===================================
Abraham Abulafia
Kabbalist and Prophet
Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy
Elliot Wolfson
2000 Cherub Press
247 pp.
===================================
Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Abraham Abulafia’s Hermeneutic: Secrecy and the
Disclosure of Withholding
Preservation Of The Secret Through Its Disclosure 9
Philosophical Esotericism: The Secret That There Is No Secret 38
Esotericism In The Prophetic Kabbalah: The Secret That Cannot Be
Kept 52
II. The Doctrine of Sefirot in the Prophetic Kabbalah of
Abraham Abulafia
Typological Classification Of Theosophic And Ecstatic Kabbalah In
Modem Scholarship 94
Typological Classification Of Two Kinds Of Kabbalah In Abulafia’s
Writings 99
Abulafia’s Appropriation Of Symbols, Concepts And Terms From Works
Of Theosophic Kabbalah 114
The Doctrine Of Sefirot In Abulafia’s Writings 134
Abulafia’s Interpretation Of Sefirot And The Maimonidean Doctrine Of
Separate Intellects 152
III. Mystical Rationalization of the Commandments in the
Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia
Exoteric And Esoteric Approaches To The Commandments 186
Letter-Combination And The Mystique Of The Miswot 197
Hypemomianism And The Prophetic Kabbalah 204
Bibliography 229
Index 242
==================================
From the Introduction:
There is little doubt that one of the most colorful figures in the landscape of
Jewish mysticism was Abraham Abulafia, the self-proclaimed prophet with
messianic pretenses who was active in the second half of the thirteenth
century, the precise moment in medieval Jewish history that witnessed an
impressive proliferation of mystical activity in several geographical settings
both within the land of Israel and the Diaspora communities, especially on
the European continent.
Abulafia’s kabbalah provides the means for one to attain the
spiritual state of the world-to-come, which for him is the untying of the
knots that chain the rational soul to the body. The pursuits of the physical
world are obstacles on the path towards mystical enlightenment that need to
be removed by an ascetic discipline before one engages in the meditational
practice that leads to the union with the divine. Nevertheless, Abulafia does
not preach the absolute nullification of the body. He recognizes not only
that the psychological well-being of the individual depends upon the
reintegration into the physical world, but that the mystical union itself is
experienced in somatic, even erotic, terms.
=========================================
MsSVig