Sepher Yetzirah [“Book of Creation”] cosmogony. With traditional commentaries of Nachmanides and Abraham ben David of Posquieres.
AUCTION 72 |
Thursday, March 16th,
2017 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Holy Land Maps & Fine Art
Lot 153
(KABBALAH).
Sepher Yetzirah [“Book of Creation”] cosmogony. With traditional commentaries of Nachmanides and Abraham ben David of Posquieres.
Mantua: Jacob Cohen of Gazolo 1562
Est: $18,000 - $22,000
“The earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic speculative thought” (Scholem).
The Sepher Yetzirah (attributed to Abraham the Patriarch), is not only the earliest - but also the most esoteric of all Kabbalistic texts, and certainly the most influential. Its central subject is a compact discourse on cosmogony, commencing with the declaration that God created the world with “thirty-two secret paths of wisdom.” These paths are defined as the Ten Sephiroth along with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first chapter elaborates upon the Sephiroth and the remaining five chapters focuses upon the function of the letters. In Talmudic times, it was believed that by utilizing the Sepher Yetzirah one could create life (see Tractate Sanhedrin f. 65b).
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