Book Description

Judaism in Spain had a long and rich history. The Jews were part of Spain, even if they were often persecuted and in the year 1492 they were expelled. The Jewish population was very prolific in Poetry,1 Philosophy,2 in especially religious poetry3. It is important to say that the Jewish Mysticism in Europe has had one of its oldest centers in Gerona in northern Spain. Rabbi Moses ben Nahman4, Rabbi Azriel5, and many other Kabbalists were among the first in Europe who interpreted the Torah in the way of the Kabbalah. The Revolution in the Spanish Kabbalah came with Rabbi Moshe de Leon (1240–1305). In the time of his youth, he read The Guide of the Perplexed by Maimonides.6 Moshe de Leon was however more and more attracted by the mystical understanding of the Torah. He is often considered as the main author of the Zohar. Meanwhile after Gershom Scholem thought that he was probably the main author of the Zohar, modern Scholars of the Kabbalah concluded that the composition of the Zohar was much more complicated.7 The Zohar is in fact the first kabbalistic commentary on the Torah. The translation of this book into English by Daniel C. Matt was an outstanding enterprise. The Zohar became the third canonical text of Judaism, only after the Hebrew Scriptures and the Talmud. With the book – printing there came a revolution in the distribution of the Zohar. 1