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Bahir
''Bahir'' or ''Sefer HaBahir'' ( he, סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר, ; "Book of Clarity" or "Book of Illumination") is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah (a contemporary of Yochanan ben Zakai) because it begins with the words, "R. Nehunya ben HaKanah said". It is also known as ''Midrash of Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah'' . First mentioned in late 12th century Provencal works, the ''Bahir'' is an early work of esoteric Jewish mysticism that eventually became known as Kabbalah. Title Nahmanides, in his commentary on the Torah, (Genesis 1) is one of the first to quote the work under the title ''Midrash R. Nehunya ben HaKanah.'' ("R. Nehunya ben HaKanah said," the opening sentence) Among medieval Kabbalists it became known as ''Sefer HaBahir'', taken from its opening comment, "One verse says: 'And now men see not the light which is bright (''bahir'') in the skies'" (Job 37:21). Authorship Kabbalists ascribed authorship of t ...
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Bahir
''Bahir'' or ''Sefer HaBahir'' ( he, סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר, ; "Book of Clarity" or "Book of Illumination") is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah (a contemporary of Yochanan ben Zakai) because it begins with the words, "R. Nehunya ben HaKanah said". It is also known as ''Midrash of Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah'' . First mentioned in late 12th century Provencal works, the ''Bahir'' is an early work of esoteric Jewish mysticism that eventually became known as Kabbalah. Title Nahmanides, in his commentary on the Torah, (Genesis 1) is one of the first to quote the work under the title ''Midrash R. Nehunya ben HaKanah.'' ("R. Nehunya ben HaKanah said," the opening sentence) Among medieval Kabbalists it became known as ''Sefer HaBahir'', taken from its opening comment, "One verse says: 'And now men see not the light which is bright (''bahir'') in the skies'" (Job 37:21). Authorship Kabbalists ascribed authorship of t ...
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Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mysticism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Scholem is acknowledged by the sages as the single most significant figure in the recovery, collection, annotation, and registration into rigorous Jewish scholarship of the canonical bibliography of mysticism and scriptural commentary that runs through its primordial phase in the '' Sefer Yetzirah,'' its inauguration in the ''Bahir,'' its exegesis in the ''Pardes'' and the '' Zohar'' to its cosmogonic, apocalyptic climax in Isaac Luria's ''Ein Sof'' that is known collectively as Kabballah. After generations of demoralization and assimilation in the European enlightenment, the disappointment of messianic hopes, the famine of 1916 in Palestine, and the catastrophe of the Final Solution in Europe Sc ...
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Jewish Mysticism
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in 12th-century Europe, is the most well known, but not the only typologic form, or the earliest to emerge. Among previous forms were Merkabah mysticism (c. 100 BCE – 1000 CE), and Ashkenazi Hasidim (early 13th century) around the time of Kabbalistic emergence. Kabbalah means "received tradition", a term previously used in other Judaic contexts, but which the Medieval Kabbalists adopted for their own doctrine to express the belief that they were not innovating, but merely revealing the ancient hidden esoteric tradition of the Torah. This issue is crystallised until today by alternative views on the origin of the Zohar, the main text of Kabbalah which was written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai who opened up the study of Jewish Mysticism. T ...
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Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The definition of Kabbalah varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it, from its origin in medieval Judaism to its later adaptations in Western esotericism (Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah). Jewish Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God in Judaism, God—the mysterious ''Ein Sof'' (, ''"The Infinite"'')—and the mortal, finite universe (God's Genesis creation narrative, creation). It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. List of Jewish Kabbalists, Jewish Kabbalists originally developed their own transmission of Primary texts of Kabbalah, sacred texts within the realm of Jewish traditio ...
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Isaac The Blind
Isaac the Blind ( he, רַבִּי יִצְחַק סַגִּי נְהוֹר ''Rabbī Yīṣḥaq Saggī Nəhōr'', literally "Rabbi Isaac, blind person"; c. 1160–1235 in Provence, France), was a French rabbi and a famous writer on Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). The Aramaic epithet "Saggi Nehor" means "of Much Light" in the sense of having excellent eyesight, an ironic euphemism for being blind. Some historians suspect him to be the author of the '' Book of the Bahir'', an important early text of Kabbalah. Others (especially Gershom Scholem, see his Origins of the Kabbalah, p. 253) characterize this view as an "erroneous and totally unfounded hypothesis". Isaac was the son of the famous talmudist, Abraham ben David of Posquières (Raavad). The ''Bahir'' first appeared in the Middle Ages, around 1200 CE in France. It discusses a number of ideas that became important for Kabbalah, and even though the origins of the anonymous work are obscure, there were important Kabbalists who ...
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Aryeh Kaplan
Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan ( he, אריה משה אליהו קפלן; October 23, 1934 – January 28, 1983) was an American Orthodox rabbi, author, and translator, best known for his Living Torah edition of the Torah. He became well known as a prolific writer and was lauded as an original thinker. His wide-ranging literary output, inclusive of introductory pamphlets on Jewish beliefs and philosophy written at the request of NCSY, is often regarded as a significant factor in the growth of the ''baal teshuva'' movement. Early life Aryeh Kaplan was born in the Bronx, New York City to Samuel and Fannie (Lackman) Kaplan of the Sefardi Recanati family from Salonika, Greece. His mother, Fannie Kaplan, died on December 31, 1947, when he was 13, and his two younger sisters, Sandra and Barbara, were sent to a foster home. Kaplan was expelled from public school after acting out, leading him to grow up as a "street kid" in the Bronx. Kaplan did not grow up religious and was known as "Le ...
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Nehunya Ben HaKanah
Nehunya ben HaKanah ( he, נחוניה בן הקנה) was a tanna of the 1st and 2nd centuries. It appears from Bava Batra 10b that Nehunya was a contemporary, but not a pupil, of Johanan ben Zakai. He was the teacher of Ishmael ben Elisha. Nehunya was rich and had a large retinue of servants; but he was distinguished for his meekness and forgiving nature, to which he attributed his attainment of great age; two short prayers composed by him exhibit the same qualities. According to Rabbi Yochanan, Nehunya interpreted the entire Torah by the hermeneutic rule known as the "general and particular" ("kelal ufrat"), a rule which his pupil Rabbi Ishmael made the eighth of his 13 hermeneutic rules. Nehunya is frequently mentioned in the Talmud; in Hullin 129b he is referred to disagreeing with Eliezer and Joshua in regard to a halakhah. In a post-Talmudic text, he said that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was rescued from the Red Sea, that he repented, that he afterward reigned in Nineveh, and ...
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Flavius Mithridates
Flavius Mithridates was an Italian Jewish humanist scholar, who flourished at Rome in the second half of the 15th century. He is said to be from Sicily, and was a Christian convert, known for preaching impressively if tendentiously. He also had a knowledge of Arabic. Biography About 1486 he lived at Fratta, near Perugia, in the house of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whom he instructed in Aramaic. He is now best known as the translator for Pico della Mirandola of the ''Bibliotheca Cabalistica'', a large compilation of cabbalistic literature. Modern scholarly reconsideration of this work have found it somewhat erratic and containing interpolations. He also translated into Latin Maimonides' epistle on resurrection, Levi ben Gershon's commentary on the Song of Solomon, and Judah's "Ma'amar ha-Hawayah ha-Heḳḳeshiyyah," or "Sermo de Generatione Syllogismorum Simplicium et Compositorum in Omni Figura." Flavius was the author of "De Tropis Hebraicis," an original work in Latin on H ...
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Mayan HaChakhmah
Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Yucatec Maya language, language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Belize Mayan may also refer to: * Mayan, Semnan, Iran * Mayan stage, geological period that occurred during the end of the Middle Cambrian * Mayan (band), a Dutch symphonic death-metal band * Mayan (software) See also * List of Mayan languages * Maayan (other) * ''Mayan Renaissance'' * Mayan-e Olya, East Azerbaijan * Mayan-e Olya, Razavi Khorasan * Mayan-e Sofla, East Azerbaijan * Mayan-e Sofla, Razavi Khorasan * Mayan-e Vosta * Mayian Maiyan, also known as Maiyun, Haldi, or Ubtan, is the term used for the preparation ceremony one day before Punjabi wedding traditions, Punjabi weddings of India and Pak ...
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Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent states, Berlin is surrounded by the State of Brandenburg and contiguous with Potsdam, Brandenburg's capital. Berlin's urban area, which has a population of around 4.5 million, is the second most populous urban area in Germany after the Ruhr. The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions. Berlin straddles the banks of the Spree, which flows into the Havel (a tributary of the Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel and Dahme, the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee. Due to its l ...
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Rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic (167 BCE–73 CE) and Talmudic (70–640 CE) eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title " pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance. Within the various Jewish denominations, there are different requirements for rabbinic ordination, and differences in opinion regarding who is recognized as a rabbi. For ex ...
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