R. Isaac of Acre stated in 'Osdr Hayyim 268 that, when the
soul:
. . - cleaves to the Divine Intellect, and It will cleave to her, for
more than the calf wishes to suck, the cow wishes to give suck,
and she and the Intellect become one entity, as if somebody
pours out a jug of water into a running well, 269 that all be-
comes one. And this is the secret meaning of the saying of our
sages: 270 "Enoch is Metatron."
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 137
The idea conveyed here is the transformation of the hu-
man soul into the Active Intellect, just as the person Enoch was
transformed into the angel Metatron. Absolute unity is alluded
to here by means of the well-known mystical metapohor of the
pouring of water into a spring. While R. Isaac of Acre's remarks
seem to have originated in personal experience, the idea of unity
also appears in R. Reuben Zarfati, who drew his formulation
from the works of Abulafia, apparently without any relation to
authentic experience. In his commentary to Ma'areket ha-'Eiohut 271
he writes: "The human intellect, after it separates from the body,
will turn into a spiritual [entity] and be embodied in the Active
Intellect, and she and it will become one thing, and this is the
eternal survival of the soul."
In G. Scholem's opinion, 272 Abulafia's remarks concern-
ing debequt are unusual; nevertheless, so long as his words refer
to unity with the Active intellect, they do not present any partic-
ular theological difficulties. In several places in Abulafia's books
other nuances appear: in the passage from 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz cited
at the beginning of this section, he speaks of the cleaving of the
soul to god, a possibility repeated in Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba': 272
The benefit of the knowledge of the name of [God] is in its
being the cause of man's attainment of the actual intellection
of the Active Intellect and the benefit of the intellection of the
Active intellect is in the ultimate aim of the life of the intel-
lectual soul, and its ultimate aim is the reason of the life of
the World to Come. This aim is the union of the soul, by
this intellection, with God, may He be blessed, for ever and
ever and eternally, and that thing called "the image of God"
(Selem 'Elohim) and His likeness, "will live in man everlasting
life without any limit, like the life of the Creator, which is their
cause. And of this it is said, 274 "for it is your life and length of
days" — your life in this world and length of days in the next
world. And it is said, 275 "And you who cleave unto the Lord
as your God are living still this day," implying that one who
does not cleave to God does not live forever.
1 38 The Mystical Experience
One may admittedly argue that what is alluded to in this
passage is a Biblical idiom, which refers to the eternal survival of
the soul without any substantive change taking place in the soul
that would cause it to cleave to god. However, in at least two
passages, Abulafia's words clarify this subject. In 'Or ha-Sekel, 276
Since between two lovers there are two parts of love which
turn to be one entity, when it [the love] is actualized, the [Di-
vine] Name is composed of two parts, which [point to] the
connection of Divine intellectual love with human intellectual
love, and it [the love] is one, just as His Name comprises ehad
ehad, because of the attachment of human existence with Di-
vine existence 277 at the time of comprehension, equal with the
intellect, until they both become one entity.
May the phrase "Divine existence" in this passage be in-
terpreted as referring to God Himself? This seems to me to be
the case, as in the same work there appears the view that the
human intellect is liable to literally cleave to God. In defining
the three meanings of the term sekel (generally translated here as
"intellect"), Abulafia writes in 'Or ha-Sekei.
"Sekel" 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 sekel
which cleaves to the hylic [element]. 278
With the identification of God with sekel, 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 'Or ha-Sekei 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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 139
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-Sekel; these collec-
tions include, in my opinion, original material borrowed from
Abulafia. 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
sekel, 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 (sural ha-sekel). 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 intel-
lect 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
140 The Mystical Experience
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 blessed, is always the
act of intellection and is always the intellect and is always the
intelligible — that is. He is always in actu. 280
The relationship between this passage and that in 'Or ha-
Sekei is clear; it is worth adding that the definition of God as "the
form of the intellect", which appears in these collections, also ap-
pears in 'Or ha-Sckel, where we read concerning the First Cause:
"And this is the form of the intellect, which the intellect of man
is able to apprehend together with the other intellective forms
comprehended from Him." 281 These passages clearly raise the
possibility of the unity of the human intellect with God during
the moment of intellection, in which God is the object of intellec-
tion of the human intellect. Abulafia's words can be understood
as a use of Aristotelian ideas for the expression of personal ex-
perience, even if we have no clear proof that he thought that he
had united with God. The Aristotelian ideas used by Abulafia
are the unity of the Intellect, Intelligible and Act of Intellection,
as well as the view that the human intellect is capable of trans-
formation into Divinity or to the most divine thing which exists
among us. 282
Before turning to another subject, I would like to cite the
words of R. Isaac ben Yeda'yah, a contemporary of Abulafia,
who expresses himself concerning the subject of debequt to God
in a manner quite similar to that of Abulafia. In his Commentary
to Masekei 'Abol, R. Isaac writes:
The true intention of the Nazirite is that he take his oath and
separate himself from that which is permitted to him in or-
der to know his Creator through that separation. If he were
to abandon corporeality entirely, he would not use it except
on infrequent occasions, and he would remove his soul from
[her connection to] the material world and purify his intellect
for the knowledge of his God, and he will then find himself
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 141
in His presence, without obstacle or separation, and his soul
will be united to Him in absolute debequt, without any more
separation for ever, all the days. 283
This indicates to us that at least a literary expression of
mystical unity does appear in Jewish philosophy, a fact indicat-
ing the importance of philosophic thought for the understanding
of medieval Jewish mysticism.
The idea of the unity between man and God which, ac-
cording to Scholem, is foreign to Jewish mysticism, neverthe-
less appears in Abulafia in connection with several questions.
The passages quoted above from 'Or ha-Sekel, in which God, the
Active Intellect and the human intellect are portrayed as hav-
ing "one essence," suggest the conclusion that the intellectual
element in man is no other than a Divine "spark" which has
descended to the world of matter, and that the process of in-
tellection is simply the restoration of that spark to its divine
source. An allusion to this approach appears in the epistle, We-
Zot li-Yehuddh: 2S4 "the ultimate compound, which is man, who
comprises all the Sefirdt, and whose intellect is the Active Intel-
lect; and when you will untie its knots you will be united with it
[Le., 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 'Eyn Sofi 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.
In the first passage, we learn that man's intellect is liter-
ally the Active Intellect, which indicates that the Active Intellect
and the human intellect are essentially two aspects of the same
142 The Mystical Experience
essence. 285 In the second passage, we read of the dispersion of
"the inner forces" within the bodies of human beings, 286 who
are able to overcome multiplicity in order to cleave to God, "un-
til above where he mentions the name of God he ascends and
sits at the head of the Supreme Crown." The unity achieved
through debequt with God is therefore none other than the return
movement from multiplicity to unity, a movement known to us
from neo-Platonic philosophy. In 'Or fw-Sekel, there appears an
additional allusion to the division of the particular intellective
nature into human bodies:
Think that at that same time your soul shall be separated from
your body, and you shall die from this world and live in the
World to Come, which is the source of [existent] life dispersed
among all the living; and that is the intellect, which is the
source of all wisdom, understanding and knowledge. . . And
when your mind (da-^atka) comes to cleave to His mind, which
gives you knowledge, your mind must remove from itself the
yoke of all the alien ideas, apart from His idea which connects
between you and Him, by his honored and awesome Name. 287
The understanding of intellectual unity reappears in sev-
eral places among Abulafia's disciples. The author of Sefer ha-
Seruf writes: 288
But when you purify the intellect, when it is in matter, when it
is still in that same dwelling in truth, this is a great high level,
to cleave to the Causa causarum, after your soul is separated
from that matter in which it is, and the lower Chariot remains,
and the spirit 289 will return to God who gave it. . . And when the
spirit will be separated from the body, you will have already
achieved the purpose of purposes and cleaved to that light
beyond which there is no [other] light, and you have joined
with the life which is the bundle of all life and the source of
all life, and you are like one who kisses something which he
loves with the quintessence of love.
In R. Isaac of Acre's Me'irat 'Emaj/im, 290 we find an ap-
proach which facilitates unity; R. Isaac cites an extremely inter-
The Mystical Experience in Abraliam Abulafia 143
esting passage in the name of R. Nathan, worth quoting here in
full:
I heard from the sage R. Nathan I heard an explanation of this
name [i.e., the Intellect]. You must know that when the Divine
Intellect descends, it reaches the Active Intellect, and is called
Active Intellect; and when the Active Intellect descends to the
Acquired Intellect, it is called Acquired Intellect; and when the
Acquired Intellect descends to the Passive Intellect, it is called
Passive Intellect; and when Passive Intellect descends to the
soul which is in man, it is called the soul. We therefore find
that the Divine Intellect which is in the human soul is called
the soul, and this is from above to below. And when you
examine this matter from below to above, you shall see that,
when man separates himself from the vanities of this world
and cleaves by his thought and soul to the supernal [realms]
with great constancy, his soul will be called according to the
level among the higher degrees which he has acquired and
attached himself to. How so? If the soul of the isolated person
deserves to apprehend and to cleave to the Passive Intellect, it is
called Passive Intellect, as if it is Passive Intellect; and likewise
when it ascends further and cleaves to the Acquired Intellect,
it becomes the Acquired Intellect; and if it merited to cleave to
the Active Intellect, then it itself [becomes] Active Intellect; and
if you shall deserve and cleave to the Divine Intellect, happy
are you, because you have returned to your source and root,
which is called, literally, the Divine Intellect. And that person
is called the Man of God, that is to say, a Divine man, creating
worlds. 281
These remarks reflect the opinion, already expressed by
Abulafia, according to which the human intellect is nothing other
than an overflow of the Divine influx. 292 In addition to the simi-
larity mentioned between R. Nathan's approach and that of Ab-
ulafia, it seems that there is also evidence of an historical con-
nection between them. 233
'Or ha-Sekel, which concerns itself with philosophical sub-
jects and with topics pertaining to mystical prophecy — and from
244 The Mystical Experience
which we have cited those passages which are close to the view
of R. Nathan— was written for two of Abulafia's students, "R.
Abraham the Enlightened and R. Nathan the Wise (ha-Ndbon),"
with the express intention "that they receive from this book of
mine a path by which they may attempt to cleave to the First
Cause." 294 Nathan was a close disciple of Abulafia, as evinced
by the fact that his name appears in two additional places in the
latter's works, written seven years apart from one another. In 7s
'Adam™* he enumerates "R. Nathan ben Sa'adyahu" among his
seven disciples, next to R. Abraham ben Shalom. In the Intro-
duction to Sefer ha-Maftehot , 296 he again mentions R. Nathan ben
Sa'adyahu Hadad, once more in proximity to R. Abraham ben
Shalom. From the evidence contained in the two books men-
tioned, it follows that this R. Nathan lived in Messina. It is very
probable that R. Isaac of Acre met R. Nathan, and was influenced
by him.
I have discussed this question at some length, not only
because of its historical importance, but also because of its
ideational importance. The historical significance is clear: Abu-
lafia succeeded in training, not only disciples, but also a second
generation of disciples of those disciples who adhered to his
teaching even when they lived and functioned in the environ-
ment of Abulafia's great opponent, R. Solomon ibn Adret. Vsar
Hayyim, written after Me'irat 'Einayim, clearly indicates that Abu-
lafia's path continued to exist even after he himself was placed
under the ban. From an Intellectual viewpoint, Abulafia's influ-
ence upon R. Nathan, and the latter's possible influence upon
R. Isaac of Acre, indicates that even "extreme" ideas concerning
the Godhead and man's relation to it are very likely to pass from
one author to another and give birth to new mystical life.
13. The Loosening of the Knots
Debequt is considered to be the cleaving or unity of the hu-
man intellect with the Active Intellect or with God. This is made
The Mystical Experience in Abraliam Abulafia 145
possible by the removal of human consciousness from "natu-
ral" objects and its attachment to a spiritual subject, a process
described in Abulafia's writings by means of the image of the
loosening or untying of knots. 297 This image is composed of two
main sources: from a linguistic point of view, the source of the
Abulafian expressions cited below seems to be in the idioms ap-
pearing in Daniel 5:12, 16 — mesare qitrin and qitrm le-misra (loose
knots). The original connotation of the expression is magical,
referring to Daniel's ability to undo the magical knots by which
man is enslaved. 298 The motif of the magical tying is combined
with the understanding of nature as a prison of the soul 299 or as
a magician tying the soul to itself. 300 According to Abulafia, 301
man's function is to break the knots which imprison the human
soul and to attach them to the Active Intellect:
. . . Man is [tied] in the knots of world, year and soul [i.e., space,
time and persona] in which he is tied in nature, and if he unties
the knots from himself, he may cleave to He who is above them,
with the guarding of his soul via the way of the remnants 302
which God calls, who are those who fear God and take account
of His Name, who are called PerussTm (separatists), few ones,
[and] those who concentrate, to know God, blessed be He and
blessed be His Name. And they must conquer themselves [not]
to be drawn after the lusts of this world, and take care lest they
be drawn to them, like a dog toward his mate. Therefore, when
he becomes accustomed to the [way of] separateness, he will
strengthen [his] seclusion and relation [hitydhasut] and know
how to unify the Name [or God].
This passage resembles an approach found in the quo-
tation brought in the name of Avicenna by R. Shem Tov ibn
Falquera, in his book, March ha-M6reh:
And we are immersed in evil appetites, we do not feel that
same [spiritual] pleasure, and therefore we do not seek it and
do not turn toward it, except when we loosen the knot of lust
and anger from our necks. 303
146 The Mystical Experience
According to Abulafia's opinion, the entire world pre-
vents the soul from uniting with God:
For all things which exist are intermediaries between God, may
He be blessed, and man. And if you say: how can this be, for
if so it would require that man be at the greatest [imaginable]
distance from God. I say to you that you certainly speak the
truth, for thus it is, for he and the reality and the Torah are
witnesses to this, and therefore these are all tricks of reality
and tricks of the Torah, and the abundance of miswot which
exist in order to bring near he that was distant, [even if] in the
utmost distance from God, to bring him near in the epitomy of
closeness to Him. And all this to remove all the intermediaries
which are tied in the knots of falseness, and to free him from
beneath them, by the secret of the Exodus from Egypt and the
crossing of the sea on dry land, and to place an intermediary
only between the Name, which is the intellect of the mighty
man. 30 - 1
The loosening of the knot connecting man to nature also
requires the tying of a new knot, between man and the new level
which he has reached:
And the cosmic axis (teli) is none other than the knot of the
spheres, and there is no doubt that this is the subject of their ex-
istence, like the likeness of the connections of the limbs within
man, and the connections of the limbs in man which are sus-
pended in the bones at the beginning are also called the axis
in man as well. And its secret is that a magician bring this
knot of desire and renew it in order to preserve the existence
of this compound for a certain amount of time. And when the
knot is undone, the matter of the testimony of the knot will be
revealed, and one who cleaves to these knots [qesarim] cleaves
to falsehoods [seqdrim], for as they are going in the future to
be undone, the knots of his cleaving will also be undone, and
nothing will remain with him any more, and therefore, before
he loosens these, he must tie and cleave to the ropes of love
those who have not loosened the knots of his love and the
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 147
cleaving of his desire; and that is God, may He be exalted, and
no other in any sense. 305
In another passage, 306 we read:
. . . and he shall not wish to leave substances which are intel-
lective in potential, tied to nature, but he should do tricks and
teach Torah and command miswot to those who are immersed
[mutba'im] in natural things, to loosen their connections with
them, and to tie and to bind the natural forces with them, until
every existing thing will attain its part and portion 307 apppro-
priate to it.
The process of loosening and tying is identified with the
process of enlightenment: 308
However, so long as he does not understand the intelligible
and not know that which can be known, which is appropriate
in his knowledge, for which he was created, there is nothing
that can save him from Nature to which he is tied by nature 309
since he has been [i.e., alive].
According to Abulafia, this process is accomplished with
the help of the Divine Names:
He must link and change a name with a name, and renew a
matter, to tie the loosened and to loosen the tied, using known
names, in 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." 311
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 separa-
148 Tlie Mystical Experience
tion 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."
14. Characteristics of the Mystical Experience
In conclusion, attention should be devoted to certain char-
acteristic features of the prophetic or ecstatic-mystical experience
in Abulafia. A brief survey of these features will assist us in un-
derstanding Abulafia the mystic, by clarifying his position with
regard to a number of major components of the mystical expe-
" Rationalistic" Mysticism
A central element of Abulafia's understanding of prophe-
cy 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 debeaut, 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 pri-
vate experience is subjected to a rationalistic interpretation, as
we have seen above in the interpretation of a number of his vi-
sions 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 psy-
chological phenomena; Abulafia is now able to see it as a prin-
ciple guiding his entire world-view. For this reason, Abulafia's
I
The Mystical Experience in Abralmm Abulafia 149
'prophetic' experience seems to be the experiential culmination
of the mystical possibilities inherent in the cognitive forms found
in Maimonides, Avicenna, and Averroes. Hans Jonas' remarks
concerning the relationship between mysticism and the philo-
sophical system within which the mystic functions are pertinent
to our question:
Without an antecedent dogmatics there would be no valid mys-
ticism. And mysticism, let it be noted, wants to be "valid,"
namely, more than a revel of feeling. The true mystic wants to
put himself into possession of absolute reality, which already
is and about which doctrine tells him. So it was, at least, with
the mysticism of late antiquity which still stood in continuity
with the intellectual and ontological speculation of the Greek
past. Having an objective theory, the mystic goes beyond the-
ory; he wants experience of and identity with the object; and
he wants to be able to claim such an identity. Thus, in order
that certain experiences may become possible and even con-
ceivable as valid anticipations of an eschatological future, or
as actualizations of metaphysical stages of being, speculation
must have set the framework, the way, and the goal — long
before the subjectivity has learned to walk the way. 3H
In the case of Abulafia, the sources of the theoretical
framework and of the path toward its fulfilment are distinct from
one another, but they both preceded Abulafia. The "rationalis-
tic" nature of his experience is likewise seen in the conception of
God: the object to which the mystic cleaves is not the Neopla-
tonic God who is incapable of being known, but the Aristotelian
Intellect/ Intelligible / Act of Intellection.
The Mission
As is well known, the concept of mission is a central com-
ponent in the biblical understanding of prophecy: God chooses
a particular person who is made a prophet against his will, del-
egating him to perform a certain mission which the prophet
may at times not wish to carry out, or even find repugnant. 315
150 The Mystical Experience
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 re-
mote 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 visioiwry, one who combines personal expe-
rience with "Wisdom," where the intention of the visionary is
not so much to bring a message to society as to achieve salva-
tion for himself. 316 Abulafia's understanding of the concept of
prophecy combines these two types: the prophet-messenger is un-
derstood by him as a higher type than the prophet from whom
the influx of wisdom pours forth, namely a "merely" mystical-
contemplative person. The fourth of the five levels of prophecy
is described as follows: 317 "and the fourth is to strengthen the
heart until it will be proven and will speak and will write"; else-
where, he writes, 318 "and the level of the prophets who speak and
who compose [books] is greater than that of the prophets who at-
tempt to attain prophecy, while those who are sent are higher yet
than them." Again, 319 "and in accordance with the quantity of
the influx, the intellect shall force the [prophetic] speaker-author
to speak and to write according to the time and according to
the place and according to the generation." This definition of
prophetic mission as an expression of the power of the Divine
influx originates in Maimonides and in Arabic philosophy. 320
Abulafia describes the activity of the Biblical prophets, and by
analogy his own, as a combination of writing and agitation, of-
tentimes performed against his own will: 321
Know that every one of the early prophets was forced to speak
what they spoke and to write what they wrote, so that one finds
many of them who say that their intention is not to speak at
all before the multitude of the people of the earth, who are
lost in the darkness of temporality, but that the divine influx
which flowed upon them forces them to speak, and that they
are even subjected to shame, as in the saying of the prophet, 322
"I gave my back to the smiters and my cheek to those that
plucked; 1 hid not my face from shame and spitting," while
another prophet said, 323 "the Lord God will help me, who shall
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 151
condemn me?" And many other similar [sayings] in the way
of every chastiser.
Abulafia compared his lot to that of the biblical prophets
in a number of places:
It is not a miracle that there should happen to my work what
happened to the works of Moses our teacher, and to our
prophets and our wise men and to Rabbi Moses [i.e., Mai-
monides], for I shall also suffer what they, of blessed memory,
suffered, from this matter. And so is the way of every author
who composes a book for the sake of heaven, in every time
and every place, that is, it is incumbent that he suffer what
happens to him on account of his work. 324
The process of composition of Sefer ha-Gculdh is described
in the introduction as an act similar to that of the prophets: 325
A spirit came and made me stand on my legs, and called
me twice by my name, "Abraham Abraham," and I answered
"here I am" [an allusion to Gen. 22:1, 11]. And a voice came
with a great tumult and taught me by the way of justice, and
it taught me knowledge and related to me the way of under-
standing, and it informed me and wakened me as a man who
is awakened from his sleep to compose a new thing, nothing
of which was composed in its day, for the reason which I have
mentioned in the matter of Isaiah the prophet, who called to
the members of his generation on account of their being remote
from the truth. And it was not enough that they did not know
and hear his words and that they did not accept them from
him, but that they also hit him. 326
An additional expression of Abulafia's resemblance to the
prophets is found in the composition of Sefer ha-Haftdrdh, in the
introduction to which it states: 327 "And behold Raziel [i.e., Ab-
ulafia] commanded in this book to adjure God by His Name to
sanctify and to read in this book once every Sabbath, following
the reading of the Torah, among the Prophetic readings." As we
have seen above, Abulafia includes Moses among the prophets
152 The Mystical Experience
whose lot was similar to his own; one should add that there are
other statements in which he expresses his feeling that his own
prophecy was superior even to that of Moses. In R. Abraham
ibn Ezra's Commentary to the Torah on Exodus 3:13, we read in the
name of R. Joshua the Karaite "that there was a tradition in Israel
from their fathers that the redeemer of Israel discovered a new
name that was not heard." Just as Moses introduced the name
'Ehyeh 'aser 'Ehyeh ("I am that I am"), the Messiah will introduce
a new name. 328 Indeed, in many passages Abulafia refers to the
name >ahmy as the hidden name of god. In his opinion the pearl,
which is the symbol of the pure religion in Abulafia's version
of the famous three rings parallel, was not to be found among
Israel in his time: It follows from this that the mission of Moses,
the law-giver, was not entirely successful. 329
In my opinion, Abulafia conceived himself as The Pro-
phet, par excellence, superior even to Moses. 330 In Sefer ha-'Edut he
writes: 331 "Know that most of the visions which Raziel saw were
built upon the Ineffable Name and upon its revelation in the
world now, in our days, which has not been since the days of
Adam and is the root of all his books." This feeling that the
Messiah is superior even to Moses made it possible for him to
write: 333 "For I innovate a new Torah within the holy nation,
which is my people Israel. My honorable Name is like a new
Torah, and it has not been explicated to my people since the day
that I hid my face from them." 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 reveal 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 the prophecy of mission appears in an
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 153
advanced mystical stage in 'Osar Hayyim. Let us now examine R.
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., Malkut], while Moses himself [did
so] by the brilliance of Tif'eret which emanated from Tif'eret]
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.
The Eschatological Element
The prophetic experience was understood by Abulafia not
only as the apprehension of truths, but also as a path leading to
the survival of the soul. His description of the point of depar-
ture from which man commences his path toward immortality
is depicted in the darkest imaginable colors: 338
We eat and drink and have forbidden sexual relations, from
which we are bom through harlotry and lust and menstrual
blood and urine. And we were a fetid drop at the time of
our creation, and so we are today, fetid and besmirched with
filth and mud and vomit and excrement so that there is no
clean place. 337 While alive we are dust and ashes, and to dust
you shall return, and we shall be dead carcasses, putrid and
crushed in fire, like rubbish filled with vanity and spirits.
Apart from the bodily element, there also hover over man
the truths of the power of imagination:
154 The Mystical Experience
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 stands 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
In order to be saved from this situation, man must forfeit
this world in every sense of the word: 339 "and cast behind your-
self everything that exists apart from the Name, in your soul in
truth. . . and do not place any thought in the world upon any-
thing apart from Him, may He be blessed." Cleaving to God
draws the mystic closer to the source of apotheosis: 340
And Divine virtues are added to him until he speaks with the
holy spirit, whether in his writing or with his mouth; it is said
of this that this is in truth the king of the kings of flesh and
blood, as is said among people about a unique king of kings,
that he alone and those like him have passed the boundary of
humanity, and cleaved in their lifetime to their God, and even
more so when their natural and contingent matter dies.
The main purpose of the Torah and of the Kabbalah is: 341
"that man should attain the level of the angels called Ishim and
cleave to them for eternal life, until human beings shall turn into
separate angels after being, before hand-human beings in actu-
ality and angels in potential, but on a lower level." Man's trans-
formation 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 relinquish-
ment 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
1
The Mystical Experience in Abrafiam Abulafia 155
live for ever." Abulafia stresses the Platonic idea of voluntary
death in many passages. 344 In Gan Na<ul, S4b we read:
And these are miraculous secrets, and the general rule from
which you will die, and when you divide it into two equal
parts, one part shall be tihyeh ("you shall live") and also the
second part tihyeh. 3 * 6 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, 3 * 9 that the Torah is not preserved
except by one who kills himself in the tents of wisdom.
This casting off of corporeality brings out another char-
acteristic of the prophetic experience of Abulafia, namely, the
absence of ascetic elements in his system.
The Absence of Asceticism
Radical asceticism is a widely used method for attaining
ecstatic states in many mystical systems, the purpose of such
afflictions being to weaken the power of the body or of matter
to enable the intellect to act without interference. Such an ap-
proach is widespread in Neo-Platonic literature, in which matter
is understood as evil in its very essence; a struggle was carried
on between the intellect and the body, and at times between the
intellect and the soul, which is portrayed as the representative of
the bodily powers. 350 As Abulafia understood man's inner strug-
gle as taking place between the intellect and the imagination, one
cannot find in his writings extreme ascetic instructions necessary
for one who seeks to attain 'prophecy.' 351 His approach is rather
that, in order to attain 'prophecy,' one must act in the direction
of strengthening the intellect rather than that of suppressing the
body, the soul or the imagination:
156 Tlie Mystical Experience
One who enters the path of combination [of letters], which is
the way that is close to knowledge of God in truth, from all
the ways he will at once test and purify his heart in the great
fire, which is the fire of desire; and if he has strength to stand
the way of ethics, close to desire, and his intellect is stronger
than his imagination, he rides upon it as one who rides upon
his horse and guides it by hitting it with the boots to run at
his will, and to restrain it with his hand, to make it stand in
the place where his intellect will wish, and his imagination is
to be a recipient that he accept his opinion. . . The man who
possesses this great power, he is a man in truth. 352
The ideal situation is the negation of those activities of
the 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: 351
He shall pray and beseech continuously to the Honorable
Name, to save him from the attributes until he be found in-
nocent in the Supernal Court, and... in the lower court, and
will inherit two worlds, 355 this world and the World to Come.
The life of the World to Come may be seen as an allu-
sion to the ecstatic state specifically in this world. Particularly
striking is the difference between Abulafia's refusal to make use
of the way of asceticism 356 and the suggestion appearing in R.
Isaac of Acre:
And you shall live a life of pain in your house of seclusion,
lest your appetitive soul be strengthened over your intellective
soul, that in this you shall merit to draw down the divine in-
flux upon your intellectual soul, [using] the Torah, namely, the
science of combination and its prerequisites, this Glory being
the supernal Divine influx, which is the real Glory authentic. 357
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 157
There seems no doubt concerning the growing influence
of Sufic mystical sources in the works of the disciples of Ab-
ulafia, which directed the character of post-Abulafian ecstatic
Kabbalah in the matter of asceticism. 358
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 experi-
ence correctly, because they were the result of certain concepts in
which he was used to thinking, or is this a case in which mean-
ing 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 Vsar 'Eden Gdnuz:
When 1 was thirty-one years old, in the city of Barcelona, God
woke me from my sleep and I studied Sefer Yesirah with its
commentaries; and the hand of God [rested] upon me, and I
wrote some books of wisdom and wondrous books of prophe-
cies, and my spirit was 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
littie 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 tiie prophet [i.e., [50]46
= 1286 C.E.], God had favor in me and brought me to his holy
tabernacle. 359
158 The Mystical Experience
Abulafia reveals here that not all of his visions are the re-
sult 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 apparendy 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 allegor-
ically 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 intel-
lectual matters in the vision. Since the correspondence between
the content of the vision as it has been given and the specula-
tive 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.
Chapter Four
The Use of Erotic Images
for the Prophetic Experience
In their attempts to portray the connection between the
human soul and the Active Intellect or the Divine, medieval
Jewish mystics made use of erotic images. While these images
are part of the stock in trade of mystical literature generally, 1
they are particularly common among those mystics belonging to
theistic religions, and in those religions in which love enjoys a
high place on the scale of values. These images may be classified
into two principal groups:
1. Images portraying the spiritual connection between the lover
and his beloved, i.e., descriptions of such emotions as long-
ing, submission, etc. Such imagery is extremely common,
and by its means one may portray spiritual stances continu-
ing over a period of time; these images appear alike in mys-
tical literature and among philosophers, religious poets and
exegetes of the Song of Songs. A wide variety of such images
appears in Hebrew literature, and these have been discussed
by a number of scholars. 2 In this respect, one finds no radical
innovations in Abulafia, who follows Maimonides in seeing
the love of God as the apex of intellectual worship. 3
2. Images portraying the physical connection between the lover
and his beloved. These images are rarer, and are most of-
ten used to depict events which by their nature are limited
160 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
in time. These tend to be restricted to mystical literature,
and only rarely appear among non-mystic authors. In this
respect, one finds in Abulafia daring use of physical acts as
images for the connection between the Active Intellect and
the human mind.
Generally speaking, these two kinds of images relate to
different aspects or directions of the connection. While those in
the former group describe the relationship of the soul to God or
to the Active Intellect, the latter illustrate the feelings of the mys-
tic during those moments at which God reveals Himself with
greatest intensity. In the attempt to convey the nature of this
revelation, use is made of bodily imagery in a manner which
at times seems to border on the profane. Analysis of Abulafia's
writings suggests that the images belonging to this latter cat-
egory may be divided into five groups, to be discussed here
according to their natural, chronological order: the kiss, sexual
union, seed, impregnation, and birth. It is superfluous to add
that there is no comprehensive or systematic discussion of any
one of these groups in Abulafia; the material discussed here has
been gathered from statements found in various places through-
out his writings, organized here systematically for purposes of
comparison and reconstruction.
1. The Image of the Kiss
The term, "death by a kiss," appears a number of times
in Talmudic and Midrashic literature, 4 where it is used in con-
nection with the deaths of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to ex-
press death without suffering, referring to a concrete act of God,
whereby He removes the soul of the righteous by means of a
kiss on his mouth. For this reason, the kiss is not thought of as
an image for the relationship between man and God. 5 The trans-
formation of the expression of "death by a kiss" into a figurative
image already occurs in Maimonides, who writes in Guide, 111:51,
627-28:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 161
When this perfect man is stricken in age and is near death, his
knowledge mightily increases, his joy in that knowledge grows
greater, and his love for the object of his knowledge more in-
tense, and it is in this great delight that the soul separates from
the body. To this state our Sages referred, when in reference to
the death of Moses, Aaaron and Miriam they said that death
was in these three cases nothing but a kiss... The meaning of
this saying is that these three died in the midst of the plea-
sure derived from the knowledge of God and their great love
for him. When our Sages figuratively call the knowledge of
God united with intense love for Him a kiss, they follow the
well-known poetical diction, "Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth." 6 This kind of death, which is in truth deliver-
ance from death, has been ascribed by our Sages to none but
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
Maimonides' interpretation of the verse from Song of Songs,
and of the expression, "death by the kiss," requires some expla-
nation. In his view, death by the kiss took place as a conse-
quence of the natural process of aging, which in the cases of
Moses, Aaron and Miriam intensified their intellectual powers; 8
this intensification was accompanied by the joy associated with
the process of enlightenment, whereby the soul separated itself
from the body. This understanding is based upon the Biblical
and Talmudic sources, describing the deaths of Moses, Aaron
and Miriam as natural ones, occurring in advanced old age. An
addditional point must be stressed here: that these three figures
did not die a voluntary death. To the contrary, Moses did not
wish to depart from this world, as we are told at length in the
many legends surrounding his death. 9
The Guide for the Perplexed was doubtless the source of inspi-
ration for Abulafia when he wrote in his Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba>, 10
"but one whose soul is separated from him at the time of pro-
nouncing [the Divine Names] has died by the [Divine] kiss: of
this they said: 11 "R. Akiba's soul departed with [the recitation
162 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
of the word] 'One'." While Maimonides interprets death by the
kiss as the result of a natural process, in Abulafia it is the result
of a deliberate process, whereby the mystic enters a state of ec-
stasy; if death occurs while reciting God's name, this is a sign
that he has attained a very high level. The reference to age as a ■
factor making it easier to reach ecstasy is totally absent in Abu-
lafia's writings; death by the kiss is conditional exclusively upon
the use of a certain technique. For this reason, Abulafia substi-
tuted R. Akiba for Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, all of whom died
natural deaths, despite the fact that it is not stated that Akiba
died by the kiss, and he died an unnatural death. One might say
that Abulafia so to speak reversed the order of things: whereas
Maimonides holds that the process of aging strengthens spiri-
tual insight while weakening the powers of the body, Abulafia
believes that intense spiritual apprehension may itself attenuate
the connection between body and soul and bring about death.
Elsewhere in Abulafia, we read: "For he will kiss him
of the kisses of his mouth: immediately he will awaken from
his slumber and know the day of his death and understand the
great difference between his soul and his body." 12 The volun-
taristic aspect of the process here is striking: when the Active
Intellect pours its "kisses" upon the soul, the soul understands
that it must acquire its eternity by means of study, thereby oblit-
erating death. While in Maimonides the word "death" is in-
tended literally, Abulafia uses it in the metaphorical sense. In
'Or iia-Sekel, he writes as follows about the moment of mystical
experience: "think in that hour that your soul shall be separated
from your body and you shall die from this world and live in the
next world." 13 It seems clear that Abulafia is not referring here
to actual bodily death, but to the mystic's transformation into
a participant in eternal life. According to Abulafia'a approach,
one does not require bodily death in order to attain this level. 14
Death is here a mystical process: man leaves this world so long
as he succeeds in adhering to the Active Intellect, and thereby
inherits the World to Come.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 163
Abulafia's disciples generally speaking accepted his sys-
tem, but seem to be unaware of the subtle but important distinc-
tion between literal and mystical death. Thus, even while basing
themselves upon Abulafia, they repeated Maimonides' formula-
tions regarding the separation between the body and the soul.
For example, in Sullam ha-'AIiyah 1 * R. Judah Albotini writes as fol-
lows concerning the moment of pronouncing the Divine Name:
Without doubt, at that moment he has departed the realm of
the human and entered into the realm of the Divine, his soul
becomes separated [i.e., from matter] and refined, cleaving to
the root of the source from which it was hewn. And it has hap-
pened that one's soul became entirely separated at that moment
of separation, and he remained dead. Such a death is the most
elevated one, as it is close to death by the Divine kiss, and it
was in this manner that the soul of Ben Azzai, who "gazed
and died," left this world, for his soul rejoiced when it saw the
source whence it was hewn, and it wished to cling to it and to
remain there and not to return to the body. Of his death it is
said, "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his pious
ones." 16 Some of the masters of Wisdom and those who have
engaged in such acts have said that one who does not wish
his soul to separate itself from him during that vision ought
to make his soul swear an oath, by a curse or by the Great
and Awesome Name, prior to the act but while still in his own
domain and in his human condition, that at the time of the
vision and the appearance, when he shall no longer be under
his own volition, his soul shall not separate itself and cling to
its source, but return to its container.
This double aspect of ecstasy — the fullness of human ex-
perience, on the one hand, and death, on the other 17 — reappears
elsewhere in the writings of Abulafia's disciples. In a passage
reserved in two manuscripts containing material from his circle,
we read:
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
164 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
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
One of Abulafia's disciples, the author of Sefer ha-Malmad,
designates those who receive the true Torah as "the seekers of
the kiss" (mebaasey Ita-nesiqdh):
Indeed Moses received the Torah at Sinai and gave it over to
those who sought the kiss, and this is a great secret; there is
no place in the entire Torah which arouses the soul to its initial
thought like this. And this is the secret of the seekers of the
kiss — that they may be cleansed of the punishment of Mount
Sinai and receive the known cause on Mt. Gerizim, upon which
dwells the created light, which is holy to God; and the entire
law hangs upon it, and also all deeds and the Tabernacle, and
upon it revolve the heavens, which the entire people accepted
and [nevertheless] did not accept upon themselves — that place
which is the sanctuary of the soul with the intellect 19
It seems to me that the expression "seekers of the kiss"
ought to be interpreted here as an allusion to the ecstatic mystics
who receive the genuine Torah; the mountain evidently alludes
to the soul, while the Torah refers to the intellect. 20 Hints of the
nature of this ecstasy likewise appear in the continuation of the
passage quoted above: "Indeed, Gerizim is ten names, but they
are only known to those who have heard Torah, in which its
truth is hinted, and he is one that the Divine Presence dwells
with him and in his heart." 31
It is interesting to compare the opinion of the author of
Sefer ha-Seruf, which has been attributed to Abulafia, with that of
Abulafia himself.
In Sefer ha-Seruf, we read:
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 165
When the soul is separated from the body she has already
apprehended the purpose of [all] purposes, and cleaved to the
light beyond which there is no other light, and takes part in
the life which is the bundle of all life and the source of all
life, and he is like one who kisses something which he loves
utterly, and he is unable to cleave to it until this time. And
this is the secret of the kiss spoken of regarding the patriarchs,
of whom it is said that they died with the kiss: that is, that
at the moment that they departed they attained the essence of
all apprehensions and above all degrees [ma'alah], because the
interruptions and all the obstacles which are in the world left
them, and the intellect returned to cleave to that light which
is the Intellect. And when he cleaves in truth, that is the true
kiss, which is the purpose of all degrees. 22
I have cited here the view of those authors closest to Ab-
ulafia, examination of whose writings indicates that they de-
parted from his path. It is interesting that it was particularly
the Neoplatonic tradition within Jewish thought which fostered
the viewpoint close to that of Abulafia concerning the subject of
death by the kiss, but we cannot discuss this matter in depth in
the present context. 33
2. The Image of Intercourse
While the image of the kiss is a very common one, ex-
pressing the connection between the human soul and the Active
Intellect, 24 that of sexual intercourse, in the sense in which this is
used by Abulafia, is far rarer. 35 The emotional power suggested
by this image is thoroughly appropriate to the intense experi-
ence designated by Abulafia with the term prophecy or ecstasy.
Zaehner's comments on this point are significant:
This is absolutely appropriate, for just as the human body
knows no sensation comparable in sheer joyful intensity to that
which the sexual act procures for a man and woman in love,
166 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
so must the mystical experience of soul in the embrace of God
be utterly beyond all other spiritual joys. 26
In those sources related to the ecstatic Kabbalah, the im-
age of intercourse already appears in the writings of Abulafia's
teacher, R. Barukh Togarmi. In his Commentary to Sefer Yesirak,
he writes 27 :
And [behold] the jealousy of the male and the female, its cycle
is full tint, and in truth it is the beginning of the counting or
the Prince of the World. And it is said: twenty-two letters are
the foundation, that is, the foundation of the entire world, and
this is the secret of, "Mouth to mouth I will speak to him," 28
that is, in the union of the king and the queen, that is, in the
kiss.
This passage is based upon a series of plays upon the
gematria of the words used: immediately prior to the sentences
quoted, we read, "a thousand men in the heavens," whose nu-
merical value in Hebrew is 651, equal to the subsequent expres-
sions, ha-ijirrdh ^al zdkar u-neqebah (the jealousy of the male over the
female); mahzor dyo salem (its cycle is full tint); ro$ ha-minyan (the
beginning of the count); and stir ha-<6lam (the Prince of the World).
This last phrase undoubtedly refers to the Active Intellect, which
is frequently known in medieval literature by the term "Prince of
the world." The numerical value of the expression "twenty-two
letters" ('esrim u-setayim 'otiyol) is 2199 which, if the thousands
are changed into units, becomes 201 (i.e., 2+199), whose value
in gematria in turn equals kol ha-<6lam (the entire world); peh 'el
peh (mouth to mouth); and ha-melek we-ha-malkah (the king and the
queen). It is clear that all this refers to a particular kind of rev-
elation, alluded to by the verse, "mouth to mouth I will speak
with him"— an image for the union of the king and queen, in
which the king corresponds to the Active Intellect and the queen
to the human soul. Further on in this passage, R. Barukh writes:
'"In you is the tint' — that is, in you is the foundation of God,
which is the intellect which flows into the soul. . . for the soul or
the intellect both appear in the holy language, and when they are
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 167
united together — that is, the soul and the intellect — they receive
pleasure." Again, ha-nefes we-ha-sekel (the soul and the intellect) =
796 = Itison ha-qodd (the Holy Tongue) = sa 'aswim (pleasure).
The erotic allusions found in R. Barukh Togarmi were ex-
tensively developed by Abulafia, who frequently speaks of the
union between the intellect and the soul in terms of the secrets
of language. Abulafia uses the image of intercourse more ex-
tensively than that of the kiss, which may be an indication that
he considered his own experiences to transcend the first level of
connection with the active intellect. The primary sources of this
image are naturally found in the Song of Songs: the lover is the
Active Intellect, while his beloved is the human intellect:
And by this secret was the Song of Songs composed, that is, in
the meaning of the desire of those whose desire is toward their
beloved, following the imaging of the love of their loved ones.
And this is the image of groom and bride. 29
However, the most interesting use of the image of inter-
course appears in Sefer Mafteah ha-Sefirot: 30
Apprehension of the nature of prophecy [i.e., ecstasy]: there
is nothing more difficult for man to apprehend in all human
apprehensions [than this], and the human mind has not the
power to apprehend this until it is attached to the divine intel-
lect, 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
168 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
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 miswot and knowledge
of their reasons in general, and after it has ascended the rungs
of apprehension included in knowledge of the truth and re-
moval of the illusions according to Kabbalah. . . and the last is
the purpose of the general prophecy.
The interpretation given here to the Song of Songs is strik-
ingly different from that generally found in Jewish philosophy
and in theosophic Kabbalah; in this approach. Song of Songs is
seen as a love song which describes the erotic contacts be-
tween bride and groom, on the literal level, and the character
of prophecy or mystical experience, on the esoteric level. As in
the relationship between a man and a woman, so in the mystical
experience there is a progression in the character of experience
and its goals. It is worthy of note that the soul is understood
as a woman, a very widespead image in mysticism: 32 just as the
ultimate sexual contact is the outcome of a long-continued quest,
the soul likewise attains 'prophecy' only after great intellectual
effort, the main elements of which are, first, study of the secrets
of Torah and, second, knowledge of reality as it is. 33
Having seen that the image of sexual union is intended
to portray the relationship of the Active Intellect to the soul, we
may now proceed to another passage. In Gan N&ul, 34 Abulafia
writes:
The Mystical Experience in Abraltam Abulafta 169
. . . the Song of Songs is a parable of the community of Israel
with the Holy One, blessed be He, 35 who is like a bridegroom,
is perfect in every respect, and she is to him like a bride perfect
in every respect, He in His Divinity and she in her humanity. 36
And the debeaut and love between them is shared via as-
cents and descents: she ascends and He descends. 37 "Who
is it that ascends from the desert;" 3 " "to the garden of nuts
I descended." 39 This is an allusion to a virgin, over whose vir-
ginal blood one recites the benediction, "Who placed a nut
in the Garden of Eden. . . " 40 And the partnership of the two
of them is like that of male and female, man and woman. 41
. . . And human love cannot share in the divine save after much
study of Torah and much attainment of wisdom, and after hav-
ing received prophecy, and this is the secret of Hdtdn (bride-
groom): Torah, [the letter] tav, between Hri-Wisdom (Hoktndh)
on its right and "Prophecy" (Nebu'ah) on its left.
As in the quotation from Mafteah lia-Sefirot, here too
prophecy is preceded by two stages: the study of Torah and of
wisdom. Abulafia expresses the idea that within the bridegroom
(Hdtdn), namely within the Active Intellect, there exist Prophecy,
Wisdom and Torah— knowledge, by interpreting the word Hdtdn
as an acronym {notariqdn): H-Hokmdh on the right; T-Talmud Torah
in the middle; N-Nebwdh on the left. The sexual connection is
alluded to here, among other things, by the words ascent and
descent borrowed from Song of Songs. On the mystical level, this
refers to the influx of the Active Intellect, alluded to in the term
descent, and the elevation of the soul, alluded to in the term ascent.
Here, too, Abulafia follows Maimonides, who sees these terms
as homonyms. 42 He returns to the concept of ascent and descent
in Sefer 'Or ha-sekel:
This is the [great] power of man: he can link the lower [part]
with the higher one, and the lower [part] will ascend and cleave
to the higher, and the higher will descend and kiss the entity
ascending toward it, like a bridegroom actually kisses his bride,
out of his great and real desire characteristic to the delight of
both, from the power of the Name [of God]. 43
170 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
In Hayyey ha-Nefes; {A we read:
... the cleaving of all knowledge to the Name in its activities,
in the secret of the pleasure of bridegroom and bride. 45 And
it is known that this wondrous way is one accepted to all the
"prophetic" 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 ac-
companying mystical experience. One might argue that this is
merely a theoretical inference from the pleasure which accom-
panies sexual union, but in several passages Abulafia makes it
quite clear that this pleasure is in fact the aim of mystical expe-
rience. In Sefer 'Or ha-Sekel, 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. 411
As is well known, in the hierarchy customary in the Mid-
dle 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 dis-
tinction between apprehension and pleasure is not so sharp, al-
though there too pleasure may be seen as the final goal. Thus,
he writes in Mafteah Ita-Tokahot:
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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 171
In addition to these theoretical expressions, there are de-
scriptions of the mystical experience and of the sensation of plea-
sure accompanying it. In 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz,' 19 for example, we
read:
And you shall feel in yourself an additional spirit rousing you
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 appro-
priate means of expressing the feelings which accompany the
mystical experience, unlike other authors who, while using the
metaphor of intercourse in order to describe their love of God,
were more hesitant to do so to express God's love for them. 51
Abulafia does not suggest anywhere that this image is an inap-
propriate one to its subject: on this point, Abulafia departs rad-
ically from Maimonides' teaching. Following Aristotle, 52 Mai-
monides sees the apprehension of the Divine as the highest goal
of human activity; the joy which accompanies it is only a side-
effect of this activity. 53 Abandoning his path in this respect, Ab-
ulafia crystallized an approach, apparently based upon personal
experience- that there is an additional stage to the acquisition
of intellectual perfection-namely, that of the pleasure deriving
from the mystical experience. 54 In following this path, Abulafia
is close to the Moslem mystics, who were accused by Ibn Bajja
of limiting the expression of union with God to conceptions of
pleasure. 55 Under the influence of Plotinus, a number of Italian
Renaissance thinkers thought of pleasure as a value preferable
to apprehension; it would seem worthwhile to examine whether
the translation of Abulafia's books into Latin might not have
also contributed to this tendency. 56
172 The Use of Erotic Images for tlie Prophetic Experience
The image of sexual union is used as well in other books
from Abulafia's circle. R. Nathan ben Sa'adyah Harar describes
in Sawey Sedeq the relationship between the soul and the body
as that between the mistress of the house and her servant, while
that between the soul and the intellect is like that between a
woman and her husband. He writes as follows of the connec-
tion between the intellect and the soul: '"For thy maker is thy
husband.' This is her true husband, in terms of the maintenance
[of her]." 57 In *6sdr Hayyim,™ R. Isaac of Acre writes:
Likewise, the saying of the Sages: 59 "A wife is acquired in
three manners: by money [in Hebrew: also "silver"], by a doc-
ument, and by intercourse." "See life with a woman whom
you love"; 60 "He who finds a wife finds goodness"; 61 "Who
shall find a woman of valour" 62 — all these allude to Torah, to
wisdom and to intellect, which a man acquires by three prin-
ciples, if he is enlightened in the secrets of three worlds: the
lowly world, from which one mines silver — which is a min-
eral, neither seeing nor hearing nor feeling: this is alluded to
[by silver]; the intermediate world, from which there comes
light to the sages who read books written upon documents of
parchment, paper alluding to the document— "For the com-
mandment is a candle and the Torah is light"; 63 and the upper
world, the world which the intellect desires, and will rejoice
and be glad to come and dwell within the pure reflective soul,
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, for more than the calf
wishes to suck the cow wishes to give suck 64 — this is symbol-
ized by intercourse.
Elsewhere in the same work, 65 R. Isaac of Acre interprets
another rabbinic saying: 66 "'A woman speaking [i.e., engaged in
intercourse] with her husband'— this alludes to the rational soul
and to the upper world, which is the world of intellect." We see
that in both passages, the relationship between the intellective
soul and the upper world, the world of the Intellect, is indicated
by explicitly erotic images. We learn here of the cleaving between
the soul and its supernal source, whether by its own ascent or
by the "descent" of the upper world to dwell in the speaking
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 2 73
soul. A similar approach appears in a brief discussion in which
R. Isaac compares the words of prophecy, received during the
course of a mystical experience, to the role of the matchmaker,
who acts as a go-between for purposes of marriage: 67
Moreover, the word 68 used in the Arabic language to refer to
one who speaks of a match between a man and a woman,
to make matches and weddings, is qatib. And the words of
prophecy 69 of God to the prophet are [also] called qatib.
Finally, I wish to mention the words of R. Nathan, who
was seemingly an avenue by which R. Isaac of Acre learned of
Abulafia's teachings, who provides the following reading in a
collection gathered by R. Isaac: 70
That we ought not to remove our thoughts from God, and that
our intellective souls shall always long for supernal knowledge,
which alludes to the supernal influx 71 and which sweetens 72
it, just as it is sweet to a woman to receive the influx from her
husband who loves her with a strong love; and if she does so,
then they shall always be attached in a true union.
The frequent use of the image of intercourse in order to
portray the mystical experience, or at times even the experience
of unio mystica, is one of the signs of the existence of a Kabbalistic
circle for whom mystical experiences was an ideal, and who gave
expression to their attainment of these experiences by means of
a unique set of images.
3. The Image of Seed
Already in ancient times the motif of spiritual union was
linked with that of spiritual seed. 73 Iraeneus quotes a sentence
from the Gnostic Marcos associating the two motifs: "Prepare
yourself as a bride prepares herself, waiting for her bridegroom,
so that you may be that which I am, and I will be that which are;
receive in your bridal chamber the seed of light." 74 The idea of
174 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
intellective seed, which is widespread in Stoic literature, 75 found
its way to Abulafia via channels that are unclear to me. In 'Osdr
"Eden Gdnuz, 16 he writes:
The seed is a matter of that which exists through the existence
of the Active Intellect, which is the influx by which the soul
receives it, and it is like the image of the seed born from the
man and woman. Of this it is likewise said by way of parable,
"and choose life, that you may live, you and your seed," 77
which is the life of the world to come. . . "Who is wise? He
who sees the future [lit.: "That which is to be bom']" 7a He sees
the seed which we have mentioned, which is the son that is
born.
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 Hayyey lia-'Oldm 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."™ This idea likewise appears in Sahara/ Sedea, where R.
Nathan ben Sa-adyah Harar 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 writings, that the Sefirdh of Malkut:
...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.* 1
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-Bahir 8 *; it was accepted by the earliest Kabbalists, 84
.
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 175
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
4. The Secret of Impregnation
As we have seen, the pleasure which accompanies sexual
union rendered it an appropriate image for the mystical experi-
ence. But there is an additional aspect which was exploited by
Abulafia in order to draw a connection between sexual union
and ecstasy: the aim of fmitfullness. 86 We have seen above how,
in the quotation from Mafteah ha-Sefirot, one of the purposes of
sexual union is seen as impregnation. The meaning of this term
in the context of mystical experience is the flow of the intel-
lective influx into the intellective soul and its absorption by the
soul. Abulafia was not the first to interpret the term in this man-
ner; already in the earliest phase of Kabbalah, "impregnation"
was a symbol for the reception of influx. Thus, in one of the
manuscripts containing material from the Kabbalistic school of
Gerona we find the following statement:
I received from R. A[braham] that when the influx descends
from the attribute [i.e., sefirah] via the paths, a holy intercourse
takes place, and this is the secret of impregnation explained to
the pious ones; that when they receive a merciful [sic! should
read "spiritual"] flow, this is a form of impregnation. 87
But whereas in Geronese Kabbalah this term is generally
connected with the doctrine of transmigration of the soul, 8 * 1 in
Abulafia it acquires an entirely different meaning. In Sefer na-Ce'
uldh, he writes:
The secret of impregnation depends upon the movements and
the Zodiac; behold, when your soul becomes wise it is impreg-
nated with knowledge and gives birth to insights and wisdom
in its thoughts, and the active intellect is her husband, and his
176 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
name is isim (i.e., "people"), and he is her husband. And the
vessels prepared for her are the letters, which are the material,
and they fulfill the place of the womb of the woman [in relation
to] the soul. 88
Abulafia attempts to relate the original Talmudic mean-
ing of the term sod ha-<ibbur (here translated as "the secret of
impregnation") — that is, the calculations necessary in order to
determine the additional amount of time to be added to a leap
year — to the meaning which he gives to the same term. The in-
tercalation of the year is dependent upon calculations pertaining
to the movements of the constellations, for which reason sod ha-
"tbbur in its literal sense pertains to the realms of time and space.
Abulafia adds the soul to these two dimensions, so that we ar-
rive at the well-known triad of Sefer Yesirah, 90 "soul [i.e., man],
world and year" (nefes, '61dm, sdnah)." 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 "under-
standings" under the influence of the Active Intellect. It is worth
noting that, like the calculations of gematriot, the calendrical cal-
culations 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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 177
Let us now go on to another distinction between two
different kinds of impregnation. In Sefer Tmrey Sefer, Abulafia
writes: 93
The two kinds of impregnation (<ibbur), that is, two forms
which alternate with little difficulty and are similar in most
respects and in their common use, and which differ in their
offspring, to bear fruit similar to themselves. And if the upper
one passes on the seed prior to the lower one, which is impreg-
nated, the offspring will be similar to the lower one, possessing
the opening (neqeb), which is called female (neqebdh) or woman
(>isdh); and she is Eve (Hawaii), because she desired mystical
experience, and obliged herself to be the material to the upper
one, [who] conquers and inscribes himself in his place below,
and is rooted and becomes a model to what comes after him,
and it sealed in his form and image to protrude out.
And when the lower matter comes to him and is connected
with him, and embraces and kisses him and is attached and
united with him, warp and woof, like the image of the torch
within a torch or of thunder within thunder or of lightning
within lightning, and they become connected to one another,
then the latter becomes a concave seal, and her opening is
opened.
And this is the secret, "when this is opened that is shut, and
when that is open this is shut." And in the hands of the two
is a magical key, which portrays all its forms, warp and woof,
and if the action is reversed between the two who are giving
seed, and the lower matter conquers the upper, then the names
formed are four: 'Adam (Adam), Zdkar (Male), 7s (Man), Haydh
(Living Creature); "and no man remembered that unfortunate
man." 94 And as is the offspring between the two of them, so is
the offspring of [mystical] "prophecy" in the two substances:
the lower and upper matter.
This passage is based upon a Rabbinic saying in Nidddh
31b: "R. Isaac said in the name of R. Ammi: If the woman
discharges seed first, then she shall bear a male child; if the
178 The Use of Erotic Images for the Proplietic Experience
man discharges seed first, then she shall bear a female child."
The meaning of this Talmudic saying is that the seed which is
discharged last determines the sex of the child. It follows that
there are two kinds of impregnation: the former, that brought
about when the upper or male partner discharges seed first, and
the latter, which takes place when the lower or female partner
discharges seed first. On the metaphoric level, the upper or male
is the Active Intellect, which "passes" the seed, while the lower
is the human soul, which becomes impregnated. The result of
the former type of impregnation, in which the Active Intellect
"emits seed" first, is negative, i.e., female; as the soul is not yet
prepared to receive the intellective influx, her offspring is similar
to herself: that is, she gives birth not to a male, i.e., intellect, but
to a female force, i.e., the soul. 95 The sequence of terms: defus
(imprint), hdtdm (seal), selem (image), and bolet (protruding) allude
to the Active Intellect and its activities. 96 In this case, one speaks
of a seal, that which it is intended to "seal" coming by itself and
being "underneath." The sense of the verbs pdtah (open) and j
satam (seal) is not altogether clear; it may be that the expression,
"when this opens that shuts" refers to a situation in which the
lower matter is prepared to receive the influx, while the upper
is still "shut." The negative implication of such a match follows
from this; this type of impregnation is also portrayed in the
negative images of "warp and woof," 97 "key" and "magical."
The meaning of the second kind of impregnation is gener- I
ally clearer; the "reversed activity" seems to refer to a situation
in which the one who emits seed first is the lower matter, in
which case the result will be positive, i.e., intellective. This is
the context of the verse from Ecclesiastes, which refers to the first
image as wisdom, "and they found there a wise but unfortunate
man, and he fled the city in his wisdom." However, it is diffi-
cult to understand the significance of the expression "the lower
matter shall conquer the upper."
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 179
The two passages analyzed above prove that Abulafia saw
the image of impregnation as an appropriate one for the receiv-
ing of the influx from the active intellect. 98
Several of the elements discussed above are combined to-
gether in a discussion found in Se'erit Ydsef s by R. Joseph ibn
Sayyah, a sixteenth-century Jerusalem Kabbalist, who on some
points follows Abulafia's path:
For the secret of his right [hand] is the circle of man, and the
secret of his left hand is the circle of fire, and the secret of both
of them is "the activity in the woman," which is [tantamount
to] "he acts in the man," from which there comes "love to the
influx," which is "influx to love," [symbolized by] the "roof"
of the [letter] Heh, with the aspect of God portrayed, like the
letter Dalet, whose number is four, the secret of impregnation,
which is squared, and the number of Heh is five, which is the
secret of impregnation.
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 aa/Sr (influx), whose
results are evidently the impregnation or the "secret of impregna-
tion." This would indicate that Abulafia's type of thought pene-
trated into the latter Kabbalistic school of mid-sixteenth-century
Jerusalem. It is also quite plausible that the above-quoted sec-
tion is in fact a fragment from one of Abulafia's lost writings,
or of one of his circle. In any event, we shall now go on to the
results of the process of "impregnation."
180 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
5. The Son and the New Birth
As we have seen above, the desired outcome of the preg-
nancy is a male child: the birth of a son symbolizes the ap-
pearance of the Intellect within the human soul; 100 in several
places, Abulafia designates the Intellect by the term son. Thus,
in Hayyey ha J 6ldm ha-Ba\ he writes: "the human intellect is the
fruit of God, may He be praised, and by way of simile is His
seed, and he is in truth His son." 101 In Vsar "Eden Gdnuz, 102 he
states: "We require redemption in any event from the one who
destroys, and this is the secret of the redemption of the son, as is
said, 'All first-bom of my sons I will redeem,' and this is a hint
of the commandment of redeeming the first bom of the powers
within man, which is the intellect." 103 At the end of the above-
mentioned work, we read: "I said at the beginning of this book,
in the introduction, that it is a worthy act to redeem the son, who
is in the image of the A[leph\, that is, one and unique from the
perfect one, which is the intellect in truth." 104 In Sefer ha-Melis, we
read "that when this intellect is bom, which is his son (ben), from
the root "understanding" (binah), he will be assisted by God, be-
cause the way [of man] is the way of the turning fiery sword, and
he cannot give birth except by study of the intelligibilia." 105 The
alleged semantic connection between ben (son) and binah (under-
standing) reappears in 'Osdr "Eden Ganuz: "For there is his intel-
lect, called 'son,' from [the word] 'understanding.'" 106 Likewise
in Sefer Iia-Gculdh we read: 107 "For the disciples of the prophets
are called their sons [i.e., beney ha-nebinm], and likewise birth it-
self, as is said, 'And he begate in his image and likeness,' and
we shall explain this matter of image and likeness, which also
refers to understanding." 108 Further on in this same passage, we
encounter another "etymology":
[A son (ben)], which means Sem [i.e., the name of Noah's son;
in Hebrew: "name"], which causes man to understand and to
gain understanding from it, and to exist it, just as the son is
the cause of the existence [or continuation] of the species. And
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 181
it is known that the material [i.e., human] intellect is son to the
Divine intellect.
With some minor changes, Abulafia reiterates the inter-
connections among ben (son) — boneh (builds)— binyan (building)
in Sitrey Tdrah: "For sem (name) comes from the word desola-
tion (semamah) and destruction, while ben comes from the term
'understanding' (binah) and 'construction' (binyan)." 109 The signif-
icance of these etymological exegeses seems clear— the son who
is bom is the builder, that is, the Intellect which is the true build-
ing of man, which attains eternal life for him. 110 In the sequel
to the above-mentioned passage from Sitrey Tdrah, we read that
"man is composed of a desolate and wasted desert (midbdr), 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 Sitrey Tdrah:
"The donkey (hamor) brays." The pure bodily matter, "your
soul" "the magician" (kasfdn; an anagram of nafseka, "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 spiri-
tual and partly material. "A woman speaking [i.e., coupling
with] her husband" — matter and form. "And a baby" — intel-
lective power — "suckling from its mothers breast"— the Active
Intellect. 111
In the writings of R. Judah Romano, a younger contem-
porary of Abulafia's, the image of the potential intellect is com-
pared with a child, while the active intellect is portrayed as a
king. 112 It is worth noting here the parallel in R. Isaiah ben Joseph
of Greece between the influx of the active intellect and the power
of birth: ua
For because the effect of the influx, which is our Active
Intellect, 114 is to give birth and to constantly take its spiritual
influx, and through this [it] shall constantly be renewed for
those who receive apprehension after apprehension, continu-
182 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
ously. Likewise, Jacob our Father, peace upon him, was to
begat many sons. . . in the essence of strengthening, and in the
supreme crown, which is the Active Intellect of the separate
intelligibilia, which is called the Throne of Glory, there is like-
wise the power of giving birth to the influx. Therefore, the
power of Jacob our father, peace upon him, is similar to the
power of birth from the influx of the supreme crown.
Finally, it is worth noting that the derivation of the word
binah from ben has an interesting history in the Christian Kab-
balah. The apostate Abner of Burgos, known as Alfonso de
Valladolid, writes as follows: "The Christians relate to the un-
derstanding of the Holy One, blessed be He, the name 'son,' be-
cause he was born out of Wisdom, for ben and binah and tebunah
are all from one root." 115 The exegesis found in Sefer ha-Zonar, in
which the name of the Sefirah Binah is divided into Ben and yah
("son" and "God"), influenced R. Reuben Zarfati, a fourteenth-
century Italian Kabbalist, 116 and through the Latin translation of
his work reached Pico della Mirandola. 117
The emergence of the intellect within the human soul is
also discussed by Abulafia from another point of view: that
the son born is the true man or the new man. The idea is an
extremely widespread one in mystical literature: Hermes Tris-
megistus taught Tat that man becomes a son of God by means of
the new birth, 1 l0 while Christian mysticism speaks of the birth of
the son of God within the soul of the mystic. 119 Islamic mysticism
knows of the "spiritual child," who is a symbol of renewal, 130
while Buddhism speaks about the man who has received enlight-
enment as the son of Buddha. 121 In all of the cases mentioned
above, and apparently also in Abulafia, the appearance of the
intellective element is seen as a new birth, which transforms the
mystic into a son of the divine. 122
In his commentary to Sefer ha-Haftdrdh, Abulafia writes: 123
In truth, when a man is forty years of age, he is ready by
his nature to be redeemed 12,1 from the physical forces, and he
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 183
will understand one thing from another; and they have al-
ready alluded to this in saying, 125 "When he was forty years
old Abraham came to know his Creator." And the Torah like-
wise 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
that 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. 128 . . . 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 phys-
ical forces" is reminiscent of the above passage from 'Osdr 'Eden
ha-Gdnuz, 130 dealing with the redemption of the first-born "from
the powers within man, which is the intellect." The spiritual
birth is alluded to here by the parallel to physical birth, forty
days as against forty days; there is likewise an association here
with a saying in "Abot 5:23, "one who is forty years old-for under-
standing." In Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba; 131 Abulafia again discusses
the above-mentioned idea:
Ydfefiydh [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 en-
joy the radiance of the Sekindh 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 (scm ha-'elohi; an
anagram of Moseh, Eliyahu), and it is in its secret [meaning] 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
184 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
development of Moses and Elijah: Abulafia relies upon liter-
ary 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 tran-
formed Abulafia into a son of God born within his soul? 134 The
only two books in which I have found a connection drawn be-
tween the appearance of the intellect and the number forty were
written in 1280, that is, the Hebrew year 5040, which was the for-
tieth year of Abulafia's life. 135 It seems to me that behind these
"objective" comments there is a personal confession, his forti-
eth year also having been the year at the end of which Abulafia
went to the pope, a journey entailing explicit messianic charac-
teristics. In the commentary to Sefer ha-'Edut, also written in his
fortieth year, we read: 136
He said that he was in Rome at that time, and they told him
what was to be done and what was to be said in his name,
and that he tell everyone that "God is king, and shall shr up
the nations," 137 and the retribution of those who rule instead of
Him. And he informed him that he was king and he changed
(himself) from day to day, and his degree was above that of all
degrees, for in truth he was deserving such. But he returned
and again made him take an oath when he was staying in
Rome on the river Tiber. . . and said, anoint him as king by the
power of all the Name, for I have anointed him as king over
Israel, 138 over the congregations of Israel, that is, over the com-
mandments, and you have called his saying and name Sadday,
like My own Name, whose secret is "my breasts" (sadday) in
the corporeal sense. Understand all the intention, and likewise
his saying, "that he is I and I am he". But the secret of the
corporeal Name is "Messiah of God" (masiah ha-Sem) and also
"Moses will rejoice" [yisrnah Moseh, the anagram of the previ-
ous phrase].
These allusions, which indicate a vision of both a mes-
sianic and an intellective type, strengthen the claim that the for-
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 185
tieth year was an important one in Abulafia's spiritual life one
in which he saw the beginning of his spiritual renewal as Mes-
siah, anointed to rule over the people of Israel. In several other
places in the same book, we read of experiences which constitute
progress m his mystical life: "And at the end of the fortieth year
another sublime opening in vision was opened." 1311 There are
detailed testimonies of his unusual experiences during this year,
and this is not coincidental, for it was during this period that
he began to write his "prophetic" books, which are indicative of
personal experience.
It is illuminating to trace the influence of the idea of spir-
itual renewal during the fortieth year in two books from Ab-
ulafia's circle. In Sa-arey Sedea, R. Nathan ben Sa'adyah Harar
writes:
And behold Moses changed his nature according to the letters
of the name, and he beget a male child before he descended
from the mountain, for he stood there forty days and forty
nights, as does natural offspring of man... And when his for-
mation was completed after forty days, the skin of his face
shone, and therefore he extended [the stay ofj 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
Hayyim:
R. Isaac of Acre writes in a similar vein in his book 'Osar
...The enlightened one who goes to separate himself and to
concentrate, to draw [down] upon his soul 14 ' the divine spirit,
in wondrous and awesome deeds which are too terrible to re-
late; 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" 143 — these allude to the sensory and corpo-
186 The Use of Erotic Images for tiie Prophetic Experience
real realms. "From then on, [he wishes] fine beverage"— this
is the Divine spirit, to apprehend the intelligibilia, and this is
what is said in the 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.
The understanding of the age of forty as a turning point in
the spiritual development of man also appears in another work
written under the direct influence of Abulafia. In Tolddt 'Adam, 1 * 6
written in the fifteenth century, we read:
If you wish to learn before a great master, who is the angel
of prophecy, whose name is Raziel, and if you understand all
that I have hinted of his power and his teaching, then you
will know the secret of his name. And if you wish to be one
of his disciples and to learn in his book, which is that of the
completely righteous, and you wish to be inscribed with them
immediately for eternity, then take care to study continually
from [the age of] thirteen years until [the age of] forty years
in the book of the intermediate ones before the good angel
Gallizur, who is the intellective master; and from forty years
onwards let your principal study be before Raziel, and then se-
crets of wisdom shall be revealed to you, for you shall already
be a great man among the giants.
A comparison with the following passage from the in-
troduction to Abulafia's prophetic books 147 indicates a certain
resemblance between the two books: "I, Abubrahim the young,
studied before Raziel my master for thirteen years, and while I
was yet thirteen years old 1 was unable to understand a thing
from his books." Despite the differences between the two pas-
sages, it seems to me that they complement one another: both
speak about Raziel as a master, while the periods of study com-
plement one another: Tolddt "Adam speaks of two later periods of
study — from age 13 to 40 and from age 40 on — whereas the in-
troduction speaks of the earliest stage, until the age of thirteen. 148
It is worth mentioning that the anonymous author of Tolddt 'Adam
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 187
often copied from the works of other authors, without mention-
ing them by name, and therefore the above passage may be
a reworking of an idea borrowed from 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,
let me quote from 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, 151 and whoever
reaches the age of twenty years and onwards is called a son
of the Holy One, blessed be He, 152 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, 154 "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 'ahra), 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-MaskU,
R. David b. Yom Tov ibn Bilia, a fourteenth-century Spanish
philosopher with mystical leanings, writes as follows: 155
For were the intellective soul itself present within man at the
time of his birth, this would require that we immediately ap-
prehend the supernal knowledge and wisdom, and we do not
see this: for if one does not engage in study one knows nothing.
188 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
and if one does so one becomes something else by oneself, 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 these motifs of the self-renewing eagle
(probably an allusion to the phoenix) 158 and the man of intel-
lect 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 'Azariah
da Fano, a sixteenth-century Italian Kabbalist, in Ma>amar ha-
Ne/es: 160 "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."
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
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 189
Hermetis. 161 Basing himself upon a version of Prulat ha-Yesirah, 16 *
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 denned 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 de-
scribed by Lazarelli in terms of the teacher's resemblance to the
creative power of God. 165 Evidently Abulafia's doctrines became
known to Lazarelli, by one channel or another, and he used them
in practice, as is illustrated by the details of the spiritual renewal
Lazarelli has caused to the King Ferdinand of Aragon.
6. Intercourse as Metaphor and as Symbol
Having discussed the use of erotic images for mystical
experience, it is worthwhile noting the specific character of these
images in Abulafia, drawing a comparison between Abulafia's
use of the image of sexual union and that of the theosophical
Kabbalah.
Scholars of Kabbalah have already remarked upon sev-
eral unique characteristics of Kabbalistic symbolism. 166 1 would
like to begin by discussing the use of sexual union as a sym-
bol; as scholars have noted, in Sefirotic Kabbalah "the symbolic
relationship is imbedded in the very nature of the symbol." Hu-
man sexual union was chosen to serve as a symbol of unification
within the Sefirotic realm because, while it is understood as an
act whose components are likely to be lowly, but when this act
occurs a new element is added to it, incomprehensible and holy,
by which it is transformed into a sacral act; from this perspective
sexual union becomes, on the one hand, a symbol of and, on the
other hand, a factor in the divine life. In order to exemplify the
approach of the theosophical Kabbalists, I would like to cite here
a story told by R. Isaac of Acre in Menrat 'Einayim: 167
190 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
A certain sage asked his colleague about the subject of the
[Temple] sacrifices, and said: How is it possible that a mat-
ter as disgusting as the burning of fat and the sprinkling of
blood, with the smell of the skin and hair of the burnt-offering
which is completely consumed, should be a matter by which
the world is sustained, that it be a cause for unification above
and for blessing and for the sustaining of all that exists? He an-
swered: I will tell you a parable, as to what this resembles. A
child is born, and is left alone when he is little, and he sustains
himself by herbs and water, and he grows up and it happens
that he comes within the habitation of human beings, and one
day he saw a man coupling with his wife. He began to mock
them and say: what is this foolish person doing? They said
to him: you see this act; it is that which sustains the world,
for without this the world would not exist. He said to them:
how is it possible that from such filth and dirt there should be
the cause for this good and beautiful and praiseworthy world?
And it is nevertheless true — and understand this.
The aim of this parable is to demonstrate that there is a
certain 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.
Abuiafia, under the influence of the philosophical ap-
proach, 169 perceives the sexual act as a lowly one. In 'Osdr 'Eden
Ganuz, ,70 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 [to be away] from every
seeing eye and hearing ear." Abuiafia emphasizes the lowliness
of the sexual act: the aura of mystery which accompanies it in
the Sefirotic Kabbalah is here completely absent. If, neverthe-
less, Abuiafia 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 im-
age refers. While the theosophical Kabbalists emphasized the
mysterious aspect of the sexual act, Abuiafia stresses more its
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abuiafia 191
"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 as-
sumption in Abuiafia 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 exem-
plify its occurence 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 sex-
ual 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 Abuiafia 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 toward its true goal. There is no hint of
this demand in Abuiafia: there is in principle no need for ac-
tual sexual contact in order for this contact to serve as an image,
while intercourse itself is of no importance whatsoever in the
mystical technique of Abuiafia.
An additional and significant difference between the un-
derstanding of the sexual act in the two systems is the identity
of the components of this union. In Abuiafia, the male or the
392 The Use of Erotic linages for the Prophetic Experience
bridegroom is the Active Intellect, while the female is the human
soul. As the mystics were men, there was a certain difficulty in-
volved in this reversal; but precisely on this point, Abulafia is
close to other widespread non-Jewish mystical systems, which
consistently portray the soul of the mystic as a female. 174 On the
other hand, the theosophical Kabbalists preserve the "proper"
psychological relationship in describing, in those rare sources
where one can find the connection between Man and the Sekindh,
the mystic as the male and the Sekindh as the female; 175 but, as
surmised by Werblowsky, 17G it is difficult to assume that the de-
scriptions of this subject in Sefer ha-Zohar and in the other mys-
tics stem from personal experience. On the other hand, there is
ground for assuming that Abulafia underwent mystical experi-
ences, which are alluded to in his writings through the detailed
use of erotic imagery.
The great gap between Abulafia and the Sefirotic Kab-
balah is likewise revealed in the results alluded to by means
of the erotic imagery. While in Kabbalah human sexual union
may cause harmony in the Divine world by strengthening the
connection between the Sefirot of Tiferet and Malkut, 177 the mys-
tic only indirectly benefitting from this harmony 178 ; in Abulafia
mystical experience has no influence upon the active Intellect or
upon God. The human soul is the only element which benefits
from the connection with the Active Intellect: the meaning of
mystical experience is psychological, private, in certain circum-
stances social, but always without the cosmic and theosophical
meaning which stems from the theurgic nature of sexual union
in Sefirotic Kabbalah. 179
PART II
Language, Torah,
and Hermeneutics in Abulafia
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 351
Notes to Introduction
1. Sem ha-Gedolim, Ma'arekei 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 Ch. 12, fol. 31b. In practice, Ydsdr of Candia copied the attack
of R. judah Hayyat, found in the introduction to his Commentary to
Ma'areket 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 Ch. 11.
4. The most important sources for Abulafia's life were published by
Jellinek, Bet ha-Midras III, pp. xl-xlii, and Idel, "Abraiiam Abulafia ami
the Pope." See also, idem, "Maimonides and the Kabbalah," [in Twer-
sky, ed. Studies in Maimonides, pp. 59-68], on Abulafia as teacher of
the Guide for 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 as-
cribed to him or belonging to his circle, see Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp.
3-85.
6. On this subject, see Idel, "Ecstatic Kabbalah and the Land of Israel,"
in Studies, essay VI
7. See Idel, "Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (SUNY: Albany,
1995).
8. M. Landauer, Litcraturbiatt des Orients, vol. 6 (1845), pp. 380-383,
417-422, 471-475, 488-192, 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," MGW/ 36 (1887), p.
557-558.
10. For the places of publication of his edition of Sefer ha-'Ot and the
epistles, and for We-Zot li-Yehuddh and Seba c Nelibot iia-tordh, see the
list of abbreviations, p. 234.
352 Notes to Introduction
11. See, for example, Hebraische Bibliographic, 4 (1861), 71-79, and
his numerous footnotes to the descriptions of the manuscripts in the
Munich Library.
12. See A. JeUinek, Most's ben Schem-Tob de Leon und sein VerMltniss
Zuin Sonar (Leipzig, 1851).
13. See David Neumark, Geschichte der judisciten Philosophic dcs Miltte-
lallers (Berlin, 1907), 1: 183-225; Shimeon Bemfeld, Da'at 'Elohim (War-
saw, 1931), pp. 142-146; Azriel Gunzig, "Rabbi Abraham Abulafia,"
ha-Eikol , 5 (1964), pp. 85-112 [Hebr.]; S. Karppe, Etudes sur les origines
et la nature du Zohar (Paris, 1901), pp. 294-306.
14. See Scholem, Sa'arey Sate), pp. 127-139; idem, Kabbalistic
Manuscripts, pp. 225-230; idem, "Chapters from Sefer Sulldm ha-'Aliyih
by R. Judah Albotini," Qiryat Sefer , 22 (1945-46), pp. 334-342 [Hebr.]
15. Pp. 119-155. See also his lectures on Abulafia and the texts he
published from manuscripts in his Abraliam Abulafia.
16. One of the reasons for the absence of any reference to Abulafia's
writings in these studies is the fact that his approach is significantly
different from that of the Kabbalistic mainstream with which Scholem
dealt in the above-mentioned studies, including that on debeaut.
17. See Abraham Berger, "The Messianic Self-Consciousness of Abra-
ham Abulafia," in Essays on Jewish Life and Thought Presented in Honor
of S. Baron (New York, 1959), pp. 55-61: Pearl Epstein, Kabbalah, the
Way of the Jewish Mystic (Rome, 1984), pp. 109-120. See also the ex-
tensive references to Abulafia in the writings of Aryeh Kaplan, who
made considerable use of material from the ecstatic Kabbalah in order
to present an original Jewish mystical path to the modem reader.
18. See, for example, the remarks by David Bakan, Sigmund Freud and
the Jewish Mystical Tradition (New York, 1965), pp. 75-82.
19. On the difference between these two tendencies in Kabbalah, see
Idel, Abraliam Abulafia, pp. 434-449; idem, Kabbalah: New Perspectives,
Introduction, pp. fX-XVTl.
20. On the difference between the Abulafian hermeneutics and that
of the theosophical-theurgical school, see Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp.
239-240; idem, "Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah," pp. 151-152; idem,
Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 200-210.
Notes to Chapter 1
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia 353
21. Gershom Scholem, Die Erforschung der Kabbala von Reuchlin bis zur
Gegenwart, (Pforrheims, 1969), pp. 11-12.
22. Chayyim Wirszubski, A Christian Kabbalist reads the Torah
(Jerusalem, 1978), pp. 22, 38 [Hebr.]
23. See, idem, "Liber Redemptionis-An Early Version of Rabbi Abra-
ham Abulafia's Kabbalistic Commentary on the Guide for the Perplexed
in Latin Translation by Flavius Mithridates," Proceedings of the Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 3 (1969), pp. 135-149 [(Hebr.];
M. Idel, "Agideo da Viterbo and the Writings of Abraham Abulafia "
Italia, 2 (1981), pp. 48-50 .
1. Ch.16. The text cited here is based primarily upon S. Wertheimer,
Bitey Midrasot, I, 92, with minor corrections based upon the text in
Beyl ha-Midras, ffl, ed. JeUinek (Ch. 14); Cf. Schafer, Synapse, pp. 88-
89, par. 204-205. On the Divine Names mentioned in this passage, see
Scholem, Major Trends, p. 56 and p. 363, notes. 57-58.
2. S. Mussaioff, Merkdbdh Selcmah (Jerusalem, 1921), fol. 4b; on the
parallelism between this passage and the previous, see the note by
Wertheimer, Bate)/ Midrasot, I, 92, n. 75.
3. Printed in fa'am Zeqenim (Frankfort a. M., 1855), p. 54 ffol. The
version cited here appears in R. Judah al-Barceloni's Perus Sefer Yesirah
(Berlin, 1885), p. 104. See also B. Levin, °6ssr ha-Ge'6nim IV, Responsa,
p. 17; idem, I, 20, n. 1; MS. New York - JTS 1805 (Enelow Collection
712) fol.41a.
4. Levin, 'Osdr ha-Ge'bmm 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 any reasons for this statement. See Beitrdge, no. 22,
p. 15. See now also Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 89-91.
5. Vajda, "Etudes sur Qirqisani," REJ, 106 (194M5), p.107, n. 2.
6. 'Aruk ha-Salem, vol. I, p. 14.
354 Notes to Chapter 1
7. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, p. 54.
8. See his commentary on Hagiggdh, fol. 14b.
9. Rashi on Hagiggdh 14b. Compare the aggadah cited in Yalaut Sim-mi
to Genesis, sec. 44.
10. MS. Cambridge Add. 643, fol. 19a; 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 Kelab Tamim of R. Moses Taku,
'Osar Nelimad, III, p. 85, which matches the version found in MS.
British Library 756, fol. 170b-171a. On this work, see Dan, Esoteric
Theology, p. 143ff.
11. 'Osar Nehmad, III, 84. See M. Guedemann, ha-Torah weha-Hayyim
bi-yemey ha-Beynayim be-Sarfat uwe-'Mkenaz, pp. 123-124, and Scholem,
Major Trends, pp. 102-103.
12 MS. Oxford 1812, fol. 55b. On this work, see Dan, Studies, pp.
44-57; idem, "The Ashkenazi Hassidic Gates of Wisdom," in Hommage
a Georges Vajda, (eds.) G. Nahon-Ch. Touati (Louvain, 1980), pp. 183-
189.
13 The letters of the forty-two letter name are here interpreted as
the initials of mystical Names of God. This is an ancient approach,
which had considerable influence on the Medieval mystics; R. Eleazar
of Worms seems to have been one of the important avenues through
which this approach made its way into Europe. On the subject gener-
ally, see Idel, "The World of Angels," pp. 1-15.
14 The interpretation of each of the letters as a Name in itself already
appears in the Hekalot literature; see, for example, Hetalot Zufarti, ed.
R Elior p. 28. On the influence of this outlook on Abulafia, and
of his outlook on R. Moses Cordovero and on Hassidism, see Idel,
"Perceptions of the Kabbalah."
15. Based upon Sanhedrin, fol. 91a; see Idel, "The Concept of Torah,"
p. 28, n. 20.
16. On this abbreviation as a reference to R. Eleazar, see Dan, Esoteric
Theology, pp. 118-127.
17 Ch. 41 Printed by A. Jellinek in Kokbe Yishaa, 34 (1867), p. 16.
The work was composed at the beginning of the second half of the
thirteenth century.
The Mystical Experience in Abralmm Abulafia 355
18. A certain parallel to the opinion of Ibn Latif appears in the words
of an anonymous author whose work was preserved in MS. Mainz-
Academie 107, fol. 98a.
And now I shall point out what the three times YHWH refers. Know
that there are two [kinds] of comprehension which one may compre-
hend 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 un-
derstand 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 [nufalah] 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
an comprehension of his existence, and the latter is comprehension of
his rank. But there is yet a third [kind 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 has reigned, God
does reign, God will reign forever and ever."
The awesome deeds referred to here are evidently parallel to Ibn Latif's
remarks concerning the Divine will, on the one hand, and the mira-
cles and wonders performed by means of the supernal will, in the
quotation to be brought 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,' see S. O. Heller-Wilenski, "The Problem of the
Authorship of the Treatise Sa'ar ha-Samayim, ascribed to Abraham Ibn
Ezra," Tarbiz , 32 (1963), pp. 290-291, and note 74 [Hebr.)
20. See Scholem, Les Orlgines, p. 356.
21. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 149a. On "Torah, Wisdom and Prophecy,"
see also below, Ch. 4, n. 34.
22. The reference is to R. Ishmael, R. Nehunyah ben ha-Kanah and R.
'Aqiba, "who are among the great ones of Israel among the authors,
356 Abulafia's Theory of Language
such as Pirqey Hekalot, Sefer ha-Bahir and Vliybl de-Rabbi "AkBa," as
Abulafia explains below, in fol. 148a.
23. "Perus'sem ben M"B -Otiyot, printed by Scholem in Tarbiz, 5
(1934), p. 56 [Hebr.]
24. See the chapter devoted to this subject in Idel, Abraham '
Abulafia, p. 133 ff.
25. Sitrey Torah, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 156a; Sefer ha-'Ot,
pp. 80-81.
26. Sitrey Torah, «., fol. 157b. The verbs "combine" and
"be purified" are different forms of the root srf.
27. Mafteah ha-Ra'ayim, MS. Vatican 291, fol. 21a.
28. See the chapter on language in Idel, Abraham Abulafia,
pp. 143-146.
29. 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 161a.
30. MS. Jerusalem 8° 148, fol. 63b.
31. Liqqutey Hamis, MS. Oxford 2239, fol. H3a.
32. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 70b.
33. Pm/ss Sir ha-Sirim , MS. Oxford 343, fol. 49a.
34 MS Munchen 408, fols. 65a-65b, also published in
Sefer ha-Peli'A, fol. 35b. On the dialogic element in Abulafia s
mystical experience, see below, Ch. 3.
35. On Ma'aseh Merkdb=ah = sem be-iem = 682, see Idel,
Abraham Abulafia, pp. 179-181.
36 -Or lur-Sekel , MS. Vatican 233, fol. 95a, copied in Paries
Rimmonim, fol. 92c, under the title Sefer ha-Niqqud. Compaq
against this, the table appearing in Ner 'Elohlm, MS. Munchen
language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 357
10, fol. 149a-149b and 150b, which differs in a number of re-
spects from that in 'Or ha-Sekel. A specimen of the table of letter-
combinations which we have printed appears as well in Tocci,
"Techniques of Pronunciation," pp. 222-229 which he printed
from 'Or ha-Sekel; he likewise noted the source of the section in
Pardes Rimmonim in 'Or ha-Sekel. For similar phenomena of com-
binations of vowels in ancient pagan magi, see P. 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 Hauiayot, MS, Munchen 43, fol. 219a, as well as
in several passages in Sefer ha-Sem. The section was copied from
the works of R. Eleazar in Minhat Yehuddh by R. Judah Hayyat
(Ua'arekel ha-'Elohut, fol. 197b), and from there to Pardes Rimmonim,
fol. 92b. The expression, "the book of the structures [rna-arakot]
of the living God" is an allusion to Ma'areket lia-'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 ben Judah he-Hasid, in Marot ha-Sobot, p. 95. This
source was also known to R. Moses Cordovero, who mentions
him as "the author of Sefer 'Or Zarua'," which, as is known, is
the work of R. David. Compare Pardes Rimmonim, fol. 93b with
the citation given in Marot ha-Sob'ot. R. David's contemporary,
R. Menahem Recanati, also alludes to this system in his Perus
k-Tbrah, fol. 49b.
39. See chapter on language in Idel, Abraham Abulafia, sec.
3 and note 31. Abulafia based the use of the word notariqon
upon widespread knowledge in his circle. See MS. Berlin-
Tubingen Or. 941, fol. 88a, which contains a text very similar to
part. 3 of Ginat 'Egoz, in which the word notariqon appears with
the vocalization of five different vowels.
40. On Exodus 3:15.
358 Abulafia s Theory of Language
41. M. Steinschneider (Hebraische Bibliographic, vol.
21, p.
35) alludes to the possibility of the influence of ha-'Agulot ha-
Ra'ayoniyol on the technique of circles in Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba'.
However, it is difficult to substantiate such an assumption in
light of the fact that Abulafia does not at all mention ha-AguB
ha-Ra-ayoniyot, despite the fact that this was a widespread work
among the Jews.
42. MS. Rome-Angelica 38, fol. 38b; MS. Miinchen 285,
fol. 30a.
43. MS. Miinchen 285, fol. 102a.
44. MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 320a.
45. George Anawati, "Le nom supreme de Dieu," Eiufas
de phiiosophie musulmane (Paris, 1974), pp. 404-405.
46. Extensive bibliographical material on breathing and
on the various techniques of pronunciation was gathered by
Tocci in the notes to his article, "Technique of Pronunciation."
However, his analysis of the details of Abulafia's system of
breathing is based upon a passage from 'Or lia-Sekel and upon
the printed portion of Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba-, he was unaware of
several important discussions concerning breathing technique,
which we shall cite below, for which reason his study is incom-
plete.
47. MS. New York, JTS 1897, fol. 86b - 87a.
48. 'Abol, 4:1.
49. These are the first and last letters of the Name of
forty-two letters.
50. Seba' Netibot ha-iordh, p. 25; Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba; MS.
Oxford 1582,' fol. 54b.
Mass.
49.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 359
51. J. H. Woods, The Yoga System of Patanjali (Cambridge,
Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 193; Yoga-Sutra II,
52. The accepted interpretation of kumbhaka is "halting"—
an interruption in the breathing activity after one draws in air.
In one place only have I succeeded finding an interpretation
suitable to Abulafia as well: in the French translation of the
lectures of Vivekananda on the sutra of Patanjalil, Jean Herbert,
the translator, remarks that the meaning of kumbliaka is a halt
before or after the breath. The former interpretation suits the
idea of "rest" in Abulafia, but I cannot verify the reliability of
this interpretation. See S. Vivekananda, Lcs Yogas practiques (Paris
1939), p. 551, note 1.
53. MS. Vatican 528, fol. 71b.
54. MS. Vatican 233, fols. 109b-110a. Copied by R. Moses
Cordovero in Pardes Rimmdnim, fol. 92c-d, as Sefer ha-Niqqud.
55. Ibid., fols. HOa-llOb.
56. The straight ones are read as 'Alef-Yod, and the inverted
ones as Yod-Alef.
57. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 54b: "And between each letter
you are allowed to wait and 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. Mafteah ha-Semdt 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 Anawati-Gardet, Mystique musulmane (Paris
1961), pp. 208-209.
360 Abulafia's Theory of Language
60. In Sefirotic Kabbalah, the forty-two letter Name serves
as a symbol for the attribute of GebwrOt— the Sefirah of "Rigor".
61. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 61b.
62. G' nesimol (three breaths] = 814 - nesimtih <abal = ha-satan
ydmut = mastinbt [one breath; Satan will die; enemies] - ha-hasagol
be-dam lia-'adam [the comprehension in the blood of man] = sin
Met yod [the letters of Sadday written out in full) = hdtam sent [the
second seal) = hemit lia-sedim [killed the demons] = ba-hotam mdsiah
[with the seal of Messiah] « memit ha-dam lia-ra- [kills the bad
blood] = memit middah ra'ah [kills the bad attribute] = met mi-yad
yeqardh [dies by 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.
63. MS. Oxford 1582, fols. 54b-55a. Y'H neiimot (18
breaths) = 824 = iendt hayyim [years of life] = hayye nesdmot [life
of the soul] = memnney hayut |the changers of vitality] hayut ha-
nesdmdh [vitality of the soul]. Sene nehirim (two nostrils) = 678 =
•arabdt = nehire neSmdh [nostrils of the soul] = senayim kerubim Itwo
cherubs] =' seney murkabim [two compounded] = makrike ha-Sekimn
[those who force the Sekinah]. See also MS. Jerusalem 8° 1303,
fol. 55b.
64. Compare Can No'u), MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 322a:
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.
Compare also Nahmanides in his commentary to Ecclesi-
astes, Kitbey Ramban, ed. Chavel, Jerusalem, 1963 1, 192:
And with the unique name [there are] letters created and revealed
miracles performed in the world....for with His Name He spoke and
I
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutia in Abulafia 361
the world was, and there is no chance in his words, but through them
he splits the Sea and the Jordan.
See also note 67 below.
65. Abulafia derives the word mahak (angel) from melakdh
(labor). See Hayyey ha-Nefes, MS. M ! unchen 408, fols. 27a-b; /rare
Sefer, MS. Miinchen 40, fol. 225b, etc.
66. Mafteah ha-Semot, MS. New York, JTS 1897, fol. 87a.
67. See Idel, "The World of the Imagination," pp. 168-171.
68. The concluding poem of Hayyey ha-Olam ha-ha', MS
Oxford 1582, fol. 82a.
69. Psalm 150:6.
70. Genesis Rabba , 14:9, ed. Theodor-Albeck, p. 134.
71. Mafteah ha-Semot, MS. New York, JTS 1897, fol 87a
Compare also 'Or ha-Sekel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 77b.
72. Sa-ar ha-Yirah, Ch.10. The section is also quoted in
Midras Talmyot of R. Elijah ha-Kohen, fol. 15b.
73. Deuteronomy 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. 5a; Perus Sefer Yesirah, MS
Paris 774, fol. 60a; 'Osdr Can 'Eden, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 40b-
and many other places. See also the introduction to -Or Yaaar
printed in R. Abraham Azulai's it Or ha-Hamah (Bene Barak]
1973), III, fol. 44c sec, 73 on Bamidbar.
362 Abulafia s Theory of
75. Sa-ar P.rte ha-Semot, Chs. 1-2; as is well known, R.
Moses Cordovero was the teacher of R. Elijah de V.das.
76. MS. Oxford 1582, fols. 54a-54b, printed by Scholem, j
Abulafia, p. 23.
77. Berdkot, fol. 22a.
78 MS Vatican 233, fols. HOa-llOb; Scholem, Abulafia p.
226 See'also'j. L. Blau, Tte Christian Interpretation of the Cabala m
the Renaissance (NewYork, 1965), p. 69, n. 12.
79 MS. New York, JTS 1801, fols. 9a-b; MS British Li-
brary 749, fol. 12a-b, with omissions. See also Ner Ota MS.
Miinchen 10, fol. 166b.
80. Psalms 141:2.
81 (Wien, 1860), p. 32. In the printed version the word
already in K*»m, W» and was already known among * Kab-
balists 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, Ch. 3.
83
MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 52a.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 363
Scholem's remarks, ibid., n. 2; Hallamish, Kabbalistic Commentary
p. 223.
86. Sefer Yesirah 1:9.
87. Compare Genesis Kabbah, 17:5, ed. Theodor-Albeck p
156.
88. The problem of the contemplation of colors and lights
in Kabbalah shall be discussed in a separate work, in which
1 will analyze this passage from R. Joseph from other aspects.
Abulafia does not mention colors at all in his works, while else-
where, in the epistle We-Zot li-Yehuddh, p. 16, Abulafia criticizes
the contemplation of lights as being of a lower type of Kabbalah
than that which he advocates.
84 Ibid fol. 57b-58a. On the connection between closing
ne'seres^dtheuseofmysticaltechni q ue,seeldel,»H, ( «.
as Concentration," Si*fe, essay VII, Append* A.
85 Printed by G. Scholem, from the commentary of R.
235.
89.
Ed. Goldreich, p. 217; see also Gottleib, Studies, p.
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 British Library 768, fols. 190b-
191a, and ibid., 771/2. MS. Paris 108 contains sections from both
Me'trat 'Einayim (see fol. 92a), and an anonymous work of Abu-
lafia (fol. 82a-89a). The forming of the letters of the Name with
colors, while connecting matter to Sefirbt, appears as well in MS.
Sasson 919, p. 229, which also includes material from the circle
of R. Isaac of Acre.
95. There is no doubt that R. Isaac of Acre's remarks
were influenced by Maimonides' understanding of providence in
364 Abulafia's Theory of Language
Guide, ni: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. H. Corbin, Creative imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi
(London, 1970), p. 234, n. 41-42.
98. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 62a.
99. Ibid., fol. 63a-b.
100. Ibid., (ol. 12b.
101. Abulafia, p. 170.
102. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 12b.
103. See G. Ben-Ami Zarfati, "Introduction to Baraita de-
Mazalot" [Hebr.], Bar Ilan; Sefer ha-Sanah, 3 (1968), p. 67 and note
34 This division appears in many places in medieval literature;
see Wertheimer's Batey Midrdsdt, II, p. 26, and the comments of
Abraham Epstein, Mi-Qadmoniyot Ita-Yehudim (Jerusalem, 1957), p.
82 Abulafia himself also used this distinction in his anonymous
work in MS. Sasson 290, p. 235, and in Vsdr 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Ox-
ford 1580, fol. 81a. It is worth noting that the concept of "forms
(sunt), which appears in the section quoted from Hayyey ha-'Olam
iia-Ba; means "constellations"; see I. Efrat, Jewish Philosophy in (ta
Middle Ages, II, p. 93-94 [Hebr.]
104. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 61a.
105. Idel, Abraham Abulafia, p. 131.
106. Published by Scholem in Qiryat Sefer, 22 (1945), p.
107. Ibid., p. 165.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 365
108. Berakot, fol. 55a.
109. Sanhedrin, fol. 65b.
110. 'Or ha-Sekel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 109a.
111. Hayyey ha-'Olam lia-Ba; MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 51b; Sc-
holem, Abulafia, p. 210. English translation taken from Scholem,
Major Trends, pp. 136-137. From this text, Ch. G. Nauert, Agrippa
and the Crisis 0/ Renaissance Thought (Urbana, 111., 1965), p. 289, n.
7, concludes that there may have been some connection between
Abulafia and Agrippa, although at present there is no evidence
to support such an opinion. Compare the words brought in the
name of R. Elijah of London, quoted below in n. 129.
112. MS. New York, JTS 1801, fol. 9a; MS. British Library
749, fol. 12b.
113. MS. Jerusalem 8° 148, fols. 71b-72a. This is the source
for the description in Sulldm ha-'Aliydh of R. Judah al-Botini; See
Scholem, Kabbalistic Manuscripts, pp. 226-227. The language is
more similar to Sa'arey Sedecf than to Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba', as
thought by Scholem, ibid., n. 5, even though Abulafia's book
greatly influenced the quotation from Sulldm ha-'Aliyah.
114. Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba; MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 51b;
Scholem, Abulafia, p. 210; and Sefer Sulldm Im-'Aliydh, printed in
his Kabbalistic Manuscripts, p. 227. The motif of the "white gar-
ments" appears in a number of texts connected with the recita-
tion of the Divine Name. The recitation of the Ineffable Name
is described in a work entitled Simus Risdn le-girsal ha-Sefdrim ha-
Hisoniim, MS. Bologna, University No. 2914, fol. 55a. Among the
actions which precede this recitation are immersion in a ritual
bath, fasting, and wearing white clothes. See also the ceremony
of creating the golem in the section quoted by Scholem, On the
Kabbalah, p. 185. Compare his words quoted in the name of R.
Elijah of Londres (London) in MS. Sasson 290, p. 381:
366 Abulafia's Theory of Language
When you wish. ...to make your question, turn your heart from ail
other involvements, and unify your intentions and your thoughts to
enter Pardes. Sit alone in awe, wrapped in tallit and with lefillin
on your head, and begin [to recite] 'Miktam le-Dawid' [Ps. 16], the
entire psalm....and read them with their melodies.
115. 'Or ha-Sekel , MS. Vatican 233, fed. 109a.
116. Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba', MS. Oxford 1582, fat 52a;
Scholem, Kabbalistic Manuscripts, p. 227.
117. M. Bowers - S. Glasner, "Autohypnotic Aspects of
the Kabbalistic Concept of Kavanah," journal of Clinical and Ex-
perimental Hypnosis, 6 (1958), pp. 3-23. The authors rely almost
exclusively upon the material appearing in G. Scholem on Abu-
lafia and his disciples, and also analyze phenomena pertaining
to the Hekalot literature and to M. H. Luzzatto. It should be noted
that the assumption that the ecstatic situation of the "descenders
to the Merkabah" is the result of self-hypnosis already appears in
the article by Yitzhak Heinemann, "Die Sektenfrommigkeit der
Therapeuten," MGWJ. 78 (1934), p. 110, n. 1.
118. On the sensation of heat among various mystics, see
C. Rowland, "The Visions of God in Apocalyptic Literature,"
journal for the Study of Judaism, 10 (1979), p. 141, and n. 10.
119. Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba-
MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 52a.
120. MS. Paris - BN 680, fol. 293a.
121. MS. Jerusalem 8° 148, fol. 73a.
122. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 53a.
123. Song of Songs 5:10.
124. Ibid., v. 2.
125. M. Laski, Ecstasy, (New York, 1968), pp. 47 ff.
, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 367
126. See above, n. 117.
127. Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba; MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 52a.
128. Sanhedrin, fol. 90b.
129. Compare the things attributed to R. Elijah of London
(see above, note 114), who writes, after what is cited there:
Thereafter he should bow on his knees with his face to the east and
say as follows.. ..and think of the Name which is written before him,
but not utter it with his lips....and the Name of four letters, which
is divided on the perfection of the vocalization into 38 sections, and
they are not to be pronounced, but he is only to direct his thoughts
to them. (MS. Sasson 290, p. 381).
And compare to MS. Sasson 919,
p. 210:
I, R. Isaac of Acre, felt in myself a great longing to gaze
at the milui [i.e., the plene writing of each letter) of the Ineffable
Name in all its ways, for I already knew that the ways of lieh
and waw four and four, thus, * ha hh hy w ww warn wyw. But the
first one has only one milui, thus, ywd. But now guard yourself
and guard your soul lest you read the letters hlnoyh, 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.
See also below, Ch. 3, pp. 304-305.
130. R. Fulop-Miller, The Mind and Face of Bolshevism (Lon-
don, New York, 1927), pp. 258-260. The author, who points out
the origins of this movement in Mt. Athos in Greece, and sees
a continuation thereof in hesychasm, which is likewise based
upon the recitation of the name of Jesus, claims (p. 260) that the
source of his approach lies in "Jewish Kabbalah," but there is no
proof for such a connection.
131. Scholem, Major Trends, p. 145.
368 Notes to Chapter 2
132. See ldel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 129-133.
Notes to Chapter 2
1 MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 324a-b; MS. British Library Or.
13136 fol. 7a-b. The passage was printed in Sefer ha-feh-nh (Ko-
retz, 1784), fol. 52a-53a, and appears again in the antho ogy of
Abulia's works by Joseph Hamis, MS. Oxford 2239, fol. 114b.
Joseph ben Joseph copied it in Sefer Ma-amarim, MS. Musayoff 30,
fo 19a, from Sefer haPeli-uih. For the edition of the Hebrew text,
with textual variants between MS. Miinchen 58 and Sefir i»-»
m, cf. Israel Adler, Hebrew Writings Concerning Music (Muncnen,
1975), p. 35-36.
2. For the musical connotations of the term habdrnh, see
Adler, HWCM, index, p. 359.
3 For the musical connotations of these terms, see Adler,
HWCM, index, p. 360; WufaSl (mutation), htthalefut ha-Qolot mod-
ulating [?] voice); see also the term tamrur, ibid.. 250 Simeon
Duran. B. 3 (p. 134).
4 I have not found this metaphorical usage prior to the
period of Abulafia. This author uses the combination "pangs o
love" ("and the spirit of his love is drawn out with the pangs
of note love") in Lther work, Sefer ha-'Ql, p. 78. This phrase
^pTrs a few years later in the work of the Kabba hst known
as Joseph of Hamadan, Ja-amey ha-Uiswot, MS. Jerusalem 8 3925,
fol. 82b.
5 This connection between the spleen and joy stems from
a misunderstanding of the saying in Berako, 51b dealing with the
"grinding (iohea) spleen." The reference in the Gemara, as m
pfrSfel source such as Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7,37 and others, was
Language, Torah, and Hemieneutics in Abulafia 369
to the action of grinding (sehiqdh) and not to laughter (sehoa).
However, in the Middle Ages the verb SHQ was understood to
mean the same as SHQ. Cf. the sources gathered by Wertheimer
in Bateu Midrdsot, U, p. 378, note 111. Add to them Saw ha-
Samayim of Gershom ben Solomon (Warsaw, 1876), fol. 33c, and
Sebiley 'Emundh by Meir Aidabi (Warsaw, 1887), fol. 44a.
6. Instead of weter 'chad, perhaps read ueter -aher, giving the
translation: "...moves from there to another string, such as bet,
gimmel. . . "
7. Cf. Commentary to Sefer Yesirah by Eliezer of Worms
(Premisla, 1883), fol. 5b-d. This theory of combination appears
in Abulafia's epistle known as Ha-Seder lui-mithappek, MS. British
Library 749, fol. 30a-31a, and in several other places.
8. MS. New York, JTS 1801, 31b.
9. MS. Jerusalem 80 148, fol. 48b-49a, and MS. New York
Columbia X 893 Sh. 43, fol. 19b.
10. On the influence of music on the body, Cf. Adler,
HWCM, index, p. 361, "influence of music."
11. Another new principle found in Sa-areu Scdea is that of
the vocalizations or vowel-points which allow for the pronunci-
ation of the consonants. Cf. below, Section IV.
12. Cf. Underhill, Mysticism, (London, 1945), pp. 76-78,
13. MS. Oxford Hebr. e 123, fol. 64b.
14. Cf. Tanhuma ha-Yasdn (ed. Buber), Genesis, p. 3. The
combination "in the voice of Moses" appears several times in
the work of Abraham Abulafia, in order to emphasize the inner
source of prophecy. Cf. 'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol.
12a; Sitreu Torah, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 140a.
370 Notes to Chapter 2
15. MS. Miinchen 40, fol. 246b; in the anthology of Joseph
Hamis, MS. Oxford 2239, fol. 130a.
16. The combination of the legend of David's harp with
the verse in II Kings 2:3 appears in several places. Cf. Pesiata
de-Rav Kalitma (ed. Buber), chapter 7, fol. 62b-63a, and Buber's
notes; also L. Ginzburg, Tlie Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1946),
VI, p. 262, n. 81-83.
17. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 7a. "Gan 'eim in gematria equals
<ad naggen, and gait 'eden in gematria equals <ebed 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. Heschel, The Prophets
(New York, 1962), p. 341, n. 28-29, and E. Meyerovitch, Mystique
et poesie, p. 78, 88.
21. Cf. Mekilta on Eiodus, 18:19; Cf. also B. Cohen, Law and
Tradition in Judaism (New York, 1959), p. 24, n. 70.
22. Cf. Y. 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 accoid. Take the nebel as an example;
the man plays on it, and the sound is not of the nebel's own accord.
R. Judah transfers the analogy from the sphere of the God-
man connection to the sphere of God-glory, given that the Glory
is the source of prophecy and the place of its occurence.
23. A.J. Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism [Hebr.]
(London-New York, 1965), n, p. 264-266; Z. R. Werblowsky,
Joseph Karo, lawyer and mystic (London, 1962), p. 260, n. 7-8.
;, Torah, and Hermeneuties in Abulafia 371
24. J. Weiss, "Via passiva in early Hassidism", JJS, 11
(1960), 140-145. See also R. Shatz-Uffenheimer, Quielislic Elements
in 18lh Century Hassidic Thought (Jerusalem, 1968), p. 112 [Hebr.J
25. 1 Samuel 10:5; U Kings 3:15. The latter verse became
the scriptural support of all those who connect prophecy to mu-
sic.
26. TB, Pemhirn 117a, Sabbat 30a, and other places.
27. Hilkdt Yesodeye ha-Tdrdh, 7:4; Sefer ha-Yihud attributed
to Maimonides (Berlin, 1916), p. 20-21, and also in Peraqim be-
Hasldhah attributed to Maimonides (Jerusalem, 1939), p. 7. See
also Adler, HWCM, index, p. 378-379, "prophetic inspiration
aroused by music."
28. Ginzey ha-Melek, ch. 15 (Adler, HWCM, p. 171, sentence
1); Cf. the translation by Werner and Sonne, HUCA, 16 (1941),
283-284; and see also Musarey ha-fildsdfim, ch. 18: "He says to the
musician: awaken the soul to its honorable power from modesty
and righteousness...." (Adler, HWCM, p. 148, sentence 6). See
also the remarks of the anonymous author of Toldot ha- Adam,
written about 1444 (MS. Oxford 836, fol. 184a):
The experts in this art calf these six notes, in their language, [u]t,
mi[!], re, fa , sol , la, 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 at this art with the seven sounds, fiisdy, 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."
This work was written under the influence of Abulafia's
theory.
29. Quoted from the Perns ha-Tdrdh by Bahya ben Asher
on Genesis 1 (ed. Chavel, Jerusalem, 1966), p. 39. Cf. also the
372 Notes to Chapter 2
commentary by Solomon ben Adret on Baba Batm 74b (ed. LA.
Feldman, in Bar-Uan: Annual of Bar-Urn University, vol. 7-8, 19/U),
p. 141.
30. Sabbat, 30b.
31. Sefer Adney Kesef (London, 1912), vol. 2, p. 120.
32 MS. Jerusalem 8 1303, fol. 47b.
33. The two views are found in Sukkah, 50b.
34 •Osar ha-Hokmah, MS. Musayoff Jerusalem 55, fol. 84a.
On this author and his times, Cf. Scholem, Kabbalistic Manuscripts,
p. 42-43.
35 This passage is cited in the name of R. Isaac in Sefer
Ha-'Emunot by Shem Tov ben Shem Tov (Ferrara 1556) fol. 94a,
published by G. Scholem in Mada-ey ha-Yahadut, H (1927), p. VI.
Cf Pitheu •6Um by Solomon ben Samuel (who apparently lived
at the end of the fourteenth century), Adler, HWCM, p. 301, s [U
note 1:
The tenth gate: the musical service in the Temple, vocal and instru-
mental, in order to draw hearts toward 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 prayed
rpubol and viyyutim, and in the Temple they had proper command
of the science of music.
Cf. also ibid., p. 300-301.
36 Nequddol, usually denomination of vowel points; here
the term was probably used in the sense of musical notes. CI
Adler HWCM, p. 172 (the prefol. of 360 / Ibn Sahula) and p.
173, sentence 3; see also ibid., index, p. 375: neauddah.
37 For an identical formulation of the melodic and rhyth-
mic evolution of the song of the Levites, see the reference to
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 373
Adler, HWCM in the preceding note; see also the text by Ibn
Sahula below.
38. In ed. Ferrara and MS. Paris-BN Hebr. 745: ha-belen-
Scholem suggests the correction: ha-Uttuy. 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 (daa) and p. 82, sentenced, note 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-amey ha-Neauddot we-Surdtdn, in Mada-eu
ba-Yahddut, II (1927), p. 267, 1. 18; we therefore adopt the correc-
tion mitnoseset.
41. Published in Mada-ey ha-Yahadut, II (1927), p. 247.
42. Cf. Scholem, Mada'ey lia-Yahddut, 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, Perdaim le-loldot
Stfrut ha-Qabbalih (Jerusalem, 1930/31), p. 62. I have omitted the
passage dealing with music, indicated by dots, which deals with
music from Midras ha-Ne-eldm, published there by G Scholem Cf
also Adler, HWCM, p. 172-174.
44. Numbers Rabbah 6:10. Cf. Adler, HWCM, p 173-174
sentence 1, note 2.
45. Tenu-dh, (musical) motion; for the various musical
meanings, see Adler, HWCM, index, p. 380 (tenu-dh), p. 376
(m-nua-); see as well Werner-Sonne, in HUCA, 16 (19411 306
note 183, and 17 (1942-43), p. 537.
374 Notes to Chapter 2
46. Mishnal,, Ym-a, 3:11. The idea that the science of music
had originated with Israel and was then lost also appears in the
plaited above from »ft* b*. and also in the unportant
musical discussion of Moses Isserles in Torat ha- «, part 2 .*.
» "the science of music which, due to sm, has been forgotten
by us from the day on which the song-service ceased I tc , exrst
Cf. also 1. Adler, »Le traite anonyme du ™nt T^f
de la Bibliotheque Nationale de Pans, Yuval, 1 (1968), 15-lb.
47. Sod In-Salselet, found in SS8f, MS. Paris, BN 790, fol.
141a-b; Cf. E. Gottlieb, Studies., p. 120, note 57.
48 The expression "in whose dwelling there is joy" ap-
pears twice in connection with music in Sod Tlan ha-'AsUut, from
nTcirde of Sefer ta— * G » pubUshec this smaU
treatise in Qote -a! KB (n. s.), 5 (1950); see «., p. 83, 97. There
Tno questton that there is a very close cormechon between the
conception of music found in Sod ha-Salsele, and that found among
members of the circle of the Sifer ha-Temundh. 1 hope to write at
length elsewhere on the conception of music in ttus circle.
49. Cf. H. Gross, Gallia )udaica, p. 322.
50 On death due to religious excitement caused by
singing, see D. B. Macdonald, "Al-Ghazzali on Music and Ec-
stasy," /IMS, (1901), p. 708, n. 3.
51. Cf. G. Scholem, Tarbiz, 3 (1932), 260.
52. See A. Jellinek, in Beyt ha-Midrds, III, p. 21.
53 MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 62a. This passage is based upon
the gematria of 751, by which yare- sdmar = Sir amor = •«* «m let.
Numbers 6:27] .
54 MS Oxford 1582, fol. lib. In this manuscript, as well
as in several other manuscript copies of this treatise, Itae * »
addendum which explains that the term mggunm is used in the
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 375
sense of niaaudim; this is also the case in our following quotation
from 'Or ha-Sekel.
56. Ibid., fol. 110b.
57. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 163a.
58. MS. Miinchen, 10, fol. 142a-b.
59. The author refers here to the five long vowels which
were accepted in Hebrew grammar from the time of Joseph
Qimhi and which appear in Abulafia's books. Cf. also Hayuey
ha-'Oldm ha-Ba: MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 53b.
60. The four-stringed -ud (short-necked lute), considered
by the Arabs to be the musical instrument par excellence ("in-
strument of the philosophers"), was liable to be supplemented
by an added fifth string (had); see, for instance, Adler, HWCM, p.
26 (sentence IVb, 31), p. 38 (sentence 16); A. Shiloah, The Theory
of Music in Arable Writings (Munchen, 1979), no. 272. Of particu-
lar interest, as regards our text, is the source quoted (after H G
Farmer) by Wemer-Sonne, HUCA, 16 (1941), 275-276, referring
to the analogy of the four strings with the four elements, and
associating the added fifth string with the soul. This may be
related to the following quotation from Ner 'Elohim, fol. 137a:
Indeed man is made up of five elements which encompass the whole
body. One element is simple and heavenly, and it is one of the heav-
enly forces, and it is called in its entirety soul (nefes), spirit (ruah) or
higher soul (nesamah)" {see also Ibid., fol. 135b).
See also the references to the five stringed kinnor in the
Tiqauney Zohar; Cf. Inventory of Jewish Musical Sources, series B, vol.
I: Music Subjects in the Zohar. ..by A. Shiloah and R. Tene (Jerusalem
1977), tiqqun 10 (p. 119, no. 175, 2), tiaaun 12 (p. 121, no. 178 4
and 11), tiaqun 21 (p. 128, no. 181, 21).
61. The author probably has in mind the equivalence
kinnor = 'ud = the musical instrument par excellence, thus arriv-
: music (Cf. the beginning of the
376 Notes to Chapter 2
ing at the equivalence kinnor
preceding note).
62. The last five words of this quotation perhaps refer to
names of the te'amim (such as 'oleh vie-yored, ma'arik).
63. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 72a-b. On this treatise, see
note 9 above.
64. Published in part by G. Scholem in Kabbalistic
Manuscripts, p. 227.
65. Averroes wrote on the connection between the animal
soul and sounds in his Epitome ofParva Naturalis, ed. D. Blumberg.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1954), p. 11, 1. 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. .
Cf . Johanan Alemanno's view in Hey ha-'Olammi, Mantua-
Biblioteca comunale, MS. ebr. 21, fol. 56a:
At most times of the day which are the times of solitude in the
morning and in the evening, he should sit in the garden wh.cn de-
lights the soul, which [soull fails through the five senses that there
exists a beauty of variety of sights-the (lowers, roses, and the sight
of the fruit— and a beauty of the variety of sounds— various songs
with which the birds, while nesting, make pleasant melodies...in this
manner his sensitive soul will not be sad at the beginning of solitude.
The sensitive soul of Allemanno is the animal soul of
Averroes and the living soul of Sa-arcy Sedeq. It is worth stress-
ing the difference between Sa-arey Sedeq and Sullam ha-'Ahyah: in
the latter book, primarily instrumental music is discussed, and
we may here be encountering the influence of the Sufi prac-
tice of soma-, which was based upon instrumental music. Cf.
Meyerovitch, Mystique el poesie, p. 83 ff. and bibliography, as
Language, Torali, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 377
well as F. Rosenthal, "A Judeo-Arabic work under Sufi Influ-
ence," HUCA, 15 (1940), 433-484, esp. p. 458-469.
66. MS. Moscow-Giinzburg 607, fol. 8a. This passage
seems to be an adaptation from Musarey Im-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-Mebaqqes (based
on the music epistle of the Ihwan 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 lialil (flute) was
played in front of the altar," in 'Arakin 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 as Philo, and from there moved on to Plotinus
It also appears in the Zohar. Cf. Scholem, Major Trends, p. 378,
69. Ed. Koretz, 1784, fol. 50c. In the matter of the number
of bells, there is a clear parallel between Yesod 'Olam and Sefer Im-
Pehrah; the number thirty-two does not appear in Zebahim 88b
where 36 or 72, but not 32, bells, are spoken of.
70. The text, still unpublished, is preserved in MS British
Library 749, fol. 15b. Vital himself admits that his conception of
prophecy was influenced by Abulafia, whom he quotes (among
others) in chapter 4.
71. Hitbodeduf. here the meaning is not "solitude" or "iso-
lation," as in the usual connotations of this term. See M Stein-
schneider, MGWJ, 32 (1883), 463, n. 8 and Hebraische Ubersetzungen
(Berlm, 1893), p. 74. The interpretation of hilbodedut as "dumb-
ness of the senses' also seems plausible in Pseudo Ibn-Ezra, Sefer
ha-'Asamim (London, 1901), p. 13.
378 Notes to Chapter 3
72. Mafsitin nafsam: for the meaning of this "withdrawal,"
see Z. R. Werblowsky, Joseph Kara., pp. 61-62, 69.
Notes to Chapter 3
1. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, p. 232.
2. Ibid., p. 101.
3. /bid., p. 14.
4. See A. Heschel, The Prophets (New York, 1962), pp.
390-409.
5. Commentary on the Mishnah. Introduction to Helen, translated
by Arnold J. Wolf, in I. Twersky, ed. A Maimonides Reader (New
York - Philadelphia, 1972), p. 420.
6. Sefer ha-Misvit; Lo Ta-aseh, no. 31. Compare the re-
marks by the anonymous author of Saw Stmayim, quoted by Sc-
holem, Kabbalistic Manuscripts, pp. 45-47: "For the prophets used
to prophesy and their limbs would shake, and at times they
would fall; and behold the great proof [of this in) the matter of
the magicians, who would constantly strike [themselves] with
a stick, until their feeling was dulled, and they would then re-
late future things [and] many of them would cry out in mighty
voices, and this was thought by them to abstract their intellects
from matter." See also R. Joseph Gikatilla, Sa-arey Sedea, fol. 7a.
7. Ed. Z. Blumberg (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 54.
These remarks by Averroes influenced Moses Narboni's Com-
mentary lo 'Guide for the Perplexed 1 , 11:36 (p. 43a), and also found
their way into Toledo! 'Adam, MS. Oxford 836, fol. 158b. Another
', Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 379
r?i° n , "^ PaSSage " Ppears ta Shem-Tov Falaquiera's Sefer
ha-Ma-alot (Berlin, 1894), p. 41.
„ , f 7 f'JS? BN 774 ' f0h 158a - C ™P*KMidrdsha-Ne<etam
■al Rut (ZoharHadds, p. 92b): "The Rabbis say: storm-this is the
storm ot Satan, who made turbulent the body of Job."
9. Ezekiel 1:4.
10. Job 40:6.
11. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 163b-164a, with omissions.
12. Deut. 12:23.
13. Lev. 17:11.
14. Op. cit., n. 11, fol. 162a.
h, , 15 \„ MS ' ° Xf ° rd 1582 ' foL 12a ' P™ ted fe y Septan in
I Kjtbbahstic Manuscripts, p. 25.
16. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 64b-65a.
17. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 158a.
18. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 163b.
19. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 12a, and see note 15 above.
20. Isaiah 11:2.
21. MS. Jerusalem 8 148, fol. 66b-67a.
22. Ibid., fol. 65a.
23. Sullmn hu-Ahydh, printed in Kabbalistic Manuscripts, p.
24. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 158a.
380 Notes to Chapter 3
25. I Kings, 19:11-12.
26. Wc-Zot li-Yelmdah, p. 16, corrected according to MS.
New York, JTS 1887, fol. 98b.
27. G. Sed Rajna, Commentaire sur la liturgie quotidienne (Lei-
den, 1974), pp. 166, 168. On the symbolism of 'light' in R. Isaac
the Blind and in the circle of Sefcr ha-'lyyun, see G. Scholem, Les
Origines., pp. 324, 351 ff.
28. The passage is published by Scholem in 838 ta-
Qabbaldh, pp. 143-144, and analyzed in his article in MWOJ, 78
(1934), pp. 511-512; the English translation follows that of Noah
J. Jacobs, printed in the English version of Scholem's article, "The
Concept of Kawdnah," pp. 172-173.
29. Penis" ha-'Aggddot, MS. Rome - Casanatense 179, fol.
134a; MS. Vatican 295, fol. 107a. The passage is cited anony-
mously by R. Menahem Recanati in Peruss ha-Tomh, fol. 90c, and
from there by R. Judah Hayyat in Perus le-Ma-areket ha-'Bohut, 95b-
96a. It is worth mentioning here another passage from Recanati,
which appears to be a reworking of the words of R. Ezra or R
Azriel: "When the pious men and men of deeds concentrated
and involved themselves in the supreme secrets, they would
imagine by the power of depiction of their thoughts [i.e., their
visual imagination] as though those things were inscribed be-
fore them." Perus ha-Tdrah, fol. 37d. This passage also appears
with minor changes in Recanati's Ta-amey ha-Miswot (MS. Vati-
can 209, fol. 28a), where the auto-suggestive principle is clearly
expressed.
30. See R. Azriel's letter to Burgos, printed by Scholem in
Mada'ey ha-Yahddut, II, p. 234.
31. See Seqel ha-Qodes, pp. 123-124, and in other passages
in his books. See also G. Scholem, "Colours and Their Symbol-
ism in Jewish Tradition and Mysticism," Diogenes, 108 (1979), pp.
84-111; 109 (1980), pp. 64-76.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abuiafia 331
32. However, R. Ariel's Perus la-Aggadot, p. 39, we find
a conversation between God and the one meditating, connected
with the uncovering of secrets, but this passage is an unusual
one m early Kabbalah. It is also interesting that here the mystic
enters premeditately into this situation: "and the one praying
must see himself as if he is speaking," etc.
33. The Sefirot are called aspaaliryol or nmrot (windows,
mirrors); see Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zolrnr I, 151-152. In Sosan
Sodot of R. Moses of Kiev, fol. 51a, in a passage belonging in my
opinion to R. Azriel, we read, "Know that Divine prophecy is
compared to the apprehension of the ten Sefirot of light." Cf. R.
Asher ben David's Perus Sem ha-Meforas, p. 16.
34. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 63b-64a. The passage
was published by Scholem in Qiryal Sefer, 1 (1924), p.134, and
translated in Major Trends, p. 150.
35. Folio. 69b. The corrected text was published by G.
Scholem in his article in MCW), 74 (1930), p. 287.
36. I. Hausherr, "La Methode d'oraison Hesychaste " Ori-
enlalia Christiana, 9 (1927), pp. 128-129; J. Lemairre, Dictiomire de
Spiritualite, (1952), col. 1852-53.
37. See Hausherr, op. oil., p. 128.
38. We will cite here several examples of mystical expe-
rience connected with light. In a work entitled Ma-aseh Merkabah,
published by Scholem in his Jewish Gnosticism, p. 112, par. 22-23,
we read: "R. Ishmael said: Once I heard this teaching from R
Nehunyah 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
382 Notes to Chapter 3
Priest], his face burned like torches." In Ketab Tamim by R. Moses
Taku, ('Osar NelimM, 3 (1860), p. 88), we read "And so the soul
of the righteous man shines, and in every place where the ngh-
teous go, their souls shines." In Sa-arey Sate) 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 •*
(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
of the true, perfect intellect" (MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 33b-34a).
For a survey of the appearance of light in mysticism, see Mircea
Eliade, The Ttoo 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. 'Osdr 'Eden Gamtz,
MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 165b.
40. MS. Moscow-Giinzburg 775, fol. 197a.
41. MS. Paris, BN 840, fol. 46a. On the problem of con-
centration (hitbodedut) in R. Shem Tov, see Idel, "it Hitbodedut as
Concentration," Studies., essay VII, pp. 59-60.
42. Idel, "We Do Not Have."
43. Lam. 3:28.
44. p. 69b. The connection between vocalization and
lights already appears in Berit Menuhdh.
45. A. J. Deikmanm, "Deautomatization and the Mystic
Experience," in Altered States of Consciousness, ed. Ch. T. Tart (New
York, 1962), p. 40.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 383
46. Heirtrich Zimmer, "On the Significance of the Indian
Tanrric Yoga," in Spiritual Disciplines; Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks,
ed. J. Campbell (New York, 1960), p. 51.
47. We-Zot li-Yehuddh, 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 Heschel, Theology of Ancient
Judaism, II, pp. 267-268.
50. L. Ginzberg, Legends of the jews (Philadelphia, 1946),
vol. VI, p. 36, n. 201; Werblowsky, Joseph Kara., 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 Ihe lowly world,
and nothing speaks in the lowly world but man himself, and iiml
also 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.
In his commentary to Gen. 1:26, Ibn Ezra writes:
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, judo ben Nissim
ttei Malka (Paris, 1954), p. 140, note 1; C. Sirat, Us Theories des
visions supernaturelles (Leiden, 1964), p. 77.
i
384 Notes to Chapter 3
53 MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 12a. In SU» Torak AM*
aUudes to this idea without detailing his rnrenuon (MS. Pans,
BN 774, fol. 140a).
tog to him," w*ch thev ^tr^t'ofVum. M "* •
the reflexive case. This is ixewise me _
vision I will make mysel .^ '° h ™ ew ^ -MoL spoke and
"I will hear die one speaking to me, £kewise H ^
among us-
Moses was the one who heard fte ™*& >0s - r . Eto
B ,s worth companng the end rf^^ he does
Gft« with the express.on m the midst or
not eat," which appears m *j .poem » *• «; „
Abn,ta„, Afatafto, P. 33; on the bush as a »g*dto ^
Abraham Bibago, DOT* '£"'"'«"- U - 3 - LfSsatfbtd 1543, fol.
fol. 97a, and see R. Nathan ben Avrgdor, MS. Oxtorc
12a-b.
* ° f Td k Se 8 wfHe 1 !"£ 1 Adt (n^). Were the mtenhon
55. TMhuma, ed. Buber, BereSt, p.
Rrffcwn (London, 1969), p. 35.
Language, Tarah, and Henneneutics in Abulafia 385
57. Mafteah ha-Hokmot, MS. Moscow 133, fol. 6b; MS.
Parma 141, fol. 7a-7b.
58. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 65a. Compare the remarks
of R. Ezra in Pints ha-Aggadot (MS. Vatican 295, fol. 107a) concern-
ing the prophets: "And they were saying the things as if they
had received them from above, and as if a person had placed
the words in his mouth, and they would say them against their
will." See also R. Isaac of Acre's remarks cited below, alluded
to in note 99.
59. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 66b. It is worth mentioning
a similar approach which appears in R. Judah ben Nissim ibn
Malka, according to which the speech from "the bush" originates
in Moses himself; this is based upon the gematria, ha-Sneh (the
bush) = 120, which was the number of years that Moses lived.
R. Judah interprets the verse in Zach. 4:1 in a similar manner,
referring to "the angel who spoke to me", in the sense of "from
within me." See G. Vajda, "La Doctrine Astrologique de Juda
ben Nisim ibn Malka," Homenaje a Millas Vallicrosa (1956), vol. 2,
p. 492, n.14. In the Abbreviated Hebrew Version of R. Judah
ibn Malka's Writings (Ramat Gan, 1974), p. 31 and p. 41 [Hebr.]
See also notes 51, 52 above. On the connections between R. Isaac
of Acre and R. Judah ben Nissim, see Vajda's above-mentioned
article, and note 129 below.
60. Printed by Scholem in Qiryat Sifer, 31 (1956), p. 393.
61. Vilna, 1886, p. 60a-b (Ch. 35), Sa-ar na-Nebwah; also
cited in R. Abraham Azulai, Hesed le-Abrahdm (Lvov, 1863), c Eyn
ha-Qpre-; Nahar 19, p. 51a.
62. The understanding of the embodiment of the spiritual
voice within the corporeal voice for purposes of revelation is re-
lated to a commonly held concept in the theosophical Kabbalah,
holding that every descent — for example, that of the angel —
entails its embodiment in a corporeal garment.
386 Notes to Chapter 3
63. n Samuel 23:2.
64. See G. Scholem, "R. Elijah ha-Kohen ha-Itamari and
Sabbatianism," Alexander Marx jubilee Volume (New York, 1950),
Hebr. Section, p. 467. Compare the explanation given by R.
Azriel of Gerona, of prophecy as the outcome of "strength of the
soul."
65. For the connection between prophecy and "greatness
of soul," see R. Azriel of Gerona's letter to the city of Burgos,
published by Scholem, Mada'cy ha-Yaliaiut, II, 239: "in the dreams
of the soul and its strengthening."
66. Salomon Pines, "Le Sefer ha-Tamar et les Maggidim des
Kabbalistes," Hommages a Georges Vajda, ed. G. Nahon -Touati
(Louvain, 1980), pp. 337-345.
67. See Schatz-Uffenheimer, Quietistic Elements, pp. 119-
68. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 62a.
69. Job 33:14.
70. Ex. 20:22.
71. Ibid., fol. 56b. Compare the remarks appearing in
MS. Jerusalem 8 1303, fol. 5a, which belong, in my opinion, to
Abulafia:
And know that the Kabbalist receives, that God says to a man, "Re-
ceive Me and I will receive you," as it is said (Deut. 26:17,18):
"Thou hast avouched [lit., spoken for] the Lord... And the Lord hath
avouched [lit.: spoken for] you," and therefore it says (Ex. 20:24),
"In every place where I shall cause my name to be mentioned I will
go to you and bless you"... and it says to you that if you remember
My Name for My honor, I have already remembered your name for
your honor.
72. Ex. 20:21.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 387
73. MS. New York, JTS 1801, fol. 9a, corrected accord-
ing to MS. British Library 749, fol. 12a-12b. Abulafia's words
were copied in the last part of Sa-arey Qedusah, which has not
yet been printed, under the name Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba; but they
are essentially a corrected version of Sejer ha-Heseq. See also Ab-
ulafia's remarks in Hayyey ha-'Oldm lia-Bw, 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
tenwdh (motion) and <aniah (response).
75. Ibid., 9b-10a, corrected according to ibid., fol. 12b. The
appearance of the Glory (kabod), as an intermediary witnessing
the force of speech, already appears in R. Saadyah Gaon, in
'Emunot we-De-ot, Sec. II, Ch. 10, etc. On the Glory as having a
human 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 con-
cerning this passage in Abraham Abulafia, p. 169.
77. Deut. 17:18.
78. The reading melis appears in MS. British Library 749,
while that of emsai' in MS. New York.
79. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 18b.
80. Haqdamat ha-Perus la-Tardh, p. viii.
81. Guide for the Perplexed, m-Sl. On the background to
this idea, see I. Goldziher, Kitab ma-ani al-nafs (Berlin, 1907) od
388 Notes to Chapter 3
82. Tesubal Dunai ha-Lewi ben Labrat 'at Rasa'g (Breslau, 1866),
14-15; R. Abraham ibn Ezra in his Commentary to Psalms 30:13;
103:1; and R. David Kimhi's Commentary to these and many other
verses. In Sitrey Tor ah, 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-5a. In 'Or ha-Sekel (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 Ap-
prehension. 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 imag-
ined as spirituality combined with it; and that force will be called
Man or Angel or the like." In Sefer ha-Heseq, 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. Baruch 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 = Hanok; Sadday = Metatron. See R. Eleazar of
Worms' 'Escr Hawayol, MS. Miinchen 143, fol. 220a. HMm
(dream) = %di = Hanok = 84. The definition of Enoch as "witness
(•ed) originates in Midrashic literature.
87. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 4b-5a.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 389
88. See the references in G. Scholem, Von den mystis-
chen Cestalt der Gottheit (Zurich, 1962), pp. 307-308, notes 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 Esotenc Theology, p.
224-225, esp. note 8. v
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" [Hebr.], Tarbiz, 5 (1934) pp 191-
192; Mada-ey ha-Yahddut II, p. 92. The passage also influenced
K. Meir ibn Gabbai, who quotes it verbatim in Abodat ha-Qodei
See G. Scholem, "Eine Kabbalistische Erklarung der Prophetie "
MCWI, 74 (1930), pp. 289-290.
93. R. Judah ibn Malka, Kitab Uns we-Tafsir, ed Vaida
(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 60 above.
94. A similar idea appears in the anonymous Perus ha-
Tefillot, which is close to both Abulafia and to Ibn Malka, 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 (note
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.
390 Notre to Chapter 3
98. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 50a.
99. See note 95 above. In Sa-arcy Sedca, MS. Jerusalem 8o
148, fol. 73b-74a, there again appears information concerning
the appearance of the form without any connection to speech.
On concentration in the book So-orey Sedea, see Idel, "Ritbodedut
as Concentration," p. 45.
100. MS. Moscow-Gunzburg 775, fol. 162b-163a. A pas-
sage from this treatise is quoted in the name of a "sage" in So&'n
Sddot, fol. 69b, as noted by Scholem in his above-mentioned book
(note 88), p. 307, n. 11. See also Gottlieb, Studies., p. 247.
101. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 126a-b.
102. fol. 125b.
103. In 'Osar Hayyim, MS. Moscow-Gunzburg 775, fol.
222a, there appears a passage with a similiar problematic: "How-
ever, I knew with a clear knowledge that the hand which I had
grasped and kissed was certainly his (i.e., Metatron's) hand, and
I saw myself within the secret of the encompassing totality."
R. Isaac of Acre saw himself inside the Active Intellect, which
served as a kind of mirror to the mystic.
104. See Hayyey ha-Vldm ha-Ba-, MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 79b;
Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 404-405.
105. MS. Paris, BN 727, fol. 158a-b.
106. It is reasonable to assume that the development of
the process of enlightenment from thought to wisdom and un-
derstanding, which appears twice in the text, is an interpretation
by the 'lyyun circle of the order of devolution of the Sefirot-
thought is Kcter, followed by Wisdom (HokmSh) and Understand-
ing (Bimh)— in Sefirotic Kabbalah.
[
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 391
107. This number alludes to the parallel between the 22
letters and the people; see also the passage from Sefer ha-'Ot, p
83, to be discussed at length below in sec. 6.
108. I Sam. 10:6.
109. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 159b.
110. Sefer Yesirdh 5:2.
111. See also Idel, Abraliam Abulafia, pp. 101-102.
112. Compare Sefer ha~Milis, MS. Rome - Angelica 38, fol.
18b, m the passage to be discussed below.
113. Fol. 55a.
114. Wertheimer's Batey Midrdsbt, U, p. 396, Version B The
passage from the midrash is not analyzed by S. Lieberman in his
article in Greek In Jewish Palestine (New York, 1942), pp. 185-191.
See also R. David ibn Avi Zimra, Mdgen Dawid (Munkasz 1912)
p. 49b, and below, n. 247.
115. Ezek. 9:4.
116. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, 12a-b; MS. Munchen 285
fol. 15a.
117. MS. Paris 774, fol. 166a, and see also fol. 166b.
The passage is based upon the following gematria: Adam and
Eve (Adam we-Hawdh) = 70 = my father and mother ('abi we-'vmi =
blood and ink (dam we-dyS). And ink (we-dyo) = 26 = YHWH. Tav
dam (sign of blood) = demut (image) = nafseka (your soul) = kasfan
(magician) = keiafim (magic) = sdfek dam (spiller of blood) = 450.
See also below, n. 172, and Cf. 'drha-Sekcl , MS. Vatican 233 fol
79a.
118. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 125a.
392 Notes to Chapter 3
119. Isa. 25:8.
120. MS. British Library 749, fol. 12b; MS. New York -
JTS 1801.
121. Dan, Studies., p. 119. Joshua ben Nun gained under-
standing 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 like-
ness 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 electron), 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
[me meaning of], "And God said let there be light... a armament,
etc " and subsequently "Cod made the firmament," etc. The Holy
One, blessed be He, says it in His thought, and the honorable Name
performs it
In Sefer Sioni, fol. 34d (Yitro), it states: "For His great
Name which is the Sekinah, 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 m Sefer lu-
Niban, and to a certain extent to that in Sefer Im-Ne-elam is found in
Avicenna's Commentary to Marga 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
Language, Torah, and Hcrmeneutics in Abulafia 393
by Henri Corbin, this expression is the supreme Name of God-
see his arhcle, "Epiphanie Divine et Naissance Spirituelle dans
la l_.nose ismaelienne," Eranos jahrbuch, 23 (1954), p. 176, n . 69.
f , I 22 ' » Dan ' J Wd " P ' U0: " The ^"S of Glor y is *• ™me of
fourta ers . md a n 79 there ^ Qan ne Esoterk nmh ^
123. Num. 12:8.
w c 124 ' ' S ' Ad ° m ' MS - Rome " Angelica 38, fol. la- MS
Munchen285,fol. 18b. The gpmtriyii in this passage are: YHWH
- 26 - hazehu = hdzeh (visionary); we-temmmt YHWH ydbit (he shall
gaze upon the image of God) = 960 = be-sim YHWH yabit (where
the fmal mem equals 600). fn the section preceding this pas-
sage cited from B 'Adam, Abulafia concerns himself with a sim-
ilar matter: Adonai = 65 = lm-nmlmzeh (the vision) = ba-nabi (by a
prophet). ■ v '
125. In his Commentary on the Torah, Ex. 33 (Chavell ed vol
2, p 346), R. Bahye ben Asher wrote, "that Moses comprehended
the Ineffable Name through the Divine Glory which came in a
cloud. 'And He stood there with him.' [Ex. 34:5] Who stood
with him there? The Glory, which is called Name... And the
Glory is known by the name YH." R. Bahya may have known
of the view of the Ashkenazic Hassidism, and realized the great
resemblance between his own view and that of Sefer ha-NMn
quoted above in note 121.
126. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 59a-b.
127. Ex. 19:18.
128. Clear allusions to this appear in the passage in the
form of gematria: we-ha-liar (and the mountain) = 216 = ryo =
geburih (might), which is an allusion to the seventy-two letters
name. Sam har aadds gabotw (there is the high holy mountain) = 912
= Sera ha-meforai (the Ineffable Name). In Sa-arey Sedea, Abulafia's
394 Notes to Chapter 3
disciple speaks about a situation in which "I set out to take up
the Great name of God, consisting of seventy-two names, per-
muting and combining it. But when I had done this for a little
while, behold, the letters took on in my eyes the shape of great
mountains." The parallel between the letters large as mountains
and the passage from Abulafia is striking, for which reason one
may assume that the letters of which Abulafia speaks are also
those of the name of seventy-two letters. It is worth mention-
ing the words of the anonymous author of Perus ha-Jefilldt, who
was close to Abulafia, who writes, "Know that every one of the
letters of the alcph-bel contains a great principle and a hidden
reason, and it is a great mountain which we are prevented from
climbing" (MS. Paris, BN 848, fol. la). The mountain appears in
other mystical systems as well as an image for the pinnacle of
apprehension; see the study by R. C. Zaehner, "Standing on the
Peak," Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to Gershom Scholem
(Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 381-387. The ascent to the mountain is
interpreted in Hayye Nefes as an allusion to spiritual ascent— that
is, to "prophecy"; in MS. Miinchen 408, fol. 7b-8a, we read;
The matter of the name of ascent is homonomous, as in their saying,
"Moses ascended to God," this concerns the third matter, which is
combined with their [allusion] also to the ascent to the rip 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" \miqom] and "ascent" I'aliydh] 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. Miinchen 10, fol. 133b. Note the comparison
of the giving of the Torah to "the seekers of the kiss" on Mt.
Gerizim, in Sefer ha-Malnmd, MS. Oxford 1649, fol. 204a.
130. Ex. 19:20.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 395
131. In Sefer ha-Haftdrdli, MS. Rome 38, fol. 35a, Monte Bar-
bara . 525 = fozzea ha-qaseh (strong the hard) = ma-aseh nes (an act
of miracle) = hazeq ha-neiimdh (he strengthened the breath) . we-
htzzeq ha-nesamah (and he strengthened the soul) = ion ha-ne-elam
(the hidden Name) = sen, ha-naqdm (the Name of retribution) Sem
ha-qes (the Name of the end) . 535 = ha-,nasq,f (the gazer); ha-Mi
(the sixth) = 615 = ha-seqer (the falsehood); lu-dimyon (the imagina-
^ = SI" T" = ' AZa2M ' ha ' mini (Iof ** s P ecies l = ta 1W»*
(the right hand on); Saqramento = seqer (falsehood) + Monte i e
falsehood and imagination. The passage makes use of the Italian'
words, Monte, alto, Sacramento, and motto (lie).
132. Yoma, 67b.
133. An identification of the mountain with the human
intellect appears in Narboni's Perus Im-Morek: "And the limitation
he mentioned which exists to the human intellect alluded to
that which God commanded Moses, 'you shall fence about the
mountain'." [Ex. 19:12 (sic!)] See Moshe Narboni, ed. Maurice R
Hayoun (Tubingen, 1986), pp. 51, 139.
134. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 35a.
135. Ex. 25:18.
136. On the gematriyot in this passage, see Idel, Abraham
Abulafia, pp. 101-102, and n. 126.
137. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 37b. One should take note
that the letters of the Ineffable Name are inscribed upon the
heart already in the Merkabah literature and in that of Ashkenaz
Hassidism. Sefer ha-Heseq, sec. 26, says, "That there is inscribed
upon His heart the name by which he shows to the prophets the
Sekhinah." Is this a development of the idea of the 72 names
"written upon the heart of the Holy One, blessed be He," which
appears in the text published by Odberg in Enoch III, p. lxv and
pp. 160-161?
396 Notes to Chapter 3
138. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 156a. On fol
166a of this
Panes' ta'nurnerological basis for *k .state-
rr . , , :_j;^^4- q c fh « name -YHWH.
The first indicates the composed structure °j ** ^;
Dam (blood) - 44
f. See 'Or fw-S
MS. Miinchen 58, fol.
ment
st indicates —
called, when it is P«^ d ™ SvH. See ft ***
= Yod He Warn He, while %o (ink) - 2b "*
MS. Vatican 233, fol. 79a. In Cm Mnil,
328a, it states:
When *. Name, who* ». I. ^^^a S
within him, and he «*« -«* ^ e J „ lrfge of the
which is w.thin him, he will ^J 1 ™^ him hom pota , tia Hry to
Name acted
actuality.
^ him, and it began t
R . isaac of Acre ^ows Abulafia^s path, in a passage
which has been preserved in MS. Sasson 919, p. 209.
Blood » the — of -e Unique ^+££*£%1
Yod He Waw He, and is literal ™»T^» *™ JUleName
„„,... which* "** ^■:^*-f^; et o[ [he sa cnf,ces and
book.
139. MS. Miinchen 10, fol. 158b-159a.
140. According to Schimmel, M*tol Dm**** of uU
p. 44.
141. MS. New York, JTS 1801, fol. 8a.
142 MS Moscow, Giiraburg 775, fol. 130a.
H3. See G. Scholem, "^^1^1
Sabbatianism," *>-*^ £*%£ '&. above the
r^M-St^ fhe pronunciation o, the
letters in K. Hayyim Vital; cf. Rashi on Yoma 73a.
1
Language, Torah, and Hermeneuttcs in Abulafia 397
144. See his commentary to Ex. 28:30 and on Yoma 73a,
and see also Rasbam [R. Solomon b. Meir] on Ex. 28:30, and
Targum Jonathan on this verse.
145. See Perm Ba<al ha-Turim, ed. Jacob Reinitz (Benai
Barak, 1974), p. 190-191. The gematria does not work out prop-
erly; evidently, the correct reading is sem ben sibnm u-setaim (the
name of seventy-two). In his Peruss ha-T6rdh , fol. 51a, R.
Menahem Recanati states, "And I found it said in the name of
R. Eliezer [i.e, R. Eleazar of Worms], of blessed memory, that
[the phrase] 3 el ha-'urim we-ha-tummim (the 'Urim and Tummim )
is equal in gematria to 'the name of seventy-two letters.' " This
version likewise appears in an anonymous Kabbalistic commen-
tary in MS. New York, JTS 2203, fol. 208a: "And R. Eliezer of
Wormiza [i.e. Worms] said that "the 'Urim and Tummim" equal in
gematria 'the name of seventy-two.' " In Colkctanaea of R. Johanan
Alemanno, MS. Oxford 2234, fol. 150, it states:
"The 'Urim and Tummim." The Ineffable Name was placed on the
breast plate by which the high priest would direct his thoughts, and
in the name called 'Urim the letters would be lit up, while in the
name called Tummim he would combine the letters and bring them
close so that the high priest would not make any error in them, as
they were scattered."
146. MS. Oxford 123, fol. 71a-b. Certain magical sub-
jects are discussed in MS. Ambrosiana 62/7 in the name of R.
Meshullam the Saducee, as attested by G. Scholem in Qiryat Sefer,
11 (1933/34), p. 189. Possibly the term Sarfati (i.e., the French)
was corrupted to Sedoqi (the Saducee).
147. See his short commentary to Ex. 28:30, and the
remarks by R. Joseph ben Eliezer Tuv-Elem, Safnat Pa c aneah (Cra-
cow, 1912), pp. 285-286. R. David Kokhavi cites the opinion in
the name of the aggdddh, stating that concentration upon the 'Urim
and Tummim is similar to an act of astrology; see Migddl Ddwid,
MS. Moscow 234, fol. 175a.
Notes to Chapter 3
148. MS. Paris, BN 853, fol. 56b-57a.
149. Yoma 73b.
150. Hagiggah 12a.
1SL That is, on Sundays and Wednesdays.
152. Num. 6:25.
153 . gee also Idel, "Types of Redemptive Activity,"
.261,
40.
MS Paris, BN 774, fol. 157b. Compare
154. Sitrey I era,,, MS. «»^
MS Munchen 58, fol 321b 34M.
j Torih, 1
„„»,.-, MS. M_
The form of me tetters, desp* being *fc -» ^ ^ „ he „ J
wh ile the form of the eyes
receives power
from the letters in wtt
! the matter
of 'Judah ■■
ZlT^Z^zr^
eyes
sunken into them,
and is sunk within it,
completes
in attaining
tanding out;
with them its actions, and moves
this hidden wonder
and the heart receives
ill ascend'— i*-<
ictuied in the
it and
from potentia into actua
Abulafia portrays
re the process of enlightenment
of the convex form of
'^^^Xfe -pect, of the tl
The
the letters by the eyes-
their meaning in the h
to s^ges are apparently ("^^.'on the question
the element of compulston.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 399
are identified with the Aspaqlarydh ha-meurdh (the "clear crystal")
and the Tummin with the 'Aspaalarydh se-^endh menrah (the "unclear
crystal"). One must take note here of the identity drawn by
R. Elnathan ben Moshe between the "Clear Crystal" and the
Intellect, on the one hand, and the "Unclear Crystal" and the
Imagination, on the other. In his work, 'Eben Sappir, he states
(MS. Paris, BN 727, fol. 28b):
And there is a known man within whom there comes to dwell the
intellect and the imagination, called the angel and the cherub. These
are the cherubim which are visible and stand on the two ends of the
ark-cover (kaporet), and they both shine like sapphire, each in its time,
according to its level. For most prophets prophesy by the power of
imagination, which is the "Unclear Crystal" [corresponding to] the
pillar of fire by night, from which the fire is borrowed, as in the verse
{Ex. 13:22) "the pillar of cloud will not depart by day, nor the pillar of
fire by night." The word yommam {by day) does not appear anywhere
in Scripture but when the sun is upon the earth, and therefore if the
sun rises the stars disappear. And the pillar of fire by night is the
image of his Name, and it is against the gaze of the sun. These two
pillars served in the wilderness for forty years, to protect them from
all the corporeal events. . .
But not so Moses our teacher, of blessed memory, who prophesied
in the "Clear Crystal," which is called the seraphic light and daily
Intellect— and it is this that is meant by, "mouth to mouth I spoke
with him" — without distinction and without making use of the power
of imagination, which is the attribute of judgment. This is the dis-
tinguished level of the man of God, and this is the daily and light
intellect, the light of which is above the heads of the creatures in-
scribed like in the vision, "and upon the image on the throne was
an image like that of a man," to whom he cleaved and by whom he
ascended. And the prophets who came after him prophesied by the
"Unclear Crystal," and that is the imagination of night-time, [which
is] dark, like the light of the sun upon the moon, to receive light
from the sparks, and from the flame of his warmth to warm from
its extreme cold, like the warmth of the heart which is extreme in its
simplicity, to extinguish the extreme cold of the spleen.
156. The connection between 'Urim and Tumm'mi, the In-
effable Name, and the faculty of the imagination, appears later
The Philosophical Doctrine of
400 Notes U Chapter 3
in R. Hasdai Crescas. See S. Urbach
1 FtaW Crescas [HebM Oerusalem, 1961), p.
48. Compare Sefer ha-Zohar U,
157. MS. Paris, BN 777, p.
230a-b.
158. Ezek. 1:26; see
Ch. IV, notes 26, 43.
also Idel, Kabbalah:
Not Perspectives,
159. MS. Paris, BN 777, p. 49.
S Paris, BN 774, fol. 165a: "But
tie prophets gazed up
I the 'Unclear crystal,
pernal matter; see also H»W
S now^^-^r
t and saw it and understood, for tt
The reference here is toward the supe„. ; . _ -^ ^
■r, MS. Oxford 1582, foL •** B ^".^ 1 «*», and
fce 1H> and Ita-M w* ^"^ m ^ image of the
mey are me Ut. ^.™lX» There is an allusion here
luminaries, which enhghten m tmfe 1^ ^ ^ ^^
oom to the sun -*■£*£ imagm ation, which are the inne,
enlightening the truth.
, m 8 148 fol. 73b-74a, translated by
161. MS. Jerusalem 8 14b, mi
ItoKfe, p. 155, and n. 112.
Compare R. Dav.d ben
as well as to the intellect and imag
•Urim and Tumtium,
Scholem in Major ^
162.
Yoma 7ab; JT, Y«w 7-4
Zimra's remark in Mogm
, D „:7(Mu^asc Z ,1912),fol.l8d-19,|
Here 1 see fit to inform you m bneM » ^ queslionl a,
J-*: "hen he [,e„ the f*^ Bu , still ne ed »
lette rs o. his answer woul sh™ ^o ^ ^.^ ^ wolds
know how this was for '*^ and vari „ us interpretations, as.
are subject to many drfferen form ana Names ,„„„„„
very dear. But the matte, £ tot on o^ ^ ^ ^ ^
me priest was restmg m the folds ot m ^ ^ (owald
°" ld -l^nrat^i. and^ciomedmmeHoty^
that name
and conentrate upon
Language, Town, and Hermeneutics in Abuiafia 401
through that same name, and would imagine in his consciousness
the interpretation of those letters which shone before him, and there
would cling to his thought the combination of the letters of the answer
to his question, in a manner analogous to prophecy.
See on this passage Idel, "Hitbodedut as Concentration,"
pp. 67-68.
163. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 75a-b, and see note 157
above.
164. The term surah ttrarit refers to a form perceived in the
imagination. In Scrarey Sedeq, MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 77a, we
read, "There is a second form present in the second conception,
that is, the power of the imagination, and these are the imag-
ined forms, perceived by the senses after they disappear from it
through the invention of the power of the imagination."
165. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 13b-14b; MS. Munchen
285, fol. 156a-16a, and compare Mafleah lia-Hokmot, MS. Moscow
166. Ezek. 1:28.
168. Compare 'Qsar c £den Gdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol.
134b,
for no sage in the world could record in a book [all] those things
which he imagined in his heart, and he also would be unable to
utter them, for the writing would be insufficient even to describe the
bodies; and the evidence [for this] is that a man is unable to describe
in writing anything which is spherical, but in its place he may draw
a circle, and say in the book that this is an allusion and sign for a
sphere.
169. On the cosmic axis (re/i) and its identity with the
bar or axis of the world, see L. Epstein, Mi-Qadmoniyot ha-Yehudim
Oerusalem, 1953), pp. 191-194. It is worth citing here the com-
I
402 Notes to Chapter 3
ments of the author of Ner Vohim concerning this axis in MS.
Miinchen 10, fol. 130a:
The southern point of the world, there U, the Prince of the Presence,
for to is the head of the axis; and the north is its ta.l, and there is
£ Prince oTfte Back Part, and the appointed [angels] are Matron
* A Sandalphon, or say Michael and Gabnel. 1. has ft. t*W
attribute, which is the attribute of mercy, m its head; and at its end,
in its tail, is the attribute of judgment.
The axis guides the world with both attributes: that of
judgment and that of mercy. Cf. note 171 below.
170. '<V 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 41b.
171 MS. Paris 774, fol. 145b. On reward and punish-
ment in the conduct of the world, see the same work foLWft.
"Metatron the Prince of the Presence... and he Is the Praice ol
Acton [ie., the Active Intellect], the fount of reward and pun-
Z*- Sar ta-Hnta - 685 = Sar ha-Po-al (the Pnnce of Acuon
S» Cemul M J^SJ.- — -KSS
spheres Si fol. 155a, a parallel is drawn between reward and
p^sLent, on the one hand, and intellect and rmagmatton, on
the other, after which we read:
When vou shall know within yourself that you have been perfected
know with your intellect...
Cf. 169 above, and notes 218-219 below.
172. Ibid., fol. 166a, and see also above, n. 117.
173. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 80a.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 403
174. C. G. Jung, Collected Works (New York, 1959), vol. 9,
1, pp. 290-390. There have been many attempts to make use
of Jung's system in the study of the significance of the circle in
mysticism and in theology in wake of his own pioneering work.
See G. A. Zinn, "A Mandala Symbolism and Use in Mysticism "
History of Religion, 12 (1972), pp. 326-337; Ewerett Cousins, "Man-
dala Symbolism in the Theology of Bonaventura," University of
Toronto Quarterly, 40 (1971), pp. 185-200.
175. G. Tocci, The Theory and Practice of the Mandala (London
1961), p. vii.
176. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 153a.
177. 'es (wood) = selem (image) = 160.
178. sefa' (influx) = demul (image) = 450.
79. tere (two) = demul + selem (image = likeness) = 160 +
450 = 610.
180. we-'es ha-hayytm (and the tree of life)
(will add wisdom) = 239.
ydsif hoknmh
181. we-'es ha-da'al (and the tree of knowledge) = ydsif
hokmot = 645
182. we-'es ha-hayyim = gbral = 239.
183. we->es ha-da'at = gbralot = 645.
184. Lev. 16:8.
185. MS. Paris 774, fol. 2b; the anonymous author of Sefer
M-Seruf makes use of the image of the circle a number of times;
see ibid., fol. 2a, 6b.
186. MS. Sasson 290, fol. 552. The passage is based upon
gematriyot, several of which are interpreted at the bottom of the
404 Note to Chapter 3 , _
££*«- -"«»' tS^ffioSSSS ascend by it to the
see below, Sec. 10-
18 , M, Parrs 727, »^ "SSffiMS^g
us, tee appears a to-J^, ln MS. Paris 728 foL
tetor (crown), simrlar to that m S^W ^ enare sphere ^
42b , it states: "for that ladder aHudes ^ ^ which „
upon the earth, ^^^^Zd behold, there is one
S center of the sphere a ^by law ^ reaches , the
wheel on the earth, and toe top ^ ^ f p.
upper heavens." See the pa^ P 28 fol . i77b: Lift
Sel Rafael, MS. "^ there which brings aboutm
up'your eyes on hrgh and see tha sp , ^ master of rf
tie world those lower mattery a ™ng down and that one
SS£? S "st^pon the ground-who ascends
and who descends.
, u a Flnathan quoted above,
189. Compare the remarks by A. Elnatha q
n ° te 155 ' „ 77S fol 105b-106a; and see
m . MS. Moscow-Gunzberg 775^01 ^ ^
also Gottlieb, Stwfe-. P- 2 f • °™ ° £ R i saa c of Acre speaks
: quel to the p-J«»2^ corresponding to the at-
ab q ou. the letters wntten n blacky fa ^ ^ b ,
tribute of judgment, «***£££ cori tains within it those ele-
language, Torah, and Henneneutics in Abulafia 405
191. MS. Paris, BN 840, fol. 45b-46a, and see also the
sub-section "the Light," above; cf. Baddey hth'Arm, MS. Paris, BN
840, fol. 25b: "understand the form of these drawings in your
mind, and the appearance of the light will come to you."
192. For the possible sources of this view, see A. J. Hes-
chel, Theology of Ancient Judaism, U, 346-347, and Maimonides' In-
troduction to 'Pereq Heleq' .
193. On the connection of R. Shem Tov ibn Gaon to
prophetic Kabbalah, see idel, "Hitbodedut," pp. 58-63.
194. Studies., p. 236.
195. Mafteah ha- Ra'ayon, MS. Vatican 291, fol. 21a.
196. Seba- Nelibot 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 Silrey Torah, MS. Paris
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."
The motif of the ladder in Abulafia includes other sub-
jects, in addition to the vision of the ladder as the Divine Name
and symbol of the worlds, a point to be discussed at length else-
where. Cf. the article by A. Altmann, "The Ladder of Ascent"
[Hebr.], Sfudies in Kabbalah and History of Religion Presented to Cershom
Scholem (Jerusalem, 1968), pp. 1-32.
197. Genesis Rabba, 68:16.
406 Notes to Chapter 3
198. Gottlieb, Studies., pp. 235-236.
199. See R. Joseph Angelino's Qupat Iw-Roklin, MS. Oxford
1618, fol. 10a: "The book of the Torah is required to be round,
for just as in a ball one cannot detect its beginning and its end,
so in the Torah is its beginning fastened to its end." See also R.
Simeon ben Semah Duran (Livorno, 1785), fol. 29b; and compare
especially R. Judah Barceloni's Commentary to Sefer Yesirah, 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 ghbum igneum. See
Ars Cabalistica, ed. J. Pistorius (Basel, 1587), p. 705.
201. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 53a. na-ar (youth) = 320 =
sat (sheikh); main main (old man - old man) = 314 = Metatron.
It may be that one is meant to add the total number of letters
in Metatron and main maen-le., 6— making the combined gematrk
320. '
202. Song of Songs 5:2. This verse is interpreted in a
number of sources as an allusion to the indwelling of prophecy,
or of the Sekinah. See the Targum to this verse, Rashi's comment,
and Maimonides' remarks in Guide, 01:51. 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 O Beloved." See Werblowsky, Joseph Yjxro, p. 260
and note 7.
203. I Samuel 3:9-10.
204. MS. Moscow-Giinzberg 168, fol. 775a.
205. Hosea 11:1.
language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 407
206. Psalms 37:15. On these two aspects of Metatron—
that is, as a youth and an old man— see in Abulafia above, while
for earlier sources see Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, "Polymorphie di-
vine et transformations d'un mythologeme: 'L'Apocryphon de
Jean' et ses sources," Vigiliae Christianae, 34 (1981), pp. 422-424.
207. Yebamot 16b.
208. For the "Prince of the world" as the earliest of the
created beings, see Hullin 60a. This idea was then transferred to
Metatron when the latter was identified with the Prince of the
World. See Midrdi ha-Ne'elam, Zolm I:126b: " 'And Abraham said
to his servant' — this [refers to] Metatron, who was the servant
of the Place; 'the elder of his household'— that he was the first
of the creations of the Place." See Asi Farber, "On the Sources
of Rabbi Moses de Leon's Early Kabbalistic System" [Hebr], in
J. Dan-J. Hacker, eds. Studies in Jewish Mysticism, Philosophy and Eth-
ical Literature Presented to Isaiah Tishby [Jerusalem Studies in Jewish
Thought, m:l-2. Gerusalem, 1986)], pp. 84-87.
209. As is well known, there is a problem of full and
deficient spelling— i.e., with and without the letter yod— with
regard to the name Metatron, which is written in early texts as
MYttRWN. See G. Scholem, Tarba, 5 1934, pp., 186-187, n. 3;
MS. Vatican 428, fol. 55a; Yesod 'Olam, MS. Moscow 607, fol
130b; Commentary to Sa'arey Torah, MS. Jerusalem 144 8o, fol. 2b.
R. Isaac of Acre himself writes, "Prior to this ascent, Metatron
was called without [the letter] yod, and after his ascent and his
receiving of the influx, he was called Metatron, with Yod." This
text is printed in G. Vajda, "Isaac d'Acco et Juda ben Nissim,"
RE], 155 (1956), p. 66.
210. The throne of judgment appearing in Sefer ha-Ot is
evidently connected with the two attributes by which the world
is led; see n. 169 above. It is worth noting that Metatron himself is
at times depicted as possessing contradictory characteristics, as
we find in the words of R. Reuben ha-Zarfati in Perns ha-Ma'arekct,
408 Notes to Chapter 3
fol. 96b: "For the Active Intellect, which is Metatron, the Prince
of the Presence, has two impulses, that is, two angels— one ap-
pointed over mercy, and one over judgment— and this refers to
the angels Azriel and 'Azah." See also Werblowsky, Joseph Kara,
pp. 220-221, and Yalaut Re'ubeni, passim. This dialectic under-
standing is evidently connected with the perception of Enoch as
having both good and bad attributes, as we already find in the
midrasim.
211. MS. Paris 774, fol. 129b-130a. Abulafia's remarks
are directed toward a work, evidently written by R. Eleazar
of Worms, entitled Sivim Semdt set Metatron [Seventy Names of
Metatron). Cf. Dan, The Esoteric Theology, pp. 220-221. Yeho-el was
the original name of the angel which was afterwards known as
Metatron, as has been demonstrated by G. Scholem, Jewish Cnos-
tieism, pp. 43, 51.
212. R. Eleazar of Worms.
213. This passage is based upon the gematria: Yeho-el = 52
= •ana- (please) = 'Eliyahu (Elijah) = ben (son).
214. Gottlieb, Studies., p. 234.
215 C Jung The Archetypes and the Collective Unconsciousness
[Collected Works, 9; 1. (New York, 1959)], p. 215-216; 217-230.
The old sage who reveals the truth or the correct path is consid-
ered as an archetype by Jung. It is worth mentioning here the
appearance of the guru among the Hindus and the sheikh among
the Sufis, both of whom are images of teachers who appear to
their disciples in visions.
216. C. Jung, Psychology and Religion [Collected Works. 11.
(New York, 1958)1, p. 14 ff.
217. R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (New York, 1959), pp.
26-55, Ch. IV.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 409
218. MS. Paris 74, fol. 155a-b, and above, note 171.
219. This description was influenced by that found in
'Abodah Zarah 20b. It is worth noting that the same expression,
"full of eyes" {male •enayim), used fa the Talmud and in Sitrey
Torah, in reference to the Angel of Death, is used by Abulafia
in connection with Metatron. In Sefer ha-'Ot, pp. 70-71, we read:
"And his name is like the name of his master, who portrays him
completely, full of eyes, seeing and not being seen." The phrase,
"his name is like the name of his master" doubtless refers to
Metatron, whose value fa gematria is the equivalent of Sadday =
314. In my opinion, the expression, "full of eyes," refers to the
form fa which the name Sadday is written with the help of the
alphabet of Metatron or the writing of "eyes"; see Israel Wefa-
stock, The Alphabet of of Metatron and Its Significance [Hebr.j Temirfa
(Jerusalem, 1982), vol.2, pp. 51-76. In R. Hananel ben Abra-
ham's Yesod 'Oldm, MS. Moscow-Gunzburg 607, fol. 130b, the
name Sadday is written in kelab •eynayim. This ambivalent attitude
is appropriate to the understanding of Metatron as possessing
the attributes of both judgment and of mercy mentioned above,
J note 171. Is there a connection between this approach and the
pun on the letters Sadday— sed, whose meaning is "God - Satan"
in the interpretation given by Archangelos to Pico della Miran-
dola's Kabbalistic Thesis No. 19. See Ars Cabalislica (J. Pistorius:
Basel 1587), p. 793; Cf. Midrds Talpiyot by R. Eliyahu ha-Kohen of
. Ismir, p. 155c, quoting Sefer ha-Pelvmh. Abulafia himself makes
l use of the following gematria: sin dalet yod ■> 814 = Sefe Satan (the
influx of Satan) = demut satin (the image of Satan) = >re mdwcl dm
(fire death judgment). See also Sefer ha-Malmdd, MS. Paris 680,
fol. 292a, and elsewhere in his writings.
220. MS._ Oxford 1582, fol. 51b. The question of the
presence of the Sekinah during prayer appears in Maimonides,
Misneh Torah, Tefilldh, 4:15-16, based upon Sanliedrin 22a.
410 Notes to Cliapter 3
221. Ibid., fol. 52a. The connection between the motif of
"the king" and fear already appears in Merkabah literature; cf.
Scholem, Mnjor Trends, p. 57 ff.
222. MS. New York 180, fol. 8b-9a.
223. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 109b; on the comparison of
the intellect to a king, cf. Henry Malter, "Personification of Soul
and Body," IQR vol. 2 (N.S. 1911), pp. 462-463, n. 24; Plotinus,
Emiaeds V, 3, 3; and especially Maimonides, Guide., 111:52. In
Toldot 'Adam, written in the fifteenth century under the influence
of Abuiafia, it states: "One who choses human perfection and
will be a true man of God will awake from his sleep and know
that the great king hovers above him, and that there always
clings to him the great God, of all the kings within him ; and
if there were David and Solomon and that king who clings and
hovers, which is the Intellect which flows into him, which is that
which connects between us and the Name, may he be praised
and blessed."
224. The term "fear out of love" {yirat 'alidbali) is based
upon an outlook whose sources I have not yet been able to de
termine. Under the influence of R. Joseph Gikatilla, an acquain-
tance of Abulafia's, it subsequently developed within the realm
of Sefirotic Kabbalah. Traces of the term yir'dh fenimit (inner
fear) — that is, fear mixed with love — appear in one of Gikatilla's
early works; see Gottlieb, Studies., p. 126 ff.
225. This dialectical understanding of ecstasy also ap-
pears in the work Pemqirn be-HasldMh, attributed to Maimonides,
p. 7:
"The one who prays shall rum toward God, stand on his feet and feel
pleasure in his heart and his lips, his hands stretched forward, and his
organs of speech reflecting, while the other parts [of his body] are all
afraid and trembling, while he does not cease uttering sweet sounds;
[then] he makes himelf broken-hearted, prepares himself, beseeches,
bows down and prostrates himself weeping, as he is before a great
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abuiafia ill
and awesome king. And there shall come upon him sinking and
trembling until he finds himself in the world of intellective beings."
R. Azriel of Gerona also expresses himself in a similar
manner: "The light of the Sekinah which is above their heads is
as it were spread about them, and they are sitting within the
light... and then they tremble in [their] nature and rejoice about
that same trembling" (cited in Scholem, Debarim bc-Go, p. 330).
In Perus fm-'Aggadot (ed. Tishby, pp. 39-40), R. Azriel says, "the
one who prays must see himself as if He (i.e., God) speaks with
him and teaches him and directs him, and he receives His words
with awe and fear."
226. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 63a-b. sat ba-moah (swims in
the mind) = Satan = 359. Compare his remarks on fol. 31a of
the same work: "And the joy shall further arouse your heart
to add reverse [combination of letters] and understanding and
joy and great pleasure. And be quick to turn about, like the
flaming sword which turns about to every side, to do war with
the enemies surrounding, for the images and the portrayal of
the idle thoughts born out of the spirit of the Evil Urge are those
which go out to first greet the account [hesbon: i.e., act of dealing
with the letters], and surround it like murderers, and confuse the
thoughts of men." R. Isaac of Acre also knew of the appearance
of angels of destruction during the time of letter-combination; in
'Osdr Hayyim, MS. Sasson 919, fol. 215, he writes, "and they shall
come to him upon the combination of letters and their unification
(sic!), and they shall 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 c Azzai," etc. See Idel,
"Hitbodedut as Concentration," p. 51.
227. The burning up of objects during the process of car-
rying out a mystical technique is already found in Hekaldt litera-
ture.
412 Notes to Chapter 3
unable to abiue tne un me j^tr™,^ like a great fire
**-* ""» " *» ^„rarLt 6 h. HH - th,i blinds
which consumes a small one, and the ugni o ^^guishes
te eye of th. one who sees ,«, or •£■££"£ ^ol 81b)
a small one." (Anonymous work, MS. Pans, UN DW,
229. /W-, fol. 158a
230. fttf., fol- 157b -
23!. ta* *r. Printed by Scholem £-g PP q »«g
and also brought in Li,,utey 0W* MS. Oxford 4I»,
232. Daniel 7:10.
233. On the face becoming drained of blood as a sign of
fear, see Idel, Abraham Abulafia, p. 102.
m MS Oxford 1582, fol. 60b. The passage is based
uP ont^^ i:;8 -^rs^^
. ^ui ^ ^/i^r ^r- (the cause of
(living, speaking and imagining) s a u _
the cause) . M£4 »M£&» ^ctolem notes in «M«
„*. (by recitation and science . j\ s ^em =
»-* P- 28 ' -f f I; r'CSw^ Abulafia's teacher,
appears ta the wnhng of R- Baruch g ^^
See S*^ m '4"f lk f wis f appear f there; see AM»>, p. 231
great fire) = Satan UKewise apy Firenze, National
Compare also the material ^S^STs^m. and
Library 28, fol. 173b: "the great fire is the secret o
language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 413
it is the evil impulse; yeser lia-ra< (the Evil Impulse) in geniatria
equals Rasha< (the evil one)."
235. Ibid., fol. 80a. bosdr we-dam (flesh and blood) = mal>
ake ha-tndwet (the angels of death) = perate ha-homer (the details of
matter) - <eber perati (private organ) = homer ha-periddh (matter of
decomposition) = 552.
236. The connection between Divine Names and fire
is an ancient one. In Midrds 'Otiydt de-Rabbi Akiba, Version A
(Wertheimer, Batye Midrdsot, U), p. 365, it states:
"And the Holy One, blessed be He, sits upon a throne of hie, and
around and about him are Ineffable Names, like pillars of fire. . .
and when man makes use of them, each and every firmament is
completely fire, and they descend to consume the entire world with
fire... so when a man uses them, the entire world is immediately
rilled with fire."
237. On the dangers of the mum, i.e., "blemish," see above,
in our discussion of "techniques," note 100.
238. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148 , fol. 65b.
239. MS. Moscow-Giinzburg 775, fol. 161b. On this pas-
sage, see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Ch.4.
240. Gottlieb, Studies., p. 237.
241. On the image of sinking within the Ocean, see Idel,
Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 67-70.
242. Scholem, "Devekut," esp. p. 204; Major Trends,, pp.
55-56; Kabbalah, pp. 174-176. For a different view concerning
the subject of unio mystica in Kabbalah, see Idel, Kabbalah: New
Perspectives, Ch. 4.
243. Wisdom of the Zoliar II, 289-290, and the notes there.
414 Notes to Chapter 3
244. Studies., p. 237.
245. See R. ]■ Z. Werblowsky, Mfc 34 (1965), pp. 203-204.
246 R C. Zaehner, MysHasm, Sacred and ***£&**
perience of identification with nature or w hasjs
which constitute nature ^f^^tn ^object id the
remains the preservation of the gap between )
Lte^robtrena^not contribute to our understand.s^
of Abulafia.
24, MS. Oxford V^JgjgSESA
lafia's words in the same work i ol 1*« , ^
li.e., of the Divine Names) «££"££ " ve to taowledge of
ta„ the hands of Sheol, and bnn them , ^ ^ ^
the World to Come, and m " r ^ m He be raise d. And of
God , by which they dmg «« may J^
such-like is it said, And you w *° of ^ one cle aving
Werblowsky, Joseph K«ro, pp. 252-ZD3.
248 This refers to physical connections or "the connec-
tion of tat," which will in the end be annulled.
249. On this expression, see chapter 2 above, "Music and |
Ecstatic Kabbalah," note 4.
250. Dent. 4:4.
251. Deut. 10:20.
252. Deut. 13:5.
Language, Torah, and Hermcneutics in Abulafia 415
253. MS. Miinchen 10, fol. 154b; compare the words of
R. Joseph Karo, cited in Werblowsky, Joseph Karo, pp. 156-157.
254. A. Ivry, "Averroes on Intellection and Conjunction,"
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 86 (1966), p. 76-85.
255. L. Massignon, in Journal Asiatique v. 210 (1931), pp.
77, 82, 92 ff.; idem, Kitab al Tawasin (Paris, 1913), p. 130.
256. See G. Vajda, "En Marge du Commentaire sur le
Cantique des Cantiques de Joseph ibn Aqnin," REJ, 124 (1968), p.
187, n. 1, and his book Recherches sur la Philosophic el la Kabbala
(Paris, 1962), pp. 26-28. To the list in Vajda, one may add R.
Isaac ibn Latif, who writes in Sa'ar Samayim, Gate I, Ch. 18: "This
is the final purpose of the soul, namely, its unity with the Active
Intellect and its becoming one with it." Ibid., Ch. 26: "Let the
soul cleave in the upper world, and that is the active intelect,
until it and she become one thing." See also Tishby, Perus ha-
Aggadct le-R. "Azrlel, p. 20.
257. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 140a.
258. ibid., fol. 155a; compare Swarcy Sedeq, MS. Jerusalem
: 8o 148, fol. 39a.
259. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 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, fol. 14b-15a; MS. Miinchen
15, fol. 39b. See Scholem, Major Trends, p. 382 and p. 140.
262. Based upon II Samuel 5:17.
263. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 89-91.
416 Notes to Chapter 3
264 Compare Sefer ha-Malmdd, by one of Abulafia's disci-
ples, where it states (MS. Oxford 1649, fol. 206a), "Say to God
Vou 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 cleaving of the power-that is, the supernal Divine power,
called the sphere of prophecy- with human power, ai
said 'I, I.' "
265. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 20a and 21a.
266. Exodus 6:3.
267. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 12a.
268 Printed by Gottlieb, Studies., p. 237, and notes there.
It is worth noting here that Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in his
Oration on the Dignity of Man, transl. A. Robert Capomgn (Chicago
1967) PP 9, 14-15, stresses the possibility that man may reach
unity' with God and, as does R. Isaac of Acre, this possibility m
the case of Enoch, who was transformed into "an angel of the
Sekinah."
269. On this image, see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp.
67-70.
270 Jellinek, Hyct H-MMS, V, p. 171. On the subject
of identification of Enoch and Metatron, see M. Idel, Enoch is
Metatron."
271 Ma-areket ha-'Bohut, fol. 96b and p. 95a, "that the
human intellect, after it has been separated from the body will
again become spiritual, and be embodied in the Achve Intel-
lect, and he and it are again one." Similarly, and doubtless .un-
der its influence, R. Abraham ibn Migash writes rn Kebod Etotam
" "For his name is like that of his mas-
mtellect
(lerusalem, 197/), p. 9/a, ror ms .uuu. .= ™- ",,_«■
ter which is the Active Intellect, and when the human intellect
cleaves to it, the two shall be one, and he is it, and his throne is
its throne, and its name is his name, and he is the Prince of tte
World." On fol. 97b,
intellect, he is it."
Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abuiafia 417
when it is attached to the sphere of the
272. Major Trends, p. 141.
273. MS. Moscow 133, fol. 64a-66b; MS. Oxford 1582 fol
41b-42a.
.274. Deut. 5:20
275. Deut. 4:4.
276. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 115a. This refers to the com-
posihon of the Ineffable Name, which equals 26 in gmmfria of
two equal parts of 13 + 13 = -ahabdh + -ahabdh. (love + love) On
the continuation of this passage, see Ch. 4 below, on "Erotic Im-
agery," note 43. This section is cited anonymously in Newe Satan
by R. Abraham Shalom, fols. 87a-b.
277. Compare the remarks made by R. Judah Albotini in
Sulldm ha-'Ahyah (in Kabbalistic Manuscripts, p. 227 and p. 228 229)
which speak about man's departure "from his human domain "'
and his entry into "the divine domain." Unlike Abuiafia R
Judah Albotini refers to the cleaving of the soul "to the super-
nal, hidden world of emanation, i.e., the world of the Sefirot or
sometimes to the soul's cleaving to the Active Intellect See now
also Scholem, Qiryat Sefer, 22 (1945), p. 162.
278. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 117b-118a. In R. Elnathan b
Moses Kalkis, 'Eber, Sappir, MS. Paris, BN 727, fol. 15a, we read:
Therefore he is held accountable, that influx being neither body nor
bodily power, because of its resemblance to the One from which it
flows; and this influx is likewise separated, and for this reason it
brings upon the soul a further influx similar to itself, based on it to
elevate its existence from the level of non-separauon to that of sep-
aration. And despite this, the separate influx is not corporealized
but only the soul, which is not separated, which speaks and is en-
lightened with the power and which thinks thoughts of wisdom and
418 Notes to Chapter 3
understanding and knowledge, which are seven levels, one above the
other in level— it receives that separate influx and clings to it until it
returns to be one thing with it, and then it and she [become] one in
number.
279. Ibid., fol. 118a-119a, with omissions. In the same
work (fol. 8a), 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, BN 776, fol. 192b; MS. Vatican 441, fol.
115a. Compare R. Pinhas Elijah Horowitz, Sefcr ha-Berit (Briinn,
1797), Pt H, 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 Perusse Risonim le-Maseket 'Abot (Jerusalem, 1973), p.
65. Similar things appear on p. 62; cf. Sefer ha-Seruf, MS. Pans,
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 1887,
fols 99b-100a; and Scholem, Major Trends, p. 131. W.T. Stace saw
in this passage an indication of pantheism; see his Mysticism mid
Philosophy (London, 1961), p. 116. On the understanding of the
Sefirot as pertaining to spiritual powers within man, see Wei,
Kabbalah; New Perspectives, Ch. VI; on man as a compound entity,
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 419
see Idel, "Abraham Abulafia and Unio Mystica," studies., essay
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., 11:6,'
although the meaning of this idiom is not the same in Abulafia
as in Maimonides. The expression, "the forces scattered in exis-
tence," appears in Hayyey ha- Nefes, MS. Miinchen 408, fol. 90a.
287. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 109a-b, and Scholem, Abulafia,
pp. 225-226. P. Tocci, "Techniques of Pronunciation," p. 227
According to Tocci, p. 236, note 35, a connection exists between
the expressions, "wisdom," "understanding" and "knowledge,"
and the Sefirotic system; however, in my opinion, these three
words have no theosophic meaning. On the same page (note
36), Tocci states that the word debiaut does not have the meaning
of unio, relying upon Scholem, who discusses the meaning of
iebiaut in other authors. It seems to me, in light of the material
we have brought both from 'Or ha-Sekel and from other colleagues
of Abulafia, that one must reject Tocci's statement. On fol. 118a,
Abulafia speaks about the soul which "resembles the separate
being in every place."
288. MS. Miinchen 22, fol. 187a.
289. Eccles. 12:4.
290. Goldreich, p. 222; this passage was copied from
the Miinchen 17 manuscript by J. Herz, Drei Abhandlungen iiber die
Conjunction des separaten Intellects mil dem Mcnschen (Berlin, 1869), p.
22, Appendix II. In his view, this reflects the impact of Averroes'
doctrine. The passage was translated into French by Vajda, who
contends that it was influenced by the psychological doctrine of
Ibn Bajja; see his Recherches, (n. 256 above), p. 379, n. 3. It seems
to me that this rather reflects the influence of a Neoplatonic ap-
proach comparable, for example, to the approach of Liber de Causis
420 Notes to Chapter 3
in the Hebrew translation of Judah Romano (Sefer ha-Sibbot, MS.
Oxford 2244, fol. 31a):
The effect is its cause by way of the cause, just as the sense is in
the soul by way of the soul, and the soul is in the intellect in an
intellective manner, and the intellect in "reality" in the way of reality,
and the first reality in the intellect in an intellective manner, and the
intellect in the soul in a soul manner, and the soul in the sense in a
sense manner.
291 The expression 'is 'eloK (Divine man), also appears in
MS Leiden 93, from whence Vajda also translated the passage;
see ibid p 379, n. 1. It is worth noting here that the expres-
sion "Divine man" appears in Maimonides' letter to R. Hasdai
ha-Levi This letter refers to a story concerning the equarumity
of the perfect man, an idea which likewise appears m Me-tral
'Einauim. The expression -s -elohi similarly appears in 'Eben Sappir,
MS. Paris, BN 728, fol. 154; Cf. Mel, "Hitbddedut as Concentra-
tion," Studies, essay VII.
292. See above, 'Or ha-Sekel , MS. Vatican 233, fol. 120b.
293 See Mel, "Mundus Imaginalis," Studies.; essay V; MS.
Vatican 233, fol. 7b; and see also the concluding poem, fol.
128b.
294. Ibid., fol. 8a.
295. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 2b.
296. See the description of Sefer ha-Mafte~hdt in Mel, Abraham
Abulafia., p. 20.
297 See Scholem's remarks, Abulafia, p. 131 ff, as well as
the important article of Mircea Eliade, "The God who Binds,
Irises 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 and p. 169,
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 421
note 3; S. /. Shah, Oriental Magic (London, 1956), p 82 The ex-
pression, "the binding of the bridegroom" {■as.rat ha-hdtin), which
appears during the Geonic period, also bears a magical signif-
icance: see L. Ginzberg, Geonica (New York, 1909), II, p 152-
S. Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York 1942) p no'
On the subject of 'magic' and the 'knot', see Vajda's above^
mentioned study, Recherches, p. 110-112.
299. This Platonic idea appears in several places in Abu-
lafia; see, for example, Sitrey 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 lua-Sekel MS Vati-
can 233, fol. 117a ff.
300. The motif of nature seducing the soul, in order to
sink within it, is an old one; see Mussare lia-Filtisofim, I, 18, 8.
301. 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 23b.
302. Joel 3:5.
303. P. 144.
304. 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 133b-134a.
305. Ibid., 56a; leli = 440 = mekasef (witch). This gematria
k very widely used by Abulafia. The knots which sustain the
human body are already alluded to in R. Judah Barceloni's Pirns
Sefer Yesirdh, (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, note 37, and p. 247.
308. 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 131b. This
approach is a well-known one among the Neoplatonists.
422 Notes to Outpter 3
309. On the "creational" fettering of man, see Hans Jonas,
The Gnostic Religion (Boston, 1963), p. 204.
310 Vr ha-Sekel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 117a. The matter
of the "fettering" and of the putting on the spiritual form a so
Spears m £fhOMI (Koryscz, 1784) fol. 106d, "And the
indention is that Enoch cast off the bodily element and put on
the spiritual element, and was fettered by a spiritual knot.
311. 'Or ha-Sekel, fol. 115b; ha-aeser (the knot) = 605 = hitir
(untied). See Idel, "Mundus IrmgimUs," Studies., essay V.
312 'Osar 'Eden Gam.z, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 132a based
on Guide for the Perplexed, 11:2 and Samuel ibn Ttbbon, Perus MO.
Zdrot (ed. J. Even-Shmuel), p. 82.
313. Hayyey ka-Nefes, MS. Munchen 408, fol. 63a.
314 "Myth and Mysticism: A Study of Objectification
and Interiorization in Religious Thought," lourna, of Rehpon, 49
(1969), pp. 328-329.
315 See Binyamin Uffenheimer, Hazbn Story* minha-
U&JLXW** (Jerusalem, 1961), p. 135 ff, and the b.bl,-
ography cited in the notes.
316. 'Or Im-Sekel, Ms. Vatican 233, 127b-128a.
317. Hayyey ha-Vldm ha-Ba; MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 50a.
318. 'Or Im-Sekel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 125b.
319. Ibid., fols. 149ff.
320. Cu,deforthePerpl a ed,a37. ^^P^^^
in Avicenna, see F. Rahman, Prophecy in Islam London 958), pp.
52ff., pp. 86 ff., and compare We-Zot li-Yehudah, pp. 18-19.
321. Sitrey Torah, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 154b.
', Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 423
322. Isa. 50:6.
323. Ibid., v. 9.
324. Hayye ha-hlefes, MS. Munchen 408, fol. 47a.
325. MS. Jerusalem 8o 1303, fol. 73b. The passage is
based entirely upon fragments of verses connected with various
prophets.
326. Further on, Abulafia brings a series of verses ex-
pressing the bitter lot of the prophets.
327. MS. Rome - Angelica 38, fol. 34a.
328. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 402-408, esp. note 71.
In addition to the passages cited there, see Sefer ha-Vt, p. 68 and
Sefer ha-'Edut, MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 13b.
329. See M. Idel, "Abulafia on the Jewish Messiah and
Jesus," Studies., essay m.
330. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia., p. 412.
331. MS. Rome - Angelica 38, fol. 12a; MS. Munchen
285, fol. 37b. The definition of the supernal revelation as predi-
cated upon knowledge of the Ineffable Name is reminiscent of R
Abraham Bar Hiyya's description of the climax of prophecy as
the revelation to Moses of the significance of the Ineffable Name
In Megillat ha-Megalleh (Berlin, 1924), p. 43, he writes, "and the
supreme order of them all (in all the types of prophecy) is that
he will tell him the meaning of the name, as he told it to Moses
etc."
332. Sefer ha-Haftardh, MS. Rome - Angelica 38, fol. 37a.
333. On the Torah as the Name, or sequence of Names,
of God, see Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," pp. 45-84.
424 Notes to Chapter 3
334 '6s* Hayyim, MS. Moscow-Giinzburg 775 fol. 160a.
approach:
^ secret of the deed rs ^-*££££5S £«
,0 West.. For it is known that [the Schrat,
and H is the place of ph J*^*«*g ^ ^Suptme Crown) is
is to place of spirituality; and XMr **«; ., £ ^ Driesl
Messiah he will bring the lower Messiah.
The term "upper Messiah," also appears in .Sejer te-
„ *HM while the lofty status of the Messiah is men-
Temunah, fol. 29b, while tne y rf ^ m , .
^ nt Ss^d by G Scholern y T„ rte 5 (1934), p. 55 and
fragment published Dy ^ note fn)m
example, R. Moses de Leon's Seael ha~Qodes, pp. 90 91.
Kabbalah, but the approach per « s ^^ Q)m ^ e 3
a point which 1 cannot discuss in depth here. F
remarks of Reuchlin. r* Art. Cabalisfca (Basel, 1557), p. 862, es
enim Messiha (sic!) Virtus Dei."
335. Ueftron. ^ prince of * e Presence '
language, Tomh, and Hemieneutics in Abulafia 425
336. 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 174a. Com-
pare R. Abraham ibn Ezra's short commentary on Ex. 2320 (ed
Fleischer, p. 202). On fol. 134a of the same work, Abulafia again
describes reality in bleak terms:
"For everything that is
with i
„s 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
- : "jht which, when the sleeper awakes from it, thus
i even when he looks at the day past, he will see
"' e a passing shadow."
5 by in the night
shall he find it. And
that all his days are like
337. Cf. Isa. 28:8.
338. Sitrey 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 required to conduct an unending
war against his thoughts, is a common one in hesychasm. See
G. A. Maloney, Russian Hesychasm (Morton, 1973), pp. 73-79.
339. Sitre) Torah, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 155b-156a.
340. 'Osar 'Eden Cdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 32b.
341. Ibid., fol. 27b. In Sitrey Torah, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol.
120a, it stated that the intelligibilium "will be eternal and exist
like the stars forever and ever."
342. Mafteah ha-Hokmot , MS. Moscow 133, fol. 6b.
343. 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 101b.
344. On this idea, see A. Altmann-S. Stern, Isaac Israeli
(Oxford, 1958), pp. 201-202; I. Jadaane, LTnftuence du stoicisme sur
k pensee musulmane (Beyrouth, 1968), pp. 232 ff.
345. MS. Munchen 58, fol. 317a-b; and compare Sefer
k-Melis, MS. Munchen 285, fol. 15a:
= tihyeli (shall \ive)-tihyeh = [423 I
426 Note to Chapter 3
"He who wishes to die in the coming [world] shall live in this on*
and he who wtshes to die in this, will live m the nex And he
Sindple of it is. that in killing his Evil Impulse he will make hg
Sod impulse to live, and if he kills hrs Good Impulse he makes has
Evil Urge to live."
346. tSmot (will die) = 846
+ 423 J. See above, note 115.
347. Timid 32a. The author of Sefer ha-Malmad (MS. Oxford
1649, fol. 207a), similarly stresses the concept of wiUed death,
as in the example of his teacher:
—^o^'Sd^m^^S
shaTman do to live? He shall die. And what shall man do and dte.
He shall live."
348. Num. 19:14.
349 See Maimonides, Hilkot Yesodey ha-Tordh, 3:12; a dis-
cussion of the sources connected with this idea appears m L
Tw^y, "Aspects of the Mishneh Torah" *£ Mj*«- -
Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 99, notes
B Compare the words of R. Levi ben Abraham in Uwyat
Her: (Yesurun, ed. Pollack, vol. 8, p. 131):
with woundmg blows, tor tmtMul are me blows o a fnend . U
S„=r=,^=r:h=
eternity.'
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 427
351. The opinion of H. Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadel-
phia, 1956), TV:5, concerning the need for intensive preparations,
afflictions and isolation, have no basis in the writings of Abu-
lafia.
352. 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 162a.
353. 'Or ha-Sekel, MS. Vatican 233, fol. 125b.
354. Can Na-ul, MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 328a.
355. Qiddusin, fol. 71a.
356. See particularly the list of conditions Abulafia re-
quired of those disciples who would be worthy of receiving the
secrets of Kabbalah, in which the ascetic element is conspicu-
ously absent; Hayyey tw-'Olam ha-Ba', MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 34a.
357. 'Osar Hayyim, MS. Moscow - Gunzburg 775, fol. 170b.
358. Compare also the appearance of "equanimity'
(hiitawut) [lacking in the writings of Abraham Abulafia] in R.
Isaac of Acre, again apparently under Sufic influence; see Idel,
"Hitbodedut as Concentration," Studies., essay VII.
359. "Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 165b-166a.
428 Note to Chapter 4
Notes to Chapter 4
1. James H. Leuba, The Psychology of Religious Mysticism
(London, 1925), pp. 137-155; G. C. Anawati - L. Gardet, Mystique
Musulmane (Paris, 1961), pp. 161-174; M. Idel, "Metaphores et
pratiques sexuelles dans la Cabbale," in Uttre sur la Saintele, ed.
Ch. Mopsick (Paris, 1986), pp. 329-358.
2. See Tishby, Mishnat ha-Zohar n, pp. 280-306, and the
notes there; R. I- Z. Werblowsky, Tarbiz 34 (1965), pp. 204-205;
idem, Joseph Karo, pp. 57-58.
3. On love as intellectual worship, see Tishby, ibid., pp.
283-284. Abulafia's view on this subject appears in the section
entitled "the worship of God via love," Sod 2. 10, Silriy Torah and
Hayyey lia- Nefes. There are brief discussions of this subject in sev-
eral other sources: see Mafteah ha-Sefirot, MS. Milano, Ambrosiana
53, fol. 176a. Vajda, L'amour de Dim, pp. 203-204, describes Abu-
lafia's approach to this subject, based upon Hayyey ha- Nefes alone.
On pp. 197-198 he gives a translation of a passage from 'Intra/
Sefer discussing intellectual love, without mentioning either the
source of the section or its author. See also Idel, Abraham A>~
p. 27.
4. Baba Batra 17a; Sifrey, Debarim, sec. 357; Mo'ed Qatan 28a;
etc.
5. See the midrash, Petiral Moseh Rabbenu, in Eisenstein,
'Osdr lia-Midrdsim, II, p. 370, 383.
6. Song of Songs, 1:2.
7. It would appear to me that this passage from the Gui*
for the Perplexed influenced, not only Abulafia and his disciples,
but also those Kabbalists belonging to the theosophic school. Its
Language, Torah, and Hermeneuties in Abulafia
429
impression may already be noticed in R. Azriel, Perns Ita-'Aimdot
p. 5 and p. 59: '
And the sages said [Sifra Wa-yiqra, 82: 12), -no man shall see mc
and Ime' [Ex. 33:201— in their lifetime they can not see but at the
time of their deaths [they may]," and they are like the candle whose
light waxes just as it is about to be extinguished. And this is what
is written, "you gather [lit.: "add") their spirits and they die" [Ps.
104:29] - in that addition their spirit departs.
This passage was influenced by the sentence preceding
the above passage in the Guide: "Yet in the measure in which
the faculties of the body are weakened and the fire of desires
is quenched, the intellect is strengthened, its lights achieve a
wider extension." R. Moses de Leon borrowed this idea of R.
Azriel's in his Sefer lia-Rimmon, MS. Cambridge 1516, fol. 54a and
in Miikdn ha-tdut, MS. Cambridge 1500, fol. 14a, as well as in
Sefer ha-Zohar, I, 218b-219a.
8. On this topic, see Idel, "On the History," pp. 3-6.
9. See L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (New York, 1946),
vol. 6, p. 161, note 948. Unlike Maimonides, who saw death by
the kiss as the result of the weakening of man's physical powers,
Moses is depicted here as being at the height of his powers at
the time of his death: "and his eye was not dim" [Deut. 34:7].
10. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 14b. In Berit Menuhdh (Jerusalem,
1950), p. 16a, we read, "and when the sage in his wisdom
reaches this place, he dies by the kiss, because of his great long-
ing."
11. Berdkot, 61b.
12. 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 48b.
13. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 109a.
14. See above, Chapter 3, sub-section: debequl.
430 Notes to Chapter 4
15 Published by Scholem in Kabbalistic Manuscripts, p.
228. Another disciple of Abulafia, the author of Ner 'Bohim (MS.
Munchen 10, fol. 167b), writes that:
He ordered us to hold our tongues against excessive speed, concern-
ir* them [i.e., the sefirot] and to place a rem to our thoughts and
Tatances to our desire for the love of God, lest the soul become sepa-
SS from ^body in its grea, desire, and seek me kisses of me Up.
of He who pours wisdom and love.
The substitution of Ben Azzai for R. 'Aqiba as the one who
died by the kiss likewise appears in a passage m MS. Vaticar ,441
M. Mb, in the margins: "and Ben Azza, .likewise .desired Jta
Let and went beyond the bounds to seek .1, and he died with
Z kiss." It is possible that R. Judah ai-Botrm grafted fte idea
found in ft^sT*. ***r onto a descriphon of the death of
Ben Azzai, MS. Vatican 283, fol. 71b:
"Ben Azzai looked and died." He gazed at the radiance of the Sekmih,
ilea mar. wTth weak eyes who gazes into me full light of the sua,
^d rushes are dimmed, and a, times he becomes bUndeo, because
of me mtLily of me Ugh. wluch overwhelm hm,. Thu. happened
,o Ben Azzai: me Ugh, overwhelmed mm, and he gazed at it because
of rrfTgrea. desire ,o cleave ,o „ and to enjoy it wuhou, m.errupho .
and after he cleaved ,o i. he did no. wish to be separated from th
sweet radiance, and he remained immersed and h.ddenw.thin ,t
And his soul was crowned and adorned, and that very radiance and
Mghmess to wh,ch no man may cling and afterwards Uve, as rs said
"fo, no man shall see Me and live" [Ex. 33:20], But Ben Azzai orjy
eazed aUt a little while, and men his soul departed and remamed
Sere] and, was h.dden away in me place of its cleaving, wruch »
S Vicious light And dais dead, was me death of the pious
wC souTs are sep^ed from all concerns of me lowly world, and
whose souls cleave to the ways of the supernal world.
This passage was evidently written during the first half
of the thirteenth century; Cf. R. Azriel's Perus ha-'Aggaiot ed.
Tishby P »■ *» <* her Ascriptions of Ben Azzai's ecstatic
delude R. Isaac of Acre, <*r H, W ,, MS Moscow^unzbu^
775 fol. 138a; R. Menahem Recanati, Perus la-Torah, fol. 37d, etc.
16. Psalms, 116:15.
:, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 431
17. This duality also appears in Gnosticism; see Hans
Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (Boston, 1963), p. 285. Sufism also con-
tarns tesnmonies to the death of the mystic in a state of ecstasy
See above, Chapter 2, note 50.
18. MS. Jerusalem 8o 303, fol. 53b; MS. Vatican 295 fol
o b ,\„^ hlS b °° k ' ?erdr ' W " M ° r ' Ch - 6 (in J dlinek < fe ™ Hemed,
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. Johanan Alemanno, Sa-drey ha-Hesea (Livorno 1790) fol 35a
b; Cellectanaea, 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
"preparahon" 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
Hm Rushd with the Commentary of Moses Narboni (New York, 1982), p.
19. MS. Oxford 1649, fol. 204a.
20. See above, Ch. 3, section. 6.
21. The author of this work may also be alluding to the
gmatria: 10 x 26 [i.e., the name YHWH] = 260 [the genmtria of
Gerizim, in the deficient spelling used in Scripture].
J 22. MS. Munchen 22, fol. 187a; MS. New York, JTS 839
fol. 105b- 106a. The vision of light while in the ecstatic state at
the time of death, described in Sefer ha-Seruf, is similar to what is
already found in a text from the circle of Sefer lia-'lyyun. Several
manuscripts contain a passage belonging to this circle (MS Vat-
ican, Urbino 31, fol. 164a; MS. New York, JTS 839, fol. 5b; etc )
which reads: '
432 Notes to Chapter 4
From the tte thai the righteous person departs to his sternal tome,
he sees the light of the sphere of the intellect, and immediately he
depS AS i/the Holy Cme, blessed be He, has created ,, and made
i, known to the eye. And Moses saw the light of the Zebul, and im-
mediately 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-Pdvrt. did draw a connection be-
tteen the passage from the circle of Sefer ha-'Iyyun and the unage
of the kiss (Koretz, 1788, fol. 106b):
Know that at the time that the righteous person departs to his eternal
atTde he sees the light of the sphere of the intellect and his soul
immediately departs Ll leaves the body. And know .hatha is shown
«ta accordance with the level of that righ.ous person and his cleavmg
1, light, and he immediately cleaves [to it], for mere is no strength
°1 body to withstand the soul's longing when it sees that light
and MoL!as soon as he saw the light of the dwelhng of the supernU
Sb" immediately cleaves mere. And the vision of me light which
is visible to the righteous whose soul is there is called the kiss
i in Sefer ha-Seruf, death is the cause of ecstasy and
not vice versa. The vision of and cleaving to the light are a Neo-
^ateTc motif, whrch appears frequently in Bahya Ibn Paquda.
One ought to point out that in a text from the circle of
Sefer J*£ L meaning of the sphere of me intellect is snri-
On the relationship between the two
le-Rabbi Hanok ben Selomo
and see also the Tal-
for the righteous, in
ilar to that of empyreum. -
concepts, see Colette Sirat, Mar-ot Tlohmt »-— - v—
al-Qonstanlrni (Jerusalem, 1976), pp. 16-17, and see also the Tal
mudic discussion of the light concealed
,12a.
23 I refer to the passages in Recanati, Vend la-Torih, fol.
These statements have an explicitly Neoplatonic
found in R. Ezra, Perns
38b and 77c
pttS ^tJ^^r^ Vb^^nd in R. WS
'« While R. Ezra and R. Aznel do not draw
Perns ha
anv
I ha-'AggMol, p. 40. While R. Ezra and K. Aznei » » " ■"
connection between the cleaving of the individual soul |
Language, Tarali, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia
the supernal soul and death by the kiss, such an association
does appear m Recanati. Recanati's Perns k-TSmh influenced
on the one hand, R. Judah Hayyat's Ma-areket ha-Sehut (Mantua'
1558), fol. 95a-96b, and Christian Kabbalah, on the other See
Ch. Wirszubski, Three Chapters in the History of Christian Kabbalah
(Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 11-20 [Hebr.]; Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries
in the Renaissance (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), pp. 155-156-
F. Secret, Les Kabbalistes Chretiens de la Renaissance (Paris, 1964) pp'
39^0; B. C. Novak, "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Johanan
Alemanno," JWC1, 45 (1982), pp. 140-144.
24. See Moses Ibn Tibbon, Peruss Sir ha-Sirim (Lyck, 1874),
p. 14; R. Ezra, Peruss Sir ha-Sirim (in Kitbe lia-Ramban, ed. Chavel'
p. 485), which was directly influenced by Maimonides and by R
Joseph ibn Aknin, Hilgalut ha-Sodol we-Hofa-at hn-Memot (Jerusalem
1964), p. 24; and A. S. Halkin, "Ibn Aknm's Commentary of the
Song of Songs," Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume, (New York 1950)
pp. 396 ff.
25. On the difference between Abulafia and the Kabbalists
in their use of the image of sexual union, see the end of this
chapter.
26. R. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1961), p. 151. There is a similarity between Ab-
ulafia'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, PhiloS Use of the Categories Male and Female
(Leiden, 1970), pp. 55 ff., p. 57. The pair of concepts, Active
Intellect and Passive Intellect, were identified as male and fe-
male by Postel; see De Etruriae regionis (Florence, 1551), p. 144.
This treatise is cited in the introduction to the English edition of
aihauium of J. Bodin - M. L. D. Kuntz, ed. (Princeton 1975)
pp. lviii-lix, n. 112.
434 Motes to Cliavter 4
27 Published by Scholem, Abulafia, p. 232; and compare
the end of Sefer ha-Simf, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 33b, and above,
Chapter 3, note 223.
28. Numbers 12:8.
29. 'Osar 'Eden Ginuz, MS. Oxford 1580, fols. 131b-132a;
compare also Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, pp. 206-207.
30. MS. Milano, Ambrosiana 53, fols. 170b-171a.
31 On the sources for this evaluation of Song of Songs,
see S. Lieberman's comments in Scholem's book, Jewish Gnosticism,
p. 119, and note 1.
32 On the comparison of the soul to a woman, see Hans
Jonas, The Gnostic Migkm. pp. 283-284. and Plotinus' remarks in
Ennead VI 9 9 (ed. MacKenna, p. 629): "The soul is always an
Aphrodite The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at
one with Him, in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father.
See also Werblowsky's comment in Tarbiz, 34 (1965), p. 204, and
Meister Eckhardt's, "Woman -that is the most noble term with
wfuch we may designate the soul: it is a more noble word than
virgin " See R Schiirmann, Mailre Eckhardt on la jote errante (Pans,
1972), p. 46, 181; A. E. Waite, Die Way of Divine Union (London,
1915)', p. 203.
33 The two stages in progress toward prophecy corre-
spond to knowledge of conventional truth, i.e. the secrets o
Torah and the reasons for the commandments, and knowledge ol
the intelligibilia. This evaluation places the commandments on a
lower level than most Jewish philosophers would be prepared to
acknowledge. Abulafia's distinction here between conventional
truth and the intelligibilia is similar to that of his Provencal cor,-
temporary, R. Levi ben Abraham, who writes in Livyat Hen, MS.
Miinchen 58, fol. 84b:
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafla
435
UK Torah said, "Behold, 1 have placed before vou today life and
Z tZ* T ddeatt, » d «*•' »"'■ 30:15] (This refers to]
the practical commandments, of which it is sa,d, "good and evil •
f„ ? ''V ^ =nd intellectual commandments-and
oohshness-tha. is, death. And the good in h,s eyes and the evd
ta ta eyes [refers to] the practical commandments, of which i, i
said good and evil.
This division of the commandments, based upon R.
Saadya Gaon, radically alters his schema. It should be noted
that a srrruiar division to that of R. Levi is found in a work
written m the Orient, strikingly reflecting Sufic influence; see F
Rosenthal, Judaeo-Arabic Work under Sufic Influence " HUCA
vol. 15 (1940), pp. 448-449. ' A
34. MS. Miinchen 58, fol. 323a, printed with some vari-
ations in Se/er ha-PeH-a,, fol. 52b-c. I have made some minor
orrechons to the : version m MS. Miinchen, based upon the text
" S f;t'"* "J"* e P JStle ^o™ 38 ^refla-kesef, MS. Sasson
S6, fol. 33b, Abulafia writes:
And by his concentration, he prepares the bride to receive the influx
from the power of the bridegroom. The Divme elements (i e the di-
vme letters and the intelligibilia] should move the intelligibilia and
by Putins m his concentration and intensifying and strengthening
it, and by his great desire and the strength of his longing and the
persrstence of his yearning to attain the cleaving and the kiss the
strength of the bride and her name and her power will be mentioned
favorably and preserved for ever, for this is their law, and the Sena-
rated things i will be joined and the conjoined things separated, L
reality will be turned about
Here, too, the image of bride and groom alludes to the hu-
man soul and the Active Intellect, which are united by the special
technique of Abulafia. On "Torah, wisdom and prophecy/' see
also above, Chapter 1, in a quotation from 'Osdr'Eden Gdnnz (n.
35. See Canticles Rabba, 1:11.
436 Notes to ampler 4
36 The meaning of the idiom Kemset Yisra-ei [the congre-
gation of Israel] is explained as Mows in TmreySefer, MS Paris,
BN 777 p 57: "The secret of Keneset Yisra-el, whose secret is Ke-
ncset Yod Sar -B [i.e., the congregation of Yod, the prince of God[
for the whole person is one who gathers all and is called the
congregation of Jacob." Further on, Abulafia speaks of fe«t
SnrfUn the sense of the Sekmah or the tenth Sefirah but as we
hive seen in our discussion of the concept of &***.*>• » *'*>
liable to be part of the human soul. See Li,,u<ey R. Nathan, MS.
New York, JTS 1777, fol. 34a:
Maharan [said], BM0 W alludes to the gathering of the sods
of the righteous of Israel, which brings down mercy and favor up.
L poor one, but no. upon ah the souls within the body, for it allude.
only to the Intellective soul.
In 'Or ha-Menorah, a work written in an Abulafian vein,
MS. Jerusalem 8o 1303, fol. 28b, we read:
And the power of speech, called the Rational Soul, which received
2 Divine influx, called *»«, Yisra-el. whose : secret is the Active
Intellect, wtuch is also the general influx, and whrch is the mother of I
the intellect of the world.
See R Moses Krispin, Perui Sema- Yisra-el, MS. Parma 105
(13979) fol. 45b. It may be that this represents a metamorphosis
of the Kabbalistic interpretation of Kenese, Yisra-il, as was already
known to the school of Nahmanides, who writes of ^f^"
a that "she is the gathering of all." See Scholem, Piracy Yesod, p.
284.
37 Compare the acrostic of the poem appearing in the
epistle, fcf»- Netibot ha-Torih, p. 5: "'Abraham •Abraham de-
scended, "Abraham 'Abraham ascended." In light of what ta,
been stated in Can Na-ul, it may be that we ought to interpret the
vSbs ydrad and «* ['descended' and 'ascended'] as referring to
the mystical ascents and descents of Abulafia himself.
38. Song of Songs 3:6.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 437
39. Ibid., 1:11.
;«,„> 4 °' See Sidd " r ^" 'Amram Gaon, ed. Frumkin (Jerusalem
1912), vol. II, pp. 406^07. The text of the blessing recited by
the bridegroom is, "Blessed art thou, o Lord God, King of the
universe, who placed a nut in the Garden of Eden, a Uly of the
valleys, that no stranger may rule the closed well, therefore have
you placed the beloved fawn in purity." It is clear that this refers
to the virginal blood, and the fact that this blessing was recited
over a cup of wine— "he is required to recite it if there is a cup"—
strengthens its sexual connotation. While the editor argues that
in his opinion, "there is a textual error here, and instead of •«&
[nut] one should read zug [couple]," this argument in fact has
no basis in either the manuscripts or in the subject itselfol The
version as cited by Abulafia, as well as the interpretation that he
gives, completely rules out any possibility of the reading zug.
41. The comparison of the woman and the soul to a nut
and a garden likewise appear in Perms Sir ha-Sirlm of R. Moses
■bn Tibbon (Lyck, 1874), fol. 20b: "And it may be that they
compared the woman to the nut because of her meanness and
her attachment to matter, and she is called a garden (ginnat) in
the feminine form, because of her meanness... and the soul of
man is compared to the nut."
42. Guide, 1:10, without referring or relating to the verbs
in Song of Songs.
43. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 115a, and see note 180 in the
previous chapter.
44. MS. Miinchen 408. fol. 65b; see Idel, Abraham Abulafia
jl 193. Compare also p. 72a-b there with the passage printed
45. The following gematria appears in the passage at the
end of Sefer ha-Seruf, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 35a: ta-anug (plea-
sure) = 529 = ha-hdtan we-ha-kaldh (the groom and the bride) = ha-
438 Notes to Chapter 4
hokmah ha-'Bohil (the Divine wisdom), which concisely expresses
the main features of Abuiafia's view on the subject.
46. MS. Vatican 233, fol. 106b-107a.
47. See, e.g., Guide., 111:13, "its object or its final end, which
is the most important of the four causes." Further on, in the
passage from Sefer 'Or ha-Sekel, Abulafia writes, "and the purpose
is the most elevated of the reasons."
48. MS. Oxford 1605, fol. 7b; Cf. Sefer Vr ha-Sekel, MS.
Vatican 233, fol. 128a, "and according to the prophet who de-
rives 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. 466^67.
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 bums, etc.-all this is as nought in companson
with [his wish] to do the will of the Creator." In R. Eleazar of
Worms' Sefer Im-Mal-akim, "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 Hasidim: "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 when 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-Tordh we-lia-Hayym
bi-yeme ha-Bcnayim (Tel-Aviv, 1968), I, p. 124, n. 2. In 'E ? Hayym
by R Isaiah ben Joseph, a Byzantine Kabbalist, written in the
Language, Torah, and Hermencutics in Abulafia 439
first half of the fourteenth century (MS. New York, Columbia
161.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 fa/ '^al fact is
similar to the pleasure derived from intercourse, with the following
difference between them: namely, that when a man completes the
evil act of intercouise he despises it, but the influence of the mtellect
is the opposite.
Sec note 113 below.
52. Metaphysics XH,
1174a-1176a.
7, fol. 1072b; Ethics, end of Ch. 7, fol.
53. Hilkdt Teshubdh 8:2; Haqddmdh le-Pereq Heleq (Sefer ha-Ma-dr
Tel-Aviv, 1948, pp. 121-122); Guide, 111:51. Maimonides took care
to emphasize that the pleasure which accompanies apprehension
does not belong to the genus of bodily pleasures."
54. Compare his statement, appearing in his earlier work
Mafteah ha- Ra-ayon, MS. Vatican 291, fol. 21a: "And I see that
unnl Him [i.e., God], the quintessence of all experience arrives
as there comes from Him all the wisdom of logic [and] to every
intellective soul [comes] the pleasure of vision." Compare also
the comments of R. Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen in his work, lm-
Astlut ha-Senmlit, in Scholem, Mada-ey ha-Yaliddul II, p. 85- "And
the force of this great influx is that it is the pleasure of the inner
souls, and the joy of the spiritual bodies."
55. Sami S. Hawi, Islamic Naturalism and Mysticism (Leiden
1974), pp. 72-73.
60 ff.
56. See Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries (op. cit,
n. 23), pp.
57. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 29b-30a. The author makes
use of the verse, "for your Maker is your husband, the Lord of
440 Notes to Chapter 4
Hosts is His name" (Isa. 54:5), in order to emphasize that only
by the soul's connection with the intellect has it eternal existence.
58. MS. Moscow - Giinzburg 775, fol. 179b; see above,
note 43.
59. Qiddusin, fol. 2a.
60. Eccles. 9:9.
61. Prov. 18:22.
62. Prov. 31:10.
63. Prov. 6:23.
64. Pesalfim, 112a.
65. MS. Moscow - Giinzburg 775, fol. 181a.
66. Berakot, 3a.
67. MS. Moscow, Giinzburg 775, fol. 160a.
68. On this phenomenon, see Werblowsky, Joseph Kara, p.
50-54.
69 Is there a connection between the use of the Arabic
word and its connection to prophecy, and the statement in Berakot
fol. 55b: "R. Johanan said, 'If he woke up and there was a verse
on his lips, this is a minor [form of] prophecy' "?
70. MS. New York, JTS 1777, fol. 33b.
71 In Liqoutey R. Natlian, the crown (■atdrah) sometimes
refers to the world of intellect; see Mel, "Mundus Imaginalis,"
Studies., essay V.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abuhfia 441
72. The word matoq (sweet), used to refer to a sensation
of pleasure, also comes to refer to spiritual pleasure. See MS.
Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 67a. See also Geo. Widengren, Literary and
Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets (Uppsala - Leipzig 1948)
pp. 101-102. 6 '
73. On the spiritual seed, see ]. G. Liebes, "Illumination
of the Soul and Vision of the Idea in Plato" (Hebr.), Studies in
Mysticism and Religion Presented to Gershom Scholem (Jerusalem 1967)
pp. 152-161.
74. See Leisegang, La Gnose, pp. 28-29; Philo, De Somniis
I, 199-200.
75. See Walter Wili, "Die Geschichte des Geistes in der
Antike," Eranos jahrbuch, 13 (1945), pp. 79-87.
76. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 75a.
77. Deut. 30:19.
78. Tdmid 32a.
79. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 78b.
80. MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 31a. See also Seneca,
Epistulae ad Lucilium 73, sec. 14: "There is no wisdom without the
help of God; in the bodies of people are scattered Divine seeds."
See also Nicolas Cusanus, in ldiota 111, de mente, c. 5, "Mens est
divinum semen."
81. MS. New York, JTS 1777, fol. 33a; see also R. Judah
Loeb of Prague, Derus 'al ha-Tordh (Warsaw, 1871), p. 72.
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
442 Notes to Cliapter 4
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-elim, 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 also alluded to in Sep
ha-Zoltar, II, 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. 'Iggerct ha-Qodes, Ch. 3 (Chavel, p. 326): "for man's
seed is the vital substance of his body and the light of his radi-
ance." See also Mopsik, Lettre sur la Sainlele (n. 1 above), p. 289,
note 86.
83 See section 155 in ed. Margalioth, and Scholem's
remarks. Das Buck Bahir (Darmstadt, 1970), pp. 111-112, and p.
169.
84. See, for example, R. Ezra, Virus ha-Aggatit, MS. Vatican
441, fol. 53b; Liqquley Sikehah u-Fe'dh (on Maseket Qidduim), fol. 11a;
R. David b. Judah he-Hassid, Marbt ha-Sobbt p. 135.
85. Sefer Hayyey ha-'Olam ha-Ba; MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 27a-
b.
86. On the image of impregnation in Gnosis, see
Leisegang, la Gnose, pp. 28-29.
87 See G Scholem, "On the Doctrine of Transmigration
in Thirteenth Century Kabbalah" (Hebr.), Tarbtz, 16 (1945), p. 136,
note 5. The source of the quotation is MS. Parma, de Rossi 68,
fol 16a; cf. Scholem, U) Origines de la Kabbale, p. 481^85; E.
Gottlieb, Introduction to "Mesft Debarim NeMdm (Jerusalem, 1969),
Language, Tomh, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 443
p. 20, sec. 4; and G. Vajda, Recherches sur la Philosophic, p 81
n. 1. See also MS. New York, JTS 1889, fol. 32a, "and to those
singular elders who are worthy of entering into the secret of the
•tbbur, to them was the secret of the Sekinah revealed."
88. Origines., pp. 481-482, n. 205.
89. MS. Leipzig 39, fol. 8b.
90. On a possible connection between sod ha-'tbbur and
Sefer Yesirah, see Vajda's note, cited above, note 87.
91. MS. Miichen 10, fol. 163a.
92. See Idel, Abraham Abulafia, pp. 133-136.
93. MS. Paris, BN 777, pp. 46-47; MS. Munchen 40, fol.
247a-b. The passage is based upon several gematriybt: neqlbah (fe-
male; 157) + -Isdh (woman; 306) + Hawah (Eve; 19) > hasqah im-nebiv
ah (the desire for prophecy) = 482; seti we-'ereb (warp and woof)
- 988 = pileho patuah ([his] opening is opened) = patah (opened) +
salmi (closed) = mafteah kaifani (magical key).
94. Ecdes. 9:15.
95. In Sitrey Tdrah (Sod ha-Sim Ben, MS. Paris, BN 774, fol.
121a), Abulafia defines the difference between male and female
as follows:
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 holam (seal) as a designation for the Active
Intellect, see Cinnat '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 -sim, whose basis is the name
444 Notes to Chapter 4
YHW ('isim = 461 = sera 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, see R. Isaac Ibn Latif, Qinm) ha-Melek, Ch.
5 (JSHk Yishdq, v. 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. 7. Likewise, in Rab Pe-dlim (Kdkbe
Yislma, v. 25, p. 9), sec. 14:
The secret of the supernal imprint and the iower 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 Sural lia-'Olam, p. 17; Lira/nt Hen of Levi
ben Abraham (MS. Munchen 58, fol. 84b); and M. Steinschnei-
der, Al- Farabi (St. Petersbourg, 1869), p. 253, note 2.
97. The expression "warp and woof" iseti wa-'ereb) also
carries a sexual connotation. In 'Osar 'Eden Canuz, MS. Oxford
1580, fols. 4b-5a, Abulafia writes:
perns raildh berit 'Esaw (half, circumcision, covenant, Esau = 988),
which is warp and woof (set! vja-'ereb = 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 (beril salom = 988).
In circumcision [milik\ we cut along the warp, and in peri'ik [i.e., the
secondary stage of circumcision] we cut along the woof.
See also ibid., fol. 51a, 65a and 169b-170a.
98. Abulafia speaks of impregnation elsewhere, again
with extreme brevity: We-Zot li-Yehuddh, p. 14; Seta' Netibot lw-
Torili, p. 1; 'Imre Sefer, MS. Munchen 40, fol. 277b, but his discussions
there arc obscure.
99. MS. Warsaw 229, fol. 9a. This passage is based upon tte
following gematriyot: yemino (his right hand) = 116 = galgdl ha- •adam (the
language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 445
sphere of man); semoli (his left hand) = 377 • galgdl ha--wh (the
sphere of the woman). The sum of the two, plus the conjunctive
letter 'waw' ( = 6), is 499 = pe-ulah be-mh (act in the woman)
■ po-el ta-B (act in the man). The sum 493 (that is, the same
sum without 'waw') = scfa- le-ahdbdh (influx to love) = 'ahabdh la-
sefa- (love to influx). 'Arba-dh (four) = 278 = -ibbur (impregnation)-
hamisdh (five) = 353 = sod )m--i,bur (the secret of impregnadon or
intercalation). For further details concerning this Kabbalist and
his works, see Eliav Shochetman, "Additional Information on the
Life of R. Abraham Castro" (Hebr.), Zion, 48 (1983), pp. 387-405.
The phrase, "the sphere of man," occurs already in Abulafia's
works; see Chapter 3, note 170.
100. The metaphor of the father, mother and son also
appears in R. Abraham Kohen Herrera, Sawey Samayim (Warsaw
1864), who writes in Part 8, Ch. 14 (fol. 73b-74a):
For just as from the father and the mother, who are two distinct sub-
jects, with different personae, there takes place the complete, whole
beginning of the becoming of the son, so from the inteliigibilia and
the power of the intellect, like male and female who between them
also change, there comes about the beginning of the intellection or
of the intellect which is completely in actu... And know that, just
as the father may not sire the son without an intermediary, but by
means of the seed sown in the belly of the mother... so it is with the
inteliigibilia which is not connected.
See his comments concerning Aristotle and Galen further
on in this same chapter.
101. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 78b. It is worth mentioning
that the redemption of the son already has eschatological signif-
icance in the Talmud, Baba Kamma, fol. 80a; it is referred to there
as yesu-al ha-ben; the remarks of the Tosaphistic authors on this
passage allude to an eschatological aspect.
102. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 3a.
103. Ex. 13:15.
446 Notes to Chapter 4
104. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 155b. On fol. 122a in the same
work, it is stated "and the meaning of the Icommandment of] ;
the first-bom is known, namely, that it is the human intellect.
105. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 12a; MS. Miinchen 285,
fol. 14a.
106. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 163a.
107. MS. Leipzig 39, fol. la.
108. Gen. 5:3.
109. MS. Paris, BN 774, fol. 121a; MS. New York, JTS .
2367, fol. 19b.
110. In the Adab literature, we find the saying "Wisdom
is the eternal child of man." See Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge
Triumpliant (Leiden, 1970), p. 321. Muslim mysticism also recog-
nizes the idea of destroying the body in order to rebuild the new
man with the aid of wisdom: see L. Massignon, Eranos ]ahrbuch,
1948 (p. 403); and Meyerovitch, Mystique et poesie, pp. 261-262,
and note 7. The connection between ben—bindh—binydn appears
in the fifteenth-century writings of R. Moses ha-Kohen Ashke-
nazi. In his polemic with R. Michael ha-Kohen, which took place
in Candia, Crete, he writes (MS. Vatican 254, fol. 7a):
"In his form and image"— physical offspring and spiritual offspring.
Then he established for him from them an eternal building, which
shall never die, for it is an established haldkdh that one must beget a
male and a female. And this alludes in the male to begetting spiritual
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.
Building, as a symbol of acquiring a perfection which is
not destroyed, is alluded to in R. Judah Moscato's Nefusdt YchuM,
Denis 9, (fol. 27a):
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 447
These three attainments— wisdom, strength and wealth— include all
the goods of the soul, the body and possessions, and the three are in-
corporated in the verse, "Let not the wise man rejoice in his wisdom,
etc." Qer. 9:22]. Finally, our eyes have seen that the world— that is
to say, man, who is called a microcosm, as is known — is constructed
like Adam before his sin, and was destroyed after his rebellion, and
was rebuilt in Abraham and his seed, in their receiving of the Torah,
and was destroyed when they corrupted their ways in making the
golden calf, and it is to be rebuilt permanently when they return to
their former level, and then destruction will cease forever. And cor-
responding to these are the three temples, for the first was built and
destroyed, and the second was built and destroyed, and the third
shall be built and will be established, it will not be moved but will
forever be settled.
See also Berakdt, 33a: "Whoever possesses understanding,
it is as if the Temple was built in his lifetime." R. Shalem Shabazi,
in Sefer Hemdat Ydmitn (Jerusalem, 1956), fol. 3a, writes "The Tem-
ple alludes to the speaking soul of the righteous man."
111. MS. New York, JTS 2367, fol. 61a. The passage is
based upon a saying in Berakdt, 3a. This Talmudic dictum was
interpreted in a similar fashion by R. Joshua ben Moshe ha-Levi
in his answer to R. Joseph Gikatilla, MS. New York, JTS 1589
(ENA 1674), fol. 86b- 87a:
"And the third watch is when an infant cries in the bosom of its
mother, and a woman speaks [i.e. couples with] her husband." Now,
my brother, know and understand that the infant refers to the Intel-
lective Soul, which is pure and clean, from underneath the Throne
of glory and, like the infant, who does not know either to abominate
evil or to choose good, so is the Intellective soul (!) unable to receive
and to understand the wisdoms from the intelligibilia, because it is
sunken in refuse and filth. And the animal soul, together with it,
suck from the breasts of their mother, and those breasts from which
she sucks are the two Torahs, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah,
and her mother is the Divine wisdom, as is said, "Yea, if thou call for
understanding" [Prov. 2:3]— do not read im [if], rather em [mother;
i.e., the verse should be read, "call understanding your mother").
And the woman coupling with her husband is the intellective soul,
which unites with her husband, who is the Holy One, blessed be He,
448 Notes to Chapter 4
as is said, [Isa. 54:5], "for your Maker is your husband, the Lord of ,
Hosts is his Name."
112. See Giuseppe Sermonetta, "Judah and Emmanuel
of Rome— From Rationalism to Mystical Faith" [Hebr. Hitgdut,
Bra**, Tevanah] (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1976),
p. 58 ft
113. Vs( to-HakmBi, MS. Mussaioff 55, fol. 104a-105a,
with omissions. On another similarity between R. Joseph and
Abulafia— the metaphor comparing the mystical process with
sexual intercourse — see note 51 above.
114. The reference here is to the Active Intellect, which
flows "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 appear-
ing further on in the passage, and referring to the first separate
intelligibilium, identified with Keter.
115. See Yitzhak Baer, "Kabbalistic Teaching in the Chris-
tological Doctrine of Abner of Burgos" (Hebr.), Tarbiz, 27 (1958),
p. 281, and notes 7-8 [reprinted in his Mehqarim u-Masot be-Toldat
'Am Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1986), vol. II, 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 Zolm
I 82b and see also Sefer ha-Ncfei Im-Hakdnum, 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
Chnstian Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1975), p. 54 and note 4, and p. 56,
note 4. It is worth mentioning that this identification between
God and Wisdom appears again in Abulafia in Sefer ha-Ge-alih,
MS Chigi, 1, 190.6, fol. 292a, "and they called Wisdom son and
Language, Torah, and Hernieneutics in Abulafia 449
related it to the son" (in the Hebrew source). See also note 122
below.
118. Hennctica, ed., Walter Scott (London, 1968), I, pp. 240-
241; R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische MysUrienreligian (Leipzig, 1970),
pp. 75 ff.
119. E. G. Underhill, Mysticism, pp. 122-123.
120. Meyerovitch, Mystique el 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 Initia-
tion," 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," Eranos-
jahrbuch, vol. 40 (1971), pp. 285-288; Erich Neumann, The Ori-
gin and History of Consciousness (New York, 1962), p.253; Corbin,
Creative Imagination in the Sufism of lbn 'Arabi, p. 172, pp. 346-348^
n. 70-71; idem, "Divine Epiphany and Spiritual Birth," Mar, and
Transformation, p.109, and note 94. While al-waladal-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 'intellec-
tus' as referring to the human 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, note 23 in that work, and note 117 above.
450 Notes to Chapter i
123. MS. Rome-Angelica 38, fol. 36* On the : subject^
=Uve and mystical development at the age fJ°«V^
" .. .„...'.» ,.,h„r„ wp discuss the quotations cited
intellective
ldel, "On the History," where we
below.
124.
The concept of man's spiritual redemption ^is dis -
cc„HhvIdel "Tvpes of Redemptive Achvity, pp. ^f™
nave dS ttre Sonal material from the writings of Abu-
lafia and his circle on this subject.
125. See ldel, "On the History," pp. 2-3.
126. Genesis 25:20.
127 For the sources of this view, see t
by Urbach, The Sages, P- 790, n. 60-61.
M«(mebi rt h) r ^ I ^^Hebr™leM
e the material gathered
128.
128. Moloa tine vutuy
3S«s:=siS«Efet™*
Lr«, Q*i*. Sec. 4 (MS. Brihsh Library 749, fol. 21a b).
, tave found tha, the mate, of the «-- gg^ja
influx poured ou, by "^*^ ^d ajrwards upon
lectual faculty by means of ^*vetate ables md m^, M
the imagmauve faculty, [so that] * ^ P imagina tive faculty a
Moses, our teacher, d.d not If °P hesy ! ,£ arate human
all, bu, (the flow was, horn ^^^Uespondins .
intellect. «-2-£-£^te human fe hi] during forty day,
wholeness.
Vital knew at least two of Abulia's works,
„ ,.e read the afc — -
books or in those of one of his circle.
As R Hayyim Vital iuiew Q i ,^.~
it seemtprobable that he read the above passage m one ,
Language, Torah, and Hermcneutics in Abutafia 451
129. Exodus 34:28.
130. See above, note 102.
131. MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 22b-23a.
i*™ rT' Jf 6 ."* Derm ° f R JOshua ibn Shuaib ( C «cow,
Jrv-i' ,i' ,fi ° rty HmeS he "^ Wt hkn - he ma y ™t add'
(Lieut. 25:3). Our Sages explained 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, Nefusot Yehudah, Derus 9, fol. 25b.
133. Based upon Exodus 24:18; I Kings 19:8.
134. It is worth mentioning here the words of Meister
Eckhart:
We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father
has borne and neve, ceases to bear in all Eternity: whilst this birth also
comes to pass in Time and in human nature. Saint Augustine says
th,s birth is ever taking place.... But if it takes place not in me, what
avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me.
Quoted from Underfill!, Mysticism., p. 122 See also the
comment of Angelus Silesius in his book, The Cherubic Voyager I
H, But if Jesus were to be born a thousand times in Bethlehem'
but not mside you, you would be lost for eternity."
L J 35 } haVC fOUnd Ws idea aUuded to on 'y in 'I«"iy Sefer,
MS. Munchen 40, fol. 247b, where Abulafia writes, with ex-
treme brevity, "the power of imagination (koah ha-siyyur), which
is mingled with the creative power (koah ha-ybser) and the crea-
turely power (koah ha-yesur) until the fortieth year, which are in
the image of the forty days."
K «t e , 136 ' MS ' R ° me ' ^S 61 '" 38 < fol- 14b-15a; Ms. Munchen
J5, fol. 39b; Mtinchen 43, fol. 208a. For a detailed analysis of
Uus quotation, see above, Chapter 3, the section on debeaut
452
Notes to Chapter 4
137. Psalms 99:1.
138. Based upon II Kings 9:12; 3; 6.
139 MS Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 18b, and see also foL
10a "But he practiced MHMU (i.e., concentration) and saw vi-
sions and wrote them down, and thus came about this book,
and call it a book of testimony, because it is a witness behveen
us and God that he risked his soul on the day he went before
the Pope (Hebrew: apifiyuta [sic!]), therefore there were bom to
him two mouths (setey piyot)."
140 MS. Jerusalem 8o 148, fol. 33b. The expresston,
"natural change" (smnay «■) regarding the change involved m
the appearance of the intellect is also mentioned in another book
TonuSed with Abulafia's circle, namely, Sefer ha-Seruf(US. New
York, JTS 839, fol. 105b):
Now when the sphere of the intellect is moved by the Active Intejkct
and the person begins to enter it and to ascend the sphere which
"turns, hke the image of a ladder, and a. the tune of me ascent
his thoughts shall be really transformed and all .he insjons shaUte
changed before him, and there will be notlung left to hun of wto
he had earlier. Therelore, apart from changmg his •***»?*
formation, as one who was uprooted from the power of feelmg [and
was translated to] the power of the intellect.
The idea of a change occuring at the moment of cleaving
,0 the Active Intellect also appears in Maimonides; in ttMfcy .
he-Tamil 7:1, he writes:
And when the spirit rests upon him, his soul shall be tatermingW
Tl me grade of angels who are called >■&» [i.e., the Active In.elM
Zl he becomes another person, and he shall u^tma by hunsdl
toa, he .s no. as he was, but drat he has ascended above toe grade »
omer sages, as it is said regarding Saul [1 Sam. 10:6], "and you stall
prophesy and become another person.
141 MS. Sasson 919, p. 215. It is interesting that, further
on, R. Isaac of Acre refers to the letter-combinations that one
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 453
is to perform in the house of seclusion, all according to Abu-
lafia's system. In 'Osir Hayyim, MS. Moscow, Giinzburg 775, fol
148a, we read: "for the perfection of matter [comes about] in
forty days, and the perfection of intellect in forty years, and the
[number of] letters in this section is forty."
142. On the significance of liamsakah (drawing), see Idel
"Hitbddedut as Concentration," note 95; idem, "The Perceptio
Kabbalah."
tions of
143. Sabbat 152a.
144. Deut. 29:3.
145. Ibid., v. 4.
146. MS. Oxford 836, fol. 162b. The name of the author
there is unknown, but it may be that the book was written in
1444.
147. MS. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 2a.
148. The reference to the first thirteen years of study must
not necessarily be interpreted literally. It seems to me that this
refers to the period from the beginning of one's studies, and nol
from birth. To demonstrate the feasibility of this interpretation,
let me cite a story which was widespread at the time of Abulafia:
The sages of philosophy told that a certain king once asked an hon-
orable sage, whom he saw bent in sBture and with white hair and
many wrinkles, and asked him, "How old are you?" He replied-
"Twelve years old." In amazement, he [the king] said to him: "Ex-
plain this riddle of yours!" He answered him: "For twelve years I
have engaged in wisdom and in the service of God, and whatever 1
have lived apart from this is not [counted] by me as days and years.
[Menahem ha-Mein, Penis' le- Misiey (Fu"rth, 1844), fol. 5b]
454 Notes to Chapter 4
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:
[from Toldot 'Adam, MS. Oxford 836, fol. 143a]:
1 This gate will be closed and not opened, and no unclean man will
enter therein, but the God of Israel will come by it, and it will remain
closed.
2 The speech of the man, who writes in his hand to God, for I have
dared to speak and I am dust and ashes, and do not know any book.
3 And because I have chosen eternal life, my soul has longed
and yearned, and goes from a temporary dwelling to a permanent
dwelling, which is Hebron, Kiryat Arba, and ascends to the at) of
heros, which is the city of the great king.
[from the works of Ibn Latif]
1 This eate will be closed and not opened, and no unclean man will
enter therein, but the God of Israel will come by it, and it will remain
closed.
2 The speech of the man, who writes in his hand to God, for I have
dared to speak and I am dust and ashes, and do not know any book.
3 And by reason of my choosing eternal, true life, my soul has longed
and yearned... to leave its temporary dwelling, which is Kiryat Arba,
and to ascend to the city of heros, the city of the great king, which is
its permanent abode.
Section 1 is taken from Ibn Latif s introduction to Sa-ar 3
of Sa-ar ha-Samayim; Section 2, from Ch. 5 of Sural ha-Vlam which
is formulated as an introduction; Section 3 from the mtroductlOE
to Ginzeu ha-Melek. The title may also have been mfluenced by a
lost work by the same title by Ibn Latif.
150. Zo/wr n, fol. 97b-98a (Saba de-Mispitim).
151. Keneset Yisra'el,
.e., the Sefirah of Malkut.
•■, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 455
152. Sefirat Tiferet.
153. Deuteronomy 14:1.
154. Psalm 2:7.
155. Printed in Dibreu Hakamim (Mainz, 1849) v 58 Torn
pare Guide, 1:70. F '
156. See above, note 140.
157. Psalm 103:5.
158. The verse from Psalms is associated in medieval
commentaries with the renewed birth of the Phoenix See R
Saadya Gaon, Ibn Ezra, and R. David Kimhi on this verse, and
K. Bahya ben Asher on Genesis 2:19 (p. 73-74, in Chavel ed )•
*, Da " P^s, "The Eternal Bird: The Motif of the Phoenix in
Midrashic and Aggadic Literature" (Hebr.), Sefer lm-Y6bel iel ha-
Umnasra ha- Ivrit be-Yerusalayim (Jerusalem, 1962), pp. 74-90.
159. Derek 'Emunah (Constantinople, 1522), fol. 37a From
ftere, this view was copied by R. Joseph of Rossheim, Sefer ha-
Ueianeh, Oerusalem, 1970), pp. 105-106, and also influenced R
Moses Almosnino in his We-Yedey Moleh, in which he likewise
connects Ps. 2:7 with the birth of the intellect, whose cleaving
to God is seen as a new birth. It is worth noting that, already
in ICjrnhi's commentary to this verse, he speaks about the birth
ot the spiritual element within man— specifically, the birth of
the holy spirit in David. But whereas Kimhi applies it to a past
event, Derek -Emunah and We-yedey Moiel, speak of a process which
continually occurs in every enlightened person.
160. Pietrykow, 1893, fol. 27b.
161. P. O. KristeUer, "Marsilio Ficino e Lodovico Laz-
zarelli Studres in Renaissance Thought and Utters (Roma, 1969) pp
221- 247; D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Cam-
456 Notes to Chapter 4
pattella (Notre Dame, Ind., 1975), pp. 64-72; Cf. Idel, "Judaism
and Hermeticism."
162. Lazzarelli quotes the text of R. Eleazar of Worms in
Latin translation, as has been observed by Scholem, Piriiey Yesod
be- Habanal Im-Qabbdlah u-SetnalBm (Jerusalem, 1976), p. 406, note 62
(this subject only appears in the Hebrew version of his article on
the golem). Scholem is puzzled by the way in which this text got
to Lazarelli, and conjectures that "perhaps he saw it in Flavius
Mithridates's translation from Kabbalistic literature?" However,
it should be pointed out that this version appears in R. Johanan
Alemanno's Collectamea, MS. Oxford 2234, fol. 95b, from whom
Lazarelli may have taken it.
163. See Kristeller, p. 238, "mens mentem generet," and the
expression, "syngettea mentis generate"
164. This sentence refers to Lazarelli's own "birth" by
means of his bizarre teacher, Giovanni da Correggio. "Aetheretti
me gmuisti semine rursus atgue terutn nasci me sine fraude daces" (Kris-
teller, p. 239).
165. Kristeller, p. 238, summarizes the discussion, which
is as yet in manuscript only, in these words: "Come Dio e fe-
condo, cosi all'uomo, immagine di Dio, speta una sua fecon-
dita la quale non riguorta soltanto il corpi ma anche l'intelletto...
Come Dio crea gli angeli, cosi il vero uomo produce le anima
divine." Compare Abulafia's statement in Hayyey ha-'Oldm Ita-U;
MS. Oxford 1582, fol. 5a-b; MS. Oxford 1583, fol. 2a:
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 Geo
created man direcUy, 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 the making of bodies, but only in Older
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 1 have made" (lsa. 57:16).
Language, Torah, and Hermcneutics in Abulafia 457
Compare the words of Abulafia's student in Ner 'Elohim
, MS. Miinchen 10, fol. 172b-173a, which opposes the literal
understanding of the creation of the golem, arguing that it entails
a mystery alluding to the creation of souls.
166. Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 26-28; Tishby, The Wisdom
of the Zoltar I, 146-147; idem., Netibey -Enmnah u-Minut, pp. 11-22;
Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Ch. IX.
167. Goldreich ed., p. 143. The section quoted here also
appears in the collection titled Se-elot u-Tesubol, by R. Isaac of Acre
MS. Escorial G. 3.14, fol. 63a, and is based upon the words of
the Haber in Kuzari, 11:53.
168. See Werblowsky, Joseph Kara., pp. 133-134.
169. David Kaufmann, Die Sitme (Budapest 1884) dd
188-191. r " vv '
170. MS. Oxford 1580, fol. 130b.
| 171. See David Kimhi on Gen. 2:17, in the version printed
in the Kamlehr edition (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 30: "and the knowl-
edge of good and evil was explained by the commentators as re-
ferring to knowledge of intercourse, because that tree of knowl-
edge brought about sexual desire in man."
172. It is worth noting here the article by M. Harris, "Mar-
riage as Metaphysics; A Study of the lggeret ha-kodesh," HUCA vol
33 (1962), pp. 197-220. The author, who has dealt with the ques-
tion of erotic imagery in a number of other articles, argues that
lggeret ha-Qodes, attributed to Nahmanides, is intended to teach
Kabbalah— mistakenly identified by him with metaphysics— as
a means of examining the union between man and woman (see
p. 205). It seems to me that the exact opposite is the case: in the
epistle under discussion, intercourse has no didactic purpose;
its author's assumption is that, through knowledge of Kabbalah,
one may understand the true value of sexual intercourse Harris'
■
4Jft Notes to Utapter i
perception of the epistle as opposed to the negation of sex in the
Gnostic system is without basis; the author is rather adopting a
polemic stance against the negative evaluation of intercourse in
philosophy.
173. Major Trends, p. 226; see also Tishby, The Wisdom of tiie
Zohar, H, 298-300.
174. See Werblowsky, Tarbiz, 34 (1965), p. 204.
175. See Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, n, 298-300.
176. Ibid., 204.
177. Ibid., p. 609.
178. Ibid., 299, n. 138.
179. There is no basis for the opinion expressed by S.
Karppe, Etude sur les origines et la nature du Zohar (Paris, 1901), p.
304, who, relying upon an incorrect interpretation of the mean-
ing of the gernatna, zdkdr u-neqebah (male and female) = androgynes
(androgynous), argues that in Abulafia the polarity is transferred
from male and female to the divine realm.
NOTES AND COMMENTARIES
PARTn
Language, Torah,
and Hermeneutics in Abulafia
292 The Use of Erotic Images for the Prophetic Experience
bridegroom is the Active Intellect, while the female is the human
soul. As the mystics were men, there was a certain difficulty in-
volved in this reversal; but precisely on this point, Abulafia is
close to other widespread non-Jewish mystical systems, which
consistently portray the soul of the mystic as a female. m On the
other hand, the theosophical Kabbalists preserve the "proper"
psychological relationship in describing, in those rare sources
where one can find the connection between Man and the Sekindh,
the mystic as the male and the Sekindh as the female; 175 but, as
surmised by Werblowsky, 176 it is difficult to assume that the de-
scriptions of this subject in Sefer fm-Zohar and in the other mys-
tics stem from personal experience. On the other hand, there is
ground for assuming that Abulafia underwent mystical experi-
ences, which are alluded to in his writings through the detailed
use of erotic imagery.
The great gap between Abulafia and the Sefirotic Kab-
balah is likewise revealed in the results alluded to by means
of the erotic imagery. While in Kabbalah human sexual union
may cause harmony in the Divine world by strengthening the
connection between the Sefirot of Tiferet and Malkut, 177 the mys-
tic only indirectly benefitting from this harmony 178 ; in Abulafia
mystical experience has no influence upon the active Intellect or
upon God. The human soul is the only element which benefits
from the connection with the Active Intellect: the meaning of
mystical experience is psychological, private, in certain circum-
stances social, but always without the cosmic and theosophical
meaning which stems from the theurgic nature of sexual union
in Sefirotic Kabbalah. 179
PARTE
Language, Torah,
and Hermeneutics in Abulafia
Introduction
The Kabbalah of R. Abraham Abulafia is known by two
names, both used by him in his writings: the ecstatic Kabbalah,
literally the prophetic one, Qabbalah Nebwit, namely that type of
mysticism that instructs the Kabbalist to attain a mystical experi-
ence conceived of as prophecy; and the Kabbalah of the Names,
that is, the divine Names (Qabbdlat ha-Semot), or that type of mys-
ticism that shows the way for attaining that ecstatic experience.
This path focused upon practices of reciting the divine names
and various combinations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. 1 The
technique of combining letters, used to attain experiences, was
also applied in the hermeneutic system of this Kabbalist, as an
advanced exegetical method that enables the mystic to penetrate
the most recondite strata of Scripture. It is the apex of a most
complex exegetical path that passed unnoted by modem schol-
arship of Kabbalah and Jewish hermeneutics and which will be
exposed here for the first time in a detailed way. To understand,
however, the prime-matter to which these hermeneutical devices
were applied, we shall survey the views of Abulafia and some
of his followers concerning the nature of language and their con-
ception of the Torah, the main object of the hermeneutical en-
deavor.
We may describe Abulafia's view of language and inter-
pretation as basically inclined to an allegorical perception, which
influenced his conception of the Torah, his own revelations, and
his interpretations of his revelations. In the line of medieval
Aristotelianism, the allegory hints at the psychological processes
which consist in the changing relationship between the inner
powers: intellect and imagination. Interpretation of Scripture
and of his revelations leads him, time and again, to decode texts
and experiences as revealing the various phases of the relation-
ship between these two inner senses. 2
1% Introduction
What is, however, characteristic of Abulafian hermeneu-
tics is not only this allegorical drift, to be found in the luxuriant
medieval literature in general, but rather the superimposition of
the combination of letters upon the allegorical method. If the lat-
ter is Sefardi by its extraction, being already cultivated by Jews
in Spain for some few generations before Abulafia, the former
was exposed for the first time in an elaborate way in the Ashke-
nazi environment, among the so-called Ashkenazi Hasidim of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Totally unrelated to allegor-
ical interpretation, the Jewish German pietists described various
complex methods to be used to understand the meanings con-
cealed in the Torah. Although Abulafia's advanced hermeneuti-
cal methods are conspicuously derived from Ashkenazi sources,
it seems, however, that his special emphasis on the importance
of the combination of letters is unique to him. 3 Moreover, al-
though the pietists were motivated by a strong conservative ten-
dency, reinforcing the crucial form of Jewish worship by estab-
lishing the relationship between the numerical structure of the
prayers and their biblical counterparts, Abulafia was basically
motivated by an innovative urge, which culminates, as we shall
see below, with freely restructuring the composition of the let-
ters of the biblical text, which is to be "interp^eted." , Beyond
extracting the allegorical meaning of a certain biblical text as it
was handed down by the Masoretic tradition, Abulafia points
the way to a method of returning the text to its hylic form as a
conglomerate of letters to be combined and new meanings be-
ing infused in the new "text." If the allegorical method of the
medieval Jewish philosophers reinterpreted Scripture in novel
ways, this was done on the implicit or explicit assumption that
the novelty had no impact on the structure of the text whose in-
tegrity was safeguarded from the structural point of view. This
is also the case in the symbolical interpretation of the theosoph-
ical Kabbalists. Transforming the text in a texture of symbols
related to the divine configuration of Sefirot, or to the demonic
world, these Kabbalists were anxious to indicate repeatedly that
the plain meaning of the text is to be preserved, as they leave
intact the order of the letters in the text. 5 In both cases, a certain
Language, Torah, and Hermemuiics in Abulafia 197
plot was superimposed on the biblical stories thereby infusing
the details of new theologies. The plot could be a physical one,
related to the four elements, or a psychological one dealing with
the relationship between the intellect and the soul, in Neopla-
tonic sources or between the intellect and the imagination in the
Aristotelian-oriented texts, or a theosophical one. In one way or
another, a certain dialogue between the preexisting theology and
the text was established, so that not only was the text reinter-
preted but, to a certain degree, also the extra-biblical processes
were changed by the attempt to infuse them into the text.
With Abulafia, such a dialogue can take place only at cer-
tain levels of interpretation; from the moment he applies the
advanced methods, which literally destroy the regular order of
the text, the biblical texture is conceived only as a starting point
which cannot impose its peculiar structure upon the strong in-
terpreter. In the end, the powerful dissection of the text allows,
according to Abulafia, a prophetic experience in which the mys-
tic may open a dialogue with the revealing entity, which is, at
least in some cases, the projection of his own spiritual force."
If every interpreter is finding himself in the interpreted text,
Abulafia is one of the most extreme examples of such a self-
discovery. If someone regularly gives expression to his expe-
rience through a peculiar turn in understanding the text, Abu-
lafia transforms his experience into a text; experiencing is, at its
highest, a text-creative process. This interest in an interpreting-
experiencing-creating attitude to the text was materialized by
his writing prophetic books, one of them entitled the Book of
the Haftdrdh, namely that prophetic work to be read in the Syna-
gogue after the reading of the portions of the Pentateuch instead
of a section from the biblical prophets.
Although profoundly fascinated by the power of lan-
guage, more accurately the Hebrew language, we can discern in
Abulafia an attempt to transcend it by deconstructing language
as a communicative instrument, into meaningless combinations
of letters which, following strictly mathematical rules, would
198 Introduction
lead the mystic beyond the normal state of consciousness. Sim-
ilar to the ancient magicians, Abulafia invokes the divine influx
by a series of permutations of consonants and vowels that are
the main mystical, and, in the case of the creation of the Golem,
also the magical essences of language.
The phenomenon of de-establishing the biblical text is to
be understood as part of a feeling that the divine spirit is present
and active again. 7 The interpretative efforts in Judaism were in-
vested when the assumption that the direct relationship between
the divine and man was already part of the glorious past: only {
when the stability of the text was achieved by the feeling that
new revelation would not add to or diminish the canonical cor-
pus, attempts were made to decode the implications of the given
text. The interpreter came in lieu of the prophet as part of es-
tablishing the relationship between man and God, now by the
intermediacy of an all-comprehensive and omniscient text. He
stands between society and God; now, between God and him,
a rigidly structured canon stands as an essential religious fact.
The interpreter could understand the activity of the divine spirit
as part of the past and as embodied in the Book. When the
divine spirit entered again the history of Jewish spirituality, ac-
cording to the medieval Kabbalists, the interpreter achieved a
new status; he could, although it was not necessary, see himself
as standing between God and the text. At the beginning of the
interpretative journey, even according to Abulafia, the canon is
to be understood as an established order and playing, like lan-
guage in inter-human affairs, a mediating role: the function of
the interpretative process was thus to extract the various mean-
ings implicit in it. As soon as he advances on the path of mysti-
cal life, however, the interpreter transcends the standing in front
of a structured text and structured language that intervenes be-
tween him and God, and he penetrates through the veil of that
structured book to attain a state where he feels himself closer to
God. 8
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 199
A classic question that arises when dealing with the above
problems is to what extent Abulafia, or whoever follows the
path of prophetic Kabbalah, opens the way to antinomian views.
Does this drive to deconstruct the text lead to an essential an-
tagonism to the values expressed in it? The answer is, I believe,
rather complex. If antinomianism is defined as a resistance to,
or an opposition to the content of a certain nomos, Abulafia may
well be excluded from the circle of antinomian mystics. He has
no alternative vision of a practical way of life to be suggested
or imposed upon the multitude. As far as the contents of the
revealed text are intended to the vulgus, he is as nomian as a great
halakic figure like Maimonides was. The plain sense of the Torah
is, so it seems to be implied by his writings, as immutable as the
world. In comparison to the concept of the theosophical Kabbal-
ists who envision a change in the nature and forms of the Torah
in anotherfleoM, or semitdh, for good or for worse, as the anony-
mous author of Sefer ha-Tcmundh and his circle think, Abulafia is a
traditionalist. 9 He relates to history or time as periods in which
various changes are possible, but these changes will not alter,
basically, the ideal of transcending the imaginative in favor of
the intellective, which are the main motifs in his understand-
ing the allegorical significance of the Torah. Even in the future,
no shift in the aim will be possible; therefore, Torah will also
serve the same purposes; for the vulgus, it will function on the
plain level, for the mystics on the spiritual level. With some of
the theosophical kabbalists, the attitude to time, including cos-
mic time, is different. Presided over by the different Sefirdt, each
aeon has its own quality and with them the Torah will change
its present spiritual configuration. According to another view,
espoused by the anonymous kabbalist who wrote Sefer Tiqauney
Zohar and Ra'aaya Mehemna, there is an ideal Torah, Torah de-'Asilut,
which will supercede the present Torah de-Beri'dh. 10 In both cases,
these theosophical Kabbalists envisage a time when this given
Torah will function differently. With Abulafia, this is impossible
because Torah is identical, at a certain level, with the world of
forms, or with God Himself, a fact that complicates an assump-
200 introduction
tion of a basic change in its nature. So far Abulafia's attitude
can be regarded as a traditional one.
Regarding the status of the commandments of the Torah
in the present, in relationship to the few elite who reach the
apex of spirituality, however, his view is ambiguous. It is obvi-
ous that he considered his own system as the culmination of a
Jewish religious ideal; striving for a life in direct contact to the
divine is, according to him, the quintessence of Judaism. The
specific ways to materialize this type of spirituality, however, as
proposed in his mystical manuals, are anomian techniques. In the
moment someone decides to enter the World-to-Come while in
this life, he can do it in a way neutral toward the specific Jewish
modus vivendi, namely the performance of the commandments.
As part of a mystical path proposed by Abulafia's handbooks,
the ritualistic behavior seems to play no cardinal role. Both as
directives to a certain spiritual gnosis and as forms of human
actions the commandments which are to be performed in daily
life are surely relevant up to the moment the mystic enters the
room of isolation and concentration to perform his type of ritual
which consists in pronouncing the divine names and the com-
binations of letters of the alphabets. These commandments may
be, indeed, indispensable, even after the mystic returns from the
World-to-Come to this world. But they seem to be neutralized
in the moments of spiritual elation.
It is worthwhile to compare Abulafia's attitude to Torah to
that of his contemporary kabbalists in Castile. In the book of the
Zohar, and in the writings of some kabbalists closely related to
the ideas expressed in the Zoluir, like those of R- Joseph Gikatilla
and R. Joseph of Hamadan, Torah as a whole is conceived as
the embodiment of a divine power, or of the complex of divine
powers named Sefirot. 11 As an embodiment— and language in its
visual expression in letters— it is a body whose integrity is to
be carefully preserved, any addition, subtraction or diminution
being harmful to this mystical corpus. In the case of the well-
known parable of the Torah as a maiden, we find a full-fledged
I
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 201
personification of the Torah as a feminine entity who came in di-
rect relationship to the mystic. He may become the husband of
the Torah, if he is able to fathom her deeper levels. The Zoharic
personification is in line with the medieval imagery where Na-
ture, Wisdom or Church are envisioned in personalistic feminine
terms. Such a personification is completely absent in Abulafia's
Kabbalah, and in the literature of ecstatic Kabbalah in general to
the extent that it has reached us: neither in the works of R. Isaac
of Acre nor in Nathan Harar's Swarey Sedea or in Albotini's Sulidm
ha-'AHyak. It seems that this type of imagery was part of the pat-
rimony of the theosophical Kabbalah, it being found, in addition
to the Zohar, in R. Joseph Karo's revelations of the Mishnah. 12
In ecstatic Kabbalah, the imagery connected to the Torah
is geometrical: the point or the circle, 13 the latter being not only
a literary device but, as in the case of R. Isaac of Acre, also an
experience. 14 This imagery seems to be inclined more to an alle-
gorical conception than to the symbolic perception of the theo-
sophical Kabbalah. Beyond this difference, it seems that with
Abulafia, the attitude to the Torah is motivated by a tendency
not to possess a mythical personification, so evident in the Zo-
har, as to transcend the taxonomy of a text intended for the
vulgus in favor of an abstract intellectualistic conception of Torah
as identical to the realm of the separate entities, according to
the medieval terminology 15 The absence of feminine imagery of
Torah is to be connected, at least in the case of Abulafia, to his
conception of the mystic's intellect as a feminine entity in rela-
tionship to the Active Intellect, the male and the supernal Torah
at the same time. 16 Theosophical Kabbalah, focused as it is on
symbols and rituals of the Sekindh, was much more inclined to
portray the mystic as a male in his relationship to the supernal
world, including the personified Torah.
The theosophical approach to Torah and language as
mythical organic bodies to be studied in depth is paralleled in
Abulafia's doctrine by a view that the ultimate mystical meaning
is to be discovered, or projected, in the free associative combina-
202 Introduction
tions of letters whose links are untied to enable the novel combi-
nation to emerge. Deconstruction has to precede reconstruction
as Torah is much more a process than a static ideal. Indeed, theo-
sophical Kabbalah, and midrashic attitude in general, conceive
Torah as a dynamic entity, whose recondite treasures are con-
tinuously revealed by the interpreter. Their view of the Torah,
however, includes a cardinal element of the dynamic organism:
Torah may be a Tree, a Maiden, the personified Sekinah. Under-
standing one facet of this body does not imply its disintegration;
the theosophical KabbaJist does not presume to manipulate the
various organs of this body but to contemplate it as it is: Torah
is conceived as a given, perfect form. The basic structure of
the verse, of the pericope, and of the whole text is maintained
notwithstanding the daring symbolism the theosophical kabbal-
ist is infusing. This is completely different from the last stages of
Abulafia's hermeneutics. The text becomes then a pretext for the
ongoing process of pursuing a mystical experience rather than I
understanding a text in depth.
This dissolution of the canonical text is evidently con-
nected to the assumption that the elements that construct the
text have a meaning by themselves, namely even in their iso-
lated existence. Basic for the understanding of the deconstruc-
tive action of Abulafia's advanced stages of interpretation is the
conception that each and every letter can be considered a divine
name in itself. Backed by such an assumption, which stems
from earlier sources, the dissolution of the text from a struc-
tured construction to an apparently meaningless conglomera-
tion of letters can be understood in its proper perspective. 17 The \
ordinary function of language is possible because of the impo-
sition of an order that relates the powerful letters in a context
that serves primarily pedagogical purposes. By binding them
together, their force is fettered so that regular men will bene-
fit from the directives intended to instruct them on the lowest
level. This 'monadisation' of language has an interesting paral-
lel in the process of transition from classical language to poetic
language as described by Barthes: his view of the diminution
Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 203
of the importance of the isolated word in classical language in
favor of the organized formulation is presumably the evolution
of language from a primitive focusing of nouns, or names, to
their incorporation in a larger grammatical discourse. In that
type of language described by Barthes as classical the words
are absente or neutralise. The passage to the modern, poetic lan-
guage which emphasizes the importance of the single word, at
the expense of the organised discourse, is apparently, a rever-
sion to the magico-mystical dimension of the language which
was, as it seems, conquered by informative ordinary speech. 1 "
This rediscovery of the word functioning alone, beyond the web
of grammatical relations, invests the word with a density which
is reminiscent of the mystico-magkal concepts of single letters as
divine names. Abulafia did not invent the monadistic approach
to text and language: it was part of the patrimony of ancient
Jewish literature and it was accepted also by some of the theo-
sophical kabbalists who preceded Abulafia. 19 What seems new
with him, however, is his transformation of an existent concept
into a hermeneutic device.
Persons accepting a given text, or canon, are passive, or at
least, so they are supposed to be at the primary steps of their spir-
itual development. The structured letters structure unstructured
men. With spiritual evolution, the person becomes more and
more active in relationship to the text, which gradually, becomes
less structured until the strong interpreter reaches the point that
he can structure the letters that were formerly untied from their
affinities to meanings in a given text or a given word. This pro-
cess is paralleled by the gradual growth of the mystic's spiritual
component which is, at the beginning, indebted to the canonic
text or ordinary language, but is freeing itself from the bonds
of nature and is able to liberate the divine letters from then-
bondage in the canonical text. 20 The more spiritual a man is— in
our case, the more free he is in relation to the ordered text— the
more spiritual is his interpretation. In the case of Abulafia, at
least as his later writings testify, it seems that the return of the
focus to the inherent forces of the elements of language in them-
204 Introduction
selves, in comparison to their function in the traditional texts,
bears evidence to a certain alienation to the ordered linguistic,
social, and religious universes of medieval Judaism.
This transcending of the plain sense is coupled by the as-
sumption that, beyond the philosophical approach to the text,
there is a supreme method, that of combining the letters viewed
as the "wisdom of the inner and supernal logic." Just as the
philosophers examined the text or the conclusions reached by
people using Aristotelian logical categories, so did the kabbal-
ist examine the biblical text with the help of his logic, whose
categories are extracted from the "traditional" hermeneutic arse-
nal, combinations of letters, acronyms, and numerology. 21 To a
certain extent, even the similarity between Abulafia's allegorical
exegesis and that of the philosophers is limited to one vital point.
The Aristotelian philosophers projected the Aristotelian physics,
psychology, and metaphysics onto the biblical texts. Abulafia
focused his allegorical interpretations mainly on the psycholog-
ical level, whereas the other two domains are only marginal in
his exegesis. Therefore, we may describe his allcgoresis as a psy-
chological one. Even this distinction, however, does not exhaust
the difference between him and the classical Jewish philosophi-
cal interpretation of the Bible. Indeed they share the same type
of nomenclature, which is imposed on the same texts. Never-
theless, Abulafia seems to impose not only nomenclature but
also the understanding that the psychological processes dealt
with are of actual interest, even when the signatum is the ancient
prophetical experience. Whereas the philosophers approached
these events as part of the sealed past or, at least, not as a mani-
fest directive in the present, the main interest of Abulafia in the
ancient tradition dealing with spiritual experiences is as a model
for the present. Moreover, it is obvious that the allegorical ex-
egesis is applied also in the cases when he deals with his own
experiences. Therefore, we may describe this type of allegory as
a spiritualistic exegesis, which might have influenced even his
attitude to the Bible. 22
Chapter One
Abulafia's Theory of Language
A. Language— A Domain for Contemplation
The method for attaining wisdom proposed by Abulafia
as an alternative to philosophical speculation is essentially a lin-
guistic one. Language is conceived by him as a universe in itself,
which yields a richer and superior domain for contemplation'
than does the natural world. Beyond its practical use, Abulafia
claims, language contains a structure that conveys the true form
of reality; therefore knowledge of the components of language
is equivalent and perhaps more elevated than knowledge of the
natural world. He writes: 1
For just as the [natural! reality 2 instructs the philosopher in an
easy way as to the true nature of things, so too the [Hebrew)
letters instruct us of the true nature of things, [andj with great-
er ease. 3 Regarding this, we have traditions that instruct us in
a simple manner as to the blessed Divine Attributes and His
Providence and Effluence and the nature of His effects. And
what you will learn from this is something that the philoso-
phers cannot attain to even after much labor and long effort
and learning, for it is something regarding the Holy Names,
what you will be taught. . .
20b Abulafia's Theory of Language
According to Abulafia, through revealing the structure of
the Divine Names one can reveal the structure and laws of na-
ture. An example of the type of information afforded by the
Hebrew language can be found in a discussion by Abulafia of
the relationship between the letters BKLM and the four most vital
organs of the human body. In his epistle We-Zot !e-Yehudah 4 he
writes:
The heart understands. And the [last letter of the word] MVH
[moah-bmin], is the first letter of the word HKMH [hoktndh —
wisdom]. So too, the last letter of the word LB, [ieb — heart] is
the first letter of the word BYNH [&ina/z-understandingj. And
the last letter of the word KBD [kabed — liver| is the first letter
of the word DT dn'flt-know ledge]. Within these three organs
dwell three souls. The vegetative soul dwells in the liver, the
animal soul dwells in the heart, and the intellective soul dwells
in the brain. An allusion to this may be found in the verse 5
"KLM KHD LK YSLSU" [kullam ke-'ehad leka yesalesu-ati of
them shall consecrate You in unison]. And these are the three
roots of the body. . . and when the fourth root BSYM [besim —
testicles] is combined with them, they form the acronym BKLM
[BaKLaM]. Thus do they serve as the first letters of each of these
words in the Holy Language. This is the tradition that we have
received from R. Yehudah the Pious of Regensburg. 6
We have here a double correspondence: the four essen-
tial organs— brain, heart, liver and testicles — correspond in their
first letters to the letters BKLM, the prepositions in Hebrew, and
to the major bodily functions. Therefore, the essential organs
are called rasim (heads). 7 Besides this, in three of the four organs
there is another correspondence that refers to their other func-
tions: wisdom, understanding and knowledge. The fact that
from the form of the Hebrew language it is possible to discern
facts that the natural sciences derive by means of observation
indicates to Abulafia the unique quality of the language, in Sefer
'Imrey Sefer, 6 he writes:
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 207
The four sources" are denoted by the acronym BKLM which
stands for the first letters of these four sources. Their secret
meaning consists in the fact that they are the four organs that
are at the forefront of all bodily functions. 'B' at the beginning
of these two organs called BSYM [testicles]; 'K' is the first letter
of KBD [liver]; 'L' is the first letter of LB [heart], and 'M' is the
first letter of MH [brain]. This indeed is the case in our lan-
guage. And regarding these and other matters we know them
by prophetic tradition, from the mouth of God who revealed
His secrets to Moses His servant, that the entire world was
created by means of the letters of the Holy Language, and that
all other languages are in comparison likened to an ape.
The secrets of language handed down in the tradition of
the prophetic Kabbalah are the essential contents of that tradi-
tion. In Sefer Hayye ha-'Oldm ha-Ba 1 , Abulafia announces 10 that the
"principles of Kabbalah" are three: the forms of the written let-
ters, their combinations, and the vowel indicators. We will now
discuss the meanings of these three principles.
B. Letters
The second misnah of Sefer Ycsirah that determines that there
are "twenty-two foundation letters" serves as the conceptual ba-
sis for Abulafia's ideas concerning the letters. In his opinion it
is not feasible that there be more letters than the twenty-two of
the Hebrew alphabet, in that these are the only natural letters."
Yet his knowledge of other languages forced him to address the
question of the gap between the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew
alphabet and the larger number of letters in other languages. To
resolve this problem, Abulafia developed an essentially phonetic
explanation. In his opinion, the twenty-two Hebrew letters are
the ideal sounds, similar to the modern theory of phonemes.
Whereas other languages contain more letters, these are merely
variations of pronunciation of the Hebrew letters, produced by
means of different emphases, which would yield the additional
208 Abulafia's Theory of Language
letters that are given separate graphic designation in the other
languages. We have here an explanation that is essentially sim-
ilar to the modern phonetic theory of alophones. It is worth
citing here an extended quote on this subject, from the writings
of Abulafia: 12
If you were to say "I will add the twenty-two components of
speech, or subtract from them," and you will show cause from
the letters that appear in other languages, in addition to the
letters of our language, or you will say that there are other lan-
guages that contain less letters — for instance, the G of Arabic or
the Sin or other examples of letters not found in our language,
or you will indicate the Kaf that the Greek language does not
possess, or the [Het] or [Ayin] or [Heh] that you do not find in
Italian, etc. Know, all of these letters may be pronounced either
with or without emphasis, or with a medium or weak empha-
sis, or with strong emphasis; with medium or slight emphasis.
We know regarding our own language that the letters B, G, D,
K, P, R, T, receive either strong or weak emphasis, with strong
medium or weak emphasis, depending on the position of the
letter in the word. So too, regarding most other letters, they are
sometimes pronounced with emphasis, and at times without.
For only the letters ', H, H, ' and R never receive emphasis.
And even these receive emphasis in numerous instances. 13 So
too, we have the R in YSRTY [yisarti-l have made straight],
or SRK [sflnrie-twisted]. 1 - 1 So too, the H with a point inside, is
pronounced as an H with emphasis. And every letter that pre-
cedes a letter that receives emphasis is also pronounced with
a tendency toward emphasis, as in the verse 15 HNNY 1HYM
KHSDK [iianneni 'Elohim ke-hasdeka-iav or me, O Lord, accord-
ing to your Grace], and there are many others.. .This being
the case, in regard to the letters added to, or subtracted from
the twenty-two, we have indicated from where they issue, and
have accounted for them in accordance with their places of ori-
gin, the five sources [of pronunciation], located in the throat,
lips and tongue].
The comment with which Abulafia concludes is also
based on Sefer Yesirdh, 16 which divides the letters into five groups
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 209
based on their phonetic organ of pronunciation. The twenty-two
letters are signs denoting sounds naturally produced by means
of the five organs of pronunciation and are therefore essentially
natural sounds. The additional sounds found in other languages
are merely variations of emphasis of the natural sound. 17
We move now to the graphic representation of the letters.
Whereas the sounds they denote are natural and are shared by
other languages, the graphic signs of these sounds are based
on convention. Whereas the conventionality of the visual forms
of the letters of other languages, however, is based on human
agreement, the visual images of the Hebrew letters are based
on prophetic convention, i.e., agreement between the Divinity
and the prophets who recorded His word. Therefore, there is
meaning to the visual forms of the letters and every essential
aspect of them has implications. This is so regarding the graphic
form, the name of the letter, and its numerical value. 18
It is necessary that one also learn the names of all the letters.
Know that in our language, the name of each letter begins
with the letter itself [i.e., the first letter of each letter-name is
the letter, itself]. This is a great secret regarding the letters and
it instructs us as to the essence of the letter. The combination of
the letter with other letters to form the name indicates that these
letters are of the same type as the letter named, and together
they form the body of the letter. For instance, the matter of
the letters L F that combine with the letter A to form the letter-
name ALF, \'alef\ is not accidental, but with great wisdom and
prophetic agreement. 19
Here Abulafia's attention is fixed on two of the three as-
pects of the letters. He rarely concerns himself with the graphic
image of the letter, which also figures in his numerological
calculations. 20 In such a manner, each letter is transformed into
a "universe unto itself in the Kabbalah." 21
Until now we have discussed two aspects of understand-
ing the letters: the sound, and the graphic image. 22 Abulafia
210 Abulafia's Tlieory of Language
adds to them a third dimension — the intellectual dimension —
which regards the letters as they are found in our mental
experience. 23 The relationship between the three dimensions is
like the relationship between the sensation, the imagination, and
the intellect. In c Osar 'Eden Ganuz, we read: 24
You must first distinguish the written form [of the letter], then
its pronounced form and then its intellectual form. Indeed,
these three matters cannot be said to be united unless they
actually become one in the mind of the intellectual [masH\,
and until then the intellectual grasp of the letter cannot be in
its most sublime state. For this is like one whose feelings are
fully developed, so that there is a need that his prospective
emotional expression reach maturity, and that so too, his intel-
lect reach perfection. And with the perfect combination of all
of these, the power of the intellect that was hidden from him
will reveal its effluence to him, and his soul will rejoice and
take pleasure and happiness in the everlastingjoy, and he will
benefit from the rays of the Divine Presence [Sekinah).
The intellectual level of the letters, as experienced by the
human Intellect, constitutes an intellectual universe. These let-
ters are the real forms of all phenomena that exist, for they were
created by means of the Divine use of the letters. Man recog-
nizes the intellectual stature of the letters only in a general sense,
whereas the divine intellectual stature of the letters is only rec-
ognized by exalted individuals. 25 The function of the letters is
therefore only an aid to man helping him to actualize his po-
tential intellect, whereby he is enabled to attain life in the world
to come, as we learn from Sefer 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz: 2&
Life is the life of the world to come, which a man earns by ]
means of the letters.
And in Seba< Netibot lia-Torah, p. 19, we read:
As far as man is concerned, the letters have a threefold mean- \
ing, and they are the proximate vessels which by means of the
Language, Torah, and Hermencutics in Abulafui 211
combination [of letters] aid the soul to actualize its potential
with much greater ease 27 than any other means.
In Sefer 'Imrey Sefer Abulafia bases the relationship between
the letters and the world to come on an etymological argument: 2 *
[the word] W [>o*-letter] is related to the word BY 3 ! [brat] -
the arrival of]. Now the Targum (i.e., the Aramaic translation)
of XM HB' ['61dm ha-ba>-the world to come] is IMA DTY
['alma de-'ale-the world that is coming] and its secret meaning
is the world of the letters/ 9 whence signs and wonders appear.
It is worth noting the relationship between the letters and
the limbs of the body. In Sefer Sitrey Town, 30 Abulafia likens the
combinations of the letters to the construction of the body, of
various limbs and organs:
Know that all of the limbs of your body are combined like that
of the forms of the letters are combined one with the other.
Know also that when you combine them it is you who dis-
tinguish between the forms of the letters, for in their prime-
material state they are equal and they are all composed of the
same substance, having been written with [the same] ink, and
with one sweep you can erase them all from a writing board.
So too the particular Angel will do to all the moisture 31 of
your body and to all of your limbs until they all return to their
prime-material state, 32 i.e. the four elements.
Here, as well as in other works by Abulafia, 33 we read
of the correspondence between the letters and the limbs of the
body, without any indication of the substantive relation between
them. A system of correspondence between the letters and the
limbs is already found in the fourth chapter of Sefer Yeslrah, and is
mentioned again in a short tract Pe'ulat im-Yesirdh M of Ashkenazi
extraction, where we read:
This creature that you want to create; with regard to each and
every particular limb [of it), look inside and see what letter
you must appoint upon it, and combine it as 1 will instruct
212 Abutafia's Theory of language
you. And you must take virgin soil from underneath virgin
earth and seed it here and there upon your holy Temple in a
state of [ritual] purity. Purify yourself and form from this soil
[the] homunculus [golem] which you want to create and imbue
with the spirit of life. See what letter you must appoint upon
it, and what proceeds from it. Do so also with the letters of
the Tetragrammaton, by means of which the entire world was
created. Recite Notariqon,™ and recite each of its letters with
the vowels OH, AH, EEY, AY, 00, UH, and that organ will
immediately be animated.
In this connection we may adduce an interesting passage
from Abulafia's Hayyey fia-'6lam ha-Ba*, 36 where we read:
And if when reciting one errs, heaven forbid, in the use of
the appropriate appointed letter, he would cause that limb to
be detached and switched and would immediately change its
nature, and the creature created thereby would be deformed.
In conclusion, we may mention that Abulafia accepts the
Midrashic idea that states that at the time of circumcision, the
Divine Name SDY (Sadday) is engraved into the body. 37
C. Vowels
The second fundamental category in Abulafia's theory of
language involves the vowels. We may assume, based on a quote
from 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz,™ that Abulafia devoted a separate book
to this subject, but it has not reached us. In his other works Ab-
ulafia enters into numerous discussions on the essential vowels;
O Qwldm), A (qdmas), EY (sere), Y (hiriq), U (suruq), for which he
uses various identification terms, such as N(o)T(a)R(i)Q(o)N, 39 or
the acrostic P(i)T(u)H(e) H(o)T(a)M 40 (pituhe hotdm— engravings
of the signet), and others.
Following Sefer ha-Bahir*' Abulafia identifies the relation-
ship between the vowels and the consonants with the relation-
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 213
ship between the body and the soul. In his book 'Or ha-Seket* 2
he writes:
It has already been stated that the letter is like matter, and the
vowel is like the spirit that animates it.
The vowel signs serve two functions: On the one hand,
they indicate the appropriate vowel sounds used in reciting the
letters of the Tetragrammaton, 43 and they also signal the appro-
priate head movements used in the reciting.
On the other hand, the meaning of the vowel signs be-
comes a topic of discussion that involves the significance of the
names of the vowel sounds and the visual forms of the signs. 4,1
I will present here one example of such a discussion. In this
case, it concerns the visual form of the qdnias vowel, and the
significance of its name.
Elsewhere in the same book we read: 45
Every qdmas is like a sphere, divided by a patah [ray line] and
a h !/>y a [point]. The form of the qdmas is a straight line and a
point, circumscribed in a circle. From here we learn that the
patah [a] would properly be depicted as a circle, but is actually
depicted as a straight line so that the vowel sign not conflict
with the consonant letter. And the qdmas is secretly surrounded
by a circle and is a KDUR MPYK MKYF [kadur mapik makif—a
pointed circumscribed sphere].
This quote related the vowel sign to its visual form, by
means of numerology, as it was received in the linguistic tradi-
tion familiar to Abulafia. QMS (qdmas = 230 ■ MKYF (makif—
circumscribed) = MPYK (mapiq— pointed) = KDUR (kadur—
sphere).
This association was widespread among the circles close
to Abulafia, and occurs occasionally in the writings of his
contemporaries. 46
214 Abulafia's Theory of Language
D. Letter Combination: Seruf XDtiyot
The third constituent of Abulafia's linguistic doctrine is
letter combination. In his opinion, it is the various types of let-
ter combination that determine the character of a given language.
For this reason, the words SYRUF (seruf— combination) and
LSVN (Jason— language) have an identical numerical value— 386.
By means of letter combination we can construct all languages—
i.e., the seventy languages. This is also attested to by a nu-
merologicaJ equation: SYRVF H'VTYVT (seruf ha->otiyot— -letter
combination) = 1214 = SV<yM LSVNVT (sibnm lesonot— seventy-
languages). 17 From here we infer that knowledge of the three
aspects of language discussed above enables us to attain knowl-
edge of the languages of all nations. This idea is not unique to
Abulafia.
Already in the commentary to Sefer Yesirah, R. Shabbatai
Donollo (913-ca. 982) wrote:*" "The Holy One, Blessed be He,
revolved the letters in order to construct from them all the words
of all the nations (literally 'languages') of the land. And after He
concluded the combinations of letters and revolutions of the spo-
ken word. . . " The view concerning letter combination, as being a
key to the knowledge of all languages recurs in Perus ha-'Aggaddt**
of R. Azriel of Gerona:
(regarding the verse, Ezra, 2:2] "For Mordekhai Bilshan [un-
derstood as construed as two names, meaning 'Mordekhai, the
expert in Languages']," he is called thus for his knowledge of
the seventy languages. 50 It is not that he went traveling here
and there in order to learn the languages of each and every
nation, rather, he learned the clue— the means of combining
the letters [to form] all languages, as they are included in the
Torah. For it is stated: 51 "Tat is two," etc. This statement indi-
cates that all languages are implied in the Torah, for were this
not so how could (the Talmud] explain the Hebrew language
by means of a foreign language.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 215
R. Azriel's explanation of the acquisition of the seventy
languages is also found in Abulafia's works. We read in his
Peruss Sefer Yesirah: 52
And it is stated in the Haggddah 5i "[the angel] Gabriel came and
taught him the seventy languages in one night." And if you
believe that [what was taught was] the actual languages, you
make a foolish error. Rather, this is Gabriel, regarding whom
it was written [Daniel 8:13]: "Then I heard a holy one speak,"
i.e., he was speaking in the holy tongue. . . In actuality, he taught
him the order of all languages, derived from the Sefer Yesirah
by very subtle means. . . so that he will recognize the order that
reveals the ways of all languages— however many there may
be. And it is not meant that there are necessarily only seventy
languages or [even] thousands of them.
The meaning of this quote becomes clearer if we compare
it with the words of R. Reuben Sarfati, who was well versed
in Abulafia's doctrines. In his commentary to Sefer Ma-areket ha-
'Elohut he writes: 54
Know that the epitome of human perfection is that one knows
the secret of the Angel of the Countenance by means of letter
combination. Then he will know the seventy languages. Do
not think that they are, literally, languages, for if you believe
this, you foolishly believe in error. Indeed, the true faith is
that you attain the perception of the Angel of the Counten-
ance, whose name is identical with the Name of his Master.
R. Reuben Sarfati fills in a detail here that was missing
from Abulafia's Perus Sefer Yesirah. It is possible to attain by
means of letter combination the knowledge of the seventy lan-
guages, and by their means to the epitome of wisdom, 55 which is
expressed as 'the Active Intellect' or the conception of the 'Angel
of the Countenance', or Gabriel. Elsewhere Abulafia goes to an
extreme, and he says:
The true tradition that we have received states that anyone who
is not proficient in letter combination, and [who is not] tested
216 Abutafia's Theory of Language
and expert in it, and in the numerology of the letters, and in
their differences and their combinations and transformations
and revolutions and their means of exchange, as these methods
are taught in Sefer Yesirdh, does not know the Name [or God]
in accordance with our method. 56
Abulaiia goes on to explain here the stages of the combi-
nation of letters. At the beginning stage we must "revolve the
languages until they return to their prime material state." 57 This
refers to the breaking up of words to their constituent letters,
which are the prime-material of all languages. The second stage
is the creation of new words, i.e. the (re-)combination of the
letters from their prime-material state,
to create from the wondrous innovations, for the combinations
of the letters include the seventy languages. 58
This idea returns again in the above mentioned work
where we read: 59
And the sixth is the method of returning the letters to their
prime-material state and giving them form in accordance with
the power of intellect that issues forms.
In this process, the human intellect, which provides forms
to the amorphous matter of the letters comes in contact with the
Active Intellect, also referred to as donator formarum, "the provider
of forms."
E. The Nature of the Language
The question of the nature of language and its origin is
often discussed in the Jewish scholarly literature of the medieval
period. bU The discussions of the Jewish medieval writers were
sporadic, however, and we do not find a clear system that deals
with this question in a coherent and comprehensive manner.
Abulafia frequently deals with the questions of language in most
Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 217
of his works. We will now examine his ideas concerning this
matter.
Essentially, two diverse standpoints were expressed dur-
ing the Middle Ages in discussing the origin of language: that
language is a result of human convention, or, that it is a re-
sult of Divine revelation, or of the revelation of the essences of
phenomena. The first opinion was unacceptable to those who
believed in the literal meaning of the reception of the Torah from
Sinai. Because Hebrew was the language by which the revela-
tion was conveyed, they found it impossible to accept the view
that a language that is merely a result of human convention be-
came the vehicle of revelation. The acceptance of a conventional
view of language was seen as undermining the foundation of
the religion based on revelation expressed in writing. R. Joseph
Gikatilla expressed this view well when he wrote: 61
And it is necessary that we believe that the language of the
Torah is not a result of convention as some illustrious rabbis
of previous generations had thought. For if one were to say
that the language that the Torah employs is a result of conven-
tion, as is the case with the other languages, we would end up
denying the [Divine Revelation] of the Torah, which was in its
entirety imparted to us from God. And you already know 62
[regarding the verse] "For he desecrated the word of God" that
this refers to one who says that the Torah is conventional, but
that the rest is from heaven, our sages have already stated 63
that anyone who says that the entire Torah, save for one word,
is of Divine origin, such a person has desecrated the word
of God. And if the language of the Torah is, originally, con-
ventional like all other languages, regarding which the Torah
states 64 "for there did God confound the language of all the
earth," it [Hebrew] would be like all other languages.
Abulafia often differentiates, as does Gikatilla, between
the sacred language and all other languages, which in his opin-
ion do result from convention. His opinion regarding the nature
of the Hebrew language, however, is different from that of his
218 Abulafia's Theory of Language
student. Hebrew, according to Abulafia, is not a gift from God,
but is the natural language that God chose due to its outstand-
ing qualities. To demonstrate the conventionality of language
he relies on a quote from The Commentary on de Interpretation by
Averroes, with which he was familiar in the Hebrew translation
of R. Jacob Anatoli: 05
The spoken word indicates conceptions originating in the in-
dividual soul, and the written letters indicate primarily those
words. And just as a script is not uniform to all nations so
too all the spoken words used to describe phenomena are not
uniform to all nations. This indicates that language originated
by convention, and was not [purely] a result of nature. In mat-
ters of the soul all are uniform, however, just as concerning
matters that souls perceive and which instruct them they are
the same for all humankind and in the nature of everybody.
In addition he says that words can be likened to intellectual
ideas expressed thereby. For just as a concept may be under-
stood without regard to whether it be true or false, so too, it
is possible that a [sentence] word be understood regardless of
whether it is true or false.
And since it is possible that what is understood regarding the
idea can be expressed whether accurately or inaccurately, thus,
the word is merely what is understood by it, [regardless of]
whether it be true or false. And the truth or untruth of the
words are grasped by the intellectual perception. And the
words that constitute these prepositions can be separated one
from another and recombined. But when they are separated
and by themselves they indicate neither truth nor falsehood.
These are his words. This being the case, it is understood that
all languages are conventional and not natural. And this is
also the opinion expressed by the Master in his Guide for the
Perplexed [II, 30], where he provides a Scriptural prooftext from
the verse "And Adam gave names. . . "
Nevertheless, we find that God chose us and our language
and script, and He instructed us in articles of faith and in tra-
ditions that were chosen by him from all matters found among
', Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 219
our neighbors, from those mentioned and their like, just as He
chose in the process of nature of various phenomena and ex-
cluded many other possibilities, as we know by observing the
natural existence. 66 This choice is incomprehensible save by the
prophets found by God to be more perfect than the other sages
of humanity [and] were chosen by God who singled them out
to be His messengers and angels in order to instruct the true
faith. No one will question this. And we find their words in
the holy language, written with the holy letters, for they indi-
cate the seventy languages by means of letter combination. 67
It is now appropriate to analyse this important quote in
detail. The view of Averroes that language arose by conven-
tion is based on two arguments: On the one hand there are
differences between languages with respect to the terms used
to describe a given object; and on the other hand, we know
that an isolated word like an isolated concept is neither true nor
false-and this indicates that there is no correspondence between
the substance of what is being portrayed and the verbal means
of portrayal. Likewise, the opinion of Maimonides is that lan-
guage is conventional, although he brings proof of this from
Scripture. Both Maimonides and Averroes claim that language
as such arose through convention.
Abulafia makes use of the philosophical authority of his
predecessors to determine that all languages arose due to con-
vention. He, however, removes the Hebrew language from this,
and claims against the unequivocal opinion of Maimonides, that
Hebrew is a natural language. In the section quoted above, Ab-
ulafia argues for the uniqueness of the Hebrew language based
on the fact that God chose it from among all other languages,
and also from the fact that the prophets, who are regarded as
those who reached the summit of human perfection, also chose
this language to convey the Divine message. Both of them testify
to the exalted quality of the holy language. 68
Another argument found in the above-quoted section is
adduced from nature, where we observe that some phenomena
L
220 Abulafia's Theory of Language
are of higher quality than others, which indicates that such a
gradation of quality may also be present in the realm of lan-
guages. His more detailed arguments, however, may be found
in his other works. In Sefer 'Or ha-Seket,^ Abulafia's attempts to
prove that the view that language arose by convention implies
there having been a proto-language on whose basis the first con-
ventional language arose:
From this a proof is adduced that language is conventional.
This naturally being the case, the Master of our language comes
to inform us of the intentional quality of speech. This is also
conveyed by the very fact of the conventional use of language
and script. Know that for any conventional language to have
arisen there had to have been an earlier language in existence.
For if such a language did not precede it there couldn't have
been mutual agreement to call a given object by a different
name from what it was previously called, for how would the
second person understand the second name if he doesn't know
the original name, in order to be able to agree to the changes.
And this is also the case as regards writing, although there is
a difference in their conventionality, but here is not the place
to explain this.
Hebrew as the necessary proto-language, within the realm
of the conventional emergence of other languages, is also indi-
cated by Abulafia's reference to Hebrew as the "Mother of all
Languages." In Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot we read: 70
And the entire land was of one language and one speech: this
verse instructs us as to the nature of language, each of which,
according to our tradition, has as its origin the sacred language,
which is the Mother of all Languages.
In another formulation of this idea preserved in Liqutey
Hamis 71 — a collectanea of material including many quotations from
ecstatic Kabbalah— we read:
Know that the mother of all conventional languages is the nat-
ural Hebrew language. For it is only by means of a natural
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 221
language that all the conventional languages arose. And this
served as the elementary matter for all of them. Such is also
the case regarding natural writing out of which all other writ-
ten language arose. This is likened to the first created human
form, from whom all other human beings were created. . . r2
Thus, we may ask, what is the meaning of the term 'nat-
ural language'?
F. The Infant's Ordeal
In Sefer Mafteah lia-Ra c aydn, 7:i we read of the well-known
story of the experiment to discover the identity of the natural
language, by observing the language which a child who was
never instructed in the use of any language would speak:
Know that for every human being to have come to be there
was a human being who preceded him, and so on until Adam.
So too, be informed that for any speaker of any language to
have come to be spoken, there were earlier users of spoken lan-
guages. And if not for the previous existence of language there
would never have been a speaker for such is human nature.
Observe the various forms and representations and imagina-
tive devices [used by] human education [in order to] determine
the language ability of a child until he becomes a proficient
speaker of a language. Therefore, certainly if we were to imag-
ine that if a child would, by agreement be abandoned to be
raised by a mute, that he would by himself learn to speak the
holy language, this would have no reason to be sustained. And
even if you hear that a particular king conducted this exper-
iment and found it to be the case, if you possess reason and
perceive truth... so too concerning our believing that the child
was a Hebrew speaker, being in actuality a non-speaker, that
this would be a very good story for we would thereby raise the
stature of our language in the ears of those who adhere to this
story, although it be an entirely false fabrication. In addition,
he brings a diminution of the stature of the proofs he uses.
And as for me, it is not wise to use false claims to raise the
222 Abulafia's Theory of Language
stature of anything. . . However, since our language is indeed
of a higher quality, but for different reasons. . . and therefore it
is called the Holy Language.
This quote informs us that Abulafia saw the Hebrew lan-
guage as the earliest language but nonetheless discounts the
claim proffered by some of his contemporaries, 74 and also ex-
pressed by his teacher R. Hillel of Verona, that an untutored child
would speak Hebrew, as this is the natural language. 75 Abulafia's
viewpoint is similar to that of R. Zerahiah ben Shealtiel Hen, who
also emphatically rejects the claim of R. Hillel of Verona in this
regard.
According to Abulafia the exalted quality of the Hebrew
language is its being "in agreement with nature." In Sefer Sitrey
Tordh 76 he writes: "The name given to anything indicates to us
the true nature and quality of the thing named." He is referring
here to terms such as VR ('or— light), HVSK (fta&fc— darkness),
or YVM (yom— day) and LYLH {laylah— night), i.e., to Hebrew
words. In Sefer ha-Melammed, however, we read: 77
indeed, the convention of calling our language the holiest of all
languages is due to its being the result of prophetic convention,
which instructs us as to the modes of effects and the secrets of
gradation in quality. So too, concerning the names given to
the letters, such as Alef, Bet, Gimel, Daleth, as well as their
numerical values 1, 2, 3, 4, knowledge of all of these matters
brings about wondrous wisdom in the soul. 78
In the above quoted texts we find the term "convention"
(haskdmah) 79 bearing two meanings: Accord between a word and
the unique properties of the object denoted, and in this sense, the
Hebrew language is natural for it portrays the essential nature of
the denoted; and this language is arrived at by prophetic conven-
tion "for God Himself chose it as the language of prophecy," 80
as we have read from the end of the quote from Seba< Netibot
ha-Torah.
language, Torah, and Hermcneutics in Abulafia 223
G. Language: Divine and Natural
In Sefer Gan Na<ul, Hl Abulafia returns to the contrast be-
tween the nature of the Hebrew language and all other lan-
guages:
But the languages exist by convention, and only the [visual]
forms of our letters and the composition of our language are
by Divine act.
This new contrast between convention and Divinity cor-
responds to the previously encountered distinction between con-
vention and nature. From here we must conclude that Abulafia,
like Maimonides, uses the terms Divine and natural interchange-
ably, 82 because according to Abulafia, God merely chose the He-
brew language, but did not create it. In this work Abulafia re-
turns to this topic and says: 83
For whereas all languages exist by convention, the forms of the
letters of the Hebrew language are Divine. This is the secret
meaning of the verse 84 "And the tablets were the work of God
and the writing was the writing of God graven on the tablets."
As you have seen above, the Divine power surrounds it on all
sides.
This analysis of Abulafia's opinion concerning language
which assumes, as does Maimonides', the equivalence between
the terms Divine and natural informs us of a conception com-
pletely different from the concept of the conventionality of lan-
guage, as found in Maimonides' writings. And just as Abulafia
bases himself on Maimonides to construct his theory of lan-
guage, which is different from that of Maimonides in his Guide of
[. the Perplexed, so too we find a similar relation in Sefer Sawe Sedeq, a
work by R. Nathan ben Sa^adyah Harar, a disciple of Abulafia: 05
Anyone who believes in the creation of the world, if he be-
lieves that languages are conventional he must also believe
that they are of two types: the first is Divine, i.e., agreement
between God and Adam, and the second is natural, i.e., based
224 Abulafia's Theory of Language
on agreement between Adam, Eve, and their children. The
second is derived from the first, and the first was known only
to Adam and was not passed on to any of his offspring except
for Seth, 86 whom he bore in his likeness and his form. And so,
the tradition reached Noah. 87
And the confusion of the tongues during the generation of the
dispersion [at the tower of Babel] occurred only to the second
type of language, i.e., to the natural language. So eventually the
tradition reached Eber and later on Abraham the Hebrew. Thus
we find regarding Sefer Yeslrah, whose authorship is attributed
to Abraham, that the Almighty revealed Himself to him. aH And
from Abraham the tradition was passed on to Isaac and then
to Jacob and to his sons [the tribal ancestors].
The equivalence between the language that originated as
a result of a natural convention and its Divine quality disappears
here. In its place, what confronts us is the contrast between lan-
guage that resulted from Divine convention, which is none other
than the Kabbalah, given to Adam, and passed on by him, and
the vicessitudes of the natural language which is the result of
human invention.'' 9 The natural language itself is missing here.
What lies concealed in this discussion on the nature of language
is the contrast between philosophy and Kabbalah. Divine con-
vention is the source of the Kabbalah, which originated with
Adam, and this is associated with revelation as is clear from
the above quote which mentions Sefer Yeslrah to demonstrate this
point. The controversy between philosophy and Kabbalah is
easily recognizable from another section of Sefer S&arey Sedeq: 90
The entire world is conducted in accordance with the laws of
nature, which indicate the attribute of judgment. Thus, the
world of Names is suspended and obscured and its letters
and combinations and its virtues are not understood by those
who conduct themselves in accordance with the attribute of
judgment... and this is the secret meaning of the cessation of
prophecy in Israel; [for prophecy] inhibits the attribute of judg-
ment. [And this continues! until the one whom God desires
arrives and his power will be great and will be increased by
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 225
being given their power. And God will reveal His secrets to
him. . . and the natural and philosophical wisdoms will be de-
spised and hidden, for their supernal power will be abolished.
And the wisdom of the letters and Names, which now are not
understood, will be revealed.
The natural and philosophical wisdoms that rule in the
world today are apparently the result of the confusion of nat-
ural convention, which occurred during the generation of the
dispersion related to the tower of Babylon. By contrast, the
Kabbalah which is presently hidden, i.e., the 'wisdom of the
Names and letters', will in the future be the accepted means of
communication. 1 ' 1 Created as a result of the Divine convention,
in the future it will be victorious. As we have seen earlier, ac-
cording to Abulafia, Hebrew is the natural, or Divine language.
To these two designations we may add a third: Hebrew is the
intellectual language. In Hotdm ha-Haftdrdh we read: 92
In addition, you must know that on the one hand, the Names in
their form of combination are likened to the phenomena that
subsist and pass away, and on the other hand, to those that
endure. Indeed, those that endure are called the 'Account of the
Chariot' [M'SH MRKBH— Mawseh Merkdbdh] and the others are
called the 'Account of the Creation' [M'SH BRESYT— Ma'aseh
Beresit] and the secret of this is TRPB = 682 = 'BRYT [682 =
'BRYT— Hebrew],
The meaning of this passage is that the word T3RYT
(>ryi— Hebrew) - 682 = M'SH MRKBH (Ma<aseh Merkdbdh—
'Account of the Chariot'), which implies that the phenomena
that endure do so by means of the Holy Names that exist only
in the Hebrew language. This transforms Hebrew into the in-
tellectual language, because only this language has the ability
to express the intellectual nature of unchanging existence. He-
brew is construed as the metaphysical language and it is for this
reason that God chose it. In Sefer Ner 'Elohim, one of Abulafia's
disciples writes: 93
226 Abulafia's Theory of Language
But the Divine [lore] is understood by means of the Holy
Names, and the Holy Names exist only in the Hebrew lan-
guage. They do not know our language, but we know theirs.
Thus, our language is holy and theirs is profane and although
all languages are under the rubric of the twenty-two letters,
they are separated by the letter combinations of which they
consist and by their conventionality. 94 And God chose one of
them, and it alone contains the Holy Names.
The distinction between sacred and profane language
tound in Sefer Ner "Elohim is even more developed in Sefer 'Osar
'Eden Gdnuz. There Abulafia writes: 95
The collaboration between intellect and imagination is like that
between Angel and Satan, and is holy unto God, like the forms
of son and daughter. . .and the antagonism between sacred
and profane, i.e., between DM [dam— blood] and DT [dat—
religion, sacred law] which results in sacred and profane lan-
guage. Also, DM is "YVD He W He" [the spelling of the
Tetragrammaton which numerically equals DM] is the secret
of HVL [hoi— profane] is DM, and QDVS [Qddos— holy] is DT,
and DT is TG', one of the Holy Names, for it is the Crown of
Torah, whose secret is 26.
This section speaks of two groups of terms:
a. SKL (sekel— intellect), ML'AK (mahak— angel), DT {dat— reli-
gion), BN (ben— son), LSVN QVDS {leson qodes-sacted lan-
guage), and TG' (Holy Name, meaning Crown) which exem-
plify the superior element, indicating that the Holy Language
corresponds to the intellect; and
b. DMYWN (dimyon— imagination), 9 * 5 STN {safm), 97 DM (dam-
blood), 98 BT {bat— daughter) and LSVN HVL (Idsdn hoi—
profane language), exemplifying the inferior element, indi-
cating that profane language is inferior.
We now pass over to Abulafia's explanation of the transi-
Hon that occurred between the first Divine-Narural-lntellectual,
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 227
and the profane languages. As we have seen, languages de-
veloped as a result of a series of conventions. The cause that
brought about the differences between conventional languages
is geographical in nature. 99 In 'Osar 'Eden Gimuz m we read:
You must be aroused.. . that the calling of names are by ne-
cessity the results of conventions, which include many indi-
viduals. Thus it is possible that in the near or distant future
it would change as a result of the geographic location of the
participants in the [act of] convention.
But in 'Or ha-Sekel Abulafia writes: 1 "'
The human mind. . . that altered languages that were once iden-
tical is comprehensible to any speaker. For even today they
are all one language, albeit incomprehensible to the speakers.
And the case of this is the dispersion of the nations, as indi-
cated in the secret of the dispersion [i.e., the story of Babel] by
the words 1 " 2 WYFS [wa~ydfes~ -and He scattered] and BLL 103
[bdlal — He confounded]. For when one nation be in India and
another in Africa, exceedingly far from one another, each lan-
guage becomes concentrated in its geographic location and one
is not the same as the other, and there is no commerce between
them due to the great distance between them. This is the rea-
son why they are mutually incomprehensible, for it has already
been demonstrated that they are the results of convention. . .
Now regarding this, you may observe that on the borders of
two neighboring countries the members of each would know
the language of the other, and perhaps the knowledge of the
language would spread in the country, but the knowledge of
the other language would not be so widespread in the other,
or perhaps they would be well-distributed in both countries,
to the extent that the hearer will think that the words of one
language are the words of the other, or the languages may not
be well-distributed so that the difference between them is rec-
ognizable. Yet, the inhabitants of the far ends of both countries
would not understand the language of the other. What occurs
in language is similar to what occurs in the natural elements.
And just as language arose as a result of convention due to
228 Abuiafia's Theory of Language
the geographic distance between them, so too regarding the
differentiation of elements in nature, for the reason for both is
identical, i.e., distance.
The process of the distancing of language brought about
the condition that they lost their similarity, both to the origi-
nal language, Hebrew, and to each other. In Sefer 'Imrey Sefer, m
Abulafia describes the relation between Hebrew and other lan-
guages:
The other languages are Ukened to Hebrew as an ape, 105 who
upon observing the actions of a human being wants to do
likewise, and like a person who visually appears to another,
through a mirror, and he mimics his actions and does not at-
tempt to add to or diminish from them— but [still] they are not
human.
Elsewhere, 106 Abulafia writes regarding Greek and Ital-
ian, that they "arose to serve the Jewish language." Apparently,
he implies here that it is also possible to use profane language
to attain the results that are more easily achieved by means of
Hebrew language. He makes use of foreign words in his nu-
merological expositions, based on the assumption that within
these words are preserved the original Hebrew ideas. We will
now provide a number of examples of this.
In Sefer 'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz] he writes:
As we read in Italian "notte," referring to the word 'night'
[LYLH], and they are numerically equal. 107
I
75 = LYLH (layldh— night). He con-
For NVTY [notte] <
tinues there:
In the Basque language the word for twenty, "ugi" (VGY]
equals "twenty" numerically.
In a number of places places we find the numerological
equation 'ANDRVGYNVS (mdrogind*— andiogene) = 390 - ZKR
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 229
VNKBH 108 (zakdr u-neqebah — male and female). Elsewhere he at-
tempts to define the nature of imagination with the help of the
Greek language: 10H
The DMYVN [dimyon — imagination] imagines, and its secret is
DYMVN [daemon], and the devil and Satan. Indeed it is the
likeness of an image, i.e., an intermediary.
Concerning the process of letter combination, discussed
in Section 4, it is worth considering cases where a combination
of letters has one meaning in Hebrew and another meaning in
another language. In Sefer 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz we read: 110
Indeed, the term 'conventional speech' applies to any consis-
tent usage of words. As for our Holy Language, it is wor-
thy that one make use of it in its original conventional form,
in accordance with the conventional meaning originally estab-
lished. Then it is fitting that one consider if it tolerates other
meanings of more sublime quality than the original meaning
and then one derives it accordingly and he would consider
it as valid as the original meaning. Then he would seek a
third meaning, more sublime than the second and he would
continue in this way until he removes the term, regardless of
whatever type of term it may be and provides for it other con-
ventional meanings, even if they come from other languages
they should be accepted. And one continues in this way un-
til he derives the types of meaning most useful for the life of
the soul. One should do this always with ail things until each
and every term is returned to the prime-material from which
it was constructed. This is the [technique of] combination of
the letters 111 that includes the seventy languages.
According to Abulafia language serves two functions: It
is a means of expression of thought and it enables one to at-
tain prophecy. In Sefer iia-Mclammed irl we read: "Language is a
thing which brings to actuality what is imprinted in the soul
in potentia." On the other side, Abulafia writes in his Mafteah
ha-Hokmot: 1 ™
I
230 Abulafia' s Theory of Language
Indeed when man becomes perfect he will understand that the
intent behind language is the discovery of the function of the
Active Intellect, that makes human speech conform to the Di-
vinity. This is the case according to philosophy. And according
to Kabbalah the intention is the same, but in addition, one does
not suffice with the mere perception of the existence of wis-
dom, until one perceives the Word from Him, and speaks with
Him as one person speaks with another. And in accordance
with wisdom one may perceive it in any language. However,
according to the Kabbalah, the Divine speech is only attain-
able by means of the Holy Language, although its existence is
ascertainable by means of any language.
This quote indicates that language aids the attainment of
wisdom by pointing to the function of the Active Intellect, the
cause that actualizes our potential intelligence. Only by means
of the Hebrew language, however, which is by its nature intel-
lectual, can a person attain the prophetic word. Abulafia returns
to this idea in Seba< Netibot ha-Tordh, p. 8:
(As for] the true essence of prophecy, its cause is the word
that reaches the prophet from God by means of the perfect
language that includes under it the seventy languages. 114 And
this is none other than the Hebrew language.
It is worth discussing the function of language during
the era of redemption. One of the clear signs of the Messianic
aeon is, according to Abulafia, the widespread knowledge of the
Hebrew language. 115 In Sefer 'Or ha-Sekel, 1 ™ he writes:
And the dispersion of the unique nation, spread over the en-
tire earth brought about the condition that its language was
forgotten so that they speak the languages of the lands they
inhabit. 117 And this came about by Divine Cause, so that in
the end the quality of language will return to its former glory,
when the unique nation will be gathered into its unique land.
For then this ingathering will also include all the languages of
the earth, and this will bring to pass that all will speak the lan-
guage agreed upon by all, and all languages will be combined
Language, Torah, and Hermencutics in Abulafia 231
in one combination. For the essential intention of language
is to convey the soul's intent to another soul, and with the
passing of time, the users of the composite language will not
know which word is from which language, and the composite
language will not be seen as composite.
And this matter is similar to the phenomenon readily observ-
able today, to one who speaks to his children in two languages,
they think that they are hearing only one language.
It seems to this writer that the ingathering of languages to
one language, occurring at the end of days is neither a linguistic
syncretism nor the creation of a new language. Abulafia empha-
sizes that the dispersion of the Jews was the result of a "Divine
Cause"; i.e., it has the intention for return, and when the time
comes, for "returning the quality of speech to its former glory."
Language during the Messianic era is apparently the perfect lan-
guage that includes the seventy languages, as indicated in the
quote from Seba< Netibot Im-Tordh. In Sefer Get ha-Semot, we read: 11 "
All languages are included within the language that underlies
them all, 119 i.e., the Holy Language, expressed through twenty-
two letters 120 and five ways of pronunciation, 121 for there is no
speech or writ but this, and there are no other letters, for they
are holy and this is the sanctified language LSVN QVDS — QVF
W DLT SYN— [leson qodes]— the sanctified language, Quf VaV
Dalet Sin]. This is theo in Greek 122 TYV VYV [taw, Vav], and
SNTY[saHfi] or SNTV [santo] in Italian 123 — SYN NVN TV W
[sin nun tav vav] or TyT VaV [tet, vav].
So if you recite any of the seventy languages you find that its
letters are none other than those of the Holy Language, and
that all is but one matter; only that this language is available
to those who know, and not available to those who don't. Pay
attention to this exalted matter, for it contains a secret derived
from the verse: 124 "And the whole earth was of one language
and of one speech," and is further indicated in the verse 125 that
refers to the Messianic era: "For then will I rum to all nations
232 Abulafia 's Theory of Language
a pure language, that all of the seventy languages are included
in the Holy Language."
Here, too, Abulafia writes, that during the era that pre-
cedes the redemption, there are differences between languages
and not everyone understands all languages, notwithstanding
the fact that their common phonetic substratum is the twenty-
two letters — phonemes of the Holy Language. These distinc-
tions between languages will cease in the end of days, when
the seventy languages will be absorbed by the Holy Language.
We have apparently before us a Maimonidean conception which
construes the Messianic era as the time of universal recognition
of God. 126 The term "holy language" is used here in place of the
term 'perfect language' that contains the seventy languages and
serves the purposes of Active Intellect. 127
The transition from the multiplicity of languages in ex-
ile to the future holy language is most definitely similar to the
transition from animality to human perfection. According to
Abulafia, 128 the Israelite nation:
thought that it could withstand the Divine decrees. This was
the cause of its separation [from Him], and its dispersion, by
means of the attribute of judgment that judges them according
to other deeds and their clinging to their thought. This brought
about the breakup of it from the tribes designated by the same
name, and from the power of its ancestors. They exchanged
their language for numerous foreign tongues to the extent that
one does not understand the other, [and are] almost like an-
imals who do not understand one another and revert to the
state of inability of verbal communication.
We may assume that due to the exile, the ability to un-
derstand the secrets of the Kabbalah by means of the letters of
the Holy Language was lost.
No other nation has a tradition [Kabbalah] like this one, and
yet our nation is far from her, and for this reason our exile
endures for so long. 129
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 233
We note further that in many places Abulafia complains
about the loss of knowledge of the Hebrew language among the
Jews, and of their preference for foreign languages in the conduct
of their conversation. In Sefer 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz, we read: 130
It is well known that when a nation speaking a particular lan-
guage comes, for the first time, to live in close proximity in
another region or another land, i.e., when some of the peo-
ple of one nation become residents of another nation, it will
come to pass that due to their proximity some will pick up the
new language in a short time, and some after a long time, and
with some their children will pick it up. And it will necessar-
ily happen that most or all of the speakers will speak in two
languages, and [eventually] none will know which was their
original language, [unless] the language has written characters
unique to it.
And this state of affairs, due to our iniquities, is almost upon us
now. Due to our dispersion among many nations, with varied
languages, we have forgotten our own language, 131 its clarity
and precision, which is nearly lost among the majority of our
population. And if not for the continued writing of books, it
would have been completely lost. See how the Jews exiled
among the Ishmaelites speak Arabic, and those who reside in
Greece speak Greek, and those who live in Italy, Italian, and
German Jews speak German, and those of Turkey, Turkish, etc.
Indeed, it is astonishing that the Jews living all over Sicily,
[although] they don't speak the Greek or Italian of their neigh-
bors, they still preserve the Arabic that they learned during
an earlier period when the Ishmaelites lived there. Had we
preserved the Holy Tongue we would have been more worthy,
and the majority of our nation would have been wise and un-
derstanding and knowledgeable in our language. And from
this they would have progressed to realize the intent behind it.
A similar complaint is encountered in a later work by
Abulafia, Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot, where we read: 132
234 Abulafia's Theory of language
And as I observed the holy nation using the profane language
[in discussing] our Holy Torah, and all speak the language
of the land in which, by virtue of the attribute of judgment
they had been exiled, and they teach their children in the for-
eign tongue and enjoy speaking every language, except for the
holy language, I became jealous for the honor of God and the
honor of our Holy Torah, for the language of the tablets of the
Law, the language in which God spoke to Moses and to all
the prophets of blessed memory. And 1 desired to return the
diadem to its former glory, by making known the verity and
essence of the holy language, being the first created thing, and
coming certainly prior to all other languages which indeed are
her daughters. Among these are worthy, or close to worthy
languages, and some are far from being worthy. They turned
to defected and illegitimate languages and strayed far 133 from
the holy language, to the epitome of distance.
Abulafia's zealous attitude toward the Hebrew language,
so striking here, may be better understood in the eschatologi-
cal context of Abulafia's activity. In Sefer Sotner Miswah, we read
that 134
....the languages were mixed and confused since the generation
of the Dispersion [i.e., Babel] and up to this day. And they will
continue to be so confused until the coming of the redeemer,
when the entire land will return to the only clear language,
as it is written: 135 "For then 1 will turn to all nations a pure
language, that they may all call upon the Name of God and
serve Him with one consent," 136 with One Name.
As we may learn from many quotes, the forgetting of
the Hebrew language results in decreased ability to attain to the
truths contained in it. 137 A similar understanding found an inter-
esting formulation in a work by R. Elnatan ben Moses Kalkish, 138
who was noticeably influenced by Abulafia's doctrines. In his
opinion there are many Names:
....whose true meaning is unknown to us for they are trans-
posed and combined and formed into acrostics, or known by
language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 235
means of numerology, or transposed by letter exchange. Re-
garding these Names, although with our current state of knowl-
edge they don't seem to indicate anything, it is quite possible
that they may indicate sublime matters that, in our great in-
iquity, are missing from the conventions of our language and
our ignorance of it.
Thus, the exile itself impoverishes the language "which
due to our iniquities" is diminished, and causes lack of under-
standing of numerous letter combinations that may very well
indicate particularly sublime secrets. 13a These combinations are
formed by applying techniques that are rare in Judaism but ba-
sic to Abulafia's system: letter combination, numerology, and
acrostic.
From Kalkish we may infer that in the complete form of
the Hebrew language, there is a meaning to each and every pos-
sible combination of letters, and that it is only due to particular
historical circumstances that these meanings are unknown to us.
Such a view enables the use of the above-mentioned methods
of exegesis as means for discovering the hidden meanings of
the language. Abulafia very clearly expresses the idea that only
by breaking apart the conventional form of words can one at-
tain a higher level of knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the Name
of God: 140
Read the entire Torah, both forwards and backwards, and spill
the blood of the languages. Thus, the knowledge of the Name
is above all wisdoms in quality and worth.
Only by means of the murder of the languages, spilling
of blood, can one attain to the knowledge of the Name, It seems
that Abulafia refers here to the removal of the imaginary struc-
ture characteristic of conventional language. The "blood" of
the languages apparently refers to the imaginative quality of
language. 141 If so, the breaking up of the accepted form cor-
responds to the purification of the intellect from the imagina-
tion, by means of philosophical recognition. 112 This purification
236 Abutafia's Theory of Language
is achieved through letter combination, which returns the Ian- !
guages to their original state: seventy languages within one Ian- ■
guage, as it was during the era of Adam. 143
H. The Status of Language
In Sefer tia-Heseq, Abulafia writes about the use of Hebrew
in religious ritual, and remarks that the Jews do not comprehend
it: 144
The word lor speech], dibbur, is not understood, and although
it is recited for the sake of Heaven, it is the most insignificant
aspect of all the aspects of the spiritual Divine service, i.e., the
physical act on speech. We find it in the mouths of young chil-
dren who learn Hebrew and do not recognize the significance
of what they are saying. And most people are in a similar
state, for the language of the prayers of the ignoramuses and
the [Hebrew] songs and Torah reading are to them like Tatar
or Turkish, of which they are also ignorant. For undoubtedly,
one will not understand the meaning of a speaker if he does
not understand the conventional meaning of his language. 145
Notwithstanding the lack of knowledge of the Hebrew
language among a portion of the Jews, Abulafia's insistence that
by means of the Hebrew language we may attain perfect wisdom
and prophecy stands in bold contrast. In his hands it becomes
his chief weapon against his adversaries.
In his poetic preface to the third section of Sefer Sitre
Torah, 116 Abulafia writes:
The language of the pure Torah is a crossbow that will hit
its mark without arrows, in the hearts of fools [causing] heal-
ing. The language of Moses became a powerful weapon
for Raziel, 147 making known thereby that his books are ines-
timable.
Chapter Two
The Meaning of the Torah
in Abulafia's System
A. Torah as an Intellectual Universe
The various encounters of Judaism with philosophical
systems originating in other cultures yielded novel conceptions
of the meaning of the Torah. Already in the writings of Philo of
Alexandria an attempt was made to equate the inner essence of
the Torah with the Logos, 1 or with the World of Ideas. 2 Torah, like
the Logos, was perceived as an important set of principles asso-
ciated with the divine work of creation, being the ideal model
of the world. According to some writers/ Platonic conceptions
even penetrated into Aggadic-Midrashic literature, which saw
in the Torah "the artisan's tool of the Holy One, Blessed be He"
and the blueprint He consulted to create the world.
Although Philo's synthesis did not influence at least not
directly the medieval Jewish thinkers, it was in the words of
the Talmudic sages, dealing with the meaning of the Torah as
such, where Platonic influence is possibly detectable; there the
medieval Jewish thinkers found a foothold for their attempts to
again relate the religion of Moses to the theories of Plato. In
the introduction to his commentary on the Torah (published by
238 Tlw Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
Friedlandef 1 under the title Sitah 'Aheret) R. Abraham Ibn Ezra
writes:
Five items occurred to Him to be formed [before the creation of
the world] and only the two [were] with the Creator and are the
masters of His secrets. These are: His Torah and His Throne
of Glory. And men of wisdom afford proof to the effect that
Wisdom is the first of all existing worlds. The Torah is wisdom-
in-faith, in it lies hidden the source of all understanding. And
Solomon has stated, [regarding this] 5 "The Lord has made me
the beginning of His way...."
In this quotation this exegete identifies the Torah, which
preceded Creation, with wisdom," which symbolises the super-
nal or the first world. Implied in this is that the Torah is con-
ceived as the world of forms separate from matter, which would
therefore place it prior to the creation of the world as we know
it. The intellectual world then was created before the world of
the spheres, i.e., the intermediate world that was created before
the lower or material world.
We now proceed to Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, I
which does not discuss the concept of Torah directly, but which
greatly influenced Abulafia's conception of this topic. In II, 6 we
read: 7
They said: "the Holy One Blessed be He, as it were, does
nothing without contemplating the host [Pamalya] above." I
marvel at their saying 'contemplating' for Plato uses literally
the same expression, saying that God looks at the world of the
intellects and in consequence, that which exists overflows from
Him. In certain other passages, they similarly make the abso-
lute assertion: 8 "The Holy One Blessed be He, does nothing
without consulting the host [Pamalya] above." The word Pa-
malya means, in the Greek language, "army." In Beresit Kabbah
and in Midras Qohelet 9 it is likewise said in reference to the
dictum: "What they have already made"; it is not said, "He
has made," but "they have made." [That is] He, as it were,
Language, Torali, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 239
and His tribunal have decided regarding each of your limbs
and have put it in its position. . .
In the thirteenth century we come across an author who
combines the ideas of Ibn Ezra and Maimonides. In Sefer Sa<ar
ha-Samdytm by R. Isaac ibn Latif, we read: 10
Seven matters preceded the creation of the world, l ' and among
them were those that were created then, and those that occurred
in God's thought to be created. And it was said that the Torah
and the Throne of Glory were created [then], whereas the others
arose in God's intention that they be created later. Now, be still
and consider the wonders embedded in this dictum: For when
in this context they referred to the Torah, it was to the separate
intellects that they were referring. And when they mentioned
the Throne of Glory, it was to the highest sphere that they called
'Throne' to which they referred. With regard to [the verse] 12
"His Throne is in heaven," concerning which it was said that
both [Torah and Throne] were created simultaneously, i.e., the
world of the Intellects and the world of nature. . .
And so did R. Abba state 13 that the Torah preceded the
Throne of Glory. And this is indeed the case, but it refers not
to the temporal priority of the world of intellect to the world of
nature, but to qualitative priority. And this is also evident. We
ought not to remove the meaning of this parable from that of
R. Tanhuma, who also likens the Torah to the separate intellects,
for we find the dictum of R. Eliezer: 11 "God took counsel for
the creation of the world, as it is written: 15 T am understanding,
Power is Mine.' "
Thus we find that the dicta of our Sages concur with the words
of some philosophers, as known through their writings, that
God contemplated the world of the intellects, referring to His
angels, and this is the meaning of their dictum: "The Holy One
Blessed be He [as it were] does nothing without conferring with
the Host [Pamalya] above." And it has already been mentioned
[concerning the verse] "What they have already made," that it
refers to Him and His tribunal, so to speak, etc. These three
240 The Meaning of tile Torah in Abuiafia's System
names, Torah, Host [Pamalya] and Heavenly Tribunal, are but
various names referring to the existent, the separate intellects.
Ibn Latif adds the term Torah to the other two terms Host
[Panmlia] and Heavenly Tribunal™ that refer in Maimonides' writ-
ings to the separate intellects. This synthesis of R. Abraham Ibn
Ezra and Maimonides 17 apparently influenced R. Baruch Togar-
mi's commentary to Sefer Yesi-rdh, 16 where we read:
As regards Him, may He be exalted, nothing is perceptible
except for His Name. And thus we may contemplate the verity
of what is subsumed in His Name, i.e., the Torah Scroll, which
is also the Heavenly Tribunal. With reference to the Torah
Scroll, as indicating the genuineness of the Exalted Name, our
Sages o.b.m. have associated the verse "He is your Glory, He
is your God." He illumines the end from the beginning, He is
the source of the effluence, the root of the world, speaking and
declaring the letters of the Throne of Glory, as will be explained
to you. Also, the holy living creatures [Hayyot] are the Throne
of Glory. All of this indicates the principal secret of the Torah,
know this. So too it is declared that the 'Ofanim ["wheels"; a
class of angels] and Seraftm are the Throne of Glory.
G. Scholem deciphered the numerologies upon which this
quote is built: 19 SFR TVRH (Sefer Torah— Torah Scroll) - 951 =
BYT DYN SL MT.H (Bet Din sel Mvalah— Heavenly Tribunal) =
HV' THLTK HV 1 "LHYK (Hu tehildteka, hu 'Eloheka—He is your
praise, He is your God) = VVHV' M*YR MR— RSYT HRYT (we-hu
tnenr mi-resit 'aharit — He illumines the end from the begirining) =
R=S SF (Ros Sefa<— the source of the effluence) - SRS HIM (Sores
ha-<dlam)— The Root of the world - VTYVTh KS J HKBVD (■'otiyoi
ki$se> ha-kabod—ihe letters of the Throne of Glory) ~ HYFNYM
WHSRFYM KS 1 HKBVD (ha-'dfanim we-ha-serafim kisse* ha-kabod—
the Ofanim and Seraphim are the Throne of Glory).
The term Torah Scroll has a double meaning: it refers to
the world of the intellects, because its numerical value is equiva-
lent to the Heavenly Tribunal and, on the other hand, it is identi-
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 241
cal with the Divine Name, and thus refers to the essence of God.
By equating the Divine Name with the Torah, R. Baruch Togarmi
is following the theology of R. Ezra and the school of Gerona. 20
We may also derive an allusion from his words, equating God,
His Name and the Torah.
In this writer's opinion the terms source of effluence and root
of the world refer to God Himself. We may strengthen this suppo-
sition by looking at another section of R. Baruch's Commentary
on Sefer Yeslrdh, 21 where we read:
I have already alluded to the secret of the ray of the Divine
Presence [Sekinah] in our discussion on the One and the Two.
And in addition, it is known that the Torah is called HZT
[ha-z'ot— this one], as a reference to the Unique Name, as we
read: 22 "The words of this Torah [HTVRH HZT]." This refers
to the secret of the Divine Form which remains unseen except
through the vision of a looking glass, which is the speaker or,
perhaps, Gabriel.
The numerologies operating here are: a) 413 = ZYV
HSKYNH [Ziv ha-Sekindh—the ray of the Divine Presence] = TdD
SNYM ['chad senayim— one two) - HZT (ha-zot — this one] = SM
HMYVHD [sem ha-meyulidd—ihe unique Name]; b) 246 - SLM
LHYM [selem "Elohim — the Divine Form] = MR'H [march — looking
glass] = MDBR [medabber— speaker) = GBRY'L (Gabriel)].
We will first examine the implications of the numerology
246. No doubt it refers to the Active Intellect, called Gabriel by
many writers; 2 ^ and the numerological equation MR'H = MDBR
= GBRY'L also appears in the writings of Abulafia 21 with this
implication. Thus, in addition to the equivalence of Torah, the
Divinity and the separate Intellects, Torah is also identified with
the Active Intellect. The first numerological equation, containing
the words T4D SNYYM [-ehad senayyim — one two] refers appar-
ently to God— One, and to the separate intellects which, during
the Middle Ages, were also called SNYYM [seniyyim— seconds]. 25
Thus, Torah is equated with the world of the Spirit, in all of its
242 The Meaning of tlw Torah in Abulafia's System
levels. The implications drawn from the words of Togarmi are
much more explicitly stated in the works of his student. In the
writings of Abulafia we also come across the three implications
of the term Torah. We will first examine sources for the term
Torah, as referring to the Divinity,
In Sefer Mafteah ha-Tokahot, 26 Abulafia writes:
Know that the Torah is like the matter of all views, and is as the
form of all [animating] souls, and is as the form of all forms 27
[of] the separate intellects. Because the Torah is the Word of
God and includes the Ten Sefirdt.
Regarding the Torah as being the base material of all
forms of knowledge, and also the form of all (animating) souls,
we will discuss these later. Now we will concentrate on the
phrase form of all forms [of] the separate intellects, a term which can
only refer to God. The expression 'the Word of God' refers to
the Active Intellect, as we will see below, whereas the 'Ten Se-
firot' refer to the ten separate intellects. This last equivalence is
reiterated in a section of Sefer Sitre Torah™ that is closely related
to the text of R. Baruch Togarmi quoted earlier:
Contemplate these wondrous secrets, for by their means you
will understand the essential Names [Semot ha- c Esem\, i.e., the
essence of the Names. Know that all of them are engraved
upon the Torah Scroll, for He is your Glory and He is your
God, and He is without a doubt the Heavenly Tribunal, and it
is He who is the One who hears your prayer. Behold, He will
inform you as to how the Essential Name is intellectually cog-
nized, and how the intellectually cognized Name is essential.
From this you will understand that the Essential Name is com-
pletely intelligible. For the name of the intellect is entirely the
essence, and therefore the essence of the intellect is intellectu-
ally cognized. Also, the essence of the intellectually cognized
is intellect. Know that the intellect intellectually cognizes the
entire world, for the intellect is the eternal intellectually cog-
nizing subject, and is the intellectually cognizing subject of the
world of the intellects and the secret is "the one who intellec-
Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 243
tually cognizes the light of His garment" and "intellectually
cognizes the active intellect," which is on par with the wise
intelligent ones of Israel. And all issues from the power of the
Torah. Know this.
As with the quote from R. Baruch Togarmi, this section
is also based on the numerological equivalents of 951 as the
common number: 951 = SMVT HSM (semot lia-'esem — essential
Names) = 'SM HSMVT ('esem ha-semot — the essence of the Names)
= SFR TVRH (Sefer Tordh-Torah Scroll) = HV THLTK VHV*
*LHYK (hu' tehilateka, we-hw 'Etoheka—He is your glory and He is
your God) = BYT DYN SL MXH (Bit Din sei mawldh— Heavenly
Tribunal) = VHV' HSVM' TFLH (we-fot> ha-some'a tefilldh— and He
is the One who hears prayer) = SM H'SMY MVSKL (se?n ha-
'asmi muskdl — me essential Name is intellectually cognized) =
SM HMVSKL 'SMY (sent ha-muskdl wit- the intellectually cog-
nized name is the essence) = SM H'SM KLV SKL (sem ha-^esem
kullo sekel — the essential name consists entirely of intellect) = SM
HSKL KLW 'SM (sem ha-sekel kullo 'esem— the name of the in-
tellect is entirely the essence) = "SM HSKL MVSKL (<ese?n ha-
sekel muskdl — the essence of intellect is intellectually cognized) =
SM HMVSKL SKL ('esem Im-muskal sekel— the essence of what is
intellectually cognized is intellect) - SKL MSKYL KL HVLM
[sekel maskil kol ha-<6!dm—ti\e intellect intellectually cognizes the
entire world] = SKL MSKYL T.MYM [sekel maskil -dlamim— the in-
tellect intellectually cognizes worlds) - HMSKYL VR LBVSV
(sekel maskil >6r lebuso — the one who intellectually cognizes the
light of His garment) = HMSKYL SKL HPVL (ha-maskil ha-sekel
ha-po<el — the one who intellectually cognizes the active intellect)
= MSKYLY YSRX (maskile Yisra^^the intelligent ones of Israel).
Here too, the Torah Scroll is identified with the Heavenly Tri-
bunal and also refers to God, who is the unity of the intellectus,
intelligens and the intellectum. This follows, moreover, from the
fact that the Name is His Essence-Name.^ 9 God intellectually
cognizes the world of the intellects, i.e., the Torah, i.e., the light
of His garment, i.e., the Active Intellect.
244 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
Torah, being identical with the Active Intellect, contains
the forms of all existence. In Sefer Sitrey Torah, 30 we read:
For the Torah indicates the path of motion and the essential
and accidental forces of both the supernal and lower worlds.
Therefore Torah is the activator of all deeds and is the Divine
directive that indicates what is to be done on both the super-
nal and lower [levels], as to both human beings and celestial
spheres, for the heavens and earth and all of their hosts come
to completion by means of Torah, and owe their subsistence to
it as we may see by means of innumerable proofs that afford
no refutation demonstrate, accepted, intellectual and sensitory
[proofs].
In 'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz, 31 Abulafia again emphasizes this idea:
Torah reveals certain tilings and hides certain others. Likewise,
Nature works in both revealed and occult ways. For nature is
the activity-function of the Blessed Name and is the corpo-
real existence, whereas the Torah is the activity-function of the
Blessed Divine Name and is the spiritual existence. Physical
and spiritual existence are nothing more than systems and or-
ders, ordered and systematized in accordance with all that is
ordered and systematized by the One who orders and system-
atizes. For the 'sy sterna tizer' 32 is the Name, and all is ordered
in accordance with the Name of God.
In contrast to the texts we quoted above that conceive
Torah as identified with the world of Intellects, we also find in
Abulafia's writings a number of discussions wherein he equates
the Torah with the Active Intellect, 33 In his introduction to his
own prophetic books 34 he writes concerning the function of the
Torah in the act of Creation:
As regards the meaning of the order within which the Name of
God systematised and ordered the entire order of what will be,
what is, and what was, regarding which the verse states: 35 "by
the Word of God were the heavens made," etc. It is stated: 3 "
"then I was by Him a nurseling ['MVNJ". And [the Sages]
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 245
have said: 37 "Torah declared to the children of Israel: i was
the artisan's tool of the Holy One Blessed be He' as it is writ-
ten: 'then I was by him an idVN— do not read 'MVN {-amun],
but VMN ['WTWJrtj-artisan." So too [regarding] the word BR
SYT [Beresit— in the beginning], read BY R5YT [bi resit— by or
within me was the beginning]. He gazed onto me and cre-
ated the world. And it has already been stated 38 "By Me do
kings reign." Indeed these Rabbinic homilies are inexplicable
and are not at all to be understood literally, for their meaning
is exceedingly sublime. It is that the Torah, et al., is a name
referring to the Active Intellect, which is called the Word of
God, or the Spirit of God, or His Speech, or His Name, or His
Glory, for it instructs the sages of the Name, in the knowledge
and comprehension of Him. Indeed, this is the veritable Holy
Spirit.
The identity of Torah as the Active Intelligence recurs in
Sefer Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-BaK M
The Tree of Life is the pre-existent life of the essence, the life
of [everything] above and below, and its secret is the power
that judges the world, and the parable is known. Insofar as
her numerical value is the holy letters, it is thus stated, 40 "she
is a Tree of Life for them that lay hold upon her, and happy
is everyone who holds her fast," which refers to the numerical
value of YSRT- (Yisra'et — Israel), for no other nation upholds
the Torah as we do. And the secret of Israel is the Active
Intellect.
The idea that lies hidden behind these sentences is that
Torah is identical with the Tree of Life and with the Active In-
tellect. Abulafia makes use of a series of numerical equivalents
to prove his point: S HHYYM (<s ha-hayyim—the Tree of Life) =
233 - HYY HSM (hayyey na-'esem— the life of the essence) = HYY
MTJ-I V-MTH {hayyey mawiah u-matah— -life of above and below)
= KH DN H'LM (koah dan ha-<61am—ihe power that judges the
world) = TYVT HQDS {-otiyyot ha-qodes = holy letters ■ 1232 =
232 + 1 = 233). On the other hand, there is the numerology of
541 = MVSR (me>usdr— happy) = YSRT (Israel) = Israel = SKL
246 Tlic Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia' s System
HPV'L {sekel lia-po'el — Active Intellect) and the link between the
two is provided by the verse quoted from Proverbs.
The function of Torah is defined by Abulafia in a manner
similar to his description of the acts of the Active Intellect In
Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot 41 we read:
The Torah is perfect for it makes the simple wise. And being
sure testimony, it was given to us only in order to actualise
one's potential intellect. Anyone whose intellect has emerged
from potentia to actu is worthy of it being said that the Torah
was given for his sake.
Elsewhere in this work we read: 42
The truth of the Torah consists in its being the means by which
one may attain the effluence of prophecy, and this was the
exalted intention behind its being given to us at Sinai, for cer-
tainly there could be no other intention but this. As proof of
its efficacy it raised for us a prophet, and of all types of human
beings it informs us that the most perfect of the species, the
epitome of perfection is attained by the prophets.
Aside from its function of actualising the potential intel-
lect, and its function as the source of prophecy, the Torah is
conceived as being the means by which one attains the eternal
life. In Sefer Hayyey lia-Nefes, 4 '-* Abulafia writes:
God's intention in giving us the Torah is that we reach this
purpose, that our souls be alive in His Torah. For this is the
reason for our existence and the intention for which we were
created. Torah is the intermediary between God and ourselves,
for it is the covenant established at Horeb, regarding which it
is written/' 1 "The Torah of God is perfect."
In Sefer Sitrey Tora/i, 15 this idea recurs in a similar formu-
Jfe
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 247
And when intellect is to be found in the soul the success of
the intellectually cognizing subject is complete and he is cho-
sen and remembered in the supernal realms and turns into
an everlasting intellect tike all the supernal intellects. Thus is
completed his genuine repentance and it is accepted. Likewise
his prayer is constantly and eternally acceptable without inter-
ruption or diminution. For it was for this intent that the Torah
was given, as it is conceived by us and received in truth.
The idea of Torah as an intermediary is also found in Scfcr
Hayyey ha-Nefes and occurs often in the works of Abulafia, based
on the numerological formula: TVRH [Torah] » 611 - TvISTT
{>emsa'it — intermediary), expressing the stature of the Torah as
Active Intellect, creating a chain that connects God and man. In
Sefer Sitrey Torah, 46 we read:
The soul is a portion of the Divinity and within it there are
231 gates, and it is called 'the congregation of Israel' that gath-
ers into herself the entire community, under its power of in-
tellect, which is called the 'supernal congregation of Israel,'
the mother of providence, being the cause of providence, the
intermediary 47 between ourselves and God. This is the Torah,
the result of the effluence of the 22 letters.
The soul, having comprehended all the intellectual con-
cepts, transforms the lower congregation of Israel into the su-
pernal congregation, i.e., the Active Intellect that is identical to
the Torah.
B. Torah as the Wheel of Letters
We turn now to another motif, that again enables us to
view the Torah as a symbol for the Active Intellect In Sefer Or
ha-Sekel 4ti we read:
The 22 letters are the foundation of speech, and they constitute
the tenth sphere, i.e., the sphere lor wheel] of the letters, which
248 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
is the most sublime of ail the spheres of existence and is the
most exalted sphere preceding in existence all other spheres.
And it is the sphere of the Torah and the misioah and all the
supernal and lower orders are conducted by its accord. Re-
garding it it is said, 49 "By the Word of God were the Heavens
made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth."
Indubitably, the sphere that controls all the higher and
lower realms, and which was the artisan's tool in the creation
of the world refers to the Active Intellect. Its being referred to
by all of these names, however, demands an explanation. The
term the tenth sphere, anomalous in Maimonides' terminology,
has its source in Neo-Platonism wherein it is identified with
the intellectual world, or with what is called the Sphere of the
Intellect. 50 Abulafia makes use of this term very infrequently,
and only once do we leam its meaning: 51
The secret of the tenth sphere, which is called kodesh [holy];
and this is the sphere of the intellect, which is distinct and
unique from among all other spheres, being of a higher order.
And being distinct and unique it is called the Holy Tiara.
Notwithstanding the fact that Abulafia does not identify
the Sphere of the Intellect as the Active Intellect, it is quite cer-
tain that this was the implication of the term as he accepted it.
Already in the mid -thirteenth century we read that
....according to the opinions of the philosophers, the Active
Intellect is the last of the levels of the separate intellects, and
is regarded, based on the reasoning of the intellectuals of our
nation who are of a philosophic orientation, as being the Sphere
of the Intellect, because its quality is below that of the separate
intellects and above that of the other spheres. 52
R. Moses of Burgos, an acquaintance of Abulafia, also
writes in this way: 53
And the philosophers of the nations provide no name at ail
for the Active Intellect. However, in their opinion the entirety
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 249
of the tenth level is called by the general name 'Sphere of the
Intellect' or 'Active Intellect.'
Abulafia himself uses the term tenth sphere with reference
to Torah and Wisdom. In Sefer Hayyey lia-Vlam ha-Ba> we read: 8 *
But the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the
life of him who has it; and the secret of this excellency is the
entirety of the Torah, and the secret of the Torah, the tenth
sphere, will preserve the life of him who has it, the masters of
resurrection. Every sage is in need of it.
This passage associates three terms by means of the nu-
merological equation 666 = YTRVN (yitrdn— excellency or advan-
tage) - KL HTVRH [kol ha-Torah— the entire Torah) » GLGL H
SYRY (galgdl /w-'aasfn— the tenth wheel). The next term, the wheel
(or sphere) of letters was developed through the agency of the
Sefer Yesirah, 2:4:
Twenty-two foundation letters set in a wheel [sphere] in 231
gates, in the vision of a wheel [sphere] from the front and
from behind.
The wheel of the letters, which contains the various letter
combinations, is likened to the Torah, which is also composed
of the 22 letters in various combinations.
A number of writers in their various works associate the
22 letters with the angel Metatron. In a fragment of a text closely
aligned to the school of the Sefer ha-'Iyyun, we read: 55
Metatron is intellect forged of intellect. The highest sphere is
the intellect, within it are engraved the 22 letters and the Sefirot,
and unto them did Metatron gaze, and he activated the first
blessed intellect.
This association also appears in the writings of Abulafia's
circle. In Sefer lia-Seruf, 56 the anonymous author writes in a similar
vein as that of the passage just quoted:
250 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia' s System
The movement of the sphere of the Intellect is given into the
hand of Metatron. And you already know that the letters are
engraved in mat sphere. And all of these are seen and en-
acted and controlled by the cause of causes, may His Name be
praised.
In Perns" Sefer Yesirdh of R. Isaac of Acre, 57 we similarly read:
And Metatron, the angel of the Countenance, is the highest
sphere, above the heads of the hayyot and all the other supernal
dominions, and the wheel of the letters is given into his hand.
This wheel of the letters brings us to a discussion on the
Active Intellect in another sense: As we have seen in the Mish-
nah from Sefer Yesirdh, this wheel [sphere] contains 231 gates.
Thus, the wheel of the letters containing 231 gates is associated
with the Active Intellect for YSRT.— Israel = SKL HPVX (sekel
ha-po'el— Active Intellect) = 541. 58
Before we conclude our discussion on the intellectual
essence of the Torah in Abularia's thought, it is fitting to di-
rect our attention to an additional matter. A question may be
asked: Is there a relationship between, on the one hand, the
conception of the Torah as both an intermediary and a central
point, and, on the other hand, the well known simile of R. Joseph
Gikarilla, regarding the Torah as the intermediate, central point,
or the center. 59 Gikarilla associates the Torah with a point in the
following:
The secret of the one point from upon which the entire world
depends.
What he is saying is in reference to the letters of the name
TiVY, when they are fully spelled out >alef [= 111], hey [= 15], vav
[=13], yod [= 20] = 159 m NQDH (nequddh— point) = [ 50 +100+4+5
= 159], We know that Abulafia makes use of this numerological
equation, i.e., NQDH without the vav, not the usual plain form
NQVDH and regards the point as
Language, Torah, and Hernieneutics in Abulafia 251
the secret of the World-to-Come, dependent upon the point. 60
And in a fragment beginning with the words SVRT Y'QB
{surat Yawqob), 61 we read:
All is dependent on the fear of God, and all is dependent on
the point. 62
On the other hand, Gikarilla knew of the term NKVDH
SKLYT [nequddah siklit — intellectual point], which in Sefer Cinnat
'Egoz symbolizes the Torah. These and other examples may be
used to indicate a connection between Abulafia and Gikarilla
on this matter. We may assume that both of them derive their
associations from a common source that spoke of the Torah as
both sphere and central point, but whereas GikatUla chose the
point for his fixed symbol for the Torah, Abulafia tended to view
the sphere as the appropriate symbol.
In conclusion, it is worth noting the influence of Abu-
lafia's works with reference to the relation between the wheel of
the letters, the Torah, and the sphere of the Intellect. In his Perus
Maweket tia-'Elohut, R. Reuben Sarfati writes: 63
The Torah contains seventy faces, for the Angel of the Counte-
nance is appointed to the sphere of Torah, which is the sphere
of the Active Intellect.
Elsewhere in this work we read: 64
[For] the secret of the Throne refers to the Angel of the Counte-
nance who is the sphere of the Letters, which is called the
Torah, and is also called the Sphere of the Intellect, and is in
addition called YSR1. [Israel], since YS [yes— there are] Rl [RL
' = 231] gates in the sphere of the letters, as mentioned by the
Sefer Yesirdh.
I
252 The Meaning of ttie Torah in Abulafia's System
C. The Two Tablets of Testimony
Until now our discussion centered on the theme of the
Torah as a symbol for metaphysical concepts: God, the separate
intellects, the Active Intellect. We turn now to a discussion of the
Torah, in it revealed state. In Vsar 'Eden Gdnuz, Abulafia writes: 65
Surely, the designation 'Torah' according to the path of truth
refers to a book written with 22 letters, to a narrative expressed
through the five vocalizations, and to an intellectual book [Sefer
ha-Mahsabah] which expresses itself in the heart and in the or-
gans of intellectual faculty, and which includes all the physical
and spiritual functions, emerging from the 22 letters by which
means heaven and earth and all of their hosts were created. Re-
garding this third one [i.e., the intellectual Torah] it is said: 66
the Torah was created two millenia prior to the creation of the
world.
The Torah, in this last sense, is identical with the view
of the Torah discussed in the previous sections of this chapter.
Thus, the question may be asked: How was the Torah trans-
formed from an intellectual entity to a written narrative with
pronounceable words? Abulafia does not directly answer this
important question, but it is possible to discern his opinion from
his description of the process of the giving of the Ten Command-
ments. In the Guide for the Perplexed (1,66), Maimonides writes:
'And the tablets 67 were the work of God.'
He intends to signify by this that this existence was nat-
ural and not artificial; for all natural things are called 'the work
of the Lord':
These * saw the works of the Lord.'
Maimonides' view concerning the tablets of Testimony is
clear. They are composed of natural substance, which Moses
found at the mountain, and are not the outcome of a miracle
that would have occurred at the time they were given. Abulafia
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 253
agrees that here was a natural occurrence; however, the term
natural to him refers essentially to a psychological process. 69 God
indeed inscribed the Tablets of the Covenant, but this was done
'upon the heart of man.' In Sefer Vr ha-Sekel, we read: 70
It is only that the hearts for Him are like parchment for us, i.e.,
matter that carries upon itself the forms of the letters inscribed
in ink, manifest in the immediate material form. So too, for
God, may He be exalted, the heart is like the tablets and the
animating soul like ink, and the word that comes to it from
Him is the perception in the likeness of letters written upon the
tablets of the covenant, perceptible from both sides, inscribed
on both of them so that they may be read front and back. And
this is indicated in the verse, 71 "you have formed me in behind
and before." And although as regards God there is no speech
of the type mentioned, from the point of view of the heart of
the recipient it is construed as speech.
Abulafia's words do not merely describe a simile; his in-
tent is in accordance with the plain meaning of the verse. In
his opinion the 'tablets of the covenant' refer to the power of
the human intellect that receives the speech, i.e., the prophetic
effluence, the source of which is the Active Intellect. Indeed,
this section is about the heart, a physical organ that is seen as
a simile for the Scriptural image of the tablets. This manner of
expression is not uncommon in Scripture. 72
From what we know through the pseudo-Maimonidean
work Perakim be-Haslahdh, 73 we find an idea similar to Abulafia's
words in Sefer 'Or Sia-Sekel:
Know that the Tabernacle of your heart is the Tabernacle within
which hid the Ark [of the Covenant], in which are hidden
the tablets of Testimony. And so too, it is hidden in your
heart, written upon the slate of your heart. Behold the blessed
pronouncement, 74 "[the people] in whose heart is my law." In-
deed the cherubim animate you and raise up your elemental
state higher and higher.
254 Tite Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
Elsewhere, however, the image of the heart is that it con- I
sists of two parts, two inclinations. In Sefer ha-Heseq," 75 Abulafia
writes:
..."and the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was
the writing of God, graven upon the tablets" [Ex. 32:16]. Con-
sider the tablets as matter. . . for the term 'tablets' is a homonym
denoting inner natural processes. For in the A-^T, B-*S method
of permutation, where the first letter of the alphabet is ex-
changed for the last, and the second for next to last and, so
on, LHT | luhot— tablets] = KS 1 [kisse>— throne] = TB' [teba 1 —
nature], and in their outward manifestation they are tablets of
stone. Now the secret meaning of the word 'stone' is that it also
is a homonym, since the word ABNYM [>abatiim~ -stones] has
the same numerical value as 'VTIYVT [oriyyor— letters]. This
also is the name used for the letters in Sefer Yesirah, where he
says: 76 "Two stones build two houses." Now the numerical
value of SNY LHVT 'ABNYM [seney luhot 'abanlm—two tablets
of stone] = 891, which is identical with 3NY SYS THVR [>abm
sayis tahor — stones of pure marble], and they denote YSR TVB
V-YSR R' [yeser tob we-yeser m — the good and evil inclinations].
This text deals with two pairs of terms that illustrate the
contrast between the inner and outer dimensions; tablets con-
trasted with throne, stone with letter. Abulafia believes that the
word LVHVT [luhot — tablets] is a homonym, i.e., a term that has
both inner and outer, esoteric and exoteric implications. In or-
der to derive its inner meaning, he makes use of the method
of permutation A->T, B->S, so that the word LHT, which can be
spelled with or without the two occurences of the letter 'vav',
becomes KS 5 (kisse* — throne), 77 both of which refer to the inner
nature. The implications of the term KS' are further explicated
in Sefer ha-Ge'uldh: 78
Consider the secret of the throne, and the brain and the heart,
thereby you will understand the secret of the throne, i.e., HKSE
' [ha~kise — the throne] = 86 - MH VLB [moah va-leb — brain and
heart].
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 255
The letters also represent inner processes and thus, the
tablets of stone represent inner processes. We now come to the
end of the quote; here the numerological equivalents are not fully
clear: the expressions T3NY SYS TVR and YSR R' V-YSR TVB are
equivalent in their numerological value to 893, and indeed the
number 891 is also not precise with regard to SNY LHT T3NYM.
It is clear, however, beyond doubt that Abulafia equates the two
tablets of stone with the stones of pure marble and with the
good and evil inclinations. What does this mean? In 'Osar 'Eden
Ganuz 79 he elaborates on this subject, after quoting a long section
from Ex. 34, where the Scripture talks about the second set of
tablets, and then Abulafia writes:
LHT - KS' in A^T, B->S. This is as they said:"" "the tablets
were taken from the Throne of Glory and these are tablets of
stone in its secret meaning," the form of the Throne. Regarding
this it is written: 81 "the likeness of a Throne, as the appearance
of a sapphire stone. . . " The revealed and concealed aspects of
T?N ['eben— stone] and tefillin — (phylacteries). And the hidden
aspect of My Name is the imagination. This is My likeness in
a general sense, the partnership of intellect and imagination,
for both are sanctified unto God and both are in the form of
a letter combined with stone; in the partnership of son and
daughter.
This quote is based on the following numerical equiva-
lents: VT T3N [>6t >eben— letter [of] stone] = 460 - SKL DMYVN
(intellect, imagination) = DMVTY (demidi — my form) - BN V-
BT [ben u-bat— son and daughter] » QDVS LYHVH {aadds to
YHVH — sanctified to God). Here we have correspondences be-
tween stone and letter, intellect and imagination, son and daugh-
ter. The contrast between intellect and imagination accords well
with Abulafia's previously mentioned correspondence between
the good and evil inclinations, because according to Maimonides
the term evil inclination refers to imagination. This propensity
is associated with the heart, whereas the brain is the seat of
the intellect. Now we can also understand Abulafia's words in
Sefer Sitre Torah,* 2 where he writes: "The form and likeness upon
256 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
which the Torah was given." Form and likeness correspond, ac-
cording to Abulafia, to intellect and imagination. The conception
of Torah as something grasped by these two inner senses fits well
with Maimonides' conception of prophecy, where the effluence is
received upon both the intellect and the imagination. 83 Whereas
Maimonides, however, holds that the Torah is the outcome of the
reception of prophetic effluence by Moses without the agency
of the imagination, Abulafia sees the imagination as the back-
ground into which the effluence is received. The difference be-
tween them stands out in 'Iggeret ha-Musdr, attributed to Mai-
monides. The anonymous author of this work, who attempted
to imitate Maimonides' style within a spiritualistic framework,
writes of the aforementioned matter: 84
Know, my son Abraham, may the blessed God be merciful to
you, that as for the Tabernacle and its vessels, they are parables
for the blessed body. He commences with the Ark that is un-
doubtedly the heart, which likewise is the commencement of
the body. In the Ark are the tablets, which refer to the human
•intellect.
The writer of this epistle is faithful to Maimonides, and
although he refers to the two tablets, he compares them with
one function, the intellect. 85 Echoes of Abulafia's opinion are
found in Sefer Toledot 'Adam, the author of which was influenced
by Abulafia. There he writes:* 6
And the tablets. . . two, referring to the hylic intellect and the
imagination. And Abuhammad 87 writes in his work The Inten-
tions that the hylic intellect is like a clear slab ready to receive
the wholeness and engraving of any intelligible form. So too
it is with the imagination, when one is perfect in his moral
qualities and his intellect perfect in intellectual issues He will
write upon the tablets the Ten Commandments.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 257
D. The Written Torah and the Oral Torah
The double character of the Torah is also evident in other
connections. In his various works Abulafia quotes Nahmanides
regarding the latter's ideas about the giving of the Torah, dis-
cussed in the introduction to his commentary to the Pentateuch.
We begin with a quote from Abulafia's *6$dr 'Eden Gdnuz: 6 *
And the perfect rabbi and Kabbalist o.b.m, has already elabo-
rated on this, and said that there is yet a true tradition handed
down to us, stating that the entire Torah consists of the Names
of the Holy One blessed be He, for its words are divisible into
Names, which constitute a different stratum [of meaning]. For
example, the verse [Gen. 1:1] BR'SYT [beresit — the beginning]
can be recomposed as BR'S YTB RT HYM, and so too, as re-
gards the entire Torah. And this is so, aside from the strata
of letter combinations and the numerological operations of the
Names. He also said there, that R. Solomon [Rashi] wrote in
his commentary to the Talmud, regarding the Great Name of
72, how it is derived from the verses [Ex. 14:19-21], and that he
adduced from this that the entirety of the Torah has to be taken
into account in all of its exact compositional details, without
addition or diminution. He also said that it appears to him as if
the Torah was [primordially] written in the form of black fire on
white fire, being written continuously with letters not divided
into words, thus enabling it to be read as either the Names, or
as we do, as narrative and commandments. And it was given
to Moses in the discrete form of narrative and commandments,
and was given to him orally in the form of a reading of Names.
So too the Great Name 89 may be written serially without inter-
ruption, and then divided into three letter units, or into other
divisions, as practiced by the masters of the tradition. These
are his words, o.b.m. Observe how he is in agreement with us
in stating his doctrine that the 'Oral Torah' refers to the knowl-
edge of the Names. Nahmanides is of the opinion, traceable
to a particular magical tradition, 90 that there exists an alterna-
tive possibility of reading the amalgam of letters that constitute
the Torah. Whereas to us, only the aspect of the Torah as rele-
vant to the commandments was handed down, Moses received
258 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
orally, a form of reading the Torah, wherein it is construed as
the Names of God. Proof of this is to be found in the verses of
Ex. 14:19-21 wherein three consecutive verses contain seventy-
two letters that taken together construct seventy-two triplets.
The great difference between Nahmanides' conception and that
of Abulafia is in their respective evaluations of this tradition
of Torah reading. Whereas for Nahmanides this tradition was
given orally to Moses, according to Abulafia this in itself is
what constitutes the oral tradition. His opinion may be for-
mulated as follows: The written Torah, as we possess it, deals
with the commandments, whereas the oral Torah, which not
everyone knows about, deals with the Names of God. This
distinction is associated with the twin nature of Torah as intel-
lectual effluence received by two disparate potencies, the intel-
lect and the imagination. Whereas the oral Torah corresponds
to the intellect, the written Torah addresses the intellect and
imagination together.
We will now attempt to strengthen this thesis. In Osar
'Eden Gdnuz, Abulafia writes that 91
I feel great necessity and pleasant compulsion to write herein
the genuine meaning of the matter, and without fear of retri-
bution to inform you of this awesome secret, and explain and
interpret it for you so that you and those like you will not be
lacking in the knowledge of this wondrous secret, the pillar
upon which all things depend. And although I already know
that there will occur to me and my work certain pleasant conse-
quences, I will not be deterred on their account of saying what
I was instructed to by heaven 92 regarding this matter, and what
we received from the most eminent of our prophets and sages,
our master Moses, peace be upon him, who received it directly
from God. And although it is written 93 "for after the tenor of
these words 1 have made a covenant with you and with Israel,"
and we have a tradition 94 that "words that I have spoken to
you and that appear in writing must not be said orally, and
words that I said to you orally must not be put into writing,"
nonetheless we are not in transgression of this by stating what
we are stating.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 259
This is because as for what God actually said, it is virtually
impossible that these matters be put into writing, and thus He
decreed that these matters only be discussed orally. Also, our
Holy Rabbi, R. Yehudah the Prince, in writing down the Mish-
nah, and Ravina and R. Ashi in writing down the Talmud, did
not transgress the Word of God, for although their words are
referred to as the 'oral Torah' and the 24 books of Scripture
are referred to as the written Torah, Heaven forbid that we
should think that any of these saints transgressed with intent
[in the measure of] even one iota of the Word of God. It is
rather that the designation 'Torah' as well as the designation
'oral' are homonyms and these associations are con templa table
only if received by direct oral transmission that goes back to
Moses at Sinai. It is this that is called the genuine oral tradition,
referring to the actuated Torah, found at the beginning of the
act, from which the seed emerges; the one who knows it is
enabled to annul its vow and also to remove its dust [material
or literal meaning] for afterwards, he will be enabled to increase
its effluence with the permission of its Maker.
Abulafia is of the opinion that there exist two types of
'Torah' the 'oral Torah' that cannot be put into writing due to its
very nature, and this is the true oral Torah, i.e., the reading of the
Torah according to the Names, the true oral tradition; 95 and, on
the other hand, the 'written Torah' is the Torah that is possible
to be written down. The very fact that a particular work, in this
case the Mishnah and Talmud, was put into writing indicates to
us that it does not belong to the oral tradition but to the written
one. Therefore Abulafia claims that R. Yehudah the Prince did
not transgress in writing down the Mishnah as the writers of the
Talmud also did not.
Allusions to the substance of the oral Torah appear at the
end of this quote in the form of numerological allusions: TVRH
SB1. PH [Torah se-ba 'at peh—ora\ Torah] - 1098 - HTVRH SBF
'AL [ha-Torah se se-be-fo'al— actuated Torah] = BRSYT HP'AL [beresit
ha-po<al at the beginning of the act] = LHFR SBU'ATH [ le-hafer
sebwatah-to annul its oath) = LHSBYT TRH [le-hasbit <afardh~to
260 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
remove its dust] = BRSYT HPVLH [beresit ha-pe<uldh-at the begin-
ning of the act]. The number 1098 also equals 99, if we take the 1
in the thousand place and add it to 98 = 99, and this explains the
association here of the word HTPH [ha-tipdh — the seed], appar-
ently a reference also to hatdfdh, one of the ten terms for prophecy
according to the Midrash. 96 The oral Torah is the actuated Torah,
in that it was given in the form of the Names. Regarding these,
Abulafia says in Sefer Sitrey Torah'? 1
It [i.e., the Names] does not help one who is not a master of this
matter, for we have already received a true tradition [regarding
this| that any Name that does not instruct us in something, in
whatever form this may be understood to inform us, is nothing
as far as we are concerned.
Abulafia construes the Names as forms of information,
with reference to the laws of nature, or other forms of conceptual
truth. Therefore we may see in Abulafia's conception of the oral
Torah, an understanding of the sum total of intellectual truths,
and in this sense it is identical with the meaning of the Active
Intellect. The oral Torah existed 'at the beginning of the act,' for
it is identical with the Intellectual Torah, 98 i.e., the Torah read
in its form as the Names of God. In Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, Abulafia
writes concerning the Torah as it is in thought, in a passage
quoted in extenso above: 99
And concerning the intellectual book that speaks in the heart
and in the organs of intellectual faculty, which includes all
spiritual and physical functions, for it is constituted by the
twenty-two letters through which the heavens and earth and
all of the Hosts were created, it is said l00 that it existed for two
millenia before the world was created, and also it was said
regarding this: 101 that before it was given, it was written as
black fire on white fire.
We have seen at the beginning of this chapter concerning
the primordial Torah, created before the creation of the world,
that it refers to the world of the intellects and is written in un-
Language, Torah, and Herntcneutics in Abulafia 261
interrupted script as black fire on white fire, its original genuine
intellectual form.
We may learn about the intellectual stature of the oral
Torah by investigating another of Abulafia's views, his con-
ception of the nature of the 'Account of the Chariot' (Ma'ttseh
Merkdbdh). As we know, the Sages considered the 'Account of
the Chariot' to be the most esoteric topic of the tradition. 102
In the Hekalot literature, the 'Account of the Chariot' was as-
sociated with the visionary experience of the Merkdbdh, and was
viewed as the objective of the mystical life of the 'descenders to
the Merkabah. 103 A philosophical explanation originating with
Maimonides 104 saw in the Ma'aseh Merkdbdh a term denoting meta-
physics, in the fullest sense of the word. The other interpreta-
tion, the Kabbalistic one, saw in Ma<aseh Merkdbdh a symbol for the
world of the Sefirot.' 05 Aside from these three views, however,
there existed an additional view that has not yet received atten-
tion: I am referring to the view of Ma'aseh Merkdbdh as harkdbah—
combination of the Names of God.
Already in the Hekalot literature, we learn of the connection
between the vision of the chariot and the Names of God. In one
of the works of this corpus we read: 106
This is the Name revealed to R. 'Aqiba as he gazed into the
Account of the Chariot. And R. 'Aqiba descended and taught
it to his disciples. He said to them: "My sons, be careful with
this Name for it is a great Name, and a Holy Name and a Pure
Name."
R. Menahem Ziyuni quotes another view in the name of
the "Master of the Secret," a title generally referring to R. Eleazar
of Worms: 107
And they concealed the names of most of the angels so that
human beings would not adjure them to reveal to them the
secret of the Merkdbdh.
1
262 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
The earliest source, however, that identified Ma'aseh
Merkabah as occupation with the Holy Names, is from the early
thirteenth century. In Perus Habddlah de-Rabbi 'Aqiba, written by one
of the Ashkenazi Pietists, we read: 108
And I the writer, have saved my life by (heeding) these warn-
ings. I extracted from the 'Account of the Chariot', from the
complete books that I found which included the Name written
on the doorpost scroll [mezuzdh] and its decipherment: KVZV
BMVKSV KVZV— its meaning as known to the men instructed
in the secret lore, the Masters of Knowledge, is YHVH THYNV
YHVH. The 'Y' is exchanged for a 'K' [the following letter in
the alphabet] and so on. This is the meaning of the Name and
this process is known as Ma<aseh Merkabah.
We find additional confirmation of this from Sefer Malmad
lia-Talmiditu W9 by R. Jacob Anatoli, who writes:
. . . and and to refer to Ma'aseh Merkabah as meaningless names
that they themselves made up in their own hearts, those chil-
dren without hearts.
His words refer apparently to the name KVZV that "they
themselves made up of their own hearts" — those who occupied
themselves with the 'Account of the Chariot'. This quote is as-
sociated with what we read in the Perus Sefer Yesirdh of R. Baruch
Togarmi: 110
KVZV BMVKSZ KVZV— YHVH THYNV YHVH: this is the
secret of the Merkabah.
In a fragment apparently written by R. Joseph Gikatilla
we read, similarly: 111
Know that the letters of the Honourable Name, whose secret
is YHWH are exchanged by combining them with the letters
that follow the letters of the Name. This is the secret of the
Merkabah, 112 and you must be aroused concerning the great
matter contained therein.
', Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 263
By reading the writing of Abulafia one can see that he
was greatly aroused by the matters contained in the 'Account of
the Chariot' for all of his discussions aim at one goal: the recon-
ciliation of the traditions he received from his teachers with the
view of Maimonides, who saw Ma'aseh Merkabah as metaphysics.
We will now provide a number of quotes on this subject:
In 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz 1 ™ we read:
For the Torah and its pathways constitute the 'Account of the
Chariot', whereas the laws of heaven and earth are the Account
of Creation.
Here, Abulafia views the Torah as an allegory for the
world of the intellects, called Ma<aseh Merkabah, whereas the in-
termediate and lower worlds are the domain of Ma'aseh Beresit
('Account of Creation'). In his Sefer Hotdm ha-Haftdrdh, lli he distin-
guishes between Ma'aseh Merkabah and Ma c aseh Beresit differently:
The Names and their combinations are likened, on the one
hand, to matters that exist and pass away, and those that, on
the other hand, continue to endure. Indeed, those that endure
are called by our sages the 'Account of the Chariot,' and the
others are called the 'Account of Creation'. And the secret
of this is 682 YBRYT [M— Hebrew], and this is the secret
of the staff [sebet — this association is never explained]. This
distinction, between names that denote enduring essences and
those that denote mutable essences parallels the two views of
the Torah. When we are capable of reading the Torah in ac-
cordance with the Names, it becomes transformed into meta-
physics, and when it is read in the conventional way, it deals
with the commandments, the deeds of mutable human beings.
This pairing returns in Abulafia's understanding of Sefer
Yesirdh. In his Peruss Sefer Yesirdh* 15 he writes:
By his first word, BSLSYM [bi-setosim — with thirty] he hints
to us that whereas this is the "Book of Formation," the title of
264 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
which indicates that it should discuss the 'Account of Creation,'
the real intention is to deal with the 'Account of the Chariot'.
Whereas in Seta' Netibot ha-Torah (p. 11) he explains this:
Sifer Yesirdh, which exoterically refers to the 'Account of Cre-
ation/ refers esoterically to the wisdom of the 'Account of
the Chariot'. As witness to this, the first word of this tract,
BSLSYM is numerically equivalent to MSH MRKBH, and for
us, its meaning is the combination of one Name with another.
These two texts utilize the numerologkal equation 682 =
M"SH MRKBH = SM BSM [sem be-sem—one name with another
name]. 116
Aside from the 'Account of the Chariot,' however, the
oral Torah also contains methods by which we may interpret the
written Torah. 117 In Sefer lia-Hekq,"" Abulafia writes that the oral
Torah— referring here to the Talmud— also contains both exoteric
and esoteric meanings:
and do not be baffled by what was said, that with regard to
the matters that were written down, i.e., of the written and oral
Torah there are two faces, one revealed and one hidden.
One example of Abulafia's view, as regards the esoteric
layer of the written oral Torah tradition that corresponds to the
unwritten oral tradition, the genuinely true Torah, will clarify
this matter. In his epistle Sebtr Netibot ha-Torah (p. 12), Abulafia
writes concerning the chapter headings and the secrets of the
Torah, that they are passed on exclusively in oral manner only
to those worthy of them. On pages 12-13, however, Abulafia
illustrates how the oral Torah that has already been written down
(i.e., the Talmud) contains allusions to matters that ought not to
be conveyed in writing:
See [B.T.] Sanhedrin,"' regarding 120 "the palm of the hand
that wrote," in the book of Daniel, referring to the letter
combinations 121 MN' MN' TQL VFRSYN \mene< men? teael u-
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 265
farsin] where there are the opinions of Rab, Samuel, R. Yohanan.
One construes it as "MM "MM LQTNY-FRSV, and another |R.
Ashi] sees it as MM' NM' QTL PVRSYN, and [Samuel] says
it refers to MMTVS NNQPV 1RN. And the great statement,
expressed by the general statement [of Rab], that it is a nu-
merological statement that read YTT X)Q PVG TMT. This is
a recondite secret, but what is clear from it is that it is based
on the A->T B^S method of letter exchange. And they are
fifteen letters regarding which it is written 122 "but they could
not read the writing," and as a sign as to the number of letters,
the [verse uses the word] YD' [=15].
And this is explicable by interpreting the three verses, 28, 26
and 22. Combine the two numbers of the plain meaning with
the interpretation and you will find that they equal MN'. And
in the secret of regrouping, [the verse] yields 'MN 'MN. For
they represent the end of the verse as the word indicates,
MN -MN' UT MLKVTK' [mane" mane- 'elaha malkutka— God
has taken away your kingdom]. And yet, it was interpreted
not from the two, but by one MN' alone, whereas the word
TQYLTA (teqe'elta— weighed in the balance) is the meaning of
TQL, and the word PRYST [prisat— your kingdom is divided]
is the meaning of V-FRSYN. And these matters are derivations,
plays on words.
In Tractate Sanltedrin we find suggested various ways of
deciphering the words MN' MN' TKL VFRSYN. The first sug-
gestion was based on reversing the letter order of the words—
MN'VNM, etc. The second construes the correct combination of
these letters as MN'^NM', etc. The third repeats the first letter
in the fourth position: MN— M TKL— T VFRSYN— N^MMTVS,
etc. And the fourth opinion is based on A^T, B^S exchange
that yields YTT = MN' etc. Abulafia continues by explaining
this verse in Daniel. The sum total of letters in this phrase is
fifteen = YD'. The word MN' is explained in verse 5:26, based
on twenty-two letters. The word TKL is explained in 5:28 by
means of twenty-six letters and the sum total of all of these is
91 = 28 + 26 + 22 + 15 = MN'.
loo The Meaning of the Torah in Abuktfia's System
As only one of these two mentions of the word MN' is
explained, Abulafia believes that the double mention of MN'
holds the secret solution to the verse. Therefore the number 91-
MN' is doubled: MN' TMM. According to Abulafia the word MN
indicates that the king will die. And yet, why didn't the Sages
explain this secret? The answer to this is given in Sefer Hayyey
ha-Nefes: 1 '"
And so, consider MN TvuM— and this secret was not revealed
by the Sages o.b.m.; however, within me was aroused a com-
plete explanation; it is, that the end becomes the beginning,
and the beginning, the end. For this is the secret of the curse
of this king, regarding which it is written [Daniel 5:30-6:1] "In
that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain and Darius
the Mede received the kingdom." And the secret of MD— RH
is Ht>M [Ita-'adam-the man], and because Belshazzar made use
of the vessels of the Temple, he was immediately condemned
to die.
Abulafia is of the opinion that the Sages suggested the
method by which one may interpret the verse, by means of the
various techniques of interpretation, without actually mention-
ing the correct method in this context.'" Only one who is ca-
pable of taking this additional step forward can understand the
hint that was not explicated. In '6s* 'Eden Gmuz, 125 Abulafia
describes the process of the study of the secret doctrine:
You give him the chapter headings of the corpus, little by little,
and since he is wise and has the capacity to understand by
himself, he will place his heart into what he received, and will \
add and analyse in his thought.
It is proper, at the end of the discussion, to mention the
description of the oral Torah given by Marsilio Ficino, which is
similar to that of Abulafia. He attributes to Jewish scholars the
following appraisal of the Wisdom of the Names: 126
They value it to the extent of considering it higher in quality
than all other forms of wisdom, even greater than the written
language, Torah, and Hermenetttics in Abulafia 167
Torah. They say that this science was revealed by God to the
Patriarchs and to Moses in order to engrave it not only in the
letters, but even in the souls of these saints and of the prophets
who followed them ... and that it was by the power of these
Names that they enacted the miracles.
It seems that like Abulafia, the Jewish sages that Ficino
alludes to were of the opinion that the oral Torah, based on the
Names, refers to an intellectual realm that cannot be conveyed
in writing, but is instead, engraved on one's soul.
E. The Written Torah: The Commandments
After having described the significance of the 'Account of
the Chariot' 12 ' and illustrated how Abulafia perceived the hid-
den layer of meaning contained in the oral Torah, we return to
the meaning of the written Torah, which, as we will see, consti-
tutes the lowest level of the tradition. 12 " The written Torah, as
Abulafia makes use of this term, has as its source the 'true' read-
ing of the Torah, but was revealed in its present form divided
into words that express the Commandments. 129 The command-
ments are the main objective of the written Torah, the Mishnah,
and the Talmud. Concerning them and their relationship with
the 'Torah' Abulafia writes: 130
The method of our Torah is a combination of revealed and
concealed matters. The revealed aspect is useful to all who
do not know the concealed aspect, for it contains traditions
suited to his level of capacity, so as to guide him in this world,
and to gain him his inheritance in the world to come. And
the revealed aspect is called Commandment, for it conveys
merely the command and nothing more. And the concealed
aspect is called Torah for it refers to the entire body of wisdom
of this commandment; its purpose and its substance. And
regarding this secret level, it is written 131 "and the Torah and
the commandments which I have written that you may teach
them," and it is further written 132 "for the commandment is a
268 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
lamp and the Torah teaching is the light;' and it was said 131 that
a transgression may extinguish the lamp of the commandment,
but is not able to extinguish the light of Torah'."
The hidden aspect of Torah is the oral Torah whose light
is not extinguished, because it is intellectual. What is the plain
level of the commandment whose light is extinguished? In Sefer
Hayyey ha-Nefes,' M Abulafia distinguishes between various types
of commandments:
The commandments are divisible into three categories. They
are [a] the commandments that instruct us as to the proper view
toward what exists, in the realms of nature, humanity and Di-
vinity, and warn us to be far from the opposite, i.e. false views;
[bl the commandments that arouse knowledge in those whose
conduct is proper and instruct them on their proper path, and
repel their opposite; |c] the commandments that restore hu-
man societies to proper harmony and remove the opposite.
These three constitute'eommandments in the realms of opin-
ions, morality and deed.
This categorization includes various types of command-
ments. The first two types are intended to perfect the individual,
whereas the third is intended to perfect society. The first two are
aimed at the intellect whereas the third is aimed at the imagi-
nation. This mixture of intellect and imagination illustrates the
character of the written Torah. Its source is the intelligence, but
it also contains elements whose source is the imagination.
We are informed of the imaginary side of the command-
ments in various discussions in Abulafia's writings. In 'Osar 'Eden
Gdnuz, 1 ™ we read:
The potency of the imagination is a vessel for the apprehen-
sion of prophecy, for all of his [i.e., the prophet's] apprehen-
sions are imaginary; they are parables and enigmas. . . and the
sense of this is contained in the plain meaning of the word
DMYVN, which is MDMH [dimyon— imagination; medammeh—
imaginative faculty] and its secret is 'daemon', a devil and evil
language, Torah, and Henneneutics in Abulafia 269
spirit. However, he is also a 'likeness', i.e., an intermediary,
and all his machinations are political. He is a man of argu-
ment, whose attribute is anger. And he was created from the
life-giving blood, and concerning him does the entire book of
Proverbs speak. . Proverbs [Misle] on the government [mimsdl]
of the imagination. . and observe, that the Proverbs ali refer
to political matters. . . for in your youth you were taught imag-
inary information, [in the form of parables and enigmas that
coincided with your capacity at the time, for then you were full
of imaginings and were entirely attracted to the senses. And
you already know that youth are not legally bound to keep the
commandments until after they are thirteen years and one day
old. . . nevertheless, they are educated in the commandments,
and these are the concerns of the realm of state alluded to by
the term DMYVN.
Abulafia enlists his knowledge of the Greek language to
prove, by quasi-linguistic means, the inferior character of cog-
nition by the faculty of the imagination, a necessary component
in the process of the reception of prophecy, and by extension,
also part of the nature of Torah. The term DMYVN is acousti-
cally similar to the Greek daemon, i.e., devil, composed also of
the same letters, and by means of letter transposition DMYVN
becomes MDYVN [medyun— medium]. In addition, the letters of
DMYVN can also be associated with the letters of the Hebrew
word MDYNY (medmi— political). Thus, the daemonic inferior
component of the Torah serves as a medium [•emsan] for the ed-
ucation of the masses, thereby fulfilling a clear political function.
In a later work, Abulafia writes: 136
And [there are] those who say that the Book of the Torah is
true and worthy of honor for its words are the words of the
living God, but some of its commandments are not to be taken
literally. Such a claim would arise due to well-known reasons.
However, the enlightened one would understand those things
easily by himself as being strategems to draw the hearts of
fools so that they become released, rather than being fettered by
his ropes, in order to establish a powerful Divine bond easily.
For they are not aware of the nature of the evil inclination
270 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
so as to be able to receive his opinions and find truth in it
for themselves, and indeed be able to see in his words that he
desires to turn to the path of the wise men of speculation yet his
words are not sustained in this turning toward the true sages
of speculation, for he takes half and leaves half. And such a
person is not aware that the first stratum is intended for the
masses, i.e., the righteous of the masses as was mentioned. It is
proper to heed these three paths, for all three are true although
they all contain three levels 137 . . -For the Torah was not given
only to men of intelligence. Our young children bear witness
to this since they are not obligated by the commandments,
and yet it is proper to educate them in the commandments by
means of conditioning them in good habits so that they reach
the path of perfection.
We may summarize these two quotes as follows: Because
prophecy is not possible without the participation of the imagi-
nation, we find in the Torah commandments that have the char-
acter of the imagination and are political, i.e., commandments
that are of a practical-active nature, not of an intellectual nature.
These commandments are oriented toward that sector of society
not capable of grasping the intellectual truths, i.e., youth and
'the righteous of the nation', people capable of performing good
deeds, but not capable of progressing beyond this level.
The double nature of the written Torah, which is also ex-
pressed in the form of the political-imaginative, is well-explained
in Sefer Toiedot 'Adam/ 38 a work mentioned earlier:
'On both sides are they inscribed'— this is an allusion to the
element of imagination of our master Moses, peace be upon
him, which has been perfected to its fullest potential, and was
impressed on the image of political conduct and on the image
of conduct with reference to intellectual conceptions. Since the
imagination tends to manifest in sense perceptions, the tables
were engraved in writing within the context of orders of law of
a social-political nature. And on the other side of the imagina-
tion, the side that tends toward the intellect, was also engraved
and written the Divine intellectual conceptions, in that the in-
Language, Torah, and Henneneutics in Abulafia 271
tellect is etched and engraved in the presence of the imagina-
tion. In this way, 'remember' and 'observe' were written as
one expression [in the Tablets, referring to the commandment
of the Sabbath], as our sages have said. Moreover, in this way
the second tablet, i.e., the hylic intelligence, was engraved from
both sides; within the lower side that faces the imagination was
engraved and impressed and etched what may be understood
from the imagined forms so that they may be abstracted from
their material form and returned to their intellectual form. And
on its other side that faces toward the supernal on high, to God,
are words of wonder within which is engraved the Divine Ef-
fluence. All of these writings are in accordance with both the
knowledge of the intellect and with the popular knowledge,
etched within actual tables, and thus was their actual form.
None of these meanings can be perceived without the media-
tion of the imagination.
At least one of the three types of commandments is merely
the expression that the imaginative faculty gives to the intel-
lectual effluence. Thus the true form of the fulfillment of the
commandments must of necessity include two dimensions. Al-
though the act in and of itself contains no intellectual content, yet
the performance of the deed, done with conscious awareness of
its intention, succeeds in combining the intellect and the imagi-
nation. In 'Osdr 'Eden Ganuz, 1 ™ Abulafia criticises the performance
of commandments without understanding:
Man is like an ass. For he, as representative of the majority
of his species, does no damage, but carries a burden. Now
the ass fastened to a millstone, going round and round, does
not move from his place. As for man, the intention behind
his existence is not the same as that of an ass, for he is not
fulfilling his goal by carrying a burden like an ass without
rising higher by carrying this burden. And the abundance
of the commandments is the burden. Rather, the epitome of
the intent of the commandments is that man recognise himself
and by self-recognition come to recognise his Creator, and this
constitutes the epitome of his success.
272 The Meaning of Hie Torah in Abulafia's System
So that the person be enabled to perform the command-
ments in the proper way, he must understand their objectives,
because doing them without this understanding constitutes a
lack in its significant content. In Sefer Hayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba 1 , 1 * we
read:
Do not consider saying that my heart is for the heavens and ail
that I do is for the sake of heaven, and yet, not be interested that
the doing of the deed bring about wisdom and love of God.
For does not the person know that it is study that leads to deed,
and not deed that leads to study!"" Yet, he does not consider
that to do something is easy, even for children, and certainly
for intellectuals and Talmudists. And yet, doing it within the
presence of Divine Wisdom is difficult even for Sages, and
certainly for people subject to the false imagination. Yet he
thinks that his deeds are acceptable, because this is what he
was told, or due to the false imaginings of his heart. For indeed
there are no genuinely good deeds unless they be done with
the awareness of the intent of the deed. Then it is acceptable
before God, so that they are not merely performances out of
habit. 142
See how our Sages o.b.m. indicated this by their saying that 143
"the heathens do not truly worship idols" and yet we see the
opposite; that all of their efforts and all of their deeds are in-
volved in idol-worship! It is only due to the lack of under-
standing on their part, of what they are doing, that their ac-
tion without understanding is considered as nothing. This is
evident from the end of the above pronouncement; "they are
merely carrying out the rituals of their ancestors"- — rituals per-
formed out of habit.
We read similar words in Sefer Gan Na t uli l4i
Torah [study] supercedes the commandment, since study leads
to action, and action in and of itself does not lead to study.
Nonetheless, study is not the essence, but the deed is, 145 and
only for one whose deeds outweigh his wisdom is his wisdom
sustained. 14 " Deed [Ma'aseh] is understood in the secret [sense]
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 273
of Ma'aseh Merkabdh ['Account of the Chariot'] and Mawseh
Beresit ['Account of Creation'], which are Divine deeds. And
one who knows the secret of why the tablets were made of
stone, as it is written "and the tables were the work of God,"
we may surmise that he knows the secret of the 'writing' re-
garding which it is stated: 147 "and the writing was the writing
of God, graven on the tables."
The deed in this case has two implications: 1) deed in
the sense of commandment, and in this sense it is inferior when
compared to Torah as study; 2) deed in the sense of natural or
Divine 148 function, i.e., that a person must be in a state of recog-
nition, and this form of deed is superior to pursuit of wisdom,
which is merely a contracted form of natural wisdom.
F. The Written Torah: The Narrative Part
We now proceed to another aspect of the written Torah:
the Biblical narrative. This aspect, like the aspect of the com-
mandments, has two sides: the plain meaning as perceived by
the imagination, and the hidden meaning as conceived by the
intellect. We are capable of understanding the Biblical narrative
only after understanding the hidden meaning, which generally
refers to the constant battle between imagination and intellect
that takes place within each and every individual, just as it took
place within the lives of the Biblical heroes. Just as the com-
mandments instruct us that their essence is the proper intention,
i.e., the intellectual aspect of the commandment, so, too, the nar-
rative instructs us that our aim is that the intellect be victorious.
We will illustrate Abulafia's outlook by analysing two stories:
one associated with the individual, the binding of Isaac; and
the second story associated with the collective, the Exodus from
Egypt.
274 The Meaning of the Tarah in Abulafia' s System
The Binding of Isaac
In Sefer Hayyey lui-Nefes, in explaining the secret of the di-
vine ordeal, Abulafia expounds on the psychological implica-
tions of the binding of Isaac. First he explains that the meaning
of the trial is the actualisation of what is in one's potential by
means of the deed that the trial involves. This actualisation takes
place as a result of the intellect overpowering the imagination,
or by the overpowering of the positive inclination over the evil
inclination:
And perhaps the imagination will test him, and he will ac-
cept the challenge and consider it an intellectual challenge.
This then brings about dependence on the two inclinations
which undoubtedly are the intellect and the imagination, both
of which are angels [Divine messengers]. Although one is a
good angel, and the other its opposite, the one an angel and
the other Satan, both together exist for the good of the species,
whereas one is good and the other bad tor the individual; 149
one is called the Angel of Death, and Satan, and evil inclination;
and the other is called Angel of God. . . Thus, it is written, 150
"And God tested Abraham," and at the conclusion of the trial
it is written, 151 "and the Angel of God. . . " Trials and tests come
only for the sake of good, "for God is come to test you" etc.
[Exodus 20: 17]. This is a great benefit. And so too: 152 "that
He might test you only to benefit you in the end." If the one
who is tested is found to be perfect in the actualisation of his
intellect and his words are true, then his success is complete. 153
This is the pragmatic aspect of the secret of the trial. In
the course of the discussion, Abulafia explains how this trial
actually takes place in the case of Abraham who was tested. 154
At times a person may think in his heart that he loves God
with a great love, to the extent that if a command would come
to him, and it appears to him that it is God's will that he takes
his only son and slaughter him, due to his great love of God,
in order to illustrate to himself that great distinction between
these two types of love: love of God and love of his son. A
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia
275
person may consider in his heart and place his attention to
discover to which of these he would yield. For to transgress
the love of God would be unthinkable, for their love should
be uninterrupted, as this is the root. And, on the other hand,
to slaughter one's son is also impossible, for it is out of the
bounds of human nature, due to the mercy of the father that
cleaves to him powerfully.
Such a person would form within himself two inclinations,
imaginary and intellectual. The imaginary one would tell him
that under no circumstance is he to kill his son, for it is not
the will of God that a person should spill blood, even foreign
blood, and certainly not the blood of one's own son who is his
own blood. One who spills blood is a murderer, and the Torah
said, 155 "whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood
be shed," etc., and it is also stated: 15 " "Do not murder." The
imagination will give the person many reasons such as these
and will offer him proofs that are sensed or imagined, though
accepted as if they were intellectual. If the person on trial is a
perfected intellectual, like Abraham, he will not be persuaded
and will not listen to this, but will laugh at him and tell him
"the Lord rebuke you, Satan," [Zachariah 3:2] - is there any
comparison between love of God and love of my only son, so
that they may be weighed one against the other; that I should
not perform the Will of my Master; for both my son and I are
obligated to honor Him.
And if you tell me that He commanded us not to spill blood,
I will answer you, 157 that the mouth that forbade is the mouth
that permits. For did not God command us to spill the blood
of a murderer who perpetrated his crime with premeditation?
And is it not written, 158 "and if a man come presumptuously
upon his neighbor," etc., and is it not said "life for life" [Ex.
21:23]? He only commanded us not to murder when the will to
do so comes only from the murderer. Notwithstanding this He
commanded us to kill a murderer convicted by [the evidence
on two witnesses, by means of [one of] four types of [judicial]
death penalty: stoning, burning, beheading and asphyxiation.
He commanded us to destroy the seven nations, and also [the
276 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
nation of] Amaleq and his seed, until his memory and seed be
erased from under the heavens.
From these accepted intellectual claims come great gifts, when
God aids the intellectual. Thus, he goes to fulfill the Divine
command, referred to as the trial of the intellect, or of wisdom,
or the purification of knowledge. And it is known that God
did not command any prophet to commit any act of madness,
and certainly not to slaughter his son. And as witness to this
Abraham indeed did not kill his son. Rather, the will was only
in the domain of the intellect and was a trial of the insight
alone, in the form of prophecy. Regarding this and other such
situations His Honor was revealed as a result of the binding
of Isaac.
And it is said that Satan wanted to impede Abraham so that
he would not be willing to sacrifice Isaac. So too he wanted to
hinder Isaac, so that he would not be drawn after the will of
his father. And thus did Samael say to Abraham, "Old man,
what are you doing?" etc. 159 The entire narrative was clearly
recounted, as the Rabbi indicated in II, 30 [of the Guide for the
Perplexed]. Indeed, the Rabbi revealed the nature of the powers,
and their names: Samael, serpent, camel, and what is implied
by these names.
In analysing the words of Abulafia, we leam that the story
of the binding is conceived as an inner conflict, a man testing
himself to see if he is capable of having his intellect rule over his
imagination. The opening of this section does not speak of Abra-
ham necessarily, but rather of a man who thinks in his heart of
what his response would be if commanded by God to sacrifice
his son. Will he be able to forego his physical-imaginational
propensity as a result of a command from the intellect? In
vanous places we find statements that leave no room for doubt
as to Abulafia's conception concerning the actuality of the expe-
rience:
God did not command any prophet to commit any act of mad-
ness, and certainly not to slaughter his son.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 277
Rather,
the Will was only in the domain of the intellect, and was a trial
of the insight in the form of prophecy.
We ought to examine the claims of the two sides: the
imagination bases its claims on the plain meaning of the verse,
i.e., on the imaginary aspect of Scripture. Accordingly, the in-
junction against spilling of blood is to be taken literally. 160 The
answer of the intellect is, at first glance, an attempt to show that
it is impossible to prove the argument of the imagination from
the plain meaning because the claims of the imagination are
contradicted in other verses. In fact, the intellect answers in ac-
cordance with the intellectual understanding of the verse. When
the intellect claims that the destruction of the seven nations and
'Amaleq are explicit commands that contradict the prohibition
of murder, we must understand this according to the hidden
meaning. In Sefer Sitrey Torah, 16 ' 1 we read:
V-PSTYM [u-pistim— flax] and V-PSTN [u-pistan— flax] are
equal in numerical value, and their secret is that they are com-
bined of two inclinations within the souls [NPSVT nefdsdt].
And the root of this [is hinted at in the verse]: not to don
clothes of mixed material, so that the purified will be unified.
If one dons clothes of mixed materials, one will not be unified.
And 162 "God will erase his name from under the heaven." Be-
hold, it is said, 163 "I will utterly blot out the remembrance of
Amaleq;" and He also commanded you, 164 "You shall blot out
the remembrance of Amaleq from under the heaven, do not
forget;" and He said, 165 "the hand is upon the throne of God,
God will have war with Amaleq from generation to genera-
tion" [YD X KS YH — yad c al kes yah] Since this is so, observe
how much this commandment benefits us. And although it
seems to us one of the easiest commandments to perform, it
is yet considered a severe commandment. For this reason our
sages o.h.m., have stated, 166 "be as careful with an easy com-
mand as with a severe one, for you do not know the reward of
the commandments." This is one of the commandments that
278 The Meaning of tlte Torah in Abulafia's System
the nations of the world complain about and persecute us on
its account. . .
It appears to me that I have already revealed to you all the
reasons of the Torah, and it is as the Rabbi [Maimonides] o.b.m.,
said, that the entire intent of the Torah revolves around [the two
commandments] "I am the Lord. . .," and "You shall have no
other gods. . . " i.e., to prevent idol worship from contaminating
the pure soul.
The murder of 'Amaleq is construed within the frame-
work of the murder of the inclinations of the soul — the imagi-
nary element. On account of this, Satan complains. For a clearer
presentation of this matter, we read in the anonymous Sefer Toledot
'Adam: 167
For [with respect to] 'Amaleq , the distorter, the swift nation
[*MLQ MTCL L'M QL —Amaleq me-<akkil le-<am qal], the bat-
tle against him goes on from generation to generation]. For
the hand is upon the Throne of God [KY YD X KS YH]— the
Throne will not be whole, nor will the Blessed Name be whole
so long as Amaleq the distorter exists. For the secret of XHYM
[Tilohim] is YH, which, when fully spelled out [as] YVD HH
contains the numerical value of theTetragrammaton. Then, He
will be made whole. And TJTYM = 86. And when the Throne
is made whole, it will also be 86, and the Throne [HKS M (= 86)1
will be called > LHYM. Ui8 And within the mind is the imagi-
nation, which is [called] 'Amaleq — Me^aqqel [the distorter].
And thus, upon his destruction, Nature [HTB C — ha-teba'] will
be whole, for it is also numerically equal to 86.
Just as the commandment to kill 'Amaleq is important,
because it results in perfection, so too the killing of a murderer-
with-intent is also a commandment. The imagination that at-
tempts to rule over the intellect is its intended murderer, and
therefore there is a command to kill him.
From analysing Abulafia's works it is possible to state that
even the claim of the imagination, that the prohibition against
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 279
murder constitutes the plain meaning of that commandment,
is not the correct explanation of the verse. In Sefer Hottim ha-
Haftardh, 169 he writes:
And it is written, 170 "whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed;" and the verse goes on to provide the rea-
son for this, "for in the image of God He made man." The
secret meaning of this is that if one kills the true body of the
other, and does not perfect himself, he will be punished by the
punishment of death. And this is indicated in the verse "sheds
man's blood [sofek dam ha-^addm]."
He who does not perfect himself, i.e., his intellect, he is the
true murderer, because he destroys his own Divine image. In-
deed, he who is successful in the trial, and his imagination is un-
der the control of his intellect, regarding him Abulafia writes: 171
One who exchanges one sheep for another, which is called a
ram, and this one is slaughtered as a sacrifice and the other is
saved, it will be remembered for the good, and he will laugh
in his heart; he is the victor.
Here Abulafia bases himself on K. Abraham Ibn Ezra,
who says regarding the meaning of sacrifice: 17 " 1
For when he gives up each portion in its time, such a one saves
his portion for the world to come.
Let us consider Ibn Ezra's statement in a psychological
light: when the 'sheep', i.e., the lowest aspect of the soul, the
imagination, also called a 'ram', is sacrificed, then the intellect is
preserved. Moreover, there is the play on the words 'and he will
laugh [YSHQ — yisalieq—Yishdq] in his heart; he is the victor' also
indicates this meaning. The one who is defeated in this battle
is the imagination — Satan. In Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
(11,30) we read with reference to the Binding of Isaac:
And the Holy One, blessed be He, was laughing at both the
camel and its rider. . .
280 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's
The camel and its rider refer to Samael and the Serpent.
Thus, "YsHQ" the intellect, which vanquishes Satan, is also an
allusion to the story of the binding.
Up until now we have seen an interpretation based on a
reading of the Binding of Isaac that makes use of philosoph-
ical terminology — intellect and imagination — employed to ex-
plain the imaginary text of the written Torah. 173 There is one
final stratum, however, in the esoteric understanding of these
verses in the Torah.
A more sublime layer becomes revealed in the process
of Abulafia's explanation of particular passages from this story,
based on his unique method of exegesis. In Sefer Sitrey Torah, 174
he writes:
Said the great Rabbi Moses son of Nahman [Nahmanides] in
his commentary on the Torah, for it is already revealed that
even a seemingly insignificant detail is an Explicit Name.
In this work Abulafia illustrates how one ought to under-
stand the verse (LHYM VEH LV HSH LTH BNY— 'lohim yireh
15 ha-seh le-<6lah bent) "God will provide Himself the lamb for the
burnt offering" (Gen. 22:8): 175 XHYM is a holy name, and YR
H = 216 = 3 times the name of 72 letters; LV = 36 = 3 times the
Name of 12 letters. After pointing this out, Abulafia writes:
And every Master of the Kabbalah knows that LHYM is an
adjective and thus. He is the Judge, i.e., the attribute of Judg-
ment. This is the meaning of HSH LOVLH BNY. Indeed, L
*WLH = BTLVL [he-'alul— the caused], and YL is taken as an
acronym referring to the everlasting heart, which is present
past and future. And NHZ BSBK BQRNYW [ne-'eelmz ba-sebak
be-qarndw — caught in the thicket by his horns] (Gen. 22:13)]
in the revolutions of the wheel (or sphere], for they are in the
form of the thicket.
UHYM at the beginning refers to the Judge, and thus, we
find at the end of the verse HSH L'OLH BNY = 513 = MYDT
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 281
HDYN [middat ha-din—\he attribute of Judgment]. YL HLB [>ayil
ha-kb — the sheep, the heart] is an acronym for the verse LHYM
YR'EH LV HSH L'OLH BNY = 78 = HVH VHYH VYHYH [howeh
we-hdydh we-yihyeh — is, was and will be] - 3 times the Tetragram-
maton (3 x 26 = 78). NTLZ BSBK = 150 =BGLGVLY HGLGL
(be-gilgule ha-galgdl — in the revolution of the wheel). Not all of
the details of this quote are clear, but notwithstanding this, we
have here an example of how to explain one verse which may
be understood as referring to the powers of the soul and, in ad-
dition, expressing theological truths by means of reading it in
accordance with the Holy Names.
In concluding this section we call attention to the fact
that this spiritualistic method, based on linguistic foundations,
as related to the narrative in the 'Binding' is also encountered in
an early work of R. Joseph Gikatilla. In one of the versions of
Sefer ha-Niqqud], 176 we read:
If you, my son, want to rise up to the level of intellect - to
the secret levels of wisdom, in the process of vour learning let
your eyes be diligent 177 and prepare the knife and altar and
fire. Stand and bind hand and foot, and contemplate the verse
and its intellectual conception, place the words and letters to
their sum, and also contemplate the secret of the vowels.
It seems that the very task of this linguistic method, which
is similar to that of Abulafia, requires preparation similar to that
of Isaac's preparation for the binding to sacrifice. What is im-
plied here is that we must gain control over ourselves and bind
our materiality to be able to contemplate the conceptual realm.
The Narrative of the Exodus from Egypt
Concerning the secret of the trial, as it appears in Sefer
Sitrey T6rah, 11& Abulafia again discusses it in terms of the conquest
of the intellect over the imagination; however, here he illustrates
it in a different way:
282 The Meaning of tlie Torah in Abulafia's System
If the Testor will probe the experienced sage, the subject of this
providential event will be victorious. And he will thus know
and recognize the nature of the imagination and will always
subdue its power by his intellect and be saved in eternal salva-
tion under the watchfullness of Providence. For He will take
His true and trustworthy servant out of the bondage of time
and will rescue Israel from Egypt, from under the control of
Pharaoh, King of Daemons, the master of sorcerers and ma-
gicians, and he and his nation will be drowned in the sea of
reeds. And then [the sage] will receive the Torah from Sinai
with confidence and his reward will be great. . . and when a
nation that passes through the sea, as on dry land, over the
supernal water, is exchanged, in place of a nation drowned in
the Sea of Reeds [the last sea], in the depths of the lower wa-
ters and one is rescued and the other destroyed, so too will one
lamb be exchanged for another.
The victory of Israel over Egypt is expressed as the vic-
tory of the intellect over the imagination. Pharaoh is conceived
as the king of 'daemons' 179 and is the symbol for the demonic
imagination. 180 This view returns again in Tggerct ha-Musdr, 161 at-
tributed to Maimonides, where we read:
My son, you must know that Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is really
the evil inclination and that all of Israel genuinely constitute
one entity in relation to the human intellect, and this may be
derived from the degree of the name Israel, and its compo-
sition. Our master, Moses, peace be upon him, is the divine
intellect, and Misrayim in general constitutes one body, Le.,
the universal body. Within it are organs that are the masters
and rulers, and other organs that are servants, i.e., secondary
organs. And the land of Goshen is the place of the heart. And
you know that the children of Israel were ruled over by the
evil Pharaoh, who enslaved them by means of hard labors.
In these two quotes the Exodus from Egypt is explained
as the actualization of the human intellect by means of the Active
Intellect. Thus, there is a correspondence between the Exodus
and the reception of the Torah, which also involved the effluence
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 283
of the Active Intellect upon the human intellect, after having
subdued the power of the imagination and placed it under its
control. The realization of the intellect is associated with the su-
pernal waters, which refer to the conceptual forms, whereas the
imagination dwells within corporeality. This is the implication
behind Israel's rise and Egypt's fall. The person who succeeds
in having his intellect be victorious is the true Israelite, whereas
one who is sunk in the depths of imagination is the Egyptian.
With slight variation, Abulafia returns to the motif of the
Exodus in his 'Osdr "Eden Gdnuz: 162
And all that is mentioned in this Book of Exodus concerning
the biography of the one who saved Israel from Egypt and
Pharaoh, and concerning the sinking of their enemies in the
sea, that was passed through by Israel, and the story of the
[bitter] waters of Marah, which occurred prior to the reception
of the Torah, all refer to the liberation of the bodies and the
salvation of the souls upon the reception of the Torah.
And again, in Sefer ha-'Edut: 1 * 3
"And [that the people] may also believe in you forever" 1 *'' this
refers to the two kings: Moses king of Israel, and Pharaoh
king of Egypt. And the secret meaning of this is that the title
'king' always refers to another of its own kind, just as the
earth element is king over the inclinations, i.e., of those of the
earth, and so too the intellect is king over the intellect. In
order that the words we always say, 'A remembrance to the
Exodus from Egypt' not be construed in error, its true secret
refers to a remembrance to the exodus of the YSRYM \yesdrmi —
inclinations]. This is derived by exchanging the letters YM
[of MSRYM- misrayim— Egypt] by means of A-»T, B-»S, or by
exchanging these two letters for one another. And its secret
allusion is to Israel's Exodus, as a remembrance to the intellect
that activates the intellect.
Moses is conceived here, as also in 'Iggeret ha-Musdr, as
the Active Intellect, 185 and PRUH [Pharaoh = HTR he^afdr— the
284 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
element earth] refers to the inclinations ['APR wfdr — dust = 350 -
YSRYM-yesarmi — inclinations]. The true liberation to which the
Torah refers is not (merely) a physical exodus from exile, but
Israel's spiritual redemption, i.e., the liberation of intellectual
powers from the prison of the body. The Exodus from Egypt is
also explained as the step that the person takes to come closer to
his Creator because as long as he is in exile, i.e., sunk in illusion,
these imaginings are obstructions to the comprehension of the
Divine; when the intellectual becomes actualized, however, it
becomes a bridge between man and God.
Ail the cunning of reality, all the stratagems of the Torah and
the craft of the commandments exist in order to bring close
those who are far, at the epitome of distance, to the epitome of
proximity to Him. All of this is in order to remove all interme-
diary [levels] that bind man in ropes of deceit, so as to liberate
him from their hold, as was the case with the Exodus from
Egypt and the crossing of the sea as on dry land. And this is
in order to place only one intermediary between man and God,
i.e., the powerful heroic human mind that empowers itself with
the power of the Torah and commandment, the revealed and
concealed, which in themselves constitute the Divine Intellect.
Indeed, when he reaches this completely, some of these inter-
mediaries that enslaved man with their hard labor, in mortar
and brick, will be removed, and he will be given the Torah,
and it will be received, after the enemies are drowned in the
We who succeed in emerging from 'Egypt' today, i.e., in
realizing our intellect from potentiality to actuality, are more
distinguished than those of the earlier generation who actually
passed through the sea of Reeds, without having understood the
hidden significance of the event. In Sefer Get fia-Semot, 187 Abulafia
writes:
For every intellectual knows that regarding the splitting of the
Sea of Reeds, which was a miracle of the highest quality known
to us, its meaning, as we received it in Kabbalah [apparently
meaning tradition] is that they passed through by means of
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 285
12 pathways for the 12 tribes. All of this took place on the
physical plane. And regarding what was confirmed by proofs,
being regarded as wisdom among the men of speculation with
reference to three types of perception: physical, imaginary and
intellectual; the intellectual is the most sublime of these, and af-
ter that comes the physical, and after that the imaginary. . . This
being so, if one today understands this wonder by the power of
his knowledge of God, it would undoubtedly be the case that
he would grasp regarding Him more than those who passed
through the sea on dry land but only perceived the experience
in their bodily sensation. Indeed, if there were people there,
who did understand the truth in their intellect by the power of
their knowledge of God, so as to perceive it wholly to its end,
with both sensation and intellect, then certainly they are more
greatly distinguished than one who comprehended it with his
intellect alone. And so too did our Sages o.b.m. state to us
regarding that generation by calling them the 'generation of
knowledge', for the least among their women perceived won-
drous perceptions, as they said, 188 "a maidservant saw on the
sea what the prophet Ezekiel, peace be upon him, did not."
These quotations explain the Exodus from Egypt in a
manner corresponding to the explanation of the Binding of Isaac.
As we have seen regarding one of the verses of the story of
the Binding, which was transformed into the various Names of
God, we similarly find a reading of three verses that depict the
splitting of the Sea at the time of Exodus horn Egypt, based on
the Names. I refer here to the verses of Ex. 14: 19-21. These
verses were already explained during the Geonic period as re-
ferring to the Name of seventy-two triplets of letters, for each
of these verses contains seventy-two letters. Abulafia discusses
this Name derived from the verses in various places, and we
will cite here one quote that relates these verses to the idea em-
bodied within the Exodus from Egypt. In Sefer Sitre T6rah, ls<i after
a discussion of the Name of seventy-two, Abulafia writes:
These three verses. . . For He is the One who hears your prayer,
and He is the Name of the activities, the Name that changes
all the natures, the Name that animates the soul and also the
286 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
heavens, and by it does the sun function on the waters, and
with it do all the suns [semdsim] function. It is a witness to
the function of the Name, and also attests to the functions of
Moses. . . the comprehension of the Holy Spirit. And know that
the point [nequdah] was innovated by the comprehension of
the Creator and the form [be-siyyur ha-yoser we-ha-surah, nithad-
desah ha-nequddh\. The Name of the Creator and the form is
SDY [Sadday], but the Name of the form of what was formed
is Metatron. Know that at the end there are three verses and
they are the epitome of the sphere [or wheel] and these three
bespeak and indicate three, but the tenth verse is the meaning
of the Explicit Name.
This quote is based entirely on the numerological equiv-
alents of 931, and all of the combinations that I will discuss
below, have the numerical value of 931: SLSH PSVKYM (seldsah ;
pesucjim — three verses) refer to Ex. 14: 19-21, which by means of a I
numerology refers to God, who is SVM'A TFYLH (somea' tefillah—
He who hears prayer). And this Name is the SM HPTJLVT (sent
ha-pe'uldt— Name of the activities) and the SM HMSNH KL HTB j
TM (sem ha-mesaneh kol ha-teba<im—ti\e Name that changes all the
natures). These matters are associated with the Exodus from I
Egypt, because the hearing that is attested to in Ex. 2:24 and 3:7 I
constitutes the beginning of the redemption, which took place by
means of Divine functions which were manifested as alternation
of nature. 190
What was spoken of until now was only the external man-
ifestation of nature; whereas all the following expressions refer
to the emergence of the intellect into actuality, by means of the
function or intellection of Metatron, or Shadday, or the Holy
Spirit:
SM HPV'EL HNSMH {sem ha-pd'el ha-nesdmah—the Name that
makes the soul), and BSYYVR H-YVSR WHSVRH {be -siyyvr
ha-yoser we-hasurdh— in the figure of the Creator and the form);
and 'NTHDSH HNQVDH (nithaddesdh ha-nequdah- the point
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 287
was renewed); BSYYVR RVH HQVDS (be-siyyur ruah ha-qodes—
in the form of the Holy Spirit);
HSVRH HDSVH BYSR (ha-surdh hidsuhdh ba-yeser—ihe form
that was renewed by the impulse); SM HYVSR WHSVRH SDY
(sem ha-yoser we-ha-surah Sadday — the Name of the Creator and
the form is Sadday); and SM SYVR HYVSR MTTRVN (sem
siyyur ha-yesur Metatron— the name of the figure of what was formed
is Metatron). These expressions are the only ones that concern
us here, and thus omitted the other combinations in this quote
that contain the numerical value of 931, for they have no direct
bearing on the Exodus.
Actually, this commentary on the Exodus is part of the
general framework of Biblical narrative containing spiritual con-
tent. Indeed, we may find motifs of the story of the Exodus,
combined in the context of a more elaborate Biblical epic form,
also interpreted in accordance with the spiritual principles: 191
For this reason did we leave Egypt and receive the Torah, upon
exiting from the narrow places to the wide spaces, so that we
subdue our hearts upon entering the land of Canaan, the land
wherein our holy ancestors received their revelations, where
they subdued their inclinations to the Creator. 192 For the en-
tire intention behind the giving of the Torah was for this, to
conquer and subdue the inclinations and unnecessary desires.
For indeed, God knows our nature and remembers that we are
dust 193 and therefore He did command to save the remnant of
our beloved 194 from destruction. What is referred to in the ex-
pression 'the remnant' S'ERYT (se'erit) is the same as the term
S'ER BSRYNV (sew besdrenu — kinsmen), in the context of Sft
(se'er — blood relation). And YDYD (yedid — beloved) refers to
the One, called "Beloved above and Delightful below," 195 refer-
ring to the Divine Intellect, whose effluence is in partnership
with man.
In conclusion we note that the conception of the Exodus
as the emergence of the spiritual potency from under the rule
of the corporeal realm may be found, apparently due to Abu-
288 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
lafia's influence, in Sefer Hemdat Ydmim by the important Yeminite
Kabbalist, R. Shalom Shabazzi, who states: 196
"And the Egyptians dealt ill with us": 197 the soul is speaking
here of the power of the body: "and they laid upon us hard
bondage:" in the world of time and its vanity: "and we cried
out to God:" in prayer and repentance: "and He saw our af-
fliction:" in the hands of the material world: "and our toil:"
in the desires of the body: "and our oppression;" referring to
the soul and the intellect in the hands of the angry one who
causes diminution by the servitude of the clinging mud [the
place of suffering] and the heating of the fire of hell: "and He
sent an angel:" referring to the intellect "and He took us out of
Egypt": by means of suffering, from the body. . . to torment the
sinful body, through Moses and Aharon — the good inclination
and the intellect in the brain, and Miriam — the soul.
G. The Two-Fold Torah
In our foregoing discussion we provided the essential
quotes dealing with two stories that constitute high points in
the history of Israel: the Binding of Isaac and the Exodus from
Egypt, both of which were explained as allegories for one pro-
cess: the victory of intellect over imagination. In this sense there
is an identity of purpose between narrative and commandment.
Thus, a question may be asked, which many of the opponents
of philosophy have asked: Is there not a contradiction between
the secrets hidden in the Torah, sought after by the intellectuals,
and the plain meaning of the verse? Did the Binding and the
Exodus actually take place or are they merely inner meta-, non-,
a-historical processes? Do the commandments come to teach us
the truth or to help the intellect overpower the imagination? In
all of the quotes provided above, Abulafia does not refer much
to the principle taken by many of the allegorists who followed
Maimonides: "The sense of the verse does not leave its plain
meaning." 198 And it seems to this writer that this omission is
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 289
not accidental. According to Abulafia we are obligated to re-
move the verse from its plain meaning, for otherwise we are
not able to discover the mysteries hidden therein, which, in par-
ticular instances, contradict the plain meaning. This dialectical
view introduces a severe split between the revealed and hidden
Torah. Man cannot accept both the plain and hidden meaning
if they contradict one another. The Torah in its plain meaning,
i.e., the written Torah, is set aside for the intellectuals.
In Sefer Hayye Jw-Ne/es, ias Abulafia writes:
The Divine Wisdom from which the Torah overflows must nec-
essarily be revealed in such a way that there would be within
it internal contradictions 200 [debdrim sotertm >elu *et -elu\ and is-
sues concealed in each other [mistaterim 'eiu be-tok =e/w]. What
is understood by those who take interest in it, i.e., the sages
who are on the level of the plain meaning, is what they can
accept, based on what they are able to think before they begin
to study the Torah. All of this is as the essential quality [of the
Torah]- — that the plain and widespread [meaning of the] Torah
should remain in the hands of the multitude of sages and fools,
righteous, and wicked together, for as long as the world exists.
Within it were placed golden apples, hidden within silver fili-
gree work, 201 with pearls and fine precious stones concealed in
its belly and hidden within the halls of the letters, so that the
treasures will be found only by those who truly seek them out.
And the intent behind this is that the true Torah be preserved
in the hands of the few, the elite of the species, the choicest of
the human species so that the unique individual perceive from
its effluence the secret of the Unique Name and its mysteries,
and receive from this Name, bliss and pleasant benefit. 202
Indeed, according to Abulafia, Torah as it was studied by
the heads of the academies of learning, who were his contem-
poraries, was merely the physical Torah:
These combinations 203 provided wondrous information to
those who understand them. 1 am well aware that there are
those who consider themselves wise, who would look at them
290 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
as nonsense, but woe to those self-proclaimed sages who are
indeed perplexed. For I know that of most of the sons of the
Hebrews today, the educated ones study the Torah merely on
a physical plane; do not possess spiritual souls. For they mock
when they see in this work spiritual matters, and though they
be Hebrew ("BRYM, <ii)rim) they are blind (VRYM—'iwrim), and
do not possess a true heart. But, rather, most of them made for
themselves gods of gold and silver, and transgressed in view
of the Divine Presence and [in view of] His Holy Torah, and to
them gold is spirituality. And they forgot by making for them-
selves wings. But indeed, as for the entire Torah in general
and in all of its particulars, from beginning to end we have
received a true tradition, based entirely on the understanding
of the Tetragrammaton. 204
The enormous gap between Abulafia's view of the essence
of the Torah and that of his Rabbinic contemporaries brought
him to the conclusion that the Torah is not yet to be found in the
hands of Israel, but will be revealed in its purity only during the
Messianic era. 205 In the story of the pearl, Abulafia's parallel to
the famous medieval parable of the three rings, 206 he indicates
that the unique pearl, which symbolizes true religion, is in the
hand of no one. Indeed the nation of Israel has priority in re-
ceiving it, in that they are the 'son' of God, but they have not
yet received it.
The concept of Torah as it appears before us in Abulafia's
writings, reveals the influence of Averroes. Each level of human
being received the Torah on the level appropriate to his under-
standing. The masses receive the plain meaning, and it is in
accordance with the Divine Wisdom, that this stratum alone be
in the hands of the masses. By contrast, the Sage is obligated to
understand the intellectual Torah:
It is an obligation to all who have the capacity to understand
it, and follow its path, that they investigate and know and
recognize it, in order to verify the tradition and remove from it
the imaginings provided by the tradition out of necessity, to the
Language, Torah, and Hcrmeneutics in Abulafia 291
masses. And this is due to the depth of the true understanding
and the weakness of the recipients. 207
To prevent faith in illusions,
all the works of the thought of the philosophers were com-
posed, so that they [the intellectuals] be able to find the truth
in what they investigate and so that those who come alter them
not err on account of the illusions and lies that caused many
to err, and were a stumbling block for them as regards the
articles of faith. Numerous invented doctrines arose, result-
ing from improper deliberation and they were called by names
similar to those that the philosophers called 'effects', 'conse-
quences/ which they already call signs and proofs and mira-
cles and wonders, having established that nothing is impossi-
ble from the point of view of wonder, and it is no wonder that
all of them were drawn to the religion; and yet the Torah and
the religion [can be considered] true, only as it results from
proper speculation. 208
A sage who attained to proper understanding of the se-
crets of the Torah is not permitted, however, to reveal it to the
common people, the 'vulgus':
It is proper that every sage should know that this [i.e., hiding
the secrets of the Torah from the masses] is the divine intent,
for He desired to reveal hidden matters to the sages, and to
obscure [even] revealed matters from the fools, as the Rabbi
[Maimonides] explained in part III of his Guide, in his intro-
duction to the Merkdbdh. 209
In Sefer Sitre Torah/ 10 moreover, Abulafia emphasizes that
Maimonides did not reveal any of the secrets that the prophets
did not reveal. He says: 21 1
'speak not in the ears of fools, for he will despise the wisdom
of your words,' and the ancients 212 have said in their parables
'place not pearls before swine.'
292 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
It would seem that Abulafia's stance as regards the need
for secrecy contradicts our previous analysis, because in two
additional places in this work he emphasizes that:
Regarding the Torah, its revealed aspect is complete truth and
its concealed aspect absolute truth, and both together are uni-
fied in their truth. Understand and investigate deeply this se-
cret and its words, one by one, and know and be illuminated
by what you derive, from what is proper to be conceived in
accordance with the human intellect, and what is proper to be
believed, in accordance with the effluence of the Divine Intel-
lect, with regard to these three matters that I have indicated:
the Creation, or the pre-existence of the world, the parables of
the Torah, new or primordial, and the revealed and concealed
aspects of the Torah. And I know that my intent will be delib-
erated, if one look at the various works worthy to be read, and
one should consult deeply, as it is proper to deeply consider
these matters. 213
Elsewhere in Sefer Sitre Torah, Abulafia summarizes the
point of this quandary with the following words: 214
And do not think that regarding what I indicated to you con-
cerning the secret of the knowledge of the Name and the split-
ting of the sea by virtue of it, that the revealed aspect of the
Torah is merely a parable. No, Heaven forbid! For this is
complete denial of the truth of the Torah. However the truth
is... that the Torah operates on two modes of existence, and
both together are good. These are the revealed and the con-
cealed aspects; and both are true. This you may understand
by considering the body [and the soul] together. That as for
them, one is new and the other primordial; one revealed and
the other concealed, as if one is the parable and the other the
referent to it but both are found together. And this is a suf-
ficient hint as to the wondrousness of this secret that I have
already revealed completely and properly to your eyes, in this
book.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 293
in these two quotes, Abulafia presents together, with
equal value, two opposing stands; on the one hand, the pre-
existence of the world, the Torah, and the hidden layer within it,
and this stand is understood 'according to the effluence of the
Divine Intellect': on the other hand, he presents the world as
created, the Torah as new, and the plain meaning of the Torah
as 'according to the power of the human intellect.' It appears to
this writer that Abulafia's reference to 'the wondrous allusion,'
tips the scales in favor of the first stance, and he urges the stu-
dent to decipher the meaning of his allusions. We cannot expect
that such an unconventional view, during the Middle Ages, and,
particularly, the belief in the pre-existence of the world, would
find clear unequivocal formulation. If, indeed, Abulafia sees the
hidden aspect of the Torah as its main feature, we must expect
a great conflict between this and the level of plain meaning,
notwithstanding Abulafia's words regarding the truth of both
of these levels. In connection with this, it is in order to cite a
passage found in an anonymous manuscript that belongs to the
school of Abulafia: 215
The curse of the plain [meaning] is the blessing of the hidden
one, and the curse of the hidden {meaning] is the blessing of
the plain [one].
The view of the Torah as the Active Intellect, as we ex-
plained earlier, does not only transform the Torah to the cause
that actualizes the potential intellect; the Torah is also perceived
as the medium for the striving toward self-identification with
the Active Intellect. This identification is made possible due to
the partnership, as it were, between man and Torah. Both are
intellectual beings who can integrate into one another. In Sefer
ha-'Edut, 216 we find testimony to this:
And they said "a nation likened to a [burning] thorn bush":
on this condition did we receive the Torah at Sinai. For if it
be observed, it would appear as fire, as it is written, 217 "at
His right hand was the fiery law unto them." On Mount Sinai
God descended as in fiery flame, and Moses saw the Angel in
294 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
the fiery flame, and the Torah was written as black fire upon
white fire. 21 " Behold! We are fire, and also He is fire, and 21 "
"the house of Jacob shall be as a fire and the house of Joseph
a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, kindle in them and
they shall devour them." If they do not heed the Torah, all
this would occur in reverse, except for "and devour them" for
the Israelite [bumingl thorn bush burns with fire and is not
consumed.
The comparison of Israel to a burning bush and to fire, on
the one hand, and that between the Torah and fire, on the other,
is not original. Abulafia derives it from Midrashic sources, 2
or from commentaries 221 that make such comparisons. What is
new in his presentation is the idea that by means of upholding
the Torah we become likened to it. This conception parallels the
expression
the solitary -meditators' who come to be likened in their activ-
ity to the activity of the Active Intellect. 222
It is worth mentioning that the word 5 [-g— fire], as hav-
ing the numerical value of the word SVRH [surah-form, shape]
appears already in the writings of R. Isaac Ibn Latif, and later in
Abulafia and Gikatilla. The image of brightness can depict the
nature of the intellect of both man and Torah. Regarding this
we read in Sefer Sitrey Torah: 223
"The voice of God speaking from the fire," i.e., from within the
brightness.
In Sefer Mafteah ha-Sifirdt, 22 ' the idea of the identity of Torah
and man appears in a clearer form:
And as for us, with all of this, were it not for the perfect Torah
we would all be lost. And, indeed, by the mercies of God,
blessed be He, the Torah instructs us today, and all is depicted
before us: both the supernal and lower worlds. All is rec-
ognized by us in accordance with it, 225 if we are willing to
be drawn by it to the Divine prophetic intention and prop-
;, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 295
erly deepen our understanding as is appropriate. As the Sages
o.b.m. have said: 220 "invert it and turn it around turn it and
turn it again for everything is in it, and all of it is within you,
and all of you, in it; look into it and do not stray from it. . . "
for it illuminates everyone of the six directions, and all four
corners of the world, and she is at the center 227 of all [in the
form of its] numerologies.
The first part of this quote deals with the Torah as the
Active Intellect which contains within it all the forms of the
world. The second part speaks of man as he is contained in the
Torah, by virtue of it containing all the forms of the world. And
yet, on the other hand, man contains within himself the Torah,
by virtue of his being the intellect that intellectualizes the forms!
or the ideas, of the world. Abulafia relies on the text of Piracy
■Abdl 22 > that contains the saying "turn it and turn it again, for
everything is in it. . . ," adding to this formulation the expression
"and all is within you."
Regarding the path by which we achieve the state in
which the Torah is found within us, we learn from his words
in Sefer Sitrey Torah, 22 ' that:
22 letters of the Torah are the holiest of the holy. Regarding
them it is stated at the end of Tractate 'Abol, that our sages
said "Ben Bag Bag said: turn it, . everything is in it," and all
of you are in it. We have received and know beyond doubt
that the name mentioned twice [Bag Bag], at the end of this
tractate of spirituality, composed by the rabbis, the saints of the
land, o.b.m., was doubled in order to reveal wondrous secrets.
After we had been informed about all positive attributes and
all intellectual qualities, they returned to explain the epitome
of the intent, and alluded to it by saying 'turn' the 22 letters.
And they said that the entire world is within it [the Torah] and
all of us [are] in the Torah, and from within it do we see, and
from it we [do not] stray.
By means of the combination of the twenty-two letters,
from which the Torah is composed, man is enabled to reach the
296 The Meaning of ttie Torah in Abulafia's System
knowledge of the hidden essence of the Torah, and thereby to
identify himself with it. At the end of Sefer Silrey Torah 2 ™ we find
in various manuscripts a fragment that explains a poem com-
posed as the conclusion of this commentary on the secrets of
Maimonides' Guide. The commentary to this poem was appar-
ently written by Abulafia himself. Thus we read in the margin
of the verse:
•And son of Bag Bag, the enigma of enigmas, it is TTVY they
proclaim,'- meaning, son of BG BG = son of H' H'. Thus you
have 22, and these are 22 letters, the holiest of the holy. By
means of their combinations and revolutions the intellectual
will understand all riddles and all hidden things; as they o. b.
m. said: 'turn it and turn again, it seems that 231 all is in it.'
And so did they o. b. m. say: 233 "in the future the Holy One
Blessed be He will reveal the rationales of the Torah to Israel,"
and it is explained among us that this study is identical with
the study of letter-combination. "It is HVY they proclaim"-
meaning, TTVY is also numerically equivalent to 22, and they
proclaim enigmas and hidden matters as we have stated.
According to this text we were commanded to turn, i.e., to
combine, the twenty-two letters numerically equivalent to TTVY,
the true Name of God, and by means of this the 'rationales of
the Torah' will be made known to us, i.e., the intellectual view
of it. Accordingly, it [the Torah] would be within us and we
within it in that the intellect becomes actualized by means of
letter combinations. 233
Regarding letter combination there is another important
issue connected with our discussion: The rationales of the Torah
constitute its hidden aspect, i.e., the Oral Torah, which is arrived
at by reconstruction, i.e., re-arranging the order of the letters, and
constructing a new division of the words of the Torah. It may be
that (the expression) turn it is intended to point to the attempt
to arrive at the oral Torah. In other words, by contradicting the
revealed structure of the Torah, by means of letter combination
we are enabled to construct the hidden Torah and by this con-
Language, Torah, and Hermencutics in Abulafia 29/
struction the human intellect is also constructed. 23J The original
order of the Torah is seen, according to rnidrashic sources, 235 at
having a magical character:
The Torah and its sections were not given to us in their proper
order, for had they been given in their proper order, anyone
reading it would be able to resurrect the dead and enact mira-
cles. Therefore the order of the Torah was obscured. But it is
revealed before the Holy One Blessed be He.
Abulafia paraphrases this quote with two changes: 236
The entire Torah constitutes the names of the Holy One, blessed
be He, and in this there is neither addition nor diminution and
every letter is a world in itself. 237 Our sages o.b.m. have already
stated that had the Torah been given to us in its proper order,
man would be able to resurrect the dead. And God obscured
the order (so that it not be misused by the degenerates of the
generation), and revealed it to those who are worthy of being
able to resurrect the dead by its means.
The magical character of the source of this statement 'and
enact miracles' is missing, whereas the expression, 'resurrect the
dead' here implies to enliven the souls of mortals and transform
them to activated intellects. 236 The second difference, no less im-
portant, within this formulation, is the determination that the
true order of the Torah is revealed to those worthy of it; no
doubt, this revelation is embedded in the turning which Abu-
lafia spoke of in connection with the passage from Pirqe 'Abot.
H. Final Note
Before ending this discussion, it is fitting to note a par-
allel concerning the process of transformation from the stratum
of plain meaning to that of the secret meaning between Abu-
lafia and Averroes' theory of comprehension. The plain mean-
ing of the Torah contains within it imaginary phenomena: com-
298 The Meaning of the Torah in Abulafia's System
mandments and stories, and the enlightened one derives the
intellectual component of it by transforming these imaginative
forms into intelligibles. 2 " The meaning of this transformation
implies the emergence of the true Torah from potaitia to acta,
and therefore Torah SB'AL PH [Torah ie-be-'di pA— the Oral Torah]
is called Torah SBFV'AL {Torah se-be-jo'al— the actualized Torah].
Because Torah is received by the intellectual and imaginative
potencies, both together, the meaning of this transformation is
that the imaginary matters become transformed to intelligibles
and thereby they too reach their actualization. This process is,
in actuality, the theory of comprehension according to Averroes.
According to him, the potential intellect contains the imaginary
forms, and man's intellect becomes actualized when these imag-
ined forms are transformed into intelligibles. Just as the Torah
that was given to us is the reflection of the Active intellect in a
material faculty, i.e., the imagination, so too, according to Aver-
roes, the potential intellect is merely the corporeal, or potential
aspect of the Active Intellect. 240
1
Chapter Three
Exegetical Methods in the
Hermeneutical System of Abulafia
During the period when the Spanish Kabbalists began in-
terpreting the Torah in accordance with the fourfold method of
interpretation,' which later came to be known as PaRDeS, in
Italy, Abraham Abulafia developed a hermeneutic system based
on seven layers of meaning. As in the case regarding R. Moses
de Leon and the Zohar, so too with R. Abraham Abulafia, it is
difficult to discern with precision the origins of those methods
of exegesis. 2
Whereas a fourfold method of interpretation was wide-
spread among Christian commentators and may have served
as one of the sources from which the Spanish Kabbalists de-
rived their methods, sevenfold methods are unknown among
the classical conceptions of Christian hermeneutics. There were
scholars" who likened Abulafia's system to that of his Chris-
tian contemporary St. Bonaventura, who proposed a system of
seven levels in the ascent of the human intellect to the Divine
Intellect. 4 These levels, however, are not construed as modes of
Scriptural exegesis, and it is therefore as difficult to support such
a comparison as it is to disprove it.
By contrast, in Islam, in addition to the layer of the plain
meaning of the text, we find sevenfold methods of mystical in-
terpretation of the Koran.' It may be the case that here we can
300 Exegetiail Methods in the Hermeneutical System of Abulafia
discern a possible predecessor that, by various metamorphoses,
influenced the Jewish Kabbalist.
Abulafia's methods of Biblical exegesis have not yet re-
ceived their due scholarly attention 6 and it is therefore proper
to conduct a detailed discussion of them, in terms of their
hermeneutic uniqueness, bearing in mind also that it constitutes
the most detailed presentation of a system of Biblical commen-
tary known among Jewish sources.
Abulafia exhibits his system in many of his works that
were written after 1285. 7 It is possible that an additional dis-
cussion of this subject was in existence, included in a work by
Abulafia written apparently before 1285. I refer here to a com-
mentary to Sefer Yeslrah which is as yet unrecovered. 8 Based on
' the material in our possession it seems that this system was de-
veloped in Italy, as this is where Abulafia lived from the year
1279 until 1291, after which we lose track of him.
A. Pesat, or Plain Meaning
Abulafia's definition of the way of pesat derives from the
Talmud: 9
The [meaning of] the verse does not lose its plain sense.
The 'plain meaning' is oriented to "the masses of peo-
ple, women, and children."'" Essentially, this is the first way by
which one comes to understand Scripture:
and it is known that every human being at the beginning ol
his existence and in his youth is at that stage.
This is to say that "the masses" are likened to a 'child's
mentality' in that the intellect at that stage is undeveloped. The
plain meaning has clear pedagogic features; inasmuch as "man
is born a wild ass,"" he must be given
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 301
some traditions until he becomes an exemplar of the accepted
faith.
Therefore, two types of people are associated with the
method of plain meaning: those who have learned to read but
who are not capable of advancing beyond that level of knowl-
edge, and those who receive the plain message of the Torah from
others.
It is possible to describe the level of plain meaning as the
pure transmission of the tradition, whose function is to guide
those who are not capable of finding their path by means of their
own intellectual initiative. 12 In Sefer Mafieah ha-Hokmdt, 13 Abulafia
enters into an extended discussion on the nature of the national-
educational function of this method:
For if at the onset of one's receiving the tradition, one were not
given the articles of faith that would bring him under the wings
of the Divine Presence [Sekinah] and if one were not told of the
matters that are under the dominion of his Master [i.e., God],
His laws and statutes, and His Providence, to reward and to
punish, for everything is His, and is under His dominion, [and
if one were] not given the testimony regarding what occurred
to this or that one of His servants, who feared and loved Him,
that they were rewarded the goodly reward due them, in ac-
cordance with the aspirations of the righteous of the masses,
[and that He] brought retribution against evil deeds even before
death, upon those who rebelled against Him and transgressed
His will, and that He keeps grace for an extended time for the
sake of the upright, and grants it even to their offspring and
to the children of their offspring for many generations, and
grants the opposite to those who stray far from Him and make
Him angry; were it not for this Wondrous Divine Stratagem, a
Wisdom not open to question, it would not at all be possible,
the nature of man being what it is, that one would accept any
of the articles of faith without this [form of] compulsion and
verity.
302 Exegetical Methods in the Hertneneuticat System of Abulafia
The purpose of the method of plain meaning is the edu-
cation of the masses to perform good deeds and to cause sub-
mission to the authority of the law. Only those who are capable
of developing beyond this level may receive the "true articles of
the faith." This type of education is conducted by means of the
instilment of fear:
And because the Torah was to frighten those who in the future
were going to accept it, by means of reporting the retribution:
"And He will shut up the heavens so that there be no rain,
and the ground will not yield her fruit" 14 all in consequence
of the sin of idol worship, and then, the Scripture turns to the
reward: 13 "The Lord will open for you His good treasure the
heaven, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless
all the work of your hands," all of which are promises on the
physical plane. . . 16
The subject of fear is repeated in Abulafia's description of
plain meaning in "Osar 'Eden Cdnuz: 17
God, according to the plain meaning is conceived of in con-
nection with the verse 18 "God will do battle for you and you
shall hold your peace." This is the good and fitting way, as it
arose in the battles (!) against the Egyptians. They [the He-
brews] were afraid, after being released from bondage. When
they were observed behaving in this way, God let it be known
that this fear was indeed their ultimate goal, as it is written: 19
"Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work
for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you will
never see them again." This He said after saying "Fear not."
Thereupon He provided the reason for the removal of their
fear by saying, 20 "God will do battle for you"— i.e., if the war
were only between you and them, it would be proper that you
be in fear of them, as a slave is naturally in fear of his mas-
ter. But since in this case it is their Master and your Master
who is doing battle on your behalf, it is proper that you not
be afraid. Although it will not come to pass that [the roles
would) be reversed so that you will be their masters and they
your slaves, today your eyes will behold your being avenged
Language, Torah, ami Rermeneutics in Abulafia 303
of them for they will all die an unnatural death before your
eyes; you will behold and your hearts will be glad. And so too
did King Solomon say: 21 "Trust also in Him and He will bring
it to pass," meaning to say: that which you wanted to do He
will bring to pass and you will not need to do it. This matter
which we are discussing is derived from the plain meaning of
the verses discussed. This is to say that it is God who does
battle against His enemies, the enemies of the Name, and the
enemies of those who love Him.
This pedagogical passage tells us that within the plain
meaning of the Torah there also lies the experience of teaching
the masses conceptual truths in accordance with their level of
comprehension. An example of such an attempt is found in the
biblical account of the creation:
The articles of faith are causes that reinforce deeds, and there-
fore it is proper that they be related before anything else. This
was the Scriptural intent in the plain meaning of the narrative
of the work of creation, as related by God and by Moses. Since
the cycle of days which are sustained in their order is in ac-
cordance with the Divine intention it is therefore proper that
we be told of them, that there was one day at the beginning,
from which the seven days issued, which are the seven days
of creation. It is proper that we be informed that on each day
some particular thing was created. And as light is something
exalted to the senses and is useful to the eyes of all living be-
ings, who posses eyes, more than any other known boon, and
being an all-inclusive phenomenon it was necessarily created
first, ex nihilo, and having been created first, it is necessarily
more exalted than all others. For one who is not wise has no
way of construing the difference between essence and accident,
and not only this, but the mind might construe the existence
of darkness as necessary in order that there be light. For it
is only the wise who can know the great difference between
them. And as for the masses, it is not difficult to consider that
light would illuminate the entire earth without the body of the
sun [as its source], and to construe darkness as being some-
thing other than the absence of the light from the view of the
304 Exegetical Methods in the Herineneutical System of Abulafia
surface of the earth. Also, the masses would not know that the
Earth is spherical. They would construe it as a half-sphere or
as flat, as their eyes would dictate to them ... for they would
not observe the world structurally but would accept what they
are told, that such and such is the case. 22
Abulafia's understanding of the plain meaning of the
Torah as a pedagogic device for the education of the masses
by means of threat and promise on the one hand, and of the
communication of truths that the vulgus can understand, on the
other, is similar to the opinion of R. Isaac Albalag, an Averroist
thinker at the end of the thirteenth century, on the nature of the
Torah:
The essential intention of the Torah is the success of the masses,
their departure from evil, and their being taught the truths up
to the point that their minds can understand. For due to their
lack of knowledge and the limitation of their comprehension,
they lack the capacity to understand the essence of the intelli-
gibles and apprehend them as they are, but only in corporeal
forms to which they are accustomed. . .The faith of the masses
which results in agreement because of hope and fear. . . and the
success of the masses consists in imaginary forms of behavior
and in performing deeds that promise the hope of reward, due
to the different types of service, and the fear of punishment,
[which brings about] their departure from matters that would
bring about the dissolution of society, and the disadvantage of
the few in the hands of the few. 23
Another feature of the plain meaning is its involvement in
matters of sense perception. This viewpoint appears in the sec-
tions quoted above, but is more clearly expressed in Abulafia's
work Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot: 24
The plain meaning involves the particulars. This is because the
plain meaning is based on what can be sensed, and it is only
particulars that may be sensed.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 305
B. Perus or Interpretative Commentary
This level includes the oral tradition's interpretation of
the written Torah, i.e., the Mishnah, Talmud, and Targumim,
namely, the Aramaic translations of the Bible. Its function is
to explain those passages where the plain meaning of Scripture
is unacceptable to commonsense. In Seba' Netibot ha-Torah, (p.2),
Abulafia illustrates the function of interpretation:
The Mishnah and Talmud explain the plain meaning of the
Torah in such instances as [the meaning of terms such as] "un-
circumcised heart', which the Torah commands us to circum-
cise, as it is written: 25 "And you shall circumcise the foreskin
of your hearts" - for according to the plain meaning it would
never be possible to fulfill such a commandment. Therefore,
it needs further elucidation. It is thus explained in terms of
the verses: 26 "And the Lord your God will circumcise your
hearts and the hearts of etc.," and further, it is written 27 "And
you will return unto the Lord your God." Thus the circumci-
sion of the heart refers to embarking upon the path of return
to the Blessed God, and is unlike the act of circumcision per-
formed on the eighth-day old child, which, contrary to what
the uncircumcised of heart and foreskin may think, cannot be
interpreted as repentance. Thus, the circumcision of the child
must be taken literally, and indeed, it serves many functions.
According to Abulafia, what we find in the Talmud are
the authoritative interpretations of those sections of the Torah
that are difficult to understand according to their plain sense
but which do not cancel the plain meaning of the verse, as the
Christians have done. 28 Abulafia's view, as reflected in the above
quote, was influenced by R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, who in the in-
troduction to his commentary on the Torah, 29 writes about
the methods of the uncircumcised sages who say that the entire
Torah is [nothing but] allegoresis and parables.
The same commentator discusses the necessity of inter-
preting the verse "and you shall circumcise the foreskin of your
306 Derus and Haggadah
hearts" as based on a "figure of speech." Another point that
indicates Ibn Ezra as Abulafia's source is the former's determi-
nation that the nose with its two nostrils was created for the sake
of "four functions" which parallels the expression by Abulafia
regarding the circumcision serving "many functions." Whereas
lbn Ezra claims, however, that the Talmud in its present form
was authored by sages who were expert in the natural sciences,
and that it is incumbent upon us to study the natural sciences as
they are derived from the Talmud, 30 Abulafia considers the Tal-
mud as an interpretation of the Torah that solves only problems
relevant to the performance of the miswot.
Commenting on the verse in Ex.l5:3, Abulafia makes use
of the second method of commentary: 31
Regarding the interpretation of this verse, we may say that it
instructs us that God, may He be exalted, does not forsake the
sons of man, but watches over them like a man conducting
a war. This being so, it is fitting that He be called 'man of
war,' i.e., powerful hero, master of war. From this verse we
receive confirmation that He is indeed so. Observe, that the
Targum interpreted this as 'Mare Nashdn Kerabaya ["The Master
of Victory in War"]; i.e., the Master who is victorious in [all]
battles.
C. Derus and Haggadah, or
Homiletics and Narrative Legend 32
This method involves exegesis by means of broadening
the meaning of the verse and augmenting it with details that
appear to be missing. In Seba< Netibdt }ia-T6rah (p.3), Abulafia
says, regarding the third method, that it is:
like what the sages o.b.m. explained: Why on the second day
of creation the verse did not proclaim "it is good"; because the
function of the water was not complete.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 307
Abulafia here refers to the statement by R. Samuel ben
Nahman, recorded in Genesis Rabbah, 4; in answering the question,
Why, on the second day of creation, did the verse not state "it
is good"?
he says:
"because the functioning of the water was not complete."
Homily, too, is intended for the masses:
This method is called Derus (exposition or homily], to instruct
us that by its means it is possible to investigate and expound
also to the masses, to the ears of all.
By contrast, the designations haggadah or >aggaddh refer, ac-
cording to this system, to the idea of attractiveness, i.e., a ren-
dering of the content that works well in its ability to draw the
hearts to the proper path. It is the pleasant narrative to which
the listener is drawn and wants to adhere. 33 In 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, M
Abulafia exemplifies the various exegetic possibilities that avail
themselves to the methods of Derus and Haggadah:
By means of Derus and Haggadah, the word "is" ['man'] refers to
[the angel] Gabriel, 35 as it is written 36 "And Gabriel the man
pis]. . . ;" and it is written 37 "and a man ['is] found him. . . ;" al-
ternatively we may say that =is refers to Adam, as it is written' 8
"To this one we shall give the name >isah [woman] for this one
was taken from man pis]..." "Or we may say that 'is refers
to Moses, 39 or, that it refers to the Messiah, 40 as it is written 41
"Behold a man ['is] Semah is his name and from beneath him
shall sprout. . . " And so too, 12 "God is his name," for in the
future time when the Messiah will come, he will be called [by
the name of] God. This is the name the Righteous Lord will
bestow upon him. To conclude, [we may say that] there is no
end to the matters of Derus.
308 Derus and Haggadah
The three modes of exegesis discussed above constitute a
coherent group within the system of the seven paths explicated
by Abuiafia. The characteristic that unites them is the fact that
the masses make use of them to understand Scripture. In his
epistle Seha' Netibot ha-Tordh (p.3), the author writes:
And the masses will understand [the sacred Scripture] by
means of one of these three methods. Some verses will be
taken literally, some will be explained [Peruss] and some will
be expounded upon homiletically [Derus].
However, in Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot, we read: 43
The Torah was given because it instructs us for any and all pur-
poses by means of three methods: the way of grace [Hesed] the
way of righteousness [Sedeq] and the way of prophecy [Nebw
dh\. By their means three types of people are inspired and for
each type there is a [particular] method, corresponding to his
ability and interest. The Torah first needed to be whole for the
sake of the house of the righteous in the three methods: the first
ones are dependent on the plain meaning and their like. . . and
second to it is its Peruss (interpretation) for the words of inter-
pretation are also taken in their plain meaning; and third, the
derus and 'aggdddh, when they are understood as their plain
meaning as well. This is the case, for the masters of the plain
meaning did not divulge to the masses that within their words
there is a secret meaning, nor did the masters of interpretation
and homily. It is therefore proper to include these three meth-
ods under one rubric, bearing the name of the first method, for
they are all the plain meaning.
This formulation corresponds to the description recorded
in the previous section which sees the written Torah in terms
of Scriptural verse, Mishnah, and Talmud. In Sefer Mafteah ha-
Hokmdt, 44 Abuiafia includes other works in this category:
We have already stated regarding these worthy matters, expla-
nations which suffice to explain their intention in accordance
with the plain meaning and in accordance with the interpre-
<e, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abuiafia 309
tation and in accordance with their homiletic and aggadic in-
terpretations. [In this category we include] the commentaries
of the illustrious Rashi, the plain-meaning commentaries of
Ibn Ezra, the commentaries on the Torah by Nahmanides, and
Leqah Tob by Rabbi Tuvia o.b.m., and [the commentary of Judah
ben Samuel] Ibn Balam, and many others like them within [the
Midrashim], Genesis Kabbah, and Tanhuma, and so on among
Midrassim and 'Aggadot.
Abulafia's words regarding the commentaries of Ibn Ezra
and Nahmanides are surprising, for as we indicated in the pre-
vious chapter Abuiafia derives from these two commentators
many of his intellectual conceptions concerning the Torah. A
possible explanation of this classification is found in Abulafia's
Seba c Netibot ha-Tordh (p.4). There he claims that Ibn Ezra's com-
mentary expresses an attitude antipathetic to gematria [numerol-
ogy], because Ibn Ezra wanted
to obscure the secret. And in this case he had just cause, in
accordance with what we mentioned regarding the first three
methods of exposition. For his (i.e., Ibn Ezra) work by and
large was written for the masses, with the exception of count-
able sections where he explicitly states that he is referring to a
secret, and the intellectual will understand "and, if he merits,
he will discern."
Structurally, Nahmanides' commentary is similar to that
of Ibn Ezra, in that the hints to secret doctrines are few, and
most of his commentary is oriented to the explication of the
plain meaning.
D. Philosophical Allegory
The fourth exegetical method "instructs as to the esoteric
meaning that tends toward the opinions of the philosophers". 45
According to Abuiafia, those who follow this method,
310 Derus and Haggadah
removed most of the Torah from [the level of] plain meaning,
and were quite aware of this. And they tread the path of phi-
losophy and said that the entire Torah [consists of) parables
and enigmas.'" 5
In a similar vein, in the epistle Seba< Nctibot ha-T6rdh (p.3),
we read :
And the fourth method consists of the parables and enigmas
of all the [sacred] texts... and the few elite will comprehend
that these are parables and will investigate them and provide
equivocal names as these matters are explained in the Guide for
the Perplexed.
We will see presently how Abulafia explains the verse
from Ex,15:3, based on this method:
The fourth method is based on the procedure of philosophy
wherein the power of the intellect is denoted by [the name of]
God, and they would state that He is constantly at war with
the limbs of the body. The higher powers of the soul are called
'the children of Israel' and the corporeal powers are referred to
as 'the Egyptians'. It is worthy of every wise sage to be drawn
to Him who has ultimate victory, and after the One regarding
Whom we would accept that no one can stand against Him in
war. 47
As we have seen in the previous chapter, the above quote
is Abulafia's own interpretation of Ex.l5:3: the intellect battles
against the powers of the body. This level of commentary cor-
responds to the second of the three types of man mentioned
above: the Saddiq (righteous-Sedtq), the Hasid (pious — Hesed) and
Ndbr (prophet — Nebu-dh). Abulafia sees in the sage, the type of
person who makes use of allegory. He describes the allegorist's
attitude toward the plain meaning as follows:
According to the opinions of the perfect and pious philosophers
the plain meaning, commentary, Midrash, and Haggadot are
all parables and enigmas, and it is thusly that the philosopher
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 311
will investigate the plain meaning. And he will recognize that
those words are said to fools. My indication of this is by virtue
of the fact that after little reflection it is clear that it is not
the intent of the Author of the Scripture to inform us of the
literal story of [for example] Adam, Eve and the Serpent - that
these three particular characters be taken at face value. For
upon little reflection, if these three individuals be taken at face
value the story would indeed be laughable, in accordance with
human nature. And clearly it is not the intent of the Torah to
relate laughing matters. And our sages have already hinted at
this when they said, 48 "that the Holy One, blessed be He was
laughing at the camel and riding him." This pronouncement
indicates the wholesomeness of the wisdom of our sagacious
and pious philosophers o.b.m. and it directs our attention to
the fact, that when the philosopher sees that his intellect does
not suffer the plain meaning, he investigates its inner sense
[penhniyuld], and he already knows that it is possible to abstract
the [allegorical] meaning from the literal sense, even in the
event that the one speaking was a fool who only intended his
words to be taken literally. 49
The four methods explained above correspond, accord-
ing to Abulafia, to the fourfold method of exegesis of Scripture
developed by the Christians. In his epistle Scba< Netibot ha-Tdrah
(p.3), we read:
The four paths mentioned. . .all of the nations make use of
them; the masses [make use of ] the first three and their sages
[make use of ] the fourth.
This observation is indeed noteworthy for this is the first
explicit testimony that the fourfold method of Christian exege-
sis was known to the Jews, and that comparison between the
Jewish and Christian hermeneutic methods, according to this
Kabbalist, bears out their similarity. These words of Abulafia,
which scholars 50 have not yet noted, strengthen the assumptions
of Bacher and Scholem that the Kabbalists developed their ex-
egetical methods in consonance with Christian exegesis. 51
512 Derus and
We must, however, bear in mind that Abulafia uses the
plural form— "all of the nations" (kol ha-'ummot) — and if we may
derive from this that the Jewish Kabbalists were aware of the
hermeneutic methods of the Christians, we can also infer that
the widespread distribution of the fourfold method was also in
use outside the Christian community, i.e., among the Muslims. 52
Before we go on to explain the fifth method, it is appropri-
ate that we compare these four methods of Abulafia with those
found in the writings of his disciple, R. Joseph GUcatilla. In
his commentary to Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, 53 Gikatilla
divides the methods of Scriptural exegesis into four categories:
Peruss (meaning— interpretation), Be'ur (explanation), Peser (clar-
ification) and Denis (homily-exposition).
In our opinion, there is a great similarity between these
four methods and the four methods of Abulafia explained above.
Peruss, according to Gikatilla, is explained as follows:
The Peruss consists in distinguishing each word from words
similar to it by the accepted means.
According to G. Scholem, 54 the implications of this term
correspond to what the Kabbalists call Pesdt [plain meaning],
and it corresponds to Abulafia's first method. The term Peser is
explained by Gikatilla as follows:
The term Peser ddbdr (clarification of a matter] implies that
(there is] something that the reader finds difficult to explain.
When he partially understands the matter, but does not under-
stand the entire intention [of it], it is called Peser, as in mdyim
poserim — tepid water.
The designation of the term Peser as a method used to
answer questions that arise out of the investigation of the verse,
corresponds to Abulafia's second method, in that the Peruss [of
Abulafia's methods] is used in solving problems connected with
the proper understanding of verses such as
Language, Torah, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 313
"and you will circumcise the foreskin of your hearts."
Derus is explained by Gikatilla in great detail:
Derus denotes homily on the plain meaning, but not on the
inner meaning. [Thus] it is a word composed of two words
'De Res' ('of the poor'), since for a poor person a small coin
is sufficient, whereas for the wealthy, unless you give him a
great gift he will not thank you. So too for the person void of
the secrets of Torah: if you expound to him according to the
manner of the plain meaning of the Torah, it will suffice him.
The correspondence between Peruss and Abulafia's third
method is clear. In both cases Derus refers neither to secrets nor
to parables, 55 and its appraisal is of relatively low value, as is
implied by the parable of the poor person and the coin. Be>ur
(explanation) is defined as the
passing on of the inner secrets that flow from the source of
Divine wisdom like into a wellspring of explanation; to know
each secret unto its verity.
This method, in our opinion, corresponds to the remain-
ing methods of Abulafia, allegory and the subject of the Hebrew
letters and their combination.
E. The Method of Sefer Yesirah
The fifth method is the first of three paths that constitute
Abulafia's Kabbalistic hermeneutic approach. In his work 'Osdr
'Eden Gdnuz he calls it the Kabbalistic method based on the Sefer
Yesirdh. 56 However, his description of it within the framework of
Seba' Netibot ha-Tordh (p.3) is different:
An example of this method is the lesson that the Torah instructs
us in its use of the large-case letter Bet [3] of the word Beresir,
the opening word of the Torah, which must be written larger
314 Derux ,nht
than the other letters.'' 7 So too, as regards the twenty-two large
case letters as they appear within the twenty-four books of the
Scripture, such as the Het of we-Hdrdh 5S which must also be
written so (n) 59 So too, as regards the two inverted letters Nun
of "And it came to pass when the Ark set forth. . . " fi0 which
appear there [3 3] and so too many others such as these, as they
were received according to the Masoretic tradition, regarding
the instances of difference between the form as it is written and
the form as it is read, and orthographic variants [as regards the
presence or absence of the letters Yod and Waiv in words], and
cases where letters are enswathed or written crooked. 61
This description corresponds well with the Masoretic tra-
dition, and it is difficult to explain its association with the Sefer
Yesh-dh. Furthermore, when Abulafia gives an example of this
method, to explain the verse in Ex. 3:15, he chooses the expla-
nation of Sefer ha-Bdhir and says as follows:
And the fifth method is by means of the Kabbalah, in terms of
what is written in Sefer iia-Bdhir regarding a king who possessed
many fine palaces, and gave names to each of them, and each
palace possessed a fine quality unique to itself. He said "I
will give a palace to my son — the one whose name is "Alef."
Also the one whose name is "Yod" is good; also the one whose
name is "Sin".
"What did he do? He gathered all three together, and made
from them a Name, and made one house. It is also said there
[Bdhir] "'Alef is the head, Yod is second to it, and Sin includes
the entire world. Why does Sin include the entire world? Be-
cause (it is a [prominent] letter in the word) Tesubah" (repen-
tance).
This section contains a precise quote from Sefer ha-Bahir
(paragraph 26 of the Margolioth edition), 62 and raises many
questions. First and foremost, does Abulafia consider the
method of exegesis based on the Sefirot to be the level following
after the allegorical method? The quote from Sefer ha-Bahir has
a definite theosophical connotation: The three letters (Alef Yod
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 315
Sin) correspond to the first three supernal Sefirot: Keter, Hokmdh
and Bindh (Crown, Wisdom, Understanding). 1 ^ Indeed, it is diffi-
cult to consider that the purpose for choosing this section of Sefer
lia-Bdhir, to illustrate this particular form of exegesis is because
of its allusions to the Sefirot.
Comparison between the words of Sefer ha-Bahir and the
description of the fifth method, as it appears in the epistle Seki<
Netibot ha-Tordh indicates one similarity: Both refer to single let-
ters. Based on this we can understand why this method is called
the "Method of Sefer Yesirdh," for in Sefer Yesirdh we also find dis-
cussions of isolated letters. The question arises, however, why
does Abulafia not mention Sefer ha-Bahir in his Seba< Netibot ha-
Tordh? It seems to us that it was not the theosophical content
of the section that drew Abulafia's attention, but the fact that
within it he found an explanation based on isolated letters. For
this reason he refrained from quoting a discourse with theo-
sophic implications when years later he returned to the topic of
exegesis in Seba c Netibot ha-Tordh. Instead he chose the Masoretic
tradition as an example of the fifth method. This method is re-
served for the Kabbalistic sages of the nation of Israel. In Seba<
Netibot ha-Tordh (p.3), we read:
This fifth [method] is the first of the levels of interpretation re-
served only for the Kabbalistic sages of Israel, and it constitutes
a method different from those used by the masses. It is also dif-
ferent from the methods used by the sages of the nations of the
world, and differs also from the methods of the Rabbinic sages
of Israel who make use of the [first] three methods. . . and none
of these [the letters] veritable matters was revealed to any other
than our holy nation. Those who tread the path of the nations
will mock [this method] and will consider them to have been
written for nought and are merely [examples of] the mistakes
of the [Masoretic] tradition. Yet, they are gravely mistaken.
It is worth noting that the method of the Massorah, which
Ibn Ezra considers the lowest level of understanding the Torah, 64
326 Derus and Haggadah
is transformed by Abulafia into one of the important methods
of his exegetical system.
F. Restitutio Literarum
This method is explained in various of Abulafia's writings
as follows:
The method of returning the letters to their prime-material state
until they make possible the issuing of new forms. 65
Elsewhere we read:
The sixth method [consists of] returning all the letters to their
prime-material state and you, i.e., [the practitioner] give them
form in accordance with [your] insight. 66
In his work 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, 67 we find an illustration of
this method in a commentary to the verse Ex. 15:3:
The sixth [is] the method of returning the letters to their prime-
material state and giving them form in accordance with the
power of wisdom that confers form. This is the inner path
of the Kabbalah and is called among us by the general name
'the wisdom of letter-combination' which includes seventy lan-
guages. Regarding this [method] it is stated in Sefer Yesirdk:
'Twenty-two cardinal letters; He engraved them and hewed
them and weighed them and permuted and combined them
and formed by their means the souls of all formed beings and
[the souls] of all that in the future will be given form.'
This matter is like taking the word "YS ['is— man] and con-
sidering it as SY' [i.e., a word composed of the same letters,
meaning 'Summit'] based on its primary weight [equivalent
letter and numerical value]. In addition, it involves weighing
it with its established scales [i.e., equivalent numerical value
which yields] RF'EL [angel Raphael] or SBT [Sebet— staff], or
KYRH [kirah— wax] or YQR' \yiqre— will occur] or QRYH [qeri>
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 317
ah~a call], BKTR, HSPG, SHG SSD SVH [sdweh— equal], or
KRHG, KRZD, QRVH [karuha— they called her], HUKR [hukar-
recognized], and so on. Or, we can consider it [i.e., 'YS-'is-
man] as 311 [its numerical value], as single letters, Alfin or
Betin or Gimlin, etc.. . .and so on with all their combinations.
This also can be done with any word of any conventional lan-
guage.
Another method is substitution [hatnardh], for instance, to take
the word YS, and by means of the A->B, G->D method [i.e.,
a letter is substituted by the following letter in the 'Alef Bet
series], it becomes BKT, which can be recombined to form [the
word] KTB [ketdb- writing], or we may use the A-*T, B-+S
method of substitution [where the first letter becomes the last,
second letter next to the last, etc.] and yield TMB, and so on
with the other methods of substitution.
Indeed, the essence of letter combination is that the substi-
tution is acceptable only if it involves the process of natural
'revolutions'. This refers to the substitution of the first [letter]
for the last, the last for the first, and the middle to the last and
the first for the middle, and the middle to the first. For ex-
ample BZH-*HZB, etc. . . everything within its similitude, for
example, as regards the verse [Ex. 3:15], we would take the
first letters of each word, Y'MYS, recombine them and yield
the word *YSYM [>isim] [a class of angels and according to
Maimonides] a term denoting the Active Intellect. So too, we
take the last letters of each word of the verse, HSHHV, which
has the secret meaning of YS ('is-man) and refers to Divine
Providence (HSGHH). Together, the first and last letters yield
[the words] HHSBVN SVH (ha-hesbon saweh-(he sum is equal),
also MASH MRKBH (Mawseh Merkdbah-works [speculation of
the Divine Chariot], 'MS 'SM, [the combination of the three
'mother letters'] HRKBT SM BSM [harkdbat sem be-sem-ihe com-
bination of one Name with another], YHVH BSM SDY, SDY
BSM [Sadday within the name Terra gramma ton]. The inner
letters of the verse [Ex. 15:3] are HVY LHM HVM which can
be rearranged to form WY HMLHMH [wdwi ha-milhdmdh-ihe
connecting points of the war (?)].
318 Derus and Haggadah
Taken all together, the three numerical values [of the first,
middle and last letters] are 361, 321, 150, which yields alto-
gether MNYN HHSBVN HSVVH [mini/an lut-hesbdn ha-saweh—
the sum of the equation is equal]. And its secret, the sum
832 = NSMH BNFS [nesdmdh ba-nefes— the soul is in the ani-
mating power of the body], NFS BNSMH [nefes be-nesdmdh-the
animating power of the body is in the soul], and many other
equivalents may be derived.
Indeed, the secret of YS MLHMH = HY HSM MVEl'is
milhdmdh - hay ha-sem male'- man of war = the full life of the
name] SMV YLHM [semo yilahem-rlis Name will do battle]. Be-
hold, the secret of YHVH YS MLHMH is QDS LYHVH [YHVH
'is' milhdmdh= dados lyhvh: Tetragrammaton is a man of war =
sanctified into Tetragrammaton] YHVH SMV [YHVH semo] •
YH times YH, yielding 225, and VH times VH = 121. Com-
bine 2(00) with 1(00) to yield 300 [Sin] and 2(0) with 2(0)_= 40
(Mem) and 5 with 1 = 6 [Wav] i.e., SMV. Thus, YHVH = SMV.
In working with this sixth method you will discover wonders
upon wonders in each and every matter.
In the section just quoted, Abulafia illustrates various
techniques belonging to the sixth method:
1. Cematria (numerology): IS (man) = RFTiL (Raphael) 68 =
SET (Sebet— staf) = KVRH (Koreh— occurrence or reader).
HVKR (hitter— recognized) = 311.
2. Temurdh (substitution): IS within the A-.B G->D substitution
method becomes KTB (ketdb - writing) and within the A-»T
B^S substitution method becomes TMB (no meaning) (•emet
koia).
3. Sent} (letter combination): a technique whereby the position
of the letters is rearranged without changing the letters them-
selves. In accordance with this method, the verse Ex. 15:3:
"YHVH IS MLHMH YHVH SMO" is rearranged. First, by
taking the first letters of each word YMYS = ISYM (-ism)
I
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 319
which denotes the Active Intellect. By taking the last letters
of each of the words, HSHHC\ which has the numerical value
of 321, we yield the word HSGHH (lutsgdltdli— Divine Provi-
dence). The term "isTm which denotes the Active Intellect is
related to Divine Providence. Thus Abulafia combines 'ISYM
= 361 and HSGHH = 321 together, equaling 682, yielding M
'ASH MRKBH (Ma'aaseh Merkdbdh- the account of the Divine
Chariot) = 'ASM + 'AMS (the three essential letters of the 'Alef
Bet according to Sefer Yesirdh which represent (A = air; S • fire;
M = water) = (SM BSM sent be-sim — a name within a name)
= YHVH BSM SDY (YHVH be-sem Sarfday-Terragrammaton
within the name Sadday) = SDY BSM YHVH (iadday be-sem
YHVH- Sadday within the Name Tetragramma-ton) = HSBVN
SWH 'htsbdn idweh- equal value). What he intends to say is
that by means of combining one Name with another (SM
BSM), i.e., by means of employing Abulafia's technique, we
are enabled to attain a relationship with the Active Intellect
(ISYM), which is a sufficient cause for activating the Divine
Providence (HSGHH).
We now come to the middle letters of the verse: WY
LHM HVM = WY HMLHMH (wawc ha-milMmah- the con-
necting points of the war) = 150. The sum total of the first,
last.and middle letters, 150 + 321 + 361 = 832 = MNYN
HHSBVN HSWWH (minyan na-hesbon lut-sawueh- the sum of
the equal equation) = HNSMH BNFS (ha-nesdmah ba-nefes - the
soul is within the animating power) = HNFS BNSMH (lut-nefes
be-neiimah- the animating power is within the soul). Abulafia
considers the wordslS MLHMH (•«,- mtlhamdh- man of war)
which equals HY HSM MLB (Hay Ha-Sem Mdl'e- the full life
of the Name) > SMV YLHM (Semo yildhem-His Name will do
battle). He then makes further use of Gematria; YHVH IIS
MLHMH = 460 = QDVS LYHVH (addos lo-YHVH-sanctified
unto God Tetragrammaton).
320 Derus and Haggadah
4. By means of the multiplication technique he derives that
YHVH - SMV (Tetragrammaton « His Name) YH multiplied
by YH - 225, WH times WH = 121-346 = S = 300M = 40
W = 6.
In the epistle Sheba< Nelibot tia-Tordh (p.4), Abulafia lists
the above-mentioned techniques, in addition to others that are
within the parameters of the sixth method:
And under the rubric of this method are Gematria [numerol-
ogy], Notariqon [initials], Hillufim [exchange of letters accord-
ing to a certain pattern], Temurdh [substitution], Hillufey hillufm
[ongoing exchanges] and Hillufey hillufin up to ten operations
of exchanges. And we stop at ten [exchanges] due to the inher-
ent weakness of the human intellect for regarding exchange, to
which there is no limit-
When we compare this method with the fifth one we
find that the two oppose each other. For whereas the Masoretic
method is careful in preserving the exact form of the Scriptural
text in all its details, the primary technique of the sixth method
consists in breaking apart the existing order of the letters, and
"returning the letters to their prime-material state." One who
employs it breaks apart the unique form within which a word
appears in the text, and "liberates" the letters from their ini-
tial meaning, and through a series of operations one introduces
within the matter which lacks form (i.e., the letters) a new form
and a new meaning. The source of the interpretation is the mind
of the interpreter, who is regarded as donator formarum, and the
source is not within the material, i.e., the letters which in and of
themselves are not bound to particular forms.
In this sense, the sixth method also differs from the fourth,
the allegorical method. For whereas in the fourth method, the
commentator is construed as discovering the allegorical meaning
originally hidden within the verse, and his mind is merely a
tool, according to the sixth method the verse receives a meaning
whose source is within the mind of the commentator.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 321
One who employs the sixth method is likened to the Ac-
tive Intellect, who gives form to matter. In the epistle Seba' Netibdl
ha-Torah (pp. 3-4), we read regarding the sixth method that:
It is suitable to those who practice concentration** 9 who wish
to approach God, in a closeness such that His activity —may
He be blessed — will be known in them to themselves, and it
is they who come to be likened in their activity to the func-
tioning of the Active Intellect. 70 And the name of this method
includes the secret of the seventy languages (SB C IM LSVNVT—
(sjb'tm lesonot) which is numerically equivalent to SYRWF H
'OTYWT [seruf ha-'dtiyyot— letter combination] 71 . . .since they
[i.e., the operations of exchange] are likened to the particular
forms, which are endless. And although as far as their ma-
terial level [is concerned] they are all one, their forms change
and appear to him [the practitioner], this one following that
secret one.
G. The Method of the Names
that Leads to Prophecy
The seventh method is, according to Abulafia "the holy
of holies."
This method is called Holy and Sanctified. 72
It is called the Holy of Holies and is the inner sense of the
inner meaning. 73
The aim of this method is to bring the contemplator of
the Torah to the state of prophecy, by means of transforming the
verses of the Torah, or other sentences, into Divine Names. 74
We will now consider Abulafia's description of this
method in his 'Osar 'Eden Ganuz: 75
[this method] is divided into many sub-sections. Among these
[the verse Ex.l5:3] YHVH IS MLHMH YHVH SMV may be
322 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
construed as one word, or [we may] consider each and every
letter as it stands by itself. In accordance with these and similar
methods, which do not involve the transposition of letters, you
may regard the entire Torah as Names of the Holy One, blessed
be He. It is as if you yourself create the words and their con-
ventional meaning. Know that when you rise up to this most
exalted level, which is attainable to the understanding intellec-
tual sage by means of divine aid, it would be an easy matter
to make an effort to adequately grasp this method, and then
you will immediately succeed in all that you endeavor and
God will be with you. This is the method which I called 'the
Seal within a Seal' [hotdm be-tdk hotdm], and it impresses the
seal by means of the engravings of the seal, they considered it
also as Holy unto the Lord. Thus you will be worthy of being
called IS MLHMH YHVH SMW [a man of war whose name
is God]. For from war are bom both t ONG [ c 6neg — pleasure]
and NG'A [nega<— plague] [citation from Sefer Yesirdh]. These
corresspond to the war between the constellation of Aries, born
of VH [of the Tetragrammaton] and the constellation of YH [of
the Tetragrammaton]— and [you will] know them.
This method bases itself on the transformation into Di-
vine Names of linguistic phenomena which are in need of in-
terpretation. In the above-mentioned quote the verse was first
transformed into a Name of God, and afterwards each and every
letter was construed as a Divine Name. The first approach de-
rives from a conception noted in the previous chapter, according
to which the entire Torah is a Name of God. 76 Here, one verse is
considered in its entirety, as a Name of God. Abulafia's second
approach is also not original with him. In Penis Habddidh de-rabbi
'Aqiba, we read: 77
At the beginning of the [operation] one recites the Tetragram-
maton. And as for the letters of the Name each and every one
is a Name [as if it were written by] itself. Know, that the Yod
is a Name, and YH is a name, and YHW is a name. The Yod
by itself is a name to inform you that each and every letter is
a name in and of itself.
Language, Torah, and Hermencutics in Abulafia 323
Elsewhere in this work we read:
72 names, from 22 letters, which are 22 names of each and
every letter of the Torah. 7,t
In both of these approaches Abulafia's intention is iden-
tical: the transformation of the Scriptural verse, or of the Torah
itself into Names of God. This act of transformation is likened
to the creation of new words:
You create the words and confer onto them [or innovate] a
[new] meaning.
In a similar vein, the seventh method is so defined:
You should consider that [it is] you [who] decided on its mean-
ing, and you [who] created it in accordance with your wish.™
Whereas in Sefer Mafteah ha-Hobno^ Abulafia writes re-
garding the seventh method:
It is proper for those who walk on this path to produce on her
behalf a new universe, a language and an understanding.
Abulafia's use of descriptive verbs is very interesting in
this regard. Twice he uses the verb 'create' [bara>\ and once 'in-
novate'. Can it be that these expressions indicate a function dif-
ferent from "the provision of new forms" of the sixth method?
For while in the sixth method the practitioner is likened to the
Active intellect, can it be that through the 'creation' or 'new'
words the practitioner is likened to God Himself?
In the section quoted from Vsdr "Eden Gdnuz we find a
sentence that contains magical implications:
. . . when you rise up to this most exalted level, which is attain-
able to the understanding intellectual sage by means of divine
aid it would be an easy matter to make an effort to adequately
324 The Method of the Names Tliat Leads to Prophecy
grasp this method, and then you will immediately succeed in
all that you endeavor, and God will be with you.
This magical element is also indicated in the expression
"to make on her behalf a new universe..." This idea of Abulafia
is apparently related to a section in Midrds 'Otiyyot de-rabbi 'Aqiba,
version I: 81
In the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will reveal His
Explicit Name to each and every one of the righteous in the
world to come. By its means are created a new heaven and
a new earth, in order that each and every one will be able to
create a new universe, as it is written: 82 "I will give them an
eternal Name that will not be cut off." How do we know that
this refers to the explicit Name (the Tetragrammaton]? Because
it is written here 'an Eternal Name' and it is written 83 "This
is my Name forever." Just as there this refers to the Explicit
Name, here too it refers to the Explicit Name.
Whereas according to the Midrash it is God Himself who
reveals His Explicit Name, according to Abulafia, this Name
is revealed also by means of the correct investigation into the
Torah.
An additional proof-text which indicates a parallel be-
tween the Midrash and Abulafia may be found in the above-
quoted Midrash, in the section that immediately precedes the I
one just quoted: 04
In the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will bestow His
Name on each and every righteous one.
This idea is formulated by Abulafia as:
Then you will be called a "man of war" whose name is YHVH.
We know from the Midrash: 85
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 325
R. Samuel bar Nahman said in the name of R. Yohanan "three
are called by the Name of the Holy One Blessed be He: the
righteous, the Messiah, and Jerusalem."
Whereas the Midrash states that the righteous will be
called by the Name of God and will receive the Explicit Name
and will be able to create a new universe, Abulafia refers here to
the Messiah who will be called by the Name of God and will be
able to create a new universe, for according to what we quoted
earlier from Abulafia, "the righteous" denotes the lowest of the
three spiritual levels.
Before we continue our discussion on this matter we will
present the description of the seventh method as it appears in
the epistle Seba' Netibot ha-Tordh (p.4):
The seventh is a unique method which includes ail the other
methods. It is the holiest of the holy, appropriate only for the
prophets. It is the sphere that encompasses every thing, and
with the apprehension of it, the speech [dibbur] that issues from
the agency of the Active Intellect by the power of speech will
be perceived. For it is the effluence that issues from the Blessed
Name through the mediation of the Active Intellect upon the
power of speech, as the Master [i.e., Maimonides] stated in the
Guide for the Perplexed, II, 36. This is the path of the veritable
essence of prophecy and it involves the knowledge and percep-
tion of the essence of the Unique Name, as is made possible to
the unique specimen of the human species, the prophet who
perceives it. For he [i.e., the Active Intellect] creates the Divine
Speech [dibbur] for the prophet [and places it] in his mouth. It
is not proper that the techniques of this method called holy and
sanctified be expressed in writing a book, and it is impossible
[to pass it on] unless the one who desires it first receive the
knowledge of the Names of 42 and 72 [letters] from another
living recipient and is given some of the traditions, even the
chapter headings.
In the above quote the seventh method is described as
the method of attaining prophetic perception, on the one hand,
326 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
and as the method of perceiving the Divine Name, on the other.
The highest level of prophecy is described by Abulafia as the
prophet's ability "to change any aspect of nature in order to
verify (his) Divine mission."" The act of changing the processes
of nature is elsewhere called "the veritable act," and is made
possible by the debeaul (cleaving) of the prophet and his becoming
likened to the Divinity:" 7
This is the final aspect which He would make known to ev-
ery unique and distinguished enlightened person \maskl\ who
is separated from the rest of the nation which proceeds in
darkness and [who] did not perceive the clear light which il-
luminates above and below, [it is] the secret of the veritable
act which changes aspects of the natural[ly formed] world by
means of the general power of speech [until] the parhalness of
all species be returned and unified within his uniqueness by
means of his likeness to the One who created him in His image
and likeness. Thus he will have a whole portion in the world
to come and will be blessed in the three worlds in all things,
with all things, and [being] all things. And this knowledge
will be for this person the aim of all his endeavors.
Here we are informed of the conception that stands be-
hind the claim that the prophet has the ability to alter the course
of nature. This act of alteration is achieved by the unto mystica of
the person; the part unto the whole, i.e., unto the Active Intellect
through the agency of the Divine Name. In this regard, Abulafia
went in the footsteps of Ibn Ezra who wrote: 8 "
"I have been made known to you by my name": for the virtue
of Moses is that he cleaved to the whole and thus through him
the Name enacted signs and wonders in this world.
Elsewhere Ibn Ezra writes:" 9
When the part knows the whole, he will cleave to the whole
and will create within the whole signs and wonders.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 327
Maimonides' conception of prophecy is explained by Ab-
ulafia as the unification of the part with the whole, and this
unification is of a mystical nature. The term [the power of] dib-
bur (speech) appears in both the section quoted from Scba- Netibot
ha-Torah where it refers to "the Divine effluence which prophe-
sies." And it appears in 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, where it is brought up
in the context of Sefer Yesirdh: dibbur— speech = yesur (the creation
of a human form), and in the context of Sefer Yesirdh, we read:
Therefore the entire creation, and the entire act of speech -
[dibbur] emerges within the Name.
Here, it refers to the combinations of 'Alef Bel, mentioned
at the beginning of the Mishnah. G. Scholem claims that the
term dibbur refers either to the Name of God or to the letters of
the 'Alef Bet, which both possess magical power." The viewpoint
that sees within the letters of the Alphabet a Divine Name is
found in Habddlah de-rabbi 'Aqiba-? 1
Know that T S R Q, etc. [i.e., the letters of the 'Alef Bet from
last to first] constitute the Explicit Name. . . Indeed, T S R Q -»
A, is a Name.
Are we therefore able to see within the act of breaking up
the words of the Torah to its individual letters, each of which is
a Name, a technique for attaining dibbur— Divine Speech, or for
attaining a Name which confers the magical power that enables
one to create the world and (new) forms?
It seems to this writer that we may establish a relationship
between the terms <«W>i(r-(speech) and creation, and between lan-
guage and world which appear in the section quoted from Sefer
Mafteah ha-Hokmot. Speech is the language to be created, by which
we are enabled to create a new world. The explanation that as-
sociates the Name, which includes all the letters of the 'Alef Bet
with language, which is also composed of these letters, and with
dibbur, which is associated with both language and the Divine
328 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
Name, is reinforced by Abulafia's words in 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz* 2
regarding the seventh method:
This is the method that you are obliged to use for all the twenty-
four books of Scripture that we have today, and after them, for
all the words of the sages of blessed memory, and after that you
apply it to all books of wisdom, for thereby you will ascend and
perceive properly what is worthy of being perceived, regarding
every matter.
From here we learn that the transformation of verses into
Divine Names or into letters which are Names of God is not
associated exclusively with Scripture and may be done with any
other book. Therefore the letters of the 'Mej Bel may indicate
Divine Names without their having any exclusive association
with Scripture. In other words, one who is capable of perceiving
Divine Names in all linguistic phenomena or who can transform
any linguistic phenomenon into a Divine Name is said to cleave
to the Active Intellect and perhaps even to God Himself, in that
he transforms everything that is not in and of itself intelligible
into something intelligible:
Indeed, each and every body is a letter, and a distinguishing
sign for one who perceives, so that by their means one may
recognise God and His enactments. Every letter is a wonder
and a sign and a proof that instructs us as regards the effluence
of the Name which causes dibbur (speech) to overflow through
its means; and thus, the entire world and all years and all souls
are full of letters. 93
By means of this transformation the human mind emerges
from potentia to full actualisation, for within his mind, one in-
cludes all concepts:
Now I will further reveal to you the secret of the real oper-
ation which changes the nature of parts of creatures by the
virtue of the totality of speech [dibbur] until your intellectual
spirit will become universal after it was partial; and [then] there
will be comprised in you all the general substances which are
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 323
from your species [and] even more those forms that are infe-
rior to your own species. Thereby you will be isolated and
separated and set apart from all the ignoramuses who think
themselves wise and thus every person will be in your eyes
like unto domesticated and undomesticated animals and birds
and you shall comprehend with your senses and intellect true
apprehensions. And those similar to you will possess an im-
age and a likeness and they are the true masters of Torah and
those who truly fulfill the Divine commandments. 94
Assuredly, Abulafia here follows the path that R. Abra-
ham Ibn Ezra and R. Isaac Ibn Latif traveled before him, who, in
accordance with Ibn Sina considered the ability of the prophet
to perform miracles to be the summit of prophecy. 95
We now proceed to analyse two terms that appear in the
sections quoted earlier with reference to the seventh method:
haskamdh, namely, consent or convention, and habandh, under-
standing. The linguistic material transformed to its constituent
letters from a verse that apparently had a clear plain meaning, or
had philosophical-allegorical significance, needs to receive new
meaning; a meaning that Abulafia calls haskdmdh or habandh. This
meaning is nothing other than the understanding of the Torah
by means of the Names, i.e., the transformation of the imaginary
Torah to its true intellectual stature. For this sake the Torah is re-
ordered to its original form, the form which enables the prophet
to enact signs and miracles. 9 *
Because our intention is not for them [the lettersj, in order to
illustrate to you the clarity of speech, or how the grammari-
ans spoke; rather our intention is to transform everything that
comes from Him in its conventional form (muskam) and to pu-
rify the language in the crucible of wisdom and the furnace
of understanding, and by the probity of knowledge to have
the languages revolve until they revert to their prime-material
state. Then it will be possible to invent through their agency
wondrous inventions. The combination of letters include sev-
enty languages. They are the 22 letters, whose secret is the
wheat (HTH—hitdh— wheat = 22) full of goodness (TVBH -
330 The Method of the Names That Leads to Propfiecy
tibdii — goodness = 22), twenty-two foundation letters, the foun-
dation of the entire world. They constitute all completenesses
and are set in the wheel, within 231 gates, and they are the se-
cret of YSR"EL {Yisrael—Yes ['there are'] R'EL - 1231] the name
of the Active Intellect which transforms nature. . . 9T
We may now point to the possible influence that this sev-
enth method had on Abulafia's disciple, R. Joseph Gikatilla. In
Saw ha-Niqaud, one of Gikatilla's later works, we read: 98
Within the secret of the 22 letters you will find the entire cre-
ation of the world, its structure and all of its species. All is
dependent on the letters. One who understands their hidden
mysteries [as explained) in Sefer Yesirdh, will contemplate the
depth of the letters, and no created being can contemplate their
depth. This is certainly so in view of the fact that the Torah is a
fabric woven of the letters. For when you say the word Beresit
[BR'ESYT - in the beginning] whose six letters are combined,
through the [act of] combination of these letters and the depth
of the implications of their revolutions and combinations the
prophets entered into and perceived the depths of the Torah .
The connections between the Torah, the combination of
the letters and the visions of the prophets who behold the secrets
of the Torah, undoubtedly indicate the influence of Gikatilla's
teacher. Gikatilla associates the method of letter combination
with the prophetic experience, which instructs the prophet in
the secrets of the Torah.
H. Threefold Categorization of Abulafia's Exegesis
As we have seen earlier, we may classify the seven meth-
ods of interpretation into three basic categories: methods 1-3, the
various aspects of the plain meaning, applicable to the masses;
method 4, allegory, is the method of the philosophers; and meth-
ods 5-7 are those of the ecstatic Kabbalah. This tripartite classi-
fication corresponds to the various levels of perfection that one
Language, Torah, and Hertneneutics in Abuiafia 331
may attain. The perfection of the masses is attained by the Saddia
(righteous), the perfection of the realm of the Saddiq is iheHdsid
(sage), and the perfection of the realm of the hasidim is the Nafec
(prophet). The distinctive quality of the Torah is that it is capable
of leading each of the three classes of people to their perfection.
In Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot] Abuiafia writes: 9a
The Torah was needed in order to guide us in these paths of
three levels. The first level— the plain meanings of the Torah—
is intended for the perfection of the righteous (saddiqim). For
their sake the plain meaning of the parables and riddles endure,
as do the simple meanings of the Midrash and Haggadah and
their like. All of these are construed in terms of their plain
meaning. And yet, the ultimate purpose of these is not in their
plain meaning, as we indicated earlier, for the ultimate purpose
of the Torah and its commandments, statutes and laws, is not
that people should merely be righteous, without knowing any
wisdom, merely rendering the service of a servant.
Rather, there is a second purpose. The Divinity also intended
that human beings should be righteous and that they should
learn until they are wise. And when they observe the ways of
righteousness and wisdom Ehey ought to become sages.
And further, there is a third intention: God intended that after
human beings become sages they should attain to prophecy,
for this is the epitome of the capacity of human intellectual
grasp in this world, and it is for this end that God originally
intended the creation of man in this form. . .
The Saddiq needs to take this form in its plain sense, in order to
perfect himself in righteousness; but if he wishes to be a sage,
it is proper that he take it [i.e., the meaning of the Torah] in its
hidden philosophical sense. And indeed, if he further desires
to prophecy, he is obliged to grasp it in accordance with the
path of Names, the hidden path of the Kabbalah based on the
Divine Intellect.
332 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
The plain meaning of the Biblical narratives concerning
the binding of Isaac and the Exodus indicate the realms of knowl-
edge of which the masses are in need. The mode of parable indi-
cates the philosophical truths, i.e., the emergence of the intellect
from potential to actualization, and the Divine Names derived
from these sections of the Torah indicate the prophetic truths,
those matters that relate directly to the Divinity. We may de-
scribe these three groups: The masses, the philosophers, and the
prophets form a ladder whose beginning is in the material realm
and whose end is in the spiritual realm. As for the masses, we
saw in Section One that they understand only the material realm.
The philosophers understand the processes of the actualization
of the mind, and they constitute the intermediate stage between
the material and the spiritual realms. The third level concerns
itself with the Divinity, i.e., the spiritual realm.
To further illustrate this tripartite system of classification
which stands behind the seven methods described earlier, we
provide a quote from Abulafia's work Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot: 10a
The men of speculation would apply the names of the forefa-
thers to the human intellect and the rest of the names would
refer to the powers beneath it, some closer to it and some far-
ther away. In any event, they refer to the Tetragrammaton and
other Divine Names as designations for the Active Intellect.
Indeed, all the Kabbalists will invoke the Name in all places
as instructed by means of any of the Divine Attributes. . .and
the men of speculation have determined that the name 'Lot' is
a symbol for the material intellect, and that his two daughters
and wife refer to the material realm itself. And we are in-
structed that the angels are the advisors of the Intellect. They
are the straight paths that advise the intellect to be saved from
the evil ones, which refer to the limbs (of the body), 101 whose
end is to be consumed in sulphur and heavenly fire - this is
the full extent of the parable.
This is in accord with what they say, that the Torah would not
have deemed it important to relate such a matter, even in the
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 333
event that it actually did occur, for what is the point of such
a story for the man of speculation? Indeed it is conceivable
in only one of three ways: either it is construed in its plain
sense, or it may be a parable, or it occurred to Abraham in a
dream in the manner of prophecy. If it is construed literally,
it would exclude the men of speculations who have no use
for the plain meaning of the story as it is. Thus, this realm
is intended for the masses and comes to instruct them of the
difference between the righteous man and the evil man, and
the Providence accorded to each. There is no way to bring this
[lesson] to [the level] of wisdom.
And if it is a prophetic dream, or a prophecy itself, it is worthy
of being written in order to instruct the prophets in the methods
of prophecy, and what may be derived from them regarding
Divine conduct, and in any case the prophet will be able to see
in it parables and enigmas. And if it be a parable for a great
purpose, it is to inform us of the potencies in accordance with
this sublime method. The explanation of the Kabbalist is that
they are all Names and therefore worthy of being recorded.
This is how each of them would construe any of these matters,
such as the stories of the Torah wherever they occur.
This quote contains an anomaly in terms of the order of
classification: For whereas in the place of the philosopher we
find the prophet, based on the content, it seems that for the
prophet the story is an allegory. We move now to another quote
from the same work: 102
And, [if it be] Isaac in place of Abraham, in reference to the In-
tellect, sometimes [it is] with lesser emphasis, sometimes with
greater emphasis, and sometimes with mediate emphasis; and
at times it refers to a weak emphasis with either strong or weak
tendency or toward a strong emphasis with weak or strong ten-
dency. Thus [these matters] would be related at times using
the name Abraham, at times using the name Isaac, at times
using the name Jacob, and at times other names, in accordance
with the unique qualities of these figures who are the figures
of intelligence.
334 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
This approach to the forefathers coincides with the
method of allegory. In Sefer Hayyey ha-Vlam /ifl-Bfl', 103 however,
we find Abulafia's kabbalistic interpretation of the names of the
forefathers:
Indeed the name 'ABRHM ['Abraham] contains the form of
the Name *ELHYM [Hohim]. The first and last letters of both
names [A...M] are identical, and the middle letters are re-
spectively BRH and LHY. Regarding the name YSHQ [Isaac,
Yishaq] it bears the form of YHVH, which is immutable. This
is so as a remembrance: 104 "This is My Name. . . this is My Re-
membrance." Herein we find the secret of all remembrance
[namely recitation]. In the form of the Yod [of both YHWH
and YSHQ ] are the ten known remembrances [i.e., recitations],
and the first letters of both are identical. What is left is SHQ
and HWH respectively. And as for the name YAAQB [Jacob-
Ya<aqob] it bears the form of ADNY ['Adonay], the first letter
of one being identical with the last letter of the other, and what
is left is AKB and ADN respectively.
By virtue of these remainder letters you may discover in their
combinations the wonders of the Name. First you must com-
bine all three. You combine the three remainders of the three
Divine Spiritual Names, and then you combine the three re-
mainders of the material names of the forefathers. Know that
the forefathers unified the Name by a veritable union, and the
Blessed Divinity also unified His Name upon them, as it is
written, 105 "The Lord of Abraham and the Lord of Isaac and
the Lord of Jacob sent me to you." CELHY ABRHM, "ELHY
YSHQ We-'ELHY YaAQB].
In this section we find the plain meaning — the actual
names of the forefathers, and the Kabbalistic meaning— the ref-
erences to Divine Names within the names of the forefathers. It
is worthwhile to explain in more detail how the names of the
forefathers are associated with the Divine Names. According
to Abulafia, the verse in Ex. 3:5 refers to both the names of
the forefathers and to the Divine Names. The remaining letters
of both the Divine Names and the names of the forefathers are
Language, Torah, and Hermetic utics in Abulafia 335
indicated in the verse. ADN (which in many manuscripts ap-
pears in place of DNY), HVH and LHY: the 'A of DN and LHY
yield T£LHY ('Eohe -"the Lord of." ...in the verse); the D (D =
4, numerically) of 'ADN - G + A (3 + 1); ] A + BRH = 'ABRH.
The N (numerical value 50) of 'ADN = M + Y (40 + 10); and the
M is combined with 'ABRH to yield 'ABRHM (Abraham), and
the remaining Y is combined with SHQ to yield YSHQ {Yishaq
- Isaac). The HWH (5 + 6 + 5) = YW (10 + 6). The V is added
to 'AQB to yield Y'AQB (Ya<aqob - Jacob). There thus remain
two letters that do not enter into the names, G and W. The G,
numerically equivalent to 3, implies three times the name TiLHY
(as it appears in the verse) and the W combines with the third
"ELHY to yield the third WELHY, and thus, the verse: '"ELHY
ABRHM "ELHY YSHQ We-ELHY Y'AQB.
Before we conclude our remarks on the verse, Ex. 3:6, it is
worth noting that Abulafia pointed out in Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot:
These matters, 107 when they are taken within the philosophical
approach, become related with each other in a general manner,
and not in all particulars. Whereas according to the methods
of Kabbalah not one letter is left without being used.
Abulafia's insistence that in the Kabbalistic modes of ex-
egesis every letter is used, is clearly indicated in the verse Ex.
3:6. In Sefer Hayye Ita-'Oldm ha-Ba-, we read:
The forefathers unified the Name in the veritability of the
union.
This is indicated in the W- of WELHY YAQB as stated
by Abulafia in his Sefer 'Imre Sefer, where he writes 106 regarding
this verse:
"ELHY YAQB with the connecting W-[meaning 'and'] to in-
form us that among the forefathers there was no "qisus ba-
336 The Method of the Nantes That Leads to Prophecy
netrot" ['cutting of the shoots'], namely, an heretical division
between the attributes applied to God.
I. Settings: Maskiyot
The attention that Abulafia paid to individual letters also
stands out in other instances. In Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot we find
another type of usage in explaining the implications of a single
tetter 1 "
But one who is in doubt should contemplate the settings
[maskiyyotaw] and they will instruct him as to the path, be it
in the manner of plain meaning or parable or the wondrous
way. And by means of (them, i.e., properly understanding the I
setting] we depart from doubt. For this sake it was said: 110 ]
"And the Lord God formed man [HADM— ha-'dddm\ out of J
dust from the earth." Take now the 'H of HADM, which is
the grammatical definite article, as the setting [maskit] for the 3
man of speculation. He placed the man in a particular spot, *
etc. The term 'man' refers here to the name of the species,
and we do not consider it reasonable to regard it as merely the
name of that particular individual named Adam, for the noun
form in Hebrew is never found to take as a prefix the 'H' of
the definite article, just as we never find 'the Abraham' [ha-
ABRHM1 or 'the Isaac' [ha- YSHQ] or 'the Jacob' [ha-Y'AQB], -
etc.
And, as Ibn Ezra indicated in his worthy commentary re-
garding the 'H' of the definite article, 111 there are four forms
with which it is never conjuncted. We have indicated that ,
its mnemotechnical abbreviation is PROS: P [Pe^uldh]— verb =
form, R [Ribbuy]— plural form, D [Da'at]— definite article, S
[Semikdh]— the construct state. All of this is evident from his
[Ibn Ezra's] work. Thus, regarding the verse, 112 "And the Lord
God planted a garden in Eden to the east and He placed therein
the man that He had formed," here too [the] man is used to
denote the entire species. From here we derive that one letter,
in this instance, defines the entire setting [maskit], and thereby
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 337
one understands that entire matter. This is certainly so in a case
where one word, or many words, or an entire topic constitutes
the defining setting.
Thus, since 'Adam' here refers to the species name, the name
HWH [Hdwdh— Eve], although a person's name, it also refers
to the name of her entire species, and this defining setting is
indicated in the Scriptural 113 reference to her being 'the mother
of all life' ['em kol hay]. The verse does not state that she was
the mother of all men. This led the philosophers to conclude
that the term Hawah [Eve] denotes matter, and Adam denotes
form.
Abulafia, in this section, brings together Ibn Ezra's ideas
within a conceptual framework derived from Maimonides' Guide
of the Perplexed. In his preface to that work Maimonides compares
the plain meaning which contains allusions, to a maskit— setting,
i.e., silver filigree network, and the secrets alluded to, are likened
to inlaid 'golden apples'. Abulafia takes the word maskit and
transforms it into a technical term.
In Sefer ha-'Ot (p. 77), we read:
On that very day did Zekaryah the shepherd begin to record
wonders of wisdom, and to seal settings [maskiyyot] of under-
standing, based on the letters of the Torah.
The correspondence between the wonders and settings,
and the relationship between settings and the letters {-otiyyot] of
the Torah indicate the technical usage of the term. Just as wonder
refers to something esoteric, difficult to understand, belonging
to the realm of wisdom, so too regarding the settings, which
denote the insights contained in them.
We now move on to another example of the use of the
setting, though in this case, the technical term itself is not men-
tioned. In Vsdr 'Eden Gdnuz, UA we read regarding the verse, Dt
11:9:
338 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
"So that you will long endure on the land that God swore to
your fathers that He would give to them [and their offspring,
a land flowing with milk and honey)". The 'H' of 'LHM' [Id-
hem — to them] indicates eternity, and instructs us that today
and always the land referred to is the inheritance of the forefa-
thers, for they have already inherited it. And when we, their
sons, follow in their footsteps we too will inherit. This refers
to the supernal land which is exalted over all exalted lands.
Here, the discussion refers to two settings of the letter
H which, according to Abulafia, denotes the eternal giving of
the land, and not an event that happened in the past. "(That
He would) give to thern (la-tet Id-hem)." Besides this, the words
'HYOM' (ha-ydm — today) and H'ARS (fia-'ares—ihe land) are also
mentioned by Abulafia as indicating the eternal giving. In Hayye
ha-'Oldm ha-Ba\ " 5 we read: 116
"And you who cleave to the Lord your God are all alive today."
From here we gather that one who does not cleave to God does
not live in eternity, which like 'today' is always present. For
this reason the verse adds the word 'today'. So, too, in all
instances where the Torah refers to the constancy of something
it uses the word 'today' or 'heaven and earth' or 'sun and
moon' or another of the constant forms of the world, i.e., the
species names, because they continue to endure. It is easy to
sense their endurance and to picture it in their mind.
In these quotes, the word HYOM [ha-ydm — today] implies
the philosophical layer of meaning in the given verse and refers
to the eternity of the soul.
In yet other places the setting [maskit] refers to something
else. In Sefer lia-Melamined, n7 we read:
And know that it is by means of the two Divine Names YHWH
and "ELHYM ['Elohim] that the entire world was created. And
their secret is [in the mean equality of their numerical value]
26 + 86, which is YVM [= 56; ydm — day], and both names
taken together have the numerical value of YVM YVM. Thereby
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 339
you will understand the verse lia "And I was by Him as a
nurseling, and I was His delight day by day [YVM YVM]. . . "
which informs us of the days of creation and of the two millenia
indicated in the manner of the hidden secret meaning.
Abulafia refers here to the words YVM YVM [day by day]
which equal numerically the sum of 26 + 86, i.e., YHWH and
TiLHYM = 112. It is probable that he is referring to the idea that
the Torah, as it existed before creation, consisted in having been
'written' in the manner of Divine Names. In a more elaborate
manner, in his later works, Abulafia speaks of the implications
of the word YVM as referring to God's Name. In Sefer ha-'Edut, us
we read:
And this is implicated in the word V-HKSF \we-ha-kosef — and
the one who yearns for] which, when reconstructed, yields 26,
65, and 86, the numerical equivalent of three levels, which refer
to the three meals [of the Sabbath]; this is the secret of silence
[Belimdh]. When you count 10 ten times, which equals 100, and
return in the taking of it, which is the receiver who receives
from the Kabbalah, day and night. This is the secret of [the
three occurences of] the word HYVM [Iia-yom - today] in the
verse 1 ' 20 "Gather it today for today is a Sabbath of the Lord.
Today you will not find it in the field." These are the three
worlds and the three qualities and the three meals, and what
is found and the finder and the finding.
As we know, the Sages 121 derived the [law of having] three
meals on the Sabbath from the three times the word HYWM is
mentioned in the verse just cited. Abulafia associates this matter
with the Names of God. The word V-HKSF is rearranged to
form three numbers and three names: 26 (KV) - YHWH; 65 (SH)
= 'ADNY, and 86 (PV) = TiLHYM. Their total numerical value
is 177 ■ SLS S-eWDVT (Salds Se<uddt— three meals) = 1176 = 1 +
176 = 177 = SLS M'ALVT (Salds Mawldt— three levels [qualities])
■ SLS ' LMVT (Salds Vldmdt— three worlds) = (BLYMH— silence
= 87 = 15 = 1 -h 1 h- 7 H- 6]. The source for these numerological
340 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
equivalents is Abulafia's teacher, R. Baruch Togarmi, who in his
commentary to Sefer Yesirdh, writes: 122
Also, the incantation of the language is the secret of the Garden
of Eden, known from the three meals, 26, 65, and 86, incumbent
upon the individual to eat on Sabbath, day and night.
GN 'EDN (Gan 'Eden— the Garden of Eden) = 177 = 26
+ 65 + 86 = YVMM V-LYLH (yomdm wa-layldh— day and night)
- SLVS SXJVDVT (solos se'udof-three meals). These numerologi-
cal equivalents from R. Baruch Togarmi reappear in Sefer Ginnal
'££goz, 123 by R. Joseph Gikatilla and in various other works of
Abulafia. 124
J. Algebraical Commentary
As we have seen earlier, in section F, numerology be-
longs to the nomenclature of the sixth method. According to
this method, it is possible to return the letters to their prime-
material state, i.e., to break up the unique order of the letters of
a word or verse, alter their sequence and compose new words.
Besides this method, we come across attempts by Abulafia to ex-
plain verses by means of numerology, when basic construction
of the verse does not change but where particular components of
the verse are exchanged for words that contain their equivalent
numerical value. We give here two examples of this method.
In Sefer Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba>, t25 we read:
[the] 22 holy letters are numerically equivalent to [the word]
NHR [ttdhdr— river]. This is [the secret meaning of the verse]: 126
"And a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden," i.e., the
truth [which is] the Garden of Eden. [This is] the secret of
M'EDN *ET HGN [me-'Eeden >et ha-gdn—irom Eden the gar-
den] which is numerically equivalent to RVH HQDS [ruah ha-
qodes\— the holy spirit], and now, call them BK [bak]— within
you « 22]; tenty-two holy letters flowed out to water the Holy
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 341
Spirit. Indeed, it flows out to irrigate, for the river that flows
out to water the garden, flows out from all places to give life
and health to plants, each according to its nature. . .
This passage explains the verse
"And a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. . . "
NHR (ndhdr— river) = 255 = K"B WTYWT HQWDS (kaf-
bet 'dtiyyot /ifl-qodes— twenty- two holy letters) =1254 = 1 + 254 =
255. The words IvTEDN 'ET HGN [me-'Eeden xt ha-gdn - from Eden
the garden] - 623 = HTiMT GN TiDN (ha-'emetgan <eden— the truth
(is) the garden of Eden) = RWH HQWDS (ruah ha-qddes—the Holy
Spirit). Thereby a new verse is constructed:
"Twenty-two holy letters flow[ed] out to water the Holy Spirit."
Thus, the verse refers to the Divine effluence, symbolized
by the twenty-two letters that water the Holy Spirit, referring to
the inner, personally experienced holy spirit. 127 Man is the entity
upon whom the watering river is working constantly in order
to actualize his potential. This idea is made clear by comparing
this section with Abulafia's words in Sefer Ttnre Sefer: 128
And just as it is within the power of the Gardener to water the
garden by the five rivers, as he wishes, so too, the singer who
recites the Name has the ability to give sustenance to the limbs
of his body through his blood according to his will by means
of the Great Blessed Name ... but this is not possible unless
one receives the Divine effluence by reciting the Name called
the 'Name of 72', according to its pathways.
Now, we will see how Abulafia explains a passage of the
sages in a similar manner. In Sefer Hayye ha-'Otdm ha-Ba>, 129 we
read:
"Ministering angels do not know the Aramaic language." 130
Now, if you observe the construct: ML'AKY HSRT [mal'ake ha-
sdret — Ministering angels] you will recognize the Divine Name.
342 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
Know that they are the sect [kat] of Israel, and they do not
know the Aramaic language, because the sect of Israel is the
illumination of the intellect and their secret is SFYRH "ARMYT
[sefirdh 'Aramit — the uplifted counting?]. Indeed the secret of
the Aramaic language is 231 breaths [the secrets of] which re-
turn the kingdom of Israel to its [full] stature. This is the secret
meaning of [the sentence] the sect of Israel does not recognize
the kingdom of Israel, so as to make His faith known in the
Aramaic language.
The numerological equivalents in this passge are: ML-
'AKY HSRT = 1006 = TKYR SM H"EL (takir sem lia-'El— you will
recognize the Name of God) - HM KT YSRTiL, 131 {hem kat Yisrw
el — they are the sect of Israel) = MYRT HSKL {menrat ha-sekel — the
illumination of the intellect) = SFYRH 'ARMYT (sefirdh 'Ararml—
the uplifted count); LSVN 'ARMYT (lason Aramit — the Aramaic
language) - 1037 = RL'A NSYMVT (231 breaths) - MLKVT YSR
TiL (malkut Yisra'el — the kingdom of Israel). After deciphering the
numerological equivalents we can render the meaning of this
section as saying that the Israelites do not recognize the path of
acquiring the Active Intellect, i.e., the Kingdom of Israel, which
is achieved by the technique of breath - 231 breaths.
K. Supercommentary
According to Abulafia, the angel Sandalfon represents the
prima materia. He derives this by means of numerology, in con-
junction with an earlier philosophic idea — Maimonides' concep-
tion that the 'dfdn ("wheel") in Ezekiel's vision of the Divine
Chariot refers to the prima materia. This idea is associated with
the Taimudic identification of the 'ofdn with Sandalfon. This type
of exegesis is suggestive of a sort of supercommentary, in that
it creates a layer of commentary based on an earlier layer of
commentary.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 343
Another example of such a type of commentary may be
found in Abulafia's Sefer Hayye ha-'Olam ha-Ba>: U2
. . . The secret of Adam and Eve are within all people in the
likeness of form and matter, for they are the beginning and
principle of all the account of creation. Thus, Adam is likened
to form and Eve is his spouse, created from his rib, as Scripture
attests: 133 "Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, this one shall
be called woman [1SH — 'isdh\ for this one was taken from man
[IS — 'is]." The verse does not state: "for this one was taken
from him," but "from man." This is to instruct us that 'adam'
[human] is called " J is" [man]. Therefore it is said regarding
Cain, who was born of the first existing human couple, 134 "I
acquired a man [IS — J is] by God." So too it is written: "The
sons of Adam also the sons of Is." Man is also called "bene
linos," for it is written: 135 "What is man ['Adam] that You
should know him, or the son of man [bene 'Adam] that You
make account of him." It is also written: 11 " 1 "What is man [
'Ends] that You are mindful of him. . . " From these verses we
derive the secret of the terms Adam, 'Is, and 'Lnos, each of
which is both a name of the species and of an individual. 'Is in
Greek means 'one' and the Aramaic translation of "Is" is [the
same as] 'linos' and the 'one' in Greek is also 'enos'. Also,
linos and enos are identical. Adam and Eve are both called in
the Torah by the same species name 'adam., as it is written: 137
"And He called their names 'Adam on the day that they were
The passage is based on the words of Maimonides, who,
in his Guide of the Perplexed, III, 30, writes:
One of these dicta is their saying that Adam and Eve were
created together having their backs joined and they were di-
vided, and one half of it, namely Eve, taken and brought up
to [Adam]. The expression 'one of his ribs' means according
to them one of his sides... as it says "bone of my bone and
flesh of my flesh." This has received additional confirmation
through the fact that it says that both of them have the same
name: for she is called '=isah' [woman] because she was taken
344 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
out of ''is' [man]. It also confirms their union by saying: 138
"And shall cleave unto his wife and shall be one flesh."
Maimonides explains here the words of the sages regard-
ing the original unity of Adam and Eve as referring to form and
matter. 139 Abulafia attempts to base this unity on a linguistic
foundation: 'is and "Enos, which exemplify Adam, both mean
one in Greek. 140 This mode of commentary is based on the as-
sumption that whatever the inquiring sages are able to know by
means of their investigations of the natural world may also be
learned by means of linguistic investigation, that is by means of
the techniques of letter combinations or by means of our knowl-
edge of other languages. 141
L. Concluding Remarks
In analysing the views of Abulafia regarding the nature
of the Torah, its levels of meanings, and methods of commentary
we are informed of an approach that may be counted among the
most spiritualistic orientations that appeared during the Middle
Ages. His free orientation to the Scriptural text enabled him to
transform the text into a narrative of the history of the Soul and
its potential, 142 to the extent that in most instances where Abu-
lafia makes use of the allegorical method, the Divinity becomes
absent from the events of the story. By means of this, the stories
of Scripture become reconstructed as full-fledged narratives of
spiritual life.
In Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot , 143 Abulafia writes, regarding the
nature of the divine trial in Scripture:
This is for the sake of [obtaining] knowledge, so that the one
being tested knows the actual nature of his own thought pro-
cesses [intent]. And this is called 'complete knowledge/ for
the true nature of one's thought [intent] is known only as po-
tential, and indeed with actualization the true nature of one's
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 345
[thought intent] becomes known. This trial constantly takes
place in interpersonal relationships; at times within |the con-
science of] the person himself and at times in relations between
people. For instance, one person thinks regarding his friend
that he may be relied upon for anything. He may need a small
favour, which is easily within his friend's ability to grant, but
he returns empty-handed. By contrast with regard to another
acquaintance whom he may think would not come to his aid
even in a small matter, when this acquaintance is approached
he comes to his aid in even a great matter. And so too, a per-
son may consider himself capable of helping another in a small
matter, but when he is tested, he finds a want in his ability and
it turns out that his intent does not become actualized.
A parable may be provided for this [understanding the nature
of the trial] with regard to one's sexual inclination in reference
to forbidden forms of sexual contact. One may think himself
totally immune to this inclination, and that if an opportunity
were to present itself to him, he would not transgress. But
when the opportunity actually presents itself, and he finds that
nothing would prevent him from transgressing, due to the total
seclusion that he finds himself in, together with a woman, he
actually does transgress. At that point he will know that his
previous self-estimation was false. Whereas if he is able to take
control of himself he would know that his self-estimation was
accurate. Thus, it [the trial] is for the sake of [obtaining self-]
knowledge. It is the person who is actually testing himself so
that he would know in actuality the truth of his self-estimation.
And this, only he will know.
The transformation of Scripture into a text that narrates, in
accordance with the philosophers, the biography of the Soul, was
made possible, in our opinion only because Abulafia empha-
sized one level of interpretation, i.e., the Kabbalistic level, which
regards Scripture as entirely composed of the Divine Names. He
was enabled to forego direct reference to God in the philosoph-
ical level commentary only because God is omnipresent in each
and every letter of the Scriptural verse. This approach consti-
tutes an attempt to bridge two conceptual frameworks whose
346 The Method of the Names That Leads to Prophecy
fundamental principles are different from each other. On the
one hand, there is the philosophical conception which regards
revelation as the outcome of the conjunction between the soul
and the Active intellect. Thus, a direct reference to Divinity does
not play a central role in the psychological processes depicted in
the Scriptural narrative. 144 On the other hand, there is the Jewish
conception that perceives the Torah as the actual Word of God,
with all its implications, or perceives the Torah as an intimation
of the Divinity Himself. 145
Some concluding remarks on the nature of the relation-
ship between the above hermeneutical methods and the inter-
preter are pertinent at the final stage of our discussion: Two
parallel and similar processes take place as the interpreter uses
those techniques; the Biblical text is gradually atomized, so that
at the end of this process Torah is dissolved into separate letters,
whose order is to be decided by man, who also infuses the new
meanings into the combinations of letters. At the same time the
interpreter is himself transformed from a person on the level
of the masses to a prophet, the perfect man who is separated
from society at least in the moment of the interpretative event;
he has to concentrate himself, to isolate himself, and finally to
transcend the state of being part of nature, so as to be able to
conquer nature. This transformation includes an expansion as it
is reasonable to assume from the description of the seven meth-
ods as seven paths that are at the same time seven spheres, the
first being the smallest, the seventh the largest; 146 this expansion
apparently points to a broadening of the consciousness of the
commentator. 147 It is as if the commentator performs, during his
development as an interpreter of the text, a celestial journey 148
which takes him to the most exalted sphere, viewed as the holi-
est of the holy, but basically it seems that this journey is an inner
process, focused on the purification of his mind and its expan-
sion.
The prophet-commentator is, as part of the interpretative
act, undergoing a mystical transformation, which posits him as
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 347
beyond the ordinary status of man in society and nature, and
at the same time as in a special position in relationship to the
existing canonical text; the revelation of the individual is pro-
pelled into the linguistic material of the canon which is also the
result of the ancient revelation. On the relationship between the
peculiar state of mind of the interpreter and the possibility to
comment on a text written in a prophetic state of mind, I have
elaborated elsewhere. 149 Here I shall adduce only one text, writ-
ten under the influence of Abraham Abulafia, apparently in the
fourteenth century:
One cannot comprehend the majority of the subjects of the
Torah and its secrets, and the secrets of the command-
ments cannot be comprehended, except by means of the
prophetic holy intellect which was emanated from God onto
the prophets. ..Therefore, it is impossible to comprehend any
subject among the secrets of the Torah and the secrets of per-
forming the commandments by means of intellect or wisdom
or by inteltectits aquisitus, but [only] by means of the prophetic
intellect. . . the divine intellect given to the prophets, which is
tantamount to the secret of the knowledge of the great [divine]
name. 150
Implicitly, the divine facets of the Torah, mainly the di-
vine names, are hidden in the ordinary order of the letters in the
canonical text, and only the mystic is able to restore this dimen-
sion by returning to the mystical state of mind which originated
the divine revelation in illo tempore. The present revelation is
propelled into the linguistic texture of the ancient canon by the
restructuring of its elements, namely the combination of letters,
and not only by the reinterpretation of the text, as we witness
in a long series of examples in the history of canonical religions.
Strong hermeneutics is therefore part of a basic attempt to re-
structure the ultimate meaning of Judaism from a religion based
upon the historical and halakhic dimensions of its scriptures, to
a devotional ecstatic religion focused upon divine names. 151
Language, Torah, and tiermeneutics in Abulafia
Notes to Introduction
1. Cf. Idel, The Mystical Experience, Chapter 1.
2. Ibid., 144-145, and at the end of the Introduction.
3. No detailed study of Ashkenazi Pietist's hermeneutics is available,
although it is a major issue of their mystical thought. See, for the
time being, Joseph Dan, "The Ashkenazi Hasidic Gates of Wisdom," in
eds. G. Nahon-Ch. Touati, Hommage a Georges Vajda (Louvain, 1980),
185-189.
4. See J. Dan, The Esoteric Theology of Ashkenazi Hasidism (Jerusalem,
1968), 56-57 [Hebr.]
5. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 200-210, where I discussed also
divergences between Abulafian exegesis and that of the theosophical
kabbalists.
6. Idem, The Mystical Experience, 144-145.
7. On the relationship between hermeneutics and revelation, see Idel,
Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 234-243.
8. Abulafia is returning to a precanonical situation when the prophet
could be in direct contact with the divinity without the mediation of
the text. See Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel
(Oxford, 1985), 108-109, 245. David Weiss-Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah
and Gemara (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1986), 16; and Idel, "The
Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah," 141-142.
9. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, 460-474. See also below, ch. 2, note
129.
10. Idem, On the Kabbalah, 66-73, 83-85.
11. See Idel, "The Concept of Torah," 66-67.
12. See, R. J. Z. Werblowsky, R. Joseph Karo, Lawyer and Mystic
(Philadelphia, 1977), 257-277.
13. See below, Chapter 2.
14. See Idel, The Mystical Experience, 114-115.
462 Notes to Chapter 1
15. See Scholem, On the Kabbalah, 55-56; Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspec-
tives, 227-229.
16. Cf. Idel, The Mystical Experience, 205.
17. See Idel, "Perceptions of Kabbalah."
18. Roland Barthes, he Degre zero et I'ecriture (Paris, 1972), 35-38.
19. See Idel, "The Reification of Language," par. VI.
20. For the use of the metaphor of loosening of the knots as an expres-
sion of liberation from corporeality in Abulafia's mysticism, see Idel,
The Mystical Experience, 134-137.
21. See Idel, "The Interdiction to Study Kabbalah before the Age of
Forty," A]S Review, vol. 5 (1980), 17 [Hebr.]; idem, "Infinities of Torah
in Kabbalah," 149.
22. My distinction between psychological allegoresis, widespread in
the medieval literature and spiritualistic exegesis, is based on the as-
sumption that an interpreter who used allegory to decode his own
spiritual experiences, will inject, by the means of the same method,
his experiences also in the biblical text.
Notes to Chapter 1
1. Sefer Sitrey Torah (Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 163a). A similar concep-
tion is found in the writings of the Sufi author Tirmani Hakim: "All -
forms of wisdom are contained in the letters of the Alif Bet, for the
fundamental principles of science are the holy names which serve as
the sources of the creation of the world and function as the laws of
the parameters of Divine decree." Cf. Paul Nwyia, Exegese Coranique
et Ungage Mystique {Beyrouth 1970), 365.
The view concerning language, as matter for contemplation more sub- j
lime than the contemplation of nature, is also easily recognisable in
the theories of the Hurufia because in that system the world of letters
mediates between the intellectual world and the physical world. See
Nwyia, ibid., 366-367. As regards the world of letters as a universe
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 463
in the ontological sense in the Kabbalah, see M. Idel, "'Iggarto se! R.
Yishaq mi-Pisa (?) be-salos nuslui'oteha," in Koves <al Yad, 10 (2) (1982),
177-179, and notes 88,89. See also the section, indicated in note 28 be-
low, of Sefer Imrey Sefer. Particularly important for our discussion is
the distinction between the KabbaUsts' knowledge of the Divinity by
means of his contemplation of the Tetragrammaton, and the philoso-
pher, who contemplates the effects of the Divinity. This distinction is
found in Sefer 'Or ha-Sekel [Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 114a]. This passage,
copied by Moses Narboni, was published and discussed in my Studies
in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 63-66. See also the epistle We-zot li-Yehudah,
15.
2. Abulafia makes three distinctions, which we will enumerate here:
1) the philosopher as opposed to the Kabbalist; 2) the natural existence
as matter for contemplation, as opposed to the letters; 3) knowing the
"verity of matters," which presumably means the "essence(s) of natu-
ral phenomena" that philosophers attempt to understand, as opposed
to the blessed divine attributes which are the goal of the Kabbalist.
The distinction between knowledge of the letters and knowledge of
the natural world is already present in one of Abulafia's early works,
Sefer Mafteah lia-Ra'ayon (Ms. Vatican 291, fol. 27a), where we read:
Each language is divided into three constituents: Name, Word and
Verb [Pe'ulah]. And each of these three has numerous subdassi-
fications. One who knows more of these subclassifications is more
excellent than his fellow who hasn't reached his degree of knowledge
of language. This is the case in each nation and language, when you
compare the qualities of human beings in reference to the compari-
son between knowledge of the natural realm and knowledge of the
divine qualities, the highest of all human potentialities.
An interesting comparison between the contemplation of the natural
world and contemplation of language is found in the writings of R.
Yohanan Alemanno, one of Abulafia's admirers, who wrote in Sefer
Hay ha-'Olamim (Ms. Mantua, Jewish Community 21, fol. 199a-b):
the sages of the Talmud and of the Kabbalah and of astrology have
stated regarding the forms of the Alef and Bet, and so too with regard
to all the letters, awesome secrets which are recorded in their writ-
ings. This is so with reference to the names of the letters as well; for
instance 'Alef Binah' [instruction, understanding], 'Gimel Daleth' [the
benefactor of the poor]. For just as there are transformations of forms
in the natural world, for reasons known to the Creator, and the names
464 Notes to Chapter 1
of those phenomena indicate their essential nature, and these names
and forms, of plants and animals and people were made known to
the human intellect, either by way of convention or by contemplation
or prophecy or magic or dreams or by observation, so too were the
forms of the letters and their names revealed to man. And each wrote
in his way, in accordance with the source that revealed itself to him.
Regarding the revelation of the elements of language, see below, note
80.
3. This is an additional distinction between philosophy and Kabbalah;
the philosophers are not successful even after great effort, in achieving
what the Kabbalists achieve with ease. Regarding this, see the text
quoted below besides note 27, and also Idel, Abulafia, 442-443.
4. Pages 24-25, amended in accordance with Ms. New York, JTS Mic.
1887, fol. 101a. In Ms. Paris, BN 464, fol. 164a, the text reads: "This
is as we have received from the book by R. Yehudah the Pious of
Ashkenaz o.b.m., from Rottenburg, and the first matter we received
from R. Eliezer(!) Ashkenazi."
5. Based on the prayer of the 'Eighteen Benedictions.' The correspon-
dence between the brain, the heart, and the liver, and the three-fold
Sanctus is also mentioned in 'Osdr c Eden Gdnuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol.
96b.
6. In the published edition we read ha-ndgid. No doubt this ought to
be corrected in accordance with Ms. New York, JTS, to read he-hdsid.
A. Jellinek's attempt in his Philosophic und Kabbala, p. 46, to iden-
tify R. Yehudah "Hanagid" as R. Yehudah 'Askenazi Darsan, men-
tioned by R. Isaac of Acre in his Sefer Menrat 'Enayim, p. 47, is to-
tally without foundation. In the course of the quote from the epis-
tle We-Zot Li-Yehuddh, Abulafia states explicitly regarding R. Yehudah
and R. Eleazar of Worms that they "were not contemporary with us,
but left their intellectual record in their books," whereas R. Isaac of
Acre describes R. Yehudah Darsan as his contemporary. See also M.
Steinschneider, Catalogue Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiam
{Berlin, 1852-1860), p. 2525, based apparently on a manuscript of We-
Zot Li-Yehuddh similar to the one published by Jellinek, which was
copied by the important Christian Kabbalist Francesco Giorgio in De
Harmonia Mundi (Paris 1545), 131, where we read: " Jehuda Nagid
qui sanctos dicitur." Graetz, in his essay "Die Mystische Literatur in
der Gaonaische Epoch", MGWJ, vol. VIII (1859), 252-253, identifies R.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 465
Yehudah 'Naggid' mentioned by Abulafia as R. Yehudah ben Hanagid,
mentioned in Sefer Sa c aarey Tesubdh, par. 5. The responsum recorded
there, however, is a Kabbalistic pseudoepigraphy, penned apparently
by R. Moses de Leon. The claim of Graetz regarding the identity of R.
Yehudah Hanagid was accepted by Abraham Gottlober in his Toledot
ha-Kabbaldh we-ha-hasidut (Zhitomir, 1870), who dates them both to the
thirteenth century.
7. Use of these standard terms for the four organs, ('abarim rassiyim,
or hasubim) essential organs or important organs, or kings (meldkim),
is also found in pseudo-Maimonidean works such as Sefer ha-Nimsa>
published in Ben Gorni, p. xvi, as well as in Ta'am ha-'Orldh (attributed
to Maimonides), Ms. Moscow 133, fol. 153a, and in Sefer Sebiley ha-
'Emundh by R. Meir Aldabi (Warsaw, 1883), fols. 41d-42a, and in the
book by R. Moses de Leon, published by G. Scholem in "Sney Qun-
tresvn le-R. Moshe de Leon" in Qobes <al Yad, vol. 8 (1976), 336 and note
45. See also Y. Zlotnick, Ma >amarim (Jerusalem 1939), p. 11, in the
footnote there. See below, note 66.
8. Ms. Munich 285 fol. 68a. Also Liqqutey Hamis, Ms.Oxford 2239,
foil 26a.
9. The use of the term mdqor (source), implying principal organ ap-
pears in Sefer ha-Hayyim attributed to R. Abraham rbn Ezra (Ms. British
Library 1055, fols. 173a, I 74b), a work close in spirit to the Ashkenazi
pietists. We do not, however, find such usage in the works of either R.
Yehudah the Pious or R. Eleazar of Worms. It is worth noting that this
term was known to R. Moses de Leon, who uses it in Sefer ha-Rimmon
(Ms. Oxford 1607, fol. 51) and in Zohar II, 133a. See Y. Liebes, Peraqim
be-Milon Sefer ha-Zoliar (Doctoral Dissertation, Jerusalem 1976), 257,
267.
10. Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 45a. We note that these three elements
are mentioned together also in Sefer Horayot ha-Q6re>, published by J.
Derenbourg, Manuel du Lecteur (Paris 1871).
The letter does not stand by itself, but with the combination of letters
the word is made whole. However we don't know its pronunciation
except through the kings, which are the vowel marks.
This quote appears in the version of Mahberet ha-Tigan. Regarding
the influence of these three elements as construed by Abulafia, on R.
Moses Cordovero, see Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 136-137.
466 Notes to Qiapter 1
11. In Sefer lu-Melamnied (Ms. Paris, BN 680, iol. 290b), we read:
For you already know that the [ending] letters M, N, S, P, K were be-
queathed us by the 'gazers' and are not included within the alphabet
proper, but are the amendments of the scribes. For it does not seem
to me that intrinsically in nature any language would have any more
or less than 22 letters, as explained by the author of Sefer Yesirah.
This position by Abulafia, based on an emphasis of the 'phonetic'
elements as opposed to the 'graphic' elements, was not accepted by
most Kabbalists who continued Abulafia's tradition. In a work en-
titled 'Iggeret 'Aseret Mdnim, written by R. Aaron Hayun, during the
generation of the Spanish Expulsion (Ms. Jerusalem, Mussayoff 64,
fol. 97a) we read:
You find that there is a difference in the letters M, N, S P, K between
when they are written as upright and closed, or when they are written
as curved and open. And if not for these variants the number of
letters of the 'Alef Bet' would not be complete, as we have [already]
indicated.
Abulafia also examines the particular shapes of the letters, as we will
see below, but this form of investigation was particularly prevalent in
the Kabbalisric theosophical tradition. See Idel, "The Concept of the
Torah," 63ff.
12. Sep Mafteah ha-Rata/m (Ms. Oxford 123 Hebr. e., fol. 63a-63b).
This interesting discussion of languages continues beyond the passage
quoted here and deals also with variants of pronunciation among Jews
of different lands. See I. Adler in Lesdnenu, 40 (1976), 159. Following
Abulafia, the anonymous author of Sefer Ner 'Elohim (Ms. Munich 10,
fol. 135b), who was of the school of Abulafia, writes:
Know, my son, that the exemplary speech of all languages is essen-
tially contained in the 22 letters. And the vocalisations that impel the
consonants of any language are located in the five different vowel
Regarding the five vowels mentioned here, denoted in Abulafia's
school by the term Notariaon, see below, note 39.
A similar view to that of Abulafia, with reference to the 22 natural
letters is found in Sefer Mesobeb Netibot, a commentary to Sefer Yesirah
by R. Samuel Ibn Motot (Ms. Cambridge Add. 1015, fol. 18a), where
we read:
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 467
The system of twenty-two letters of the language (of Abraham] is
the exemplary form of the alphabet, having been derived from the
languages of all of his contemporaries. Thus, within our language the
letters are seen as exemplifying the celestial realms. In addition, it is
only the language of his offspring that makes use of all the letters, for
most of the Ishmaelite languages do not make use of the P [peh], and
the Christian languages do not use the H [Het] or ' [Ayin], and this
is certainly the case with all the languages of the rest of the nations,
which are merely stammerers.
See also the anonymous Sefer Toledot 'Adam (Ms. Oxford 836, fol. 169a)
that asserts:
Observe regarding any of the letters that may be combined in any
language, that they are the 22 letters divided into five modes of pro-
nunciation in accordance with their physical (vocal] origin.
A similar view is expressed by R. Yohanan Alemanno, who writes
in it Sefer Hey ha-'Olarnlrn (Ms. Mantua, Jewish Community 21 fol
197b): '
It is the human soul that pronounces the twenty-two sounds with
five pronunciations, which are the foundations of all speech that hu-
man beings are capable of producing, being set apart from animals
by their verbal capacity. For even if one produces by his vocal capac-
ity other sounds besides the twenty-two symbolised by the Hebrew
letters, this is not by virtue of his humanity, but by virtue of his phys-
ical animal capacity. For you may observe the human imitations of
animal calls such as those produced by pigs or horses or mules or
birds. And some of them also conduct themselves in accordance
with animal forms of behaviour, due to their rejection of the straight
path of human conduct. However, one who conducts himself with
proper human demeanor will not add to these twenty-two sounds,
the origins and foundations of all speech and language.
As we will see from the text we are about to quote, the letters of
the Hebrew language are seen as distorted by other languages, and
thereby the natural form of the Hebrew language is damaged:
So too you will find among many of the distortions of the sounds
and pronunciations, [and] the languages that were distorted by their
combinations, whereas others have preserved the sounds and lan-
guage so as to be in consonance with nature. And the relationship to
the Hebrew language, constructed by Cod in direct consonance with
reality, to the other languages, which Cod confounded during the
468 Notes to Chapter 1
generation of the Dispersion [i.e.. Babel] is duplicated in the relation
of the wisdom of Shem, Eber and Abraham to the foreign wisdoms
not of our nation. [Alemanno, ibid., fol. 198a]
There he continues:
For the Hebrew language was created by Divine agency, as was the
human intellect.
Alemanno bases himself here on the Kuzari which he immediately
quotes, indicating to us that Hebrew is, according to him, at once
divine and natural, which is Abulafia's view. Alemanno was influ-
enced by both Abulafia and R. Yehudah Halevi. Regarding R. Yehudah
Halevi and the influence of his theory of language during the Renais-
sance, see A. Altmann, Essays Hi ]ewish Intellectual History (University
Press of New England, 1981), 115-116.
It is worth noting that although Alemanno's idea of the distortion of
natural sounds, i.e., the 22 letters, is similar to that of Abulafia, there
is here the additional influence of the theory of the Greek language ex-
pressed by Galen, for in the continuation of the above-quoted passage
we read:
In the Sefer Yesirdh we find the Hebrew letters, which among all the
letter systems of all languages is the most suitable for combining
speech and verbal sound. So too did Galen say, that the Greek lan-
guage is the most pleasant of languages, as it is the closest one to
reason, and affords the finest possibilities for expression. For if you
investigate the words of the languages of other nations you will dis-
cover that indeed, some of them sound like the noises produced by
pigs, and some like the croaks of frogs and some like the sounds
produced by the crane. Some have deep sounds and thick pronunci-
ations produced by contortions of the mouth and some have guttural
sounds produced in the throat, and some produced by distorting the
mouth to make whistling noises.... and Galen referred not only to 1
the Greek language, but to other languages related to it such as He-
brew, Arabic, Assyrian [Aramaic?] and Persian. And indeed, the
Hebrew and Arabic languages are clearly related to each other, as is
observable to all who speak them both. And Assyrian [Aramaic] is
somewhat related, and Greek is closer [to Hebrew] than Assyrian,
etc.
Obviously, Alemanno borrowed Galen's estimation of the Greek lan-
guage and used it for the languages that in his opinion are related to I
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 469
it, including Hebrew. With regard to the argument mentioned earlier
about the naturalness of the twenty-two letters, we observe Abulafia's
influence. Galen's theory of language and the criticism of it by Mai-
monides is discussed at length in a work by R. Azaria de Rossi, Meor
'Enayitn {Vilna 1866), 464, and in R. Jacob Hayyim Zemah, Sefer Tiferct
'Adam (Ms. Benayahu, Peer 4, Section 12 (Bene Berak, 1982), 105-106.
13. Gen. 43:26; Lev. 23:17; Job 33:21 and more.
14. I have not located YSRTY (yisarti) with an R emphasized. On SRK
{sarak), see Ezekiel 16:4.
15. Psalms 51:3.
16. Sefer ha-Ge'uldh, Ms. Leipzig 39, fol. 7b.
17. The idea that there are elemental letters that construct the superior
language, and deviant letters added to these by means of which infe-
rior languages are constructed, is already found in the tenth century,
in the works of the Ismaili writer Abu-Hatim Ahmed Ibn Hamdan al-
Razi; see G. Vajda, "Les Lettres et les sons dans la langue arabe d'apres
Abu-Hatim al-Razi," Arabia VUI (1961), 120, notes 4, 5 (henceforth,
Vajda, "Letters and Sounds.")
18. Sefer ha-Ge>ulah, Ms. Leipzig 39, fol. 7b.
19. Abulafia refers, apparently, to the fact that the numerical value of
'ALF (Alef) is 111, which expresses clearly the 'Alef as a symbol of
unity.
20. Regarding these three dimensions of the letters, see Ginat 'Egoz
(Hanau 1615) fol. 34b, Ms. Jerusalem 8 1303, fol. 52a, and Ms. Vatican
295, fol. 6b. It is worth pointing out a discussion on the letters of
the alphabet in an epistle attributed to Aristotle, who sent it to his
pupil Alexander. It was preserved in Arabic, in Ms. Leiden 1132, and
regarding it, see P. Kraus, Jabir: Memoires de I'lnstitut d'Egypte, vol. 45
(1943) n, 340.
R. Saadya ben Danan attributes to R. Joseph Halevi and to his student
Maimonides, occupation in the study of letters:
And they tersely expounded upon them, hinted at deep secrets and
explained some but not all of the names of the letters. Due to this
my heart was aroused and the Spirit of God spoke within me, to
expound on all the letters. (Liieraturblatt, vol. 10, 1849, 731 note 27).
470 Notes to Chapter J
Discussions of the names and shapes of the letters are already to be
found in the Talmud and Midrash, but by the time of the Middle
Ages the commentaries on the alphabet had already become a literary
genre that was especially widespread in the theosophical Kabbalah.
We also find various philosophical commentaries on the twenty-two
letters; see Kcrem Hemed (1843), vol. 8, 23-24 and footnote, and ha-
Palit, 18, 37. As we know, Moslem mysticism attributed meaning and
significance to the letters and their graphic forms. See the material
gathered by Goldziher in his article "Linguistisches aus der Literatur
der Muhammedanischen Mystik," ZDMC, XXVI (1872), 780 ff. (hence-
forth, Goldziher, Language) and above, notes 1, 2.
21. Perns Sefer ha-Melis (Ms. Munich 285, fol. 10b). The expression
"a world in and of itself," referring to groups of letters, is also found
in Sefer Mafteah ha~Ra<ayon (Ms. Vatican 291, fol. 41b). We have
here a hieroglyphic view of letters, because they denote concepts and
not merely meaningless sounds. It is worth noting that during the
Renaissance, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Kabbalistic ideas gained in
esteem among Christian circles, and this includes also the Kabbalah
of Abulafia. See E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (Penguin
Books, 1967), 206-208, note 54, and L. Diekmann, Hieroglyphics— The
History of a Literary Symbol (St. Louis, 1970), 31-44. Compare also to
terms similar to those used by Abulafia, in the circle of the Maggid of
Mezehrich: "each and every letter is an entire universe," Sefer 'Or ha-
'Emet (Brooklyn 1960) fol. 77b; "for every letter is called a universe"—
R. Solomon of Lutzk, Dibrat Sclomoh Qerusalem 1955) fol. 6b, etc.
22. Abulafia does not use different terms for graphic as opposed to
vocalised letters, just as the Arabic grammarians before him do not:
see Vajda, Letters and Sounds, 114-115 and note 3.
23. Regarding these three planes, see P. Kraus, Jabir, H, 259, 268; and
Vajda, Letters and Sounds, 129 and n. 1.
24. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 67a. For additional discussion on those
three, see Idel, The Mystical Experience, ch. 1.
25. On this, see Chapter 3 below, and Vajda, Letters and Sounds, 128,
n. 1.
26. Ms. Oxford 1580 fol. 75a.
27. See above, note 3.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 471
28. Ms. Munich 40, fol. 245a, Ms. Munich 285, fol. 75b. See also
Schoiem, "The Name of God," 191. Also in Sefer ha-'Edut by Abu-
lafia (Ms. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 17a). Already at the beginning of
the historical Kabbalah we find the connection between 'OT and the
Aramaic root 'TH. See Schoiem, "The Name of God," 166.
29. Regarding "the world of letters," see note 1 above, and the bibli-
ographic data supplied there.
30. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 155b; and Liqutey Sikelidh u-Fcdh (Ferarra
1556) fol. 27b.
31. This is definitely a play on the words LVH-LYFiH {luah-leyhah:
table-moisture).
32. Regarding the return of the letters to their prime-material state,
see below. Chapter 3; and in the work indicated here below, note 57.
33. Seba< Netibot ha-Torah, 17-18.
34. Regarding this quote and its relation to Abulafia's Sefer Hayyey lm-
'Otdm ha-Ba 1 , see Idel, Abulafia, 132.
35. On Notariqon, see the following section of this chapter, and espe-
cially, note 39.
36. Ms. Oxford 1582 fol. 14b.
37. Sefer 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz (Ms. Oxford 1580, fols. 64b-65a). There
Abulafia bases himself on Midrash Tanhuma, Semini, par. 8. This idea
was widespread during the period when Abulafia was writing, and
is found in the Zoliar and in the writings of R. Moses de Leon. See
Adolf Jellinek, Moses de Leon (Leipzig, 1851), 31; see also in R. Bahya
ben Asher in various places in his commentary on Torah: Gen. 2:7;
17:1; Ex. 25:18; Dt. 28:10. Additional material was collected in David
Kaufmann, Die Sinne (Leipzig, 1884), 156, n. 25, and in G. Schoiem
"Hakarat Ha-panim we-Sidrey Sirtutim," Sefer Assaf (Jerusalem 1953),
493.
38. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 152b, referring to Sefer Pores Sefer.
39. One of the first to make use of the term Notariqon to indicate the
five essential vowels is R. Yehudah Hadassi, who writes in Sefer =Eskol
ha-Kofer (1536), fol. 61a:
472 Notes to Cliapter 1
The kings of the points, the five essential Notariqon of clear speech,
are the five vocalisations,
and on fol. 62a:
the kings of the vowel points, which are five kings; the Notariqon of
[your] language.
And see also ibid., fol. 60c. See Sefer Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba> (Ms.
Oxford 1582, fol. 53b), and Sejer 'Or ha-Sekel (Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 99b
ff. and elsewhere); Sefer Sa'arey Sedeq (Ms. Leiden 24, fol. 134b), and
in passage cited above, referred to in note 35, and below, note 121.
40. Sefer Hayye ha-'Oldm \\a-Ba- (Ms. Oxford 1582 fol. 53b).
41. In Sefer ha-Bdhir (Margolioth edition p. 5 par. 1 1 5) we read:
This (vowel) point in the Torah of Moses, which is entirely [round]
and is in relation to the letter like the soul dwelling in the human
body.
Regarding the sources of this idea, see Scholem, Das Buch Bahir, 88,
and the material collected by Naftali ben Menahem in Lesonenu Le<am,
16 (1965), 3-9. This passage from Sefer ha-Bdhir is quoted often by
Abulafia. In Sefer Get lia-Semot (Ms. Oxford 1682, fol. 107a), Abulafia
quotes the Sefer lia-Bdhir using two designations which we will quote
here:
And so did our sages o.b.m. state, that the vowel points in relation to
their respective letters are like [their) souls. And in the Barayla and
Yerushalmi it is stated that the [vowel] points of the Torah of Moses
are likened to souls that dwell in human bodies, i.e., that the vowels
of the consonants are like the souls of creatures.
It is clear that Abulafia distinguishes between the quote from the sages
and the other source referred to as Barayta and Yerushalmi, which was
a designation used by a number of the early Kabbalists, referring to
the Bdhir, see Scholem, The Origins of the Kabbalah, 40, n. 68, and Y.
Weinstock, Be-Ma'agaley ha-Nigleh ve-ha-Nistdr (Jerusalem 1970), 40, 45.
It is not clear to this writer what exactly was the source of the quote
from "the Sages," and it may be the case that Abulafia saw one of
the sources used by the author of the Bahir. It is worthy noting that
R. Menahem Recanati, in his work Ta'amey ha-Miswot (H. Lieberman,
ed. London 1962, fol. 32a) distinguishes between Yerushalmi and Sefer
tm-Bahir. The quote from Sefer ha-Bahir is cited by Sefer 'Osar 'Eden
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 473
Gdnuz in the name of Sefer ha-Bahir (Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 107a), and
in Sefer Hayyey ha-Nefes, Ms. Munich 408, fol. 74b), it is cited in the
name of "our sages o.b.m."
42. Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 106b.
43. On this topic, see Idel, The Mystical Experience, chs. 1, 2.
44. There are already substantial discussions on the graphic repre-
sentations of the vowels, in the works of R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, in R.
Joseph Gikatilla's Sefer Ginat 'Egoz and by R. Isaac ha-Kohen in Sefer
Ta'amey ha-Nequdot we-Surotam.
45. Ms. Vatican 233, fols. lOOb-lOla. These words by Abulafia influ-
enced the writer of Sefer Ner 'Elohim (Ms. Munich 10, fols. 140a-140b):
There are places where the patah and kamaz are written above the
letter, and indeed it would be proper that it surround the entire letter,
but we write it as it is, in order not to obscure the form representation
of the letter on its account. And the kamaz, composed from a line and
a point below its middle indicates that the line of the patah stands
in place of die circle. Also numerologically the word QMS [adnias]
equals KDVR [kadur— circle], and MQYF [makif— surrounding]; and
every circle has a point at its center around which it revolves.
See also Sefer 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz (Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 12b), and Sefer
Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba> (Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 56a).
46. The source of this view is R. Abraham Ibn Ezra's Sefer ha-Mozimywi
(Offenbach 1791), fol. 10a: "the great patah is a line, indicating a re-
volving circle." See also R. Yehudah Hadassi, 'Eskot ha-Kofer (Eupatoria,
836), fol. 62b, par. 165. R. Joseph Gikatilla in Sefer Ginat 'Egoz (fol.
72c-d) writes:
Know that the qdmas is regarded as a circle thai surrounds [in the
printed version we read "MUQF"— 'is surrounded by', but evidently
we must correct this to MQYF— 'surrounds']. Know too, that all cir-
cles eventually take the form of the qdmas, since any circle is limited
by diameter. Know also, my brother, that every circle has a point
in its center, which is the secret of the point of the qdmas. So too,
you should contemplate, and you will find that every letter returns
in the revolving wheel, the secret of the 231 [gates], which constitutes
a circle [KDVRA], i.e., a surrounding circle. And this is called the
center, the secret of the qdmas.
474 Notes to Qiapler 1
Gikatilla relates the fact that all the letters revolve by way of the 231
gates, to the fact that the adtnas surrounds letters as a circle. In this
he also makes use of numerology: KDVRA (one circle) = 231 - RL'A.
R. Hananel ben Abraham, author of Sefer Yesbd 'Olam (Ms. Moscow-
Gunzburg 601, fol. 72a), basing himself on Gikatilla, writes:
The somas is a point, and a line stands upon it, and its numerical value
is 230, the value also of [the word] KDVR. And the point beneath the
line refers to the 231.
See also Sefer Gan Na-ul (Ms. Munich 58, fol. 3221b); and cf. M.
Steinschneider, Hebraiscbe Bibliographic, vol. 18 (1818), 81, and ibid.,
vol. 4 (1861), 78.
47. Sefer 'Or lia-Sekel{Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 89a). SBYM LSVNVT =
1214 = SYRUF H'OTYVT (sttim lesdndl— seventy languages = seruf ha'
otiyot^ombination of the letters). This equation recurs frequently in
Abulafia's writings; see Sefer 'Osar 'Eden Ginuz (Ms. Oxford 1580, fols.
48a, 141b), and elsewhere. See also below, citations in notes 67 and
111, and also in this chapter itself.
48 Sefer Yesirah (Jerusalem 1965) fol. 10b. This passage is also found,
verbatim, in Perus' Sefer Yesirah of R. Eleazar of Worms (Jerusalem 1918)
fol la and also in the commentary on the Torah of R. Menahem
Ziyuni '(Jerusalem 1964) fol. 3c. Abulafia was familiar with the first
two of these works. The idea under discussion is also apparently
related to material preserved in Sefer Baddey ha-'Aron by R. Shem Tov
ben Abraham Ibn Gaon, and also found in Ms. Paris, BN 770, fol
147a See also the untitled work by R. Yohanan Alemanno, preserved
in Ms Paris, BN 849, fol. 120a, and in his Sir ha-Ma'alol, which was
partially published under the name Sa-ar ha-Heshea (Livomo 1790) fol.
36a.
49. Tishbi ed., 28.
50. BT Menahot, 65a.
51. BT Sanltedrin, 4b.
52 Ms Paris 768 BN, fol. 2a. The emphasis on the desirability of
knowing the "seventy languages" even if we do not take this liter-
ally expresses the importance that Abulafia attaches to language, as
opposed to most non-Jewish mystics who minimise the significance
of language. Whereas Abulafia regards it as one of the summits of
Language, Torah, and Hcrmeneutics in Abulafia 475
mystical attainment, Augustine writes that the state of Divine Grace:
"omnis lingua et omne quidquid transuendo fit si cui sileat" (Confes-
sions, IX, 10). See note 54 below.
53. BT Sotah, 36a. On this text as illustrating Midrashic literature, see
James L. Kugel, "Two Introductions to Midrash," in eds. G. Hartman-
S. Budick, Midrash and Literature (New Haven-London, 1986), 93-100.
54. Ms. Cambridge, Trinity College 108, fol. 123b. The text was
published by Scholem in Abulafia, who thought that it was by Abulafia
or by one of his disciples. Compare to RasBaS, Mdgen 'Abot (Livorno
1785) fol. 15a: "And He taught him 70 languages," i.e., he activated his
potential intellect. See below, notes 114, 127. R. Isaac of Acre depicts
language SFH [sdfah] as the Sekmdh (SKYNH), based on their numerical
equivalence, and in his discussion of this we find a conception of
effluence associated with the Hebrew language; on this issue see Idel,
"Reification of Language," where Sefer 'Osar Hayyim (Ms. Moscow
Giinsburg 775, fol. 70a), is discussed.
55. Knowledge of the seventy languages was regarded as an important
attainment even during the Talmudic era; see sources compiled by
Goldziher, Language, 469, n. 4. The seventy languages are associated
with revelation, as we learn from Midras Semot Rabbah, 5:9:
And the whole nation perceived the thunderings [sounds; cf. Ex 21:
15]: the Voice emerged and became 70 voices and 70 languages so
that all nations would hear.
See, ibid.28A, and Midras Sober Job on Psalm 92, and observations by
A. Schreiber in his article "Das Problem des Unsprung der Sprache
in Judische Schriften," Magyar Zsido Szemle, vol. LIX (1937), 334-349.
It is worth pointing out that an unusual conception, which sees the
knowledge of the seventy languages as an inferior quality, may be
found in Perus ha-Tbrdh by a certain R. Zerahyah, written apparently
during the fourteenth century, where we read:
And it is written [Psalm 19:3] YHVH D'AAT [yehaweh ia'al— reveals
knowledge]. So too, HVH in Aramaic means serpent [ndhas], be-
cause he knew all languages; 'And the tree was desirable to make
one wise' [Gen. 3:6]. Thus, she knew the entire secret of languages,
whereas this was not the case with Adam. And she was thus chosen
for the sake of providing for humanity... For subtlety depends on the
eye, which wants to be great... And this is the secret of ]the numer-
ical equivalence] 'ADM NHS HVH = SB'IM (Adam Nahas [serpent]
47b Notes to Chapter 1
Havah [Eve] = sib'im [70]). And this is the secret of the NHS: "And
the serpent was more subde. . . " (Gen. 3:1]:
Forty-nine gates of understanding were revealed to him and he un-
derstood the 70 languages: NHS refers to 50; H— HTH [hitah— wheat]
= 22 [letters], S — SB'uM — 70. And because he caused Eve to sin and
removed from the moon seven luminaries and from the sun, seven
times seven, the serpent was cursed sevenfold and returned to 49.
(Ms. Paris, Alliance Israelite, 146, fol. 32a).
Notwithstanding the fact that the author of these words makes use
of methods of commentary similar to those of Abulafia, here the 70
languages are regarded as a quality possessed by Eve and not Adam.
It seems that we have here a concept of languages that emphasises its
imaginative aspect. Language is associated with particulars limited in
finite space and time, as opposed to intellect, which is beyond both
time and verbal expression. We also find an anti-linguistic orienta-
tion in the anonymous Sefer Toleddt 'Adam, a work also influenced by
Abulafia. In this writing we find an argument to the effect that as
language is conventional, the intellectual attainment is not essentially
dependent on it; see Ms. Oxford 836, fol. 169a:
For all of these words and letter exchanges [of places in the word]
are merely convention, originating from the realm of the imagina-
tion, whereas the intellect and prophecy in and of themselves require
neither speech nor language to be perceived, as [it is required by]
imagination. And the words of the sages are parables and enigmas,
very terse but containing much meaning. And prophecy does not re-
quire even this minimal amount of speech. However, since the sage
cannot convey [the depth of] his message to the masses, for they
do not understand his unique language, since they do not share the
same [level of] convention, for "wisdom is as unattainable to the fool
as corals" [Prov. 24:7], for this reason we will observe among the
sages that they are always laughing in their hearts at the fools, as
they speak to them in the language they had learned from their early
youth.
During the sixteenth century we come across a view in the writing of R.
Isaac Sarfati similar to that of Abulafia in reference to the relationship
between the Active Intellect and the 70 languages. See Y. Hacker,
Ha-Hevrah lia-Yehudit be-Saloniki ve-Aggapea be-Me'ot ha-Tet-Vav ve-ha-
Tet-Zayin (Doctoral dissertation, Jerusalem 1979), 8.
56. Sefer Sitrey Torah (Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 163a).
', Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 477
57. Sefer Vsar 'Eden Gdnuz (Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 33a). Concerning
the return of the letters to their prime-material state, see above, note
32, and the quotes in note 59 below.
58. Ibid., fol. 33a. On the 70 languages, see above, note 55.
59. Ibid., fols. 171a-171b; and compare to Seba< Netibot ha-Tdrdh, 4.
60. Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology, 164-167, 282-284; Isadore Twersky,
Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (New Haven-London 1980), 324.
61. "Ma j amar 'al Penimiyut ha-Torah," published by G. Scholem,
Kiryat Sefer, 6 (1930), 111-112. G. Scholem was doubtful in attributing
this work to Nahmanides, as was the writer of the manuscript; and
Gottlieb, in Studies., 128-131, proves that this work was written by
R. Joseph Gikatilla. For another appraisal of language, coming from
circles influenced by Gikatilla, see below, note 92, and Gikatilra's own
opinion, note 83.
62. Num. 16:31.
63. BT Sanhedrin, fol. 99a.
64. Gen. 11:9.
65. Seba c Netibot ha-Tdrdh, 16-17. These two sections are also found,
with minor variations, in R. Jacob Anatoli's translation of the first
gate of Bcur Sefer ha-Melis (Ms. Paris, BN 928, fol. 33a). On Ana-
toli's translation of Averroes's commentary on Aristotle's Organon, see
Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology, 8-10.
66. Compare with Abulafia in Sefer 'Imrey Sefer, Ms. Paris, BN 777, p.
63:
And so too it was among the masses of various passing nations, the
one who was the most distinguished of them was chosen. And this
is, as it was with the passing stars of the sky, where the sun was
chosen. And similarly within the person's own body, where there
are principle organs and organs under their domain.
On the principal organs, see above, note 7.
67. See above, note 47.
68. See also in Nahmanides, Commentary on Torah, Ex. 30:12, and see
below, in the text indicated in note 132.
478 Notes to Chapter 1
69. Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 59a. The idea that the first language was
the medium by which the conventions of the other languages were
established is also found in the works of the Arabic grammarian Ibn
Hazm, see K. Amaldez, Grammaire et Theologie chcz Ibn Hazm de Cordoue
(Paris 1956), 45; and in Al~Ghazali, see M. A. Palacios, "El Origen del
Lenguaje y Problemas Conexos," Al-Andaluz, IV (1936-1939), 266.
70. Ms. Moscow 133, fol. 16b. See also another text from this volume,
that will be quoted in connection with note 133. Compare this also
with Abulafia's conception that the prophetic wisdom is the mother
of all wisdoms
....for they all derive sustenance from her, and by her means will one
easily attain to the Active Intellect.
Seba< Netibot ha-Torah, 6. And see note 114 below.
71. Ms. Oxford 2239, fol. 125b; and compare with Sefer lia-Melammed,
Ms. Paris, BN 680, fol. 297a:
Know that all agreements about language necessarily presuppose an
already existing language [and] Adam knew the 70 languages, for all
70 languages are subserved under 22 letters.
From this we may conclude that according to Abulafia, the 70 lan-
guages are, in effect, one language by whose means all the other lan-
guage conventions arose, and that they are all delimited by it. Com-
pare this with the conception of the Hebrew language, as the mother
of all languages, found in the text of Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot indicated
in note 70; see that note and note 69.
72. Compare with Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, III, 50.
73. Ms. Vatican 291, fols. 29b-30a. The source of this story is found in
Herodotus 2:2. This legend was known to R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, who
writes in Sefer Sdfdh Berurdh (Fiorda 1839), fol. 2a-b = Dear. vol. 2, p.
286, notes:
So first I searched to discover which is the first of all languages.
Many have said that Aramaic is the most ancient, and that it is even
in the nature of man to speak it without having been taught it by
anyone. And that if a newborn child be placed in a desert with no
one but a mute wet-nurse, he would speak Aramaic. And that it
is because a child is taught a foreign language that he forgets his
natural language. But these words are utterly without significance,
e, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 479
for something [learned] as a result of chance cannot cause one to
forget his inborn knowledge.
74. This story is mentioned in a chronicle written in Italy during the
lifetime of Abulafia, Cronica Fratris Salimbene (Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, vol. 32, 350):
Secunda eius superstitio fuit, quia voluit experiri, cuius modi linguam
et loquelam haberent pueri, cum adolevissent si cum nemine loquer-
entur. Et ideo precepit baiulis et nutricifus ut lac infantibus darent
ut mamans sugerent et baenearrent et mundificarent eos, sed nullo
modo btandisentur eis nee loquerenrur. Volebat enim cognoscere
utrum Hebream linguam haberent que prima lingua haberent que
prima fuerat an Grecam vel Latinam vel Arabicam nut certe linguam
parentum suorum ex quibuis nati fuissent. Sed laborat in eassum
quia pueri sive infantes moriebant omnes.
The administrator of this experiment was, as is known, King Frederick
II, and it was considered one of his cruel escapades.
75. See 'Osdr Nehmdd, v. 2 (1863), 135-1 36; also, Joseph B. Sermoneta, R.
Hillel Ben Samuel Ben Eleazar of Verona and His Philosophy, (Ph.D. thesis,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1961), 167 ff. and 190. This story was
known to another Italian author, the Kabbalist R. Aaron Berakyah de
Modena; in his work Ma'abdr Yaboq (Amsterdam 1732) fol. 144b, we
read:
For nature implanted these [words] in the mouths of babies, as can
be investigated. And even with children not of our nation, their
first words will be "God make thee as Ephraim and Menasseh," as
we have mentioned. And we already know from the occurrence of
a child who never heard the speech of any language, that his first
words were of the Holy language, because the name of the master
of nature, 'ELHYM ['Elohim] has the same numerical value as HTB 1
[ha-teba' — nature], and He implanted it so in his world in the secret
of the letters of the Torah, within which He looked and thus created
His world.
An additional version of this story, that bears a similarity to the one
told by Herodotus and to the one that Salimbene told concerning King
Frederick n, is found in the notes of R. Obadaya the Prophet, published
in H. Liebermann, Vhel Rahel (New York 1980), I, 319-320. See also Y
H. Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Glietto (New York-London
1971), 277.
480 Notes to Chapter 1
76. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 151b. Compare with Sefer Hayyey ha-Nefes
(Ms. Munich 408, fols. 38b-39a). Thus Abulafia attributes an intrinsic
connection between the name of an object and its form:
Know that for anything in existence, its form corresponds to the name
that nature bestowed upon it; for the form, name, and remembrance
are identical.
In Sefer 'Or ha-Sekel(Ms. Vatican 233 fol. 70a-b) we read: "The noun is
the root indicating (its) substance and essence." And in Sefer Mafteah
lia-Sefxrot (Ms. Milano-Ambrosiana 53, fol. 154b), Abulafia delimits
the implications of the noun:
And the noun informs us as to the true substance and essence when
it is the name of a species or a genus. But the [proper] noun does not
inform us as to its essence, because it is not specifically designated
for him and is not within him.
This indicates that language has intellectual content, because in itself
it can inform us as to the form of the species and genera.
77. Ms. Paris, BN 680, fol. 291a.
78. The claim for the superiority of the Hebrew language, based on
the wisdom hidden in the forms, names, and numerical values of the
letters is also found in the writing of R. Joseph ben David of Greece,
who writes:
Know that our language is called holy for two reasons: one, is that
by means of its letters everything in existence from the highest to the
lowest, can be explained... and also, by virtue of the letters and their
names many matters are explained in ways not found in any other
language, to one who [carefully] delves into its [intrinsic] details.
This fragment was published by L. Dukes in Literaturblatt des Orient,
10 (1849), 730 and was influenced by Sefer Midras ha-Hokmah of R.
Yehudah Ibn Matka.
79. This connection between conventional and natural language is
already found in Plato's Cratylus, par. 435^136; and see, H. A. Wolfson
"The Veracity of Scripture." Religious Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.
1961), 225. See also in Abulafia, Sefer Hayyey ha-Nefes (Ms. Munich
408, fol. 38b-39a), note 76 above.
80. The term prophetic convention or Divine convention found in a
passage of Sefer Sa<arey Sedeq, which will be quoted below in con-
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 481
nection with the language of revelation, is also found in the Hindu
philosophical school, the Nyaya; see A. Padoux, Recherches sur la Sym-
bolique et I'Energie de la Parole dans certain textes Tantriques (Paris, 1975),
147 n. 5. Regarding divine convention, we read in Sefer Sa'arey Sedeq:
And that the convention as to the forms of the letters of the Torah
and the combinations of the Names are in truth divine conventions,
and are not like the other conventions of the world as to the form
of their letters, which came about as a result of the imagination and
inventiveness of the human mind.
See below, in the text indicated by note 85, where we find the expres-
sion "agreement between God and Adam" which corresponds to "Di-
vine convention" here. And compare to Sefer Mawseh 'Efod (Vienna
1865), 30: "And as this language is a result of Divine, not human
convention. . . " Is it possible that the author of Ma'aseh *Efod was in-
fluenced by Sefer Sa'arey Sedeq? On the possible influence of Abulafia
on the author of Mwaseh 'Efod, see I. Twersky, "Religion and Law"
in Religion in a Religious Age (ed. S. D. Goitein, Cambridge, Mass.
1974) p.82 n.35. And see below, note 82, and the words of R. Yohanan
Alemanno quoted in note 2, and Jean Bodin in note 133 below.
81. Ms. Munich 58, fol. 327a, which corresponds to Sefer ha-Pelvah
fol. 53d.
82. Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, HI, 32: "If you consider the
Divine actions, I mean to say the natural actions . . . ;" and see below
note 83. On the congruence between the divine and natural properties
of language, as opposed to the opinion of Maimonides, see Yehudah
Halevi, Sefer Kuzari, IV, 25. Maimonides himself clearly supported
the view of conventionality of all language, including Hebrew; see
Twersky (cf. note 60 above) p. 324.
83. Ms. Munich 58, fol. 333a, corresponding to Sefer ha-Peli'dh, fol.
55b. There the word natural is missing. The source of this idea is in
Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, I, 66:
and the Tablets were the work of God. He intends to signify by this
that this existence was natural and not artificial, for all natural things
are called the work of the Lord.
And see below, Chapter 2, on Abulafia 's conception of the Torah. Com-
pare with Abulafia's Sefer ha-Melammed (Ms. Paris, BN 680, fols. 296b,
297a, 300a). There Maimonides' opinion on the Tablets is mentioned
482 Notes to Cliapter 1
a number of times. It is particularly relevant to quote here Abulafia,
ibid. fol. 297a:
And you already know that our sages o.b.m., the sages of wisdom
and astronomy have said that God, may He be Blessed, gave names
to light and darkness, as it is written (Gen. 1:5) "And God called light
day and the darkness he called night," and so too [ibid., 1:8] "God
called the firmament heaven" and [ibid., 1:10] "and He called their
name Adam on the day He created them." Know that these names,
that Scripture states were given by God, contain wondrous secrets,
and are not all limited to merely the plain meaning, but rather, they
inform us as to the veracity of the hidden meaning of language and
its secrets; that God gave them names not out of convention, but in
accordance with their nature.
It seems that there is a distinction to be made in reference to language
between, on the one hand, prophetic convention in communication
between God and man; and on the other hand, the names that God
Himself gave to phenomena before the creation of man. We may also
recognize Abulafia's influence on Gikatilla's Be'urey ha-Moreh:
Regarding all the languages of the world, with the exception of the
holy language, there is no purpose in asking the reasons for the partic-
ular letters of a word, since they are the results of human convention,
and do not reflect nature, i.e., that a nation decided to call something
such and so. Therefore, the words of their languages do not possess
inner structure. Whereas with the holy language this is not the case,
because it is not a language that people agreed upon, but rather, it
is indeed bom of Divine wisdom which has no end, and is entirely
established in accordance with Divine intent, (published in Se'elol
le-Hdkdm R. Saul Ashkemzi, (Venice, 1574) fols. 20c-d.)
Gikatilla negates the naturalness of foreign languages, and contrast-
ingly, sees Hebrew as the Divine language. Elsewhere (ibid., fols. 27d-
28a), in criticising Maimonides' conception of language, he writes:
But the meaning of [Gen. 2:19] "This is its name" is that it is its
true name, in accordance with Divine wisdom, based on the Super-
nal Book. For [Adam] received it all in the Kabbalah, and the Holy
One Blessed' be He informed him as to the secret orders of the uni-
verse, and the secrets of His Chariots [merkdbot\ and the ways of
causality and the hidden potencies behind all orders, and after He
had informed him of these he was properly able to call each thing
by its true name, in accordance with the Divine Intent.
Language, Torali, and Hermeneulics in Abulafia 483
This tells us that man issued names to phenomena after understand-
ing their true nature— the secret orders of the universe— "the ways of
causality" Thus, language is not only a result of revelation but is the
true expression of the essence of phenomena. With this in mind, we
may say that the aforementioned quote from Be'urey ha-Moreh: "....
since they are the results of human convention, and do not reflect
nature," means to say that their languages are conventional, as op-
posed to Hebrew, which is natural. On the attribution of this work to
Gikatilla, see Gottlieb, Studies., 110. On the 'calling of names' as an
expression of the understanding of the link between phenomena in the
lower world and their roots in the supernal world, see R. Goetschel,
Meir Ibn Gabbay (Leuven, 1981), 366-367, 416.
It is worth clarifying here the meaning of the expression diqdua penrmi
(inner structure) used in Be'urey lm-M6reh. According to Vajda (below,
note 85) p. 128, it refers to "symbole esoterique;" whereas he translates
it as "structure infrinseque." In this writer's opinion, Vajda's transla-
tion, rather than his interpretation, concurs with the intent of the au-
thor. Gikatilla, like Abulafia, analyses the inner structure of words to
derive their essential meaning. In his work, Gikatilla bases his discus-
sion on the assumption that language is an elaborated expression of
the Divine Name, ramified in various ways, which became the stuff of
language. For an analysis of one example of this type of discourse, in
reference to Jerusalem as a symbol, and an elaboration on the Name of
72 groups of letters found in Be-ureu Im-Mbreh, fol. 24c-d, see M. Idel
"Jerusalem in Thirteenth-Century Thought," The History of Jerusalem,
Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099-1250), eds.J. Prawer-H. Ben Shamay, pp.
276-279 [Hebr.J What characterizes Gikatilla in the particular stage of
his intellectual development during which he wrote Be'urey ha-Moreh
| is his attempt to bring to light the inner structures of language more
: than his attempt to understand their symbolic content. And in this
* sense, his similarity to Abulafia is manifest. Later, in his works based
on definite theosophic principles, such as Sefer Sa'arey Sedea and Sefer
Sa'arey 'Ordh the symbolic ramifications of words become the focus of
his interest, at the expense of analysing the particular constituents of
the word itself.
84. Ex. 32:16.
85. Ms. Jerusalem 80 148, fols. 78b-79a, corrected by Ms. Leiden-
Warner 24, fol. 131b. This section was translated into French in an
484 Notes to Chapter 1
addendum to G. Vajda, "Deux Chapitres de l'Histoire du Conflit en-
tre la Kabbale et la Philosophie: la Polemique Anti-intellectualiste de
Joseph b. Shalom Ashkenazi," AHDLMA, XXXI (1956), 131-132. On
"Divine convention" in Sefer Sw-arey Sedeq, see the quote cited above in
note 80, that was not dealt with in Vajda's essay. In this essay, Vajda
also deals with aspects of theory of language in Be'urey ha-Moreh that
we discuss here, but he is not inclined to accept Gikatilla as the author
of this work.
86. This according to Ms. Leiden, whereas Ms. Jerusalem reads "Sem."
87. We have here a transformation of the concept 'Divine issue' ( i myan
'Elohi) into the term Kabbalah. See Vajda (note 85 above), 132-133.
88. Sefer Yeslrah was attributed according to various traditions known
to Abulafia to the Patriarch Abraham or to R. 'Aqiba.
89. Concerning Adam as the first receiver of the traditions of the
Kabbalah, as opposed to Moses, there are many sources contemporary
with Abulafia. See Sefer Seqel ha-Qodes by R. Moses de Leon (London
1911), 22; Abulafia himself, in his epistle Masref la-Kesef (Ms. Sasoon
56, fol. 25a) reports that according to a contemporary theosophical
Kabbalist the chain of Kabbalistic tradition of the sefirot started with
Adam:
And so according to him, the tradition [Kabbalah] goes back in
[an unbroken] chain down to Ravina and Rav Ashi o.b.m., until R.
Yehudah the Prince o.b.m., and from him, down to the prophets until
our master Moses, down to Abraham o.b.m., to Noah, until Adam,
who received the secrets of each and every sefirah from God.
In one text we find also that the connection between the Divine Name
and language was also part of a tradition that predates Moses, and
we may assume that the origin of that tradition was Adam. In Sefer
ha-Yihud, preserved in Ms. Schocken, Kabbalah, 14, fol. 120b, we read:
And the knowledge of the Creator, May His Name be blessed and
exalted, consists of eight sets of alphabets such as [Ex. 14:19-21]
"Wa-yisa", Wa-yabo', Wa-yet," which contain 216 letters. And before
the Torah proper was given at Sinai, Moses was in Egypt. And it
is accepted that Levi possessed a book of Kabbalah and he studied
from it, as did those who preceded him. But Moses didn't learn in the
same way as his predecessors, Heaven forfend, regarding whom it
is written [Genesis 6:3] "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever for
I
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 485
that he also is flesh," etc. Moses o.b.m. studied the Kabbalah in its
most perfect form, with a pure spirit and a new heart, more so than
any other man, and he attained to certain knowledge of the Creator.
Regarding him it is written [Dt. 34:10] "And there has not arisen a
prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knows face
to face," not before or after. And so too, we find in Sefer ha-Mafteah
that before Moses [was returned to] Egypt, the Holy One blessed
and exalted be His name, chose him from among the tribe of Levi
so that he may serve Him. And Moses learned the entire Kabbalah
from the alphabets, and his study of wisdom and knowledge and
understanding refers to the letters and their vowels. And anyone
who will understand and know [and understand] the power of the
letters and vowels, and their [visual] forms and the effects of their
forms, will understand and have knowledge of the Blessed Creator.
We have here before us a clear claim that the study of the Names
of God, classified as the "Kabbalah" existed in writing even before
Moses, and that Moses studied it in its complete form. The content
of the Kabbalah consists of the different alphabets, the forms of the
letters, the vowels, and the power hidden in them. As for his reliance
on Sefer ha-Mafteah, we quote the colophon of Sefer ha-Yihud:
This is the Sefer ha-Yihud, a 'mafleah' [key] to the Book of Raziel,
[containing] deep words and hidden secrets, the book of Kabbalah.
(Ms. Schoken, ibid., fol. 120b).
We know from various sources that the angel Raziel revealed his book
Sefer RazUei to Adam; see Sefer ha-Razim (ed. Margolioth, Jerusalem
1967), 31. If so, the Kabbalah of Sefer Razvil is said to teach the most
ancient Kabbalah, originating with Adam, who passed it on until it
reached Moses' generation. See also Sefer ha-'Emunot of R. Shem Tov
ben Shem Tov (Ferarra 1556), fols. 95a, 19b, and the report of the
opinion of Athanasius Kircher on the language of Adam, in Deikman
(see above, note 2) pp. 97-99.
90. Ms. Leiden, Warner 24, fol. 127a, Ms. Jerusalem 80 148, fols.
47a-b, the text in the second Ms. is missing in those lines.
91. Apparently, the study of the names and letters is also associated
with the esoteric reading of Scripture as an amalgam of Divine Names,
a method supported by Abulafia and the author of Sefer Sa'arey Sedeq.
See Ms. Jerusalem, 8o, 148, fol. 79b:
486 Notes to Chapter 1
And Moses o.b.m. ordered the Torah with consecutive letters in ac-
cordance with the way of Names. . .
And compare with Abulatia's claim in Sefer ha-Heseq that his method
will be revealed in the messianic era, whereas now it seems strange
to the
...."sages of Israel who hold themselves to be wise(!) in the wisdom
of the Talmud." (Ms. New York, JTS 1801, fol. 13b).
See also the material in Sefer ha-Yihud, mentioned in note 89, from
which it is clear that the Kabbalah constitutes the study of the Holy
Names and letters. See also below the section quoted from Sefer Sitrey
Torah in note 129.
92. Ms. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 45b. The numerology of 1BRYT
(<ibrity— Hebrew = 682 = M*SH MRKBH (ma'aseh merkdbdh— the Ac-
count of the Chariot) is also found in Ms. Jerusalem 80 1303, fol. 54a,
in a passage of an untitled work by Abulafia. See also Chapter 2
below, on Abulatia's conception of the Torah. We may also compare
Abulatia's conception of Hebrew as an intellectual language to the
description of the Hebrew language found in Tis'dh Peraqim be-Yihud,
attributed to Maimonides, and published by Vajda in Qobes <al Yad, 5
(1951), 127 where we read:
Among all languages there is not one that can reach the quality of
the Holy language. And this is due to the fact that the [usage or
the Holy language (is identical] with the usage of the Blessed Name,
and the secret of the Great Name, is instructed in the essence of God,
Blessed be He. Thus, anyone who purifies and comprehends with
keen intellect His Great and Blessed Name will understand in his
mind the truth of Creator of the World.
As Vajda pointed out, there is a clear affinity between sections of the
above-quoted work and Gikatilla's Sefer Cinat 'Egoz, and it is quite pos-
sible that its theory of language is influenced by the school from which
Abulafia emerged. Regarding the pseudo-Maimonidean work, see G.
Vajda, "Le Traite Pseudo-Maimonideen 'Neuf Chapitres sur l'Unite de
Dieu'," AHDLMA, vol. 28 (1953), 83-98.
93. Ms. Munich 10, fol. 135b.
94. See above, in our discussion of the 22 letters as the source of all
sounds for tones of the other languages.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 487
95. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 55b. SKL (sekel— intelligence = 350) +
DMYWN (dimyon— imagination - 110) » 110 + 350 - 460 - HML'AK
(ha-mal>ak— the angel = 96) + HSTN (ha-sdtdn— Satan = 36) - QDS LY-
HWH (qados la-Sem — sanctified to God) = BN VBT (ben u-bat — son and
daughter). HWL (hoi— profane) - 44 - DM ((ton— blood) - YWD HA
WW HA (a plene spelling of the Tetragrammaton); QDS - DT (dat —
religion) = TGA (toga— crown, crownlet on the letters) = 404. TGA
also has the implication of Sent ha-Mefords, the Tetragrammaton. KTR
TWRH (keter Torah— the crown of Torah) « 1231 - 'ESRYM WSYSH
( l esrim we-sisdh — 26, the numerical value ofthe Tetragrammaton). The
correspondence between, on the one hand, profane language and holy
language; and on the other, blood and religion is already to be found
in Perus Sefer Yesirdh of R. Baruch Togarmi, published by Scholem in
Abulafia, 235. There we find also the contrast between sekel (intellect)
and dimyon (imagination).
96. See end of note 95 above.
97. On Satan and imagination, see idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah,
34-38.
98. On the relation between blood and imagination, see Idel, Abulafia,
102.
99. This theory of the origin of languages was already known by Mai-
monides and his followers through their reading of Al-Farabi's Sefer
ha-'Otiyot; see Rosenberg, Logic and Ontology (Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew
University, Jerusalem, 1973), 167, 282. This theory also reached the
early Kabbalists, as can be seen in the Peruss ha-'Aggadot le-R. 'Azrvel
(ed. I. Tishby, Jerusalem, 1945) where we read, on p. 28:
And I heard it said that there would be variations in language cor-
responding to differences in [geographical] atmosphere. For speech
is merely the air articulated by the tongue, and heard in attunement
with the different manifestations of the vessels of speech. And all
languages originating from the North would be similar to each other,
and so on regarding all directions, there are similarities of language
in the lands of the respective nations.
It is worth pointing out in this connection the explanation offered by
Epicurus for the origin of linguistic variation, which he says is the
outcome of variation of phonetic pronunciation related to variation in
geographic location, and that it is only at a second stage that various
488 Notes to Chapter 1
different conventional languages arose from the different phonetic pro-
nunciations: See C. Bailey, The Greek Atomisls and Epicurus —A Study
(Oxford 1982), 380-382.
100. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 140a.
101. Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 35a.
102. Genesis 11:8.
103. Ibid. 11:9.
104. Ms. Munich 285, fol. 68a, corresponding to Liaauley Hamis, Ms.
Oxford 2239, fol. 126a.
105. The image of the monkey recurs often in the writings of Abulafia,
in various contexts. See also Z.R.J. Werblowsky "Ape and Essence," Ex
Orbe Religionum (London 1972), 318-325. See below, Abulafia's view
in his Sefer Mafteah lia-Hokmot, quoted beside note 132 and compare
with the words of R. Yehudah ben Solomon ibn Matka:
For the comparison between our letters and theirs is like the compar-
ison between a sculpture made of stone and a living person. {Sefer
Midras lia-Hokmah. published by B. Z. Dinur, Yisrael Ba-Golah (Tel
Aviv-Jerusalem 1973) B,6, p. 19).
106. Sefer ha-Ot, p.71.
107. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 21b.
108. Ibid, fols 17b, 21b, 169b and more. Contemporary with Abulafia,
we find this numerological equation in the writings of R. Hananel b.
Abraham of Esquira, the author of Sefer Yesod 'Oiam, Ms. Moscow,
Giinzburg 607, fol. 78a. As a numerological equation we find it al-
ready in an early commentary on the Torah preserved in Ms. Paris,
BN 353, fol. 69a.
109. Sefer 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 21b.
110. Ibid. fol. 141a.
111. See note 47 above.
112. Ms. Paris, BN 680, fol. 29a.
113. Ms. Moscow 133, fol. 16b.
114 Seventy thousand faces of the Active Intellect, according to Ibn
Tuiail. Considering the place that the complete language occupies |
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 489
in reference to prophecy, it can be seen as identical with the Active
Intellect from which emerge 70 languages, as we have seen above,
note 54. See also below, note 133 and in the text, beside note 70,
concerning Hebrew as the mother of all languages.
115. See in Testaments of the Tribes, the Testament of Yehudah 25:4, and
Midras Tanhuma on Noah, par. 19 as reported in the name of Thomas
Aquinas by R. Azaria de Rossi in Me-or 'Enayim (Vilna 1866), 257. See
also Shalom Rosenberg, "Ha-sibah le-Gan Tiden" in Ha-Ra'ayon ha-
mesihi be-Yisrael - Yom 'lyyun le-regel Melc'at Semonim Sanah le-Gershom
Scholem (Jerusalem 1982), 77-78.
116. Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 36a-36b. See also Idel, Abulafia, p. 399 and
note 25.
117. Regarding this see text indicated in note 130 below, and the text
indicated above by note 66.
118. Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 105b and compare to text that will be
quoted further from Sefer Sbmer Miswah.
119. This is how it appears in the Ms., and apparently the word me'uleh
(excellent) or some such word, is missing. On the first language that
included all other languages, see the analysis by Arnaldes, regarding
the opinion of Ibn Hazm (indicated above, in note 69).
120. See above, in our discussion of the twenty-two fundamental let-
ters, and note 12.
121. See above, note 39.
122. QDWS (tfados— holy) = 410, like the morpheme ThI as in Theos—
Divinity in Greek.
123. In Italian, santo means holy — from here we derive that the word
La'az means (in the context of Abulafia's usage): Italian.
124. Genesis 11:1.
125. Zephaniah, 3:9.
126. See Aviezer Ravitsky, "Kefi Koah ha-'Adam, Yemot ha-Masiah
be-Misnat ha-Ramban," in Mesihiyut we-'eskatologiyah, (ed. Z. Bams,
Jerusalem, 1984), 194-203.
490 Notes to Chapter 1
127. See above, notes 54, 114. A more moderate view (see particularly
note 52 above) is taken by R. Yohanan Alemanno; in his work Sir
lia-hkvaalot, he writes:
And what occurred to the intellect also occurred to the words of the
wise. For the intellect in and of itself, is one and is simple and yet
we see that it manifests in multiplicity as it dawns on a multitude
of people and as it is rendered into many changing ideas. For as
with the changing of imaginary forms within people's minds, so too
regarding the words of the wise and of the prophets who make use
of the holy language. In the effluence of conception they are one and
simple, yet we see that they multiply, upon being perceived by many
people with changing thoughts. And it is necessary that they be
made use of in this manner, in order to bring the masses to greater
or lesser perfection, and in this way they are useful to the public.
And in mis way it is fitting for sages that they deepen their facility
of language in order to reach this goal. But as for more than this,
beware my son that you not overdo your study of language, for it in
itself does not represent any perfection at all, because the perfection
of wisdom lies in the inner form and in the speech of the soul, and
not in the outward speech. (Ms. Oxford 1535, fob. 67a-b).
According to Alemanno, the study of languages has value in the pur-
suit of the one intention that was scattered in many forms and various
languages. But this study has no value in and of itself, because it is in-
cumbent upon a person to arrive at the "inner form," i.e., the spiritual
intellections, and not the various physical descriptions of this form
On the limited validation given by Abulafia to the study of Greek and
Latin, based on a viewpoint similar to that of Alemanno, see above in
the text, beside note 106.
128 Sefer Hayyey ha-Nefes, Ms. Miinich 408, fol. 46a. The corruption
of the Hebrew language and its being forgotten during the exile, as
one of the stumbling blocks to redemption, is menhoned in Raymund
Lull, Le Livre du Gentil et des Trois Sages, ed. A. Llinares (Paris, 1966),
91:
Encore devez savoir que nous avons autre empeichement, c'est i
savoir que nostres langages est ebrieu et nest mie tant en usa 8 e
comme estre soloit et [sl'est ebraye per defaute de science.
According to the editor, "c'est ebraye" is an error, and should be "al-
tere," [i.e., "was altered" or "corrupted"]; and see below, note 131.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneatics in Abulafia 491
129. Sefer Sitrey Tdrdh, Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 162a. Regarding the
identity between the language created by means of Divine convention
and the Kabbalah, see above, in the texts quoted from Sefer Sa-arey
Sedea. It is worth noting the parallels here to Abulafia's idea that the
Kabbalali is not widespread among the Jewish people, and that this
state of affairs is one of the causes of the length of the Exile; and
also, Abulafia's idea that on the one hand, the Messiah will reveal
the secrets of the Kabbalah; and on the other hand, the "spiritualistic
Judaism" about which Abulafia wanted to converse with the Pope On
the diminution of the Kabbalah as a result of the Exile, see, in reference
to Nahmanides and his followers: M. Idel, "We Have No Kabbalistic
Tradition on This," in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban): Explorations in
His Religious and Literary Virtuosity (ed. I. Twersky, Cambridge Mass
1983), 54, 62-63. 6
Maimonides, in Guide for the Perplexed, I, 71 and following him R. -Ezra
in his introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, state that
the ancient secrets were lost and that there is a need to return the
diadem, namely the ancient tradition, to its former glory, whereas
Nahmanides and his disciples claim that there are remnants of these
particular secrets still in our hands.
130. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 140b. This was already published by A
Neubauer, in RE], IX (1884), 149 and by B. Z. Dinur, Yisra'el ba-Coldh,
I, 4, 372. On the admixture of the Hebrew language and the spoken
languages of the nations, see in the words of Immanuel of Rome, in
W. Bacher "Immanuel b. Solomon's 'Eben Botian," MGWI 34 (1885)
245. ' ' *
131. Complaints such as this on the state of the Hebrew language
are quite frequent during the Middle Ages. See A. Halkin, "The Me-
dieval Jewish Attitude Toward Hebrew." Biblical and Other Studies (ed.
A. Altmann, Cambridge, Mass. 1963), 235 ff. Abulafia's words do
not concur with Halkin's determination (ibid., 237) that in Christian
lands the Jews were not worried by the fact that Hebrew ceased being
used as a language of conversation. See also above, note 128, and in
Immanuel of Rome, in the text published by Bacher, "Immanuel ben
Salomon's 'Eben Bohan," p. 243.
132. Ms. Parma 141, fol. 3b. Concerning the claim that the supe-
rior quality of the Hebrew language is associated with its being the
language of Revelation, see above, note 67.
492 Notes to Cltapter 1
133. This is an allusion to the relation between language and geog-
raphy, about which Abulafia wrote in the texts we have quoted from
earlier. On Hebrew as the mother of all languages, see quote from
Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot mentioned earlier alongside note 70. Regard-
ing linguistic creativity in the distancing process from the use of the
Hebrew language, see the opinion of R. Azaria de Rossi, Sefer Me'dr
"Einayim (Vilna 1866), 456, in the name of an anonymous author who
declares that:
during the period of the Dispersion [Babel] a number of words from
the holy language were scattered and corrupted in most of the new
languages, and whereas among those languages that developed near
the geographic area of the dispersion they remained close to the He-
brew language, like for instance, Aramaic and Arabic, and those
neighboring them to the east, and the farther away the nation, like,
for instance, Ashkenaz [Germany], and other countries to the west,
the greater the change from Hebrew.
And compare to p. 457:
And from these statements emerge a great indication that the holy
tongue is the earliest language and the father of all other languages.
As for Abulafia's description of the languages of the nations being
inferior and illegitimate, as opposed to Jean Bodin, who places in
the mouth of Solomon, the Jewish disputant of his colloquium, these
words:
They [i.e. the jews].. ..preserved the inviolable majesty of the sacred
language. This language alone has been granted to the race of men
by divine gift. The other languages, as we see, are illegitimate and
fashioned by the will of men. This language alone is the language of
nature is said to have given names to things according to the nature
of each.
J. Bodin, Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime (transL
by N.D.L. Kuntz, Princeton U. Press, 1975), 204. On Hebrew as a
language bestowed by God, see above, note 85.
134. Ms. Paris, BN 853, fols. 69a-70a, compare with the quote from
Sefer Get ha-Semot mentioned above.
135. Zephaniah 3:9.
language, Torah, and HermeneuUcs in Abulafia 493
136. The coupling of the one language of the Messianic era and the
one divine service indicates the affinity of these two matters, an idea
that we came across in the quote above from Sefer Sa'arey Sedeq.
137. See the end of the quote from Sefer 'Osar 'Eden Gdnuz. This is also
hinted at in the quote from Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmot alongside note 132.
138. Ms. Paris, BN 727, fol. lib.
139. Before us we have an interesting parallel to the formation of the
symbolism in the Kabbalah of the Zohar, that tends to find its sublime
secrets in particularly incomprehensible and apparently superfluous
Scriptural narratives.
See, for instance, the Zohar's commentary to the kings who died (Gen.
36:31-39) discussions of the matter in the Idrot sections of the Zohar.
140. Perus Sefer 'Is 'Adam, Ms. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 2a.
141. Idel, Abulafia, 102.
142. Compare also to what is said at the end of par. 2.
143. See above, note 71, and in the text quoted from Sefer Get ha-Semot,
indicated by note 118 above, and in the text indicated by note 128.
144. Ms. New York, JTS 1801, fol. 29b.
145. It seems that Abulafia had certain ideas about the Tatar language,
because he makes use of that name in a number of his numerological
calculations.
146. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 159b.
147. "RZYTiL" (Razvel) is the numerological equivalent to 'ABRHM
(Abraham) = 248, and is a pseudonym that Abulafia took for himself.
Notes to Chapter 2
1. Harry A. Wolfson, Philo (Cambridge, Mass. 1947) 1 , 258, n. 43.
2. Ibid, p.119; A. J. Heschel Tordh min ha-Samayim be-'spaklarya sel
1 ha-Dorot (London-New York 1965), vol. 2, 10-11.
494 Notes to Clmpler 2
3. Yitzhak Baer, Yisrael ba-'Amim (Jerusalem 1969), 3-4, and in his
article "Le-Berurah sel Torat 'Aharit ha-Yamim Bi-yeme Bayit Sent,"
in Zion, 23-24 (1958/1959), 143-144 and 154. In contrast, see Avigdor
Aptowitzer, "Derdsah be-Sebah ha-Torah," in Sinai 7 (1940-1941), 180-181,
and Urbach The Sages, vol. I, 200-201, and in Heschel, ibid., 10-12.
4. M. Friedlander, Essays on lite Writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra (London
1877). Hebrew Appendix, p. 4.
5. Proverbs 8:22.
6. The identification of Torah as Wisdom is not new, as the expression
"There is no wisdom except for the Torah" (Midrash Tanhuma, Wa-
yelek 2) attests. What ibn Ezra innovated is the association of Wisdom
with the Intellectual Universe.
7. See ibn Ezra's commentary on Psalms 8:4, and on Ex. 3:15 in the
long version, and elsewhere.
8. BT Sanhedrin, 38b.
9. Ecclesiastes, 2: 12.
10. Sa'arl.ch. 7, Ms. Vatican 335, fols. 20b-21a. On the background of
this passage, see S. A. HeUer-Wilensky, Li-se'elat Melfabrd sel Sefer Saw
lia-Sdmayim, meyuhas le-'Abrdhdm ibn Ezra, Tarbiz, vol. 35 [1961], 283-
284. Ibn Latif already hints at the Torah and Kise ha-Kdbdd (Throne of
Glory) as referring to the Intellectual Universe and the physical world,
in his Sefer Sa-ar ha-Samayim ha-Qaldn, published in Kerem Hemed 4
(1839), but there he does not elaborate.
11. BT Pesahim 54a, and Piracy de-R. Eliezer, ch. 3. See also Heschel,
ibid., S-U.
12. Psalms 11:4.
13. Genesis Rabba, 1:5.
14. Ch. 3. The identification of the Torah as the Heavenly Tribunal is
also found in a work from the early circle of R. Joseph Gikaulla, Sefer
Serbr ha-Hayyim, by R. Shemayah ben Isaac Halevi, who writes:
When the Holy One, blessed be He, delighted Himself in the Torah,
He began to create the world. He called to the Torah and conferred
with her. This is as the Sages o.b.m. stated, that he conferred with
language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 495
the Heavenly Tribunal. Thus the Torah merited to be called 'advice
[<eysdh]. (Ms. Leiden, Warner 24, fol. 187b).
An extensive discussion on the Torah as the Heavenly Tribunal is
found also in Abulafia's Sefer ha-Heseq, Ms. New York, JTS 1801 fols
33a-35b.
15. Proverbs 8:14.
16. These two terms are quite uncommon. See L. Ginsberg, Legends of
the Jems, (Philadelphia, 1946) vol. V, 3, n.3.
17. The identity of Torah as the World of the Intellect also appears
before ibn Latif. R. Nathaniel Al-Fayumi writes in his Sefer Buslan
AWUkkul (Kapah ed., Jerusalem 1954), 5:
The first creation subsisted on the level of the first [one] whereas the
universal soul is on the level of second, and so on with respect to the
rest of the levels. As for the Torah, the Sages have applied to it the
term 'Divine Wisdom.' It is thus on the level of the first.
The 'first creation', i.e., 'first creature' according to Al-Fayumi, refers
to the universal intellect. It is worth noting that although the term
'first creature' appears also in the works of ibn Latif, it is difficult to
assume that Al-Fayumi's writings influenced him. It rather seems to
this writer that the conception of Torah as Intellectual Universe is a
result of Moslem influence. Regarding the identity of the Quran as
the first creation, i.e., first intellect, according to the Brethren of Purity,
see Yves Marquet 'Coran et Creation,' in Arabica 9 (1969), 279-285,
and compare with M. Idel "Ha-Sefirot se-me-'al ha-Sefirot," Tarbiz 51
(1982), 270-272.
18. Scholem, Abulafia, 238.
J 19. Ibid., 243.
20. See fdel, "The Concept of the Torah," 45, 49-58. On the influence
of R. Ezra on R. Baruch Togarmi in another matter, see Efraim Gottlieb,
Ha-Kabbalah Be-Kilbe Rabbenu Bahya Ben 'Asher, (Tel Aviv 1970), 55.
I i, 21. Abulafia, 232. The numerological equation SM HMYWHD (sent
k-tueyuhdd— unique name) = ZYW HSKYNH (zib Ita-sekindli—ray of
the Divine Presence) is also found in Sifer 'Eben Sappir of R Elnatan
ben Moses Kalkish, Ms. Paris, BN 727, fol. 11a. See also below, note
496 Notes to Chapter 2
22. Dt 17:19.
23. For example, Sefer Kuzari, 1,87, and in Abulafia's circle, in Sefer
Ginnat 'Egoz by R. Joseph Gikatilla, fol. 50b, and elsewhere.
24. Sefer Hayyey ha-'Oldm ha-Ba', Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 53b.
25. In Abulafia, 234, R. Baruch Togarmi writes:
ZT (z'ot— this), that is to say, the entire Merkabah is ^LHYM ['Elo-
him] and it refers to the ray of the Divine Presence. And the secret
of this is known as the Divine Name.
As we have seen, the word ZT (z>6t) is associated with the Torah, and
it may be assumed that we have here the following numerological
equation: 408 = ZT ■ KL HMRKBH TiLHYM (kol ha-merkabdh 'Elohim
- the entire Merkabah is 'Elohim) = ZYW HSKYNH = SM HMYVHD
(see above note 21). This again indicated the Torah, identified as the
World of the Intellect —'the entire Merkabah is Elohim', and identified
as the Divinity —'the Unique Name.' It is worth noting that the nu-
merological equation ZT = SM MYVHD appears again in a fragment
from the circle of R. Baruch Togarmi, in Ms. New York 1851, fol. 94a.
Regarding this anonymous work, see Gottlieb, Studies., 111.
26. Ms. Oxford 1695, fols. 16b-17a.
27. Compare with the conception of R. Joseph Gikatilla, who writes
in Sefer Sa'arey Sedeq:
Know that the Torah Scroii is the form of the Supernal World, but I
cannot explain further. (Printed in Gottlieb, Studies, 155).
28. The identification of the Torah as the Name of God is clearly
indicated in Sefer Sitrey Torah:
"Anyone who does not study the Torah at all deserves to die. And
all who make [practical] use of the Crown of the Torah perish." This
refers no doubt to the Tetragrammaton, having the numerical value
'ESRYM WSSH ('esrim we-sisdh - 26), whose secret is the Crown of the
Torah. This in its verity includes the Ten Commandments. Under-
stand this well, and know that whosoever makes use of the Torah, ]
i.e., the Name of God, not for its own sake, transgresses the command
of God. (Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 147b.)
This passage is based on the numerological equation TlSRYM WSSH
(vsrim we-sisdh— 26) = 1231 = KTR TWRH (keter Torah— the Crown
Language, Torah, and Bermeneutks in Abulafia 497
of the Torah) = 'ASRT HDBRYM (<aseret ha-debdrim—ihe Ten Com-
mandments). '"ESRYM WSSH" refers to the numerical value of the
Tetragrammaton, i.e., 26. Compare also with the numerologies found
in Sefer Cinat 'Egoz, fol. 60b-d, and elsewhere.
29. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 137b.
30. Ibid. fol. 124a. Compare with Sefer ha-Zohar, I, 34b:
All matters supernal and material, and all matters of this world and
of the world to come, are in the Torah.
Compare also in ibid., fol. 234b:
The Torah is the perfection of all, the perfection of above and below.
See also in Tishbi, Misnat ha-Zohar, II, 369.
31. Ms. Oxford 1580, fols. 92b-93a. On the Active Intellect as a
spiritual model of the material world, see H. A. Davidson "Alfarabi
and Avicenna on Active Intellect," Viator, vol. 3 (1972), 126-127. Con-
cerning R. Levi ben Gershon's conception of the order of intelligibles
in the Active Intellect, see S. Pines Ha-Skolastikah she-almrey Thomas
Aquinas u-Mishnatan shel Hasdai Crescas we-Kodmav (Jerusalem 1966),
4-5. The congruence between the Active Intellect and the Torah, ac-
cording to Abulafia, is based on the fact that both order all phenomena
of the material world. Compare this to the conception of the Quran
as the first intellect, expressed by the Brethren of Purity, as presented
by Marquet (above, note 17), and in particular, with reference to the
manifest and occult cycles of nature, which call to mind, according to
Marquet, ibid., 279, the manifest and occult aspects of creation. On the
history of the concept of the existence of all the forms in the supernal
intellect see now S. Pines "Some Distinctive Metaphysical Concep-
tions in Themistius' Commentary on Book Lambda and Their Place in
the History of Philosophy," Aristoteles Werk und Wirkung, Paul Moraux
Gewidmet, ed. J. Wiesner [Berlin, New York, 1987], 177-204, esp. 180-
182. Actually, Abulafia could have been acquainted with the view of
Themistius on the "living Nomos," because his text was translated
into Hebrew in the middle of the thirteenth century.
32. HSM (ha-Sem— the name)= 345 = HM'ARYK (ha-ma'arik— the eval-
uator) = HNlHRK (ha-ne c erdk— that which is evaluated).
33. It is worth noting that the words of ibn Ezra in the two versions
of his commentary to Ex. 23:20-21 may be interpreted as referring to
498 Notes to Cliapter 2
an equation ol Torah with the Active Intellect. In the long version, on
23:20 we read: "There are those who say that the angel is the Torah
Scroll, for the verse states 'My name is within him' [ibid., 23:22]." Ibn
Ezra indeed does not accept this idea, but if it be accepted, the words
'for My Name is within him' may easily be construed as an allusion to
Metatron, who came to be known as the personification of the Active
Intellect. In his short version, we read in Ex. 23:21, regarding the
words 'for My Name is within him':
And this is the angel who is the Great Ministering Angel. And as far
his having been Enoch, this is an homelitic interpretation.
Here the indication as to the identity of the angel is clear: he is
Metatron, whereas some identify him as Enoch. We note that the
identity of Torah and Active Intellect appears in one of the important
supercommentaries to Ibn Ezra. See R. Joseph b. Eliezer Tuv Elem,
who writes in Sofnat Pa'aneah (Cracow 1912), I p. 22:
And the Torah refers to the Active Intellect.
See also R. Shalom Shabazi, Sefer Hemdat Yamim (Jerusalem 1956), fol.
3a. This identification of Torah and the active intellect, itself consid-
ered as identical to the revelatory angel, Metatron, may hint at the role
of Torah as angelus interpres. Torah is at the same time the content and
its interpretation. See also below, note 46, where the Torah is described
as an intermediary.
34. Ms. Roma, Angelica 38, fol. 3b-4a: In this Ms. we read HSKYL
(«s(a(-<omprehended), but it ought to be amended to read HSTKL
{histakkel— contemplated), which corresponds to MBYT (mabit— gaze)
and VBWR— R (u-bme— and creates) that appear in the text of Genesis
Kabbah. Perhaps Abulafia is following the text of Midras Leqah Job on
Gen. 1:1 where we read: (fol. 2a)
In the Torah did God gaze and created His world.
Abulafia knew this midras as he states in Sefer Mafteah ha-Hokmol, Ms.
Moscow 133, fol. 8a: "And Leqah Tob by R. Tuvya o.b.m." The version
"contemplated and created" [mistakkel a-bdra'" is also found in the in-
troduction to Haldkol Gedolol, published by A. Aptowitzer as "Derasah
be-Sebah ha-T6rah," Sinai 7 (1940-1941), 181.
35. Psalms 33:6.
36. Proverbs 8:30.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneuties in Abulafia 499
37. Genesis Kabbah 1:1.
38. Proverbs 8:15.
39. Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 6b.
40. Proverbs 3:18.
41. Ms. Moscow 133, fols. 23a-b. The beginning of this quote is based
on Psalm 19; compare to the words of Abulafia in Sefer Hauueu ha-Nefes
Ms. Munich 408 fol. 72a: '
It is called Torah for by its means the Providence of God is upon us
so as to actualize our intellect from polentia to acta.
Compare also to R. Joseph Gikatilla who, in one of his poems ex-
pressed this as follows:
And the human intellect is given to us in its potential. And there
are those who actualise it and those in whom it stands wasted. The
Torah helps to actualise it so that the soul does not stand forlorn.
I. Gruenwald "Seney Sirim sel ha-Mequbbal Yoseph Gikatilla," Tarbiz
36 (1965-66), 88. It is the case with the Torah, as with language, that
it is seen as a medium by which the intellect becomes actualised.
42. Ibid. fol. 8a.
43. Ms. Munich 408, fol. 42a.
44. Psalms 19.8.
45. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 125b.
46. Ibid., fol. 155b. And in Sefer LiaqutCy Sikehdh u-Je-dh (Ferrara
1556) fol. 27b: 'VTYVT HKWDS Cotiuvdt ha-'qodes— holy letters) =
1232 = HTWRH H HvlS'YT (ha-Tordh ha-'emsa-it—the Torah [is] the
intermediary). Abulafia mentions the relation Torah— intermediary in
his Sefer Get ha-Semol, Ms. Oxford 1682, fol. 106b, and Sefer Gail Na-ul
Ms. Munich 58, fol. 316a, and in Sefer lta-Ge-ulah Ms. Kigi, I, 90, 6 fol.
258a, and elsewhere. See also note 33 above.
47. Apparently there is a relation between the numerological equation
TWRH = nlSYT (Torah = middle way, intermediary) and the Aris-
totelian conception of the 'middle way' (DRK "MSYT) as the proper
mode of conduct. Compare also to the Guide for the Perplexed, II, 39
and in, 59 and elsewhere. We note also a different interpretation of
H'MSY in Abulafia's works; see Vsdr 'Eden Ganuz, quoted below in
500 Notes to Chapter 2
this chapter, alongside note 135. Regarding the intellect as *MSY, see
below in this chapter, alongside note 186.
48. Ms. Vatican 233, fols. 48b-49a.
49. Psalms 33:6.
50. This term appears first in Keter Malkut of R. Solomon ibn Gabirol,
par. 24:
Upon Your being raised above the ninth sphere, the sphere of the
intellect, a palace before the tenth, holy unto God, the sphere exalted
above all supemals.
A term similar to this is found in the Hebrew translation of the Peruss
Sefer Yesirdh by R. Dunash ibn Tamin, Ms. Paris, BN 680, fol. 200b-
201a. There we read of the Sphere of Knowledge [Galgdl ha-Da'at] used
in the same sense as World of the Intellect. There we do not find,
however, a description of the tenth sphere. Ibn Ezra writes at great
length about the tenth sphere and also mentions the term Sphere of
the Intellect. In the Divan (ed. I. Egger, Berlin 1886), 21, we read:
From knowledge exalted - drawn from the Sphere of the Intellect.
Compare to R. Simon Duran, Mdgen 'Abdt, fol. 84a. At the beginning
of the thirteenth century, this term was understood as symbolising the
separate Intellects, in a letter sent by R. Samuel ben Mordekhai to R.
Yekutiel (Ms. Vatican, Neophiti 11, fol. 203a):
The Sages called the supernal world [by the name] "the Sphere of the
Intellect" and this refers to the world of the angels who are neither
corporeal [bodies] nor corporeal powers.
Compare also to the words of R. Jacob Anatoli in Sefer Malmdd ha-
Talmidim, fol. 65b. This term was more widespread than the examples
given here, and elsewhere we will elaborate on it. In the meantime,
see M. Idel in Kiryat Sefer 50 (1975), 153-156.
51. Sefer Hayyey ha-Nefes, Ms. Munich 408, fol. 75b. This term appears
twice more in the works of Abulafia: Sefer 'Or ha-Seket, Ms. Vatican
233, fol. 85a, and Sefer ha-Ge'uldh Ms. Kigi, I, 190.6, Sod B.l.
52. R. Isaac B. Jacob Hakohen, Penis Mirkebet Yihezqei, printed by G.
Scholem in Tarbiz 2 (1931), 201-202.
53.Perus Mirkebet Yihezqei, Tarbiz 5 (1934), 186. On that page, R. Moses
of Burgos quotes the passage of the Perus Mirkebet Yihezqei by R. Isaac
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 501
Hakohen. See also R. Meir Aldabi, Sebiley ha-'Emundh (Warshaw, 1887)
fol. 20b, and also the words of Pico della Mirandola, quoted by H.
Wirszubski, Selosdh Perdkan be-ToIedot fm-Kabbalah ha-Nosrit 0erusalem,
1975), 49-50.
54. Ms. Oxford 1582, fol. 80a, Ms. Paris, BN 777, fol. 132a. See
also Sefer 'Osdr 'Eden Gdnuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 170a and Sefer Ner
'Elohim, Ms. Munich 10 fol. 152b:
And the secret [of this is] "the superior [quality]" of the "world as a
Prince" is "the tenth sphere," which is the secret of the "entire Torah."
This is in the same sense as the 'superior [quality]' of wisdom.
YTRWN (yitron— advantage, superior quality) = 666 = 'WLM KSR
(•61dm ke-sdr— the world as a Prince) = HGLGL H'SYRY {ha-galgd! ha-
cflsin— the tenth sphere) = KL HTWRH (Kol ha-Torah—the entire Torah).
55. Ms. New York, JTS 839, fol. 5a, and Ms. Vatican, Urbino 31, fol.
164a.
56. Ms. Munich 22, fol. 184a. The mention of the giving of the sphere
of the Intellect into the hands of Metatron, mentioned by Sefer ha-Seruf
apparently influenced R. Elnatan b. Moses Kalkish who wrote in his
Sefer 'Eben Sappir, regarding Moses:
And when he departed from the material plane and was made king,
and ruled over the Sphere of the Intellect. . . [Ms. Paris, BN 728, fol.
167b].
57. G. Scholem, Kiryat Sefer, 31 (1955), 392.
58. We note that the relation between the letters of the Torah and the
letters of YSR'L (Israel) is also found in the Zohar. In addition to the
words of the Midrash concerning the close connection between Israel
and Torah, we read in Midrdh Rut ha-Ne c eldm (Zoliar Madas) IJerusalem
1944], fol. 108a:
R. Hanina said regarding the matters that arose in thought before the
Holy One, blessed be He, created His world, one of them was Israel,
for they are worthy of receiving the Torah. And all of the letters
were chosen at first, and as soon as Israel arose in thought the Holy
One, blessed be He, stood up, so to speak, and engraved therein the
Torah. And all of the letters were written upon his head, and upon
him was the Torah fulfilled. This is as it is written: "Now this (Z
T) was wisdom in former times in Israel." And 'this' (Z'T) refers to
502 Notes to Chapter 2
the Torah, which preceeded Israel. And 'in former time' refers to the
letters. And ail were engraved and impressed upon Israel.
59. Cinat 'Egoz, Ms. 54d-55b. Concerning the influence of this image
on the Zoluir, see Scholem, Major Trends, 391, n. 80-81. It is worth not-
ing that these words of Gikatilla influenced R. Hananel b. Abraham;
see his Sefer Yesod 'Olam, Ms. Moscow, Gunzburg 607, fol. 80a.
60. Perus Sefer Yesirah, Ms. Paris, BN 768, fol. 9a.
61. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 69b.
62. Sefer ha-Nikkud, Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 41a.
63. Ms. Cambridge, Trinity, 108, fol. 123b; see also Minhat Yehudah on
Ma'areket lui-'Elolmt [Mantua, 1558] fols. 97b-98a.
64. Sefer Ma'areket ha-'Elolwt, fol. 97b, and elsewhere, Sefer Minhat
Yehudah, in the name of "another" commentator. These words of R.
Reuben Sarfati are quoted by R. Yohanan Alemanno in an untitled
work found in Ms. Paris, BN 849, fol. 67a, but the source is not
indicated. See also the eollectanaea of Alemanno in Ms. Oxford 2234,
fol. 157b, where he again quotes similar words from R. Reuben Sarfati.
R. Abraham ibn Migash collected from Sefer Minhat Yehudah much
material regarding the Torah and the wheel of the letters. See his
work Kebod 'Elohim (Jerusalem 1977), fol. 97a. On that page we find
quoted the two passages from R. Reuben Sarfati mentioned above.
65 Ms Oxford 1580, fol. 25b-26a. This is based on the Mishnah
from Sefer Yesirah that speaks of SFR SPVR SPhR [Safer, sippur, sefer-
writer narrative, book) which, beginning with Saadyah Gaon, came
to refer to writing, speech, and thought. In Sefer Mafteah ha-Tokahot
(Ms. Oxford 1605 fol. 17a) Abulafia writes similarly:
Indeed it [the Torah] is divided into various matters, as you may see
that a portion of it is written in books, and it is also expressed by the
lips rn various languages... and it is conceived, found in the thoughts
of the soul.
66. Leviticus Rabba, 19:1.
67. £1.32:16.
68. Psalms 107:24.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 503
69. In this it seems that Abulafia was influenced by the opinion of
Maimonides, who, in his Guide for the Perplexed, I: 1, describes the In-
tellect, created in tile image of God, as a natural form. Regarding this,
see Moshe Idel "Deus sive natura: the Metamorphosis of a Dictum
from Maimonides to Spinoza," Maimonides and the Sciences, eds. S.
Cohen and H. Levine, pp. 87-110.
70. Ms. Vatican 233, fol. 122b, and see below, note 87.
71. Psalms 139:5.
72. Proverbs 3:3; 7:3; Jeremiah 17:1; 31:33, and in the New Testament,
Epistle to the Corinthians, 3:3.
73. Peraaim bc-Hasldhdh (Jerusalem 1939), 2. The comparison between
the heart and the Ark of the Covenant appears also in the pseudo-
Maimonidean Tggeret ha-Musar which is quoted below. See also the
introduction to Tiqquney Zohar, fol. 13a:
"And every wise-hearted man among them wrought the work." (Ex.
36:8) — they made the Ark.
See R. Samuel ibn Tibbon, in a treatise that was apparently penned
by him, Ta'am ha-Su!lidn we-ha-Mendrah, Ms. Hamburg 251, fol. 230b,
who compares the human body to the Holy Ark containing the Tablets
of Witness. R. Baruch Togarmi, Abulafia's teacher, likens man to the
Tabernacle, as Gottlieb pointed out in Ha-Kabbalah be-Khitve Rabbenu
Bahya ben Asher (Tel Aviv, 1970) 56-57, and Abulafia himself also refers
to the correspondence between man and the Tabernacle in 'Osar 'Eden
Ganuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 170a-b, and on fol. 42a.
74. Isaiah, 51:7.
75. Ms. New York, JTS 1801, fols. 19b-20a. The numerological equa-
tion YSR TVB WYZR R' = 'ABNY SYS THWR also appears in Sefer
'Osar 'Eden Ganuz, Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 18a.
76. Ch. 2, Mishnah 12.
77. The A-»T, B->S derivation reinforces the idea found already in
Midrash Tanhuma, 'Eqeb, par. 9) where we read:
From where were they [the tablets] carved? One says, from under-
neath the Throne of Glory.
504 Notes to Chapter 2
The above-mentioned A^T, B-*S derivation appeals already in Sefer
Hokmal Im-Nefei by R. Eleazar of Worms (Sated edition) fol. la, and in
the works of writers contemporary with Abulafia; see in R. Bahya b.
Asher Perns lia-Jorah on Ex. 31:8 (Chavel edition p. 327), where we
read:
and the word LHT in A-»T, B^S is KS'. Thus, the Sekinih dwells
upon them as on the Throne of Glory. And since the tablets were
taken from the Throne of Glory, and is called 'Glory' as it is written
(Proverbs 3:35) "The wise shall inherit Glory." So too the intellectual
soul is rooted in the Throne of Glory and is called 'Glory'.
Regarding the source of the soul in the Throne of Glory, see ldel, in
Kin/at Sefer, 50 (1975), 150 and notes 9,10. Bahya's words that asso-
ciate the tablets and the intellectual soul with the Throne of Glory
potentially also imply the equivalence between the tablets and the in-
tellectual soul, which was made by the pseudo-Maimonidean 'Iggeret
ha-Musar. The equation LHT = KS' also appears in Sefer ha-Pelvan
(Koretz 1784), fol. 77d.
78. Ms. Leipzig 39, fol. 2a.
79. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 4ab.
80 Uaah Tob on Exodus, 31:18. The topic of the Throne of Glory is
treated also in Abulafia's work Samer Miswdh, MS. Paris, BN 853, fol.
76b,
The secret of the Throne of glory is the 'nature of the heart,' the
former in the supernal [realm], the second in the lower [realm]
See also Abulafia's commentary on Sefer Yesirah, Ms. Paris, BN 768,
fol. 10b and in a fragment occurring in Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 69b.
81. Ezekiel 1:26.
82. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 136b. In Sefer to-'Of, p. 71 we read
similarly:
Raise your eyes on high and gaze by means of the eyes of your soul
to the heights'of heaven and observe the orders of the Living Goa-
all established upon the order of the Divine Torah. And when you
comprehend the orders of the heavens you will find them engraved
by the order of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the orders of Israel. And
upon their being engraved by Divine command, so too were graven
by the power of the Designer the words of the Book that includes the
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abulafia 505
five books of the Torah. Moses engraved the forms of all the worlds
within the Tree of Life whose writing was graven upon the tablets,
in His form and likeness.
83. It is worth pointing out a passage from Sefer Yesod Mora' by ibn
Ezra, where we find a comparison between the Torah and the potencies
of the soul. In chapter 10 we read:
And the soul of man alone when it was given by God is like a tablet
ready to be written on. And the writing on the table is the writing
of God, i.e., the knowledge of the universal general ideas....
Ibn Ezra uses here the Aristotelian image of the tabula rasa whereas
the expression 'writing of God' is taken from Ex. 32:16
"And the tablets were the work of God and the writing was the
writing of God graven on the tablets."
This yields the view of the soul as the tablets of Testimony. Compare
also to ibn Ezra on Psalms 49:16:
And the writing of God is engraved upon his soul....
84. Iggerot u-Tesubot of Maimonides (Jerusalem 1968), 9.
85. Compare also with R. Yehudah Muscato in Sefer Nefusot Yehuddh,
discourse 9 fols. 25c-26b, which was apparently influenced by the
(pseudo-Maimonidean) 'Iggeret or by Abulafia, in his comparison be-
tween the Tablets of the Covenant and the speculative and practical
intellects.
86. Ms. Oxford 836, fol. 178b and see also fol. 147a:
The tablets are ready to receive the forms of any possible inscription
which the hylic intelligence, also called 'the Sages within Me' and
'the guarded Tablet.' This is so for it is prepared to accept only the
intellec-tions, for man is bom wild, lacking the intellections.
Compare this also with the quotes adduced in the following note.
87. This refers apparentiy to Al-Ghazali's Intentions of the Philosophers.
I am not aware of an allegorical explanation of the tablets of Witness by
this author; however we may assume that this spiritualist explanation
refers to the guarded Tablet. See in the Quran, Sura 85:21, and compare
with A. J. Wesnick, On the Relation between Gluzali's Cosmology and his
Mysticism (Amsterdam 1933), 14-16. See also the Hebrew version of
the Intentions of tlie Philosophers, where we read:
506 Notes to Chapter 2
And when she has found an opportunity, and from her is removed the
withholder, she is ready to cleave to the glorious intellectual spiritual
essences, wherein the souls are mentioned in the Torah, and are inlaid
in the tablet set aside and imprinted with its own nature, i.e., inlaid
within the soul are the essences of the forms of substances.
Narboni explains here:
". . . of the forms of substances," i.e., the writing was the writing of
God, graven from the guarded tablet, with the ringer of God within
the tablets referred to as having been graven on both sides, written
on this side and on that. [Ms. Paris, BN 956, fols. 206b-207a.]
It is likely that Narboni was influenced on this point by Abuiafia. As
we have demonstrated elsewhere, Narboni was clearly influenced by
Sefer =Or ha-Sekel of Abuiafia which he quoted without attribution in
his commentary to The Intentions of the Philosophers. See Idel, Studies
in Ecstatic Kabbalah, pp. 63-66. Regarding the tablets of Testimony as
a symbol for the heart, in one of the writings of Ibn Arabi we read:
My heart is capable of being transformed into all forms: it is a Chris-
tian monastery, a Paiace of the Gods, a Meadow for gazelles, a Kaaba
for pilgrims, the tablets of the Law of Moses, and the Quran.
See G. Anawati-L. Massignon, Mystique Musulmane (Paris 1951), 59-60;
Shelomo Pines "Notes sur l'lsmailiyya" Hermes vol. 3 (1939), 56-57;
Fritz Meier "Nature in the Monism of Islam," Spirit and Nature, ed.
J. Campbell (Bollingen Series XXX, 1, New York 1954), 153; Van den
Bergh, Averroes' Tahafut al-Tahafut (London 1969) vol. I p. 300, II p.
165.
88. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 26a-26b. Abuiafia, with minor changes,
brings the well-known words of Nahmanides in the introduction to
his commentary on the Torah concerning the Torah as Names of God.
(See Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 52-53). In Sefer Sitrey Torah
Abuiafia writes:
And as Moses our master attained to the epitome of wisdom, and
was the father of the Torah, the father of Wisdom, and the father of
Prophecy [cf. BT Megillah, 13a] he was taken to the supernal effluence,
to which he veritably clung, in order to receive the Torah, which
was given him by the Blessed Name in two strata: the first involves
knowledge of the Torah as understood in its plain meaning, all of
its matters and commandments in accordance with the tradition, La,
the entire Talmud and what was derived from it. And the second
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abuiafia
507
involves the knowledge of Torah as it is understood in its secret
meaning, having to do with the secret Names and the reasons for the
commandments, called the hidden aspects of the Torah. This is for
the sake of the perfection of two types of people— the intellectuals
and the fools. (Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 119a.)
And compare with the quote from Sefer Hayyey iia-'Oldm ha-Ba\ below
in this chapter, alongside note 199.
89. This refers to the Name of 72 letters (i.e., triplets).
90. See Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 53-54.
91. Ms. Oxford 1580, fols. 25b-26a.
92. Concerning this expression, see Isadore Twersky, Rabad of
Posquieres (Cambridge, Mass. 1962), 291-297. Notwithstanding his
claims of having merited many revelations, Abuiafia rarely uses this
expression.
93. JT Pe'dh, ch. 2, mishnah 2, 17a.
94. BT Gittin 60b, and elsewhere.
95. Compare with Abuiafia in the introduction to Perus la-Tordh, Ms.
Parma, 141 fol. lb: |
Indeed when I observed that a new idea had taken hold in the world,
that a few of the sages of the Talmud who liken themselves to the
sages of the Tosaphists, and pride themselves with [knowledge onj
the Kabbalah, so as to negate the Talmud, which is called the Oral
Torah according to the way of truth - not according to the false imag-
inings of those who are worthy of them and of those who are not.
Thus there arose in me a spirit of zealousness for God, Lord of Israel,
who sits upon the cherubim, my God and the God of my ancestors.
And He aroused me and I was impassioned to enter the path of the
perfection of the soul - the desire of the One who loves me.
The distinction between the 'true' Oral Torah and the 'imaginary' Oral
Torah concurs apparently with the distinction between the Torah in
actu and the written Torah, i.e., the Talmud which was written down,
as opposed to the Oral Tradition of the Kabbalah, apparently opposed
by the sages of the Talmud. Compare this also with the two-fold value
of the haldkdh in Zoharic literature, as presented by Tishby in Mishnat
ha-Zohar , h, 396-397.
96. Song of Songs Rabba , 3:4.
508 Notes to Cliaptcr 2
97. Ms. Paris, BN 774, fol. 136b.
98. The view of the Oral Torah as intellectual substance that existed
before the creation of the world, as opposed to the written Torah,
containing both intellectual and imaginary forms and which serves a
clear political purpose is reminiscent of the distinction between themos
and nomos in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius; see R.F. Hathaway,
Hierarchy and Definition of Order in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius (The
Hague 1969), 38-46. See also the affinity between the mental law and
the oral law as discussed by Jose Faur, Golden Doves with Silver Dots
(Bloomington, 1986), 133-138.
99. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 25b.
100. BT Pesahim, 54a.
101. See the sources gathered by Heschel in Torah min ha-Shamayim
be-'Aspaqlariah sliel ha-Dorot, II, 22-23.
102. BT Sukkah , 28a; BT Baba Balm 134b, BT Hagigah la.
103. The opinion of the German Pietists in this regard was influenced
by the Heykdlot literature as understood in light of Saadyah Gaon.
See Joseph Dan, Torat lia-Sod shel Hasidut Ashkenaz (Jerusalem, 1968),
205-210 and elsewhere.
104. Perus ha-Misndh, Haggigdh, ch. 2 mishnah 1, Introduction to Seder
Zerann, and elsewhere. See Isadore Twersky "Aspects of Mishneh
Torah," fewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ed. A. Alrmann), Cam-
bridge, Mass.1967, 111-118.
105. Tishbi, Mishnat ha-Zohar, vol. I, 415^21.
106. Hekalol Zutarti, ed. Rachel Elior (Jerusalem, 1982), 22; Idel, "The
Concept of the Torah," 37, n. 39. Also Vtiyyot de-Rabbi 'Aqiba, ed.
Wertheimer, in Batey Midrdsol, II, p. 365.
107. Perus ha-Torah (Jerusalem 1964) fol. 30a. See also Joshua ibn
Shu'aib, Derasbt (Cracow 1573), a sermon for the last day of Passover,
fol. 42b, where he says regarding the Song of Songs:
For the words of this song are exceedingly hidden and sealed, etc.
and for this reason they [the Sages] regarded it as the Holy of Holies,
for all of its words are the secrets of the Chariot and the Names of
the Holy One, blessed be He.
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutks in Abulafia 509
108. Ms. Vatican 228, fols. lOOb-lOla. In many manuscripts we find
a passage that contains a pentagram, and alongside it is written:
This is the Account of the Chariot KVZV BMVKSZ KVZV, and under
these letters is written: YHVH iHYNV VHVH.
See, for instance, Ms. British Library 757, fol. 117b.
109. (Lyck 1866). In the author's introduction, toward the end. See
also the words of R. Jacob Anatoli, ibid., concerning the Account of the
Chariot.
110. Abulafia, 237, 238.
111. Ms. New York, JTS 1891, fol. 65b. See also the words of one of
the authors of Gikatilla's circle in Ms. Vatican 428, fol. 88a:
ABGD , these, in the secret of the Merkdbdh, etc.
and in Sefer Seror ha-Hayyim, from Gikatilla's circle (Ms. Leiden-
Warner 24 fol. 190a):
... For the Name 'HYH was emanated from the Name... and this is
the secret of the Merkabah.
112. The equivalence of the 'Account of the Chariot' and the art of
the combination of the Names of God and metaphysical deliberation
receives extended discussion in the writings of Abulafia, as we will
see in the course of this chapter. In Sefer Hayycy ha-Nefes, however, the
term Account of the Chariot is explained differently:
When the word 'Ma'aseh' [the Account] is combined with the word
'Beresit' [creation] and with the word 'Merkabah' we must conclude
that it refers to complexes of bodies, for no true composites exist in
the intellects or in what is separate from matter (Ms. Munich 408,
fol. 58a).
113. Ms. Oxford 1580, fol. 131b.
114. Ms. Rome, Angelica 38, fol. 45b, and compare with Sefer Ner
'Elohim, Ms. Munich 10, fol. 135b, printed in Chapter 1, note 12.
' 115. Ms. Paris, BN 768, fol. 10a, and compare with Sefer Gan Na<ul,
Ms. Munich 58, fol. 328b.
116. These numerological equations also appear in Sa'arye Sedeq, writ-
ten by one of the ecstatic Kabbalists of the thirteenth century:
510 Notes fo Chapter 2
respond that (he 'Account oT fhe Chano 
