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Golem
A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to ''Moment'' magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, Jew or non-Jew, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."Cooper, MarilynJewish Word , Golem" ''Moment''. 17 July 2017. 24 August 2017. Etymology The word ''golem'' occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word (; my golem), that means "my light form", "raw" material, connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes. The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", () ( Pirkei Avot 5: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judah Loew Ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (; between 1512 and 1526 – 17 September 1609), also known as Rabbi Loew ( Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew acronym of "''Moreinu ha-Rav Loew''", 'Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew'), was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia. Within the world of Torah and Talmudic scholarship, Loew is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism and his work ''Gur Aryeh al HaTorah'', a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. He is also the subject of a 19th-century legend that he created the Golem of Prague, an animate being fashioned from clay. Early life Loew was probably born in Poznań, Poland,—though Perels lists the birth town mistakenly as Worms in the Holy Roman Empire—to Rabbi Bezalel (Loew), whose family originated from the Rhenish town of Worms. Per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Folklore
Jewish folklore are legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of Judaism. Folktales are characterized by the presence of unusual personages, by the sudden transformation of men into beasts and vice versa, or by other unnatural incidents. A number of aggadic stories bear folktale characteristics, especially those relating to Og, King of Bashan, which have the same exaggerations as have the ''lügenmärchen'' of modern German folktales. Middle Ages There is considerable evidence of Jewish people bringing and helping the spread of Eastern folktales in Europe. Joseph Jacobs.Folk-Tales entry. In: ''The Jewish Encyclopedia''. Vol. 5. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls company, 1902. pp. 427-428. Besides these tales from foreign sources, Jews either collected or composed others which were told throughout the European ghettos, and were collected in Yiddish in the "Maasebücher". Numbers of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate oceanic climate, with relatively warm summers and chilly winters. Prague is a political, cultural, and economic hub of central Europe, with a rich history and Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectures. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably Charles IV (r. 1346–1378). It was an important city to the Habsburg monarchy and Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city played major roles in the Bohemian and the Protestant Reformations, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history as the capital of Czechoslovakia between the World Wars and the post-war Communist era. Prague is home to a number of well-known cultural attractions, many of which survived ... [...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] |
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 Mystic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecstasy (emotion)
Ecstasy () is a subjective experience of total involvement of the subject, with an object of their awareness. In classical Greek literature, it refers to removal of the mind or body "from its normal place of function." Total involvement with an object of interest is not an ordinary experience. Ecstasy is an example of an altered state of consciousness characterized by diminished awareness of other objects or the total lack of the awareness of surroundings and everything around the object. The word is also used to refer to any heightened state of consciousness or intensely pleasant experience. It is also used more specifically to denote states of awareness of non-ordinary mental spaces, which may be perceived as spiritual (the latter type of ecstasy often takes the form of religious ecstasy). Description From a psychological perspective, ecstasy is a loss of self-control and sometimes a temporary loss of consciousness, which is often associated with religious mysticism, sexual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeira
Rabbi Zeira ( he, רבי זירא), known before his semicha as Rav Zeira ( he, רב זירא) and known in the Jerusalem Talmud as Rabbi Ze'era ( he, רבי זעירא), was a Jewish Talmudist, of the third generation of amoraim, who lived in the Land of Israel. Biography He was born in Babylonia, where he spent his early youth. He was a pupil of Ḥisda, Berachot 49a of Huna, and of Judah b. Ezekiel in Pumbedita. He associated also with other prominent teachers of the Babylonian school, including Rav Nachman, Hamnuna, and Sheshet, who called him a great man. His love for the Holy Land led him to decide upon leaving his native country and emigrating to Israel. This resolve, however, he kept secret from his teacher Judah, who disapproved of any emigration from Babylonia. Before leaving, he spied upon Judah while the latter was bathing, and the words which he then overheard he took with him as a valuable and instructive memento. A favorable dream, in which he was told that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early Early may refer to: History * The beginning or oldest part of a defined historical period, as opposed to middle or late periods, e.g.: ** Early Christianity ** Early modern Europe Places in the United States * Early, Iowa * Early, Texas * Early ..., High Middle Ages, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Names Of God In Judaism
Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot (" fHosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").This is the formulation of Joseph Karo (SA YD 276:9). Maimonides (MT Yesodei haTorah 6:2), Jacob b. Asher (AT YD 276), and Isaac Alfasi (HK Menachot 3b) also included Ehyeh, as do many later authorities, including Moses Isserles (SA YD 276:9). The original lists are found in y. Megillah 1:9 and b. Shavuot 35a, with some MSS agreeing with each authority. Maimonides and followers give the number of names as seven; however, manuscript inconsistency makes it difficult to judge which are included. Early authorities considered other Hebrew names mere epithets or descriptions of God and wrote that they and names in other languages may be written and erased freely. However, some moderns advise special care even in these cases, and many Orthodox Jews h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hebrew Alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze. It is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet. Historically, two separate abjad scripts have been used to write Hebrew. The original, old Hebrew script, known as the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet. The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technically known by Jewish sages as Ktav Ashuri, Ashurit (lit. "Assyrian script"), since its o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shemhamphorasch
''Shem HaMephorash'' ( he, שֵׁם הַמְּפֹרָשׁ ''Šēm hamMəfōrāš'', also ''Shem ha-Mephorash''), meaning "the explicit name," is originally a Tannaitic term describing the Tetragrammaton. In Kabbalah, it may refer to a name of God composed of either 4, 12, 22, 42, or 72 letters (or triads of letters), the latter version being the most common. 12-, 22-, and 42-letter names Early sources, from the Mishnah to Maimonides, only use "Shem ha-Mephorash" to refer to the four letter Tetragrammaton. b. Qiddushin 72a describes a 12-letter name (apparently a mundane euphemism, YHWH-EHYH-ADNY or YHWH-YHWH-YHWH) and a 42-letter name (holy but unknown; Hayy Gaon says it is the acronym of the medieval piyyut Ana b'Koachתשובה אל יוסף בן ברכיה ותלמידי יעקב בן נסים בעניין שמות והשבעות, קונטרס "הדר עם הנכרי בחצר"). A 22-letter name appears in '' Sefer Raziel HaMalakh'', without interpretation, as ('). It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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