Kabbalah: Primary Texts
Encyclopedia
Like the rest of Rabbinic literature
, the texts of Kabbalah
were once part of an ongoing oral tradition, though, over the centuries, much of the Oral Torah
has been written down. The written texts are obscure and difficult for readers who are unfamiliar with Jewish spirituality which assumes extensive knowledge of the Tanakh
(Hebrew Bible), Midrash
(Jewish hermeneutic tradition) and Halakha
(practical Jewish law). Nevertheless, Kabbalistic literature uses powerful paradigms that are elegant, universal and easy for anyone to understand when pointed out.
and the Sefer ha-Yihud, the Torah is synonymous with God. More specifically, in the Sefer ha-Yihud, the letters in the Torah are the forms of God. The kabbalist looks beyond the literal aspects of the text, to find the true meaning. The text not only offers traditions and ways of thinking, but it also reveals the reality of God. One of the first Jewish philosophers, Philo of Alexandria (20BCE-40), said that Abraham
knew the essential Torah, before it was given, because Abraham was himself a philosopher: he observed the world around him and looked inside himself to discover the laws of nature. While this is not strictly speaking a mystical notion, it does introduce the idea of an inner Torah that underlies the written word. Much later, in the nineteenth century the Sfas Emes
, a Hasidic rebbe
, made the assertion that it was actually Abraham’s deeds that became Torah. The Torah is thus seen as an ongoing story played out through the lives of the Nation of Israel. The Torah is an important text because even the most minor traditions of the Kabbalah will acknowledge its aspects of the divine.
Jewish forms of esotericism
existed over 2,000 years ago. Ben Sira
warns against it, saying: "You shall have no business with secret things". Nonetheless, mystical studies were undertaken and resulted in mystical literature.
The first to appear within Judaism was the Apocalyptic literature
of the second and first pre-Christian
centuries and which contained elements that carried over to later Kabbalah. According to Josephus
, such writings were in the possession of the Essenes
and were jealously guarded by them against disclosure, for which they claimed a certain antiquity (see Philo
, De Vita Contemplativa, iii., and Hippolytus
, Refutation of all Heresies
, ix. 27).
That books containing secret lore were kept hidden away by (or for) the "enlightened" is stated in IV Esdras xiv. 45-46, where Pseudo-Ezra is told to publish the twenty-four books of the canon openly that the worthy and the unworthy may alike read, but to keep the seventy other books hidden in order to "deliver them only to such as be wise" (compare Dan. xii. 10); for in them are the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.
Instructive for the study of the development of Jewish mysticism is the Book of Jubilees
written around the time of King John Hyrcanus. It refers to mysterious writings of Jared, Cain, and Noah, and presents Abraham as the renewer, and Levi as the permanent guardian, of these ancient writings. It offers a cosmogony
based upon the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet
, and connected with Jewish chronology and Messianology, while at the same time insisting upon the heptad (7) as the holy number, rather than upon the decadic (10) system adopted by the later haggadists and observable in the Sefer Yetzirah. The Pythagorean idea of the creative powers of numbers and letters was shared with Sefer Yetzirah and was known in the time of the Mishnah
before 200 CE.
Early elements of Jewish mysticism
can be found in the non-Biblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as the Song of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Some parts of the Talmud
and the Midrash
also focus on the esoteric and mystical, particularly Hagigah 12b-14b. Many esoteric texts, among them Hekalot Rabbati, Sefer HaBahir, Torat Hakana, Sefer P'liyah, Midrash Otiyot d'Rabbi Akiva, the Bahir, and the Zohar claim to be from the Talmudic era, though some of these works, most notably the Bahir and Zohar, are considered by modern scholars to clearly be medieval works pseudepigraphically ascribed to the ancient past.
Traditional orthodoxy, however, does not agree to this. In the medieval
era Jewish mysticism developed under the influence of the word-number esoteric text Sefer Yetzirah
. Jewish sources attribute the book to the patriarch Abraham
, though the text itself offers no claim as to authorship. This book, and especially its embryonic concept of the Sefirot, became the object of systematic study of several mystical brotherhoods which eventually came to be called baale ha-kabbalah (בעלי הקבלה "possessors or masters of the Kabbalah").
("Heavenly Palaces") are not a single text. Rather, they are a genre of writings with shared characteristics. These texts primarily focus either on how to achieve a heavenly ascent through the Heichalot (heavenly palaces) and what to expect there, or on drawing down angelic spirits to interact and help the adept. There are several larger documents of the heichalot, such as Hekhalot Rabbati, in which six of the seven palaces of God are described, Hekhalot Zutarti, Shiur Komah and 6th-century 3 Khanokh
, as well as hundreds of small documents, many little more than fragments.
(סֵפֶר יְצִירָה) ("Book [of] Formation/Creation"), also known as Hilkhot Yetzira "Laws of Formation", is a primary source of Kabbalistic teaching. The first commentaries on this small book were written in the 10th century, perhaps the text itself is quoted as early as the 6th century, and perhaps its linguistic organization of the Hebrew alphabet could be from as early as the 2nd century. Its historical origins remain obscure, although many believe that it was authored by Abraham
and edited by Akiba ben Joseph. It exists today in a number of editions, up to 2500 words long (about the size of a pamphlet). It organizes the cosmos into "32 Paths of Wisdom", comprising "10 Sefirot" (3 elements - air, water and fire - plus 6 directions and center) and "22 letters" of the Hebrew alphabet (3 mother letters, 7 double letters plus 12 simple letters). It uses this structure to organize cosmic phenomena ranging from the seasons of the calendar to the emotions of the intellect, and is essentially an index of cosmic correspondences.
(בהיר) ("Illumination"), also known as "Midrash of Rabbi Nehunya ben Ha-Kana" - a book of special interest to students of Kabbalah because it serves as a kind of epitome that surveys the essential concepts of the subsequent literature of Kabbalah. It is about 12,000 words (about the size of a magazine). Despite its name "Illumination", it is notoriously cryptic and difficult to understand (but not impossible). Much of it is written in parables, one after the other. The Bahir opens with a quote attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben Ha-Kana, a Talmudic sage of the 1st century, and the rest the book is an unfolding discussion about the quote. Jewish tradition considers the whole book to be written in the spirit of Rabbi Nehunya (or even literally written by him). It was first published in Provence
France (near Italy) in 1176. Historians suspect Rabbi Yitzhak Ha-Ivver
(Isaac the Blind) wrote the book at this time, albeit he incorporated oral traditions from a much earlier time about the Tanakh, Talmud, Siddur, Yetzira, and other Rabbinic texts.
(רזיאל המלאך ) ("Raziel the Angel") is a collection of esoteric writings, probably compiled and edited by the same hand, but originally not the work of one author.
Zunz ("G. V." 2d ed., p. 176) distinguishes three main parts: (1) the Book Ha-Malbush; (2) the Great Raziel; (3) the Book of Secrets, or the Book of Noah. These three parts are still distinguishable — 2b-7a, 7b-33b, 34a and b. After these follow two shorter parts entitled "Creation" and "Shi'ur Ḳomah," and after 41a come formulas for amulets and incantations.
( זהר ) ("Splendor") - the most important text of Kabbalah, at times achieving even canonical status as part of Oral Torah. It is a mystical commentary on the Torah, written in Medieval Aramaic
. For much of the twentieth century there had been an academic consensus regarding the medieval authorship of the Zohar but most traditional Kabbalists agree amongst themselves that the oral author was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and the text was scribed by Rav Abba, a student of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
Gershom Scholem argued that Moses de Leon
was the sole author of the Zohar. More recently, Yehuda Liebes contended that while de Leon may have been the primary author, he incorporated or recast selections from contemporary kabbalists (e.g. Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla, Rabbi Joseph of Hamadan, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher). Most recently, kabbalah scholars such as Ronit Meroz, Daniel Abrams, and Boaz Huss have been demonstrating that the materials within the Zohar underwent several generations of writing, re-writing, and redaction. De Leon had claimed to discover the text of the Zohar while in the land of Israel
and attributed it to the 2nd-century Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai who is the main character of the text. The text gained enormous popularity throughout the Jewish world.
Though the book was widely accepted, a small number of significant rabbis over the subsequent centuries published texts declaring Rabbi Moshe invented it as a forgery with concepts contrary to Judaism
. However, many of these Rabbis were not Kabbalists themselves. This was a major point of contention made by a community among the Jews of Yemen, known as Dor Daim
, a religious intellectual movement that called for a return to a more Talmudic based Judaism. Other communities in Italy and the Andalusian (Spanish Portuguese) lands also questioned the content and authenticity of the Zohar. While organized into commentaries on sections of the Torah, the Zohar elaborates on the Talmud, Midrash Rabba, Sefer Yetzira, the Bahir, and many other Rabbinic texts. To some degree, the Zohar simply is Kabbalah.
( פרדס רימונים ) ("Garden [of] Pomegranates") - the magnum opus of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero
, published in the 16th century and the main source of Cordoverian Kabbalah, a comprehensive interpretation of the Zohar and a friendly rival of the Lurianic interpretation.
(also known as the Ari), collected by his disciple Chaim Vital (the Ari published nothing himself). It is the primary interpretation and synthesis of Lurianic Kabbalah. It was first published in Safed
in the 16th century. It consists of the primary introduction to the remainder of the Lurianic system. The Shemona She'arim (eight gates): is the full Lurianic system as arranged by Shmuel Vital, the son of Haim Vital. Eitz Haim is the only worked published within Haim Vital's lifetime, the rest of his writings were buried with him in an unedited form. Supposedly Shmuel Vital had a dream that he was to exhume his father's grave and remove certain writings leaving the others buried. Shmuel Vital went on then to redact and publish the works as the Eight Gates which are then, at times subdivided into other works:
Sephardi and Mizrahi Kabbalists endeavor to study all eight gates. Etz Hayim is published standard in a single volume three part arrangement, the initial two parts published by Haim Vital, with a third part, Nahar Shalom by Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, being now considered the third part. Ashkenazi Kabbalists often tend to focus only on Eitz Haim, with explanations of the RaMHaL(Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzzato). However this is not always the case. There are Yeshivot such as Shaar Shmayim that deal with the works of the Haim Vital in their entirety.
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...
, the texts of Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
were once part of an ongoing oral tradition, though, over the centuries, much of the Oral Torah
Oral Torah
The Oral Torah comprises the legal and interpretative traditions that, according to tradition, were transmitted orally from Mount Sinai, and were not written in the Torah...
has been written down. The written texts are obscure and difficult for readers who are unfamiliar with Jewish spirituality which assumes extensive knowledge of the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
(Hebrew Bible), Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
(Jewish hermeneutic tradition) and Halakha
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
(practical Jewish law). Nevertheless, Kabbalistic literature uses powerful paradigms that are elegant, universal and easy for anyone to understand when pointed out.
The Torah
For kabbalists, ten utterances in Genesis with which God created the world are linked to the ten sefirot—the divine structure of all being. According to the ZoharZohar
The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...
and the Sefer ha-Yihud, the Torah is synonymous with God. More specifically, in the Sefer ha-Yihud, the letters in the Torah are the forms of God. The kabbalist looks beyond the literal aspects of the text, to find the true meaning. The text not only offers traditions and ways of thinking, but it also reveals the reality of God. One of the first Jewish philosophers, Philo of Alexandria (20BCE-40), said that Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
knew the essential Torah, before it was given, because Abraham was himself a philosopher: he observed the world around him and looked inside himself to discover the laws of nature. While this is not strictly speaking a mystical notion, it does introduce the idea of an inner Torah that underlies the written word. Much later, in the nineteenth century the Sfas Emes
Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter
Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter , also known by the title of his main work, the Sfas Emes, was a Hasidic rabbi who succeeded his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, as the av beis din and Rav of Góra Kalwaria, Poland , and succeeded the Rebbe, Reb Heynekh of Alexander, as Rebbe of the Gerrer...
, a Hasidic rebbe
Rebbe
Rebbe , which means master, teacher, or mentor, is a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew word Rabbi. It often refers to the leader of a Hasidic Jewish movement...
, made the assertion that it was actually Abraham’s deeds that became Torah. The Torah is thus seen as an ongoing story played out through the lives of the Nation of Israel. The Torah is an important text because even the most minor traditions of the Kabbalah will acknowledge its aspects of the divine.
Textual antiquity
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
existed over 2,000 years ago. Ben Sira
Ben Sira
Jesus ben Sirach , commonly known simply as ben Sirach or Sirach and also rendered "Jesus son of Sirach" or "Jesus Siracides", was the author of the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Sirach and possibly the rabbinical Alphabet of Sirach...
warns against it, saying: "You shall have no business with secret things". Nonetheless, mystical studies were undertaken and resulted in mystical literature.
The first to appear within Judaism was the Apocalyptic literature
Apocalyptic literature
Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians....
of the second and first pre-Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
centuries and which contained elements that carried over to later Kabbalah. According to Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
, such writings were in the possession of the Essenes
Essenes
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
and were jealously guarded by them against disclosure, for which they claimed a certain antiquity (see Philo
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....
, De Vita Contemplativa, iii., and Hippolytus
Hippolytus (writer)
Hippolytus of Rome was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome, where he was probably born. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235) was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome,...
, Refutation of all Heresies
Refutation of all Heresies
The Refutation of All Heresies or Philosophumena is a compendious Christian polemical work of the early third century, now generally attributed to Hippolytus of Rome. Most of it was recovered in 1842 in a manuscript at Mount Athos, but the complete text is not known...
, ix. 27).
That books containing secret lore were kept hidden away by (or for) the "enlightened" is stated in IV Esdras xiv. 45-46, where Pseudo-Ezra is told to publish the twenty-four books of the canon openly that the worthy and the unworthy may alike read, but to keep the seventy other books hidden in order to "deliver them only to such as be wise" (compare Dan. xii. 10); for in them are the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.
Instructive for the study of the development of Jewish mysticism is the Book of Jubilees
Jubilees
The Book of Jubilees , sometimes called Lesser Genesis , is an ancient Jewish religious work, considered one of the pseudepigrapha by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Churches...
written around the time of King John Hyrcanus. It refers to mysterious writings of Jared, Cain, and Noah, and presents Abraham as the renewer, and Levi as the permanent guardian, of these ancient writings. It offers a cosmogony
Cosmogony
Cosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek κοσμογονία , from κόσμος "cosmos, the world", and the root of γίνομαι / γέγονα "to be born, come about"...
based upon the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
, and connected with Jewish chronology and Messianology, while at the same time insisting upon the heptad (7) as the holy number, rather than upon the decadic (10) system adopted by the later haggadists and observable in the Sefer Yetzirah. The Pythagorean idea of the creative powers of numbers and letters was shared with Sefer Yetzirah and was known in the time of the Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
before 200 CE.
Early elements of Jewish mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
can be found in the non-Biblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as the Song of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Some parts of the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
and the Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
also focus on the esoteric and mystical, particularly Hagigah 12b-14b. Many esoteric texts, among them Hekalot Rabbati, Sefer HaBahir, Torat Hakana, Sefer P'liyah, Midrash Otiyot d'Rabbi Akiva, the Bahir, and the Zohar claim to be from the Talmudic era, though some of these works, most notably the Bahir and Zohar, are considered by modern scholars to clearly be medieval works pseudepigraphically ascribed to the ancient past.
Traditional orthodoxy, however, does not agree to this. In the medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
era Jewish mysticism developed under the influence of the word-number esoteric text Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah is the title of the earliest extant book on Jewish esotericism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah...
. Jewish sources attribute the book to the patriarch Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, though the text itself offers no claim as to authorship. This book, and especially its embryonic concept of the Sefirot, became the object of systematic study of several mystical brotherhoods which eventually came to be called baale ha-kabbalah (בעלי הקבלה "possessors or masters of the Kabbalah").
Heichalot
HekhalotHeichalot
Heichalot or "Heikhalot" refers to a collection of Jewish literature which dates from Talmudic times and earlier. Many motifs of later Kabbalah are based on the Heichalot texts, and the Heichalot literature itself is based upon earlier sources, including traditions about Enoch.Some of the...
("Heavenly Palaces") are not a single text. Rather, they are a genre of writings with shared characteristics. These texts primarily focus either on how to achieve a heavenly ascent through the Heichalot (heavenly palaces) and what to expect there, or on drawing down angelic spirits to interact and help the adept. There are several larger documents of the heichalot, such as Hekhalot Rabbati, in which six of the seven palaces of God are described, Hekhalot Zutarti, Shiur Komah and 6th-century 3 Khanokh
3 Enoch
3 Enoch is an Old Testament Apocryphal book. 3 Enoch purports to have been written in the 2nd century CE, but its origins can only be traced to the 5th century...
, as well as hundreds of small documents, many little more than fragments.
Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer YetziraSefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah is the title of the earliest extant book on Jewish esotericism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah...
(סֵפֶר יְצִירָה) ("Book [of] Formation/Creation"), also known as Hilkhot Yetzira "Laws of Formation", is a primary source of Kabbalistic teaching. The first commentaries on this small book were written in the 10th century, perhaps the text itself is quoted as early as the 6th century, and perhaps its linguistic organization of the Hebrew alphabet could be from as early as the 2nd century. Its historical origins remain obscure, although many believe that it was authored by Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
and edited by Akiba ben Joseph. It exists today in a number of editions, up to 2500 words long (about the size of a pamphlet). It organizes the cosmos into "32 Paths of Wisdom", comprising "10 Sefirot" (3 elements - air, water and fire - plus 6 directions and center) and "22 letters" of the Hebrew alphabet (3 mother letters, 7 double letters plus 12 simple letters). It uses this structure to organize cosmic phenomena ranging from the seasons of the calendar to the emotions of the intellect, and is essentially an index of cosmic correspondences.
Bahir
BahirBahir
Bahir or Sefer Ha-Bahir סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben ha-Kanah because it begins with the words, "R. Nehunya Ben Ha-Kanah said"...
(בהיר) ("Illumination"), also known as "Midrash of Rabbi Nehunya ben Ha-Kana" - a book of special interest to students of Kabbalah because it serves as a kind of epitome that surveys the essential concepts of the subsequent literature of Kabbalah. It is about 12,000 words (about the size of a magazine). Despite its name "Illumination", it is notoriously cryptic and difficult to understand (but not impossible). Much of it is written in parables, one after the other. The Bahir opens with a quote attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben Ha-Kana, a Talmudic sage of the 1st century, and the rest the book is an unfolding discussion about the quote. Jewish tradition considers the whole book to be written in the spirit of Rabbi Nehunya (or even literally written by him). It was first published in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
France (near Italy) in 1176. Historians suspect Rabbi Yitzhak Ha-Ivver
Isaac the Blind
Rabbi Yitzhak Saggi Nehor רַבִּי יִצְחַק סַגִּי נְהוֹר, also known as Isaac the Blind, has the Aramaic epithet "Saggi Nehor" meaning "of Much Light" in the sense of having excellent eyesight, an ironic euphemism for being blind. He was a famous writer on Kabbalah...
(Isaac the Blind) wrote the book at this time, albeit he incorporated oral traditions from a much earlier time about the Tanakh, Talmud, Siddur, Yetzira, and other Rabbinic texts.
Sefer Raziel HaMalakh
Raziel Ha-MalakhSefer Raziel HaMalakh
Sefer Raziel HaMalakh, , is a medieval Kabbalistic grimoire, primarily written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but surviving also in Latin translation, as Liber Razielis Archangeli, in a 13th century manuscript produced under Alfonso X.-Textual history:The book cannot be shown to predate the 13th century,...
(רזיאל המלאך ) ("Raziel the Angel") is a collection of esoteric writings, probably compiled and edited by the same hand, but originally not the work of one author.
Zunz ("G. V." 2d ed., p. 176) distinguishes three main parts: (1) the Book Ha-Malbush; (2) the Great Raziel; (3) the Book of Secrets, or the Book of Noah. These three parts are still distinguishable — 2b-7a, 7b-33b, 34a and b. After these follow two shorter parts entitled "Creation" and "Shi'ur Ḳomah," and after 41a come formulas for amulets and incantations.
Zohar
ZoharZohar
The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...
( זהר ) ("Splendor") - the most important text of Kabbalah, at times achieving even canonical status as part of Oral Torah. It is a mystical commentary on the Torah, written in Medieval Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
. For much of the twentieth century there had been an academic consensus regarding the medieval authorship of the Zohar but most traditional Kabbalists agree amongst themselves that the oral author was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and the text was scribed by Rav Abba, a student of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
Gershom Scholem argued that Moses de Leon
Moses de Leon
Moses de León , known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Shem-Tov , was a Spanish rabbi and Kabbalist who is thought of as the composer or redactor of the Zohar. It is a matter of controversy if the Zohar is his own work, or that he committed traditions going back to Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai in writing...
was the sole author of the Zohar. More recently, Yehuda Liebes contended that while de Leon may have been the primary author, he incorporated or recast selections from contemporary kabbalists (e.g. Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla, Rabbi Joseph of Hamadan, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher). Most recently, kabbalah scholars such as Ronit Meroz, Daniel Abrams, and Boaz Huss have been demonstrating that the materials within the Zohar underwent several generations of writing, re-writing, and redaction. De Leon had claimed to discover the text of the Zohar while in the land of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and attributed it to the 2nd-century Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai who is the main character of the text. The text gained enormous popularity throughout the Jewish world.
Though the book was widely accepted, a small number of significant rabbis over the subsequent centuries published texts declaring Rabbi Moshe invented it as a forgery with concepts contrary to Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. However, many of these Rabbis were not Kabbalists themselves. This was a major point of contention made by a community among the Jews of Yemen, known as Dor Daim
Dor Daim
The Dardaim or Dor daim , are adherents of the Dor Deah movement in Judaism. That movement was founded in 19th century Yemen by Rabbi Yiḥyah Qafiḥ, and had its own network of synagogues and schools.Its objects were:...
, a religious intellectual movement that called for a return to a more Talmudic based Judaism. Other communities in Italy and the Andalusian (Spanish Portuguese) lands also questioned the content and authenticity of the Zohar. While organized into commentaries on sections of the Torah, the Zohar elaborates on the Talmud, Midrash Rabba, Sefer Yetzira, the Bahir, and many other Rabbinic texts. To some degree, the Zohar simply is Kabbalah.
Pardes Rimonim
Pardes RimonimPardes Rimonim
Pardes Rimonim is a work composed in 1548 by the Jewish Mystic Moses ben Jacob Cordovero.The Pardes Rimonim is a Kabbalistic work. Cordovera was part of a group of mystics of Safed in Galilee. Cordovera indicates in his introduction that the work is based upon notes he took during his study of the...
( פרדס רימונים ) ("Garden [of] Pomegranates") - the magnum opus of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero
Moses ben Jacob Cordovero
Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, , was a central figure in the historical development of Kabbalah, leader of a mystical school in 16th-century Safed, Israel. He is known by the acronym the Ramak....
, published in the 16th century and the main source of Cordoverian Kabbalah, a comprehensive interpretation of the Zohar and a friendly rival of the Lurianic interpretation.
Etz Hayim and the Eight Gates
Etz Hayim ( עץ חיים ) ("Tree [of] Life") - useful text of the teachings of Rabbi Yitzhak LuriaIsaac Luria
Isaac Luria , also called Yitzhak Ben Shlomo Ashkenazi acronym "The Ari" "Ari-Hakadosh", or "Arizal", meaning "The Lion", was a foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Palestine...
(also known as the Ari), collected by his disciple Chaim Vital (the Ari published nothing himself). It is the primary interpretation and synthesis of Lurianic Kabbalah. It was first published in Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
in the 16th century. It consists of the primary introduction to the remainder of the Lurianic system. The Shemona She'arim (eight gates): is the full Lurianic system as arranged by Shmuel Vital, the son of Haim Vital. Eitz Haim is the only worked published within Haim Vital's lifetime, the rest of his writings were buried with him in an unedited form. Supposedly Shmuel Vital had a dream that he was to exhume his father's grave and remove certain writings leaving the others buried. Shmuel Vital went on then to redact and publish the works as the Eight Gates which are then, at times subdivided into other works:
- Shaar HaHakdamot: Otztrot Haim, Eitz Haim, Arbah Meot Shekel Kesef, Mavoa Shaarim, Adam Yashar
- Shaar Mamri RaShB"Y
- Shaar Mamri RaZ"L
- Shaar HaMitzvot
- Shaar HaPasukim: Likutei Torah, Sepher HaLikutim
- Shaar HaKavanot: Shaar HaKavvanot, Pri Eitz Haim, Olat Tamid
- Shaar Ruach HaKodesh
- Shaar HaGilgulim
Sephardi and Mizrahi Kabbalists endeavor to study all eight gates. Etz Hayim is published standard in a single volume three part arrangement, the initial two parts published by Haim Vital, with a third part, Nahar Shalom by Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, being now considered the third part. Ashkenazi Kabbalists often tend to focus only on Eitz Haim, with explanations of the RaMHaL(Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzzato). However this is not always the case. There are Yeshivot such as Shaar Shmayim that deal with the works of the Haim Vital in their entirety.
Online rabbinic Kabbalah texts
- Who Should Learn the Hidden Torah? Rambam (pdf)(Maimonides) Guide for the PerplexedGuide for the PerplexedThe Guide for the Perplexed is one of the major works of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or "the Rambam"...
- English and Aramaic Zohar Online (searchable) - Kabbalah Centre
- Online Rabbinic Kabbalah Texts in English - University of Utah
- Kabbalah Digital Library (Responsa-like searchable) - Bnei Baruch
- Important Kabbalah texts in English - KabbalahOnline.org
Online Hasidic Kabbalah texts
- Lessons in Tanya - Chabad
- The Gate Of Unity Translation & Commentary of The Gate Of Unity