Araki, Habshush, and Najar. Emunath Hashem [“The Faith of God.”]

(POLEMICS).

Jerusalem

1937-8

first edition

A defense of Kabbalah by Yemenite rabbis in Jerusalem against the Milchamoth Hashem (1931) of R. Yihye ben Solomon Kafah (Kafih) (1850-1932), chief rabbi of San'a, Yemen. Milchamoth Hashem had attacked the Zohar and its system of sephiroth (divine hypostases) as “idolatry.” The present work, Emunath Hashem, which defends the sanctity of Kabbalah and the Book of Zohar, refutes Kafah's work point by point. Each quote from Kafah (in Rashi script) is followed by a refutation (in square letters). The book was approved by a broad spectrum of Jerusalem luminaries: Jacob Meir, Isaac Halevi Herzog, Zevi Pesach Frank, Ben-Zion Uziel, Yosef Zevi Dushinsky, Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, Jacob Moses Charlap, Shalom Hadaya, Shimon Zevi Hurwitz, Moses Amiel, et al. See M. Carmilly-Weinbeger, Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Jewish History (New York, 1977), pp. 99-102; B. Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (1999), pp. 54, 178-9. Dr. Benny Ogorek, who earlier published on the Emden-Eybeschütz controversy, is preparing a comprehensive work on the Yemenite polemic concerning the Zohar