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Yesh And Ayin
''Ayin'' ( he, אַיִן, lit=nothingness, related to ', ) is an important concept in Kabbalah and Hasidic philosophy. It is contrasted with the term Yesh ( he, יֵשׁ, link=no, ). According to kabbalistic teachings, before the universe was created there was only Ayin, and the first manifest Sephirah (Divine emanation), Chochmah (Wisdom), "comes into being out of Ayin." In this context, the sephirah Keter, the Divine will, is the intermediary between the Divine Infinity (Ein Sof) and Chochmah. Because Keter is a supreme revelation of the Ohr Ein Sof (Infinite Light), transcending the manifest sephirot, it is sometimes excluded from them. Ayin is closely associated with the Ein Sof (), which is understood as the Deity prior to His self-manifestation in the creation of the spiritual and physical realms, single Infinite unity beyond any description or limitation. From the perspective of the emanated created realms, Creation takes place ''"Yesh me-Ayin"'' ("Something from Nothing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ein Sof
Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (, he, '; meaning "infinite", ), in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's ( 1021 – 1070) term, "the Endless One" (''she-en lo tiklah''). ''Ein Sof'' may be translated as "unending", "(there is) no end", or infinity. It was first used by Azriel ( 1160 – 1238), who, sharing the Neoplatonic belief that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing (" Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of creation, the Tzimtzum self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty space", takes place from there. In Hasidic Judaism, the Tzimtzum is only the illusionary concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving ris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within city limits,Barcelona: Población por municipios y sexo – Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (National Statistics Institute) its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the and is home to around 4.8 million people, making it the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Girona
Girona (officially and in Catalan , Spanish: ''Gerona'' ) is a city in northern Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 103,369 in 2020. Girona is the capital of the province of the same name and also capital of the ''comarca'' of the Gironès and the vegueria of Girona. Since much of the old quarter of this ancient city has been preserved, Girona is a popular destination for tourists, and film productions have used it as a filming location (e.g. ''Game of Thrones''). The city is located northeast of Barcelona. History The first historical inhabitants in the region were Iberians; Girona is the ancient Gerunda, a city of the Ausetani. Later, the Romans built a citadel there, which was given the name of ''Gerunda''. The Visigoths ruled in Girona until it was conquered by the Moors in 715. Charlemagne reconquered it in 785 and made it one of the fourteen original counties of Catalonia. It was wre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of the Pyrenees mountain range. Catalonia is administratively divided into four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city, Barcelona is the second-most populated municipality in Spain and the fifth-most populous urban area in the European Union. > > > ''Catalonia'' theoretically derived. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that ''Catalania'' derives from the local medley of Goths with Alans, initially constituting a ''Goth-Alania''. Other theories suggest: *''Catalunya'' derives from the term "land of castles", having evolved from the term ''castlà'' or ''castlan'', the medieval term for a castellan (a ruler of a castle). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Azriel (Jewish Mystic)
Azriel ibn Menahem ibn Ibrahim al-Tarās (Arabic: عزريل بن مناحيم بن ابراهيم التاراس ''Azrēyl bin Mināḥīm ben Ibrāhim āl-Tārās''; Hebrew: עזריאל בן מנחם בן אברהם אלתראס ''ʿÁzrīyʾēl ben Mənáḥēm ben ʾAḇrāhām al-Taras''; – ) also known as Azriel of Gerona was the founder of speculative Kabbalah and the Gironian Kabbalist school. He is known for implementing Neoplatonic thought into mainstream kabbalistic tradition. Biography Azriel ibn Menahem ibn Ibrahim al-Tarās was born around 1160 in Girona, Catalonia to the al-Taras family. His father Menahem was a minor rabbi in Girona. In his early years, Azriel moved to southern France, where he studied under Isaac the Blind. Azriel later travelled across Spain, preaching his kabbalistic views, however this proved to be unsuccessful, with Azriel later stating that "''the philosophers believe in nothing that can not be demonstrated logically''." He later return ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sefer Yetzirah
''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah. ''Yetzirah'' is more literally translated as "Formation"; the word ''Briah'' is used for "Creation". The book is traditionally ascribed to the patriarch Abraham, although others attribute its writing to Rabbi Akiva. Modern scholars have not reached consensus on the question of its origins. According to Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the objective of the book's author was to convey in writing how the things of our universe came into existence. Conversely, Judah Halevi asserts that the main objective of the book, with its various examples, is to give to man the means by which he is able to understand the unity and omnipotence of God, which are multiform on one side and, yet, uniform on the other. The famous opening words of the book are as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. Born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain), on Passover eve, 1138 (or 1135), he worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt. He died in Egypt on 12 December 1204, when his body was taken to the lower Galilee and buried in Tiberias. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Jewish law and ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt, his writings also had vociferous critics, particularly in Spain. Nonetheless, he was posthumous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eternity
Eternity, in common parlance, means infinite time that never ends or the quality, condition, or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside time, whereas sempiternity corresponds to infinite duration. Philosophy Classical philosophy defines eternity as what exists outside time, as in describing timeless supernatural beings and forces, distinguished from sempiternity which corresponds to infinite time, as described in requiem prayers for the dead. Some thinkers, such as Aristotle, suggest the eternity of the natural cosmos in regard to both past and future eternal duration. Boethius defined eternity as "simultaneously full and perfect possession of interminable life". Thomas Aquinas believed that God's eternity does not cease, as it is without either a beginning or an end; the concept of eternity is of divine simplicity, thus incapable of being defined or fully understood by humankind. Tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotelian Theology
The unmoved mover ( grc, ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ, ho ou kinoúmenon kineî, that which moves without being moved) or prime mover ( la, primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or " mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 ( grc-gre, Λ) of his ''Metaphysics'', Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: self-contemplation. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmology, cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek pre-Socratic philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the unmoved mover in the . First philosophy Aristotle argues, in Book 8 of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was used to make sense of the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics. Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato". Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Roman philosophy, Early Islamic philosophy, Medieval Scholasticism, the European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Greek philosophy was influenced to som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Philosophy
Jewish philosophy () includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern '' Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves. Medieval re-discovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the Geonim of 10th century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into Biblical-Talmudic Judaism. The philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic rationalism coincided with historical events which dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
