Bøger af Rabbi Iosef Gikatilla

A true encyclopedia of the sacred names and the wisdom of the Sefirot, The Gates of Light (Shaarei Orah) is a basic book for entering into the study of the Torah using the techniques of the Kabbalists. At the beginning of his book, Yosef Gikatilla explains that the entire Torah is woven by the name of the Eternal, and that "he who understands the meanings of all the holy names and of those who are linked with them and each of their denominations, will discover that everything depends on his great blessed name, and will aspire to be linked to it and to fear it". Divided into ten Gates, each one of them preceded by a psalm, this extraordinary and systematic book gives us an exposition of the names of God, associating them to the ten Sefirot.

These two short works by the renowned kabbalist Joseph Gikatilla (1248-1325) focus on two of the most fundamental kabbalistic secrets: the serpent of Genesis and the Hashmal of the book of Ezekiel. Gikatilla was a student of the mythical Abraham Abulafia, and was in close relationship with Moses of Leon, the presumed author/collector of the Sefer haZohar, as well as with other great kabbalists of his time. As the scholar Charles Mopsik writes, "The abundance of his writings, which touch on all important topics, attests that in his time Kabbalah was already capable of offering a total interpretation of Judaism and of posing as a credible alternative, not only to philosophy, but also to the literal exegesis and legalistic formalism of classical rabbinic teaching." This is the first time that the Sod ha Nachash and the Sod haHasmal have been translated into a Western language.