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The name rabbi Abraham Aboulafia is known to those interested in Kabbalah but few have read his many writings. The work this great master has almost never been edited, commented on and translated for several reasons:

• The variety of existing manuscripts makes it difficult to establish reliable critical text.

• The difficulty of the text itself can give rise to various interpretations.

We propose for the first time the translation of a major text by Rabbi Abraham Aboulafia: The Light of the Intellect. This book, probably composed in 1285 in Sicily, is a major text to understand the author’s Kabbalah. It describes the light of the divine Influx – the Intellect – and the way to apprehend it: the knowledge of the Name, which is first and foremost the knowledge of language. It is therefore a book on language, grammar, conjugation, letters and vowel points that allow access to the knowledge of the Divine Name and its mention – in order to receive the impulse of the Intellect.

To translate this book we had to first select the best manuscripts, and we selected two:

• The manuscript Mun. 92 . This manuscript is famous, because it was transcribed by Yossef Weiss at the request of Guershom Sholem. there are many unreadable scratches and characters in the writing and some pages are missing. Here is Yossef Weiss’s explanatory note in foreplay to his transcription, a page from the manuscript and his transcription by Y. Weiss

• The Vat.233 Manuscript is a better manuscript and, by its version, sheds light on many difficulties in the text. So we chose this manuscript as a reference manuscript and compared it to the Mun manuscript. 92.

 

In collaboration with the editions de l’Éclat

We are pleased to present this new translation in collaboration with the Editions de l’Éclat. French translation with more than 1500 notes and comments. Release 2020,

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